reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux
On p.4 you say that it's propaganda that 'AIDS denialists" are not called "HIV doesn't lead to AIDS denialists", although your own quote from
AIDSTruth spells that definition out clearly in the first line (your 2nd quote). Then you mention rare cases of immune-deficiency that are none
HIV-specific, which is scientifically admitted and known by your own links. Some suspect there may be another virus at play, but this is as yet
uncertain, while more usually it is due to cancer or autoimmune treatments. Unlike AIDS as the final stage of HIV infection, this usually clears up on
its own, and progresses differently, as your Wikipedia link clearly says. I don't think it's because such patients are not given ARVs, and there is no
evidence to prove this. They certainly don't get it from ARVs. What is proven to myself is that people with HIV who progress to AIDS and a CD4 count
of 250 and below will die from secondary infections and cancers if they do not get ARVs.
Then I'm accused of being "sly" for saying that early doses of AZT had toxic side-effects in many people!
Wow!
That's not sly, what's sly would be using this to say ARVs cause AIDS, and that the same doses are still given today, or that only people who got AZT
died of AIDS.
I also see nothing sly in the fact that early treatments with AZT were toxic in many patients.
This is well discussed in many narratives and films on the early years of HIV/AIDS in the US.
Many people who were sick demanded the medication, and even exchanged it illegally.
Risks of toxicity were known, but dying people with bleak outlooks were willing to take the risk.
Nobody was forced to take AZT, and many also chose not to take it, or to stop the treatment when they developed side-effects, with the view that a
quality of a short life without the side-effects of AZT was superior to the quantity of a slightly longer life with it.
At that stage it only worked for a brief period, since the virus becomes resistant to a single treatment of ARVs.
This is also well known and hardly a conspiracy or propaganda.
Nevertheless, AZT was the first thing that actually worked, even if only temporarily.
AIDS treatments didn't just fall out of the sky, and like many medications they needed dosage adjustments and research.
Like many medicines, herbs and even vitamins they can be beneficial in certain doses and toxic in others.
There's been a lot of progress since HAART in 1996, although some people still get treatment resistance and adverse reactions, even death from ARVs.
However the numbers are low and the cocktails are improving continually.
Once again, I see no conspiracy or propaganda, or anything unique.
The controversy for me was that a President of our country adopted the denialist theories and decided what was good for the people by stone-walling
the distribution of ARVs, and that we had a minister of health who pushed discredited dietary "solutions".
Otherwise people can do as they please and debate whatever they like.
They can buy all kinds of over-priced and unproven herbal solutions, or get some pastor to pray it away.
Nobody can force them to take ARVs, and still today there are many people who choose "alternative cures" in Africa, and ARVs still don't reach
everyone.
But also nobody in state authority should push denialism over established science, and people should be given a choice and a right to information and
treatment.
There may be many websites on HIV/AIDS, but there is little to actively engage and counter AIDS denialism.
In SA now there's an increasing number of books on the period of denialism.
The only other recent source of debate was the "House of Numbers" documentary, and its counter-website.
Some have links to overall conclusions, but little on denialism itself.
So I agree that the scientific response could be better.
I said quite clearly that I'd hope the denialist scientists continue their research, although they might benefit in future from avoiding dodgy people
on the ground who push unproven and misleading "cures".
I actually starred your thread and post, so I'm sad to see that I'm now accused of being "sly" for mentioning an obvious and well explained fact on
AZT.
Despite the overwhelming success of HAART since 1996 I'd like to see more research, and more of the statistically tiny anomalies surrounding AIDS,
like slow-progressions, non-progressions, immunity and non-HIV specific immune deficiency. They may hold a very important key in the future. I'd also
like to see continuing research into herbs and safe dosages and forms that could work with ARVs, or even to help shield the body from side-effects.
I didn't come here for a "pissing contest", simply to represent my view, and I don't think we know everything on AIDS, but ARVs work and people have
made remarkable and continual recoveries on them, and such benefits are clearly greater than the risks or dying of AIDS.
edit on 23-5-2012 by halfoldman because: (no reason given)