Funding HIV treatment in Africa – bravo

I am skeptical about both the motives and the results. Providing AIDS drugs to Africa is a good way to take money from American taxpayers and give it to the big pharmaceutical companies.

Furthermore, the effectiveness and safety of the AIDS drugs is debatable.

I voted for Bush, so this is not reflexive Bush-bashing. He probably believes in the drugs and has not investigated the shady research leading to their approval.

Do you realize how confusing, and possibly crooked, some of the data is? For example, the percentage of HIV-infected patients who develop AIDS has gone way down. Must be the drugs, right? Not necessarily, since many more people are tested for HIV now, and many would probably never have developed AIDS.

There is also the long and variable latency period between HIV infection and AIDS. It is not possible to know how many infections would lead to AIDS, or when. It is deceptive to credit the drugs when we have no way of knowing, especially since there are no control groups of known HIV-infected patients not taking drugs.

The deception is not necessarily intentional, and researchers may be deceiving themselves.

We have a similar situation with cancer drugs. Most cancer never progresses and before early diagnosis technology, most cancer went untreated and unnoticed. Now cancer is always treated — and when the patient does not die or get sick, the drugs (and possible surgery, radiation, etc.) are always credited with the “cure.”

If cancer drugs, and AIDS drugs, do no good at all, the data would still show amazing “cure” rates.

The drug craze we are now experiencing more or less got its start with the AIDS epidemic and AZT. It has been wonderful for the big drug companies, maybe not so wonderful for the rest of us.

“most cancer never progresses” is true and well-known to medical science.

“Hell, if the drugs didn’t do anything, why would clinical trials be called off because the prospective therapeutic agent was less efficacious than standard HAART (see Reyataz monotherapy study)? ”

You NEVER have done a conclusive study with a contol group of HIV-infected patients receiving no drugs at all.

Most of the time HIV infection probably does not result in AIDS.

There are many subtle illusions and self-deceptions involved in most of the research on cancer and AIDS.

Regarding cancer — the idea that most cancer never progresses does NOT come from flaky alternative sources. There are mainstream medical journals with articles about lead-time bias and over-diagnosis. I have seen the problem discussed, but I have not seen any solutions proposed.

You don’t know if the drugs reduce preinatal transmission because, again, you have no control group!

Your assumptions are based primarily on wishful thinking, not on scientific evidence.

Thank you CK, I will read those artilces.

I understand that contol groups would be unethical and illegal in these situations. My point is that there have been no contol groups, and therefore scientific conclusions are difficult.

I tend to disagree with the general approach to both AIDS and cancer. Using toxic chemicals to destroy cancer cells, or HIV, seems to be based on the success of antibiotics in treating bacterial infections. I think cancer and viral infections may not respond well to this approach.

One problem is that the current treatments appear to be successful, although it’s impossible to know if they really are without control groups.

We all know someone who was “cured” of cancer — but most of the time, it was early stage cancer that would have never resulted in death or disease. We have no way to compare standard treatment vs. no treatment, or alternative treatment, since it would not be ethical or legal.

We are stuck with the standard treatments, without knowing their safety or effectiveness. The research seems to show success, and refusing or denying the treatments is considered dangerous and/or criminal.

No one working in medical research dares to criticize the standard approach, because it would damage their career.

I want to add that I am not an HIV denier. I think Duesberg was wrong in saying AIDS is caused by lifestyle and recreational drugs. However, he may be partly correct, and it’s possible that HIV does not completely explain AIDS. Duesberg does have the expertise and his opinion that HIV cannot possibly cause AIDS should be taken seriously. He could not think of any explanation other than lifestyle, and that’s why he proposed it.

Duesberg was ridiculed and his career was damaged because he questioned the HIV theory. Every AIDS patient has HIV — well yes, but that might be because HIV infection is part of the diagnostic criteria. And even if HIV infection is always present in AIDS patients, it does not follow that HIV causes AIDS — you cannot assume causality from correlation.

At least admit there is tremendous confusion surrounding AIDS. At least admit that drugs are no miracle cure.

And by the way — if the AIDS drugs actually do work, if they really do destroy HIV, then patients should not be on them for life. They should be able to discontinue the drugs once the virus has been eradicated.

But we never hear about AIDS patients being cured of HIV infection, right? I think that’s a big problem for the HIV theory.

Sounds great, but where can we find out about what kind of strings are attached to these new funds? I’ve heard about strings attached to other AIDS money, and can’t speak to the accuracy of this website below, except to say that I’ve heard this from other sources as well:

“Another issue that splits the White House from the AIDS–relief community is abortion. Soon after his inauguration, Bush reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” also known as the global gag rule, which had been in effect under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. Under these restrictions, foreign nongovernmental organizations receiving U.S. government funding must agree not to provide counseling or referral for abortion or perform abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening illness. This policy has impeded the fight against AIDS by forcing the closure of many clinics. For example, the Kenya affiliate of Marie Stopes International, a reproductive-health-services group, had to shut down several clinics, including one that served 400 women a month in the province with the highest HIV prevalence rate in the country. In Ghana, the Planned Parenthood Association was forced to reduce not only family-planning services but also voluntary HIV testing and counseling for nearly 700,000 clients.

Bush’s “pro-family” agenda is clear in his approach to grant giving as well. The United States is expected to invest about $180 million in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs — which don’t discuss condoms or other forms of contraception — through PEPFAR in 2005. What’s more, the Bush administration appears to be encouraging evangelical groups with no Africa experience to seek grants.”

link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8136

It’s an older article but you get the idea. Not saying this isn’t a good thing, but it would be good to have more info…