'AIDS is with us' - ACT now!
Clare Foster | 05.11.2004 17:44 | Health | Social Struggles | Cambridge | London
Last night was the Cambridge leg of the Stop Aids speaker tour where three inspirational speakers from Zambia, Uganda and South Africa talked about their experiences with HIV/AIDS. All of them had lost people to the disease.
Mannie, Henry and Mandisa
I heard a chilling story last night about a beautiful eighteen year old African girl. She lived as part of a big family in a poor village. After losing her father to AIDS her mother told her that she had to go and look for a job to help support her elderly family and younger brothers and sisters. She went to stay with a friend in the nearest town who supported her for a while as she tried to find work but, after no success, her friend told her that she must ‘use what she had to get money’. She couldn’t go back to her family without some money to support them so she was forced into taking on sex work in the town. Inevitably she soon fell ill with HIV virus. She went home to her family. Back in the village she was stigmatised and made to live alone until she died of AIDS. This story could have been worse. If she had become infected without realising and then had returned to the village and continued her life there she would have brought HIV with her and the infection would have spread. Horrendously this was a true account, told by someone who knew her well and who tried to save her life. Horrendously this kind of story repeats itself daily all over developing countries, with someone becoming infected with the HIV virus every fifteen seconds.
Last night was the Cambridge leg of the Stop Aids speaker tour where three inspirational speakers from Zambia, Uganda and South Africa talked about their experiences with HIV/AIDS. All of them had lost people to the disease. Manford, who finished with the story above, lost two of his closest childhood friends, Mandisa lost her cousin and Henry, in an incredibly moving account, told us how he had lost his father and his brother before finding out that both he and his girlfriend were HIV positive. In his own words; ‘The whole world I saw was coming to an end’.
The aims of the tour were to promote solidarity between youth worldwide but also to raise basic awareness of the problem. Speaking to one of my friends afterwards he told me that he’d always seen it as ‘a disease that’s always been there and we need to stop at some point’. Unfortunately this seems to be what most people think. It couldn’t be further from the truth. HIV/AIDS is nothing more than a national emergency in Africa now. In the 1990’s infection rates were about 1%, ten years later they are at 20% and rising. Now there are 15 million orphaned and 20 million dead, if we don’t do something soon there will be over 45 million infected by the end of this decade. That’s much much bigger than 9/11 or Iraq. The situation is spiralling out of control, destroying the working population and leaving nations of orphans and elderly struggling to survive, with children as young as twelve often left with no option but to drop out of school to take on sex work or look after their brothers and sisters. Teachers, doctors and nurses are dying leaving health services crippled under the weight of the epidemic and education foundering at a time when it is needed most. Years of social and economic development are being undermined and destroyed, productivity is shrinking and global equality becoming more entrenched. As Henry succinctly put it ‘AIDS is with us’ and he was right, this isn’t an African issue, this is a global issue of equality of people worldwide and basic rights to medicine, health care and some quality of life.
All of the speakers last night have now dedicated their lives to fighting the disease and the stigma and misunderstanding attached to it. Mandisa is a AIDS researcher in Durban, South Africa, Henry is a youth worker and activist in Uganda and Mannie works for the development charity SPW, changing behaviour and giving people basic information about how the disease spreads, demonstrating condoms and making them freely available in the villages, empowering women to say no to sex (something which they often don’t realise it is within their right to do) and working with school children to provide them with the knowledge and skills to take control of their own lives and make decisions to protect themselves. As well as greater access to cheap, life saving drugs there is a growing need for behaviour change and awareness. In Tanzania I would attend two or three funerals a week in a tiny village and at every one people would deny that AIDS had killed their mother, father, brother or child. The epidemic is perpetrated by myths such as the one that says sleeping with a virgin will cure you. Churches still preach anti contraception sermons, telling their congregations that the disease is found in condoms and the epidemic is a racist plot by white people to undermine Africa. The president of South Africa himself denied the link between the HIV virus (transmitted in bodily fluids) and the AIDS syndrome that develops from it.
‘The issue with HIV/Aids is that when it hits you, you want to start doing something’ said Henry. Many of us in the UK are lucky enough never to have been hit in the way these guys have been. I hope that the inspirational courage, strength and passion of these three young people hit some of those who attended last night. I also hope that reading this has made everyone else more aware of what’s going on. Now is the time for us to get involved. There are Stop Aids campaigns taking off in universities all over the country. These guys went to 16 universities in 2 weeks spreading the same message – we have to act now! Individuals can make a difference, Madisa told of how a small group in her university got a constitutional decision in the courts that access to treatment is a human right and made Mdege admit the connection between HIV and Aids. Britain is soon to take over the EU presidency and the G8 summit is being held in Scotland this summer. We have a real chance to affect the decisions being made by our leaders.
On a more local level World Aids Day is on Dec 1st. A couple of days earlier, on Nov 29th, the Cambridge Stop Aids Society is holding a fundraising event in the Kambar. There is African drumming, Lebanese rap, some hip hop and a number of student bands lined up to play. If we can fill the Kambar, its rent for us goes down and we raise more money for people like Henry’s dad and brother who died because the drugs to save them were too expensive. Whatever your response to this article, whatever you are doing the next day, however busy you are, come along to the Kambar, bring your friends and lend your support. This is too important to miss. Nelson Mandela said that future generations will judge us by the adequacy of our response to this tragedy; I hope they judge us well. AIDS is with us and we have to act now.
Last night was the Cambridge leg of the Stop Aids speaker tour where three inspirational speakers from Zambia, Uganda and South Africa talked about their experiences with HIV/AIDS. All of them had lost people to the disease. Manford, who finished with the story above, lost two of his closest childhood friends, Mandisa lost her cousin and Henry, in an incredibly moving account, told us how he had lost his father and his brother before finding out that both he and his girlfriend were HIV positive. In his own words; ‘The whole world I saw was coming to an end’.
The aims of the tour were to promote solidarity between youth worldwide but also to raise basic awareness of the problem. Speaking to one of my friends afterwards he told me that he’d always seen it as ‘a disease that’s always been there and we need to stop at some point’. Unfortunately this seems to be what most people think. It couldn’t be further from the truth. HIV/AIDS is nothing more than a national emergency in Africa now. In the 1990’s infection rates were about 1%, ten years later they are at 20% and rising. Now there are 15 million orphaned and 20 million dead, if we don’t do something soon there will be over 45 million infected by the end of this decade. That’s much much bigger than 9/11 or Iraq. The situation is spiralling out of control, destroying the working population and leaving nations of orphans and elderly struggling to survive, with children as young as twelve often left with no option but to drop out of school to take on sex work or look after their brothers and sisters. Teachers, doctors and nurses are dying leaving health services crippled under the weight of the epidemic and education foundering at a time when it is needed most. Years of social and economic development are being undermined and destroyed, productivity is shrinking and global equality becoming more entrenched. As Henry succinctly put it ‘AIDS is with us’ and he was right, this isn’t an African issue, this is a global issue of equality of people worldwide and basic rights to medicine, health care and some quality of life.
All of the speakers last night have now dedicated their lives to fighting the disease and the stigma and misunderstanding attached to it. Mandisa is a AIDS researcher in Durban, South Africa, Henry is a youth worker and activist in Uganda and Mannie works for the development charity SPW, changing behaviour and giving people basic information about how the disease spreads, demonstrating condoms and making them freely available in the villages, empowering women to say no to sex (something which they often don’t realise it is within their right to do) and working with school children to provide them with the knowledge and skills to take control of their own lives and make decisions to protect themselves. As well as greater access to cheap, life saving drugs there is a growing need for behaviour change and awareness. In Tanzania I would attend two or three funerals a week in a tiny village and at every one people would deny that AIDS had killed their mother, father, brother or child. The epidemic is perpetrated by myths such as the one that says sleeping with a virgin will cure you. Churches still preach anti contraception sermons, telling their congregations that the disease is found in condoms and the epidemic is a racist plot by white people to undermine Africa. The president of South Africa himself denied the link between the HIV virus (transmitted in bodily fluids) and the AIDS syndrome that develops from it.
‘The issue with HIV/Aids is that when it hits you, you want to start doing something’ said Henry. Many of us in the UK are lucky enough never to have been hit in the way these guys have been. I hope that the inspirational courage, strength and passion of these three young people hit some of those who attended last night. I also hope that reading this has made everyone else more aware of what’s going on. Now is the time for us to get involved. There are Stop Aids campaigns taking off in universities all over the country. These guys went to 16 universities in 2 weeks spreading the same message – we have to act now! Individuals can make a difference, Madisa told of how a small group in her university got a constitutional decision in the courts that access to treatment is a human right and made Mdege admit the connection between HIV and Aids. Britain is soon to take over the EU presidency and the G8 summit is being held in Scotland this summer. We have a real chance to affect the decisions being made by our leaders.
On a more local level World Aids Day is on Dec 1st. A couple of days earlier, on Nov 29th, the Cambridge Stop Aids Society is holding a fundraising event in the Kambar. There is African drumming, Lebanese rap, some hip hop and a number of student bands lined up to play. If we can fill the Kambar, its rent for us goes down and we raise more money for people like Henry’s dad and brother who died because the drugs to save them were too expensive. Whatever your response to this article, whatever you are doing the next day, however busy you are, come along to the Kambar, bring your friends and lend your support. This is too important to miss. Nelson Mandela said that future generations will judge us by the adequacy of our response to this tragedy; I hope they judge us well. AIDS is with us and we have to act now.
Clare Foster
e-mail:
crf26@cam.ac.uk
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AIDS IS A MYTH
13.07.2007 07:59
A BRIEF HISTORY OF AIDS
In the early 80's, doctors started seeing more and more people with suppressed immune systems coming into emergency rooms with several opportunistic infections. These were primarily gay men and intravenous drug users. There was
panic within the gay community and in the general population as more and more people began dying of what was called AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
In 1984, Robert Gallo, a research scientist working for the National Institute of Health (NIH), announced in a press conference that he had discovered the probable cause of AIDS, and that it was a retrovirus later called HIV: Human
Immunodeficiency Virus. Without having published his findings for peer review he announced this to the press. The media immediately ran with it, and people began demanding funding into research into HIV, all based on the assumption that
HIV is a sexually-transmitted pathogen that causes AIDS.
The gay community especially rallied and pushed for more AIDS funding and better education about 'safe sex'. In 1987 a drug called AZT was approved by the FDA for the treatment
of AIDS, and this began a multi-billion dollar industry.
RETROVIRUSES DO NOT CAUSE DISEASE
HIV is a normal retrovirus. Its genetic composition does not differ very much from other retroviruses. No retrovirus has ever been shown to cause disease outside of a lab. Unlike ordinary viruses, retroviruses do not kill their host cells. Retroviruses occur naturally inside of the cells of many animals, including humans. Retroviruses are seen by many scientists to be naturally occurring parts of our cells. Retroviruses are not sexually-transmitted, but they are passed from mother to child. Retroviruses had been studied by the NIH extensively throughout the 70's in hopes that they would find a retrovirus that caused cancer. Because retroviruses do not kill cells, they were a perfect candidate for cancer, in which cells do not die but instead multiply rapidly.
Millions of dollars went into all of this research into retroviruses with nothing to show for it. Gallo himself tried to prove more than once that he had found a disease-causing retrovirus, only to be debunked by the scientific community. When AIDS appeared, Gallo and the NIH were already looking for a
disease that they could blame on a retrovirus, to justify all of their wasted funding.
HIV HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND
HIV has never been isolated from human blood. What AIDS researchers call isolation of HIV is the finding of certain chemicals and enzymatic activity that they claim indicates the presence of HIV. They find proteins and genetic material thought to come from HIV, or they find reverse transcriptase activity.
But none of these proteins, RNA strands, or enzyme activities are unique to HIV.
What most AIDS scientists research in their labs is a lab artifact. It is HIV that is created and grown in a lab, and it is thought to be the same thing that causes AIDS when it infects people.
THE TEST DOES NOT FIND HIV
The test for HIV does not look for an actual virus in your blood. It looks for antibodies that will react with a set of proteins that are produced by HIV. But none of these proteins are specific to HIV. Antibodies in the blood resulting
from other conditions can cross-react with the proteins in the HIV test. Blood must be diluted before being tested for HIV. Without dilution, all blood samples would test positive for HIV because we all have some antibodies that will cross-react with the test. There are at least 66 factors that are known to
cause false positive results on an HIV test, including other infections, drug use, and receptive anal sex. Having unprotected receptive anal sex causes your body to produce antibodies in response to semen.
These antibodies to semen can cross-react with the proteins in the HIV test, producing a false positive result. In addition, people of African descent have a higher probability of
testing false positive, because they naturally have a greater variety of antibodies in their blood.
NO GOLD STANDARD FOR HIV TESTING
HIV tests are not standardized. This is because HIV has never been isolated from human blood, so there is no way to know how specific the tests are to HIV infection. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve a single HIV
test for the diagnosis of HIV infection. There are a variety of tests, and the results are interpreted differently in different countries. So the same sample of blood could test positive in the United States while testing negative in Europe. Another more expensive HIV test is the viral load test. Viral load
testing makes use of PCR: polymerase chain reaction. It takes a very small amount of genetic material and makes enough copies of it that you can detect it.
Dr. Kary Mullis, who won a Nobel prize for inventing PCR, is among the scientists who say that HIV does not cause AIDS. He claims that viral load testing is a misuse of PCR. PCR does not find isolated virus in the blood. It finds pieces of RNA strands thought to belong to HIV.
PRESENCE OF ANTIBODIES MEANS IMMUNITY
Usually, if you test positive for antibodies that means that your immune system has effectively fought off a pathogen and you now have immunity. But with the HIV test, the logic is reversed. Instead of meaning that you now have immunity to HIV, testing positive is said to mean that you are infected and your immune
system has failed to neutralize the virus. The great hope for many who believe that HIV causes AIDS is that researchers will some day develop a vaccine. But vaccines work by causing your body to produce antibodies specific to a pathogen.
If a vaccine for HIV was created, everyone who had the vaccine would then test positive for HIV on the non-specific antibody tests now in use.
AZT SUPPRESSES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
The original drug used to treat people with AIDS, called AZT, was not created for AIDS treatment. AZT was originally developed in the 70's as a chemotherapy drug for cancer patients, but it was not approved because it was determined to
be too toxic. Chemotherapy for cancer patients is limited to a certain duration, while AZT and similar drugs are prescribed to AIDS patients for the rest of their lives. The study that lead to FDA approval for AZT has now been shown to have been fraudulent. The package for AZT says: "TOXIC. Toxic by
inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Wear suitable protective clothing." Among other side effects, AZT destroys the bone marrow of the body.
The reason doctors see an initial rise in their patients' T cell count after taking AZT is because the bone marrow is where T cells are produced. AZT destroys the bone marrow and this releases more T cells from the marrow into the blood. Prolonged use of AZT has been shown to suppress the immune system and lower T cell counts. About 95% of AIDS-related deaths have occurred since the release of AZT.
ANTIRETROVIRAL SIDE EFFECT LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH
The newer protease inhibitors used in combo therapy are also a type of chemotherapy. They work by preventing the replication of genetic material belonging to HIV. But these proteins are not specific to HIV, and the protease
inhibitors do not exclusively target HIV. The highest cause of death today for people with AIDS is liver failure. Liver failure is not an AIDS-defining illness, but it is a known side-effect of the protease inhibitors. AIDS patients can see the disappearance of some symptoms while taking the drug cocktails. This is because the drugs they are taking are global poisons that
kill many microbes in the body that may be pathogenic, such as bacteria and other viruses.
ANTIRETROVIRALS NOT PROVEN TO IMPROVE HEALTH
The drug companies claim that the release of protease inhibitors in 1996 was responsible for decreased deaths due to AIDS. But deaths from AIDS had already begun a declining trend three years before in 1993, and the introduction of
protease inhibitors did not significantly alter this trend. Studies are no longer comparing AIDS drugs with a placebo. Now when they test a new antiretroviral drug they compare a group taking the new drug with a group that is taking the older drugs. There are no studies being done comparing the difference in health between people taking the AIDS medications and people who are not taking the drugs, though many HIV positive people lead healthy lives free of disease for many years, without taking AIDS medication.
CDC REDEFINES AIDS TO INCREASE NUMBERS
AIDS statistics can be very misleading. This is because of the many definitions for AIDS that have been used by different countries and at different times.
Originally, in the United States you had to test HIV positive and have one or more of the AIDS-defining illnesses to be counted as somebody with AIDS. In 1993 the Center for Disease Control (CDC) expanded this definition to include
anyone who tested positive for HIV and had a T cell count of under 200. This nearly tripled the perceived number of AIDS cases in the US. Many of the people who have AIDS by this definition are perfectly healthy, and would not be
considered to have AIDS if they moved to Canada.
AIDS IN AFRICA CAUSED BY POVERTY
Today we are told that ridiculously large numbers of people in Africa are HIV positive and will die of AIDS unless treated. These statistics are not counts of people who have actually tested positive. It is an estimation generated from
a sample population. The sample population is primarily pregnant women, who are the ones who get priority for medical treatment in poor countries. But pregnancy is known to be a source for false positive results on HIV tests. And
people of African descent in general are more likely to test false positive.
The World Health Organization does not require a positive HIV test for the diagnosis of AIDS in Africa. All that is required is a certain number of symptoms. But all of these symptoms can also be explained by malnutrition, malaria, and tuberculosis, conditions that have been health risks for Africans
long before the invention of AIDS. The health of poor Africans would undoubtedly be improved with better food and sanitation.
But funding is now being geared towards delivery of toxic AIDS medications to Africans rather than for these basic essentials.
AIDS DEFINES ITSELF
Clearly many people have died in this country and elsewhere as the result of a suppressed immune system. But the 29 AIDS-defining illnesses are not new illnesses, and they all have previously documented causes and treatments.
Diagnosis of AIDS now works like a formula. If you have pneumonia and you test HIV negative, you are told you have pneumonia. If you have pneumonia and you test HIV positive, you are told you have AIDS and you are treated with toxic
AIDS drugs. For those people who are truly immune suppressed, there are other possible explanations for this phenomenon, and many safe non-toxic therapies.
DRUGS AND MALNUTRITION CAUSE AIDS
If the true condition of AIDS is a suppressed immune system unable to fight off opportunistic infections, there are many other factors that can cause this.
Drugs such as cocaine and crystal methane are known to suppress the immune system. These drugs were used extensively by many gay men in the 1970's and 1980's. Intravenous drug users who have AIDS are said to be immune suppressed due to HIV, rather than due to the drug they have been injecting.
Corticosteroids and some antibiotics, often prescribed to drug addicts and promiscuous gay men, are also immune suppressive. Blood given to hemophiliacs and other transplant recipients used to be treated with immune suppressing
agents. Now with a new way to treat this blood, AIDS among blood recipients has declined. Despite predictions of a global epidemic, AIDS cases in the United States have remained confined to its original primary risk groups: promiscuous
gay men and intravenous drug users. In the gay party scene, drug use, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation continue to be high risk factors for immune deficiency.
POPPERS CAUSE KAPOSI'S SARCOMA
Kaposi's Sarcoma is one of the AIDS-indicator diseases, but it primarily occurs in gay men and not other AIDS groups. Nitrite inhalants or poppers, used extensively by gay men in the 70's and 80's, have been shown to cause Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS). KS is a cancer of the blood vessels. Nitrites are known
carcinogens. KS is usually seen in gay men around the face, mouth, and in the lungs, all sites of contact with nitrite fumes.
There are many recorded incidents of KS in HIV-negative gay men who used poppers. As the use of poppers decreased in the 90's, the incidence of KS also decreased. Poppers are still
used by many gay men.
FEAR ALONE CAN CAUSE AIDS
Fear and anxiety is another factor that can suppress the immune system. Stress releases cortisol in the body. This cortisol is used to help break down tissues for the release of energy needed in a fight or flight situation. But prolonged
stress and anxiety creates abnormally high levels of cortisol in the body.
Cortisol has been shown to suppress the immune system and decrease T cell counts. Irregular sleep or lack of sleep also increases cortisol levels. Gay men who face discrimination and hatred for their sexuality can experience chronic fear and anxiety. Intravenous drug users also face a lot of chronic
fear and paranoia as part of their addiction. Testing positive for HIV itself can create huge amounts of fear in the person being diagnosed.
Paul King
Homepage:
http://www.dissidentaction.com