During our last office visit a couple of months ago, the infectious disease specialist I am now seeing repeatedly referred to “The Guidelines”, as if they were some kind of Holy Grail for treating her patients. The guidelines she was referring to are actually several documents, published by the U.S. Department of Health and…
A recent phone conversation with a friend is helping me to continue to refine what I want to focus on as an AIDS dissident activist. In a passionate outburst that revealed a new side of his character, he blurted out his dismay that our society in general and our gay community in particular seems to be willing to settle for a solution to AIDS that relies exclusively on drugs from the pharmaceutical industry.
There seems to be a natural tendency among some skeptics and questioners that when part of a theory or concept is proven to be flawed, any and all other aspects about it should be dismissed as well.
This certainly seems to be the case for some AIDS dissidents when it comes to discussions about the significance of certain laboratory markers, in particularly certain immune cells involved in fighting infections, called CD4 t-cells. CD4 counts are, arguably, considered by mainstream AIDS experts as the single most important measure of disease progression and risk for patients acquiring opportunistic infections.
This feels like déjà vu. Nearly thirty years ago I helped organize hundreds of AIDS activists to demonstrate at FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, MD, as well as organized die-ins at the agency’s regional headquarters here in Kansas City, to demand faster access to experimental new drugs to fight AIDS. I doubt if any…
I’ve fallen behind on sharing quite a bit of information about my recent medical adventures. I don’t know where to begin, or how much to divulge publicly. Not out of concerns for privacy—I’ve chosen to be an open book about my experiences—but because I don’t want to bore folks with the myriad of details….
Some of my AIDS dissident friends reject outright the tests used by mainstream AIDS (AIDStream) doctors to evaluate ‘HIV-positive’ patients and to determine if and when to start treating them with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), more commonly known as the “AIDS cocktail” of drugs. While I agree with them that we can’t know…
The LOTTI study, based in Italy, found that patients taking highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) for HIV/AIDS who took a “vacation” from drug treatment fared as well as those who remained on their drugs continuously.
This study offers a desperately needed offer of hope for those in treatment who cannot tolerate the AIDS drugs’ toxicity, or who want to avoid know side effects such as disfigurement and organ failure.
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While much of the information on this site is no longer current, it represents almost a decade of my life. It was a period of considerable reflection and writing was my therapy.
I have moved on from that era and am now moving into what will undoubtedly be the last chapter of my life. My love for writing and telling stories-mine, as well as those of others-goes with me. Join me, if you will, at jondbarnett.com for the adventure.
