Your Letters
AZT Expose
Samuel L. Rosenberg
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Kudos to you for your superb HIV issue! Christine Maggiore should get
a Nobel Prize (in a new category, if necessary), and Susan Gerhard and
Neville Hodgkinson should receive Pulitzers. I first became an AIDS dissident
in the early 1990's, when I read T. C. Fry's The Great AIDS Hoax and Jon
Rappaport's AIDS Inc. I subsequently met and worked with Christine in her
then-nascent HEAL organization. I have always been extremely impressed
by Christine's intelligence, integrity, and passion. She is truly a remarkable
person.
Acharya S.
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I was very impressed with the article on HIV-positive moms. I recently
finished grad school in health policy and management and am going to make
sure my peers read this article. Clearly, treatment varies from hospital
to hospital and doctor to doctor, and this is not an issue with which administrators
are familiar. As a future player in the healthcare industry, I found this
article very enlightening, and I hope I can help open others' eyes as well!.
Eva Gavin
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Protecting children from the spread of HIV is, to me, of tanamount importance.
The reduction of HIV transmission to babies using peripartum antiretroviral
therapy is proven in scientific literature, with some regimens reducing
transmission twenty-fold. Even the oldest regimen, zidovudine, which you
mention in your article, reduces HIV transmission to babies by two-thirds.
Timothy Lahey, MD
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Thank you for your courageous article challenging the myth of HIV/AIDS.
Rich Angell
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I want to congratulate you on the recent article on HIV-positive moms.
It took a lot of courage to shine light on this series of dirty secrets.
You've published an impressively well-researched group of well-written
(frightening) pieces.
Cynthia Lair
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I just finished your article on HIV testing and treatment. I was surprised
by what I read. I had doubts about the common information available regarding
HIV/AIDS, but I had not realized that it was worse than I suspected.
Jennifer Chamblee
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Your Letters
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I am astounded at Mothering's bravery in exposing serious problems
that no other mainstream publications are covering ("Safe and Sound Underground"
and Molecular Miscarriage," September-October 2001). It is a public service.
Your coverage of the trials and tribulation of women caught in the web
of HIV is outstanding. Your courage to call the medical system fascism
is laudable. I hope and pray that you continue to be blessed with the courage
and foresight to say it like it is. I also hope and pray that you receive
the financial support to continue your voice. That is why I am renewing
our subscription for three years instead of one. I encourage other readers
to do the same.
Spring Valley, New York
E-mail
Overland Park, Kansas
Yet people cannot benefit from such preventative programs if they are
poorly educated about them. Your latest cover article makes sure the problem
gets worse. Rather than presenting a balanced discussion of the pros and
cons of peripartum zidovudine prophylaxis, you present the best arguments
against it. These arguments are certainly important to understand, and
include the fact that, as you mentioned, zidovudine is a serious drug with
important side effects. However, let us not lose sight of the benefits
of peripartum zidovudine, which include markedly reducing the spread of
a lethal and incurable virus to otherwise healthy babies who, without the
drug, have a one-in-four chance of getting it.
Although I imagine that your goal was to engender discussion about
an issue of vital importance to many mothers, you risk instead decreasing
the likelihood that HIV-positive mothers will seek such prophylaxes on
their babies' behalf, and thus that more babies will get infected with
HIV. (You can infer, I'm sure, that similar risks are engendered by an
unbalanced discussion of HIV causation of AIDS.)
Could the medical establishment (whoever that is) do a better job of
collaborating with mothers in this team fight to keep our babies from dying
of HIV? Absolutely. But attributing malign motivations to doctors who want
to prevent transmission of HIV to babies is silly. Failing to emphasize
that zidovudine and other better antiretroviral therapies save lives is
downright criminal.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Authorities who impose poisonous drugs on anyone without his or her
consent belong behind bars. Meanwhile, we have got a lot of waking up to
do. Vaccinations, circumcision, formula-feeding, factory farm childbirth,
HIV... what else have we swallowed?
Missoula, Montana
E-mail
During my pregnancy with my daughter four years ago, I agreed to the
routine prenatal HIV test. I'm not in a risk group and figured that it
would be just a formality. Since then I've begun to doubt the reasons behind
routine testing for HIV, and I decided not to submit to the test if I became
pregnant in the future. My reasons: I don't want my privacy invaded, and
also I am afraid of a false positive result. Your article gives me a basis
for my fear of testing.
Longview, Washington
PO Box 1690, Santa Fe, NM 87504
Fax: 505-986-8335
E-mail: letters@mothering.com