Who's Afraid of HIV?

The following is provided as kindling for a debate on HIV as the cause of AIDS, as well as
simply presenting another viewpoint on a narrowly defined issue. QueerBrooklyn.com
neither opposes nor endorses the views expressed by the AIDS Rethinkers Movement,
nor do we oppose or endorse the views of the HIV=AIDS community. After all, what the
hell do we know; we’re just bored webmasters. Besides, anything encountered on the
Internet should always be treated with great skepticism. JH, QueerBrooklyn.com

In 1990 the Samuel Goldwyn Company released Longtime Companion, the
first wide-release feature to focus on the then burgeoning AIDS epidemic.
The film culminated in a fantasy scene both odd and poignant; the lead
characters were reunited with loved ones recently deceased from AIDS, and
for just another moment lived carefree along a summer shore. For that brief
moment, AIDS was just a bad dream, some sort of terrible mistake. Then just
as quickly, they disappeared, because the moment was just that: a
momentary respite from a harsh reality.
The film captured the panic and pathos of the early days of AIDS: the dread
and the denial, the loneliness and the self-recrimination, and the fear, always
the fear. Personal and pervasive, the fear of AIDS was never more than a
thought away in most gay men’s minds in the mid 80’s. Even when you
managed to turn your thoughts to other issues at hand, they were somehow
redirected back, either when your favorite bar switched from glass to plastic
cups, or some late-night televangelist announced it your penance to God for
being a dirty boy, but especially when the CDC announced that AIDS had
now reached epidemic proportions in the gay community. But what if the final
scene of Longtime Companion was right, what if it was just a bad dream,
some sort of terrible mistake? According to the growing AIDS Rethinkers
Movement, it may have been just that.
Often brushed aside as “denialists” by HIV=AIDS traditionalists, this is not
some small group of conspiracy theorists donning tin foil hats and claiming
that Martians are living among us. Counted in their numbers are some of our
top biochemists, Nobel Prize winning scientists, and masses of HIV positive
individuals who have turned their backs on what they consider to be one of
modern medicine’s biggest blunders ever: the belief that HIV causes AIDS.
Even groups such as San Francisco’s ACT UP, a collective born in a
passionate fight against AIDS, now reject the HIV hypothesis as the cause of
AIDS. Co-discoverers of the HIV virus, Dr. Luc Montagnier, and Dr. Robert
Gallo, have also reconsidered their position on HIV and now believe that co-
factors must be present for AIDS to develop, that being HIV positive alone is
not sufficient to cause AIDS.
The statistics presented by The Rethinkers movement is nothing less than
shocking to those whose understanding of HIV/AIDS comes only from major
media outlets regurgitating stats from various government health agencies
and AIDS-based organizations. Among the Rethinkers’ claims are a belief
that HIV does not lead to AIDS, that the number of AIDS cases have actually
declined since the height of the epidemic, that the leading cause of death
among those considered to have AIDS is not havoc wrecked by HIV, but the
chemotherapeutic medications prescribed them, and that AIDS is not, nor
has it ever reached epidemic proportions. More alarming than these claims
are the statistics they offer (many culled from the CDC and NIH), which seem
to support them. So why then are so many HIV infected people getting sick
and dying? To fully understand how we arrived at today’s interpretation of
what is AIDS, it is worth revisiting the origins of the epidemic.

What AIDS Is:
AIDS is not a disease, but rather it is a reclassification of twenty-nine
previously existing diseases and conditions: i.e. pneumonia, yeast infection,
diarrhea, and certain cancers (particularly kaposis sarcoma), among others.
These diseases and conditions have always existed outside of exposure to
HIV and are considered AIDS-related only if they occur in the presence of HIV
antibodies. The HIV=AIDS theory hypothesizes that these conditions are the
result of HIV weakening the body’s immune system, thereby leaving it
vulnerable to opportunistic infections and such. Following this hypothesis, an
otherwise healthy individual suffering a bout with diarrhea will be classified as
having AIDS related symptoms only if they also test positive for antibodies to
HIV, in the absence of HIV, a bout with diarrhea is simply that.

Taking The Traditional AIDS Walk:
After testing positive on the ELISA or Western Blot tests, and before the
shock of being handed what was a perceived death sentence even began to
subside, physicians would usually begin drug therapy with any mix of
Protease Inhibitors, AZT, DDI, DDC, D4T 3TC, and other highly toxic
compounds of chemotherapy. The goal was to go after the HIV, to hit it fast
and hit it hard. Simultaneously the patient usually developed additional
diseases and conditions thought to be a consequence of HIV infection: a
diminishing of T-Cells, suppression of the immune system, and an
acceleration of clinical decline and lowered quality of life.
Many HIV-positives alternated between feelings of dread and depression as
they anticipated the oppressive options before them: a future filled with
chemotherapy and declining health, or a life of denial, both with dire
consequences. Early in the epidemic, the mortality rates were devastating:
one could expect little more than two years until they succumbed to the
ravages of AIDS.
The Center of Disease Control’s alarming estimation that AIDS would infect
1.5 million Americans in the next few years left many gay men feeling as if
they were living in a lavender plague. Even the most ignorant of people, who
had been contending that AIDS was God’s retribution for promiscuity and
drug abuse, reconsidered when Ryan White, a fourteen year old
hemophiliac, was diagnosed with AIDS and consequently ostracized by his
community. Magic Johnson’s subsequent revelation of his HIV positive status
told the world that no one was safe from this, now, equal opportunity killer.

AIDS Today:
Today there are approximately 450,000 people living with AIDS in the United
States, the numbers having twice been revised downward from the CDC’s
original estimate of 1.5 million, once after an investigation by NBC Nightly
News. Life expectancy too has grown exponentially as people living with AIDS
are now living up to twenty years after diagnosis; some are living longer than
the AIDS epidemic has existed.
Credited for this drop in mortality rates are new treatments such as protease
inhibitors, drug cocktails, and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
Programs like the clean needle exchange (which offers clean needles to
users of I.V. drugs), and safer sex education programs promoting condom
use are also considered factors in lowering the mortality rate. So it would
seem that, however slowly, we are winning the war on AIDS. Science
triumphs. Then comes Africa.
According to the CDC and AIDS organizations, AIDS has decimated Africa.
But this time something is very different. AIDS in Africa has no high-risk
groups; it is equally distributed between men and women. Even its signal
diseases differ greatly from the American/European model. Pneumocystis
pneumonia, dementia or Kaposi's sarcoma, medical conditions highly
prevalent in U.S./European cases of AIDS, are rare in cases of AIDS in
Africa, instead parasitic infection and malnutrition are Africa’s leading signal
diseases for a diagnosis of AIDS.
African President Mbeki was lambasted on the public stage for his initial
refusal to supply AZT to HIV positive citizens; he cited fears over the toxicity
of the drugs, and concerns over their effectiveness. Eventually President
Mbeki acquiesced and supported drug treatment for Africans, in large part
due to the Durban Declaration, a document signed by over 5,000 scientists
and doctors stating their belief that HIV does in fact cause AIDS.

Enter The Rethinkers Movement:

The Rethinkers rebuke the HIV=AIDS hypothesis and insist that after twenty-
five years of research, $50 billion dollars spent in funding, and still no
answer to this deadly riddle, we must admit that we are on the wrong track
and return to the origins of AIDS research to find the correct answer. We
turned onto that wrong track, they contend, after Dr. Robert Gallo’s 1984
announcement that HIV was the “probable” cause of AIDS. Gallo’s HIV=AIDS
hypothesis totally usurped the then-current Chemical/AIDS hypothesis being
studied at the time, which held that lifestyle was the genesis for this new
condition affecting mostly gay men and I.V. drug users.
This Chemical/AIDS hypothesis held that it was recreational drugs such as
cocaine, methanphetamines, heroine, and poppers (amyl nitrate), along with
living a fast lifestyle (which often included sizeable amounts of sexual
partners and lack of proper rest for long periods) which left the body
exhausted, malnourished, and vulnerable to a myriad of bacteria and
infections. There was compelling evidence for this hypothesis too, not the
least of which an early epidemiological study (1981) on GRIDS (the prior
designation for AIDS) patients in which not even one patient was drug free.
Even today we have studies that point to a greater incidence of AIDS in users
of crystal meth.

One could easily draw the correlation between sexual promiscuity and heavy drug use, this would be in line with the
CDC’s claim that AIDS is sexually transmitted. However, crystal meth, along with most recreational drugs, is the
cause of many AIDS defining diseases even outside of HIV infection. The CDC does not report the number of those
with AIDS-defining illness, but who are HIV negative. The Rethinkers call this circular diagnosing, and claim that the
AIDS industry has created a false representation, that by counting only those testing positive for HIV as having
AIDS, (though many negatives have the exact same illnesses) they’ve created a smokescreen where everyone who
has AIDS also has HIV. Of course there is a correlation if you offer only that which creates a correlation. “So what”,
they propose, “is creating AIDS illnesses in those not exposed to the HIV virus?” If you count these seronegatives
into the AIDS numbers, it would absolutely prove that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
The Rethinkers Movement employs the role of Kaposis Sarcoma in AIDS to further support the Chemical/AIDS
hypothesis; KS was the reason for half of the diagnosis of AIDS in 1981. They cite studies done in the late 70’s and
early 80’s that state some 95% of gay men in urban areas reported frequent use of amyl nitrate, a drug indicated in
Kaposis Sarcoma (KS) even in those not HIV positive. They note also that KS is rarely diagnosed in women with
AIDS, and never in children with AIDS, it is practically exclusive to gay men.
They question why this should be, why a virus would affect one infected group vastly different from another. While
symptoms in many diseases may vary from patient to patient, it is almost unheard of that symptoms would be
exclusive due to sexuality, gender, or age. They note also that as use of amyl nitrates has declined, so too has the
incidence of KS, which today appears in less than 5% of new AIDS cases. Would a primarily AIDS-related disease
virtually disappear simply due to a drop in nitrate inhalant use if it were simply another opportunistic disease
brought on by HIV?

“It’s The Drugs”

The Rethinkers Movement state that the drugs given to those who test positive for HIV antibodies, AZT, DDI, DDC,
D4T and 3TC, are all chemotherapy compounds, and as such, thwart the digestive tract’s ability to absorb nutrients,
which in turn leads to malnutrition. These drugs also kill off the bone marrow from which all immunity comes, thereby
leading to a depressed immune system; both malnutrition and depressed immune systems are AIDS indicator
diseases, and are reason enough to prescribe AIDS medicines.
AZT, a drug originally designed to kill off cells in the fight against cancer, is known to cause wasting, and the
steroids often prescribed to fight this wasting are a known cause of immune deficiency. These toxic chemicals are
known to cause at least five of the official AIDS-defining illnesses. It is conceivable, the Rethinkers contend, that
someone testing positive on an HIV test, having absolutely no symptoms of AIDS, can develop full blown AIDS
simply by taking these medicines. With this in mind, it is frightening to note that since 1993 more than half of all
AIDS diagnoses in the U.S. are given to people who are not ill.
They quote studies that report a sudden tenfold increase in mortality rates in Britain after the introduction of AZT.
Here in the U.S. the introduction of AZT correlated with both a rise in death rates of those with AIDS, and also a rise
in the amount of HIV positives with enough symptoms to now classify them as having AIDS (previously
asymptomatic). Protease inhibitors can impair liver function and cause liver failure (as well as anorexia, low t-cell
counts, and diarrhea), a frequent cause of illness and death in AIDS cases, yet liver disease is not an AIDS-defining
illness attributed to HIV. What is causing the liver failure if not the side effects from protease inhibitors?
When AZT is prescribed now, it is at a lower dosage than originally prescribed in the early days of AIDS. The lower
dosages, along with the new AIDS cocktails, and protease inhibitors are credited with having helped lower the
mortality rate from AIDS. While the Rethinkers applaud the reduction in AZT dosages, they are also quick to point
out that the mortality rates for those with AIDS was already declining – a full two years prior the introduction of
protease inhibitors.
In 2001 The United States Panel on AIDS revised their "hit it fast and hit it hard" policy and instead recommended
putting off treatment with AIDS drugs due to some of the serious side effects they bring: nerve damage, weakened
bones, and epidemic heart disease. A move that pleased the Rethinkers Movement, who are quick to observe that
cancer patients were never prescribed three or four chemotherapeutic drugs for a lifetime due to the toxicity of the
drugs, why would AIDS patients fare any better?

Why Us? Why Them? The Inconsistency in AIDS Risk Groups

One of the biggest quandaries of AIDS, according to the Rethinkers Movement, is understanding by what means a
virus could spread only in certain populations, and not consistently. Why would gay men and HIV drug users be at
risk only in some segments of the epidemic, and heterosexual men and women in other segments? And why is there
such a discrepancy in the AIDS-defining illnesses between those in the U.S./European numbers, and those in
Africa? The list of AIDS diseases in the differing parts of the world would hardly seem as if it is the same disease.
According to the CDC and major AIDS organizations, the reason for the inconsistency in risk groups is a matter
opportunity; the HIV virus entered the U.S. in the gay population and therefore spread throughout that population;
only later spreading outside to the heterosexual population. In Africa, the opposite is true and therefore it is more
prevalent among the heterosexual population. They hold that HIV is a sexually transmitted disease, and as such it
would naturally spread consistently among whichever group had the greater exposure to the virus.
Not true, argues the Rethinkers Movement, They question even the validity of AIDS as a sexually transmitted
disease. Citing studies that show AIDS rates declining even while rates of other STD’s rise, why would one STD not
follow the pattern of the others? Why is there such a low transmission rate between discordant (one is seropositive
and the other not) married (heterosexual) hemophiliacs? Why do non-drug using prostitutes constitute such a low
number of AIDS cases? They quote a 1989 article from The New England Journal of Medicine that report the CDC’s
findings that it took about 1,000 heterosexual contacts to become HIV positive. Of course the numbers are much
lower for homosexual contact, most likely having to do with the greater resilience of the vaginal walls.

Keeping it Safe

The Rethinkers Movement has a lot of interesting, if not shocking claims to make, and many of them are backed up
with some eye-opening statistics, however, I wouldn’t start using the condoms as water balloons just yet. They
simply provide another interpretation of the numbers. Some of their numbers are taken from studies that are years
old, and much of what you will find in their literature is anecdotal. In a perfect world, they would work alongside
those offering the conventional HIV=AIDS hypothesis, and bring a healthy debate to the table, rather than attack the
HIV=AIDS community.
It is also true though, that the AIDS industry has used a statistical sleight of hand themselves when it comes to
presenting the numbers. When they shout of the rising percentages of women contracting AIDS, they have often left
out the fact that the number of women contracting AIDS had actually declined, only woman as a percentage of AIDS
patients had risen. This was very apparent when they panicked women with a sudden, frightening rise in the
number of female AIDS cases, and yet made little noise about the fact that they had just added cervical cancer to
the list of AIDS-defining illnesses. Of course there would be a rise in AIDS diagnoses in women if you include
cervical cancer as an indicator disease.
If Other claims by the Rethinkers Movement like the low incidence of medical workers who contract AIDS from
needle sticks, (while approximately 1,000 per year contract hepatitis this way, there has not been one proven case
of AIDS contracted this way ); the actual rise in AIDS among those I.V. drug users who participate in the Clean
Needle Exchange program (this suppports the rethinker's hypothesis that it is the depletion brougt on by habitual
drug abuse that leads to AIDS symptoms, and not HIV); and that the AIDS industry have twisted the numbers to
increase support for their theory, are to be believed, then they must be held accountable. We do know this much: It
is some twenty-five years into the fight against AIDS, and still we have no cure, and no safe and effective therapies.
We have spent more that $50 billion in federal funding faithfully following this hypothesis and created a powerful
AIDS establishment that has the power to regulate the information we receive; that is never a good thing, just look
at our current White House. Perhaps we were on the right track all along, perhaps not, but we owe it to ourselves to
explore all possibilities, especially when it is our lives that are at stake.
While I would love to see the fantasy scene in Longtime Companion played out in reality, that all of those we’ve
lost to AIDS simply reappear, that AIDS never happened and it was some kind of mistake. I wouldn’t want the
mistake to be that we too easily placed our trust in the hands of overzealous scientists and a profiteering
pharmaceutical industry.