I finished the Hogan article referred to in previous posts, and conceded that some points were made, but the hype flavoring of the language biases me tremendously, as does my own fear of AIDS.

Serendipitously, the following article was submitted to the alt.polyamory newsgroup today. I can't tell whether it was reprinted with permission or not. I looked around Google a bit for a possible official web published copy I could just link to, but indeed I found a great deal of mention of the author's controversial stance as an "AIDS Dissident."

I'm going to post this anyway, in its entirety and with proper attribution, and if I cause offense or harm, I hope to work it out with parties involved.

(There is more stuff at the bottom, in case you don't finish the article.)

If It's Not HIV, What Can Cause AIDS?

by Christine Maggiore

Contrary to popular belief, HIV is not necessary to explain acquired immune deficiency and the illnesses associated with AIDS. To understand why this is so, it is first necessary to understand what AIDS is. AIDS is not a new disease or illness; it is a new name or designation for 29 previously known diseases and conditions. As the NIH states in its comprehensive report on AIDS, "the designation 'AIDS' is a surveillance tool."191 Since 1981, the surveillance tool AIDS has been used to track and record familiar diseases when they appear in people who have tested positive for antibodies associated with HIV.

The AIDS virus hypothesis supposes that the health problems renamed AIDS develop as a result of infection with HIV; that the virus somehow disables the body's defense system that protects against opportunistic illness, allowing the development of one or more of 29 diseases-such as yeast infection, certain cancers, pneumonia, salmonella, diarrhea, or tuberculosis-which are then diagnosed as AIDS. However, every AIDS indicator disease occurs among people who test HIV negative-none are exclusive to those who test positive- and all AIDS diseases existed before the adoption of the name "AIDS."

Prior to the designation AIDS, these 29 diseases were not thought to have a single, common cause. In fact, all have recognized causes and treatments that are unrelated to HIV. For example, yeast infection is a widespread problem due to an imbalance of natural bacteria. The yeast infections that occur in people who test HIV positive and in people who test HIV negative are caused by the same imbalance of natural bacteria. All the opportunistic illnesses called AIDS have various, medically proven causes that do not involve HIV.

Immune deficiency can be acquired by several risk factors that are not infectious or transmitted through blood or blood products. The following factors are widely recognized causes of immune suppression, compromised health, and opportunistic infections, as documented in the medical literature for more than 70 years. Chronic, habitual and multiple exposures to these risks can cause the group of symptoms called AIDS.192 In fact, there is no case of AIDS described in the medical literature without one or more of these health risk factors.193

Physical Risk Factors

These risks include malnutrition and chronic lack of sleep. In 1985, orthodox AIDS researcher and director of NIAID, Dr. Anthony Fauci declared that malnutrition was the most prevalent cause of immune deficiency diseases throughout the world, particularly in developing regions such as Africa where common illnesses like measles run rampant and take millions of lives.194

The medical literature notes that malnutrition and infection are invariably linked, as one condition aggravates the other. Hunger and endemic disease are familiar problems in those countries around the globe thought to be under siege from AIDS. Intrauterine malnutrition occurs when expectant mothers are improperly nourished, and can result in prolonged, sometimes lifelong, immune suppression.195

Poverty, crowded living conditions and unclean water promote endemic disease and compromised health. The populations in many developing regions of the world are devastated by rampant infections with common microbes that pose little or no health threat to people in industrialized nations.

Infections due to malnutrition immunodeficiency are the world's leading causes of infant and child death.195 Among citizens of industrialized nations, subclinical malnutrition, rather than starvation leads to compromised immune function, especially when combined with chronic lack of sleep.196 People who make habitual and prolonged use of certain drugs like methamphetamines, heroin and crack cocaine often suffer from malnutrition and chronic lack of sleep.

Chemical Risk Factors

Immune-compromising chemicals include pharmaceutical drugs such as AZT and other cancer chemotherapy compounds, protease inhibitors, antibiotics and steroids, and recreational drugs such as cocaine, crack, heroin, nitrites (poppers), and methamphetamines (crystal, speed).

Chemotherapy targets and destroys the bone marrow cells from which all immune cells derive. They also kill fully formed immune cells in addition to killing B cells and red blood cells.196,197 Chemotherapy destroys the digestive system by killing the cells that compose the inner lining of the digestive tract which interferes with the body's ability to absorb and digest nutrients, causing malnutrition. Even when used very briefly, chemotherapy suppresses normal immune function, increases susceptibility to a variety of opportunistic infections, and can cause life-threatening anemia and diarrhea. AZT, ddI, ddC, D4T and 3TC are all chemotherapy compounds used as antiviral AIDS treatments.

There are many pharmaceutical drugs known to suppress the immune system, particularly when used for prolonged periods of time. Protease inhibitors cause impaired liver function and liver failure (the liver removes disease-causing toxins from the body) in addition to kidney failure, dangerously high cholesterol levels, diarrhea and other health-compromising effects. Steroids are a known cause of immune deficiency often prescribed to AIDS patients to counteract the muscle wasting caused by AZT.198 Antibiotics, especially when used habitually, can cause yeast infection and diarrhea, two conditions that can lead to malnutrition.199 Septra and Bactrim are sulfonamide antibiotics commonly prescribed for continuous, prophylactic or preventative use by HIV positives. These drugs are leftover from the days before penicillin; they do not target invading microbes as narrowly as modern antibiotics and are notorious for their side effects.200 Both cause nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, anorexia, bone marrow destruction, rashes, fever, hepatitis, and anemia by interfering with the production of red blood cells.201

The immunosuppressive effects of recreational drug abuse are well-documented in medical literature dating back to the turn of the century. They include pneumonias, mouth sores, fevers, endocarditis, bacterial infections and night sweats-all conditions now associated with AIDS.202 Amphetamine drugs suppress the appetite, causing chronic users to suffer from malnutrition. Many habitual users of heroin and crack do not provide themselves with adequate food, sleep, shelter and healthcare.

Prolonged exposure to common chemical toxins such as insecticides and herbicides can also impair immune function.203

Biological Risk Factors

These risks include multiple exposures to and/or chronic infections with syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and other venereal diseases, hepatitis, tuberculosis, malaria, fungal diseases, amoebas and parasites such as giardia, bacterial infections such as staph and E coli, chronic bowel infections, blood transfusions, and the use of blood products. In addition to the damaging effects of recurrent infections, many of the pharmaceuticals used as treatment have adverse effects on immune function.

Factor VIII (the blood clotting agent used by hemophiliacs) and blood transfusions are immune suppressive and leave patients vulnerable to infection.204 Due to the serious conditions for which transfusions are necessary and the deleterious effects they have on the immune system, half of all HIV negative transfusion recipients die within a year of receiving a transfusion.204

Psychological Risk Factors

Chronic anxiety, panic, stress and depression have been shown to compromise health, damage immune function, and result in symptoms identical to AIDS.205 Mental stress provokes production of the hormone cortisol; excessive cortisol causes rapid and dramatic reductions in T cells, a condition known as lymphocytopenia. Within minutes, stress induces cortisol levels to increase as much as 20-fold. High levels of cortisol can eventually cause what medical texts describe as "significant atrophy of all the lymphoid tissue throughout the body" which may lead to "fulminating infection and death from diseases that would otherwise not be lethal."206

A profound fear of AIDS is enough to cause even people who repeatedly test HIV negative to develop physical symptoms of AIDS.207 Termed "AIDS-phobia," this condition is characterized by weight loss, wasting, reduced T cell counts and other signs considered indicative of AIDS, and typically follows intimate contact with people who sufferers believe may be HIV positive.

Beliefs and expectations are well-known to manifest in the physical body. The life-altering influence of beliefs was detailed dramatically in 1942 by Dr. Walter B. Cannon in his accounts of a phenomenon he called "voodoo death," a form of capital punishment practiced among certain Aboriginal tribes. Cannon reported that shaman, tribal medical authorities thought to possess special powers, were able to kill errant tribe members by simply pointing at them with a bone. Convinced of the shaman's ability to invoke a lethal curse, the people pointed at died within a matter of hours or days.208

In modern medicine, the power of expectation is a commonly accepted fact known as the "placebo effect." Placebos are inert chemical substances disguised as active preparations and given to patients in place of drugs. The health benefits gained from a placebo occur because the person taking it expects a positive effect. Since the benefits of any drug may be due in part to this placebo effect, most new drugs are tested against a placebo preparation.209

A recent study conducted at the University of Toronto demonstrated the profound physiological effects of expectation with regard to placebos. Researchers found that cardiac patients who strictly adhered to a placebo treatment regimen lived longer than patients who did not take their placebo regularly. In summarizing the study, lead researcher Dr. Paul Dorian noted, "What you believe has an important influence on your outcome."210

How These Risk Factors Apply to All AIDS Groups

There is not one case of AIDS described in the medical literature that does not include one or more immune-destroying health risk factors. There is no case of AIDS documented in a person whose sole risk is exposure to HIV. Every case of AIDS involves factors known to damage the immune system and leave a person vulnerable to debilitating infection and deadly illness.211

Men Who Have Sex With Men

Well-documented causes of immune dysfunction can explain AIDS illnesses among men who have sex with men although none of these causes are unique to this risk group or can be generalized to include all gay men. In fact, focusing attention on certain sexual practices rather than recognized health risks obscures our understanding of immune suppression and limits approaches to preventing and resolving AIDS.

Nitrites, more commonly known as poppers, are immune-suppressive, carcinogenic drugs chronically used by some gay men. At one time, 95% of gay men in major urban areas like Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco reported using poppers.212 Nitrite use correlates with Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, two AIDS-defining cancers found almost exclusively in this risk group.213 There are several studies that further strengthen the correlation between poppers and KS by documenting KS in HIV negative gay men who use poppers.213 KS is hardly ever found among members of any other CDC risk group or among women with AIDS, and is never diagnosed in children or infants with AIDS.213 In 1981 when AIDS was first identified, half of all AIDS diagnoses were for KS. As popper use has diminished, so has KS which since 1993 has accounted for less than 5% of all new AIDS cases.214

In the only studies that asked gay men with AIDS about recreational drugs, 93% to 100% of participants acknowledged using cocaine, crack cocaine, poppers, heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamines like speed and crystal, and/or Special K (an animal tranquilizer).215

Combinations of parasitic infections that include amebiasis and giardiasis along with rectal infections, syphilis, and gonorrhea can result in acute diarrhea which in turn causes malabsorption and malnutrition, or wasting.216 This collection of infections and resultant problems was commonly known as Gay Bowel Syndrome in the years before AIDS.216 The CDC reports that 20% to 50% of all gay men in major US cities have been treated, often repeatedly, for intestinal parasites using immune suppressive pharmaceutical drugs.217 Antibiotic treatments for recurrent venereal infections are immune suppressive, as is the practice of using these antibiotics on a regular basis as a prevention. Steroids are another immune damaging drug frequently prescribed to offset the wasting caused by diarrhea and malabsorption.217

Campaigns that encourage HIV testing, the consuming of toxic AIDS drugs, and living in fear of AIDS are primarily directed at the gay community. Many gay magazines may have up to half of their commercial advertising devoted to AIDS-related promotions.218 Such constant emphasis on AIDS gives rise to the notion of the inevitability of AIDS, a belief which can evoke chronic terror, despair and hopelessness-psychological risk factors known to impair immunity and compromise health.

The chance of registering false positive on an HIV test is greater for people with high levels of non-HIV antibodies and microbes in their blood. Antibodies produced in response to the particular microbial and viral infections frequently found in some gay men are documented causes of false positive HIV test results.218

For people who test HIV positive, the drugs prescribed as preventative treatments for opportunistic AIDS-defining infections become harmful and even deadly when used on a daily, continuous basis. Bactrim and Septra, for example, are powerful sulfonamide antibiotics that kill digestive flora and cause anemia and bone marrow destruction. The anti-HIV drugs AZT, ddI, D4T, ddC and 3TC are all highly toxic chemotherapies that destroy the immune and digestive systems, in addition to causing five of the 29 official AIDS-defining illnesses.2199 Two 1993 studies conducted in the US and Canada found that every one of several hundred gay men with AIDS had a history of significant recreational drug and/or AIDS drug use.220

Identifying this risk group as people who engage in habitual, prolonged use of recreational and/or pharmaceutical drugs, have chronic exposure to a multitude of infectious microbes, who suffer from chronic malnourishment and/or chronic fear of HIV and AIDS provides a more appropriate and comprehensive explanation of immune suppression that invites many possibilities for prevention and resolution.

Injection Drug Users

Members of this risk group account for 35% of all diagnosed AIDS cases, while another 4% of people diagnosed with AIDS cite heterosexual contact with injection drug users as their sole risk. However, the majority of people who initially claim intimate contact with IV drug users as their only risk later acknowledge taking drugs themselves.221

Considering only injection drug use as a high risk activity for AIDS disregards the immune suppressive effects brought about by habitual use of non-injected street drugs as well as the many health-compromising factors that can accompany the regular, long-term use of illicit chemicals. The emphasis on sharing needles over the damaging effects of the narcotics injected with the needles distorts our view of immune dysfunction and prevents application of practical solutions to the health problems common to this risk group.

Prolonged, habitual consumption of drugs such as heroin, crack, speed, and cocaine, whether taken by injection or other means, is well-known to disable immune function. Chronic use of these drugs is documented to bring about many conditions synonymous with AIDS including pneumonias, tuberculosis, mouth sores, fevers, night sweats, bacterial infections, and endocarditis. Malnutrition-the number one cause of immune deficiency diseases worldwide-and multiple infections are frequent side effects of habitual injection drug use, and are factors that suppress immunity.

Antibodies generated in response to the multiple infections and chemical toxins typical of chronic drug use can cause false positive readings on HIV tests. Positive test results most frequently lead to ongoing treatment with various immune suppressive antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs, and to a sense of hopelessness and profound despair.

A more compassionate and inclusive way to portray this diverse group is as people who engage in habitual, prolonged use of recreational drugs, have chronic exposure to a multitude of infectious microbes and toxins through septic syringes or septic living conditions; who suffer from chronic malnourishment, lack of adequate sleep, the immune suppressive effects of AIDS drugs, and/or the chronic despair that follows an HIV positive or AIDS diagnosis. The immune deficiency diseases caused by these multiple and variant factors can be resolved with treatments that do not involve toxic anti-HIV drugs and long-term use of powerful antibiotics. 222

Transfusion Recipients and Hemophiliacs

Hemophiliacs and blood transfusion recipients together make up 2% of adult AIDS cases in the US. As noted previously, Factor VIII, the blood clotting treatment used by hemophiliacs, is itself immune suppressive. Hemophilia is a life-threatening condition in people with or without an HIV positive diagnosis. Ryan White, the young HIV positive hemophiliac who became famous as an AIDS victim, actually died of common complications attributed to hemophilia (internal bleeding and liver failure), not of illnesses that define AIDS.223

Blood transfusions suppress the immune system. Medical experts note that higher amounts of blood transfusions among hospitalized patients correlate with higher death rates. The authors of one recent study on transfusions specifically mention that the immune suppressive effects of transfusions leave recipients vulnerable to deadly opportunistic infection.224

Factor VIII and blood transfusions can cause positive results on HIV antibody tests in persons never exposed to HIV by triggering the production of antibodies that react with the nonspecific proteins used in the HIV antibody test. Once a person has tested positive, they are subject to immune suppressive drug treatment regimens, and the terror of developing AIDS.

Members of these risk groups can be more accurately described as people with serious preexisting health challenges, critical or chronic exposure to immune suppressive blood products and toxic AIDS drugs, and/or who are affected by the chronic despair of a fatal diagnosis. Based on this view, immune compromising anti-HIV chemotherapy and continuous antibiotic treatments would compound preexisting health problems, rather than resolve them.

Heterosexual Contact

Six percent of Americans diagnosed with AIDS cite heterosexual contact as their sole AIDS risk. However, upon further investigation, 60% to 99% of these people are reclassified as injection drug users and/or men who have sex with men, groups with identifiable health risks documented to cause immune dysfunction.225 As previously noted, people diagnosed with AIDS voluntarily select a risk group from among six categories determined by the CDC which limits health risks to possible exposure to HIV through sex or blood.

The damage caused by AIDS chemotherapy and the acceptance of a fatal diagnosis are sufficient to bring about serious illness and even death in people with no other risk factors.

Members of this group may be better described as people with no health risk factors acknowledged by the CDC who, because of their positive HIV status, regularly consume chemotherapy and/or engage in continuous treatment with antibiotics and other immune suppressive pharmaceutical drugs, and/or suffer from the chronic panic and hopelessness of a fatal diagnosis.

Adolescents, Children and Infants

Although teenagers and children are not a specific AIDS risk group, cases of AIDS among young people, however rare, are a matter of great concern. The fact that babies are diagnosed with AIDS has been used as an argument against non-HIV explanations for AIDS illnesses. Despite widely held beliefs, the majority of AIDS cases that occur among children and adolescents can be explained by the same causes of immune suppression prevalent in adults with AIDS.

In 1998, new AIDS cases among this country's 26 million teens totaled 293; of these, 229 offered information which placed them in the two primary CDC defined AIDS risk groups for adults.226

Over 80% of the mothers of babies diagnosed with AIDS voluntarily acknowledge using injection drugs during pregnancy, a practice which almost universally results in intrauterine malnutrition. The remaining cases of AIDS in infants and children may be due to the immune suppressive medical treatments given in response to an HIV positive test result, or to the same factors that cause HIV negative babies to suffer from pneumonia, bacterial infections, and immune disorders. In 1998, new AIDS cases in children age 13 and under totaled 382.227

Residents of Developing Nations

In stark contrast to the US and Europe, AIDS cases in developing areas of the world are found almost exclusively among non-drug using heterosexuals.228 Mainstream AIDS experts offer no plausible reason why AIDS would spread primarily through drug-free heterosexual contact only outside the US and Europe.

A coherent explanation for AIDS cases in developing areas of the world is the well-known health risks shared by these countries-widespread poverty and malnutrition; lack of clean water, a regular food supply, and sanitary living conditions; limited access to medical care; endemic diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and parasitic infections that manifest in conditions identical to AIDS; and the practice of diagnosing AIDS based on a nonspecific set of clinical symptoms.

Although HIV tests are not required for an AIDS diagnosis in many parts of the world, widespread exposure to hepatitis, tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria and other conditions are more than sufficient to account for positive results on the nonspecific HIV antibody tests.229

Resolving the immune suppressive conditions caused by poverty and malnutrition provides a means to alleviate the suffering of many people in developing nations who are currently counted and treated as victims of AIDS.

When considering non-HIV explanations for AIDS, consider that:

AIDS is a collection of familiar illnesses, not a disease. Since 1993, more than half of all new AIDS diagnoses in the US are given to people who are not ill. In 1997, two-thirds of Americans diagnosed with AIDS had no symptoms or illness.* Acquired immune deficiency predates the creation of the category "AIDS" and has numerous, well-documented causes. There are no AIDS cases noted in the medical literature in which exposure to HIV has proved to be the sole health risk factor. There are well-documented causes for every AIDS disease that do not involve HIV, and all illnesses now called AIDS occur in the absence of HIV. HIV tests do not test for the actual virus, but for antiviral proteins or genetic material that are not specific to HIV. The chance of a positive reaction on a nonspecific HIV antibody test increases proportionately with the level of other antibodies and microbes found in the blood. Five of the six AIDS risk groups defined by the CDC have health risk factors that involve multiple, chronic exposure to viruses, bacteria and other antigens known to produce antibodies identical to those associated with HIV. Once a person has tested HIV antibody positive, chemotherapy and other immune suppressing chemicals are almost always prescribed for treatment or prevention of AIDS. Alternative explanations for AIDS provide opportunities for effective AIDS prevention and for using practical, nontoxic approaches to resolving AIDS.

* 1997 was the last year that the CDC provided information on how many AIDS cases were diagnosed in people who are not sick.

This is a chapter from the book
What if everything you thought about AIDS was wrong?
Christine Maggiore

Related sites:

http://www.aliveandwell.org

http://healtoronto.com

If I were a work of art, I would be Pablo Picasso's Three Musicians. I am colourful and provoking, always looking to break out of the mould and to pioneer new ways of doing things. I have a jaunty outlook and although I am a bit weird, most people have some idea what I'm about. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

 

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