HIV-negative Zim women test positive after drug trials

About 127 Zimbabwean women who were HIV negative are feared to be now HIV positive after they participated in trials that were aimed at testing a set of drugs that medical experts thought could reduce the risk of infection.
Tenofovir, a key drug used in the study, has since been dropped after it failed to shield participants from contracting the virus.
Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) project director Dr Nyaradzo Mgodi told The Sunday Mail last Friday that the women were part of a group that was always at risk of infection.
She said the project co-ordinators were still working to establish the exact number of the infected. She said participants who tested positive will receive HIV counselling, contraceptives and other medical support services. The participants are predominantly sexually active married or single women who live in communities with a high HIV prevalence
“The decision to discontinue the use of the Tenofovir tablet in VOICE came after the drugs were found to be ineffective in preventing HIV contraction among the women enrolled for the trials,”

AIDS Conference, protestors staged a “die-in” against Gilead Sciences

Posted by Sunny Bjerk

During the International AIDS Conference last week, protestors staged a “die-in” against Gilead Sciences—manufacturer of the HIV/AIDS medication Truvada—holding signs stating, Truvada Pricing is Murder, and_ Gilead: Greed Destroys Access to Care_, among many others. The protest was a very loud and very visible criticism of the pharmaceutical giant, particularly the difference that Truvada costs overseas and in the U.S.—$500 versus $11,000 respectively—as well the luxurious compensation of its CEO, John C. Martin.

This protest demonstrates two very important things. One, that AIDS activism is still very much alive, much to the fear of some; and two, that the InternationalAIDS Conference, its attendees, and its sponsors, have a very complicated relationship.

HIV Test - Slavery?

The impact of food and nutrition on the HIV response

How food and nutrition can help turn the tide on HIV

For Tankiso, an HIV-positive mother living in rural Lesotho, food has made all the difference.

“When I first learned of my HIV status, I also learned about the services available at my local health clinic, including WFP food assistance,” said Tankiso. “Since 2011, I’ve followed my medical treatment and visited the clinic regularly, where I also benefit from WFP’s nutrition support.”

Scientific evidence and our own experience shows that nutrition activities for people living with HIV—including nutritional assessments, counselling, education and fortified food for malnourished patients—has significant impacts on the health of patients, on their ability to stay on treatment and on the effectiveness of treatment.

Hair samples from infants show exposure to anti-HIV drugs in the womb and during breast-feeding

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Makerere University in Uganda have used hair and blood samples from three-month old infants born to HIV-positive mothers to measure the uninfected babies' exposure—both in the womb and from breast-feeding—to antiretroviral medications their mothers were taking. The results, they said, are surprising
.
"We found high levels of exposure to three antiretroviral medications in the hair samples of HIV uninfected infants at twelve weeks of life," said study senior author, Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at the UCSF Division of HIV/AIDS at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH). "From looking at plasma level data at the same time point, we believe that transfer of two of the medicines from mother to baby occurs exclusively in the womb and transfer of the third medication occurs both in the womb and through breastfeeding."

Since “HIV” doesn’t cause “AIDS”, why were gay men the first victims of AIDS, and why do they so often test “HIV-positive”?

by Henry Bauer 

I started this blog nearly 5 years ago, with the immediate aim of applying to continuing “news” about HIV/AIDS the insights I had gained from collating HIV-test results, namely, that what these tests detect or measure is not an infectious entity, nor is it correlated with the published numbers for “AIDS” (The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory).
Comments from various quarters helped me to learn much more, especially about why gay men have been so much involved; and I was prompted to further analyses of official data, which revealed yet more flaws in HIV/AIDS theory:

•  Since “HIV” doesn’t cause “AIDS”, why were gay men the first victims of AIDS, and why do they so often test “HIV-positive”?
  John Lauritsen  and  Michelle Cochrane (When AIDS Began, 2004 had given good answers to the first point: It was not young, previously healthy, gay men who succumbed to AIDS in the early 1980s, it was predominantly drug-abusing fast-living men in their mid- to late thirties who happened also to be gay.
  Tony Lance answered the second point for me with the intestinal dysbiosis hypothesis, confirmations of which have been coming in increasingly from mainstream sources; see “GRID = Gay Related Intestinal Dysbiosis? Explaining HIV/AIDS Paradoxes in Terms of Intestinal Dysbiosis”    and “What really caused AIDS: Slicing through the Gordian knot”; “AIDS as intestinal dysbiosis”; “Unraveling HIV/AIDS”; “More mainstream alternative treatment for ‘HIV/AIDS’”; “Must read”; “Intestinal Dysbiosis theory confirmed”; “Intestinal dysbiosis theory confirmed again”; “Intestinal dysbiosis: more and more confirmations”.

• I came to realize that the crucial point is that “HIV” tests do not diagnose presence of active HIV virions: “HIV tests are not HIV tests”, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 15 (#1, 2010) 5-9. See also “‘HIV’ tests are self-fulfilling prophecies”; “‘HIV’ tests are demonstrably invalid”; “The Wonderland of ‘HIV’ ‘tests’”; “Health-threatening and life-threatening tests”.
  Etienne de Harven has indicated why “HIV-positive” is misleading: “Human Endogenous Retroviruses and AIDS research: Confusion, consensus, or science?”, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons15#3 (2010) 69-74.

•  Analysis of mortality data shows that “HIV-positive” and “AIDS” are not  diseases, because the mortality of people in those categories does not increase with age whereas mortality from all diseases increases with age, for the obvious reason that our general capacity to resist stress decreases as we age.
  Moreover the supposed latent period between HIV infection and onset of AIDS does not exist: “‘HIV disease’ is not an illness”; “How ‘AIDS Deaths’ and ‘HIV Infections’ vary with age — and why”; “HAART saves lives — but doesn’t prolong them!?”; “Living with HIV; Dying from what?”; “HIV, AIDS, and age: HIV/AIDS theory is wrong”; “Age shall not wither them — because HIV really doesn’t kill”; “No HIV ‘latent period’: dotting i’s and crossing t’s”.

• Many confirmations have appeared from different countries and circumstances of the epidemiological regularities I had found in the largely USA data analyzed in my book, perhaps most strikingly the racial disparities and perhaps most mysteriously the correlation with population density.

• I’ve noted a fine array of absurdities: pregnant women more likely to become “HIV-positive” than non-pregnant women; breast-feeding protective against becoming “HIV-positive” despite being a supposed avenue for transmission of HIV; mainstream activists urging that drug addicts be given fresh clean needles so that they could more safely kill themselves through drug abuse; assertions that HIV is transmitted in different ways in different parts of the world; and more.

As time has passed, fewer and fewer items appeared in the media that were both new and noteworthy and therefore worth blogging about. Microbicide and vaccine trials continue to fail — what more can be said about that except that it confirms over and over again the vacuity of HIV/AIDS theory? Official agencies continue to trumpet the danger of HIV/AIDS even as fewer and fewer people are affected by it — how often is that worth mentioning? Mainstream sources continue to applaud the lifesaving benefits of antiretroviral drugs even as the official Treatment Guidelines and primary literature continue to report the dangerous toxicity of antiretroviral treatment and the continual production of new drugs intended to be less toxic — how often is that worth writing about? And what more can be said about the continuing mis-direction by mainstream sources of labeling as “HIV-associated” ailments that are actually owing to antiretroviral drugs: lipodystrophy, kidney failure, heart failure, and much more (in addition to the re-labeling in Africa of well known diseases as “AIDS”: tuberculosis, malaria, and more).
So after a few years of blogging here, media coverage of HIV/AIDS has become for me déjà vu all over again

View the film "Positively False"

 Positively False - Birth of a Heresy traces the challenge over the past 25 years to the scientific orthodoxy which maintains that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Joan Shenton reaches back to 1987 through her extensive archive of broadcast and non-broadcast video material and combines it with current footage. She shows how dissident scientists, journalists and activists have voiced their concerns about the way the infectious hypothesis for AIDS took over from the toxic one and highlights the impact the dogma surrounding a viral cause for AIDS has had on people's lives. The film travels through Africa, Europe and the United States revealing the way plague terror, financial objectives and scientific skullduggery have led to tragic examples of toxicity and death from antiviral drugs, social stigma, broken families, fear of sex, homophobia and imprisonment. Positively False - Birth of a Heresy is produced by Meditel Productions Ltd and The Immunity Resource Foundation in association with Yellow Productions.

“On the Front Lines of the AIDS Pandemic” by Harry Haverkos

by David Crowe


Harry Haverkos is an enigma for HIV and AIDS rethinkers. A product of the US medical establishment he pursued the theory that one of the two major AIDS indicator disease known as Kaposi’s Sarcoma [KS] (the other was Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia, or PCP) was caused by the practice of many gay men to inhale amyl nitrite ‘Poppers’. Yet, even so, Haverkos always gave allegiance to the infectious HIV=AIDS=Death dogma. His new book, “On the Front Lines of the AIDS Pandemic” describes just how deeply he was embedded within the AIDS establishment even before the AIDS era officially began, in the years 1980 to 1984, while at the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control).

Dr. Peter Duesberg science Talks HIV and AIDS hypothesis

Dr. Peter Duesberg talks about real science being democratic versus our current system where a non-working "hiv/aids" hypothesis rules and commands all research monies. Clip from Dr. Duesberg's appearance on ABC TV pilot series, "lateshift", produced by Rob Drescher, broadcast on WTNH, New Haven ABC affiliate station on September 3, 1992.

Ralph Bard MD, lawsuit against the Semmelweis Society Dismissed. “Clean Hands” awards to Celia Farber and Peter Duesberg a little less tarnished.

Defending Duesberg, Farber & Semmelweis

semmelweis.org:

13 Jul (COFFEE COUNTY, TENN) – Three years after attorney Ralph Bard MD filed a lawsuit against the Semmelweis Society International (SSI) Board of Directors, Coffee County Circuit Court Judge Vanessa Jackson has dismissed the complaint.  Bard filed the lawsuit in 2008 against SSI Board Members found Bard and his associates guilty of misconduct and revoked his membership, along with those of Lokesh Vuyyuru MD, Henry Butler MD, Blake Moore MD and George Holmes PhD.

Their lawsuit was destined to fail from the beginning.

Having been fined for filing frivolous lawsuits in the past, doctors Vuyyuruand James Murtagh MD aided the plaintiffs by taking on supporting roles: While Vuyyuru posted a series of fake SSI websites and documents, Murtagh used his experience as a perjurer to file additional worthless documents. 

For his part, Bard filed his own “document dump” on December 1^st, 2008 and waited until December 3^rd to mail it, ensuring its late arrival onDecember 6^th.  Although the SSI Board had until January 5^th (30 days) to respond, Bard falsely claimed that he filed his complaint on November 28and that the Board failed to respond in a timely manner.  He then used his false claim to ask for a judgment against the Board – the first of many motions the court denied.

Bard’s meritless lawsuit is the preferred method used by corrupt organizations to retaliate against honest individuals.  The book Crime & Corruption in Organizations (Burke, 2011) describes how drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) retaliated after the Canadian Coordinating Office for Healthcare Technology Assessment (CCOHTA) reported that all statins were the same.  BMS sued to prevent the release of the report and eventually lost; but the lawsuit kept the report from consumers for more than a year and eventually cost CCOHTA 13 percent of its annual budget.  For CCOHTA and the SSI Board, it would have been less expensive to acquiesce to the corruption.

Surprisingly for the Plaintiffs, SSI’s Board didn’t surrender.

Silenced Voices on AIDS

BY JANINE ROBERTS

The following is a list of just a few of the senior scientists who have long maintained that AIDS cannot be caused by HIV, or by HIV alone. or who believe that suppression of this debate about the cause of AIDS is wrong.  Many hold that AIDS is caused by long-term exposure to certain toxins as well as by malnutrition or other non-viral factors.

If you have not heard of their work, this is not a surprise. Ten years ago I had not heard of them either - yet I then regarded myself as a well-informed journalist.  It seems their work has mostly been ignored, or presumed to be that of cranks. For example, you will find nothing indicating the depth of this scientific dissent on the BBC webpages on AIDS. Do these scientists deserve this? Look at what they have written, the positions they hold, and judge. Many of their papers are freely available on websites. This list is in no particular order.

"I Won't Go Quietly", a new film about Five women and one diagnose. HIV positive and totally healthy.

Five women and one diagnose. HIV positive and totally healthy.

What exactly is AIDS? What exactly is HIV?

Why are so many predictions of a massive epidemic ignored in western countries?

Why does Africa seem to be the most hardest hit continent with this epidemic ?

How can it be that a sexual transmitted disease affects 90% of the gay population and is seldom discussed in heterosexual circles?

How is it possible that someone with HIV remains totally healthy, even after decades of being diagnosed?

This film is dedicated to the continuing dilemma of HIV. It exemplifies the lives of five very different but special women, who have each in her own way overcame the struggle of being HIV positive.

Do we have to accept death, just because a doctor tells us we are going to die?

                                                     Trailer for I Won't Go Quietly

HIV Antibody Test Certificate of Accuracy

The following document may help you exercise your right to informed choice with regard to HIV testing.

By asking physicians to stand behind their recommendations for HIV testing, the certificate reveals their confidence in

these procedures as well as their knowledge of the serious potential consequences of administering non-specific HIV

tests. They also alert doctors to your understanding of the faults and risks of HIV tests and AIDS treatment drugs.

If your doctor is certain that HIV tests are accurate, reliable, and able to diagnose actual infection with HIV, s/he

should agree to sign the certificates without hesitation and thereby give their professional endorsement of these

procedures. *Also read:   Return Your HIV Diagnosis Now 

WHAT HIV DRUGS DO

by Henry Bauer

The previous post (OFFICIAL GUIDELINES FOR HIV TREATMENT, 14 December 2007) offered some extracts from the text of the official Guidelines for treating “HIV-1 infected” people, even when they don’t feel ill and are not visibly ill. The Guidelines also have detailed Tables listing the frequent and serious “side” effects of antiretroviral drugs.

The scare quotes are around “side” to emphasize how evasive a euphemism this is. Molecules, chemicals, drugs can’t choose to do only what we want them to do. Any foreign substance disturbs our physiology, which is an intricate system of balances and feedbacks where any one change is likely to induce others as well. The more powerful a molecule, the more likely it is to disrupt our metabolism in multiple ways. Antiretroviral drugs are extremely powerful molecules that can kill cells and block receptors and incapacitate enzymes. As in cancer chemotherapy, antiretroviral treatment kills or disables innocent as well as guilty cells.

All examples in the following are taken from the 1 December 2007 version of the Treatment Guidelines.

Kaiser is offering free online viewing of XIX International AIDS Conference

The Kaiser Family Foundation has released an updated reporting manual (http://www.kff.org/globalhealth/7124.cfm) on HIV/AIDS ahead of the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) taking place in Washington, D.C. this summer. This reporting guide is designed for journalists who are covering the global epidemic for the first time and for those who have covered it previously. The material in this special AIDS 2012 edition covers a broad range of subjects including the unique challenges of reporting on HIV/AIDS, treatment and prevention strategies and global efforts to finance the campaign against HIV/AIDS. It also includes an introduction by Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman, as well as a bonus section designed to acquaint journalists attending the conference with the epidemic in America and Washington, D.C. and the history of the AIDS Conference in the U.S.

Kaiser's Global Health Video Library (http://globalhealth.kff.org/Video-Library.aspx) is a free, online service that provides journalists around the world who report on public health issues with right-free cover footage related to HIV/AIDS.

Kaiser is also the official webcaster for AIDS 2012 and has partnered with the International AIDS Society to offer free online coverage (http://globalhealth.kff.org/aids2012/) of the conference including webcasts, podcasts and daily news recaps.

HIV IS NOT A CRIME, 2011 Film by Sean Strub

Scientists see AIDS vaccine within reach after decades

MORE FALSE HOPE?

CHICAGO (Reuters *don't post a comment that Reuter's doesn't like, you will be banned) - At an ill-fated press conference in 1984, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler boldly predicted an effective AIDS vaccine would be available within just two years.

But a string of failed attempts - punctuated by a 2007 trial in which a Merck vaccine appeared to make people more vulnerable to infection, not less - cast a shadow over AIDS vaccine research that has taken years to dispel.

HIV Tests on Trial: Fort Bragg Acquittal

Tim Cavanaugh - reason.com/blog

Reason contributor Terry Michael investigates a military trial in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina that ended with the acquittal of an Army sergeant of charges that he didn't inform sexual partners of his positive HIV status. 

Expert witnesses raised doubts about the general validity of HIV tests during the May aggravated assault trial of the NCO referred to by supporters (Michael provides his full name) discreetly as "Sgt. TD." It also seems the prosecution either didn't mount or wasn't allowed to mount a strong attack: 

An 8-year Army veteran, Dixon spent 247 days in pre-trial custody after charges brought in 2011, when he was arrested after a former girlfriend accused him of assault and battery, for throwing a plastic bottle at her during an argument. Judge Batdorf found Dixon guilty of that physical assault charge, unrelated to HIV status disclosure, and sentenced him to 120 days (waived for time he had already served.). The arrest resulted in Dixon’s “status” later being revealed, to other women identified as former sexual partners. There was no testimony in the trial from any of the women disputing Dixon’s claim that he used condoms.

There also was no testimony from any of the women that they had contracted HIV from Sgt. Dixon. The defense introduced into evidence a1997 scientific paper by Dr. Nancy Padian from the Univ. of California-San Francisco, who studied the potential for transmission of HIV in 176 “sero-discordant” heterosexual couples, where one partner was HIV-positive and the other HIV-negative, and not one of the subjects ever contracted HIV through sex.

Facebook group Movement Against the HIV & AIDS Theory set up in Malaysia

BY ANNA LEACH - gaystarnews.com

A dangerous theory that denies the connection between HIV and AIDS is being spread in Malaysia.

A Facebook group called Gerakan Bantah Teori HIV-AIDS Malaysia (meaning Movement Against the HIV-AIDS Theory Malaysia) was started two months ago and has 146 members.

Malaysian human rights activist Pang Khee Teik was alerted to the group when he was asked to be a member.

‘THIS DANGEROUS MOVEMENT has come to Malaysia,’ Pang said. ‘There is very shoddy science behind this movement, they use very weak populist logic to persuade people that HIV does not cause AIDS. This sometimes results in causing people not to get tested for HIV and also result in people with HIV not taking medication for HIV. This is a DANGEROUS movement.’

The Facebook group post messages such as ‘HIV testing is dangerous to your health’, ‘Life-long Anti-retroviral/cocktail therapy = Life-long profit for Pharmaceutical Industry’ and ‘HIV is NOT a Death Sentence. Take back YOUR LIFE. Start Questioning!'

As blood donations decline, U.S. ban on gay donors is examined

By Jen Christensen, CNN

The American Red Cross says power outages created by recent storms in the East and Midwest cut blood donations, which were already low this summer. In June there was a nationwide shortfall, with donations down more than 10% across the country.

"We are asking people to please call 1-800-RED-CROSS or visit us at redcrossblood.org to find a way to donate if they can," said Stephanie Millian, Red Cross director of biomedical communications. "We need people's help."

One group that would like to help, but legally can't, may be moving one step closer to eligibility. Since the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic decimated their community, gay men -- or MSMs (men who have sex with men) as they are called by federal agencies -- have not been allowed to donate blood. In June, a group of 64 U.S. legislators led by Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Illinois, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services encouraging it to move forward with a study that may lead to the end of the decades-old ban.

"We remain concerned that a blanket deferral of MSM for any length of time both perpetuates the unwarranted discrimination against the bisexual and gay community and prevents healthy men from donating blood without a definitive finding of added benefit to the safety of the blood supply," the letter said.

China lifts ban on lesbians giving blood