'MEDS' not 'HIV' - The real killer
Don't believe what the drugs companies tell you.
WITHOUT HAART 'MEDS"
“These long-term nonprogressors [Hiv+ people who remained healthy] are a heterogeneous group with respect to viral load and HIV-1 responses…none had been treated with antiretroviral agents.”
AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, 12: 585 (1996)
– Harrer, Thomas, et al, Aids Researchers
NOT ONE USED HAART
“Subjects: homosexual men in Amsterdam. “None of the LTAs [long-term asymptomatics–people who remained healthy]…received any antiviral drugs during the study [7 years].”
“Ten HIV+ people; 11-15 years infected; non-progressors [i.e., healthy]; maintained stable T-cell counts above 500. “These long-term nonprogressors…all showed the same risk factor (sexual exposure), and all had...virus...and none had been treated with antiretroviral agents.”
AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, 12: 585 (1996)
– Harrer, Thomas, et al, Aids Researchers
Journal of Infectious Diseases, 171:811 (1995)
– Hogervorst E, et al, Aids Researchers
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WITH HAART
“…Choosing between many of these [HAART] combinations is, therefore, increasingly dependent upon knowledge of antiretroviral toxicities...[which include] myopathy [gross muscle atrophy] (zidovudine [AZT]), neuropathy (stavudine, didanosine, zalcitabine; hepatic steatosis and lactic acidaemia (didanosine, stavudine, zidovudine); and possible also peripheral lipoatrophy and pancreatitis (didanosine)...drug hypersensitivity... lipodystrophy...[including] peripheral fat loss (Presumed lipoatrophy in the face, limbs and buttocks) and central fat accumulation (within the abdomen, breasts and over the dorsocervical spine [so-called buffalo hump]...[and prevalent in] about 50% [of patients] after 12-18 months of therapy...Metabolic features significantly associated with lipodystrophy and protease-inhibitor therapy include hypertriglyceridaemia, hypercholesterolaemia, insulin resistance...and type 2 ...diabetes mellitus. Dyslipidaemia at concentrations associated with increased cardiovascular disease occurs in about 70% of patients. These metabolic abnormalities are more profound in those receiving protease inhibitors...Most cases of diabetes have been identified in recipients of protease inhibitors...Anemia and granulocytopenia affect about 5-10% of patients who receive zidovudine...Virtually all antiretroviral medications can cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhoea early in therapy...Diarrhea is probably most common with protease inhibitors...Most antiretroviral agents have been associated with hepatic [liver] toxicity...Most protease inhibitors seem to result in increased rates of spontaneous bleeding (bruising, haemarthrosis, and rarely intracranial haemorrhage) in haemophiliacs... 25-35% of patients cannot tolerate [AZT monotherapy] or triple combination therapy for 4 weeks...”
Lancet. 2000 Oct 21;356:1423-0.
– Carr A, Cooper DA, Aids Researchers
BLINDNESS
“This study was conducted to determine the likelihood of the development of [immune recovery vitritis, IRV], which causes vision loss in AIDS patients with cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, who respond to HAART. We followed 30 HAART-responders…Symptomatic IRV developed in 19 (63%) of 30 patients.”
J Infect Dis. 1999 Mar;179(3):697-700
CASTLEMAN'S DISEASE
“Recently, we observed an unusual cluster of cases of rapidly progressing multicentric Castleman’s disease. Fever, weakness, generalized enlargement of lymph nodes, and marked polyclonal gammopathy developed in three patients with AIDS...Two of these patients died within one week after the diagnosis, with generalized involvement of the lymphatic system, liver, and bone marrow at autopsy. A fourth patient with AIDS who died equally rapidly after the diagnosis of multicentric Castleman’s disease had been seen in our hospital 14 months earlier... symptoms…started after the initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy in these three patients.”
N Engl J Med. 1999 Jun 17;340(24):1923-4
– Zietz C, et al, Aids Researchers
– Karavellas MP, et al, Aids Researchers
DEATH
“…Of the 70 patients studied, 84% were still alive after the 3-month study period...17 surviving patients (24%) had HAART regimens discontinued due to drug intolerance and 11 (16%) expired [died] during the study period...”
J Pain Symptom Manage. 2001 Jan;21(1):41-51
NERVE DAMAGE
“The antiretroviral drugs currently licensed in the United Kingdom [June 1996] are zidovudine (azidothymidine [AZT]), zalcitabine (ddC) and didanosine (ddI). All three are nucleoside analogues...All are very toxic. Suppression of bone marrow elements can occur with any of the three, as can peripheral neuropathy [nerve damage].”
Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin. 1996 Jun;178:675-8.
– Ellis C.J., Leung D., Aids researchers
“A decrease in mtDNA [DNA of the mitochondria; the energy regulating entities within every cell] content was found in HAART-treated HIV-infected patients with peripheral fat wasting in comparison with subjects in the control cohorts...Lipodystrophy with peripheral fat wasting following treatment with NRTI [Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor]-containing HAART is associated with a decrease in subcutaneous adipose [under the skin fat] tissue.”
AIDS. 2001;15:1801-9
– Shikuma CM, Hu N, Milne C, et al, Aids Researchers
‘These drugs are as dangerous as chemotherapy,’
“7 HIV patients presenting LD [Lipodystrophy, all taking antiretroviral therapy] and 5 HIV non-LD controls participated in the study…Structural muscle abnormalities, mitochondrial respiratory chain dysfunction or mtDNA deletions were detected in all HIV lipodystrophic patients. The mitochondrial abnormalities found suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction could play a role in the development of antiretroviral therapy-related lipodystrophy. ”
AIDS. 2001 Sep 7;15(13):1643-51
– Zaera MG, et al, Aids Researchers
“Combination drug therapy, or the triple-drug ‘cocktail’…often provokes severe side effects… ‘These drugs are as dangerous as chemotherapy,’ warned Dr. James Kahn, UCSF associate professor of medicine…”
– Science Daily, Sep 4, 2001
SEXUAL DIFFICULTIES - Body distortions
“[Chapters in this guide to HIV drugs are entitled Introduction, Appetite loss, Body distortions (lipodystrophy), Bone death and destruction, Cardiac concerns, Diarrhea, Fatigue, Gas and bloating, Hair loss, Headaches, Insulin resistance and diabetes, Kidney stones, Liver toxicity, Muscle aches and pains, Nausea and vomiting, Nightmares, daymares and sleeping difficulties, Pancreatitis, Peripheral neuropathy, Skin problems, Sexual difficulties, The end]”
– A Practical Guide to HIV Drug Side Effects, CATIE, 2002
HEART ATTACKS
“Use of protease inhibitors was strongly associated with the likelihood of having a myocardial infarction [heart attack] and correlated with diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidaemia.”
Lancet. 2002 Nov 30;360(9347)
– Holmberg SD, et al, Aids Researchers
Unreliable Tests
A September 2004, San Francisco Chronicle article considered the "beauty" of testing. It told the story of 59 year-old veteran Jim Malone, who'd been told in 1996 that he was HIV positive. His health was diagnosed as "very poor." He was classified as "permanently disabled and unable to work or participate in any stressful situation whatsoever."
In 2004, his doctor sent him a note to tell him he was actually negative. He had tested positive at one hospital, and negative at another.
Nobody asked why the second test was more accurate than the first (this was the protocol at the Veteran's Hospital). Having been falsely diagnosed and spending nearly a decade waiting, expecting to die, Malone said, "I would tell people to get not just one HIV test, but multiple tests. I would say test, test and retest."
In the article, AIDS experts assured the public that the story was "extraordinarily rare." But the medical literature differs significantly.
The Numbers
In 1985, at the beginning of HIV testing, it was known that "68% to 89% of all repeatedly reactive ELISA (HIV antibody) tests [were] likely to represent false positive results." (New England Journal of Medicine. 1985).
In 1992, the Lancet reported ("HIV Screening in Russia") that for 66 true positives, there were 30,000 false positives. And in pregnant women, "there were 8,000 false positives for 6 confirmations."
In September 2000, the Archives of Family Medicine stated that the more women we test, the greater "the proportion of false-positive and ambiguous (indeterminate) test results."
The tests described above are standard HIV tests, the kind promoted in the ads. Their technical name is ELISA or EIA (Enzyme-linked Immuno-sorbant Assay). They are antibody tests. The tests contain proteins that react with antibodies in your blood.
False Positives
In the U.S., you're tested with an ELISA first. If your blood reacts, you'll be tested again, with another ELISA. Why is the second more accurate than the first? That's just the protocol. If you have a reaction on the second ELISA, you'll be confirmed with a third antibody test, called the Western Blot. But that's here in America. In some countries, one
ELISA is all you get.
It is precisely because HIV tests are antibody tests that they produce so many false-positive results. All antibodies tend to cross-react. We produce anti-bodies all the time, in response to stress, malnutrition, illness, drug use, vaccination, foods we eat, a cut, a cold, even pregnancy. These antibodies are known to make HIV tests come up as positive.
The medical literature lists dozens of reasons for positive HIV test results: "transfusions, transplantation, or pregnancy, autoimmune disorders, malignancies, alcoholic liver disease, or for reasons that are unclear..." (Archives of Family Medicine. Sept/Oct. 2000).
"[L]iver diseases, parenteral substance abuse, hemodialysis, or vaccinations for hepatitis B, rabies, or influenza..." (Archives of Internal Medicine, August 2000).
The same is true for the confirmatory test the Western Blot. Causes of indeterminate Western Blots include: "lymphoma, multiple sclerosis, injection drug use, liver disease, or autoimmune disorders. Also, there appear to be healthy individuals with antibodies that cross-react...."
(ibid).
Pregnancy is consistently listed as a cause of positive test results, even by the test manufacturers." [False positives can be caused by] prior pregnancy, blood transfusions...and other potential nonspecific reactions." (Vironostika HIV Test, 2003).
Inflated Africa Numbers
This is significant in Africa, because HIV estimates for African nations are drawn almost exclusively from testing done on groups of pregnant women.
In Zimbabwe last year, the rate of HIV infection among young women decreased remarkably, from 32.5 to 6 percent. A drop of 81 percent overnight. UNICEF's Swaziland representative, Dr. Alan Brody, told the press that, "The problem is that all the sero-surveillance data came from pregnant women, and estimates for other demographics was based on that."
(PLUS News, August, 2004).
Flawed Samples
When these pregnant young women are tested, they're often tested for other illnesses, like syphilis, at the same time. There's no concern for cross-reactivity or false-positives in this group, and no repeat testing. One ELISA on one girl, and 32.5 percent of the population is suddenly HIV positive.
The June 20, 2004 Boston Globe reported "the current estimate of 40 million people living with the AIDS virus worldwide is inflated by 25 percent to 50 percent." It said that HIV estimates for entire countries have, for over a decade, been taken from "blood samples from pregnant women at prenatal clinics."
But numbers about "AIDS deaths, AIDS orphans, numbers of people needing antiretroviral treatment, and the average life expectancy" are all taken from that one test.
I've certainly never seen this in a VH1 ad.
At present there are about six-dozen reasons given in the literature why the tests come up positive. In fact, the medical literature states that there is simply no way of knowing if any HIV test is truly positive or negative:
"[F]alse-positive reactions have been observed with every single HIV-1 protein, recombinant or authentic." (Clinical Chemistry. 37; 1991). "Thus, it may be impossible to relate an antibody response specifically to HIV-1 infection." (Medicine International. 1988).
Ambiguous Results
And even if you believe the reaction is not a false positive, "the test does not indicate whether the person currently harbors the virus."
(Science. November, 1999).
The test manufacturers state that after the antibody reaction occurs, the tests have to be "interpreted." There is no strict or clear
definition of HIV positive or negative. There's just the antibody reaction. The reaction is colored by an enzyme, and read by a machine called a spectro-photometer.
The machine grades the reactions according to their strength (but not specificity), above and below a cut-off. If you test above the cut-off, you're positive; if you test below it, you're negative. So what determines the all-important cut-off? From The CDC's instructional material: "Establishing the cutoff value to define a positive test result from a negative one is somewhat arbitrary." (CDC, 2003)