Episode 46: 2011 in Review
March 4th, 2012
David and Elizabeth (Beth) review some of the best, worst and most absurd news about HIV and AIDS from 2011.
Some of the news items that are covered include:
- Film festival release of “Positively False“, a documentary by Joan Shenton and Andi Reiss.
- Undercover interviews videoed by Ricci Davis, mostly in Uganda.
- Bad news on AIDS drugs including personal testimony from Malawi which apparently reflects the experiences of many. This experience is similar to that of the former Mr. Gay Colorado who is struggling with “debilitating” health problems related to the drugs (body deformities, liver, kidney problems).
- “For reasons not yet clear people with HIV face a higher risk of cancers not usually associated with HIV”.
- Tenofovir has been found to cause kidney disease in children. Beth mentioned her website on AIDS drug experiments and children: askdeblasiowhy.com.
- Etravine and Efavirenz have psychiatric side effects in a large percentage of users.
- AIDS drugs cause the type of malnutrition caused kwashiorkor but it’s blamed on immune system reconstitution.
- A Malaysian man left his family for 10 years in shame at his HIV-positive diagnosis and was only reunited after it was determined that he was actually HIV-negative.
- The loss this year of friends of the movement Lynn Margulis and Karri Stokely.
- The Italian Conference on AIDS and Retroviruses included some papers with a dissident viewpoint due to the efforts of Marco Ruggiero and others. The Duesberg (et al) paper that forced the demise of the journal Medical Hypottheses was finally published in the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology which then causes a flurry of shocked articles, shocked that the censorship barrier had been breached.
- Speculation on whether the Berlin Patient who ‘lost’ his HIV after intense therapy for AIDS and Cancer will survive his cure.
- The shocking treatment of Johnson Aziga, convicted of first degree murder for having consensual sex. Canada also charged a 17 year old girl with aggravated sexual assault for having consensual sex.
- The successes of Clark Baker and OMSJ.
- South African statistics that contradict many of the HIV=AIDS dogmas.
- Paying HIV+ women to be sterilized.
- Treatment as Prevention: A Hat Trick of Amazing Things (but only one goal on the scoreboard).
- Ripley’s Believe it or not: 80 and 94 year old Chinese men found to be HIV-positive. Post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand, gay men warned about post-disaster sex. Man develops breasts on ARVs. Treatment Action Campaign warns that it might run out of money and have to close.
- Finally, chimpanzees that were exposed to HIV and kept in solitary confinement for 30 years, but suffered no health effects, are finally able to see the sunshine again.