AIDS, A Political Disease

I wrote the intro essay herein in 1990-1, and asked Bob Lederer to publish some of
his material as well. After going back-and-forth with Bob for almost a year, they
were published in a pamphlet issued at that time by the Red Balloon Collective. After
several years of working for POZ magazine (funded in large part by pharmaceutical
company ads) Bob renounced the important views he wrote about earlier. The views
expressed by Bob Lederer herein should in no way be treated as his current position.
The views expressed by Mitchel Cohen, on the other hand, while not exactly the
same as he holds today, serve pretty much as the basis for a more developed and rad-
ical critique of the AIDS paradigm. This essay complements other essays by Mitchel:
“The Capitalist System vs. the Immune System,” and “Big Science, the Fragmenting
of Work & the Left’s Curious Notion of Progress.”

by Mitchel Cohen

In memory of my cousin Billy Aber, who died of AIDS-related diseases in the summer of ‘90; Patty Staib, who died of
cervical cancer at the age of 28; and to my father, Abe Cohen, who died of environmentally-related colon cancer at the
age of 55.

E
VEN WITH THE RECENT FLURRY OF AIDS REPORTING DUE TO MAGIC JOHNSON’S DECI-
SION TO RETIRE FROM THE L.A. LAKERS after testing positive for antibodies to the HIV
virus, AIDS coverage in the left press has been barely better than Newsweek’s. While pro-
gressive-thinking people denounce the government for its pathetic funding of research,
demand stepped-up experiments and release of medicines, sympathize with AIDS patients, and is-
sue calls to high-schoolers to use condoms and to practice safe sex, nary a word crawls onto the
pages of the left press challenging the medical-industrial complex’s approach to disease — all dis-
ease — that has let AIDS and cancer ravage our lives. Science, for much of the left, remains a sa-
cred temple, at its core devoid of politics except for peripheral questions of funding priorities, ac-
cess to medical care, and the racial and sexual composition of its anointed elite.

But science is every bit as ideological at its core as religion. In The Reenchantment of the World,
Morris Berman takes us on an incredible journey through the history of dualistic thinking on which
modern science is based. Its self-promotion aside, science is hardly the “value-free,” nonpolitical
quest for objective Truth (with a capital “T”), slayer of myths and demons. Few stop to recognize
that the very positing of scientific progress as “value-free” is itself value-laden, and bound to capi-
talism’s ascension. The general ways we categorize the world around us (and our own places in it)
are part and parcel of the particular social conditions and history of our society. The questions we
think to ask — or don’t ask — and the ways in which we try to solve them, do not stand outside of
politics and society — just the opposite! Together, as “science,” they form the ideological bundle
through which the system validates and extends itself into ever-new reaches of our lives that had
been, till now, partially closed off to it.

Marx addressed the intricacies of that difficult dialectic when he wrote: “Mankind thus inevitably
sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the
problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least
in the course of formation.” And Werner Heisenberg (in Physics and Philosophy; Heisenberg later
became a Nazi) put the same thought this way: “Natural science does not simply describe or ex-
plain nature. It is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed
to our method of questioning.” Consciousness is no passive reflection of a static totality but an ac-
tive engagement with that totality of which it, itself, is dynamically a part.

Contrary to the Ayn Rand fetish of “objectivism” that is currently experiencing a revival on a
number of college campuses, there can be no independent observer (the myth of the “neutral
scientist”) standing outside and apart from what s/he is observing! Stephen J. Gould, in Ever Since
Darwin, takes on the Western (and Randian) notion that “objective” scientific facts exist
somewhere “out there” simply waiting to be discovered, independent of our methods of questioning
and categorizing the world, and the social conditions that gave rise to them. In a memorable
paragraph, Gould writes:
“Science is no inexorable march to truth, mediated by the collection of objective in-
formation and the destruction of ancient superstition. Scientists, as ordinary human
beings, unconsciously reflect in their theories the social and political constraints of
their times. As privileged members of society, more often than not they end up de-
fending existing social arrangements as biologically foreordained.”
Nonetheless, science promotes itself as value-free; “objective scientific progress” is lauded by
many leftists as the only force standing between this society and barbarism; and Marxism is thereby
reduced to a deterministic wet dream, the opium of the intelligentsia.

T he organized resistance of People With AIDS (PWAs) to the whole scientific paradigm —
to its definition of “disease”; its reductionist approach to investigation and to treatment; its
poor recovery rates; its mystification of its own processes; its use by the state to regiment
human sexuality; and its individualistic approach to healing — becomes, at best, an embarrassment
to liberals who stake so much in the objectivist pretensions of science, and a potential nightmare to
the right (which now controls the state). PWA networks are tugging at too many sacred cows and at
accustomed assumptions about science, developmentalism, human sexuality, the environment;
about resistance, racism, the government; and about the ways we relate to one another out of the
comfortably-appointed closet. At the end of this pamphlet are described some alternative treat-
ments for AIDS that emerge from a different approach to science and the world around us. In the
meantime, let us, as marxists, anarchists and AIDS activists, offer a more revolutionary approach to
the AIDS crisis and cancer epidemic that the left would do well to consider:

• First, recognize and support the wide underground movement of People With
AIDS, who refuse to see AIDS as a “natural” occurrence and who have organized into
networks to fight it, medically, psychologically and politically.

• Second, print and circulate the many independently-developed treatments for

AIDS that, as with cancer, have higher success rates than the expensive and debilitating
drug treatments (such as AZT) pushed by the drug cartels, American Medical Associa-
tion, biotech apologists and the government. Those same forces have intentionally sup-
pressed alternative approaches to AIDS and cancer to protect their hierarchical control
over what passes for “health care” in this country, to maintain their enormous profits.

• Third, challenge the overall ideological framework through which medical investi-
gators approach disease. AIDS is not a “disease” itself, but a breakdown of the im-
mune system that renders it unable to maintain the body’s health in our toxic-belching
society. It is extremely unlikely that there is “one cause,” such as the HIV virus; for
AIDS, as with cancer, there are many overlapping causes. But, we’re taught that if you
can put a label on something (call it a “virus,” for instance), experts on that topic can
 then concentrate on developing a “magic bullet” cure. The experts, we’re led to believe,
know so much more than the rest of us, so trust them, and cede responsibility for your
own well-being to them. The point is, the experts don’t know more than the networks of
people with AIDS. Inventing a label, and a “single cause” for the complex of syndromes
we’ve come to call “AIDS,” as opposed to crafting a holistic approach, is a deadly ruse
-- one that many medical practitioners actually believe, and that others insidiously milk
for personal aggrandizement and profit.

• Fourth, investigate the ways in which the causes of AIDS, as with cancer, are so-
cial, environmental and political as well as medical. There is nothing “natural”
about them. Yet, true to form, only certain approaches consistent with the dominant
medical model receive government funding.

• Fifth, support efforts to expose what caused this epidemic. Why now? One study by
Dr. Ernest Sternglass and Jens Scheer, as reported in the Spring 1988 issue of Red Bal-
loon, overlays maps of radiation dispersal from nuclear bomb tests with the onset of cer-
tain diseases, and claims that the radiation from nuclear weapons testing had entered the
food chain, attacking people’s immune systems with greater or lesser severity depending
on their particular diets and proximity to the radiation, and contributed dramatically to
the current plague. Other questions come to mind, too: What, for instance, are the ef-
fects of low-level radiation on the immune system (new investigations are showing
much higher rates of cancers near “safely operating” nuclear power plants, for
example)? What about attacks on our immune systems by electro-magnetic fields gener-
ated by Department of Defense ELF communication systems, and even by some house-
hold appliances? Why do some people who test positive for HIV-antibodies never get
sick, while others do? More and more, environmental factors seem to be playing the
dominant role in the cases of AIDS and cancer, as well as in a number of other diseases
previously attributed to solitary agents, or germs.

If the cause turns out to indeed be a virus, could it have been intentionally produced by the
U.S. government, as some claim, as part of biological warfare tests? They point to the CIA’s
now well-documented release of harmful bacteria into New York City’s (and others’) mass-transit
system in the 1960s, and to the smallpox-infested blankets “donated” to American Indians, to re-
move the claim from the realm of the absurd and introduce it into the domain of the possible. Oth-
ers see AIDS resulting from government experiments gone awry, as with the swine flu scare in the
late 1970s. Almost all of the “alternative” researchers believe that environmental co-factors (indus-
trial wastes; toxic dumps; additives and poisons in the food, water, air; low-level radiation from nu-
clear power plants as well as “hot” radiation from bomb tests) have generated viral mutations and at
the same time weakened our immune systems, rendering us susceptible to illnesses the human body
had previously been able to ward off.

All “alternative” investigations share at least one point: AIDS is not the result of a naturally-devel-
oping virus alone (if at all), nor was it caused by gay sexual practices. What caused AIDS in all of
these reports is, explicitly, political, including decisions on the part of the U.S. and other govern-
ments to do nuclear testing, build nuclear reactors, allow corporations to poison the groundwater,
air and food chains, and conduct experiments in biological and chemical warfare. Even if the HIV
virus turns out to be the sole biological agent, what of preventing the epidemic? The delaying tac-
tics and lack of funding by the government have sentenced thousands to deaths that could have
been prevented.

By allowing the “experts” to fasten the blame to individuals, sexual practices and drug users -- and,
contradictorily, by making AIDS seem to be a natural epidemic like an earthquake, beyond human
control -- government and science officials have diverted us from targeting the real scoundrels –
them! -- and reflected the rage onto scapegoats, thereby maintaining their own political, ideological
and economic rule. AIDS is one element in the manufactured mass-hysteria around drug-users,
“terrorists,” communists, Jews, Blacks, homosexuals and anarchists -- so many labels, you’d think
if we’d all unite we’d have a majority! -- designed to keep people disempowered and in a state of
panic, the easier to control.

In another time, the question “Who created AIDS?” would have provoked mass upheavals and
swept the capitalist patriarchal sytem onto the condomheap of history. But with the “evil empire” in
the real world now collaborating with the U.S., Bush et al. have successfully invented an “evil em-
pire” of the mind. They have manufactured and orchestrated the panic in order to stampede people
to the slaughterhouse of “straightchurchfamilystate,” for when people are stampeded it is much
harder for them to think clearly and act effectively.

Part of the ruling class’s agenda is to repress all forms of liberatory sexual activity (“Back, back,
back into the closet”), which has always coincided with eruptions of critical thought and revolu-
tionary action. Repression of sexuality, reproductive rights and mind-expanding drugs is indispens-
able to regimentation of politics. Preventing women from controlling our own bodies and selecting
our own birth control methods becomes essential to the New World Order. In that context, the me-
dia’s nonreportage that nonoxynol 9, found in the leading spermicides usually applied with di-
aphragms and condoms, prevents the transmission of HIV becomes understandable -- and deadly.
(The possibly cancer-causing effects of the spermicide in one’s body is a separate but important is-
sue.)

Radicals must put their bodies where their mouths are. Chanting politically inane and grammatical-
ly arcane slogans, like “Money for AIDS, not for war” is no substitute for a direct action environ-
mental approach to AIDS and cancer, nor for participating in communities of resistance to seize
back our lives. Red Balloon members have been very active in ACT UP and in other direct action
efforts. Some of us face heavy criminal charges for, among other things, disrupting confirmation
hearings in Washington D.C. of Supreme Court retrogrades, distributing free needles to addicts,
blockading federal buildings and demanding the appropriate dispersal of government funds. Analy-
sis can only take us so far; emotionally, leftists apparently have not learned to stop expecting the
government to be our friend. It is not, and, under capitalism, never will be. We must force conces-
sions by directly acting, through any means necessary, to seize back our own bodies from the pol-
luters, corporate destroyers, government, war-profiteers and medical establishment.

Ideologically, the first step is to stop seeing AIDS and cancer as “natural,” inevitable, and caused
by one particular agent (which has been Gallo’s and others’ approach). We must begin reframing
this issue -- and all issues -- to allow us to see them in their full multifaceted and holistic (dare we
use the word “dialectical”?) social context, while creating the kinds of liberated zones needed to
heal and strengthen ourselves sufficiently to resist the ravages of AIDS, cancer, and other plagues
of the capitalist era, empowering us to act for ourselves, because no one’s gonna do it for us. (Get
rid of the myth that the government and industry are on our side but have just not yet seen the
light!) We must never let up our pressure on the government for a single instant, because the future
will only be what we the people struggle to make it.
 The Roads Not Taken: Why Promising Natural
Therapies for AIDS Have Been Ignored
by Bob Lederer

This article is dedicated to three heroic people with AIDS who died recently- Alan Robinson, Bob
Moore and David Stern. Alan was a gay man of African descent-as he loved to insist-not an
“African-American”-and Bob and David were white North American gay men. All were not only
fierce fighters for life and advocates of holistic approaches to health, but also were gay libera-
tionists and anti-imperialists. Their lives must inspire all of us to heighten the fight for self-empow-
ering solutions to AIDS and to overturn the imperialist system that has allowed it to become geno-
cidal.

A decade into the spiraling AIDS pandemic, the most advanced Western medical scientists
have yet to come up with a treatment for AIDS or HIV infection providing more than
short-term, limited improvements. Several of the drugs developed thus far have major side
effects that, at best, cloud the quality of remaining life for people with AIDS (PWAs). Yet in small
holistic health clinics and informal PWA networks, experience is accumulating - increasingly
backed by careful studies -- showing the value of a broad range of non-toxic drugs, herbs, vitamins,
minerals, food extracts, lifestyle changes, and alternative medical systems in reducing AIDS symp-
toms and extending life.

If these results are so encouraging, why have they been virtually ignored by drug companies, feder-
al research institutes, and the medical community? Answering this question entails a journey into
the byzantine world of such entities as the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America (PMA), Na-
tional Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and American Medical As-
sociation (AMA). The key issues come down to medical economics and politics: drug company ra-
paciousness, FDA obstacles to new product development, NIH conflicts of interest, AMA fear of
competition, and the overarching “single-agent, single cure” approach which has dominated West-
ern medical research for half a century.

But the balance of power in this equation -- and thus the prospect for lifesaving breakthroughs -- is
rapidly shifting. PWAs are heroically self-experimenting, researching and sharing information on a
grand scale, and the growing ranks of angry AIDS activists are holding every medical institution to
account. ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was launched as a New York group in 1987
with a call to expedite high-tech drug research and approval. Four years later, ACT UP-now a na-
tional grassroots movement-has developed a full agenda to completely revamp priorities in research
on all kinds of treatment, and eliminate obstacles blocking access to those already existing. Activist
interventions in previously hidden, unchallenged medical decision-making are revolutionizing the
prospects for dramatic medical advances not only in AIDS but a host of other diseases.

HIDING BEHIND HIV: Why the Medical Establishment Won’t Look at Co-Factors

“M assive funds for AIDS research!” “Cure AIDS now!” “Release the drugs!” These
have been the rallying cries of AIDS activists in the fight against the criminal ne-
glect of promising drugs and the price-gouging of PWAs. But the problem with
AIDS research/treatment runs deeper than bureaucratic obstacles and corporate profiteering -- and
can’t even be explained solely by homophobia and racism. What needs to be examined is the very
nature of this country’s medical establishment. Addressing its institutional biases may be the key to
solving the AIDS crisis, and may begin the process of creating a self-healing, people-oriented sys-
tem of health care.

A careful study of the history of AIDS research reveals the repetition of a pattern in medical re-
search on infections and degenerative diseases in the United States. That pattern shows three main
built-in biases: 1) towards a single-agent theory of disease, as opposed to a multi-factorial analysis;
2) towards expensive, new pharmaceutical drugs and other high-tech approaches (radiation, genetic
engineering, etc.) to “cure” disease, as opposed to cheap, low-profit, already-available natural or
lightly-processed foods, vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc.; and 3) against any research or recommen-
dations that might expose the role of the medical establishment itself in inducing disease and death
through “normal” medical procedures.

Underlying these biases is the engine driving nearly all medical research in this country -- what
many progressive analysts have labeled the “medical-industrial complex.” The interlocking web
embraces the pharmaceutical/medical-technology industry, health insurance industry, medical pro-
fession, medical schools, teaching hospitals, research institutions, and mainstream medical media.
Virtually unchallenged, this complex dictates federal policies on medical research and treatment,
which in turn influence nearly all non-governmental programs-and the priorities of research insti-
tutes worldwide.

For every sector of this complex, the motivating force is institutional power and clout; for the com-
panies and private doctors who dominate the complex, it is also profits. That means a constant push
to maintain and expand “markets” (vulnerable people with disease) for their goods and services.
Preventing illness, healing sick people and encouraging self-reliance are nowhere on their priority
list, and the quality of health care in this country shows the results. The poor-especially people of
color-who lack the money to buy commercialized medical “care,” are forced to contend with the
warehouse-style, big-city hospital emergency rooms, or they fall through the cracks.

The Historical Debate: Single Agents vs. Multiple Factors

A capsule history of the medical-industrial complex will help set the context for AIDS.
“Modern medicine” as we now know it consolidated in the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies. This was a time of tremendous, rapid scientific advance, both in the level of instru-
ments available to uncover smaller and smaller biological parts and the understanding of how those
parts fit together in human functioning. Pasteur discovered bacteria in 1857 and quickly launched a
fierce debate-continuing to this day-over whether the key to infectious disease was single agents
(bacteria, fungi, parasites, and later, viruses) or the “host status” (the person’s level of resistance,
determined by various factors affecting overall health). Single-agent advocates argued that the way
to fight disease was to develop medicines that attacked the causative agent, while the “host status”
theorists maintained that the real solution was restoring overall functioning by enhancing the per-
son’s healing abilities. In this multi-factorial view, what we now call “lifestyle” issues -- diet, exer-
cise, fresh air, adequate sleep, positive thinking, stress reduction -- were as important, if not more
so, than particular medicines.

As the single-agent forces got the upper hand in research, so too did the “scientific medicine” prac-
titioners secure dominance in clinical practice. The American Medical Association was formed in
1845 to gain for medical doctors a monopoly on legal licensure as health practitioners. The young
AMA waged fierce (and quite successful) battles to decertify the then-dominant natural healers -- a
range of herbalists, midwives, and homeopathic doctors (homeopathy is a very effective form of
healing involving extremely diluted toxins to induce an immune response). Interestingly, many of
the healers at that time were women, and most medical doctors were men, so the AMA’s campaign
marked a patriarchal takeover of medicine. By the early 20th century, the AMA had secured power-
ful big-corporation backing for its plan to uniformize legal requirements to practice medicine in ev-
ery state. Quickly, the large networks of natural healers were repressed, and the new male-dominat-
ed, magic-bullet approach to medicine was given legal backing and professional status.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry was rapidly developing, based on the single-agent theory
and/or the symptom-suppression approach. A dizzying array of new drugs for almost every disease
came on the market. With a variety of slick marketing techniques and growing influence in political
circles, the new industry inserted its marketing hype into medical school curricula, fueling the trend
towards pill-pushing medicine. Pharmaceutical corporations began funding medical schools and
teaching hospitals, and pushed for the establishment of the National Institutes of Health to absorb
some of their research expenses. The Food and Drug Administration, established in response to
consumer outrage over dangerous drugs, was quickly taken over by the industry it was supposed to
regulate; only minimal regulations were enacted to protect the public. A whole new generation of
“iatrogenic” -- doctor- or medicine-created -- diseases were created.

Of course, not every technological advance in medical science was worthless or harmful. Important
improvements were made in treatment of acute infectious diseases, surgery for life-threatening con-
ditions, and emergency medicine to repair physical injuries. But many of the most heralded ad-
vances (especially the conquest of common, serious childhood infectious diseases) were direct re-
sults of improvements in wages, nutrition, housing and sanitation, as workers -- primarily white
North American and Europeans -- won struggles for better living standards. Meanwhile, pre-
ventable diseases -- often leading to death (caused by the lack of those better living conditions) --
continue to plague people of color worldwide, except in countries that have had revolutions.

Today, the pharmaceutical industry has one of the highest rates of profit of any manufacturing sec-
tor in the world and provides 75 percent of the operating budget of the AMA. A revolving door of
personnel operates between the industry, FDA, and NIH. Research priorities at both federal and
university research centers are largely determined by the drug companies which provide large
grants. New medical developments are, more and more, fueled by the search for profits and new
markets, overriding any remaining desire to heal people. Dr. Cesar Caceres, a former NIH official
now operating a mostly PWA practice in Washington D.C., says: “Many [university] research
projects are done to benefit the drug manufacturers, not patients or science. [As a researcher] you
have to find who has the funds and put them in the right place. ... [University researchers] get a per-
centage of additional research money they bring in from drug companies.”

“The one common factor behind virtually every treatment attempt receiving serious research atten-
tion -- AZT, vaccines, interferons, CD4 ... and a few others -- is hot prospects for commercial
gain,” says John James, the San Francisco gay researcher who founded and edits AIDS Treatment
News. His biweekly publication, now in its seventh year, has been a trailblazer in uncovering and
documenting the effectiveness of potential new treatments ignored by the medical establishment.
James continues, “No major institution, government as well as private, will seriously consider a
treatment solely on its medical and scientific (as opposed to commercial) merit. If it’s a plant that
anyone could pick, a food in general use, a common industrial chemical, or a healthfood product, it
won’t be considered, no matter what the evidence.”

In 1987, James wrote: “The commercial forces driving AIDS treatment research favor high-tech,
patentable options -- the very ones which take the longest to develop. Simple, available, off-the-
shelf treatments, already well known in human use, could be applied much more quickly; but these
kinds of treatments have little commercial potential.” James’ words still ring true today; the fact
that several fancy new drugs -- AZT, DDI and DDC -- are getting accelerated research and have ei-
ther been approved or are nearing release is only due to the militant activism of the various ACT
UPs around the country. But these advances are still limited to potentially high-profit drugs manu-
factured by major corporations. So, while pharmaceutical companies enjoy among the highest prof-
it margins of any industry, people die because the treatments that could save their lives aren’t prof-
itable enough.

As James notes, “U.S. government research agencies have licensing arrangements whereby they
will receive royalties from the sale of some AIDS anti-virals [such as AZT], but not others. Natu-
rally these agencies are likely to champion the drugs in which they have a financial interest -- a se-
rious conflict when the same agencies also control federal research funds, which could assist in the
development of their rivals.”

Cancer Research Parallel And Precursor

B efore we turn to the specifics of AIDS research, it is illuminating to examine the parallels
with the study of cancer. In fact, cancer research during the past 20 years not only provides
parallels, but has also played a role in setting the direction for AIDS research. The federal
government’s highly-touted “War on Cancer” launched officially in 1971, was actually a stepped-
up version of research going on since the 1940s. After tens of billions of dollars spent by the Na-
tional Cancer Institute, what have been the results? Survival rates have not improved at all. There
are a few new experimental drugs and treatments, but conventional medicine today offers virtually
the same three options -- chemotherapy, radiation and surgery -- as it has for decades. Many still
die painful, agonizing deaths after struggling through one or all of these disruptive and often toxic
therapies. Meanwhile, the government and industry adamantly refuse to fund studies on alternative
treatments, which are proving more effective than those developed within current AMA-approved
models.

Year after year small, independent medical practices and clinics provide new treatments and high
survival rates brought about by radical diet changes, nutritional supplements, herbs, stress reduc-
tion, and mental/spiritual changes. Books and books have been written on neglected non-drug, non-
toxic treatments discovered by independent researchers. The problem, of course, is that any offi-
cially “proven” alternative treatment would strike at the heart of the highly lucrative market for
high-tech medicine. Furthermore, many of these approaches emphasize lifestyle changes, taking re-
sponsibility for health -- thus decreasing dependence on doctors. The result is that not only have al-
ternative treatments, and the practitioners using them, been ignored, but often ridiculed and at-
tacked by the medical establishment; in some cases, doctors practicing unconventional but effective
cancer treatments have actually had their licenses revoked by their local AMA affiliate.

Related to the narrowness in treatment research is the rigid approach to studies of the causes of can-
cer. For many years, the medical establishment dogmatically refused to acknowledge that environ-
mental, occupation, or food exposures to chemicals or radiation could contribute to cancer. And
while smoking was (finally) acknowledged as a carcinogen, imbalanced diet was not until much
later. Now it is commonly accepted among all but industry apologists that 70-80 percent of all can-
cers are environmentally-induced, although chemical companies, toxic waste dumpers, nuclear
power plants and food manufacturers continue with only minimal regulation-literally getting away
with murder. While some small research projects are exploring these factors, the heavily-funded
search has been, and continues to be, for some internal biological explanation, such as genetics or
viruses.

Starting in the 1970s, the NCI poured billions into intricate research to dissect smaller and smaller
parts of human biology, seeking a micro-cause for what was clearly a macro-problem. In fact, Dr.
Robert Gallo, now the powerful chief federal AIDS researcher, built his career in the NCI’s “Spe-
cial Virus Cancer Program.” Gallo amassed a large staff with fancy equipment to try to pin the
cause of cancer on something we’ve heard a lot about lately -- retroviruses. After years of fruitless
research, in the late 1970s he had to admit defeat. The theory of a viral cause of cancer had led
nowhere. And while the science of virology, especially retrovirology, was advanced, there was lit-
tle application for it.

The Bias In AIDS Research

T hen, in 1981, along came AIDS. It is well known that the federal government stalled in initi-
ating serious research on a disease killing “only fags and junkies” -- and that the gay com-
munity had to fight tooth and nail for the first research appropriations. But what is rarely ex-
amined is how Gallo and his NCI colleagues seized on the new political climate and the money
rolling in to rebuild their defeated retrovirus-lab empire.

In 1982-83, the meager federal AIDS research program was half-heartedly pursuing a few leads to-
wards the causes of AIDS -- poppers, cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), African
Swine Fever virus (ASFV), and syphilis. Most of these were proving quite interesting. But in 1982,
Gallo was appointed head of the AIDS Research Program, and he immediately directed most re-
sources towards the investigation of retroviruses as the possible cause. According to The AIDS Bu-
reaucracy, a 1988 mainstream analysis of federal AIDS policy by Sandra Panem, “The [Cancer] In-
stitute chose to focus on retroviruses almost to the exclusion of other lines of research” partly be-
cause “a commitment to retrovirus research was well established at NCI. ... [An NCI official] noted
that if the gamble had failed, the effort would have been worthwhile anyway because basic retrovi-
ral research was a priority of the NCI.”

With the now famous April 1984 announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret
Heckler that Gallo had discovered the cause of AIDS (later to become known as Human Immunod-
eficiency Virus, or HIV), the die was cast. “HIV is the sole cause of AIDS!” he insisted. “You
don’t need any co-factors!”

Most of the meager non-HIV federal AIDS research was stopped, and the ripple effect meant simi-
lar actions in laboratories worldwide. Even research on co-factors-exposure to other microbes,
chemicals, nutritional deficiencies or stresses-that accepted the role of HIV as cause was virtually
abandoned. HIV-focused research, with its high technology and big budgets, became the rage. A
1987 article on AIDS co-factors in the Journal of the American Medical Association could cite only
one published report on co-factors after 1984, out of the thousands of reports on AIDS research.

The forces leading to this “rush to judgment” are worth examining. It was not simply a matter of
Gallo’s lust for a Nobel Prize, although clearly that played a role -- even allegedly inspiring him to
steal a virus from his French competitor’s lab and then claim he had discovered it. Nor was it
merely the large personal investment of Gallo and several other key federal researchers in the
companies manufacturing HIV antibody detection kits -- a clear conflict of interest biasing against
non-HIV research. But perhaps most important was institutionalizing the bias towards single-agent
theories, and in this case, a new single agent that: a) deflected attention from the numerous
social/environmental factors which implicate the structure of society, and b) opened the door to a
potentially lucrative market for newly developed anti-viral drugs. These considerations did not
even need to be conscious for Gallo or any other federal official, so ingrained are these patterns of
medical research.
 Alternative Theories of AIDS Causes

M eanwhile, independent doctors and scientists continued researching their theories on

shoestring budgets. Some argued that HIV was definitely not the cause. Foremost among
these was Peter Duesberg, a veteran of NCI’s retrovirus research program and a profes-
sor of Molecular Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1987, he published the first
of a series of scholarly, carefully documented papers in such journals as Cancer Research, Science,
and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which he argued that while HIV clear-
ly had some correlation with AIDS, it was nothing more than a passenger virus present among
some people with serious immune suppression. He applied the rigorous scientific standards widely
agreed upon as necessary to prove a microbe causes disease and found HIV totally lacking.

While some of Duesberg’s arguments against HIV are indeed disingenuous (particularly his danger-
ous notion that AIDS is non-infectious), the general response of the medical establishment was si-
lence, followed by ridicule (after major media coverage brought the controversy to public light).
Only reluctantly, much later, did mainstream researchers make a semblance of preparing a point-
by-point response. Yet much of that response admitted that many of the articles of faith on how and
why HIV causes AIDS are mere speculations, unproven as yet. Meanwhile, attempts by non-estab-
lishment scientists to obtain research grants to study alternative causes of AIDS were universally
denied.

Theorized Co-factors In AIDS

M any of the AIDS dissidents argued -- continuing the long multifactorial tradition -- that
HIV, if it did cause immune system damage, could only do so when the host resistance
was worn down by a variety of assaults on immune-competence, called “co-factors” or
“fundamental causes” (as opposed to “precipitating causes”). While there are many individual vari-
ations on this theme, the proposed co-factors/causes generally fall into five categories, nearly all ig-
nored in mainstream AIDS research:

1) Other infections
A range of infections, many of them sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), are well known to dam-
age the immune system and/or activate other viruses. Thus these are among the prime AIDS co-fac-
tors, and indeed, for some mainstream researchers, the only co-factors granted “legitimacy.” Since
the early 1970s, many of these formerly tropic-based diseases have become rampant in the West,
particularly among gay men and intravenous drug users. Of course, they remain widespread in cen-
tral Africa, the Caribbean and South America, largely due to malnutrition, bad sanitation and inade-
quate health care combined with accelerated industrialization, toxic waste dumping, and radiation
from atomospheric nuclear testing.

The immune-suppressive diseases include viral infections such as hepatitis-B, herpes zoster, cy-
tomegalovirus (CMV), and Epstein-Barr virus; parasitic infections such as amebiasis, malaria and
giardiasis; fungal infections such as candida; and bacterial infections such as tuberculosis, gonor-
rhea and syphilis. For in the Third World and among gay, Black and Latino people in the U.S.,
treatment for these diseases has often been inadequate and/or insensitive. While a small amount of
research has been done on the disease backgrounds of PWAs, much more is needed.

Two particular causative links with other diseases have been proposed:

Secondary and tertiary syphilis: Several doctors and medical researchers in the U.S. and West
Germany have studied many PWAs and concluded that frequently superficial and/or no-longer-ef-
fective blood tests for syphilis antibodies have allowed many doctors to overlook a mountain of
cases. Untreated, these then progress after several years (secondary and tertiary syphilis have incu-
bation periods known to range from one to 30 years) to stages where the disease surfaces in a viru-
lent form, a possible explanation for many AIDS cases. Medical literature documents the fact that
every symptom linked with AIDS -- including pneumocystis carini pneumonia (PCP) and Kaposi’s
sarcoma (KS)-has been reported for syphilis. Tertiary neurosyphilis has a striking similarity to
AIDS encephalopathy (central nervous system disorders). It is also theorized that years of low dos-
es of antibiotics prescribed for other diseases -- particularly STDs in gay men -- may have radically
altered both the course of syphilis symptoms and the body’s ability to produce antibodies that
would then appear on blood tests.

This theory is extremely intricate and has much documentation. It is even more interesting now that
there are numerous documented cases of tremendous improvement in AIDS symptoms following
treatment with aqueous penicillin or the typhoid vaccine (the recommended treatment for neu-
rosyphilis prior to 1959) -- plus the frequent experience of PWAs with previously negative syphilis
blood tests converting to positive tests after these treatments.

African Swine Fever: Two Boston biologists, Jane Teas and John Beldekas, have meticulously
studied the possible connection between AIDS and this AIDS-like disease of pigs. Their conclu-
sion, published in a letter in the British medical journal Lancet (March 8, 1986) is that swine fever
may play some causative role in AIDS. Laboratory tests of a sample of many PWAs’ blood showed
that 47 percent (including many U.S. gay men) had antibodies to the swine fever virus -- this for a
disease the U.S. Agriculture Department insists could never be transmitted to people. The two sci-
entists argue that humans could have been infected after eating under-cooked diseased pork.

There is a remarkable parallel between the dates of swine fever and AIDS outbreaks in several
Third World countries. A U.S. medical anthropologist who studied swine fever and AIDS in the
central African nation of Rwanda has urged investigation of the possible connection between the
two diseases (New York Times, July 31, 1986).

Yet another and increasingly well-documented contributing infection to AIDS is the mycoplasma
incognitus, a newly-discovered form of bacteria definitively shown to cause certain serious condi-
tions in both people with and without other AIDS symptoms. Pioneering work on this has been
done, ironically, by an army medical researcher, Shyh Ching Lo at the Washington D.C.-based
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Recently, famed HIV discoverer Luc Montagnier, of the Pas-
teur Institute in Paris, joined with Lo in pursuing this theory, which holds out the possibility that
the mycoplasma could be, at barest minimum, an important co-factor with HIV in the development
of AIDS. Yet the medical establishment has greeted Gallo’s and Montagnier’s presentations with
alternating derision and silence, and progress is thus proceeding slowly.

2. Medicinal drugs

Before AIDS was identified, the immune-suppressive side effects of cortisone, corticosteroids,
chemotherapy and transplant anti-rejection drugs were well-known to cause KS and PCP. An even
wider range of drugs has documented immune-suppressive effects. Antibiotics used over a long pe-
riod of time -- tetracycline in particular -- can gradually break down one’s immune system. Chron-
ic, long-term antibiotic use (sometimes prophylactically) was the norm among many U.S. gay men
in the 1970s, and was also common among intravenous drug users, in both cases due to the large
number of bacterial illnesses to which they are subject. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies are
known to have dumped on Third World markets antibiotics not allowed here by U.S. safety authori-
ties. In many countries with long histories of sexually-transmitted diseases, these antibiotics are
available over the counter. It is interesting that a new drug marketed after 1979 in Haiti and Zaire
(two major areas inflicted with AIDS) for treatment of parasites is similar to a Japanese drug impli-
cated in a neurological disorder similar to that seen in some PWAs.

Most compelling, a survey done by New York City physician William Holub of the treatments rec-
ommended for various “minor” infections from 1975-1985 (as documented in contemporary medi-
cal texts), concluded:

“Many fairly common illnesses and infections which were very lightly treated by medicine in the
mid 1970s began to be more aggressively and defensively treated through the late 1970s to early
1980s and even more so today. Medicine began to require longer hospital stays for many infections
and illnesses. ... There was the rapid increase in the use of more new medications, higher dosages
and more complex combinations of medications. [Antibiotics and corticosteroids are particularly
cited.] Remember that a person who is already ill and malnourished is much more likely to have ad-
verse drug effects than the healthy individuals upon which most drugs were tested. The sicker the
patient got, the more different medications were used and at higher doses. The interactions between
many of these drugs can lead to a rapidly cataclysmic immunosuppression and death.”

Holub particularly cites the increasingly aggressive treatment of infections mononucleosis, or Ep-
stein-Barr virus infection, a precursor of AIDS in many PWAs.

Hepatitis-B vaccine -- A special note on this is important. An unusually high percentage of the
hundreds of gay men who participated in the experimental trials for this vaccine (1978-1980) devel-
oped AIDS. Since these trials occurred at about the same time as the first AIDS cases in the same
cities (New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles), a possible connection at least bears careful
study. Several researchers have shown the immunosuppressive effects of a variety of vaccines. Yet
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has refused to run any studies, simply asserting that there is
absolutely no link. Meanwhile, anti-war Vietnam veterans have raised the possibility that the mass
innoculations of U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to protect them from chemical warfare,
may have immuno-suppressant side effects ... and may even be part of a larger experimental test.

3) Street Drugs
While many have focused on the spread of AIDS among IV drug users by sharing infected needles,
little effort has been made to study the role of the drugs being injected in producing immune sup-
pression. Numerous studies of the effects of heroin and cocaine have shown their immune-suppres-
sive effects. Yet the role of oral and IV street drugs as an AIDS co-factor has hardly been studied.

With great effort, Cesar Caceres, the physician critical of university collaboration with pharmaceu-
tical companies mentioned earlier, analyzed and compiled small studies of PWAs by the CDC in
1985. He found that 54 percent of the non-IV-drug-using PWAs -- including 75 percent of gay
PWAs -- had been regular users (at least once a week for several years) of such known immune-
suppressors as cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates, and amyl or butyl nitrites (poppers). Alcohol,
too, is known to impair immune functioning, and its rates among the AIDS-affected communities
are disproportionately high. Yet the CDC denies that any of these drugs are co-factors in AIDS and
refuses to include questions on them in the PWA interview form. Caceres found that, adding in IV-
drug users, 79 percent of all U.S. PWAs had been regular drug users. He asked, in a Wall Street
Journal opinion piece (10/24/85), “Since drug abuse can severely damage the immune system, why
has AIDS been identified primarily with sex, especially sex among homosexuals?”

The particular role of poppers -- inhalants primarily used by gay men -- in AIDS was briefly and in-
adequately studied at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Both laboratory and clinical research
showed extensive use of poppers to be a likely co-factor in Kaposi’s sarcoma, and in general a
cause of severe immune system damage. The few early studies of gay PWAs which asked about
poppers usage found extremely high rates of regular usage compared to healthy gay men. Thus,
poppers may hold the key to explaining the high prevalence of KS among gay people with AIDS,
and its relative rarity among straight PWAs. Yet the CDC, while tepidly commenting in 1984 that
poppers might possibly play some role in KS, has never publicly identified popper usage as an im-
portant AIDS co-factor to avoid. And as mentioned earlier, the CDC’s meager initial poppers re-
search was dropped after HIV was announced “the cause.”

Ads in many gay newspapers and magazines, along with distribution at gay bars and discos, played
an important role in sustaining the poppers market, even after damning evidence was available.
And according to gay activists-researchers John Lauritsen and Hank Wilson (who unsuccessfully
lobbied the CDC to deal more aggressively with the issue), the poppers industry (whose annual
business was once estimated at $50 million) enlisted academics and government officials using
“fraudulent research” and “statistical trickery” to prevent most states from banning the sale of pop-
pers until recently. Finally, in late 1988, Congress included poppers as a banned drug, a measure
which took effect in February 1989 (and which is currently being challenged in court by poppers
manufacturers). Meanwhile, the recent reduced rate of increase in new gay AIDS cases may have
as much to do with sharply declining poppers usage rates (demonstrated in surveys) as it does with
safer sex practices.

4) Inadequate nutrition
Long before AIDS, identical immune deficiencies (which caused PCP, for instance) were recorded
among severely malnourished children. Various clinical and health-survey evidence suggests a di-
rect relationship between particular nutrients and the health of such immune system organs as the
thymus gland. Vitamins A and C, and zinc, are particularly important and are often lacking in the
standard American diet of highly processed foods, minimal vegetables, and excess sugar, impairing
the immune system. Among poor people with inadequate diets, particularly Blacks and Latinos and
people in many parts of the Third World, the effects are even more serious -- perhaps playing some
role in the severity of AIDS in these communities.

5) Psychological stress
Since the 1970s, a whole new field has opened up in medicine known as “psychoneuroimmunolo-
gy.” This is the study of the relationship between the nervous system (especially the brain) and the
body’s immune response. Many studies have shown a direct link between various forms of psycho-
logical stress and a decline in immune functioning. Given the extreme social stress under which gay
men and IV-drug users live in this society, it is completely logical -- as several researchers have
proposed -- that stress is a co-factor for some people who develop AIDS. Research on this point is
minimal, due to the refusal by mainstream medicine to integrate the mental and physical, and to
study their mutual influences within the body as a whole. But knowledge is growing. Could part of
the rapid deterioration of some PWAs following diagnosis have something to do with the devastat-
ing psychological (and thus physical) effects of being given a “12 months to live” death sentence
by their doctors, reinforced by the “inevitably fatal” incantation constantly repeated by the media
and society in general? More and more evidence suggests that that is indeed the case.

6) Other Co-Factors
Numerous other co-factors have been proposed, ranging from cigarette smoking and lack of exer-
cise to background radiation and toxic exposures. Some suggest that toxic waste dumps or direct
pesticide/herbicide exposure (this could apply, for instance, to Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent
Orange) have immune-damaging effects.

Again, the point is not to fully explain AIDS here, but to indicate those factors that could make
people more vulnerable to all disease by suppressing their immune systems. An interesting theory
in this vein posits that fluoridation of water -- a dental health measure which may have immune-
damaging and carcinogenic effects over the longterm -- may help explain the varying geographic
distributions of AIDS. For instance, New York and San Francisco, both with fluoridated drinking
water, have much higher per capita AIDS rates than unfluoridated Los Angeles and Miami. Since
all four have high populations of gay men and IV-drug users, those demographics don’t seem to be
a sufficient explanation, thus lending credence to arguments for environmental co-factors.

A Biological Warfare Connection?

Finally, some have theorized that HIV was genetically engineered in the laboratory. Some attribut-
ed this to medical research on animals, others to biological warfare research. While several detailed
theories have been offered in support of these scenarios, they still amount to unsubstantiated specu-
lation. More problematically, they assume a level of technological sophistication in genetic engi-
neering not obtained until the mid-1970s, whereas HIV antibodies have been uncovered (through
frozen blood samples) as far back as 1968 in the U.S. Moreover, these theories accept HIV as the
clear-cut cause, a proposition under serious question.

Nonetheless, the nefarious history of U.S. government biological warfare and medical “research”
experiments (especially the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study of 1932-1972 in which over 200
Black people were purposely allowed to die) shows that human intervention -- by accident or de-
sign -- cannot be ruled out as a contributing cause of AIDS. (For more background on
biowarfare/medical experiment history and AIDS, see my articles, “Chemical-Biological Warfare,
Medical Experiments and Population Control” and “Origin and Spread of AIDS: Is the West Re-
sponsible?” in Covert Action Information Bulletin, Summer 1987 and Winter 1988.)

There is, however, no question that the direction of AIDS research has been influenced by the pri-
orities of the still-strong Army Biological Warfare research program (now dubbed “strictly defen-
sive”). Since the early 1980s one of the up-and-coming areas of bio-warfare research involves pre-
cisely the same fields of virology and biotechnology as the federal AIDS research program, which
has directed funds toward viral, single cause research, and thereby orients the framework for the
kinds of work done across the country.

Demand Action!

W hat does all this theorizing have to do with developing AIDS treatments? The more we
track down the contributing causes, the easier it will be to develop treatments. Con-
tributing infections can be identified and treated. Nutritional deficiencies can be alleviat-
ed with nutritional supplements and dietary changes. Drug abuse can be countered with addiction
treatment and detoxification (by such proven effective treatments as acupuncture). Medical drug
side effects could be countered by discontinuing immune-suppressing medications and cultivating
herbal and other non-invasive immune-system boosters. Psychological stress can be limited through
stress management and mental/spiritual measures, as well as developing much more of a caring
community that empowers people to take collective responsibility over everything affecting their
lives. Environmental hazards (toxic wastes, irradiation) can be exposed and, at least for individual
PWAs, contact with them minimized (for instance, not drinking fluoridated tap water). And gaining
a comprehensive analysis of co-factors will aid in constructing a holistic approach to healing AIDS
aiming at gradually, gently, and non-toxically rebuilding damaged immune systems. Finally, if in-
deed some kind of bio-warfare were involved, then our communities must force the government to
identify the specific agents used and to develop treatments to counter them.

So, we must pressure the medical establishment to do thorough epidemiological investigations

(analyses of patients’ medical histories) as well as more laboratory analyses of the blood of PWAs
to shed light on which of the various theories may have validity. These studies must encompass the
diversity of populations affected (differently) by AIDS.
But rather than wait for the authorities to act, we should expand our own grassroots capabilities to
do some of this research and to provide access to alternative treatments.

And we don’t need to wait for more studies to reassess our AIDS treatment strategies. Ample evi-
dence shows that putting all our eggs in either the anti-HIV or the virus-as-main-cause baskets is
playing Russian roulette. Whatever role HIV plays in AIDS, it clearly needs a previously damaged
immune system to do any harm. So any immune-boosting treatments -- particularly holistic, non-
toxic ones -- will be helpful. Let’s demand greatly stepped-up research into those treatments, and
let’s use our community research initiative-type groups to do these investigations ourselves. Thou-
sands of lives are hanging in the balance. [end Bob Lederer segment]

****

Alternative Choices
AZT AND OTHER DRUGS ARE NOT THE ONLY TREATMENT OPTIONs for people with
AIDS and HIV. In fact, AZT is not only highly toxic, but also of questionable and at best short-
term effectiveness.

There are a number of treatments, however, which have shown effectiveness in improving patients’
health and prolonging their lives. Life-enhancing treatments are available in all forms to all people.
It is possible to use these treatments in addition to or in place or pharmaceuticals. Many doctors are
unfamiliar with alternatives, but you have the right to decide.

All of the following approaches to health involve individuals working together with others to regain
control over their own lives. They involve building up communities on the outside and their natural
immune system on the inside. They mostly reject the use of toxic drugs now dominant in Western
medicine’s approach to AIDS and cancer. As such, the pharmaceutical industry, the American
Medical Association and powerful government agencies often band together to block availability of
and information about alternative treatments -- there’s no money in it, for them!

While treatment strategies followed by long-term survivors vary, a common thread is experimenta-
tion with holistic practices in combination with mental/spiritual healing and lifestyle changes --
diet, stress management, eliminating substance abuse, sleep and exercise.

The key tasks in alternative AIDS/HIV treatment entail removing accumulated immune-suppres-
sive toxins, rebuilding the immune system, and removing or disabling the pathogens causing AIDS
and/or its opportunistic infections. Some of these goals may be accomplished by “holistic” ap-
proaches; others by “alternative” treatments. Holistic healing systems -- Chinese medicine, Home-
opathy, etc. -- treat the overall being, considering the mind, body and spirit as one interwoven enti-
ty. Alternative treatments are specific agents -- drugs, vitamins, herbs, etc. -- which can be used to
accomplish various aspects of a holistic-healing approach, but can also be used by themselves.
Since each person’s needs are different, it is best to design an individualized, combination treat-
ment program in consultation with a knowledgeable doctor or alternative-treatment practitioner.

Advocates of an holistic approach argue that the full participation of the PWA is key. “Those sur-
viving longest are usually the ones taking an active role in shaping their health program, research-
ing, challenging their doctors, rather than passively waiting to be told what to do,” says Dr. Ray-
mond Brown, a New York physician treating PWAs and author of the book, AIDS, Cancer and the
Medical Establishment.

“It is vitally important to believe in the therapies that you are on”“ says Dr. Jon Kaiser, a San Fran-
cisco doctor who has numerous patients on personalized integrated treatment programs. “By
putting together a healing program that is consistent with your inner belief and feelings, you maxi-
mize the chance for a successful outcome.”

Personalized treatment programs seem to be the method of choice among most long-term survivors.
Michael Callen, diagnosed with AIDS in 1982 and a longtime crusader for the self-empowerment
of PWAs, interviewed 17 long-term survivors across the country in 1988. Although their treatments
of choice varied considerably, all had used one or more alternative approaches at various times,
Callen reported, and most had changed their diets, in some cases radically. Most important, says
Callen, PWAs are not passive when it comes to their medical care. As Callen puts it: “They are
fighters.”

Common Concerns

N utritional deficiencies are a frequent reality for an HIV-positive person or person with
AIDS (PWA). Problems can range from severe malnutrition to basic vitamin deficiencies.
Vitamins, such as A, B6, B12, C, and E, and minerals like calcium, iron and zinc are often
lacking in HIV-positives and PWAs. Vitamins can be used as specific treatments for AIDS-related
conditions.

Herbal teas, powders and pills, available at health-food stores, can help with a full range of symp-
toms from digestive problems to blood purification to nervousness. For example, herbal teas of
comfrey and alfalfa for digestion, red clover and cammomile for nervousness, golden seal as gargle
for thrush, sore throats or gum ulceration, and garlic pills for general infection and treatment have
all shown decades of effectiveness.

Hi-Tech Nutritional Supplements and Herbal Extracts

T here are a number of alternative treatments -- those not recognized by the federal govern-
ment as an AIDS/HIV treatment -- that have shown effectiveness in treating AIDS and HIV
symptoms. Examples include:

Carrisyn, derived from the juice of the desert plant aloe vera, has been used medically for cen-
turies. It is reported to be anti-viral and immune-stimulating. After tests showed that aloe sup-
pressed HIV, buyers’ clubs began to sell it to PWAs at a cost of about $140 for a month’s supply.

Three clinical trials of aloe, with a total of 53 participants over three months, were presented at the
1988 Stockholm International AIDS conference. Dr. H.R. McDaniel, who conducted the studies at
the Dallas-Fort Worth Medical Center Research Laboratory, reported a reduction of symptoms in
71 percent of the patients, “in some cases dramatic.” All patients reported an end to fevers and
night sweats, and most were relieved of diarrhea. Many returned to full employment. “No toxic ef-
fects were noted,” McDaniel added.

The Treatment Alternatives working group of ACT UP writes that “Acemannan [the generic name
for the long-chain polysaccharide isolated from the aloe vera plant which is available in liquid form
under the brand name “Carrisyn”), has been reported to act as a potent, but non-toxic, anti-viral
with activity against measles virus, Herpes virus and the Feline Leukemia Virus (a virus with strik-
ing similarities to HIV). Furthermore, in vitro studies have indicated that it interferes with HIV
replication, and is a potent inducer of interleukin-1 and prostaglandin E2. Lymphocytes exposed to
acemannan exhibit an increase in natural killer cell activity,” and it is remarkably free of toxicity.

Hypericin, from St. John’s wort herb, has long been of interest as a natural antiviral and antidepres-
sant. In recent test tube studies, Hypericin proved to harden the outer surface of the HIV virus, in-
hibiting HIV from infecting cells and inhibiting the replication of cells already infected with HIV.

Peptide-T, from a string of eight amino acids configured to block the HIV virus attaching to and
thus invading cells, with no known toxic side-effects. Treatment Alternatives reports that cells that
have already been infected by HIV prior to Peptide-T therapy will remain infected until the cell it-
self dies. The body as a whole, however, will have a dramatically enhanced ability to ward off the
effects of the virus. Peptide-T appeared to help stabilize T-cell counts and to improve HIV-related
diarrhea, dermatitis, and neuro-cognitive disorders related to HIV such as memory or concentration
loss, fatigue, word slipping, and depression. Availability info: Several buyers’ clubs sell this prod-
uct; also, through the FDA and clinical trials.

AL-721, This lipid derivative of egg yolks, originally developed as a treatment for drug addiction
and hardened arteries, became popular among PWAs after a 1985 medical journal article by HIV’s
“codiscoverer,” Dr. Robert Gallo, who called it “a promising new candidate for clinical investiga-
tion.” An underground network had sprung up to import the product from Israel, and for a while it
became the hottest item in the buyers’ clubs. Under extreme duress, the National Institute of Aller-
gy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) started tiny trials and cooked the data. Government and phar-
maceutical spin doctors then showed its “ineffectiveness,” and spread the word through small
grassroots newsletters, compromising their information and co-opting many of them over a long pe-
riod. Now, home-based workalikes have been developed in the U.S. Parris Kidd and Wolfgang Hu-
ber report some tentative conclusions: 1) The egg lipids are not a cure for AIDS, but do offer mea-
surable benefits; 2) The egg lipids bring about some degree of virus containment; 3) The data on
lymphocyte function indicate some favorable trends; 4) Clinical symptoms improve; 5) Benefits do
not persist if dosing is discontinued; 6) Benefits were not across-the-board for all patients; 7) Red
cell and platelet counts improve; 8) Egg lkpids appear to be preferable over soy lipids, and are more
effective; and 9) The egg lipids are not toxic, although some products may raise serum cholesterol
levels in the body. The monthly cost, depending on dosage, ranges from $75 to $135.

In 1988, medical researchers Wolfgang Huber and Parris Kidd reviewed the results of four clinical
trials (totaling over 60 patients) and phone and written surveys of buyers’ club customers. They re-
ported that while lipid products are “not a cure for AIDS, they do appear to improve the patient’s
overall well-being.” The researchers note, however, that the results seem to plateau after the first
month of treatment, and that about 20 percent of patients do not respond at all. No toxic side effects
have been recorded, and more clinical trials are underway;

Urine Therapy: Drinking one’s own urine-up to a cup a day. Urine is completely sterile. Most tox-
ins and impurities are passed through the large intestine. Prisoners lacking access to AIDS treat-
ment have also reported notable improvements in symptoms through urine therapy, although most
prison authorities forbid it and retaliate against prisoners engaged in urine therapy, according to
HEAL’s Gene Fedorko, at a workshop sponsored by the Red Balloon Collective at the Northeast
Student Action Network gathering in Burlington Vermont in 1988. Warning: Drugs such as antibi-
otics are passed through urine. Do not drink your urine if you are on any medication or drugs. You
can poison yourself. Newer report indicate that urine therapy is not enough, and should only be
used in combination with other therapies.
Vitamin B12: May be an effective treatment in cases of HIV-related neuropathy and neurological
problems.

Vitamin C: A recent test-tube study of vitamin C (ascorbate) against HIV, published in September
1990 by the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., found that vitamin
C strongly suppresses the activity and growth of HIV in T cells, without causing toxicity. High
dosages, equivalent to a minimum of 10 grams (10,000 milligrams) taken orally, appear to have the
greatest effect. Steroids, birth control pills, tobacco smoking and stress all compromise the effec-
tiveness of Vitamin C.

Human beings are one of the minority of species in the world that do not produce their own Vita-
min C. Animals that produce their own Vitamin C increase this production during illness and under
stress, sometimes as much as six-fold. This is because Vitamin C is stored in tissues, released when
infection arises and destroyed during the course of the infection. It is a water-soluble vitamin and is
quickly excreted. Since humans do not manufacture their own Vitamin C, they must increase their
intake dramatically during illness.

Several physicians with considerable AIDS research and clinical experience have observed such ef-
fects of high doses of Vitamin C as:

• prevention of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia over an extended time period;

• major shortening of PCP episodes;
• amelioration of allergic reactions to antibiotics for PCP and other opportunist infections;
• lessening or disappearance of Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions;
• after several months of Vitamin C therapy, dramatic reduction in HIV activity, as measured
by p24-antigen and HIV-antigen tests.
• elimination of hepatitis in patients who had undergone surgery and received blood transfu-
sions. (Seven percent of those not receiving 2 grams of Vitamin C per day in a Japanese
study contracted hepatitis.)

Surprising results have shown that many PWAs need 50 to 100 grams of vitamin C per day, often
for at least several months, until the antiviral effect takes hold. During acute infections such as
PCP, sometimes as much as 200 grams per day is needed. Vitamin C also enhances the production
of alpha interferon in the immune system. Interferon is a protein produced by white blood cells
which is used as the first line of defense against viruses. It prevents the invasion of healthy cells by
viruses, inhibits viral multiplication in cells and stimulates the production of natural killer cells. Al-
though alpha interferon has been produced synthetically, the synthetic version is expensive and has
not been found to be as effective against disease as alpha interferon naturally produced in the hu-
man body.

Vitamin C has also demonstrated anti-viral properties against a number of viruses associated with
herpes, poliomyelitis, hepatitis and vaccinia.

Garlic: Ancient herbal wisdom, combined with modern Chinese scientific know-how and African-
American research skill and dedication, may soon yield a new, effective AIDS treatment: intra-
venous garlic extract.
The humble garlic plant has been used as a medicinal herb by numerous cultures for centuries. It
has proved helpful in preventing and treating such illnesses as colds, flu, anemia, hypertension and
several cancers. Laboratory studies have shown this bulb to possess strong anti-fungal, anti-bacteri-
al, anti-viral and immune-stimulating qualities.
Since early in the epidemic, hundreds of PWAs and people with HIV have experimented with nutri-
tional and herbal programs including garlic, ranging from three to eight raw cloves daily (cooking
destroys its medicinial value). Others take capsules, tablets or liquid extracts available in health
food stores. Several brands are fully free of the odor and side effects (gas and indigestion) which
some find problematic in raw form -- yet they retain their potency, according to lab tests. Much
anecdotal evidence tells of PWAs staying freer of opportunistic infections and simple illnesses
(colds and flus) and of eliminating parasites, candida and other infections after they occur.

There has been minimal U.S. research on garlic for AIDS. But growing evidence from China shows
garlic’s effectiveness in treating non-AIDS cases of cryptococcal meningitis (crypto), cy-
tomegalovirus infection (CMV) and candida (thrush) -- three of the most widespread opportunistic
infections in AIDS.

Since 1964, doctors in China have used garlic to treat cryptococcal meningitis and viral encephali-
tis. In crypto cases where the antibiotic amphotericin B is ineffective or too toxic, garlic extract has
been used to complete the treatment successfully. And for several years, intravenous garlic has
been administered to people with systemic fungal infections, including candida and immune sup-
pression (similar to AIDS) from bone marrow transplants. In the latter case, garlic has effectively
prevented or treated the pneumonias resulting from CMV infections. Across the board, toxicity has
been minimal or nonexistent. However, the evidence supporting garlic’s usefulness in fighting
AIDS is speculative and, in fact, somewhat disappointing, at this time.

Glycyrrhizin: Glycyrrhizin (GL) is an extract from the root of the licorice plant Glycyrrhizia Radix
that has shown anti-HIV activity, inhibit HIV replication, interfere with virus-to-cell binding and
cell-to-cell infection, suppress the clumping of infected cells, and induce interferon activity and
natural killer cells. In addition, antiviral activity against Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) and Herpes
Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) in cell culture has been reported.

GL is available over-the-counter in Japan, and may be purchased in the U.S. through buyers’ clubs
under the name Glycyron 2, for approximately $78.00 per month.

Helpful Approaches

Nutritional Therapies. Eating a diverse diet rich in natural, unprocessed foods provides the body
with many of the necessary nutrients. It is one way to strengthen the immune system which enables
an HIV-positive person or PWA to more effectively fight off opportunistic infections. A macrobiot-
ic diet, one nutritional approach, is based on principles of traditional Chinese medicine and has
been an effective complement in AIDS/HIV therapy for years.

Several nutritional studies have shown that deficiencies in various vitamins and minerals are linked
to impaired immunity. While supplements are one way to stock up on the key nutrients, advocates
of macrobiotic diets -- emphasizing whole grains, beans, cooked vegetables, and seaweeds and
minimizing dairy products, red meat, refined grains, alcohol and sweets -- say that this is the most
comprehensive approach to healing the immune system.

In a study of 20 PWAs with Kaposi’s Sarcoma on macrobiotic diets, presented at the 1987 Interna-
tional AIDS Conference, Boston University, immunologist Elinor Levy reported that after three
years, eight men had died, but the remaining 12 all had improved immune functioning, including
increased counts of T-cells (white blood cells essentialy to the immune system). According to re-
searcher Tom Monte, who interviewed the survivors in 1988, “Vitality had increased substantially,
with most of the men returning to work and leading active and productive lives; emotional and psy-
chological health have been dramatically improved. The men talk as if they were lifted out of an
emotional grave. ... Many of these men appear remarkably fit.” Comments Dr. Levy, “Macrobiotics
is not a cure for AIDS, but of the non-cures, it seems to be the best thing around.”

Nutrient Therapies. Nutrients are simply the chemical components in food that “nourish” or build
up the body. Studies have shown that from the onset of HIV infection, all People with HIV have
multiple deficiencies of critical nutrients. Supplementing these nutrients, the building blocks of life,
if done in sufficient dosages, can exert prfoundly beneficial and healing effects on the body. Nutri-
ents used in the DAAIR (Direct AIDS Alternative Information Resources) protocols include amino
acids, antioxidants, minerals, fatty acids, helpful bacterias, glandular products, herbal extracts and
prescriptive medicines -- all of which have been shown in research to strengthen the immune sys-
tem, slow viral growths, and aid in defense against chronic illness. The centerpiece of DAAIR’s ap-
proach is a multi-factorial model and group of substances known generally as antioxidant nutrients,
which combat the oxidative stress (excess of damaging “free radical” molecules). Oxidative stress
creates an environment for HIV disease to progress.

In this model, a primary goal is to slow the rate of production of oxidants, which are unstable bits
of molecules called “free radicals” (which easily react with and harm intact cells in our bodies), and
restore the body’s natural balance of antioxidants (compounds which easily give up parts of them-
selves to protect against damage to the body). By restablizing the oxidative imbalance, the immune
system is made stronger, while viruses inside cells become less active. This slows disease progres-
sion as well as the autoimmune component (the body’s mistaken attack on its own cells) which de-
velops as HIV progresses.

Spiritual Modalities include meditation, affirmation, creative visualization, and yoga. Creative
visualization, for example, is the technique of using your imagination to create a clear image of
something you want to change in your life. By continuing to focus on an idea or picture, you give it
positive energy that helps you make it a reality.

Massage therapy uses massage and touching techniques to relax the muscles and increase circula-
tion of blood and energy to further strengthen the body. Shiatsu, acupressure, reflexology, polarity
therapy, therapeutic touch, Reiki massage and many others are effective forms of massage therapy.

Acupressure, as compared with acupuncture, uses finger pressure instead of needles. Shiatsu is a
Japanese form of acupressure.

Some Holistic Healing Systems

Chinese Medicine is a centuries old system of treating diseases using herbs, acupuncture and spiri-
tuality. Chinese herbology treats disease and disharmonies with herbal combinations which have
undergone extensive clinical observation.

Acupuncture treats health and disease as the balance or imbalance of energy in the body. Energy
flow is stimulated or dispersed by applying non-painful needles, heat, and/or massage to specific
points on the skin’s surface. Acupuncture has proven a powerful detox method for drug, alcohol
and cigarette addiction, and a helpful AIDS/HIV treatment.

At New York City’s Lincoln Hospital Acupuncture Clinic, more than 500 PWAs have been treated
since 1982, each one after diagnosis via conventional Western procedures. Nutritional counseling is
also given, and many patients make dietary changes. Clinical medical director, Dr. Michael Smith,
in a 1987 study, reported: “Most patients report a reduction in fatigue, abnormal sweating, diarrhea
and acute dermal [skin] reactions after four or five treatments. Patients usually describe an im-
proved sense of well-being rather than merely an absence of symptoms. Some patients have had a
15- to 25-pound weight gain and are able to return to long hours at work.”

In a follow-up study, Smith found that five out of 14 patients with ARC (AIDS-related complex)
were still alive after five years of treatment. A six-month clinical trial of Chinese herbs run by the
San Francisco AIDS Alternative Healing Project in 1988 showed that out of 27 patients studied,
one had died, two HIV-positive people developed ARC or AIDS, seven patients reported that they
felt the same, and 13 felt better. Several were energetic enough to return to work. Apparently, how-
ever, the treatment produced little or no increase in T-cells.

Homeopathy. Since AIDS is not a homogeneous disease itself, but a syndrome in which the body’s
own ability to ward off disease is destroyed, AIDS can manifest itself as one or several of over 30
known diseases, and results on tests of any one treatment are unlikely to be uniform. As a result,
many holistic healers emphasize the need to individualize the treatment-for example, vary the vita-
min dosage, or change the combination of Chinese herbs-to suit the patient. Homeopathy uses mi-
crodoses, selected on the basis of an individual’s totality of symptoms, to stimulate or enhance the
body’s own ability to heal. Although various homeopathic remedies have been reported useful in
managing AIDS/HIV symptoms, the most effective overall results have come from comprehensive
treatment by a skilled homeopath.

Naturopathy. A distinct system of healing, naturopathy seeks to promote health by diet changes,
herbs and other natural therapies.

-------------------------------------
Combined reports of Bob Lederer, Mitchel Cohen, the Alternative and Holistic Treatment Com-
mittee of ACT UP/NY, Outweek, Treatment Alternatives working group of ACT UP, DAAIR,
and the Red Balloon Collective.

FURTHER READING

Adams, Jad: AIDS: The HIV Myth, St. Martin’s Press, New York City, 1989, $16.95. A new book
giving the inside story behind Gallo’s HIV obsession and the dogmatism of the medical establish-
ment.

Brown, Raymond Keith, M.D.: AIDS, Cancer and the Medical Establishment, Robert Speller, pub-
lisher, NYC, 1986, $16.95. Excellent brief analysis of medical establishment’s hostility to co-factor
analysis and holistic treatments. Also, good survey, only partially outdated, of promising holistic
treatments.

Chitow, Leon and Martin, Simon: A World Without AIDS: The Controversial Holistic Health Plan,
Thorsons Publishers, 1988.

Coulter, Harris L.: AIDS and Syphilis: The Hidden Link, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1987,
$8.95. Carefully documented explanation of the AIDS-Syphilis-antibiotics theory, including inter-
views with medical practitioners using syphilis treatments.

Culbert, Michael L.: AIDS: Hope, Hoax and Hooplah, The Bradford Foundation, Chula Vista,
Calif., 1989, $14.95. Good summary of evidence for many co-factors theories, in spite of the right-
wing author’s sexphobic comments and annoying references to “homosexuals.”
DAAIR - Direct AIDS Alternative Information Resource. 31 E. 30th St. #2A, NYC 10016, (212)
689-8140.

Duesberg, Peter: The Group for the Study of the HIV-AIDS Theory, and other materials reviewing
AIDS and AZT research pertaining to the Foundation for Alternative AIDS Research, available
from SAAO, PO Box 1447, NL 1200 BK Hilversum, The Netherlands.

Kidd, Parris and Huber, Wolfgang: Living with the AIDS Virus: Strategy for a Longterm Survival.

Mitchell, Robert Ben: Syphilis as AIDS, Banned Books, 1989. Detailed documentation of the
Syphilis-AIDS connections.

Nussbaum, Bruce: Good Intentions: How Big Business and the Medical Establishment Are Cor-
rupting the Fight Against AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Cancer, and More. Penguin Books, 1990, $10.95.

Rappoport, Jon: AIDS Inc: Scandal of the Century, Human Energy Press, San Bruno, Calif., 1988,
$13.95. A broad but unevenly documented survey of theorized AIDS causes and co-factors, with an
occasionally over-conspiratorial bent. Many valuable tidbits of information, though.