Here's a typical cheerleading article, where the stenographer journalist merely transcribes the hyper-ventilating medics touting the much ballyhooed progress of AIDS science. The clear import of the article is that prescription drugs are saving lives.
'Today, I can tell my patients with HIV that they can have a normal life expectancy,' said Stefano Vella, director of drug research and evaluation at the Institute Superiore di Sanita in Rome, the equivalent of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Well, Hell yeah, we celebrate a normal life expectancy for HIV+ folks. That's great news, right? The implication from the article, of course, is that the toxic drugs life-saving meds are prolonging life, ie, decreasing mortality. Who on earth can complain about this?
Problem: The Lancet just came out with a mega study of 22,000 patients over the past 10 years on meds, entitled, "HIV Treatment Response and Prognosis in Europe and North America In The First Decade of HAART: A Collaborative Analysis."
The conclusion?
"Virological Response after starting HAART improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated into a decrease in mortality." (pg 453).
In short, T-4 cells increased, viral load decreased -- but patients did not live any longer as a result of these wonderous drugs.
Typical AIDS shell game -- they bombard you with all these numbers and indicators that bear little on a person's health --and, according to his massive study, bear nothing on a person's survival rate.
But, according to the cheerleading paper above -- normal life expectancy has been attained!!!!
Logical deduction: If life-expectancy has increased, but meds have nothing to do with it, something other than the meds is providing great health benefits.
Any takers?
You bet! At least we have you Hank cheerleading on our side; rall rall ree, kick em in the knee, rall rall ras kick em in the ass!
He probably means that the new drugs don't kill you as fast as the monotherapy of the past did. What does he call a normal life, elevated liver enzymes and blood levels, diarrhea, liver failure, heart attacks, disfigurement? Who is he comparing Aids patients too for this normal life?
Hank, you have asked the $64,000 question, if not the meds, what is helping these immune defieient individuals? This is why a study or record-keeping of said persons is so important to find out what they are doing to stay well.
Posted by: noreen martin | August 29, 2006 at 07:22 AM
I first thing I learned in pathology class was that life is fatal in all instances. Go figure
Posted by: McKiernan | August 29, 2006 at 11:16 AM
We would all agree that life is fatal, however, we don't have to edge it on with toxic drugs. The reason that Aids persons are living longer is because #1, they take responsibility for their health and do not totally listen to these naysayers of gloom and doom.
Posted by: noreen martin | August 29, 2006 at 11:56 AM
I agree. Would you say that given the choice you would never have taken the ARV's in the earlier days ? And that none of them were of benefit ?
Posted by: McKiernan | August 29, 2006 at 12:29 PM
No, but every case is different and I was dying. I do not believe that anyone should be placed on anti-virals just for HIV, an unproven virus. However, if someone is diagnosed with Aids and has other viruses going on, then this is a horse of a different color. I do believe that the anti-virals are non-specific to HIV and as in my case and did help along with supplements, vitamins and herbs.
The problem lies in the life-time use of these medicines, as I was well enough to come off of them 3 months after my original diagnosis. However, I could not get anyone to agree with me on coming off the meds.
Posted by: noreen martin | August 29, 2006 at 01:04 PM
The beneficial effects of drugs like this can be summed up in one hyphenated word:
Anti-fungal.
If AIDS, inc, were serious about helping certain AIDS patients (the gay dupes and cultural suicides they prey on), they'd come up with some very low-toxicity, highly effective anti-fungals, to treat the most common problems that send these 'risk-grouped' folks to their eugenicist... I mean, AIDS doc.
(And you can check out high-dose vitamin C and grapefruit seed extract for this, as well.)
They'd couple it with strong nutritional therapy - selenium, retinol (other A vitamins), B vitamins, essential fatty acids, and the like.
Why? Because these have been shown to reverse whatever's going on in persons who are ill, who the W.H.O., CDC and NIH like to pretend are all the same persons, as long as they're black and gay enough.
http://www.robertogiraldo.com/eng/papers/NutritionalTherapy_SADC_2003.html
Read it! It's good for you.
Posted by: LS | August 29, 2006 at 02:06 PM
Key sentence:
"If AIDS, inc, were serious about helping certain AIDS patients..."
We wouldn't be where we are now with this nightmare. End of story.
Posted by: Dan | August 29, 2006 at 02:11 PM
LS, you are correct about the anti-fungals as I would venture to say that most if not all full-blown Aids persons has thrush going on. I did and it is very difficult to eliminate but not impossible. I believe that the majority of Aids cases could be turned around if more emphasis were placed on supplements and a few herbs. But then again a cured patient is lost revenue and ego for these doctors of gloom.
What I find remarkable about the entire situiation is the dependency that they place on the medications and of coarse the need to see them so often. It easily allows the patient to be in a dependency mode.
Posted by: noreen martin | August 29, 2006 at 02:39 PM
In addition to Roberto's excellent review we have Dr Kremer's et al comments at http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/index/hkremer.htm for a complete critique of the HAART drug approach plus more excellent treatment recommendations. Kremer et al confirm Rasnick's PI's don't work model at http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/ah15years.htm under section "HIV-proteases inhibitors: A new therapeutic principle in the prevention and treatment of AIDS"
As far as fungal and PC infections, what we have here is an emerging medical science, especially in the detction and treatment of mycotoxins, as well as the anomalies of PC, which changes form as an opportunist, resulting in an enigmatic taxon. It requires different "anti-fungal" drugs than "normal" fungi and any success with ARV's is probably a lucky accident. Dr Kremer put's it this way, "The agent causing PCP is not as Gallo claimed a protozoon. The aetiology according to which after the destruction of T-helper lymphocytes by 'HIV-infection', Carinii pneumocytes, the cause of PCP, could escape control by T-helper lymphocytes and multiply unrestrictedly, is objectively wrong. Such protozoa simply do not exist (34,35). What is involved are micro-fungi that are inhaled in the air, and which, for example, in the case of increased cell decay following hypoxaemic metabolic changes (including 'AIDS' without 'HIV'), find fertile terrain in the alveoli of the lungs. In this way, a harmless fungus (saprophyte) becomes the dangerous cause of PCP.
"34. Stringer JP. The identity of Pneumocystis carinii: Not a single protozoon but a diverse group of exotic fungi. Infect Agents Dis 1993;2:109-117.
"35. Wakefield AE, Fritscher CC, Malin AS, Gwanzura L, Hugbes WT, Miller HH. Genetic diversity in human-derived pneumocystis carinii isolates from four geographical locations shown by analysis of mitochondrial RNA gene sequences.J Chem Miorobiol 1994;32:2959-2961."
Posted by: Gene Semon | August 29, 2006 at 04:06 PM
Good stuff, Gene, Dan, and Noreen.
Gene, I'll put this one to you...
I once developed a little white spot on the roof of my mouth... I never go to docs, but did go to the university infirmary, because it was new to my experience.
"It's thrush," said the G.P. (general practitioner), gargle with this...and gave me a prescription.
I thought about why I would have thrush on the roof of my mouth.. for about a thirty seconds, when I realized I'd been eating irregularly... commuting on public trans and surviving on a very sugary, hard granola and bottle water, for too many days in a row, too many weeks in a row.
I cut out the cereal (which I was aware cut the roof of my mouth, where the thrush was), I got back to good habits, sit-down meals, soups, whole grains and green things I usually eat...
I gargled with the foul anti-fungal for a couple of days..
Never had the problem again.
Now, what would've happened if I had gone in and said,
"I'm really worried about this strange infection...I've never had anything like it... Could it be AIDS?"
How long till questions of sexual identity and practice overshadowed science, biology and health?
Posted by: LS | August 29, 2006 at 07:53 PM
Yep, if they do a HIV test and you come up positive, look what a mess you are in from a simple case of over-eating sugar. If the Aids doctors just went back to treating any of the 29 Aids defining diseases, as was always done in the past, they would put themselves out of business and save more lives. I thought that's what they were suppose to be doing in the first place, saving lives not this monkey business.
Posted by: noreen martin | August 29, 2006 at 08:16 PM
I have a few questions Hank.
How many of these patients became infected with HIV through heterosexual sex?
How long were the patients followed in this study?
You say:
“but patients did not live any longer as a result of these wonderous drugs.”
Is your conclusion really scientific? ie. what evidence from the study shows that patients on “these wonderous(sic) drugs” don’t live longer than patients who aren’t on HAART?
What has happened to AIDS related mortality since the introduction of HAART?
What do you make of Figure 1
http://momentofscience.blogspot.com/2006/08/figures.html
from this paper.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12172083&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
Posted by: Pharma Bawd | August 30, 2006 at 10:36 PM
Pharma Bawd, surely you must know that statistics can be manipulated to show anything. Why don't you show a graph of the Aids patients on AZT and their mortality rate?
Aids reached its peak before the combintion therapy arrived on the scene. Even with the CDC changing the Aids criteria 4 times, the numbers could not be inflated to reflect an epidemic in this country.
As with other diseases, they follow a pattern, peak out and there is no significant improvement in the health of those who took vaccinations vs. those who didn't.
Too many factors make up health besides vaccinations, drugs, a non-existant viral load and useless CD4's. The mainstream correlates any improvement stricly due to drugs. We all know that because the firemen are at the scen of the fire doesn't mean that they caused the fire.
Aids patients are generally educated patients who take responsibility for their health and make appropriate life-style changes.
As is the case of HAART, there are too many serious, side effects as you should very well know. If all the Vioxx victims had a second chance, I wonder how many of them would still take the drug?
Posted by: noreen martin | August 31, 2006 at 09:03 AM
Nobody cares that they're being lied to. The study only looked at mortality one year after starting ART, and even then there was a decline from 95/95 to 03/04 (2.2% to 1.3%). They also did an analysis of 2 years after starting ART, and the difference was greater: 95/96 there was 4.3% mortality at 2 years, 2001 it was 2.5%. People akso started with lower CD4 counts (around 200) in the later periods. Prior to ART, average survival after CD4s dropped below 200 was 2 years, 4 months.
Posted by: Pontiac | August 31, 2006 at 01:17 PM
More on fungal infections:
They’re in the air! Yes, Liam, thanks to Dr Majid Ali (http://www.majidali.com/), I have something to say on acute and chronic sinusitis as a result of fungal infections.
Notes from his WBAI radio show on Tuesday, August 29 with guest William Rea, MD “whose lifetime work I honor most”: Dr Rea (214-368-4132) has “the best environmental illness center” in Dallas, Tx and bases his practice on a “total load” detox model. Mycotoxins in the blood can effect multiple organ systems and chronic, stubborn sinusitis may require a specific anti-fungal drug. There are a “lot of ramifications from mold and mycotoxins in the vascular system”.
As far as PCP and “immunosupression” here’s an interesting paper:
Edna S. Kaneshiro*, , Zunika Amit*, Mardie M. Swonger*, George P. Kreishman , Elwood E. Brooks , Mara Kreishman*, , Koka Jayasimhulu§, Edward J. Parish, Hang Sun, Stephen A. Kizito, and David H. Beach; Pneumocysterol [(24Z)-ethylidenelanost-8-en-3 beta-ol], a rare sterol detected in the opportunistic pathogen Pneumocystis carinii hominis: Structural identity and chemical synthesis. Vol. 96, Issue 1, 97-102, January 5, 1999
Excerpts:
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PcP) remains among the most prevalent opportunistic infections among AIDS patients. Currently, drugs used clinically for deep mycosis act by binding ergosterol or disrupting its biosynthesis. Although classified as a fungus, P. carinii lacks ergosterol. Instead, the pathogen synthesizes a number of distinct 7, 24-alkylsterols, despite the abundance of cholesterol, which it can scavenge from the lung alveolus. Thus, the pathogen-specific sterols appear vital for organism survival and proliferation.
The identification of these and other 24-alkylsterols in P. carinii hominis suggests that (i) sterol C-24 methyltransferase activities are extraordinarily high in this organism, (ii) 24-alkylsterols are important components of the pathogen's membranes, because the addition of these side groups onto the sterol side chain requires substantial ATP equivalents, and (iii) the inefficacy of azole drugs against P. carinii can be explained by the ability of this organism to form 24-alkysterols before demethylation of the lanosterol nucleus. Because mammals cannot form 24-alkylsterols, their biosyntheses in P. carinii are attractive targets for the development of chemotherapeutic strategies against this opportunistic infection.
Sterols and their biosyntheses are excellent targets for chemotherapeutic attack against infectious microbes, especially the fungi. Polyene antibiotics such as amphotericin B bind avidly to ergosterol in fungal cell membranes. After the sterol-drug complexes aggregate, large pores in the membranes are formed, dissipating ion gradients. Fluconazole and some other compounds routinely used clinically for systemic mycosis target ergosterol biosynthesis at nuclear demethylation steps. Ergosterol was not detected in Pneumocystis carinii carinii that was isolated and purified from the lungs of corticosteroid-immunosuppressed rats. In this respect, the pathogen appears to be unlike higher fungi. However, the organism synthesizes its own distinct sterols, e.g., fungisterol (24-methylcholest-7-en-3 -ol and 24-ethylcholest-7-en-3 -ol; refs. 1-4). Parasites generally scavenge sterols (e.g., cholesterol) from the host and utilize them for membrane formation and other cell functions. If host sterols do not fulfill the precise stereochemical requirements of the parasite sterol, the pathogen synthesizes at least low levels of its own sterol for these vital functions. The parasite-specific sterols have been described as "metabolic" sterols, and represent attractive targets for drug development (5). Beside representing putative metabolic sterols, the rare occurrence of these molecules make these good markers or signature lipids of microorganisms. Improved diagnostic procedures for P. carinii pneumonia (PcP) could be developed based on the detection of P. carinii-specific sterols.
In the present study, two sterols that have not been reported for P. carinii carinii were detected in a P. carinii hominis-infected lungs, in human bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and in organisms isolated from human lungs with PcP. The structural identities of C31 euphorbol and a rare C32 sterol, for which the trivial name pneumocysterol was proposed (6), are herein described.
The elucidation of pneumocysterol and euphorbol structures indicates that the sterol biosynthetic mechanisms in P. carinii resemble those in plants and filamentous fungi. Azole antimycotics are active against pathogens that require lanosterol demethylation to form the final sterol molecules required for their membranes. Thus, the inefficacy of fluconazole and other azoles against PcP can be explained by the ability of the P. carinii sterol C-24 methyltransferase activity to use lanosterol as a substrate.
Mammals are incapable of forming 24-alkylsterols; hence, drugs that interfere with these reactions could be effective anti-P. carinii agents with little toxicity to the host.
End Excerpts
This speaks for itself in terms of what are the most appropriate drug treatments and returns denialism back to its rightful owners, AIDS INC. What I think we should be shouting from the rooftops is the PLURALITY of AIDS diseases; The phenomena (including retroviral transcriptions as “dynamic genome” responses to toxic overload) are most definitely NOT a single agent causing a single disease as the current “rebranding” campaign of the spin doctors would have the gullibles believe.
Posted by: Gene Semon | August 31, 2006 at 01:31 PM
Whoops! Left out journal in above reference: PNAS.
Posted by: Gene Semon | August 31, 2006 at 02:12 PM
Noreen,
You mean a graph like this?
http://momentofscience.blogspot.com/2006/08/figures.html
last one, you have to click on it to be able to read it.
It comes from this paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=1970466&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum
"We all know that because the firemen are at the scen of the fire doesn't mean that they caused the fire."
Sure Noreen we all know that. What you need to understand is that Hank is the kind of guy who, after the fire department puts out the fire, blames them for destroying his carpet with all the flood damage they caused.
Posted by: Pharma Bawd | August 31, 2006 at 09:52 PM
"What you need to understand is that Hank is the kind of guy who, after the fire department puts out the fire, blames them for destroying his carpet with all the flood damage they caused."
Nah, I'm the type of guy who points out that this incompetent band of inexperienced firemen are destroying the wrong house......
Giving AZT -- toxic cancer chemotherapy that causes leukopenia -- is simply the wrong treatment for folks who already have immune deficiencies.
You would want to give them something to boost the T-4 counts, not go off snipe-hunting for harmless retroviruses.
Hank
Posted by: HankBarnes | September 01, 2006 at 01:23 AM
I would have to agree with Hank because as sick as I was, I was never given anything to boost my immunity whatsoever. Anything that was taken, I researched and took it myself. I was never questioned about my life style, eating habits nor was I tested for selenium, vitamin E and other necessary elements that the body so desperately needs. Pharm Bawd, will you admit that other things are important to health besides CD4's and HAART?
I am not totally anti-drugs. You say that OI decrease with HAART. Let me put a question to you? Why is LDN not being pushed for it's great affects for the prevention of OI's? It certainly works, has no side effects and it has a long, safe, proven track record. Maybe, it is because it is too cheap a drug for anyone to be interested in!
For over 9 months, I have been on this drug, 7 without HAART. and I have not had the slightest OI, not even a cold and my lab reports are normal, for a change. So you see, there are safer and better drugs out there than the HAART.
Posted by: noreen martin | September 01, 2006 at 02:27 AM
Hank,
How does your "You're putting out the wrong fire" explanation reconcile itself with things like the graphs I've posted here? ie: why do these large studies show that both AZT monotherapy, at an appropriate dose, and HAART are able to prevent progression to AIDS?
If the AZT is as toxic as you say, why have 90% of people on AZT not progressed to AIDS while only 76% of those on placebo remain healthy?
"You would want to give them something to boost the T-4 counts, not go off snipe-hunting for harmless retroviruses."
CD4 T cells increase when either AZT monotherapy or HAART are administered. Do they boost CD4 cells? Or do they prevent their destruction by a T cell killing pathogen, like HIV?
Also, any chance you'll answer my questions about the Lancet paper?
Posted by: Pharma Bawd | September 01, 2006 at 09:35 AM
Noreen,
Of course there's more important things to general health than CD4's and HAART. There's more important things than MRI's and CT scans too. But when you have cancer those things are real damn important to keep track of your disease.
I don't know much about Low Dose Naltrexone except that it's effective in Crohn's disease. Are there any clinical trials underway for it in AIDS/HIV? I didn't see any at NIH just for MS (I don't think these were low dose though).
I don't know the mechanism of Naltrexone's effects on Crohn's but if it is stimulating the immune system in the gut, then it is possible that it could have some effects against AIDS progression by maintaining healthy CD4 cell populations. But HAART can also effect HIV replication in the gut and prevent the long term depletion of CD4 cells in gut associated lymphoid tissues, which is by far the largest reservoir of CD4 cells in the body.
http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/D2A7914F-1561-4BC1-A60D-F389DF1022A9.asp
I say this, not to promote HAART, but to point out that preventing HIV replication and subsequent destruction of T cells has dramatic positive effects on preventing depletion of T cells in the blood and the progression to AIDS and death.
If LDN works on HIV, hey great! I have no problem with that. I just need a clinical trial to show that it does.
(And please, nobody tell me "Big Pharma won't do the trials because LDN is too cheap to make money off of." Somebody did the trials for Crohn's disease so someone could do the trials for HIV and make money off that too.)
Posted by: Pharma Bawd | September 01, 2006 at 09:48 AM
Penn State did the trials for Chron's disease and a trial is being funded by private resources for MS. One still must ask why wouldn't the maker of this wonderful drug do the studies? Go to the lowdosenaltrexone.org site and it will fill you in on all the diseases that this wonderful drug has helped with, including Aids.
Posted by: noreen martin | September 01, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Pharm Bawd, why would you need a clinical trial when the majority of medical treatments are without said. Doctor's may legally prescribe by what is known as off-label any drug which I'm sure you are aware of. If I were a maker of Aids drugs and could, let say get about 1,200/month for anti-virals why would I spend the money to promote a drug which works but only costs $20.00/month to the patient? Think of the loss of revenue, especially around the world.
Posted by: noreen martin | September 01, 2006 at 11:01 AM
Explain how HIV depletes T-cells, we're all dying to know!
Posted by: noreen martin | September 01, 2006 at 11:55 AM
Pharma Bawd appears sincere in this thread, but answering his/her questions is a waste of time, given that they have been answered ad nauseum in other forums and, like dealing with the talking point, mantra-repeating defenders of the oligopoly that has seized control of our government, the questions in the first place are not based on honest intellectual curiosity but are specifically designed, (quite well I might add) to entangle us in their (false) frame of reference. This process, as elsewhere, will predictably result in the evasion by Pharma Bawd of any substantive points and/or repetion of the standard mantras.
Notice, not one comment on a real, recognized-by-all disease, PCP, and the promising research for drugs that can successfully prevent death in these patients.
Posted by: Gene Semon | September 01, 2006 at 01:38 PM