Globally, UNAIDS has estimated that as many as 42 million people are infected with HIV.
10 people reportedly die from AIDS every second.
There's nothing like it.
There's no disease, no infectious disease that essentially kills everyone who gets it.
The fear factor's gone.
And yet, getting HIV infection is a problem for any individual.
The fear should still remain because it's a virus that kills people.
There is this sensitive composing see, that it's better and it isn't better
and all these people... These 40 plus million people living with the virus...
They would die of AIDS.
Over the past three decades humanity is rallied together for the AIDS cause.
People from all walks of life have united across all social and economic and boundaries
joining hand in hand for one common purpose - to end AIDS.
And I want you to say the name of the person you're walking for.
I'm walking for Robert Jonson.
I'm walking for Rod Hudson.
I'm walking for everybody that isn't here to walk for themselves.
The statistics are growing.
All except for one.
That's the amount of people cured and it's still zero.
In theory we can cure AIDS, on a piece of paper. Maybe some day it will come. I can't say when.
Despite all the major progress we have in chemotherapy of those patients
none of these patients got rid of the virus.
I don't think the pharmaceutical industry is very interested or invested in a cure.
You know. I don't mean to be too cynical but the reality, I think is that, you know
the situation they've got now which is lifetime treatment with expensive drugs,
that kind of suits them pretty well.
A cure is gonna require some very tricky and sophisticated molecular biology.
And I franklly, don't see it happening.
Never? -Ever.
House of Numbers anatomy of an epidemic
I was born in 1980. A year before AIDS exploded onto the public consciousness.
I grew up beneath that shadow, like a child raised under the threat of the mushroom clowd.
You might say I'm a member of the first HIV age generation.
I've never known a world without it.
This film is an account of my journey to the shifting sands rounding HIV/AIDS.
AIDS has been front page news for nearly thirty years.
Yet how much do any of us realy know about HIV and AIDS?
What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?
H... I don't know exactly.
HIV is... WOW.
HIV is a virus.
AIDS is the sickness.
So they are totally different.
It's the actual disease...
I don't know. I don't know the difference.
I know that HIV is less deadly.
For me there is necessarily any. It's true there is no difference between the two.
What would you say is the difference between HIV and AIDS?
There is not a big difference is it?
HIV is just the starting point.
HIV is a virus.
The actual virus is AIDS.
People around the globe are just as confused as I was.
So I sat at the world's leading HIV/AIDS authorities.
Among whom were the discoverers of HIV, the key white house adviser of AIDS issues and
the executive director of UNAIDS global response to the epidemic.
Meeting with these distinguished experts I candidly asked.
What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?
The difference between HIV and AIDS is a really critical concept and unfortunately
gets one that seams to escape a lot of people or they just don't remember it
after hearing it.
HIV is a virus. AIDS is a syndrome caused by infection with the virus.
See you don't get infected with AIDS. You get infected with HIV and that causes AIDS.
The biggest problem with the HIV theory of AIDS is HIV.
There is a group of AIDS deniers that say that HIV does not exist and it has never
been isolated.
Which is as bizarre as it gets.
We do not say that HIV doesn't exist.
What we say is that presently available data does not prove the existence of HIV.
The reality is that HIV does exist and does cause AIDS.
I mean the evidence is incontrovertible. HIV causes AIDS.
Alright that's the theory that's there. Let that theory be there.
Well let's have some other conversations, lets hove some other research
maybe something else is working here. NO.
Why nearly three decades since its discovery is there continue to be debate over HIV?
Why is there no cure insight?
To answer these questions i needed context.
The past is prologue so my journey begins with a step back in time.
The national center for disease control is reporting more cases of two rare
and deadly diseases found in homosexual men.
There is no apparent explanation for the outbreak.
Obviously this is an issue of great emotional...
How can we stay uninvolved when people are dying every day from a disease
that CDC hasn't yet named for crying out loud?
If the CDC won't name it, at least demand the press stop calling it GRID.
Well, unfortunately I have to take credit for quanting the term - GRID which stood
for Gay Related Immune Deficiency.
We were seeing a cluster of gay man
who were suddenly critically ill of Pneumocystis pneumonia which was the indicator disease
of something new and reported our findings to the CDC.
I was the chief of the STD division at the CDC at that time
when the draft report of Pneumocystis in gay men came across my desk for review.
Surely afterwords cases of a very rare cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma
were diagnosed in young gay men.
My first reaction was - this is an extraordinary important finding.
The CDC was looking for something like that when it came along.
They were looking it already. They were hopping there was gonna be a new plague
because polio was over. The CDC budged was getting decreased.
This is back in like early 80's.
There was double digit inflation.
And very high unemployment.
And a rapid military build-up.
And a threat to decrease all domestic programs and this led to reductions in force
and public health service, particularity in CDC.
The center of disease control (CDC) in Atlanta was under threat for reduction and
even theoretically for closure.
There were memos around the CDC saying "We need to find a new plague".
For them to justify their expenses and their existence and make their careers
they have to find infectious diseases.
We needed to find something that would scare the American people
so they would wan to give us more money.
Once people recognized that this was likely caused by virus the media tension went
from "no news coverage" to the most covered news story in history.
People went from neglecting it to fear and panic.
"Maybe I can get it."
Al of the sudden AIDS was very fundable project.
And I suppose the psychology they worked on was the fact that they told in congress.
Essentially this is white straight heterosexual men who are the congressmen.
And they feel they can't fuck around or being worried about AIDS and kind of let the dollars out.
And it worked.
Suddenly there was a lot of money available for anybody who wanted to study HIV.
And nobody looked back and said WHY?
Do we want to study HIV?
Bob Gallo said on television - it causes AIDS.
The evidence show that this disease is not nearly confined to the gay community.
I motion to call the disease Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome - AIDS.
In 1982 Dr. Harry Haverkos was one of the CDC's epidemiologists tasked with defining AIDS.
AIDS referees to a syndrome and its definition changes periodically.
AIDS is a chronic disease it's based on immunodeficiency.
AIDS is not a disease alright? AIDS a whole lot of different things.
Depends on what country you are in.
When your CD4 count false below a certain arbitrary level by definition you have AIDS.
You know if someone's T-count goes down and it goes back up again it's you know
politically they might still have AIDS. Medically I don't think they do.
If you develop any of a number of opportunistic infections or diseases that
puts in the category of AIDS.
We don't even know what AIDS is. AIDS is so hard to define.
Could change the definition of it every year.
The definition of AIDS has broadened over time which revised in 1985.
Then again in 1987.
The changes in the definition have been political.
Every time they change the definition the numbers go up.
The definition has changed many times. The biggest change was probably in 1993.
Which they, you know, added the CD4 count, the NHIV.
You see, you could not even be ill but if you have CD4 count contrastingly below
below 200 you have AIDS.
A closer look at the CDC's documents reveals that AIDS numbers actually declined in 1993.
But a retroactive definition change increase the estimates by more than 100%.
The more diseases they could lump into this AIDS symptom...
S stands for symptom...
The better the chances are they get patients under their umbrella.
The more patients they could catch.
As time goes along, you know, definitions get used for variety of issues and some of
those are not based sorely on scientific decisions but politics
and capitalism and reimbursement comes into play.
For example person with hepatitis C say here in San Francisco.
you got a hepatitis C and only hepatitis C, you're shit out of luck.
Having an AIDS diagnosis you know, I get a free apartment. The city of
San Diego pays for apartment.
I can have the state of California pay for many medications related to HIV.
I get social security benefits.
I can get discounts on my supplements at the local health food store.
I also get food stamps and in home supportive cleaning services.
So I was basically a healthy person walking around and yet I had all these wonderful little perks.
You get all the benefits. I mean that we fought for and got.
But the end result has been a certain imbalance.
I mean where you succeeded... I'm glad we did. But it is a little unfair.
Politics, insurance, capitalism, benefits. You can be sick or healthy.
I never would have thought that AIDS was so convoluted.
Wright. What I said. That has changed. How you define that scientifically has changed
quite often.
Which makes it difficult, you know for the people to understand.
It makes it difficult to me to interpret the numbers.
Africa is reported to have the highest incidents of AIDS cases on the planet.
So I tripped to South Africa to witness first hand the impact of AIDS on that troubled continent.
Around 10 million of South Africa's 48 million people have been reported to have AIDS.
Is only a 10 minute drive from Cape Town pristine modern airport to the squatter of neighborhood
said to ravaged by AIDS.
its world AIDS day. The functions, the gatherings, the international theme is stop AIDS,
stop HIV and AIDS.
Keep the promise.
So many years later they keep saying the same things.
HIV, HIV, HIV...
Each time I hear words like HIV and AIDS I just want to put my had out.
I'm just so fatigued about how we've packaged the messaging.
Only talk about is AIDS. Its a sex virus. You have to use condoms or you die.
So sick of this message.
People cant think outside AIDS anymore. It's just a shocking sad reality.
The first AIDS meeting on the continent of Africa was in 1985 in Bangui.
We were there with a few people had experience on AIDS in Africa.
And one of our problems was - how can you diagnose AIDS in Africa in the absence
of very sophisticated laboratory support.
Even though by 1985 there was a HIV test most of Africa didn't have access to it.
One of the thing that we did in that meeting was to sit down and hash out
the so called Bangui criteria for the diagnosis of AIDS in Africa.
The idea was - what would be a simple way for a clinician to look at a patient and
say that this patient likely has AIDS.
They see somebody who has a combination of certain signs and symptoms like
major weight loss.
And if you have a combination of that you can say that this is probably somebody with AIDS.
They wanted a clinical case definition whete they could decide that someone had AIDS
just by looking at weight loss and persistent fever and so on.
They gave something to clinicians in Africa to diagnose AIDS.
And that helped in the overall effort to count cases. Because we needed to know
what was the impact of the epidemic.
They could discover AIDS all over Africa at that point.
They could say that we are all at risk. They could say it's spreading around the world.
They could say it affects women as much as men, because almost anyone in an African hospital
could be diagnosed with AIDS.
Without having to do the HIV test at all.
Whole nations have been led to believe that in some instances they've got
large percentages of their population infected and doomed because of this
sexually transmitted virus. Its such a tragedy.
What kind of sickness do you see around here?
What is AIDS?
So you're living in a mud house and there's coming a white man with doctors who you respect
and they tell you that there is now among you an invisible disease that gets into you blood
and can stay there unseen for years. And when it manifests itself its gonna manifest itself
in forms of disease you have always known.
Maybe if you look skinny, if you lost weight maybe they will simply say HIV.
Or you are coughing a lot maybe they will say you have the disease.
This can help to create extraordinary paranoia in people's minds. They would say -
"What is going on with us?"
My neighbor next door. He's got malaria. Does that mean that he's actually got
that dreadful disease the white are talking about?
Dr. Christian Fiala argues that many doctors have misused the Bangui definition.
In the era before AIDS we had to admit we don't know the diagnosis and we could hypothesize.
But nowadays what doctors do is, well if you don't know what it is it must be AIDS.
We did have patients with the conditions we now regard as AIDS defining.
Even before the advent of of AIDS.
People could have TB and not have HIV and fulfill the Bangui criteria.
They lose weight they have TB and they could look like they have AIDS when they don't.
Is this Bangui definition still being used today?
If fairly certain that in many parts of Africa where there is still no, little on no testing
available that that definition is still in use.
And I wouldn't be surprised that its used in the poor parts of Asia.
This word AIDS. I don't know what it is anymore.
I don't know what we're talking about anymore when we talk about AIDS.
AIDS is one thing is one thing in village and a very different thing in Kampala - Uganda.
I visited the word's health organization's website searching for answers
and discovered there are currently more than twelve different definitions of AIDS worldwide.
So I turned to Dr. James Chin former head of the WHO's global HIV statistics unit
for an explanation.
Some countries they felt they are little more sophisticated than the others.
And you have, you know, along with the epidemic of HIV epidemics of HIV/AIDS experts.
And some of them are not necessarily adhere to any international definition.
They would make up their own definition.
High school biology class taught me that diseases and syndromes can not differ
from country to country like languages.
It was becoming clear that HIV and AIDS were distinct separate entities
and that AIDS was diverting my attention from the real culprit - HIV.
Where to next? The place millions have had their lives changed forever.
She says: -We have your test result you need to come in and get it.
And I was like: -Tell me now Sherill.
She was like: -Kim we really need you to come in.
And I said: -Then I know it's positive Sherill you were just telling me over the phone.
And she said: - Kim don't panic. You can still have a normal life.
I can still remember his face. I can remember his eyes.
And all he said was: - I'm so sorry.
I think you should put your affairs in order. You might have five years.
I said: - Sherill. I have to go out now. I have to go tell my dad.
He started crying. This is the way it happens in the movies.
It's 7:00 am here in Johannesburg South Africa.
And I'm a little nervous because I'm about to go in for my first HIV test.
Have you ever gone in for an HIV test?
No.
Yes I have actually. Few years ago.
Were you nervous? - I was. Very frightened.
The nearest testing center wasn't in a hospital. Or in a doctor's office
but on the main concourse of a bus and train station.
Beneath a few portable tents.
HIV testing facilities are everywhere. From a street corner kiosk to the shopping malls.
All being tested with a rapid test which looks for antibodies to HIV.
Is this you questioner?
These tests claim to be HIV tests.
When you read from a section that says "limitations of the test".
The specificity of the Reveal Rapid HIV antibody test for blood specimens in low-risk
populations has not been evaluated.
They don't know in their therms even, how well this test is gonna work in people
they don't want it to work in. Low-risk.
We don't think you are at risk.
My sex life?
In 1990 we flew to Romania to adopt a baby.
We found Lindsy and she was only 2 weeks old.
I cant still remember that feeling of holding her for the first time thinking: - My dream
is going to come true. I'll have one of those children.
Before we left Romania we had to make sure that she didn't have HIV.
We had to find a doctor and he did the test and it came back negative.
We flew home just after Christmas 1990 and...
Can I just ask you cause I'm a little nervous.
It seams like if this is positive and this is negative my life hangs in the balance on
whatever this one is.
So how do we know that this one is accurate when both of these two were inaccurate?
So this one is more accurate than these two?
So why don't we just use the more accurate one to begin with?
I don't know.
Rapid test in Germany is not allowed for standard diagnostics.
May I ask why? How come you don't use rapid tests for a standard diagnostics?
Several professional organizations who decided as expert committee on guidelines
how to do things.
None of these responsible societies recommended for scientific reasons.
How do they decide whether they are positive and negative?
It accrued to me that perhaps the HIV epidemic is reported to be so wide spread
in South Africa and other poor nations simply because they use these inaccurate tests.
It's the same as if you knew what sausages are made of most people would hesitate
sort of eat them because they wouldn't like what's in them.
And if you know how HIV/AIDS numbers are cooked or made-up you would use them
with extreme caution.
I decided to investigate HIV testing protocols used throughout the developed world.
When we're testing people for HIV the firs thing that we do is a screening test.
And it's usually a test called ELISA.
But there are also now available rapid assets to be used as screening methods.
Yes they are faster. We all know faster and cheaper is more efficient.
Each time ELISA is positive did does not mean that the patient is HIV positive. That's the problem.
If we're using antibodies as a screening test to tell who is infected or not
very occasionally you can get false positives.
So screening test by themselves should not be used as definitive measure of infection.
That's why use a screening test to pick up all the cases but we use a confirmatory test
to eliminate any false positives.
It should be emphasized that most of the developing world uses only screening test
to confirm an HIV diagnosis.
There are no confirmatory tests.
Nine days after returning home Steven Chells's pediatrician ran a battery of tests
on Lindsy including an HIV test.
Even though Lindsy had tested negative for the virus in Romania.
Dr. McCew called us and said we are running to some problems with the testing that we did
and you need to come right in and see me.
I said: - Well what is it? She said: - I'm not gonna tell you over the phone.
I said: - I need to know exactly what this is.
He said: - We have a bad news that she tests positive.
He said: - She'll have a 30% chance of living to the age 2.
I was jut at shock. After all this joy and happiness. We finally found our daughter
I'm dancing around around Romania and now we come home and it's like
somebody could just stab me.
And then I had to call my mom. And that was the worse phone call I have ever had to make
because I remember saying that: - Poor girl she's just not gonna make it.
So that we don't have to go to somebody and say: - Well you might be infected
but it might be a false positive.
We do a second test. That's a test that's usually called The Western Blot.
In 1992 when I was told by my doctor that I was HIV positive that was only a verbal admission to me.
She didn't give me the written paper that came form the lab that tested my blood.
I found out that it says: "This indicates possible infection by virus".
There can be mistakes form the antibody test and there are conditions that can cause
the test to be inaccurate.
Now that I've got the package insert for that test kit it says
"Positive results using any specimen type should be followed with additional testing"
But this is the test they use to confirm with.
This has margin of error done properly that's extremely low.
In other words it's one of medicine's better tests.
I don't think The Western Blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don't think it's worth doing.
Did they give reason? Anybody can say anything. "I think it's stupid to drive a car".
But they gotta give a reason.
Due to useful prognostic test once you know that someone is infected then you could
follow their antibody responses well with Western Blot.
It says absolutely wrong. It has a complete usefulness.
You don't need a Western Blot. And it has become a dogma in HIV research.
You need one ELISA followed by Western. You don't. You need two different kinds of ELISA's
made in two different formats.
Would you ever want to confirm somebody is positive using just ELISA's?
No. Never.
It's not against the rules. It's against recommendations.
It's turbulent see of argument about how can we use this test. When can we use this test?
Why is this test have no standard?
We have a group now of about 40 patients that have no detectable virus in their body
but the are not being treated.
So the first question is - are they realy infected?
So The Western Blot can have falls positives?
No The Western Blow was negative too.
But they were told they were positive by lab. Yes they miss red The Western Blot.
Heavy weight champion Tommy Morison tested positive in 1996.
11 years later in 2007 he tested negative multiple times allowing him to return to the ring.
There's constant discussion in the community of people who do diagnostic testing
and the blood bankers about how to read these tests.
When you look ate these Western Blots how do you determine what is a positive?
You need certain number of bands being present.
It depends a little bit on the producer of the test.
It depends on the manufacturer? -Yes.
Is there different criteria for what might be a positive? -Yes.
There are different criteria form the manufacturer and also there are guidelines
from the WHO and UNAIDS.
HIV infection is diagnosed with rather now routine laboratory tests
for which there are criteria for diagnosis established by the manufacturer...
...FDA
Claudia showed me the package insert that comes with the Western Blot.
It contains eight different sets of criteria for diagnosing HIV infection.
Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries
you can test HIV positive in one country and be given AIDS diagnosis as a result of that,
wheres in another country you wont test HIV positive and you wont be given an AIDS diagnosis.
It's ludicrous that you can be positive in one country and not positive in another.
Theoretically I could be diagnosed with AIDS in the United States
but if I take three steps to my right I wouldn't be diagnosed with AIDS.
Or I will lose my AIDS diagnosis when I cross the border.
In 1992 I was encouraged by a doctor to take what's called a HIV test
as a mater of social responsibility.
And I was shocked, and devastated, and horrified when the results came back positive.
It was one of those moments that everyone fears their whole life.
A week later I took the same test to an AIDS specialist.
He looks and says: - This isn't a positive test. I don't know what this test means.
Since a falls positive looks like a true positive, how can you ever distinguish
whether it's truly a positive or a negative?
Well that's a great question. It's gonna be very hard to determine a false positive.
So I take the test again and this time my results come marked from the lab - indeterminate.
I'm faced with the decision - you want to wait 6 weeks to test again or do it right away?
I opted for right away.
My results from that time come back positive.
Took it again. Came negative.
i took it again. Positive.
What happens if you're positive on one criteria but negative on another manufacturer's criteria?
How do you decide who's infected and who's not?
You will use the most sensitive criteria.
In late December of 2007 I red about a new legislation passed in New Jersey calling for
a mandatory testing of pregnant women or newborn infants,
should the mother's status be unknown.
HIV mandatory testing to me is a no brainier.
I'm very much opposed to the concept of mandatory testing of any population
because the tests are scientifically shown to be unreliable and inaccurate.
You have no reason to fear this bill. And my hope is eventually this would become a federal law
so that every woman in this country could be tested.
But HIV testing isn't a absolutely precise science.
When I confronted my doctor about that she said: - We're way pass Western Blot now.
We have the viral load test.
But when you get the package insert for the viral load test it says:
"If you test positive you are considered confirmed infected with HIV"
But at the bottom of the page in fine print it states a person should have additional testing.
It does not allow you to tell a single person on this planet that they are HIV positive.
And it's a scandal that these tests continue to be used.
So again I'm asking. Where is the test?
Where is the test that can confirm a diagnosis of HIV infection? And I can't find one.
I have the package insert from the manufacturer which they supply me with.
And under "Limitation of the test" it states that risk factors should be used
in conjunction with the test.
Has the person had sex? Have they used drugs or had a blood transfusion?
And then - in conjunction with the test. Not the test alone but with the test.
Then you decide whether the person is positive or negative.
Did the answers to these questions help aid in the diagnosis?
Realy?
Now if I tell you that the test you took was lousy it didn't mean a thing.
Is that make any difference for everybody to hear?
It makes a difference for me. -Yeah I know.
How can we say that HIV is the cause of AIDS when we don't know, based on current test
whether or not anybody diagnosed positive, actually has HIV?
President Thabo Mbeki will officially open the AIDS conference tonight.
Delegates here are hoping he would finally separate himself form the AIDS denials.
We remain convinced of the need for as better to understand what reconstitutes
a comprehensive response in a context such as ours which is characterized by high levels
of poverty and disease.
As I listened and held the whole story told about our own country it seamed to me that
could not blame everything on a single virus.
I thought this man must be an idiot. Everyone in Africa is dying of AIDS. I know this because
I read the New York Times. It's beyond doubt.
Rian Milan was hired by Rolling Stone to investigate and debunk
president Mbeki's misguided ideas.
Where to begin? The numbers.
My very first action. I hoped in Johannesburg's yellow pages I thought I could illustrate this.
But the scene beginning in a coffin factory in Johannesburg where workers are working
over time. Mountains of people are dying of this condition.
And I discovered that limits to void UNAIDS isn't the plague.
It is that half of the coffin factories in Johannesburg of going bankrupt.
In South Africa alone it's about a thousand people dying everyday from AIDS.
If you are advocacy agency and you perceive low numbers to be bad your buyers maybe
to accept higher numbers even if they are not scientifically sound.
I know what Jim Chin quite well and I was a chairman of the steering committee
on epidemiology of the global program on AIDS in WHO when Jim Chin was in charge
of the epidemiology estimates. And we could never get information how the WHO
estimates were made. So we were very critical in these days because we found
that it was not based on enough evidence.
It's possible that he didn't read the materials we sent him or even understand them
but we did sent information to anybody who wanted to know about the estimates.
Because they were pretty transparent.
In an attempt to get to the bottom of this statistics debate I've come to Geneva Switzerland
to look at the world health organization's official numbers.
And what we found? There are no numbers. Only assumptions and estimates.
How are the money debited out to states for AIDS prevention or AIDS treatment?
How is government money sent out to different states and communities?
The more AIDS you have, the more money you get. -Exactly
The AIDS broadness has a vast interest in maximizing and squeezing the data to get
the worst possible scenario because the worst the situation is, the more compelling
the fund raising claims are.
When UNAIDS was created about 250 million dollars were spent on AIDS in poor countries.
10 years later it's 10 billion dollars!
That's an unprecedented increase. Still not enough.
When that was created the first thing Peter Piot said...
Said it was that UNAIDS is an advocacy agency pure and simple.
And this was my first objective when I came into this job.
That was - put it on the political agenda.
He divested himself of all of the program aspects and scientific aspects of AIDS.
This is not an scientific issue. This is a matter of politics.
Except one unit he kept so that the numbers unit.
We are really doing a major disservice to say - it is not as bad as it looks like.
Because actually it is much worse.
One month after my interview Dr. Piak the Indian government slashed their estimates
by nearly 60%.
Shortly thereafter UNAIDS acknowledged they were over estimating global HIV statistics
for more than a decade.
They painted themselves into a corner and now their house of numbers is falling apart.
America is leading the fight against disease and I call on you to double our initial commitment
to fighting HIV/AIDS by approving an additional 30 billion dollars over the next five years.
Noble corruption, misuse of statistics in order to convince people that there is
on hell of a problem out there guys and we're gotta go do something bout it.
In April of 2008 congress approved a 50 billion dollar expenditure for AIDS treatment and prevention.
Vast majority of the world's population is not at any measurable risk of HIV infection.
No measurable risk?
Growing up in the age of AIDS I was taught there are three certainties in life.
Death, taxes and contracting HIV from unprotected sex.
If you don't use a condom there's a lot of chances that you can actually get
the killer disease that is AIDS.
I did a study of heterosexual transmission of HIV in California and we recruited individuals
who were infected with HIV. Then we recruited their sexual partners and we looked
at whether transmission in fact had occurred.
Padian runs a study. It's a ten years study with the world's most virulent terrifying sexually...
I mean this thing jumps... Excuse me, of a penis to in the vaginas miles away.
How many of the do you think after ten years with the world's most terrifying virulent
sexually transmuted disease came up positive?
Nobody!
Nobody who was negative came up positive.
Zero!
I think HIV is more difficult to transmit than other sexually... Then a lot, probably most
other sexually transmitted diseases.
I mean that's pretty widely known.
If I would have unprotected sex with somebody who is HIV positive
how many acts would I have to engage with him before I got the virus?
Just one.
I think one would be enough.
First act.
One is enough.
Remarkably HIV is a difficult infection to transmit.
This contradicts everything I was ever taught about the sexual transmission of HIV.
AIDS is the best example of what's really scary and alarming and dangerous about
our culture right now. Which is that it's a culture of PR.
It's a public relations phenomenon.
The truth doesn't matter. What matters is the image.
If we were talking about reality. The reality is the AIDS is over.
Somebody decided in the early 80's that there is this infection called HIV.
And upon deciding that I don't think it was debated enough.
In 1983 Dr. Luc Montagnier and his team of researchers identified what they thought
might be the cause of AIDS.
Not an actual work with rapidly reinforced additional virology studies in Bob Galo's lab
in Washington.
Galo got pushed by the Reagan's administration that wanted to do something on AIDS finally.
They would literally told us to just to close lab down.
We don't care about this bunch of gays. Who gives a shit. And that was really the whole story.
So the whole thing that they rested their political response was - well we discovered the virus.
Good afternoon ladies and gentleman.
The probable cause of AIDS has been found.
Credit must go to our eminent doctor Robert Gallo who directed the research
that produced this discovery.
What was new that day.
It's for the first time we were saying - that's cause. I'm sure.
Was a silly press conference. There was not an evidence that the HIV was the cause of AIDS
or wasn't called HIV.
There was certainly evidence that he didn't discover it. It was discovered in France.
The conference was held before any of Robert Gallo's papers were published.
Therefore before any other scientists had a chance to review them and look at the evidence
and see if got it right or wrong.
Gallo's philosophy was to have people to whom he would give the virus in his own control
so that any information that came out of that would come through him.
So that he got all the information and he would often put his name on the publication.
But should you have any broader view other his personal glory and your personal glory...
This was not a scientific pursuit in any way.
The US department of health and human services decided from now on we are only
going to fund aid research that assumes that Robert Gallo's virus is the cause.
I didn't think HIV in 1984 was the cause of AIDS.
I did the study comparing gay men with Kaposis's and gay men with Pneumocystis.
I assumed there must be something else.
If you go read my paper form 1985 that Curran and Jaffe would not sign on to.
I actually laid out the co-factor hypothesis in that paper.
Well co-factors just says that the cause of the disease is by more than one factor.
Just simply being a picked with HIV is not gonna do it. You need certain co-factors.
Co-factors are not necessary...
Dr. Fauci would said: - HIV causes AIDS without the need of anything else.
That's kind of ridiculous.
The data that indicate that any different type of infection like Mycoplasma
or something like that is a necessary co-factor. I believe those theories have been debunked.
What does he mean that there are no co-factors?
Where is he coming from? There's co-factors for everything.
Co-factor plays something specific. And it really gets us of into tracks.
Gallo isn't gonna change his mind. He's probably 70 years plus now.
He's gonna remember things... Well we all remember things that are good for us.
And we forget the bad things.
The co-factors are important to really understand how people get ill.
Why they get ill?
What is asked of an AIDS journalist is to deny an existing reality which is
a strong growing body of descent on a scientific question.
In August of '92 my daddy has just red his latest national review and there was an article there
about Peter Duesberg a cell biologist.
He said he didn't think HIV caused AIDS.
To deny this well identified, well characterized virus is linked with AIDS is
to my mind just potty.
He said: -We can't replicate this in my office. I can't get this virus to do anything.
We thought. Oh my gosh my dad is really daydreaming.
He's trying to wish this all away, because he knows how upset we are.
Just wish it all away and everybody will be gone happy.
If Fauci would say there's a billion dollars for alternative theories of AIDS
you wouldn't believe what's gonna happen.
A lot of HIV researches over night would start co-factors.
The first year they would call them co-factors of HIV.
And the next year the co- would be topped and HIV would be topped an year later.
Peter's highly intelligent he did excellent work. I mean no wonder he got full professorship in Berkley
and was nominated for the American academy of sciences but I told you quite frankly
that he's killing people with his theories and I still stick to that.
The attack him. They attack his ideas and they present some bogus way
of refuting what his science has said which is not a really refutable.
Peter Duesberg?
They are all prostitutes. Most of them. My colleagues.
To some degree myself. You have to be a prostitute to get money for your research.
You a trained to be a little bit of a prostitute.
But some go all the way.
In light of all that scientific uncertainty I asked Dr. Fauci for evidence linking HIV
to immunodeficiency disease.
When you put the combined findings of the initial characterization as a distinct retrovirus
isolated by Montagnier and his group together with Gallo linking the virus to being the cause
of AIDS and you put those thing together. And that's how we have confirmation
of the causative agent of AIDS in the name of HIV.
Still unclear about the evidence for HIV's existence I decided the best way to verify it would be
to actually see it.
I asked Dr. Hans Gelderblom, a world renowned electron microscopist if he thought
there was any reason to question Dr. Montagnier's published images.
I've see these publications. Stamp sized images.
It's a nuisance.
It's a nuisance. You do not really see much.
When we saw that photo we said - suggestive but not convincing.
Dr. Gallo one year later published photographs he claimed to be of HIV.
Were his any better?
There pictures were not so impressive. They were not much better than Montagnier's images.
it's one thing to look like and another thing is to be a virus.
In 2002 I stumbled across an article by Valendar Turner
and Andrew McIntyre of the Perth group in Australia and he questioned whether
there has even been found a virus.
I became consumed with researching this. I could read from morning till night.
Every day and every link to another link. And I wold email to those people and say
where is the test? I want to know. Am I dying? Am I contagious?
And they weren't even very kind. They were just like - read articles again.
How many times we have to tell you? There is no test.
It is crucial to understand that an AIDS diagnosis is for ever. It can not be reversed or alleviated.
The stigma attached to people knowing that you have it and you're living with it worse
that actually living with it.
I can't think of anybody who's ever been evicted from their apartment because
they had breast cancer or because they had cerebral palsy.
i did a campaign to address stigma. The message is that if anyone's infected
that we are all infected.
Some have it medically some have it socially, some have it culturally.
And in the end of the day if it exists anywhere it exist everywhere.
We don't all have AIDS. And when you start bullshittng it it's a problem.
You know. We don't ALL have AIDS.
We all have to be sympathetic to AIDS and yes there's all kinds of people who get HIV infection
but we don't need to make, on my view, non truths. Or just have a slogan or a symbol
"We all have AIDS". No, we don't all have AIDS.
Well my message is you do have it whether you wanna accept is or not.
Are you medically susceptible? Maybe not. But are you socially vulnerable? Yes.
In June of 2007 the BBC featured a new story which began - "HIV infection theory challenged"
Living cells are complicated. And how they work inside the body is even more complicated.
So there is still a lot of debate of how exactly HIV causes AIDS.
In March of 2008 The Washington Post went onto state that multiple surprises have reminded
researchers how much they still don't know about HIV's biology.
HIV's got to get inside the circulation of the body. And it does that in a ways that are
not completely understood.
The prime target for HIV is a T-cell population called CD4 helper T-cells.
The way that the virus gets into the target cell it fuses its membrane to the membrane of the cell.
I don't understand the fusion process. I don't think anybody completely understands it.
We have a relatively poor understanding of how viral proteins interact with the proteins in the cell.
How come our antibodies aren't able to keep HIV in check?
That's an excellent question that's one of the greatest stumbling blocks.
They can't prove that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
OK? The can not prove that HIV is the cause of the collapse of the immune system
no matter how many scientific journals say there is.
When you go to the basic research it doesn't prove it.
We are almost convinced that there is also factors that are involved in the lost of CD4 cells
and we don't know yet all the mechanisms.
How HIV depletes the T-cells so an individual advances to AIDS is probably
due to multi factoral elements.
One is it will kill the cell eventually that it infects.
HIV does not necessarily kill the cells that it infects.
Some T-cells are directly killed by HIV and other T-cells keep the virus in check .
It's a silent state within the cell. And i think in many cases these cells can return
to a normal function.
Can that cell return to a normal state? I don't think so.
When I was told I was HIV positive I accepted that on a very deep level.
But only by having a courage to open minds...
...and open hearts to answer these questions. Are we ever going to know how to help people?
How to do what we need to do to help people?
In late 2007 Science Daily reported that three prominent research teams had published
papers in the journal of immunology challenging the theory that sudden lost of T-cells
triggers disease and AIDS.
The details of HIV pathogenesis, how HIV kills people are still being worked out.
If the sudden loss of T-cells in HIV positive individuals can't explain why people get deceased
then there must be co-factors to cause people to get sick and dying.
Or factors that have absolutely nothing to do with HIV.
While researching HIV hot spots I began to realize there is a direct co-relation
in this places with another condition that leads to immunodeficiency and death.
I think it is important to keep in mind, especially for us in the west
that poverty is not a romantic issue. It is a deadly issue.
Poverty leads to diseases and premature deaths. PERIOD.
When you look at the symptoms that they talk about, you know, for people that are HIV positive
you find that some of them, they are more related to malnutrition.
People are hungry. They are undeveloped. There are no hospitals. There's no propper
medical care.
You take away poverty and you give the people the ability to fight infections.
These are toilets? -Yeah
Why have we done nothing for African people? Just like giving clean water so they don't die
in infancy of diarrhea or diseases or stuff like this?
All we care about is HIV and AIDS. Well...
Question - well there's money in it. There has to be, you know, other dynamic workings
to lead public interest to the African situation and ignore clean water.
Sanitation, malaria. I mean - thing that kill people.
This is a beginning of a war.
It is a war to reclaim our health.
In 2008 USA Today published a new story that stated "If we look at the data objectively
we are spending too much on AIDS..."
About 10 billion dollars a year are spent on AIDS when 2 billion people live with no sanitation.
1 billion lack access to clean water
and malnutrition kills someone every 10 seconds.
These factors enable diseases to thrive and severely weaken the immune system of those
living in such squatter.
If we are to take all that money and put it towards developing poor countries
God would be so proud of us indeed.
Because we would have taken away the major challenge that's facing human kind.
And that is people dying in silence. Slow painful deaths from being scared of something
that was just packaged as AIDS.
Could it be that the real epidemic is extreme poverty and not HIV?
On the other hand. HIV allegedly occurs in the United States as well.
So I looked for alternative causes of immunodeficiency in this wealthiest of nations.
There are other ways you reproduce condition that looks like AIDS but they too will be
some source that causes a severe defect in the immune response.
90 million Americans now ate taking illegit toxemina but we don't talk about this.
This is politically incorrect.
There have been a number of theories as to what the origin of HIV/AIDS is. One of them
was a theory that certainly turned out to be completely incorrect. That it's a lifestyle phenomenon.
The large epidemic of STD's in general in late 70's and particularly in gay men in San Francisco,
New York, Los Angeles were meccas of the new lifestyle which came from the liberation
in the post stone wall era.
The more partners you could have the more you were striking a blow for gay live.
I remember talking to one of the people who was in forefront of that lifestyle.
Very much felt like - if you did have another Syphilis or Gonorrhea or whatever it might be
that it was like a notch. Another victory notched up for his right to exist as a gay man.
I went on a vacation to Los Angeles.
And it wasn't that wild but in one night I went to a bath house I came home with, get this...
At the same time Syphilis, Gonorrhea and two forms of parasites.
I have no views about that you know in a judgmental kind of sense but certainly
from a public health point of view that's kind of a prescription for disaster.
Because AIDS firs occurred in these men who were not healthy. For reasons
were obvious to everyone.
You're talking thousands of partners. Sometimes hundreds, you know per month.
Lots of antibiotic use. Lots of drugs use and...
You know the result - people were getting pretty sick.
There is a drug called amyl nitrite. It was developed in 1850's-1860's
Came in ampules and it became know as poppers cause you pop them when you open
these ampules to sniff them.
The firs AIDS cases for example that Mike Godly reported were all five gay men.
They were young. They all used poppers.
Poppers. Somebody walks around hoffing all night. I mean. It says flammable,
fatal if swallowed on the side of the bottle.
They're walking around haffing it all night long. Why? Gives you a great rush.
Poppers was a sex drug. They were in every gay bath house, every bar, every porno book store
across the nation.
Poppers were visible on the dance floor at the discos.
At the end of the evening the bartender would announce last call for alcohol,
last call for poppers.
It was like a mad wonderful kind of a dance that was being done. But if you think that
can happen for ever you are wrong.
Whether or not HIV exists? Whether it's a role in a weakened immune system?
It's almost irrelevant when compare it to what was going on at that time.
The lifestyle explanation proved politically unacceptable.
But the virus explanation proved very, very acceptable to many different parties.
Pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma were the hallmark diseases for AIDS in the early years.
To go back and deconstruct and say - what exactly did caused Pneumocystis pneumonia?
I remember the first patient that I ever saw. My resident brought me to see a young gay man
with Pneumocystis pneumonia. I knew a little about the use of poppers or amyl nitrite inhalants.
And I started asking a patient if he used them and it turned out to be was
a very heavy user of amyl nitrites. And much to the surprise of my students I said:
I think that the man probably has destroyed his pulmonary immune system
by inhaling this toxin.
What exactly cause Kaposi's sarcoma? We know that now.
It was amyl nitrite.
We saw KS decline. Interesting the parallel to the decline in popper use.
We now know that Kaposi's sarcoma is caused by a second virus - Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8).
To rescue comes another virus. As always when you need... When you're in trouble
you find another virus.
If one wants to look at really what causes this we've got to look beyond just HIV
and just beyond HHV8.
Calling it a disease and you give it that name - AIDS. Everything is included under that name.
You don't have to decide. I mean you just said: - You know these people have
a lot of diseases, all kinds of diseases you wouldn't have the same impact.
It was much better to say: - There is infectious organism on the lose in America
and it could get you.
I interviewed the world's leading HIV experts and discovered that the two benchmark
diseases of AIDS have alternate explanations.
Once again I turned to Dr. Golderblom seeking proof of HIV's existence in the
most resent images available.
Here you do not see anything about the details but I would say it's probably a virus.
These are HIV here? -Yes.
Are these HIV too? -Yes, yes.
Everything? -Probably.
What can I tell you? It exists.
Gallo would say he had all that viruses and it was all a lie.
I think HIV totally has turned out not to be the cause of AIDS. HIV has turned out no to be.
Galderblom's images said to come from isolated HIV cultures provided no proof
for HIV's existence. So I asked Nobel laureate Dr. David Baltimore
and Dr. Robin Weiss how they would isolate and photograph this illusive virus.
Well Dr. Gallo do that. I mean he actually isolated it so... Why should I do all of this?
This is all textbook stuff you are asking me.
I'm not quite sure what's behind your question about isolation.
I don't want to be your textbook. You know? I got other thing to do.
They are embarrassed. The scientists are being embarrassed about this.
They know that it's flawed.
In 1987 the CDC made two mind boggling changes in the definition of AIDS which are in effect today.
You can be diagnosed with AIDS without ever having a HIV test.
In 1987 I had galleria on my arm and it was KS - Kaposi's sarcoma.
The doctor diagnosed you with AIDS without a HIV test? -Yes.
You can be diagnosed with AIDS if you have tested negative for HIV.
Albert McKeen found 16 patients with Kaposi's sarcoma among gay men
in New York city in the 80's.
They did not have a HIV infection.
Yet they had AIDS by our definition, right?
In WHO publication Dr. Chin writes - "it should be emphasized that surveillance definitions
for AIDS were not intended to be reliable indicators for HIV infection".
If you have thousands of documented cases of AIDS without HIV, haw can HIV cause AIDS?
Why do you believe that HIV does cause AIDS?
Cause that's the information I've been given.
Because we've never been told anything different.
Because that's what the scientific community has told us.
Scientists are suppose to observe, experiment and reason for what they observe.
They are not suppose to grab hold of an idea and cling to it and adjust everything else
in their perceptions to fit that idea.
I think a HIV positive test means that you life is for ever changed.
You have a whole new battery of things to consider for yourself. What does it mean to me?
It's very hard to find anyone who support you when you say
- I don't think I'm gonna die of HIV or AIDS.
There's the typical model of HIV equals AIDS equals death.
How invested am I gonna be in that model?
Everyone who's infected with HIV would like to deny it. It's a bad prognosis.
It means you've got to take drugs for the rest of your life etc.
So there's people who want to say - I'm one of the people who tested positive
but I'm not gonna get the disease.
Do I start treatment? Treatment meaning the antiviral drugs? If ever?
We started taking Lindsy to a doctor at the children's medical clinic.
She gave us a prescription for a retro-viral syrup which is AZT.
It was so important for us to get something to help our baby that we sat on the floor
at the pharmacy and gave here the first dose.
Shortly after Lindsy began AZT treatments side effects began to emerge.
Her eating habits changed quite a bit. She didn't eat well.
She was hard to handle at the table. And then the leg cramp started.
Once that's started it got progressively worse.
She was just screaming. This screaming in the middle of the night.
It was like... Must have been like sharp pain.
Makes you feel sick to your stomach.
When we switched over to the university the the dosage of AZT went up and that's
when she started flatting out.
The doctors were trying to put a positive spin on how well she was progressing.
It was mainly on the T-cells that weren't always a positive positive situation.
Yeah the T-cells count would go down and then the doctors would say - well we better
raise that AZT dosage.
Get that T-cell count back up.
We were going - I think it's kind of making her sick cause she doesn't want to eat.
She's having a leg cramps. And they\d say what is the HIV - that's what it does.
It's all a part of the package.
The treatment causes very similar conditions we would expect form an AIDS patient.
That's why nobody noticed that there was something wrong with the treatment.
I remember after 1992 after I first tested positive I became involved in an organization
called "Women at risk".
There were eleven of us at the time on the board and involved in the group.
All of us except three were on medications.
In an year and a half that I was involved with "Women at risk" every single woman
in that organization on the drugs died. Every single one. Except the three of us
who weren't taking them.
We weren't just given handful of ATZ. We demanded it.
We considered the FDA not giving us these things as being anti-gay. Instead of being responsible.
And so we went lobbying and we pushed for all these things. And we didn't think
clearly about what it was we were asking for. It's the same like - Be careful what you've
asked for it might come to pass.
That\s the very reason why everybody believes HIV is a deadly virus.
Because the HIV positive patients at that time got a deadly treatment.
Despite the billions spent on the drugs tens of thousands of people today will die.
And now a growing number of studies are questioning the drugs usefulness.
We just decided between ourselves and... In November to write to Peter Duesberg
And say - Sorry to bother you. Are you for real? And if Lindsy was your daughter
what would you do?
On November 11-th we got a big package and he said - You gotta take your daughter of AZT
immediately of she will die from it like kimberly Bergalis.
That is AIDS by prescription. You get immunodeficiency and you die from the toxin.
That is AIDS by prescription.
When AZT became widely available in 1985-1986 I cautioned my patients not to jump
on the band wagon and start being treated.
I didn't want to see my community poisoned by an infective therapy.
I think in retrospect the dose they started with AZT was a dangerous and poorly tolerated dose.
Nobody wants to realize what was the real effect of this over treatment.
That means that we killed a whole generation of AIDS patients.
In '96 David Ho announced highly active anty retro viral therapy.
Also known as the cocktail because the treatment combined a newly developed
protease inhibitors with older HIV drugs such the chemotherapy drug - AZT.
That was a revolution. What was 100% fatal illness now could be treated.
The AIDS medication today is not that toxic then it was in the early days.
And it's important drug regime that means it kills almost everything.
I play around with treatment interruption because I think the drugs are toxic.
And If I do the drugs continuously without interruption I think they'd have a cumulative damage.
In the years that we've being the cocktail we found that there are lots of side effects.
In South Africa I spoke to couple of pharmacists specialized in a HIV treatment.
How often do you see side effects in patients?
All the time? - Yes, almost all the time.
We saw the lipodystrophy, the buffalo humps at the back of the neck and the lipoatrophy
which is the loss of fat in the face and the arms giving people a very blunt look.
The risk of heart attack seams to be increased in people on these drugs.
With what we have no the side effects eventually are gonna out way the benefits.
So the patients really do better for the short therm but in the long therm they die also.
In 1994 Audrey Serrano tested HIV positive. While initially healthy she was prescribed
AIDS drugs which nearly killed her and left her scarved for life.
In December 2007 after multiple negative tests she was awarded 2.5 million dollars
in damages.
Some people are very fortunate. They don't have these side effects.
But many people do. So prolonged treatment is impossible.
I know people were like horses, have no impact with some drugs, no side effects.
And somebody else falls apart.
Has a patient ever die form side effects? -Yeah. Sometimes.
Sometimes it happens.
AIDS drugs are all classified as black box drugs.
A black box drug is the most severe waring that RFDA would put on a product.
It means you can die taking this because other people have died taking this.
My sister Joyce was my best friend. She's a great mom
and just a very lively person.
In 2003 Joyce found out she was pregnant with with her second child.
She was offered a HIV test as a standard prenatal care by her obstetrician.
She called me at work and she said - I have something to tell you.
And I said - What is it?
She said I'm HIV positive.
I took a big breath and said - Well it's not the end of the world.
And she said - I met this doctor today and he's a specialist and said that
there is some medicines I can take that will keep my baby from being HIV positive.
NEVIRAPINE.
Warning - severe life threatening skin reactions, including fatal cases...
One morning she was covered in these wilts and these rash. It was all over her face
all over her chest, all over arms and hands.
When they are talking about a rash that can kill you they are talking about a drug that targets
the actively replicating cells in your dermis in your mucous layers in your intestinal...
And stops the from working. And what happens - goodbye skin.
I would never take them. I look it. I don't have problem with other people taking them
but I as Criselda Kananda looking at the side effects that they come with, looking
at the toxins they present in my body... Not now. Not ever.
I have patients tested in 1985. They know all advises to take treatments but they declined
the treatment for different reasons.
Because they don't want to take toxic works, because they are feeling well at that time.
And how are they doing today?
They are still living. -Healthy?
Yes.
Once we came to the conclusion that it was the drug that was causing the problem
regardless of what HIV was going to do, she was gonna come off the drug no mater what.
If taking her off the drugs meant that she could sleep for the night and be happy
for 6 months that would be worth it, rather than live in agony for 2 years of 12 months.
You hear a lot of doctors, you hear a lot of educators, you hear a lot of people talk about.
It is probably the drugs that are gonna kill us before the disease does.
What are the drugs doing to the bodies they are putting the bodies into coffins.
Before my sister started taking the drugs she was healthy. After she started the drugs
she developed an allergic reaction which made her look like a patient with full blown AIDS.
She was admitted to the hospital. She continue to spiral down. And within 37 days
from her first day of taking the medicine she was gone.
When news of Joyce's death reached the NIH emails were exchanged between the director
of AIDS division and the ethics and safety officer.
Ed: there was fulminant liver failure resulting in a death on this trial last week...
Ouch! Not much we can do about dumd docs.
They are cynical enough to introduce drugs that they know will have toxic effects
and will carry certain mortality and they know that the life of the drug before this mortality becomes
too obvious to ignore in say two or three years.
And they work out what the sales are gonna be in those two or three years.
And then they know they gonna have to reduce the dose.
Joyce has two sons. Jamal would be... He's in the senior high school this year.
Sterling would be 4 years old.
If someone's gonna be giving me a diagnosis of certain death in 5 to 7 years I want scientific proof.
This isn't a religion.
My interest in questioning and breaking and exploring this "HIV cause AIDS"
is an instinct to liberate the people from a death sentence that isn't theirs to carry.
After we took Lindsy off AZT her weight did go up.
Within a couple of days the leg cramps went away.
And here physical body seamed to be doing pretty well but when she was disturbed
she was agitated very easily.
Her lifespan changed all the time. After she got to be two years old, the she'd only live
to be five.
Which got to be all in order and they said she might live to be seven
Yeah but definitely wouldn't live in double digits.
That just was our live then.
Although Lindsy was on AZT for 24 months she made a full recovery form the pretentious side effects.
Lindsy would be 19 in October of 2009.
Because it's being surrounded from day one with so much emotion, so much fear,
so much psychology, so much drama very few people are capable of looking at AIDS logically.
If you have a good immune system then your body can actually get rid of HIV?
If you take a poor African who has been infected and you build up their immune system
is it possible for them to also naturally get rid of it?
It's very easy to get people to think the right thing if you get to write it on a tablet to first time.
But once that was on the tablet and you got to erase it and put something else it's very hard
to get people thing differently.
The victims of HIV and the dedicated professionals combating it deserve our sympathy,
compassion and respect.
However at journeys I find myself perplexed bewildered times with an overall fealing
of dismay and sadness.
I found a research community in disarray over the most fundamental understanding of HIV,
although while presenting a monolithic public pasture of authority and certainty.
Bluntly stated we have tested prove nothing. Remedies that kill and statistics manipulated
to the point of absurdity.
90% of global HIV corresponds to area of great poverty and squatter.
Ironically while we may have been persuading a phantom killer, a shape shifting assassin,
perhaps the real enemy has been hiding in plain view, clear as day and it's old as time.