President Trump and HIV/AIDS

AIDS Rethinkers glimpsed a momentary ray of hope at the news that President Trump had fired the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS; could it be that government policies on AIDS might become evidence-based?

I suppose that is not entirely impossible, but this presidential action is no indication of it. One possible reason for the firing is simply that a new administration chooses new sets of advisers; and Trump has shown that he wants to undo everything the previous administration had done.

Another possible reason is that 6 months earlier, half-a-dozen members of the Council had resigned in protest, stating that
“The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and — most concerning — pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease …
the final straw for us — more like a two-by-four than a straw — is President Trump’s handling of health care reform”.
It is well known that Trump is enraged over any criticism, and those statements alone, made publicly in Newsweek, would be enough to goad him to “clean out” that whole Council.

Further, it is also known that Trump is largely ignorant of details on any topic, so what happened re HIV/AIDS may reflect only the attitude of some aide in the White House who is perhaps actually opinionated about HIV/AIDS or is just following the current extremist wing of the Republicans to dismantle as much as possible of all government activities.

In any case, any genuine turning from present policies and actions about HIV/AIDS would require that the National Institutes of Health replace Anthony Fauci and make a wholesale change in the AIDS division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Such a move would be opposed by all the interests vested in present-day HIV/AIDS policies — all the bureaucratic niches involved, and most notably the drug companies, which presently are in effective control of Congress on all health-related matters. There is no actual sign in practice of any significant change in continuing policy about HIV/AIDS:

“Federal funding for HIV has increased significantly over the course of the epidemic, rising from just a few hundred thousand in FY 1982 to more than $32 billion in FY 2017”; the Trump budget request for FY 2018 has an estimated $32.0 billion for combined domestic and global HIV efforts. If enacted by Congress, it would mark a decrease in funding for HIV of $834 million, or 2.5% … compared to current levels ($32.9 billion). Most of this decline would be in the global portfolio (a $1.2 billion or 18% decline), although domestic discretionary programs would decline by $789 million or 10%; mandatory funding would continue to increase” (U.S. Federal Funding for HIV/AIDS: Trends Over Time, 9 November 2017.

Above all, the sad and bitter fact is that truth-seeking does not have a political constituency, be it about HIV, AIDS, or anything else.

 

How to support Rethinking AIDS?

The fact is that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS (or any other illness): no proof has ever been published that HIV causes AIDS, and the evidence against the idea is copious, see The Case against HIV. Yet it seems as though all the official sources and all the media are completely convinced that this mistaken notion is correct. How to change that?

A couple of dozen books have been published, and articles, even a few in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, but they have not dented the conventional wisdom. Rethinking AIDS (RA) is an organized attempt to bring awareness of the facts. The crucial and fundamental point is that the facts by themselves change no minds; one needs to give people a reason to question the official stance, and even before that one needs to spread the word that there exist informed and competent people who offer strong reasons for doubting the conventional wisdom. The task is one of public relations, not of science.

So Rethinking AIDS needs more visibility. Word of mouth is good, and it is worth recruiting one individual at a time — and indeed some significant number of people have been helped greatly when they chanced on RA or one of its members: HIV+ people (and their friends or relatives) who have been rescued from toxic medication or from deadly anxiety or harm from an unenlightened legal system. Much more is needed, though, more publicity; and one way toward that is by means of a public conference.

RA did indeed hold a conference in 2009 in Oakland, CA. Some details including the program can be seen at http://ra2009.org, and videos of the talks are available at http://ra2009.org/video.html: the yellow buttons for “Streaming” do not work, but the red buttons do, they download a .mov file playable on many media players (download takes just a few minutes for each talk with my fast broadband connection through my cable company ISP). I had found the Oakland conference an extraordinary experience, see The Family of Rethinking AIDS, which gives some sense of the benefits such an occasion can bring. Another wonderful experience was a conference in Vienna the following year.

Why nothing similar since then?
Because a conference requires two things: Workers and funds. Absolutely essential are one or more people willing and able to invest the enormous time and effort needed to organize: an appropriate venue including accommodation possibilities and audio and video facilities; inviting of speakers, screening of solicited and unsolicited potential talks; publicity; but above all there is needed money. Nothing can be done about a venue or about speakers without guaranteed funds to cover the basic expenditures, for example hotels require a guarantee before being willing to reserve a group of rooms and conference facilities.

RA has the willing and able people, but it needs the funds. We have talked about the desirability of another conference for years, and now our President, David Crowe, has come across a possible way to raise the needed money: crowd-sourcing, an approach that has shown its possibilities in raising funds for a variety of research projects that were not able to find support through official avenues. Please have a look at
https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/team/rethinking-aids-future-conference/davidcrowe5, please consider adding your material support, and please tell every potential contributor about this initiative.

About money, and HIV in Estonia

A correspondent from Estonia shared this recent news:

“Unique HIV is spreading in Estonia
Research has shown that recombined (?) [recombinant = hybrids of the known “strains”] form of HIV spreads in Estonia. People get infected locally and it is not brought in from abroad.
‘We have done more than 10 years of research and we do not have exporters [?importers?] of HIV, we do not get it from Russia or Western Europe’, says Irja Lutsar, professor of medical microbiology and virology. She added that people get infected with HIV locally and a recombined [recombinant] form of HIV is spreading here.
‘Our virus is unique but if you ask where it came from then I do not know answer to that.’”

Professor Lutsar might find some clues in de Harven’s article in Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons  as well as in The Case against HIV.

“Also, US, British and Finnish embassies here recently wrote a public letter to Estonian parliament about HIV”.

Part of that letter reads;
“The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease. Through PEPFAR, the U.S. government works with vulnerable, developing nations on a framework to combat HIV/AIDS. Since 2009, the U.S. government has committed nearly $65 billion to support PEPFAR and its global HIV/AIDS response. While gains have been real, progress against this disease, even in the United States, has been uneven.”

That inevitably brought to mind the quote attributed to the late Republican fiscal conservative, Senator Everett Dirksen:

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money”.

(As commonly with the most delightful quotes, this may be a mis-attribution)

At any rate, the United States has apparently disbursed $65 billion without anyone getting any benefit and some undoubtedly being harmed as a result of being fed toxic drugs while not only healthy but even HIV-negative.
I shouldn’t have said, of course, that no one benefited. The drug companies and their shareholders and executives have certainly benefited.

 

HIV/AIDS history and facts

Cardiac surgeon  Donald W. Miller has written a wonderfully comprehensive yet concise analysis of the genesis of HIV/AIDS and of the actual facts:

“HIV/AIDS: Unmasking Medical Falsehood…”. 
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/08/donald-w-miller-jr-md/unmasking-medical-falsehood/

It illustrates the feeling of alienation, of being relatively sane in an insane world, that I get periodically:

Who looks at evidence? Almost no one
http://wp.me/p2VG42-5L

 

HIV vaccine by — 2030

HIV Vaccine Will Be Ready By 2030, According To Bill Gates

No comment is needed, surely.

Just as well, because I wouldn’t know what to say or where to begin saying something.

Or maybe I could note that when I was still doing research, I would have hesitated to ask for funds on the grounds that I knew that I would get specific results after 15 years.

And further, I’m really quite curious to know what it is about the present state of knowledge that allows such an estimate to be made. It’s hard not to become jocular by referring to Nostradamus, extrasensory perception, and the like.

But then again, this is actually less into the future than the physicists’ estimates for a working nuclear fusion reactor.