Posted by Editor on August 11, 2002 at 14:11:08:
Also from Alive and Well's newsletter:
Stunning Media Silence on
Study Linking Fatal Organ Failure to AIDS Drugs
Jason Nusbaum on the best kept secret from Barcelona
A presentation at the 14th
International AIDS Conference in Barcelona by a University of
Pittsburgh AIDS researcher reveals the "most common cause of death
among HIV positive people is liver failure." Dr. Amy Justice bases her
conclusions on a study following nearly 6,000 HIV-positive diagnosed
patients at four sites in the United States. AIDS establishment
scientists have never claimed that HIV damages the liver.
I
contacted Dr. Justice by phone to learn more. During our conversation
she told me that causes of death among people with AIDS have never been
carefully recorded over the years. This is a concern we AIDS realists
have been raising for more than a decade only to be dismissed by the
AIDS establishment. Justice said that to the best of her knowledge, her
study is the only one that reliably recorded actual cause of death in
AIDS patients.
The implications of this admission are astounding.
Liver failure is the leading cause of death among individuals being
treated with AIDS meds in the only study that reliably records causes
of death. Apparently, no establishment researchers make the important
distinction between deaths from AIDS drugs and deaths from diseases
called AIDS.
I wondered if this mainstream AIDS scientist might now
agree with what AIDS realists have known all along, that AIDS meds can
kill. I brought up the issue with Dr. Justice: "I hear your careful
presentation of the science, and your careful statements about what
your research shows. Can you give me your intuition though, are the
AIDS drugs involved in the deaths of these people?"Dr. Justice laughed.
"I think they are, yes. It s the dark side of these
drugs."
According to the Justice abstract and the results of another
study from the European EuroSIDA cohort also presented at the Barcelona
AIDS conference, liver function tests and red blood cell counts are
more accurate predictors of illness and death in HIV positives than
viral load tests or T cell counts. Both liver toxicity and anemia (low
red blood cell levels) are well known side effects of AIDS drug
treatment. And like liver damage, anemia is not blamed on HIV.
AIDS
establishment studies with similarly profound implications for HIV
positive diagnosed persons are regularly published in medical journals,
but if the mainstream media is aware of such information, they re not
telling.
The one mainstream mention of the Justice et al and
EuroSIDA findings put a positive spin on the dire news, portraying the
studies as merely proving out "simpler and cheaper" methods of
measuring risk of death and progression to disease, glossing over the
issues of drug-induced liver failure deaths and life-threatening
anemia. According to Medscape s report, the studies illuminate easier
and less expensive lab tests, while liver damage and low red cell
counts are "minor metabolic abnormalities."
Interestingly, the
Medscape article makes a sudden denouncement of viral load testing,
claiming it "has not proved the ultimate marker of the risk of HIV
progression and death" that everyone believed.
From Medscape's
coverage of the 14th International AIDS Conference:
"Barcelona,
Spain; Monday, July 8, 2002 -- The role of surrogate markers to predict
survival or other outcomes in HIV disease has been an area of interest
for many groups, especially as the epidemic has advanced and the range
of potential markers has increased. When quantitation of viral load
became possible in the mid-1990s, it was widely believed that this
would provide the ultimate marker of the risk of HIV progression and
death. In fact, this has not proved to be the case, and there has
therefore been renewed attention to other, perhaps simpler and cheaper
measures of risk.
The laboratory measures that are routinely
evaluated in HIV-infected patients include hemoglobin levels as a
marker of anemia, and liver function tests."
Does this mean we toss
viral load? Or that viral load remains the ultimate marker for HIV
positives not taking the meds, but liver and anemia tests are the new
ultimate markers for medicated HIV positives?
David Crowe of Alberta
Reappraising AIDS Society comments: "I think the implications are
rather sinister. The authors of the Justice study admit that liver
damage is associated with HAART; it is the first factor they list. To
include a surrogate marker that is at least partially controlled by a
therapy as a marker of disease progression is very dangerous. If the
liver enzymes worsen, does that mean that AIDS is progressing faster
and that treatment should be more aggressive?"
The pharmaceutical
companies, establishment AIDS activists, and federally funded AIDS
scientists have nothing to gain and much to lose if these recent
studies are accurately portrayed and widely disseminated. Without the
work of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, would you ever hear about
studies like these or know what they really mean?
(Jason Nusbaum is based in New York and serves as Director of Communications for Alive & Well)
For more information: Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives
http://www.aliveandwell.org