Læknaneminn - 01.04.1997, Page 111

The drug-AIDS hypothesis *
product label of an AZT bottle supplied by Sigma, a
non-medical provider of the drug, points out, with
skuil and cross bones, AZTs toxicity to the bone mar-
row, the very source ofT-cells (Fig. 4). Even the pri-
mary provider of AZT, the Glaxo/Burroughs Wellcome
company states in the Physicians’Desk Reference that, “It
was often difficult to distinguish adverse events possi-
bly associated with zidovudine [AZT] administration
from underlying signs of HIV disease...” 152. Finaily,
the National Institutes of Child Health and
Development recently confirmed that, “Zidovudine
use is confounded by progression of HIV disease” 205.
The inevitable darnage caused by AZT prescriptions
is compounded by many of the concomitant medicines
taken by most, if not all HlV-positive Americans with
AIDS and at risk for AIDS (Table 7). For example,
some of the antiviral drugs like ganciclovir and acy-
clovir are also DNA chain terminators that are nearly
as toxic as AZT 207. As expected they were observed to
produce “pancytopenia” 208 by killing hemopoietic
cells, and to have “direct [toxic] effects on myeloid and
erythroid progenitor cells” l52, 209. Moreover, even
American AIDS researchers are concerned that many
of the anti-infectives used as anti-HIV/AIDS drugs
have “nephrotoxic, cytotoxic, and myelosuppresive
[effects], such as amphotericin B, co-trimoxazole, dap-
sone, interferon, pentamidine, vincristine, flucytosine,
adriamycin, vinblastine, and others [which] could
potentially increase the risk of hematologic toxicities in
patients being treated with ZDV [AZT]” 209. In other
words these drugs are immunosuppressive because they
intoxicate and kill immune cells.
As yet there are no placebo-controlled human or
even animal studies in the literature on the toxic effects
of protease inhibitors, although over 60,000 Americans
are daily users of the most popular brand 210. However,
the popular press acknowledges effects such as “suicidal
thoughts, twitching, central nervous disorders
...extreme nausea, hallucinations, intense trembling”
after several months on the drug 192. And the
HIV/AIDS researcher Jerome Groopman of the Beth
Israel Medical Center in Boston informed Newsweek in
December 1996 that, “some patients have been ‘show-
ing signs of the benefits wearing off’” - an effect that is
termed “crashing” by the magazine. Even the surrogate
markers of presumed benefits of protease inhibitors,
like decreased “viral load” 33,34, l77, are lost over several
months as “viral load has shot back up again and no
one knows why” 210.
4.4. Conclusions. Although AZT cannot prevent or
cure AIDS, and although AZT and the other DNA
chain terminators are among the most toxic drugs
legally available, and although AZT is already known
to cause AIDS diseases and accelerates death on its
own, about 200,000 HlV-positive Americans are daily
recipients of AZT. Most of these are healthy because
there are no more than 50,000 to 75,000 American
AIDS patients peryear 3. In addition most, perhaps all
American HlV-positives at risk for AIDS also take
other “concomitant medications” 209 that have known
immunosuppressive and other detrimental effects, such
as cortisones, dapsone, pentamidine and others 152,194.
Furthermore, most HlV-positive and HlV-negative
people at risk for AIDS also consume bewildering com-
binations and doses of recreational drugs (see 3.). In
other words, most Americans at risk for AIDS and with
AIDS are walking pharmacies, consuming excessive
doses of toxic recreational and toxic medical drugs.
5. DRUG-AIDS HYP0THESIS
Since drugs are the only new health risk of
Americans and Europeans since the 1970s, and AIDS
is the only new epidemic, it is proposed here that the
drug epidemic is the cause of the American and
European AIDS epidemic. The hypothesis is:
All AIDS diseases in America and Europe that exceed
their long-established, normal backgrounds (i.e. >95%)
are caused by the long-term consumption of recreational
drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and
amphetamines, and by prescription of anti-HIV drugs,
such as AlZT.
Hemophilia-AIDS, transfusion-AIDS, and the
extremely rare AIDS cases ofthe generalpopulation reflect
the normal incidence plus the AZT-induced incidence of
these diseases under a new name. The rarity of AIDS in
the general population is the product of (a) the low-fre-
quency of AIDS defining diseases in Americans who do
not use drugs or have congenital diseases, and (b) the low
incidence of HlV-antibody in only 1 in 300 individuals
tested (see 2, Fig. 1).
African AIDS is a new name for old diseases caused by
malnutrition, parasitic infections andpoor sanitation 11,26.
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