Rethinking AIDS: alternative views on the cause and treatment of AIDS, by Anna Olson

When news about AIDS first appeared back in the '80s, like everyone else who read the newspapers and watched TV, I believed the story that AIDS was caused by a terrible new virus that at first affected gay men and IV drug users and later was said to affect the general population. It wasn't until 1995, when I was editor of The Aquarian, a newspaper covering alternative health therapies, that a reader introduced me to material that offered a different theory about the cause and treatment of AIDS. I read everything I could find, interviewed AIDS workers and patients, and came to the conclusion that the "dissidents" were right: that the illness called AIDS resulted from an overload of assaults to the immune system and that health could be regained by eliminating the risk factors, avoiding chemotherapy and strengthening the immune system through natural ways such as vitamins, herbs, meditation, exercise, rest and relaxation. I met a number of gay men--some just HIV positive and some who had become sick--who were recovering their health in that way.

I wanted to share my experience with the AIDS dissidents by writing three columns on the subject for Swerve and inviting feedback from readers. This first column tells you about a book that I found very informative: What if Everything You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? by Christine Maggiore.

In 1992, as a young woman, Maggiore landed in the AIDS scene the hard way--by testing HIV-positive when her new doctor insisted on her taking the test. The news threw her into turmoil. Despite her excellent health, the doctor said she had five to seven years to live and that the only treatment was AZT, a drug that would make her sicker. An AIDS group invited her to be a speaker as Maggiore "appeared the embodiment of the slogan that everyone is at risk for AIDS." One doctor she went to in a desperate hope for a cure suggested that she didn't fit the profile of the average AIDS patient and perhaps she should take the test again. The results were confusing: an inconclusive test, then a positive followed by a negative and then another positive. Now unsure about the mainstream dictum that a positive reading on an HIV test meant certain death from AIDS, she looked for information outside the AIDS establishment.

"The more I read," Maggiore writes, "the more I became convinced that AIDS research had jumped on a bandwagon that was headed in the wrong direction." Although still testing positive, she says she's in good health and living without chemotherapy drugs or the fear of getting AIDS.

In this well-referenced, 126-page book, Christine Maggiore explores topics like: Is HIV the Cause of AIDS? Is the "AIDS Test" Accurate? Is AIDS Devastating Africa? What's Up with Viral Load? and 17 other AIDS-related areas. In the short space I have here, I'll relay some of her material from the chapter: "If It's Not HIV, What Can Cause AIDS?" because the cause of a disease should determine how you treat it.

Maggiore and all dissenters I've read about claim that chronic exposure to factors that adversely affect the immune system are what cause the group of symptoms called AIDS. "In fact," she says, "there is no case of AIDS described in the medical literature without one or more of these health risk factors." The list includes: malnutrition and chronic lack of sleep associated with hunger, poverty, and chronic drug abuse; exposure to immune-compromising chemicals, such as AZT and other chemotherapy compounds, protease inhibitors, antibiotics and steroids, and recreational drugs such as cocaine, crack, heroin, nitrites (poppers), and methamphetamines (crystal, speed); chronic infections due to venereal diseases, hepatitis, tuberculosis, malaria, fungi, amoebas and parasites, bacteria, blood transfusions and the use of blood products; and psychological distress including chronic anxiety, panic, and depression.

Gay men have experienced a number of these risk factors and Maggiore goes into detail under the heading "Men Who Have Sex With Men." The use of poppers correlates with Kaposi's Sarcoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, two AIDS-defining cancers found almost exclusively among gay men who use this drug. Other problem areas are: recreational drugs; unprotected anal sex which can lead to parasitic and venereal infections; medical drugs, including steroids used to treat these infections; the use of toxic pharmaceuticals to prevent and cure AIDS-related infections. "Bactri and Septra, for example, are powerful sulfonamide antibiotics that kill digestive flora and cause anemia and bone marrow destruction. The anti-HIV drugs...destroy the immune and digestive systems, in addition to causing five of the 29 official AIDS-defining illnesses"; and feelings of despair and hopelessness that arise from a constant negative emphasis on AIDS in the gay media.

On the positive side, Maggiore lists eight natural ways to improve one's health and many books, publications, websites and organizations that espouse the dissident point of view. Also, she claims "three common characteristics among long-term survivors: avoidance of the AIDS chemotherapy drugs; cessation of health-compromising practices; and the introduction of health-enhancing practices such as proper nutrition, adequate rest, and regular exercise."