-
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.