A conversation with Marco Ruggiero

Byjonathan

Jonathan Barnett with Marco Ruggiero and Stefani Pacini at the Riordan Clinic
 Posing with Marco Ruggiero and Stefani Pacini at the Riordan Clinic in Wichita, Kansas

It has taken me more than two weeks to edit and transcribe a nearly two hour conversation I had with Professor Marco Ruggiero earlier this month.  Ruggiero was the keynote speaker at the 2012 Riordan IVC and Cancer Symposium, held in Wichita, Kansas earlier this month.

Marco graciously sat in front of my webcam on October 4, and spoke at length on a broad range of topics.  I have broken that interview into eight segments, to make them easier to view as time allows.  All eight segments are included in a single youtube playlist.

This experience has me yearning for a better video and audio recording setup. The sound quality is atrocious, and I apologize in advance for that.  Having the conversation caption will hopefully compensate for that defect.

For those who, like myself, may prefer to read than watch video, bear with me.  I do intend to get back to writing again soon.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with how far behind I’ve fallen with blogging and I’m not even sure where to start!

 

[youlist pid=”PLTxF9nTTUJXw6XUScHk1riqJPNjjCtKVY”]

Wait... there's more!

  • 97

    97. That’s my latest CD4+ count, less than half the count from six weeks ago.

    That’s it. I have tried as many alternative treatments as I can think of to reverse the decline. I will be starting my third round of pharmaceutical ARVs as soon as I can get a prescription and fill it.

    This decision has been a long time coming, and in hindsight, I probably should have restarted a few months ago. There’s nothing magical about 97, or being below 100, but it’s as good a breaking point as any. I’ve long argued that there are two things to keep in mind about CD4 counts: one is the long-term trend; the other is single- or low double-digit counts.

  • Reduce AIDS drug toxicity and side effects

    I embarked on my third course of ARVs since 1998. For ten of the sixteen years I have been HIV-positive, I was able to manage well enough without ARVs and I continue to believe there is no reason for otherwise healthy HIV-positive—let alone negative—gay men to take these drugs. To those who want to wave a recent study about the benefits of early intervention in my face, I would ask them why they put so much faith in a science that has utterly failed us to date.

  • The truth about Truvada: PrEP won’t stop AIDS

    I’m willing to grant that gay men are entitled to use PrEP… provided they have access to all the information they need to make an informed decision. Informed consent has been a hallmark of the HIV and AIDS research and prevention efforts for three decades, and that shouldn’t be waived for the campaign favoring PrEP.

    Gay men deserve to know that all the claims for Truvada reducing the risk of acquiring HIV-positivity  are based on trials—funded by Gilead—that emphasized the importance of using condoms…

  • Confessions of a heretic AIDS dissident

    You might not know it from reading the comments left here on my blog, but there are more than a few AIDS dissidents who really don’t like how I think or what I write about.

    There’s a whole thread on a very popular Facebook page called “Rethinking AIDS”, discussing my open letter to Dora. Last I looked, that thread had nearly 100 comments, and very few of those comments were about Dora, Ruggiero or the defense of academic freedom.

    No, the gist of the thread was whether or not I am in “the AIDS Zone.” It seems that because I did not use “air quotes” around the term “HIV disease”, I’m not really an AIDS dissident. Others took issue with my post for daring to publish that some AIDS Rethinkers hold a very narrow view about “HIV” and “AIDS”, while others of us are merely “questioning” the whole affair. None of them chose to comment directly to me here.

    Some of the most visible and vocal Rethinkers seem intent on imposing their own “beliefs” (another loaded term that deserves quotes) on the entire movement. There has long been a tendency to try to impose a sort of litmus test to determine whether or not one is a true “AIDS dissident”.

    Since I first met the AIDS dissident community via the AIDS Myth Exposed forums—since renamed Questioning AIDS—several years ago, I’ve become aware of several of the various factions, distinctive personalities and divisions within that broad group. Now I’m finding it ironic just how guilty some of these people are at their own version of “bone-pointing”.

3 Comments

  1. Have you looked at getting a nagalase test as used by Nobuto Yamamoto in his 18 week HIV cure with GcMAF? I want to know more about how such a test relates to other markers for HIV progression.

    Reply

    1. By the time I got the test kit for nagalase, I had been taking MAF 314 for a few weeks. Since there was no assurance that my insurance would pay for the test, I opted to forego it. I’m already digging a pretty big hole financially.

      I agree that it would be useful and helpful for someone to monitor this marker in a group of Affecteds.

      Reply

  2. Just finished watching all of these videos. They were really informative and though provoking. Thanks again for taking the time to do this!

    Reply

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