Life expectancy is going up, but it has nothing to do with the AIDS drugs. For Modern Conservative reports that:
Ronald B Reisler M.D., M.P.H. did a five-year review (1996-2001) of about 3000 HIV/AIDS patients who took the anti-retroviral cocktails. He found that:
1.332 patients suffered an “AIDS” event, meaning some purported manifestation of the underlying disease, however;
2. 675 patients suffered a “Grade 4” event, meaning a life-threatening illness was attributed to the drugs, not the virus. The most common of these side-effects were:
a. Liver damage
b. Neutropenia (white blood cell loss)
c. Anemia (red blood cell loss)
d. Cardiovascular, including heart attacks
e. Pancreatitis
f. Psychiatric disorders
g. Kidney problems
h. Thrombocytopenia
i. Hemorrhage
In sum, twice as many AIDS patients fell ill from the drugs than from AIDS – which is exactly what Dr. Duesberg predicted would happen in the late 1980s.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/464875
Grade 4 events were anything not directly attributed to AIDS, for example, the various kinds of hepatitis (viral caused), and psychiatric problems. That would give a somewhat different picture of what the review showed.