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Waging Nonviolence / Op-Ed
Published: Sunday 10 June 2012
“Science now tells us that, for the first time since people started dying of AIDS in the 1960s, we can end the AIDS crisis once and for all — a complete game-changer — should we choose to.”
Something to be Proud About this June
Last week, for the fourth year in a row, President Obama declared June “LGBT Pride Month” this past week. Pride parades and festivals now take place all over the world, as annual events commemorating the Saturday in June of 1969 when New York’s queer community fought back against another night of abusive police raids at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Meanwhile, in recent years, a handful of states have approved same sex marriage laws.
Despite these advances, the shadow of the AIDS pandemic continues to hang over the struggle for LGBTQ rights, though the shape of this global crisis has changed dramatically. In the late 1970s and early 80s, AIDS was thought of as the “gay plague,” a disease that only affected the gay community, particularly men who had sex with men. The first documentation of AIDS was made in June as well — on June 5, 1982. Within months, heterosexual intravenous drug users were being diagnosed in large numbers as well. By 1983, the first cases of non-drug-using women and children were being diagnosed. The first needle exchange to limit the transmission of HIV was set up in Amsterdam in 1984.
Today, women make up more than half of all people living with HIV/AIDS globally. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death and illness among women of reproductive age worldwide.
Science now tells us that, for the first time since people started dying of AIDS in the 1960s, we can end the AIDS crisis once and for all — a complete game-changer — should we choose to. Studies that have employed TASP (treatment as prevention) drug therapy to decrease the chance of HIV spreading from one person to another have found that early start of antiretroviral treatment reduces the risk of HIV transmission by 96 percent. That is nothing short of incredible.
And yet we are not ending the AIDS crisis — the same way we are not ending poverty, and we are not addressing climate chaos. Why? We have the science, we know how much money we need ($10 to 30 billion) and we have some ideas about how to raise it. There could be a much-needed “Robin Hood” financial transaction tax — a tiny tax on huge money trades that could make as much as $100 billion per year — or maybe we can just ask the Walton Family (worth $102 billion) or the Koch Brothers (worth more than $50 billion).
All that we are missing is the political will. We are dying, literally, for political leadership to make and fund the policies that will save lives, and to heal the societies that have been thrown into disarray by the pandemic.
As it turns out, this summer there will be a perfect storm of advocacy opportunities that could win a series of policy changes and reinvigorate government response towards treatment, prevention and services for people living with AIDS around the world. There will be more than 30,000 people coming to Washington, D.C., in July for the International AIDS Conference, held in the United States for the first time in 22 years. There seems to be no better time to demand that the president step it up from merely designating a “Pride Month” to making lasting change by embracing the Robin Hood tax proposal and insisting that we choose to treat our fellow human beings around the world in a way that improves our chances for a healthy and peaceful future. That would be something anyone can be proud about.
4 comments on "Something to be Proud About this June"
June 12, 2012 9:10am
There's so much nonsense in the HIV/AIDS hypothesis, it's hard to know where to start. However, though Gary Null may not be a scientist in the strict sense, he holds a Ph.D. in human nutrition and public health science. This gives him more than sufficient credentials to report on the matters he's famous for.
But let's consider dwdallam's definition of the "scientific." First of all, it must be remembered that science is only as good as the (fragile) humans who conduct it. And how many times have we heard the statement, "Scientists once thought ... but now..."? This error margin doesn't include scientific fraud, which is what HIV/AIDS is, nor does it include the fact that 'scientists' all too often have behaved more like religious fanatics. And then comes the politics of 'science.'
Due to politics, greed, and a touch of evil, medical science is perhaps the most corrupt of all scientific endeavors. This is so because there is WAY more money in research and bogus, iatrogenic treatment, than there is in any cure which might be found. The effect of the practice of corporate conventional medicine is to perpetuate illness.
The overarching issue of the validity of the HIV/AIDS theory typifies the scandalous history of conventional medicine, whose ruthless 'BigPharma' controllers have cost people untold misery, death, and $trillions.
Now, however, in a staggering book entitled "Fear of the Invisible," researcher Janine Roberts presents a meticulous examination of the original 'science' said to have proven HIV/AIDS—the four famous 1984 Gallo/Popovic papers published in "Science."
Roberts reports that in the 1990's, no less than three high-level Government agences, namely the Office of Scientific Integrity, Office of Research Intergrity, and even the Secret Service, found the papers to be junk. So poorly executed that they couldn't even be replicated. In fact, to get money for AIDS research, one had to agree not to attempt it.
Documentation reveals that National Institutes of Health (NIH) lead researcher Robert Gallo, MD—in a fit of megalomania (or following orders?)—altered the papers' original text just before publication, creating false conclusions that the experiments weren't even designed to verify.
Roberts leaves no doubt: It's a massive scientific fraud. Gallo never isolated HIV or proved it caused AIDSyndrome.
A dedicated group of scientists in Perth, Australia (theperthgroup.com) puts the very existence of HIV into question: "After a quarter of a century of "HIV," the experts cannot even agree as to what sub-family of retroviruses the "HIV" particles belong. In fact, not one single ... picture of the hypothetical "HIV" particles has all the characteristics of retroviruses."
Although Gallo was forced to leave NIH for hijacking an experimental virus sent to him by French scientist Luc Montagnier, truth about the flawed papers was never revealed publicly:
P.144: "... Gallo ... got away with ... perhaps the greatest scientific fraud of the 20th century, affecting the lives of countless millions. On the basis of his claims, all other theories about the causes of AIDS lost their funding as he boasted. Even worse, so did promising ways of medically treating AIDS cases. ... It became practically heretical to question if HIV causes AIDS. The 1990-1995 investigations were effectively buried..."
The career of world famous retrovirologist Peter Duesberg, PhD was greatly damaged for his (heretical) opposition to HIV/AIDS.
Moreover, Roberts presents strong evidence that virology, and especially vaccine 'science,' is not so precise as industry/Government perception management advertises. Everyone should read this book.
Yes, people are ill. In question are definitions, cause(s) and, especially, remedies. Different agents—including medical drugs—can produce identical effects. For example, according to investigative reporter Jon Rappoport ("AIDS Inc."), abuse of immunosuppressant inhalant drugs ('poppers') were a major factor in what was called AIDS among the gay population at the outset.
Ralph Moss, PhD, formerly of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and author of several books including "The Cancer Industry," says, "The paradigm that was laid down for how to milk the cancer problem is basically the same paradigm which is being followed in milking the AIDS problem."
At both ends of that candle were Robert Gallo and Pharma servant, NIH.
Anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs are highly toxic. According to Joseph Mercola, MD, ARVs can cause side effects "indistinguishable from AIDS."
AIDS drug AZT (a DNA-chain terminator which also mimics AIDS) was originally a cancer drug so toxic it was shelved. It was revived for AIDS via a lone study that was an aborted shambles. Big moneymaker, though.
HIV/AIDS rests on 'political' science. Please look carefully into this before acting on official pronouncements.
June 10, 2012 3:43pm
How can you call yourself a journalist? Why is it ALWAYS pick-up-sticks?
Gary Null: Deconstructing the Myth of AIDS, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3983706668483511310
and, this more recent, equally as scientific,
House of Numbers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwgmzbnckII
June 10, 2012 7:13pm
No, no, and no, you do not understand the definition of scientific. Gary Null is a talk show host who owns an "alternative" vitamin company and denies that western medicine cures or can cure cancer like his own snake oil.
Same thing for his HIV denial.
Please, if you have sources that document his irresponsible positions, please do post them. Those would be scientific journals, peer reviewed, and reproducible for other scientists also.
Gary null is a conspiratorialist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Null
My dad's friend had prostate cancer a few years ago and bought into "beating this with nutrition" and other "natural" homeopathys.
His doctor said that since prostate cancer was slow moving, he ws all for alternative medicine and encouraged my dad's friend to try anything he wanted, for a year. At that time, he was to go back into the doctor and have his T cell count taken.
Well, back he went. The doctor told him (paraphrasing) "Here's your cell count. We can have it taken from a different clinic if you wish for a second opinion. In either case, you have to move on this or you'll die in a year."
He had the "western medicine" treatment of triangulated laser surgery. Result: caner, completely gone. No sexual disfunction.
Of course this is an anecdotal example. But one that is repeated very often. The point is that there is no scientific literature that vitamins of other hog-water cures for cancer or HIV. None. Zip. Not even n other countries.
We all want a miracle plant (etc) that cures our ailments naturally. Until then, all we have is science.
June 11, 2012 3:57pm
Please understand that 10 people die of AIDS every second while this is so misunderstood, so taken out of context.
Understand that the scientists who are the most expert on this subject, in BOTH VIDEOS (not just Null's) are about what I am trying to get people to comprehend, or what this has to do with. Null is just a journalist, as is Leung, and this, or they are not what either video is about, at all.