With HIV individual infections at 2.4 million, America represents the third largest region with HIV infections. Initially it was among homosexual men and injecting drug users but now it is increasing among poor and less educated parts of the population. Over the last three years there has been a rise by an estimated 17% among the number of American gay and bisexual men diagnosed with HIV thus showing that fewer guys have safer sex.

In 2001 the rate of HIV diagnosis was 22.8 per 100,000 people, compared to 20.7 per 100,000 people in 2004.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the rates of HIV/AIDS stayed steady for the years 2000 to 2003, but sharp radical disparities remain, according to an analysis of data from 32 states. The rate of HIV/AIDS diagnosis among African-American women in 2003 was more than 18 times higher than among white women. Over the past four years the rate of HIV diagnoses has been dropping among blacks, it has dropped about 5 percent each year between 201 and 2004, but remains high among the whites. Among the diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the 32 states two third percent of diagnoses were among whites.

Uganda is one of the few countries where the rate of HIV infection has gone down and is taken as an example to follow. Uganda has helped in bringing down adult HIV prevalence from around 15% in the early 1990s to around 5% in 2001. According to UN AIDS 6.7% of the adults had the virus at the end of 2005. The country has been credited for the success. Although the rate of new HIV diagnoses (with or without a concurrent AIDS diagnosis) dropped about 5% between the years 2001 to 2004 yet the rate of diagnoses were 76 per 100,000 people whereas it was only 9 per 100,000 people in whites and 29.5 per 100,000 people in His panics.

According to a new data the men who have sex with men , regardless of race have a greater impact of HIV. They represented 44 percent of diagnoses during four year period. High-risk heterosexual contact accounted for 34 percent of new cases, followed by injection drug users at 17 percent.
According to a new data by UN AIDS 2006 (Reports on The Global AIDS Epidemic), the AIDS epidemic appears to be slowing down but the new infections are continuing to increase in certain countries and regions.

o According to Worldwide HIV & AIDS Statistics the people living with HIV worldwide in 2005 was approximately 38.6 million.

o Adults living with HIV/AIDS in 2005 were 36.3 million.

o Women living with HIV/AIDS in 2005 were 17.3 million.

o Children living with HIV/AIDS in 2005 were 2.3 million.

o People newly infected with HIV in 2005 were 4.1 million.

o AIDS deaths in 2005 were 2.8 million.

Also according to the above data the young people between the age group of 15 to 24 years account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide. As reported around 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.

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In the epidemic’s beginning, there was seldom an opportunity for most Americans to understand the difference between HIV and AIDS, simply because people were often in the acute stages of AIDS before they sought help. In the mid 1980s, a test was created to identify HIV, which helped the scientific world to better understand its transmission. As a result, the definition of AIDS shifted in 1993 from an official diagnosis because of specific opportunistic diseases, to also include HIV positive individuals whose CD4 T-Cell counts had fallen below 200.

New drug treatments, called highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, became available in 1996. This drastically reduced the death rate of people who carried the virus. With the availability of the new medications, the difference between HIV and AIDS became more important, because an increasing number of individuals living with HIV were no longer advancing into a diagnosis of AIDS. In some cases, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus became undetectable when treated with HAART medications.

In 2009, most Americans no longer think of AIDS as an “automatic death sentence” the way it was frequently seen before the HAART medications. Then there is a younger generation who “grew up” with an awareness of AIDS, but who were not taught about the incredible AIDS stigma that had existed previously. Recently, the Obama administration admitted in the National AIDS Strategy that most Americans no longer view HIV as an urgent health problem.

For example, a primary American financial source for HIV/AIDS related programs owes its title to Ryan White, an adolescent who was expelled from his school when he was found to have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Individuals from his community fired gunshots into the home of his family, forcing them to move away. Historians have suggested that since Ryan White did not match the stereotype of a Person with AIDS, he was later accepted in a more supportive manner than if he had been a Gay man, or an injecting drug user. Part of the AIDS stigma is related to perceiving a difference between those who are infected as a result of their own behavior, and those that were so-called “innocent victims,” who were infected as something outside of their behavior. An example would be a child infected with HIV from his pregnant mother, or someone like Ryan White, a hemophiliac infected as the result of a blood transfusion.

The AIDS stigma, however, remains part of the reality in other cultures. The United Nations recently reported: “People in China living with HIV and AIDS face widespread discrimination and stigma, with even medical workers sometimes refusing to touch them… more than 40 percent of people surveyed in a new UNAIDS report said they had been discriminated against because of their HIV status. More than one-tenth said they had been refused medical care at least once.” (Beijing-Reuters, November 27, 2009)

In July 2010, the Obama administration admitted in the National AIDS Strategy that most Americans no longer view HIV as an urgent health problem. Not being viewed as an urgent health problem is a problem in itself. HIV must to be front and center when it comes time for the appropriation of federal funds. It is a lot harder to compete with dollars that could be spent on cancer or obesity – two health problems that Americans do view as pressing. Truly this is another stigma that the AIDS community must address.

Kelly Markell is a dad that cares and the father of an HIV positive son. He is the founder of Kelly Cares LLC. The company operates http://www.MyHIVAIDSAwareness.com – a site that offers streamlined research assistance, personal interviews & videos, investigative features, and the latest news and information on HIV prevention, treatments, research and support. MyHIVAIDSAwareness.com provides direction, awareness, clarity and solutions for those living with and affected by HIV at http://www.myhivaidsawareness.com.

The human immunodeficiency virus is chiefly caused by contact with vaginal fluid, semen or blood infected by the disease. HIV is typically spread via these three causes:

- HIV may be spread to infants from their mothers during childbirth or during nursing.
- Sexual contact with someone infected with HIV.
- Contact with an infected needle or syringe (Sharing needles with someone infected with HIV).

HIV Precautionary Measures Include:

- Discuss HIV and other STDs with your sexual partner.
- Learn as much as possible about your partner’s past sexual behavior, other sexual partners, drug use and lifestyle.
- Use a condom every time you have sexual intercourse.
- Never share needles or syringes with anyone.
- Get tested for HIV and other STDs.

HIV Treatments

Although there is no known cure for HIV/AIDS, it is a manageable virus. Advances in HIV treatments since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s have helped to weaken the progression of the HIV infection to AIDS. As a result of advancements in medical research and sciences, the number of fatalities resulting from AIDS has decreased in the United States. All blood donated to blood banks and infirmaries in the United States are now tested for HIV. As a result, contracting HIV from a blood transfusion is very rare.

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, there are currently thirty-one antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of HIV and AIDS. These drugs do not cure or get rid of HIV or AIDS, but they do suppress the virus and allow the infected person to live a longer, richer, healthier life. It is important to note, that although the virus can be suppressed via use of ARVs, HIV/AIDS can still be spread by the infected individual. It is important that the infected person use all precautions to forestall the spread of the virus to others.

Treatment Complications, Risks and Possible Side Effects

Like many drug treatments, the medications used to treat HIV/AIDS can cause complications and side effects. Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) on rare occasion can cause serious medical complications including: changes in metabolism and bone loss. Patients need to be aware of possible complications when taking any medication and be alert to their body’s response to the drug. It is important to communicate any concerns regarding your HIV treatment with your physician.

Research has shown that HIV can create strains resistant to antiretroviral drugs when patients fail to take all their prescribed medications consistently. It is essential for patients to talk to their physicians regarding their concerns or hardships with their suggested drug regimens. Some patients experience disagreeable side effects and may have difficulty keeping up with the required daily medication schedule. If this is the case, it is recommended that the patient and physician find an alternative solution as quickly as possible as inconsistency with antiretroviral drugs may allow the HIV infection to become resistant to that specific treatment.

HIV Support Groups

Support groups and connections with others who are also living with HIV/AIDS may provide some benefit. Connecting with others who share your medical condition may provide emotional support, a sense of unity and may help prevent individuals from feeling isolated in their illness. The World Health Organization states that support groups can provide important psychosocial support to individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Becoming infected with HIV can affect all aspects of the infected individual’s life as well as the life of their family and caregivers. Support groups may help HIV patients better cope with their illness. Support groups should not be used to replace professional psychological services.

If you are worried about having had unsafe Sex and affected with HIV and AIDS then you can take immediate steps and get support and information about aids hiv treatment.

Contracting HIV

People can contract HIV at any age by having unprotected sex or sharing needles with someone infected. People who are typically at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS include:

Sexually active individuals who do not use latex or polyurethane condoms
People who are unaware of partner’s drug and sexual history, some people find it helpful to ask the following questions:
Have you been tested for HIV/AIDS?
Have you had multiple sexual partners?
Have you shared needles (this can include drug users as well as anyone who uses needles on a regular basis such as people with diabetes)?

People who have had a blood transfusion or operation in a developing country
People who have had a blood transfusion in the U.S. between 1978 an 1985

Symptoms

When people first become infected with HIV, they do not experience any symptoms. After a few weeks, people may exhibit flu-like symptoms. More serious symptoms may occur about a decade after contracting HIV. People who have HIV complain of headache, cough, diarrhea, loss of appetite and weight loss, fevers and sweating, repeated yeast infections, skin rashes, pelvic and abdominal cramps, sores in the mouth or on the body, and short term memory loss.

Getting Tested

When thinking about getting tested for HIV/AIDS, you should remember the following facts:

It takes 3-6 months for the virus to be detected in the blood
Your local healthcare provider or a local hospital or clinic can perform an HIV/AIDS screening
Counseling is usually provided along with HIV/AIDS screenings
Tests are usually private and can be performed without giving a name
You can test your blood at home using a test called the Home Access Express HIV-1 Test System which is available at drug stores

Treatment

While there is no cure for HIV/AIDS, there are medications that are used to treat symptoms and spread of the virus. Doctors commonly use a combination of drugs called HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), which have greatly reduced the number of deaths due to HIV/AIDS. People can prevent the likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS by:

Making sure all sexual partners have been tested and been shown free of HIV
Using condoms
Not sharing needles
Getting tested for HIV if you or your partner had a blood transfusion between 1978 and 1985 or received an operation in a developing country

Senior Citizens and HIV/AIDS

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in senior citizens is increasing. Some people speculate that there are even more senior citizens with HIV/AIDS, because seniors are not typically tested for HIV/AIDS or they may confuse symptoms with the normal effects of aging. Senior citizens seem to know less about HIV/AIDS and how it is spread than younger people. This is partially because healthcare workers and senior citizens do not usually discuss HIV/AIDS together.

Women and people of color are reported as more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than other demographics. Reports also show that most of these cases are due to sex with infected partners. Because women live longer than men, they may be seeking sexual activity at older ages with less anxiety about becoming pregnant, thus being less likely to use a condom. Less protection and more cuts and tears that can result from vaginal dryness that plagues older women; this can lead to an increased susceptibility for contracting HIV/AIDS.

The Caring Space
http://www.TheCaringSpace.com

David Crumrine at the Caring Space
We are an organization that connects caregivers and care seekers, providing an easy and affordable resource for families seeking care for friends/loved ones and caregivers seeking employment.

Most of the Indian states have a population greater than a majority of the countries in Africa. When the first case of HIV was discovered in Chennai in 1986, the Indian Government responded to the HIV epidemic immediately. Recognising the seriousness of the situation, the Government launched a National AIDS Control Programme in 1987 but a two year delay in testing blood donors is estimated to have resulted in over 350 000 HIV infections. The situation was similar to China, which also has a poorly regulated blood donor system. Because of delays in testing blood donors, in the first quarter of 2001 there was an 67% increase in new HIV infections, and the number of HIV infected individuals in China is expected to reach over 10 million in the next decade. By 1990, HIV levels were rising in India, amongst high-risk groups such as sex workers in Maharashtra and IV drug users in Manipur. In 1992, the Government established the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) to formulate policy, prevention and control programmes. In that year, the Government launched a Five -Year Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS prevention and established sentinel sites across the country, to monitor the spread of HIV amongst the general population. When surveillance systems in Tamil Nadu, (home to some 60 million people), showed that HIV infection rates among pregnant women were tripling between 1995 and 1997, the State Government acted decisively. This included hiring a leading international advertising agency to promote condom use without offending the many people who do not require them and encouraging compassion for those affected.

HIV infection in India is currently concentrated among poor, marginalized groups, including commercial sex workers, truck drivers, and migrant labourers but if effective prevention efforts are not implemented immediately, India potentially could have 37 million people infected with HIV by the year 2005. To put this another way, this figure is roughly equal to the total number of HIV infections in the world today. Unfortunately, this rising HIV rate is also likely to fuel India’s epidemic of tuberculosis as this pathology is the most common opportunistic infection in Indian patients with AIDS. Evidence from successful AIDS control projects around the world shows that targeted intervention programmes by peer educators among the groups most vulnerable to HIV are the most effective way to contain the rapid spread of HIV infection. Other interventions, such as Brazil’s AIDS treatment program with antiretroviral drugs have also been successful. In 1997, the Brazilian Government started producing generic AIDS medicines and distributing them to HIV patients, free of charge. Although controversial at the time, the decision stands as a turning point in the battle against HIV and Latin America’s most populous nation has become a showcase in the fight against the disease. Two decades ago, when the first cases of AIDS emerged in Brazil, health experts forecast that by now, the human immunodeficiency virus would afflict at least 1.2 million Brazilians. Instead, infection rates have returned to 1995 levels. Over the past five years, the number of AIDS-related deaths has plummeted in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, the regions most deeply affected. In Rio de Janeiro, deaths fell by 40 percent; in Sao Paulo, they dropped by 53.6 percent. Brazil will spend $400 million this year to distribute medicines to 81,000 AIDS patients.

There are promising signs that India, like Uganda will find the political will to control its growing HIV epidemic. The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has spoken openly about the need for HIV control, has met infected people, and has urged the corporate sector to respect the rights of infected employees. Uganda’s blunt public HIV prevention campaign, resulted in greater than a 50% reduction in HIV seroprevalence over four years. Several other developing countries are recognised for their successful public health response to HIV/AIDS. Thailand’s ministry of health established a policy that all pregnant women should be provided with voluntary counselling and testing for HIV, offered zidovudine; and infants born to HIV-infected mothers are given zidovudine. In contrast, the South African government determined until recently that antiretroviral therapy for perinatal HIV prevention was too expensive (a decision, which cost over 70 000 infant lives each year). Despite this, many people feel that the current trajectory of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India is unlikely to change short term and the nation has only a small but rapidly closing window of opportunity for stemming the epidemic. India’s socio-economic status, cultural myths on sex and sexuality and a huge population of marginalised people make it extremely vulnerable to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. If they fail, the AIDS situation in India could become like that in many of the worst affected African countries.

For India to respond effectively to infection trends and limit the costly social and economic impact of HIV and AIDS, its efforts need to be accelerated, intensified and expanded while the country remains at a low prevalence of HIV and there is still time to slow the spread of the epidemic. Around 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas, once though to be relatively immune to the epidemic, but recent studies, however, suggest that HIV has already begun to spread in several rural areas. The epidemic is now moving beyond its initial focus among sex workers and drug users and is shifting towards the general population. With HIV prevalence doubling every one to two years in certain groups, there is still only a narrow window of opportunity over the next few years in which to prevent the HIV epidemic from becoming much harder to control.

The Indian Government and individual state Governments have launched prevention programmes to reduce high-risk sex and there is evidence that in some states these programmes are resulting in safer behaviour. An intervention programme among commercial sex workers in Sonagachi, Calcutta has been able to increase condom use from 0% in 1992 to more than 70% in 1992-1994 and sustained this at over 70% until 1998. If current prevention efforts can be scaled up and sustained, India may just be able to bring down the rates of HIV infection and avert a disaster. We await the progress.

HIV/AIDS Situation in India:

FACT: The World Health Organization of the UN now estimates that India has more HIV positive individuals living within its borders than any other country in the world.

FACT: Teenagers and those in their early twenties now constitute 50% of new cases testing HIV positive according to the Chennai based DEGA institute

FACT: Since most HIV positive people belong to the age group of greatest economic development, the UN Development Program calculates that it loses India’s economy presently loses about $14 billion a year.

Dr. Patrick Treacy is Medical Director of Ailesbury Clinics Ltd and the Cosmetic Medical Group. He is also Medical Director of OnboardSpa Ltd. He is Chairman of the Irish Association of Cosmetic Doctors and is Irish Regional Representative of the British Association of Cosmetic Doctors. He is European Medical Advisor to Network Lipolysis and the UK’s largest cosmetic website Consulting Rooms. He practices cosmetic medicine in his clinics in Dublin, Cork, London and the Middle East.

He was amongst the first doctors worldwide to use the permanent facial endoprosthesis BioAlcamid for HIV Lipodystrophy patients. He was also the first person to introduce many techniques such as Radiofrequency assisted lasers, Fibroblast transplant and Contour Threads to Irish patients.

Dr. Treacy is an advanced aesthetic trainer and has trained over 300 doctors and nurses from around the world. He is also a renowned international guest speaker and features regularly on national television and radio programmes. He was invited to speak about stem cells and cosmetic medicine at the World Aesthetic Conference in Moscow this year.

The Irish College of Cosmetic Doctors
The British Association of Cosmetic Doctors
The British Medical Laser Association
The American Society for Aesthetic Medicine
The American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery
The European Society of Laser Dermatology
The European Society for Dermatological Surgery (ESDS)
The International Society for Dermatologic Surgery
The International Academy of Cosmetic Dermatology

Dr. Treacy is the European Representative for the NetWork-Lipolysis where he is on the Medical Advisory Board and the Scientific Advisory Board.
Ailesbury Clinics Ltd Suite 6 Merrion Road Ailesbury Road Dublin 4 Ireland
Phone +35312692255/2133 Fax +35312692250
Ailesbury Clinic Cosmetics Surgery

A few years ago, the leader of an African nation was universally attacked in the world press for being an “enemy of the people,” espousing a policy of “genocide” and letting “babies die in pain.”

Was this a monster supporting terrorists, experimenting with weapons of mass destruction or waging war on minorities in his country? No, it was Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa.

His “crime” was suggesting that his country review the safety of AIDS drugs.

Then, adding fuel to the controversy, in March 2000, President Mbeki invited about 30 HIV-AIDS researchers to his presidential AIDS panel in Pretoria, including two American biochemists, Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick.

These two Ph.D.s from the University of California at Berkeley are vocal dissidents of conventional thinking about HIV and AIDS.

It is obvious that Mbeki is no monster, but is he misinformed and misguided to question the safety of AIDS drugs and the absolute equation HIV = AIDS?

It was April 23, 1984, when Robert Gallo, M.D., of the National Cancer Institute, announced that he had found the “probable cause of AIDS.” It was, he said, a new retrovirus that he named HTLV-III (human T-cell lymphotropic virus III), which was later renamed HIV.

Gallo’s evidence for this claim was not the actual isolation of a virus, but the detection of antibodies in most but not all AIDS patients that he and his colleagues had analyzed. (It turned out that Luc Montagnier, M.D., of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, had provided Gallo with sample virus evidence the previous year, and is now given credit as the “co-discoverer of HIV.”)

So great was the horror and hysteria surrounding AIDS that this announcement was immediately greeted not as a probable hypothesis but as fact by the media and public.

There were protests from the very outset over this leap of faith, however, voiced by some very prominent researchers. One of them was Kary Mullis, Ph.D., who received the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction test, a mainstay of AIDS research technology. In 1992 he stated, “Nobody in their right mind would jump into this thing like [Gallo et al.] did. It had nothing to do with any well-considered science. There were some people who had AIDS and some of them had HIV not even all of them. So they had a correlation. So what?”

Actually, scientists from prestigious institutions all over the world pointed out many inconsistencies and contradictions in the “HIV = AIDS” theory. But, as Mbeki himself stated in a letter he wrote to then – President Clinton, there was a “campaign of intellectual intimidation and terrorism” akin to “medieval book-burning” to keep alternative theories about the causes of the disease from being heard.

There are two so-called AIDS tests the ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbant assay) and the Western Blot test. Neither of these tests detect the virus; they detect antibodies that the body can produce in response to a number of stimuli. False HIV positives have been caused by at least 66 documented unrelated health conditions, medications and other factors, including food allergies, vaccinations, blood transfusions, proteins on test filter paper and a host of other viruses, bacteria and parasites.

Note also that antibodies are not a sign of an active infection or disease. They are only a sign that at one time our body produced an immune response to an antigen.

There were and are other cogent technical arguments against the HIV = AIDS theory, coming from internationally renowned pathologists and virologists. There are, for example, human populations who test HIV positive but never develop any symptoms of AIDS. Dr. Mullis references a United Nations study: “The World Health Organization studied prostitutes in a little coastal African country above Liberia. They found that 75% of the prostitutes were HIV-positive and predicted that five years later half of them would be dead. In five years they came back and there were no bodies to count. Still the positives are HIV positive, according to their tests.”

Further, in animal studies, there are more than 125 chimpanzees that were inoculated with the AIDS virus more than 15 years ago who have never developed AIDS.

The HIV = AIDS theory violates the fundamental standards used to determine whether a particular organism causes a specific disease. These rules are called “Koch’s Postulates,” and were established over 100 years ago by German bacteriologist Robert Koch (pronounced “Koke”), who determined the causes of tuberculosis, anthrax and other diseases.

These rules are:

The suspected organism has to be present in each and every case of the disease, and in sufficient quantities to cause disease;
The agent cannot be found in other diseases;
After isolation and propagation, the agent can induce the disease when transmitted to another host.

HIV fails all three postulates: It is not present in every AIDS-like disease; it is not found in one but in 30 distinct diseases; and chimpanzees inoculated with HIV have consistently failed to develop AIDS, even after as long as 15 years.

What this points to is that there are cofactors other than HIV that are necessary to cause AIDS that HIV by itself does not cause AIDS. Even Dr. Montagnier, the co-discoverer of HIV, stated at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in 1990 that he no longer believed HIV by itself could cause AIDS without the help of one or several cofactors.

Yet all conventional medical research has focused on killing or preventing the replication of HIV. And, as President Mbeki observed, no vaccine has been developed and no cure has been found, nor is one even in sight.

Some may argue that with highly active combination antiretroviral therapy (HAART) the famous AIDS cocktail of protease-inhibiting drugs that suppress the replication of HIV life expectancies have dramatically increased.

Isn’t this proof that HIV causes AIDS? One must ask, however, is the general delay in the onset of AIDS symptoms following HIV infection due to these drugs, or are other factors at work? In fact, some alternative physicians who have success treating AIDS use anti-HIV drugs extremely judiciously both to minimize toxicity and to avoid creating resistance and use drugs not as the primary modality but as an adjunct to other therapies.

Jon D. Kaiser, M.D., of Marin County, California, is one such physician. He has treated HIV infections and AIDS patients in his private practice for 15 years. Dr. Kaiser’s book, published in 1999, is Healing HIV: How to Rebuild Your Immune System.

Dr. Kaiser does believe that HIV is substantially involved in AIDS, but he uses antiviral drugs with the lightest touch possible. He practices what he calls a comprehensive healing program, which consists of customized recommendations from each of seven categories:

1. Diet;
2. Vitamins and nutritional supplements;
3. Herbs and acupuncture;
4. Individualized exercise programs;
5. Stress reduction;
6. Hormone balancing and
7. Medical therapies (including antiviral and anti-HIV drugs).

How successful is Kaiser’s program? Kaiser boldly states that “the progression of HIV disease in my practice is an extremely rare event.” During the past five years, he says, caring for 500 HIV-positive patients, not one patient who came to see him with a CD4 (T cell) count of greater than 300 cells per cubic millimeter of blood has progressed to below that level, and not one patient who came to him with a CD4 count of greater than 50 has become seriously ill or died from an HIV-related illness.

Dr. Kaiser says that many of his patients “feel better now than they ever have during their entire lives. This holds true whether they are taking antiviral drugs or not.” Most people with HIV, he says, can now hope to live normal, healthy lives for what amounts to a normal lifespan.

How is this possible? One important thing to remember is that people don’t die of AIDS: They die of any of 30-odd conditions to which AIDS makes them susceptible by degrading their immune systems. All these diseases existed before the term AIDS was coined and HIV was discovered. If someone dies who has one or more of these conditions and is HIV positive, their death is called an AIDS fatality. However, if someone with one or more of these conditions dies who is not HIV positive, then that death is ascribed simply to the condition itself.

Among HIV-positive people, the onset of AIDS and the manifestations of the disease vary enormously but do show distinct patterns that correlate strongly with lifestyle. Drs. Duesberg and Rasnick, for example, claim that recreational and pharmaceutical drug use is a common denominator for more than 95% of all American and European AIDS patients.

Further, their data shows that different drugs seem to cause distinct AIDS-related diseases. For instance, they claim that nitrite inhalants (“poppers,” extensively used by gay men in the ’70′s and ’80′s) cause Kaposi’s sarcoma (cancerous skin lesions only rarely seen in heterosexuals); cocaine causes weight loss; and AZT causes immunodeficiency, lymphoma, muscle atrophy and dementia.

There are doctors and researchers who believe that antiretroviral drugs can also do more harm than good.

“I have a large population of people who have chosen not to take any antiretrovirals,” says Donald Abrams, M.D., director of the AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital. “They’ve watched all their friends go on the antiviral bandwagon and die.”

Whether alternative doctors use antiretroviral drugs as part of their therapy or not, addressing drug use and the immune system damage it causes is as important or even more important than addressing the HIV itself. This is a fundamental difference between conventional and alternative medicine. Conventional medicine treats the symptoms of disease, while alternative medicine treats the patient.

The disease syndrome we now call AIDS first came to our attention as an epidemic in the gay community. It was, in fact, originally called GRID Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. The HIV virus was spread through sexual contact (and also among intravenous drug users who shared needles). Many gay men in the ’70s and ’80s practiced a lifestyle that included frequent recreational drug use and multiple sex partners with the concomitant sexually transmitted diseases and use of antibiotics. (Semen itself is antigenic [provoking an immune-response], and when received in quantity is immunosuppressive.) All of these factors severely compromise the immune system, leaving individuals with few natural resources to control infections.

AIDS in Africa, however, is an entirely different story. There, HIV is epidemic throughout the entire population. The immunosuppressive agents for Africans are not drugs or promiscuity but malnutrition and the presence of bacteria and parasites, widespread because of a lack of public health sanitary measures.

Thus, HIV-positive Africans develop AIDS at a different rate than Americans or Europeans. Duesberg states that in Africa, one AIDS case is diagnosed for every 300 HIV positives, while in the United States the ratio is one AIDS case for every 20 HIV positives. He ascribes American HIV positives’ 15-fold greater AIDS risk to Western’s medicine’s reliance on toxic anti-HIV drugs.

Neither do Africans usually die of the same AIDS-related illnesses as Americans and Europeans do, such as pneumocystis pneumonia. In Africa, AIDS usually manifests as a wasting disease, consistent with the diarrheal infections and malnutrition present there.

Thus it was that President Mbeki was not inclined to combat his country’s AIDS epidemic by meekly purchasing millions of dollars’ worth of AZT. Instead, he insisted that the basic issue for South Africa was one of poverty, which caused malnutrition and sanitation problems.

I have been aware of these facts for many years. In 1994 I published a book with Leon Chaitow, N.D., D.O., You Don’t Have to Die: Unraveling the AIDS Myth. In its preface we stated -

We do not believe, based on the evidence we have seen and which we will outline, that HIV is a sufficient single cause of AIDS. Nor do we believe that being HIV-positive leads inevitably to AIDS, or that AIDS is necessarily irreversible. We do believe that enhancement and modulation of immune function presents an opportunity for recovery of health. We sincerely believe that this approach will be increasingly adopted as the HIV myth is discredited, and that we will look back and wonder why billions of dollars have been wasted in HIV-oriented research.

Currently, approximately 7,000 people worldwide die of AIDS every day. At least their deaths are attributed to AIDS. In reality, they had tested positive for HIV and died of any of 30 AIDS-related diseases. Given the acknowledged unreliability of HIV testing, however, this number could be wildly off.

Nevertheless, 7,000 people die each day of something that conventional medical treatment couldn’t help or quite possibly helped bring on. We do have the knowledge and techniques to prevent this from happening, but not if we stay with the bankrupt thinking that AIDS is one disease with one cause that will be cured with one drug.

In looking for the origin of AIDS in Africa, researchers found that large populations of apes and wild cats were infected with “AIDS-like” viruses that had the potential to destroy their immune systems. The animals’ blood was full of these viruses, killing significant numbers of blood cells, but they never manifested any disease symptoms. What does this tell us about the nature of these retroviruses, which many researchers claim could never wreak all the damage that is ascribed to them?

HIV is simply a virus, like hundreds of other viruses we’ve lived with for as long as humanity has been on the planet. Most people have been exposed to influenza viruses, cytomegalovirus, herpes and Epstein-Barr. It is all but impossible to eradicate these infections; they can only be controlled.

They do their damage when our immune systems are not up to the task. Trying to cure diseases by focusing on the development of toxic pharmaceutical drugs aimed at killing the viruses associated with them will ultimately make us all more vulnerable to new diseases.

Without a paradigm shift in the way we approach AIDS, our money and time will not only be wasted, but could do more harm than good.

Burton Goldberg is the author of 18 books on the subject of Alternative Medicine, including the best selling Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide. He’s also the producer of 4 documentary films on the subjects of Curing Cancer, Ethical Stem Cells, Curing Depression, and Overcoming Addiction. To learn more about alternative medicine and cancer research, visit his website at http://www.BurtonGoldberg.com.

The sex work industry in Asia is very large: upward of 75 million male clients for about 10 million actual sex workers. Thailand was one of the first countries to notice the high rate of HIV infection amongst its sex workers, and began enforcing mandatory condom usage in the brothels; this practice has helped reduce the rate of HIV infection. The Indian government, for example, estimates that about 5% of all prostitutes in India are infected with HIV. And there is clear overlap with other high risk groups, such as intravenous drug users. In Vietnam, about one-third of all such drug users admitted to purchasing sex within the previous year, but only one-fifth of them used a condom during sex.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of HIV infection amongst female prostitutes is 20 times higher than the prevalence in the entire population. Male and transgendered prostitutes have a more difficult time using safer sex practices. Less than half of Kenyan male and transgendered sex workers use condoms, which contributes to the high rate of HIV infection. The high HIV infection rate is also prevalent in Central and South American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The U.S./Mexico border towns on the Mexican side, such as Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, have a high rate of HIV infection among prostitutes who also use inject drugs; the reason being that these sex workers will often trade unprotected sex for drug money.

Sex work is often controlled in many European countries and is largely illegal in the United States, which limits the data available on HIV infection (especially in the U.S.) or contributes to a low overall HIV infection rate in the European countries that regulate the practice. It is, however, important that sex workers get the access to HIV prevention programs that they need and continue to promote condom usage amongst sex workers throughout the world.

International Symposium on HIV & Emerging Infectious Diseases (ISHEID):
http://www.isheid.com

So it is better to get yourself screened for HIV. But then most of us are not really forthcoming about it even though it is very important. In many societies, we do not even know our partners till our parents and elders bring us together. Even in cases of love marriages, we cannot trust anyone so easily.

How do I convince my future husband to go for an HIV test? You can tell your husband to be that this test is very important for both of you. You can tell him that it has nothing to do with him; it is just to allay your fears. It is important to make him understand that you are not accusing him. You can also offer to be tested for HIV yourself; this will make him clear of your intentions. Ask him to go for a test along with you-make it a date thing in a way. There are many couples who are increasing taking the AIDS test before marriage. You are doing the right thing-after all, it is important for your future. It is a lot nicer to be safe than sorry.

Check out other relationship questions that you may have in your mind.

Clinical Evaluation and Ancillary data
Use an aggressive diagnostic approach, because many of the acute illnesses are treatable. For example, a child with HIV infection who presents with fever is quite likely to have a bacterial infection: obtain a complete blood count (CBC), blood culture, urinalysis, and chest X-ray if there is no obvious source of fever on examination, other imaging studies such as sinus films may be indicated. If the child has a history of neutrophil count may be depressed, which would influence therapeutic decisions. The new onset of pulmonary symptoms requires a thorough evaluation. Although many of these patients may not have an easily treated form of pulmonary disease, early therapy is important, Because it is difficult to differentiate clinically the common forms of pneumonia in pediatric, AIDS patients, hospitalization is often required. In such patients, the initial diagnostic tests include Chest X-ray, WBC count, blood culture, and, in the appropriate epidemiologic setting, nasopharyngeal swabs for immunofluorescence or culture.

Weight loss and diarrhea may be acute or chronic and are often quite severe. In addition to routine bacterial culture, obtain stool for ova and parasites. Assess the patient’s state of hydration clinically and measure serum electrolytes, blood urea nitrogen, and creatinine, since enormous fluid losses and profound electrolyte imbalances are sometimes present. CNS symptoms and physical signs will determine whether lumbar puncture or scanning is appropriate. If a spinal tap is performed, obtain more fluid than necessary to diagnose bacterial meningitis, because additional tests are often indicated, such as a culture for acid-fast organisms, viral culture and cryptococcal antigen. If focal neurologic signs are present, arrange for a CT scan to evaluate for lymphoma or toxoplasmosis.

Treatment and disposition
The treatment plan and the decision to hospitalize the patient must be made in conjunction with the family; many families want aggressive diagnostic and therapeutic plans, while others may prefer to keep medical intervention limited, with the goal of making the patient comfortable.

Consider hospitalizing HIV-infected patients with fever without a focus of infection, recent onset of pulmonary or CNS manifestations, or severe failure to thrive or diarrheal disease. Patients who are not acutely ill and do not require hospitalization may require antibiotic therapy. If a focal infection is identified, such a sinusitis or otitis media, and there is no evidence of bacteremia, the patient can ordinarily be managed as an out patient. However, a longer duration of therapy is required, for example, treat sinusitis for a minimum of 3 weeks.

In cases of possible bacteremia, the antimicrobials must be effective against the encapsulated organisms and the enteric gram-negative rods. For any HIV-infected patient who does not require problem with the primary physician and make appropriate referrals for long-term management. Because of the chronic and complex nature of pediatric HIV infection, non-urgent problems are best handled in the calmer, more familiar outpatient office or clinic, not the ED. Isolation techniques are based upon the mode of transmission of the disease.

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Let’s take a closer look at the statistics!

When HIV was first identified, in the year 1980, researchers were caught unaware about the potency of the virus and what it could do. Initially sheer ignorance caused the disease to become so widespread, that at a certain time, hospitals were flooded with patients who had the disease and did not know it year! Scientists at the National Institute of Health estimated that several million patients contracted the disease through casual sex, infected needles and of course blood transfusions. But with the formulation of antiretroviral therapy, patients have been able to lead a much better quality of life free of the crippling stigma of the disease.

But there are problems with the treatment too!

At the present time, antiretroviral medication is prescribed by a trained doctor who chooses the medicines to control and prevent the replication of the virus in the human body. But the medications are expensive and hard to find, especially in developing countries like Africa and Asia. The cocktail of drugs also causes severe side effects like diarrhea, vomiting, fluctuation in blood cells etc. Another worrying concern is that with constant use over the last two decades, several people have developed resistance to the drugs which are used in the AIDS treatment regime. For the thousands more who get infected everyday, this is not at all good news! The onus then falls on research companies and pharmaceutical labs to find newer and better medications that work. As the research continues, it stands to reason that the medication will be expensive and do on.

Everything is not doom and gloom!

I agree that it does look bad for all patients who are infected at present with the scary disease. But it’s not all that bad. In order to assist the fight against the disease, pharmacy majors like Merck and Abbot has decreased prices on several of their most commonly used antiretroviral medications. The US government has also stepped up with promoting the use of generic antiretroviral medication over the branded ones. The government has stressed the fact that there is no difference in the formulation of the brand-name or the generic medication but the cost of the generic medication will be significantly lower.

Do not self prescribe!

The strong range of antiretroviral medications is not something that you can prescribe for yourself for your condition. It is very necessary that you get in touch with a doctor to find out the risks and benefits of the different therapy regimes before you start on them. The next best thing is to find out the exact stage you are in as regarding your disease. Please remember that individual responses to treatments vary. Get your viral load checked every three months and change your medication regularly.

There might seem to be hope, but we can still hope for an AIDS cure can’t we?

Checkout our blogs for more information on what to do after being diagnosed HIV positive and for tips on living with hiv