Happy anniversary to resistance is fruitful

photo by: "Clever Kid"

I started this blog one year ago today.

What a difference a year can make.

After several years of self-imposed isolation–mostly due to the effects caused by being over-drugged by allopathic doctors–I started re-emerging as a participant in the world around me.

Blogging was a part of that.

I started blogging mostly for myself, thinking it would be a way to journal my personal experience.  That really hasn’t happened here, or at least not the way I imagined.  My experience with blogging at Open Salon turned sour when they commercialized that site, and though my personal blog gets far fewer “hits”, it feels good to be independent.

No doubt that I am still doing this for myself.  That others have discovered my writing and found value in it is just icing on the cake.

In the past year I have gotten to know several other AIDS questioners, many of them also dealing with health issues and a so-called “poz” diagnosis.  That has helped destroy the feeling of isolation I had been under for so long.

Because of this blog I reconnected with an old friend in my own community, Kansas City, whose personal experience also defies the AIDS paradigm.

I have also met others who live farther away, but thanks to the Internet, they are as accessible as though they lived next door.

This blog will soon move to my own domain.  I had hoped to have that done for this anniversary, but it is proving more complicated than I had hoped.  Blogging here at wordpress.com has been a great experience and I recommend them to anyone wanting to blog.  Having my own site will only increase my options for the future.

Meanwhile I have been collaborating online with other dissidents on a new project based on a vision of community and collaboration that will hopefully prove to be a valuable asset to the AIDS dissident community.

Stay tuned.  The best is yet to come!

Getting half a loaf is… getting screwed!

(click to view image source)

Michael sent me to the store this morning to get some bread for breakfast.

When I got home, he noticed that I’d only gotten a half loaf. We’d paid for a loaf of bread.  He expected to receive a loaf of bread.

In response to his puzzled look, I could only shrug and say “well, half a loaf is better than none, isn’t it?”

“No,” he replied.  “Getting half a loaf when you were sold a full loaf is getting screwed!”

Anyone in the U.S. Senate listening?

Better AIDS drugs, or just fewer suicides?

(click to view image source)

I’m on a roll this month with AIDS research reports that intrigue me, particularly because so many of them raise more questions than they answer.  I’m not sure if there is a Holiday uptick in these reports, or if the cold weather just means I have more time on my hands to sit at the computer.

In any event, this study recently reported a greater than 50% decrease in suicides among “HIV-positives” in Switzerland since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), aka the AIDS drug cocktail that includes protease inhibitors.

The report tries to explain the decrease by stating:  “In the pre-HAART era, high suicide rates were driven by disease progression, which at that time could not be prevented.”

There is no reference given to support this supposition.  It is also very possible that researchers are guilty of AIDSpeak, referring to laboratory markers such as viral load and cd4 counts, rather than actual illness, which is what really matters when referring to “disease progression”.

When HAART was first proposed, it was with a great deal of hyperbole and optimism, to the extreme of coining the term “Lazurus Syndrome”.  It is not surprising that people with such an ominous diagnosis hanging over their heads would take encouragement from this psychological media blast.

So the question my mind still begs:  are reports of increased life expectancy on HAART likely biased by this previously unreported fact?

In other words, if fewer poz people on HAART are offing themselves prematurely, would that not skew the research numbers on life expectancy?

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The slippery slope of AIDS drugs

A review of this week’s list of research into current treatments for so-called HIV infection shows how patients seeking care in their doctor’s office can end up being on a long list of pharmaceutical drugs, mostly to treat the effects of ARVs (antiretroviral drugs).

There is a push to get more and more people on these drugs, regardless of whether they are actually presenting with any symptoms of illness. Some AIDS proponents even want healthy people with no positive test results to start taking the drugs, in the name of “prevention”.

The dangerous effects (there really is nothing “side” about them) of these drugs is downplayed.  We are told the new drugs are safe and effective, yet the research indicates otherwise.

One recently published study questioned which statin drug is best for treating dyslipidemia, the lipid disorder associated with disfiguring body changes known as lipodystrophy.  The answer was:  Crestor (rosuvastatin).

Fine.  Obviously AIDS drug researchers are admitting ARVs have serious unwanted effects.  Their answer to this problem?  More drugs, of course.

Unfortunately, the fix is also well known for having a long list of side effects.  Crestor is associated with so many damaging effects that I will only list the categories mentioned here:  musculoskeletal, renal, hepatic, respiratory, nervous system, psychiatric, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular,  endocrine, hematologic, dermatologic, genitourinary, hypersensitivity and “other”, which includes “flu syndrome”, infections, and a host of lab abnormalities!

Once a patient presents to his or her doctor with complaints from one of these drug-related effects, they are then prescribed additional drugs, which only adds to the momentum of ultimate drug abuse.

This is precisely how I ended up being on more than two dozen pharmaceutical drugs simultaneously, before quitting all of them in 2007.

Lipo is only one of the many complications poz people on HAART experience, and it may not be the worst one, but because its effects are so visible and disfiguring, patients will go to extremes to try to treat it.  Collagen implants for sunken cheeks and buttocks is a popular topic on the popular website aidsmeds.com, for example.

We have moved past the time when people were so ill from infections resulting from immune dysfunction that ARVs may have actually helped–the so-called “Lazurus effect”.  There may, in fact, be a role for such drastic intervention, but only in extreme cases.  To recommend lifelong chemotherapy to healthy people is beyond problematic, it is unethical.  AIDS proponents hate to hear it said, but those who benefit the most from this strategy are pharmaceutical companies and their investors.

Anyone facing the choice of taking AIDS drugs deserve access to all the information they need to make an informed choice.  No one should be pressured to do so when the evidence supporting their use is contradictory and the effects are so drastic.

More and more of us who are “poz” and have health problems are discovering we can extend our lives and improve the quality of our lives more effectively by consciously improving our health with lifestyle choices, rather than relying on drugs that ultimately create more new symptoms than they cure.

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Rabid fox no match for AIDS dissident

Keep reading to find out why I just could not resist the headline.  But first, there is a little discussion about AIDS vaccine research I need to get out of the way.

I did a double take when I saw this report promising “further progress” in the search for an AIDS vaccine.  Don’t worry, I will explain in a second what this has to do with rabid foxes.

AIDS vaccine research: FAIL

We’ve been hearing these types of “promising reports” for more than a decade now, but for some reason, an effective “AIDS vaccine” continues to elude researchers.

Their excuses for failure mutate as rapidly as the virus allegedly does.

What does rabies have to do with AIDS?

What caught my attention about this particular study report was that researchers are using the rabies virus to create their vaccine.

Why use the rabies virus?  Why use any virus other than the HI virus?  After all, we are told that HIV has been isolated, analyzed and decoded in its many various strains.  Why would AIDS be so different from other vaccine research, which uses the suspect virus in an inactivated, or weakened form, as in the rabies vaccine itself, for example?

Simple questions do not require complex answers

I am sure They have an answer.  They always do.  Sometimes They just don’t make sense. To add insult to injury, They tell us that this kind of research involves such complexity that the average person is simply incapable of understanding the “science” behind it.

Hey… I’m no rocket scientist, but I can grasp the concepts that propel a space shuttle into orbit.  I grok the physics that keep an airplane suspended. I even understand the basic concept of how electronic switches are set to “on” or “off” (represented by 0’s and 1’s), to generate this digital page you are reading.

Give us a break.  A shell game artist also relies on “complexity”, as well as quickly moving the target to confuse onlookers. It is a really lame excuse for explaining failure, if you ask me.

Time to redefine “progress”

How can AIDS vaccine researchers claim “progress” when the study authors themselves admit “the long-term benefits were minimal?”

And finally, please explain to me the significance of this finding:

“Although we can’t yet block the infection, we showed that we can protect against disease,” said Dr. Schnell. “We also saw significant antibody activity against the virus, which is promising. In addition, this is a very simple approach that only took two immunizations.”

I thought antibodies to HIV indicated infection, which this vaccine cannot block.  Yet these researchers note “significant antibody activity against the virus”.  Say what?  Either antibodies are effective or they are not.  You can’t have it both ways, fellas.

Studies like this one only cast even more doubt on the very existence of the so-called HI virus, or the value of continuing to follow inane theories that are based on a crumbling foundation of flawed and fraudulent findings.  It is long past time to spend some of those big bucks on re-evaluating the very foundation of AIDS “science”.

If the HI virus does not even exist–and I grow increasingly skeptical that it does with every study like this I read–why is it so difficult to imagine that the human body is quite often capable of mounting an adequate response to the other probable cause(s) of immune dysfunction, provided measures are taken to restore overall health?

You promised a story about rabid foxes!

Yes, I digressed.  The other reason this report caught my attention is because I am one of those rare people to have actually been exposed to that other  “fatal disease”: rabies.

That’s right.  I had a personal encounter with rabies in upstate New York in 1990, when I was bit by a rabid red fox while building a deck for some friends.  I’ve recently scanned copies of the newspaper reports of that event and have been waiting for just the right opportunity to share this little tale from my past.

Now, thanks to AIDS vaccine research, I have the perfect opportunity.

Read here:

Rabies Suspected:  Red Fox Terrorizes Hankins Residents
(Sullivan County Democrat, August 31, 1990)

Or read the more humorous version from the Kansas City Star:

A furry ball of fury turns man’s getaway into battle for survival
(Kansas City Star, September 3, 1990)

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