Magic takes his meds, updates Oprah
Scientific literature corrected on national television talk show
Oprah’s trust in NIH intact, even after being conned by James Frey, so she allows blacks to be blamed for epidemic
Errors and misleading results in the medical and scientific literature were corrected on Oprah’s HIV in America talk show two weeks ago, since it turns out HIV can be transmitted via heterosexual sex, after all.
By the end of the hour the following truths were established, contrary to anything that mainstream research papers might indicate:
HIV can be transmitted via heterosexual sex, a single time without a condom can do it. A mini-pandemic threatens the American black community. This is the fault of the black community, which under the influence of rappers has descended into sexual irresponsibility. Men who are secretly gay are especially to blame for infecting women. HIV lives in your system for a long time, and must be medicated before it turns into AIDS. Everyone must be tested as soon as possible, to catch it while you are still strong. Medications enable you to stay healthy except for unpleasantly unhealthy side effects, which are bearable, especially if you exercise like a champ, dine on fruit and veg and avoid fatty foods. If you “have HIV”, you must always use condoms, in case you catch HIV again in some other strain.
Skeptics were left floundering, unrepresented and unrecognized, even those who wondered, for example, why if star athlete Magic Johnson contracted HIV through “livin’ that life style” fifteen years ago ie through rampant heterosexual sex, there was such a shortage of celebrities who have followed in his footsteps. Two and two made ten, and such cynical disruptions were not allowed to disturb the public consensus achieved.
The responsible and respected members of the scientific and medical community who have advocated for years some of the same conclusions and recommendations as purveyed in the show, despite a severe lack of evidence and even many contradictions in the 15 million papers available on Pub Med, and ridicule from their scientific betters, must have been gratified to have received such unequivocal support from Oprah and her assembled experts, who included star athlete Magic, Judy Gerberding who leads the CDC, a comely female doctor from a health center in Chicago, a black preacher and six extremely attractive laywomen who were HIV positive.
Any such scientists who watched must have been delighted that trust in our medical and scientific institutions among the general populace is still so high, with their claims so smoothly translated into lay homilies and sermonizing aimed at the black community.
Not only two of the most celebrated and influential African Americans, that is to say, Oprah, queen of America’s most watched daytime talk show, and Magic Johnson, the big hearted giant who now runs a thriving business empire and does charity work to boot, but also six exceptionally personable and good looking women, an enthusiastic studio audience, and (judging from the message boards) virtually all (though not all) of Oprah’s ten million viewers, all have been smoothly absorbed by Dr Fauci of NIAID and his science and medicine propaganda machine. This engine of enlightenment on HIV∫AIDS matters is clearly well on its way to recruiting the entire black community without a pause, with Oprah and Magic cheering it on.
Skeptics might have said that more nonscience was peddled in the fearful name of the Virus on Thursday Oct 26 than in many of the biblical and cult texts of the world. But they had no voice in the show. With the black preacher present it was as if church and state joined forces on stage to inculcate a new religion into the blacks of America, namely, that a devil is loose in their midst, and its name in HIV. Heretics would have been outcasts, by definition.
Skeptics might have asked, What’s going on, Oprah? Weren’t you sufficiently burned by James Frey to develop a teeny bit of critical discrimination when faced with a fantasy as blatantly improbable as a Virus which discriminates on the basis of sex and race, as if blacks behaved in bed in some fundamental way differently from whites? Have you left your origins so far behind that you detect no element of racism in the tale being spun?
But skeptics were not invited. Not even Lee Evans, 
dashing the hopes of some paradigm critics. This was a key absence. That is to say, there was no sign of black Olympic sprinter emeritus Lee Evans, despite the reported efforts of distinguished author and biology professor Harvey Bialy, a most active skeptic whose scathing judgments on HIV∫AIDS Evans is familiar with and supports (in October 26, 2006 Lee Evans on Turning a “Positive Test” into Something Positive”, and most lately in a finely wrought Lee Evans: Back from the Sunbelt Conference Cross Country Championships and Time to Call Out Oprah post on Barnesworld, which Bialy currently edits and often writes, which accounts for the satisfyingly insulting but humorous phrases often included), to link Evans up with Oprah on the topic. Despite Evans’ renown in African American circles, where he is second only to Muhammed Ali in his longtime stature, this valiant bid to find a way to replace fantasy with fact in Oprah’s mind, or at least to politely introduce some doubt, had apparently not yet prevailed.
Well, perhaps not surprisingly. The general impression conveyed was that for whatever reason, asking Oprah to examine institutional wisdom in medicine, let alone science, is a fool’s errand, for not a whiff of skepticism marred her public service hour in the service of this dread federal dragon, into whose flaming maw she has now agreed to feed her people.
Oprah’s influence
Does it matter? Well, there is no mistaking Oprah’s reach. With an audience of ten million that follow her every lead (it is trumpeted at 20 million, and estimated at 35 or evem 50 million by some, but recently we heard Oprah saying it was ten, and the daily average is 7.5 million, according to USA Today:
“Now, instead of doing 100 shows a season and going off the air in 2006, she recommitted herself and will do 140 shows this season. The Oprah Winfrey Show is seen in 109 countries and reaches nearly 30 million viewers every week. Last season, she averaged 7.2 million viewers a show. She has been No. 1 in the daytime talk show market since she started.”)
what was said on this program is going to be central to the general public’s understanding of the Insidious, Invisible and Cunning Virus.
So although the content was intellectually trivial we think it should be noted here, because it represents the myth of heterosexual AIDS in action in all its main aspects, all of them contradicting the studies by Nancy Padian and others which demonstrate that the chances of contracting the state of being “HIV positive” from sleeping with someone of the opposite sex are effectively nil.
A parade of converts and priests
As far as the experts went, here was the lineup:
The key authority first paraded was of course Magic Johnson himself, with his tale of having been struck down out of the blue, just when he thought he “was doing everything right”, by the ‘HIV Virus’ fifteen years ago that had scared the wits out of him and his wife, not to mention his teammates who subsequently refused to play basket ball with him, and other evidence of stigma. “We had to educate everybody about the disease. They couldn’t get it by playing basketball with me or high fiving,” he says. (Is this message still relevant? We noticed that Magic was greeted by a light cheek turn by Oprah today, possibly meaningless, but it did seem rather arms length).
To a basketball star who was having a heck of a good time with the opposite sex, it was a blow. How did Magic take it? “First you say Why? You are basically you are in sort of denial about it. I thought I had did everything right. Of course I was living a fast life style I broke my engagement off twice, because I wasn’t ready. I knew it.” 
Temptation was constant, he admits with a sheepish belt of laughter. Oprah asks whether it is true that women waited for him at the gates with their “panties on their heads?” and “So you were “dipping and dabbling?”? “Yes,” confirms Magic. “Hotel, at the gate, after the game. Dipping, dabbling, and dating, yes. It was happening. I was living that life style…then here comes HIV/AIDs…wow!” But he is still lively with his wife Cookie, he claims. “We still doing our thing!” he beams. “Hey, still got to live. Life do go on!”
Cookie says “I just felt that people wouldn’t embrace us”. But then, Magic explained how he had labored to educate himself via Elizabeth Glaser about the situation and come to an accommodation of sorts which now allows him to live a fairly normal life with minimal medications, plenty of exercise in his gym, low fat diet with fruit and vegetables, plenty of rest and even sex with a condom with his wife - “Hey man, life goes on!”
“Right away we got educated we talked to Elizabeth Glaser and doctors and we found out it wasnt a death sentence.” Elizabeth Glaser told him “I want you to become the face of HIV/AIDS. You can really change things. You are gonna live a long time cos there are lot of great medicines coming down the pipeline.”
It’s a black problem now
On hand to get the sermon (that blacks are misbehaving themselves into HIV∫AIDS) across were other expert sources, including Judy Gerberding, MD, Director of the CDC, who in several taped cameos projected proper official concern and indignation than anyone should overlook the growing invisible threat to American blacks, now nearly half of the newly detected HIV positive AIDS patients of this country.
Her message was that “40,000 people acquire HIV every year in the United States, and a million people are living with HIV. That is absolutely unacceptable. It is an epidemic. 47% of those people are African American. For young African American women, AIDS is the leading cause of death.”
There was also the Reverend Eugene Rivers, an earnest preacher with curly hair and bold spectacle frames who was present to symbolize and act out support from the pulpit for the message that blacks must mend their ways, the whole culture is going into a tailspin with rappers preaching the degradation and abuse of power over women and the spread of HIV was the measure of this decline.
Then, medical authority in the person of young Dr Kimberley Smith, an attractive and reassuringly conventional black woman doctor from a nearby Chicago health center with ten years work in the field of HIV∫AIDS, who passed on NIAID sanctioned instructions on how to evade the Virus.
From the mouths of six babes
Best and most sensational of all, providing critical medical lore from the horse’s mouth, as it were, there were ravishing, very healthy looking beauties, black and white. Some were on medication and some off, but all had tales of woe where they had trusted and been let down by the men they thought loved them and wanted to take care of them, and all were now careful to use condoms just in case they caught the Virus again , because, they informed a surprised Oprah, it is possible to get the Virus more than once because it has different strains and it multiplies - “Oh I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that!” cried Oprah on cue - and essentially there is no end to the threat that it poses, and meanwhile here comes the preacher with dire prophecy of how the era of the “Dream” that Martin Luther King evoked is turning into a “Nightmare”, in which rappers incite a culture of violence and degradation toward black women where booty without duty is the theme.
So it went in Oprah’s fanfared public service hour on HIV/AIDS in America, as Oprah accelerated the new black HIV∫AIDS panic with her unlimited public credulity for any pronouncement from any sanctioned expert her producers could provide her with, including Magic, Judy, Eugene, Kimberley and even the vibrant HIV positive beauties, whose views were taken by Oprah as as much gospel as any pronouncement from on high at the NIH or CDC, for they were the science translated into lay experience. “Oh I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that!”
Given this level of confidence in medical authority and all it purveys, it was perhaps hardly surprising that whatever Oprah or Oprah’s producers have been told recently by rethinkers, there was not a molecule of skepticism in the air.
Magic isn’t suffering too badly, folks
Instead, as noted, Oprah unleashed the gigantic and seemingly very healthy and warmhearted Magic, paid spokesman for Abbott Laboratories on billboards across the country, and his loyal wife Cookie, he looking jovial with such flashing, superwhite teeth that Oprah burst out she couldn’t concentrate, they were so dazzling, causing all to laugh uproariously. “I love you!” says Magic, pausing briefly to catch his breath before bursting out with laughter all over again. “I can’t remember what I was saying!”
What he was saying was that he took his meds, they had made him feel terrible early on but were less oppressive now, he only had to take three pills twice a day out of the 26 available now, and though he felt their effect it wasn’t as bad as it had been 15 years ago when it was only AZT and not the cocktail, and nowadays it was the eight to ten hours a day he was working on top of his workouts that really made him feel tired.
So it appears that one of the lynchpin beliefs of the HIV∫AIDS critics, that Magic is surviving so well because he doesn’t take his pills, is disproved. Either that, or Magic is fibbing, to avoid getting in Dutch with Abbott, who presumably pay him handsomely for his promotional appearances. If he doesn’t take his meds, Cookie gets after him, the couple avers, and he was shown on camera taking them on schedule. So what is it that enables him to survive so well? By his own account, it’s determination, exercise, rest, and having a “great attitude”. As an athlete, he has a built in advantage, of course, not to mention his size. “I think the workout balances the medicine out.”
What we saw on Oprah
All of this is useful fodder for Dr Fauci and his cohorts in resisting the claims of HIV∫AIDS critics that whatever patients might think, the long term effects of ARVs are dire, and often fatal (half of all the very serious effects suffered by AIDS patients are medicinal drug effects, notably liver damage these days, the literature shows).
But here we see otherwise. First we have clips of the young Magic charging down the basketball court and bounding up to the ring, and handsomely moustachioed bending to kiss fans. Then today’s Magic shows off his fitness club business and talks of life at home with the threat of AIDS as being something which isn’t too bad. He acts untroubled by it. His business activity takes more out of him than the drugs, he says. He partly owns and helps to manage his old team, the Lakers, as well as owning real estate and his sports business.
AIDS rethinkers, whenever they have contemplated Magic’s surviving and thriving, have theorized that he has been flushing his meds down the toilet. But according to his testimony here, Magic takes his medications religiously, “three pills twice a day,” and is shown doing so. He works out and gets plenty of rest.
Yes, “it was worse in the beginning” when he announced on November 7 1991, because the lethal AZT was the sole available medication given at three or more times its current dosage, but he is feeling pretty much OK now, he says. “The medicines have gotten a lot better. The two I am on are really wonderful for me. The cocktails really changed everything.”
Now “my stomach is not so upset,” he says, “I think my workout just balances the medicines out. My long work days don’t bother me.” He works 8, 9, 10 hours a day, we are told, in his sports clubs and as a co-owner of the Lakers. “Managing HIV is a lot easier than business.”
Then there is his healthy diet. Says Cookie, “We eat a low fat diet, skinless chicken, lots of fruits and vegetables, very low sugars. Fatty food just breaks down our immune systems and keeps us weak.”
“I think I have just been blessed. I have been able to take my medicines work out, and do the right thing, and that’s why I have done so well.”
But, he warns, it doesn’t apply to everybody, since everyone has a different strain of virus. “I have the blessing of HIV∫AIDS and the curse as well. People think they can do well and be like Magic, get on medicine and be alright. But that’s not true. The virus can act differently for all of us. The strain is different and the medicine is gonna be different for all of us. Millions have died in 15 years.”
In the beginning he suffered from the meds, he says. “It was terrible. Mood swings, going to the rest room a lot, stomach upset. But now I am at point where the medicine don’t bother me, the workout don’t bother me and my long hours at work don’t bother me.”
“I have been taking my medicine, working out, doing the right thing!” he explains, saying that he has not, as rumored, been given cured or given special medicine. Dealing with HIV, he says, you have got to keep your body strong, your immune system strong.
Elizabeth Glaser asked him to become the poster boy of AIDS, then spoke to Cookie who said, “Let’s go public!” Was he scared? Of course he was, for Cookie, as well, “A lot of that going on first you say Why you? you are in denial about it.” At that time it was thought to be something that you could catch by touching people, Cookie says. “Yes we were pretty ignorant in those days!” says Oprah with self satisfaction.
But, Oprah worries, didn’t the cocktails make people feel less like protecting themselves? That gives Magic a chance to inform her and us of the real situation as he understands it, which is that HIV remains dangerous even though the meds work, and concern shouldn’t lapse for an instant: “The virus is gonna act different in all of us. The strain is different for all of us. The medicine is going to act different in all of us. Millions have died in 15 years and millions of others will die. I don’t want people to think that cos I am doing well, they will.”
In fact, Magic is now aiming to be a test pusher as well as a drug pusher, soon linking up with Abbott to kick off a new campaign on Dec 1 for AIDS Day 2006, Stand With Magic. “We’re gonna be testing people. People have gone for testing but they haven’t gone back for their results, that’s the problem. In the black community and Latino there is misinformation. A lot of crazy rumors.”
In US, there are four Magic Johnson clinics; at the one in Florida, they care for more than 10,000 people. “We provide medicine and care for people with HIV disease, and a place where they can socialize. If they can’t pay for the medicine we pay for it.”
“You’re such an amazing role model for the world!” cries Oprah, who seems to admire his business savvy more than his HIV∫AIDS rol;e. “Why did you choose that business?” she asks. “Because in America we need options and choices,” says Magic. “I was inspired by you taking your whole company to Hawaii. It blew me away. And what you did in Africa. Black leaders here, leaders in churches, have to get involved in this.”
“Coming up”, says Oprah, “what six brave women who have HIV wish they had known.”
Six great looking and positive women
After the ads, she is back with “AIDS is the number one cause of death among black women aged 28-34.” She is sitting with six robustly attractive women of reproductive age, most of them black. All of them have been told they contracted HIV from heterosexual sex, their moms presumably untested.
Sherrill is 22 and single, black, red dress. “I got it from the man I was dating. I didn’t understand my risk for getting HIV.”
Regan, 39, blonde in brown dress, says “I got it from my boyfriend. He looked and seemed like any perfectly normal guy.”
Chelsea, 24, blonde in red dress, has been a mother for three years. “I found out I was positive when I was pregnant with my son.
Precious, 35, spectacles, black in brown dress, was “infected by a man who I believe had sex with other men.”.
Margaret black, purple dress, was positive at 19 from her boyfriend in unprotected sex.
Yvette, 36, has two children and was diagnosed 3 years ago. “The doctors believe I was infected with HIV 15 years ago. I have been living with HIV and didn’t even know it.”
Margaret says “I was 19 years old and didn’t even know what HIV was.”
“How can you be 19 and not know?” says Oprah, mystified that anyone past high school can be misinformed about HIV∫AIDS, since after all she has been fully informed for years about the threat, though if pressed she would probably have to allow that her early predictions of the extent of the crisis were a little over the top (in 1987, she was claiming that by 1990, one-fifth of all heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS).
“I didn’t realize it hit people of my age,” says the woman. “I had been in a monogamous relations for five years.”
The litany of pop HIV∫AIDS think goes on and on. “My partner was addicted to sex…we were not using a condom because it meant that he loved me and cared for me and wanted to marry me… we used protection most of the time but I let my guard down… it only takes one person one time.”
At this point Oprah gets excited. She seems challenged by the idea of having to ask a man to put on a condom. “Doesn’t it suggest you don’t trust him?” she asks. Oh yes, they agree, that is indeed the difficulty.
The shock of being told they are HIV positive comes out. “I came forward because the epidemic is exploding all around us and people don’t know it…I hated going to weddings I hated going to baby showers… It was hard for me. I didnt think I was going to get married…I had 27 T cells with my AIDS diagnosis. My immune system was so suppressed I am lucky to be sitting here now…I was angry yes. With him and with myself. I was looking for love….I was ashamed and guilty and angry, more so at myself. I knew how HIV was tranmitted but I still put myself at risk…I feel so tired but I dont want to call out of work and have people feel sorry for me.”
Not all on medication
Not every one of these vibrant beauties is on medication, it turns out, after all. “I’ve been off for five years,” reveals one of them. Oprah is astounded. “You can come off?!” she cries. Another says “I was never on medication. My numbers were always strong enough. They say they are not going to put me on till they go down.”
On the other hand, another woman estimates she has taken 48,000 pills so far. “I used to take 23 pills a day. Now I am way down. Now I take 7 pills a day.”
Lest anyone lose their fear of HIV, however, like Magic, they emphasize it remains deadly even though “people think that HIV has become manageable.” It is not clear how these two ideas are reconciled. 
The expectation, presumably, is that it will rise up and get you sooner or later, somehow, even though the drugs keep it down. (Ours not to reason why, it is in the good hands of the officials and scientists of the NIH, who no doubt will tell us when they have worked out how the Virus does anything at all, which is still a work in progress.)
Stigma? “Oh yes. Now it’s worse than in the early days. They think you are promiscuous. Stigma is the worst part. I have suffered so badly. I was in the hospital waiting room and the nurse came in and said in front of my friends ‘I am not going to take this woman’s blood….My mom cursed me out…It’s hard to date. You end up with guys who are not necessarily the guys you would date if you werent HIV positive.”
More than the rest of the program, there is a dream like atmosphere to all this, for all of these women look extremely healthy and attractive, even allowing for studio cosmetics.
But they try and think positive. “Rejection is direction” says a black woman - “Rejection is direction” repeats Oprah. “I got it! I got it.” - “When I told guys their reaction was ‘let me out of here!’ Where is the exit?”..”I tell them on the first date. I try to do it within the first week.”
Anyway, some men also think positive too, it appears, and are even interested in sex without a condom. “You can still find men who want to date, yes. Some don’t want to use condoms. They honestly tell you why - because it’s harder for a woman to give it to a man.”
Would you do it? asks Oprah, meaning would they sleep with a man without a condom. “No. Their life cannot be on my conscience.” There is another reason, too - they might be infected all over again with a different strain of the invisible microbe. “We must also protect ourselves. You can definitely reinfect yourself with HIV!!… The virus can multiply into different forms.”
“You can reinfect yourself?!” Oprah is shocked. “I have learned something here. I didn’t know that,” she squeaks. “I didn’t know that!”
An ad: There is a break for the newly ubiquitous “tell someone, tell everyone” ad alerting the female population to the news of the human papilloma virus causing cervical cancer. “Cancer caused by a virus!!!” The women in the ad are bowled over the news. They set a very good example, not doubting anything they are told for a minute, precisely like Oprah. “I didn’t know that!! I want to tell my sister. I want to tell everyone.”
Back to Oprah, and the new big push for universal testing. Oprah on the six women: “Here’s their message for everyone watching. People need to get tested, take responsibility. Women need to protect themselves. Buy condoms and insist men use them!”
She praises them. “I am impressed that you have come to the place you have come to”, she says. “Use it and or let it use you!”
Finally a little adjustment to the happy picture. Side effects are mentioned. They are a burden. People don’t know this. “They see beautiful girls sitting here but they don’t see we experience heavy side effects.” But “Yes, they are manageable.”
The dire message remains the same, however. “It does not discriminate! If you have unprotected sex one time, it could be you!” Each girl takes the screen one by one to say “I have HIV! You could be me!” their voices dolorous and ominous with an echo chamber effect.
Kimberley blames women’s lack of power
Finally, we refer to an expert, in the form of the charmingly respectable Dr Kimberley Smith, an infectious disease specialist from Rush Medical Center in Chicago, suitably young and black. She’s been on the front lines of HIV∫AIDS for ten years. Kimberly, like Judy, says that it is a power issue with women. “Women are often in a vulnerable position. They don’t have the ability to withhold sex or demand condom use.”
The reason for the spread of the virus among blacks today, Kimberley believes, is the “lack of perception of risk, and the lack of power held by women in relationships. They are poor and dependent on the man emotionally and financially. They don’t have ability to withhold sex. And the third reason is substance abuse.”
Judy also sounds this theme. “The face of AIDS has changed from being primarily white men to all colors and both sexes… and a lot of women haven’t the power to protect themselves.”
(At this point, Truthseeker found himself reflecting on vulnerability, and the lack of power uneducated black women have in their relationship with experts, who can tell them anything they like and have it accepted without a second thought. Even Oprah seems to share this total respect for medical and scientific expertise, accepting it instantly and without question second hand from her six new friends with HIV, when one tells her that you can catch HIV more than once. “I didn’t know that!” she cries, “I didn’t know that.”)
Gay blacks blamed for HIV spread
Among blacks, a large part of the blame is laid on black men who are secretly gay and sleep with black women without admitting it. “They’re in denial going back to the same way. So many are in prison and living a double life on the down low. A lot feel they can’t go to their families.”
Blaming the down low
Along these lines we are shown Peter Jennings looking pale and drawn, just before he dies of lung cancer, sitting with a group of black men investigating the contribution of gays in all this - the idea that the spread of HIV among black women stems from the obliquy that gay black men meet in their society prompts them to go “down low” ie sleep with black women without telling them their HIV status.
Jennings is shocked by the admission that some men would sit back and rather watch people die than admit they had HIV. In their denial and shame they refuse to take medication and one tells of his wife “who passed away last year” presumably of HIV. “A lot of black women have been infected unknowingly.”
One man says that they often don’t want to hear about a man sleeping with other men, for fear of harming the relationship they have. “I asked women what they would say if a man came to them and told them, I sleep with other men, and a lot of them said they didn’t want to know.”
Finally we get the moral critique of Reverend Eugene Rivers, a priest who says that “Black men are committing murder when they have unprotected sex. It’s a crime, an act of violence that can result in the death of that woman.” Oprah wants to know why he thinks AIDS haa increased so much in the black community.
“There is a culture of promiscuity!” he declaims. “King had a dream and now we have a nightmare. The rappers are all singing we must celebrate booty popping and booty liciousness. If it was a different color, there would be a national summit in the White House and a five year plan to mobilize the nation. We are producing a generation of black women who are a biological underclass. ”
“Wow! says Oprah. “There’s a negro anthem, Lift up your voices and sing!”
The Reverend says “It is now acceptable to disrespect black woman and have unprotected sex functioning as an instrument of mass destruction!”
(Here we reflect that the good pastor seems to be demonstrating the danger of having religion as the only way to frame an issue, rather than science. For religion’s way of framing the problem only teaches patterns of thought which are essentially useless in this propaganda war in HIV∫AIDS, merely leaving people wide open to accepting and magnifying the message they are given, instead of examining it for sense.)
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Note to Oprah: How can you be a leading figure in US society, Oprah, with a national talk show research staff, and yet in two decades have picked up no inkling that this might be all questioned, indeed, is questioned and even rejected by well credentialed critics who could quickly show you the simple inconsistencies that condemn it, admitted contradictions that the scientific literature contains, kept quiet from the public ear?
Not to mention that on the face of it, with all six women telling the same story of not being aware there was anything wrong with their health until told they had the apparently supernatural virus, and all your own early sensational predictions of societal collapse lying in the dust unrealized, to swallow it all whole suggests a lack of smarts that you of all people do not otherwise exhibit.
What is going on here, Oprah?
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A little Africa here in America
Finally, the wrap up, whose keynote is that the invisible virus can only be foiled through routine universal testing. “A quarter of a million people in this country have HIV and don’t know it. That’s why the CDC now has recommended routine testing. But it is not mandatory.”
Oprah asks Kimberley, the Chicago expert, “Why routine testing?”
“A lot of people don’t know that HIV is critical. It can live in your body for many many years without doing anything. By time people know they are very very weak. But not if you get diagnosed early,” Kimberley explains. Evidently she is primed to medicate even those who do not have any symptoms.
Oprah tells the six women “I love the fact that you seem fully evolved with it and have accepted it.”
How should you treat people with HIV? she asks Magic’s faithful partner. “Be there for your spouse,” says Cookie Johnson, “support them, love them and stay on top of them. Make sure they take their medication, work out and eat their vegetables.”
This is the first hint that Magic may not be taking his medications as willingly and faithfully as he claims, though it seems that Cookie tries to make sure he does.
“Is there a reason she says that?” asks Oprah.
“Yes,” says Magic. “I am stubborn sometimes.”
Magic bursts out with praise for Oprah for featuring the topic on her show: “Let me just say thank you. We have been trying in a grass roots level to tell people and make a difference and this show today has done that I think.
“We have a little Africa in America right now!”
He doesn’t know how right he is.
Update Sat Nov 18 11.29 pm:
Very good comments on Oprah’s board before the show, selected from a total of sixty, which had nil effect on the propaganda purveyed:
Dear Mr. Johnson,
We’re constantly told that HIV is sexually transmitted. But Nancy Padian, in the largest and longest study of its kind, followed 175 discordant couples (one partner HIV positive, the other HIV negative) for anywhere from 4 to 6 years. At the end of the study, not one - NOT ONE - of the HIV negative partners became HIV positive, even though almost a third of them were not using condoms consistently and 39% were engaging in anal sex. If HIV was sexually transmitted, why didn’t any of the HIV negative partners get HIV?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
In every other infectious disease, for something to be said to be the cause of that disease, you have to find the thing you think is causing the disease in every case of that disease. It makes perfect sense that in every case of tuberculosis, you have to find the tuberculosis bacterium, or the person can’t have tuberculosis. Same thing with small pox, or measles. But there are literally thousands of cases of AIDS in people who test HIV negative. So how can HIV cause AIDS?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
One of the tests to determine whether a virus is the cause of a disease is to intentionally inject that virus into chimpanzees and see if they get sick, or at a minimum, develop the antibodies to the virus. But over the past 20 years, 150 chimpanzees have been injected with HIV, and not one - NOT ONE - has gotten AIDS. If you inject these same chimpanzees with the tubercle bacillus, they will get tuberculosis, or develop the antibodies to TB. The same thing is true of the small pox virus, or any other virus. So how can we call HIV the cause of AIDS when it doesn’t cause AIDS in chimpanzees?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
In the United States, you are diagnosed with AIDS if you are HIV-positive, and either have one of the 30 different diseases on the AIDS list, or have a T-cell count below 200. In Canada, they don’t recognize a low T-cell count as a definition of AIDS. So you can have AIDS in the US if you’re HIV-positive and a T-cell count of 150, but you can move across the border into Canada and like magic, you no longer have AIDS.
And in Africa, you don’t even have to be HIV-positive to be diagnosed with AIDS. All you have to have is chronic diarrhea, cough, fever, and have lost more than 10% of your body weight - all symptoms of malnutrition and poverty.
How can the same disease - AIDS - be so different in different places? No other disease is like that, that I know of.
Dear Mr. Johnson,
A scientific study found that 50% of all dogs who are given an HIV test are HIV positive. And yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that HIV can only be found in humans. So what exactly is the HIV test testing for?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
I’ve heard for years that HIV causes AIDS. But I have looked and looked, and I cannot find a single scientific paper that proves that. Dr. Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in 1993, says he can’t find it either.
Can you tell us where to look for the proof that HIV causes AIDS?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Did you know that the City of New York is talking about opening up an “HIV Jail” in Bellevue Hospital, like the “TB Jail” that has been operating there for more than 10 years?
If you don’t remember, thanks to a major infusion of federal financing in the mid-90’s, New York health officials took an active approach to tuberculosis, getting as many patients as possible on directly observed therapy, known as D.O.T., in which outreach workers administered tuberculosis medications in clinics, patients’ homes and on the street. For patients who “failed” D.O.T., the health department employed forcible detention, either at Bellevue Hospital or at Goldwater Hospital, where they were “detained†for as long as two years. They called it the “TB Jail.â€
The New York City Health Department is now proposing the same thing for people who test Positive for HIV but “fail†or refuse to take the prescribed HIV medications, even though there is ample evidence that the medications themselves make people sick. They want to create an “HIV Jail†in Bellevue and lock you away if you don’t comply. This would include HIV-Positives who had AIDS, but also HIV-Positives who are perfectly healthy, with no symptoms of AIDS or any other disease, who simply didn’t want to take the dangerous HIV drugs.
Is this the right thing to be doing in America, the land of the free?
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Did you know that the City of New York is taking young HIV-positive children away from their parentswho can’t or won’t give them HIV medications, and locking them up in experimental drug testing centers, and then force-feeding them the HIV drugs? And if the children don’t comply, they surgically implant a “peg tube” in their stomachs and give them the drugs that way. Of course, the vast majority of these children are black and Hispanic.
Dear Oprah,
I have ten questions for Magic Johnson, because if I read the actual scientific studies concerning HIV and AIDS rather than listening to the mass media hype, I discover that:
1. The HIV test is not a test for AIDS, or even a test for HIV. It is a test to find certain antibodies — an “HIV-antibody” test. But in virtually every other antibody test, to be positive for the antibodies means that you had exposure to or a prior virus infection and are now immune from the disease that virus could cause. Antibody protection is the basis for the practice of vaccinations, like gaining immunity against the flu with a flu shot. Question: Why we should think any differently about antibodies to HIV? A growing number of experts now believe that testing HIV-antibody-positive actually means that you have successfully created what your body needs to defeat any HIV infection.
2. The HIV test is very often wrong. There are over fifty different scientific studies listing seventy non-HIV conditions that can make the test produce false positive results. Depending on which test someone takes, the results can actually be wrong as much as 90% of the time. Question: How do we know what anyone is testing “Positive†for?
3. The HIV test has never been “validated.” That means that there has never been a group of people who tested HIV-positive who were then proven to have active HIV in their blood. Conversely, there has also never been a group who tested HIV-negative and were proven not to have active HIV in their blood. Question: Why should we believe a test that has never been validated?
4. The proteins used in the HIV test kits have never been proven to be unique or specific for HIV. In fact, every one of the proteins used in the test has been found to be associated with conditions that have nothing to do with HIV — and many of these proteins have nothing to do with illness of any kind. Question: Why do we believe a test that has not been proven to be a specific test for HIV?
5. No HIV test, whether it uses blood, urine or saliva, has ever been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the specific intended purpose of diagnosing infection with HIV. In fact, there is a printed insert that comes in every HIV test kit which contains a disclaimer that the test cannot diagnose actual infection with HIV. Question: Why don’t the doctors show us this test disclaimer?
6. Nineteen samples of the same blood were sent to nineteen different laboratories, and they all came back with different HIV test results. Question: How can a test that can mean life or death produce different results if done in a different laboratory?
7. There is no established standard for determining the results of an HIV test. In fact, there are at least ten different ways to interpret a test, and each one of those can give a different result. It often depends on where someone lives in the world, whose standards are used to interpret the test, and what information is given about a person’s life and health history. Question: How can some people go from being HIV-positive to being HIV-negative just by moving to a different location, or by changing laboratories or testing sites, or giving different information about their potential “risk factors?”
8. Many people believe that HIV viral load tests do what antibody tests cannot, by detecting the actual virus. But according to the disclaimer statements on viral load tests, they are “not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or to confirm HIV infection.” This is because the viral load tests have some of the same problems as the HIV blood tests: they have never been validated, the “probes” and “primers” they use have never been proven to be unique or specific to HIV, they are not standardized from laboratory to laboratory, they produce a high rate of false positives, and more. Question: How can people who are HIV-negative have high HIV viral load results?
9. Even if the HIV tests were validated, approved for diagnosing actual HIV infection, and had a universal standard of interpretation, there is still no conclusive medical evidence that proves that testing positive is an indication that anyone is or will become sick. There is still no scientific study that proves that HIV causes AIDS or shows that it destroys the immune system. Question: Why does HIV fails every traditional medical and scientific test to be called the cause of AIDS?
10. Recent scientific studies show that twice as many people are dying from the side effects of the anti-retroviral drugs (HAART) than from illnesses associated with AIDS, and that the drugs being given today are even worse than the ones offered ten years ago. Question: Why should anyone take anti-retroviral drugs that have been proven to cause more problems and deaths than AIDS?
But when the show aired, not one of these questions was asked or referred to. Nor did Oprah mention her message board.
Comments after the show are at NBA Legend Magic Johnson and The New Faces of AIDS in America (thanks YG). 336 Comments so far:
NBA Legend Magic Johnson and The New Faces of AIDS in America
Total Messages: 331
New Messages This Week: 18
Basketball legend Magic Johnson 15 years after the announcement…what he wants to say now. Then, they are the new voices of AIDS in America. What you don’t know. Share your thoughts.
# See what happened on The Oprah Show
View Messages:
by Date/Time Order with Replies in Outline
Didn’t even remember
Posted by: tiggizchew - Pull Down Your pants and slide on the Ice
Posted on: 10/21/2006 at 6:16am (1 of 330)
That Magic had AIDS.
ITs important, and maybe its because I was 12 at the time, but …
I hope with his statue he’s done wonders for the cause
A lesson to learn
Posted by: bonjo36
Posted on: 10/23/2006 at 1:28pm (2 of 330)
I admire Magic Johnson for his humility, his way of handling the desease and how his family face such trials in their life. All I can say more power to him.
Magic Johnson on AIDS in America
Posted by: rubyabell
Posted on: 10/23/2006 at 8:38pm (3 of 330)
As a middle-class American Woman who has been living with HIV since 1986, my only hope is that the portrayal of HIV in America is not just about the advances in the medication and the fact that we are long term survivors, told we are going live after being told we were going to die any day for years, but also the stories of the isolation we still feel and the deep and substanital losses that we have suffered and are still suffering. My oldest child, my beautiful daughter, Sara, was born in 1986 and died 3 months ago due to AIDS. She was only 20 and had suffered both physically and emotionally enough. Yes, there are wonder drugs that are sustaining our lives. But I can promise anyone reading this that until there is acceptance that this illness is a disease like any other, we will loose many more teenagers who’s lives had substance, but refused to feel like crap and didn’t want to be HIV+. My daughter had adequate health insurance and access to every drug available. My three other children lost their sister, not because today’s drugs could not help her, but because she could not accept her illness. Her physician called me yesterday. Another teenager died this week at Georgetown University Hospital. Two unbelievably strong and determined human beings that had so much life to offer us. There is a bigger awareness picture out there. Yes, I am living a life with HIV, but I am 43 and able to accept the ignorance and indiffernce of others. Our HIV+ children can not and many more lives will be lost as a result of ignorance, not lack of medication.
Women and HIV/AIDS
Posted by: amp164
Posted on: 10/23/2006 at 10:06pm (4 of 330)
AIDS in America today is about women, especially women of color, who have been hit the hardest by the epidemic in recent years. Women account for the vast majority of new infections in the US, and often times they are women who do not qualify as ‘at-risk’ individuals or fall into one of the behavioral risk groups created by our national and local health organizations. I look forward to hearing from Magic Johnson as he shares his experience living with the virus for 15 years, and I hope that he talks about the progress we have made with medicine in the US. I also look forward to learning more about how the epidemic has changed over the past few decades from a disease that ravaged the gay community to one that is disproportionately affecting women.
New face of AIDS is my sister…
Posted by: angiefyah
Posted on: 10/24/2006 at 12:45pm (5 of 330)
My father contracted AIDS in the early 80’s he and his new wife(not my mother) had a child in 1980. My half sister was born with HIV and has lived w/it her entire life she is now 26 and pregnant. Her boyfriend and her are very much in love and are very happy about this child they are having. But my family and I are very worried. A lot of things about HIV/AIDS now is that a baby has a 33% chance of not getting it with the m other not even taking any drugs at all. My sister is on top of taking her drugs and wants so badly for her unborn child to not have it. I can only hope for the best. She has had her ups and downs with Pneumonia but her viral loads are low and her HIV is going undetected with the drugs she is taking.
This is the voice and faces of young adults living with the disease now. You can live a somewhat normal life. My sister is the strongest person I know..And I love her. I dont know how she’s dealth with this disease her whole life. But I am sure I will always be there to support her.
What YOU don’t know.
Posted by: ooohboy
Posted on: 10/24/2006 at 4:39pm (6 of 330)
God bless Oprah Winfrey for airing this show. I attend annual conferences on HIV/AIDS and get the latest updates on this pandemic. I wish Magic Johnson had used his status to help defuse the ignorance about HIV. The stigma is hideous and stems mostly from ignorance, in my opinion. There are people that still believe the virus can be contacted by casual contact (sharing drinking or eating utinsels for example). End the ignorance, end the fear and end the pandemic, in the US anyway. The important part of the show will be the 6 women living with HIV. I have listened for at least 2 years how the face of HIV has changed. At last the word will get out to the masses. The new face of HIV is a woman’s. Disproportionately ethnic women. Women that will more likely need help just to get the meds that may keep them alive. The Ryan White Act is the vehicle used to help those with HIV in the US. Some states have had waiting lists for infected people to get permitted to receive meds from their state from Ryan White funds due to lack of funds. Each year new infections are greater than the deaths from the virus. Ryan White Act funds must increase. Please let your congress men and women know. HIV can be stopped! The President mentioned ending the sourge of HIV in his State of the Union Address. Lets get loud and live long enough to get it done.
Thanks Oprah for the attention to HIV
Posted by: reshia114
Posted on: 10/24/2006 at 5:11pm (7 of 330)
Oprah thank you so much for doing a show on the world of HIV and AIDS. I am going to tape it for the youth at my job to watch. HIV and AIDS has effected my life all my life. My father died of AIDS in 1996, his 3 brothers died one a year from the same. One of my best friends died two days after my 19 bday from AIDS, she was 19! I also have so many other relatives that pass away from this disease I lost count. People need to wake up and realize that HIV and AIDS isnt going anywhere until WE make it. I try and educate everyone I know and urge all my friends to take an AIDS test and continue to protect themselves. To tell the truth some women are scared to tell a guy to wear a condom. Well I’m not. I am engaged to be married, My fiance’ and I both have taken HIV test (both negative) and we still used condoms. Woman need to speak up and protect themselves. To me condoms means love, I love myself enough not to get anything and if I have something I love you enough not to give it to you.
Finally
Posted by: angel522
Posted on: 10/24/2006 at 5:23pm (8 of 330)
I tested positive 12/00 during my pregancy.I can remember leaving the dr’s office but not to much after that. My life has never been the same. On my daughter’s 2nd birthday my family and I were told she did not have the virus. I was sooo happy. I thought I was prepared either way and thankfully I’ll never know.
I’m just glad the public will get to see a different side of HIV/AIDS. We are living our lives amongst everyone else and deal with this virus everyday. When I hear ignorant comments I have to refrain myself but I do try to educate people. I consider myself very lucky because the virus has not yet made itself known. My t-cell and viral load has not changed much in the last 5+ years and I’m not on meds. The only time I was, was during my pregancy and they had positive results. There are a million stories to be told and thankfully we’ll get to hear some of them.
10 questions for Magic Johnson - Part 2
Posted by: sadavissr
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 12:54am (9 of 330)
Continuing with my ten questions for Magic Johnson:
6. Nineteen samples of the same blood were sent to nineteen different laboratories, and they all came back with different HIV test results. Question: How can a test that can mean life or death produce different results if done in a different laboratory?
7. There is no established standard for determining the results of an HIV test. In fact, there are at least ten different ways to interpret a test, and each one of those can give a different result. It often depends on where someone lives in the world, whose standards are used to interpret the test, and what information is given about a person’s life and health history. Question: How can some people go from being HIV-positive to being HIV-negative just by moving to a different location, or by changing laboratories or testing sites, or giving different information about their potential “risk factors?”
8. Many people believe that HIV viral load tests do what antibody tests cannot, by detecting the actual virus. But according to the disclaimer statements on viral load tests, they are “not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or to confirm HIV infection.” This is because the viral load tests have some of the same problems as the HIV blood tests: they have never been validated, the “probes” and “primers” they use have never been proven to be unique or specific to HIV, they are not standardized from laboratory to laboratory, they produce a high rate of false positives, and more. Question: How can people who are HIV-negative have high HIV viral load results?
9. Even if the HIV tests were validated, approved for diagnosing actual HIV infection, and had a universal standard of interpretation, there is still no conclusive medical evidence that proves that testing positive is an indication that anyone is or will become sick. There is still no scientific study that proves that HIV causes AIDS or shows that it destroys the immune system. Question: Why does HIV fails every traditional medical and scientific test to be called the cause of AIDS?
10. Recent scientific studies show that twice as many people are dying from the side effects of the anti-retroviral drugs (HAART) than from illnesses associated with AIDS, and that the drugs being given today are even worse than the ones offered ten years ago. Question: Why should anyone take anti-retroviral drugs that have been proven to cause more problems and deaths than AIDS?
10 questions for Magic Johnson - Part 1
Posted by: sadavissr
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 12:55am (10 of 330)
I have ten questions for Magic Johnson, because if I read the actual scientific studies concerning HIV and AIDS rather than listening to the mass media hype, I discover that:
1. The HIV test is not a test for AIDS, or even a test for HIV. It is a test to find certain antibodies — an “HIV-antibody” test. But in virtually every other antibody test, to be positive for the antibodies means that you had exposure to or a prior virus infection and are now immune from the disease that virus could cause. Antibody protection is the basis for the practice of vaccinations, like gaining immunity against the flu with a flu shot. Question: Why we should think any differently about antibodies to HIV? A growing number of experts now believe that testing HIV-antibody-positive actually means that you have successfully created what your body needs to defeat any HIV infection.
2. The HIV test is very often wrong. There are over fifty different scientific studies listing seventy non-HIV conditions that can make the test produce false positive results. Depending on which test someone takes, the results can actually be wrong as much as 90% of the time. Question: How do we know what anyone is testing “Positive†for?
3. The HIV test has never been “validated.” That means that there has never been a group of people who tested HIV-positive who were then proven to have active HIV in their blood. Conversely, there has also never been a group who tested HIV-negative and were proven not to have active HIV in their blood. Question: Why should we believe a test that has never been validated?
4. The proteins used in the HIV test kits have never been proven to be unique or specific for HIV. In fact, every one of the proteins used in the test has been found to be associated with conditions that have nothing to do with HIV — and many of these proteins have nothing to do with illness of any kind. Question: Why do we believe a test that has not been proven to be a specific test for HIV?
5. No HIV test, whether it uses blood, urine or saliva, has ever been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the specific intended purpose of diagnosing infection with HIV. In fact, there is a printed insert that comes in every HIV test kit which contains a disclaimer that the test cannot diagnose actual infection with HIV. Question: Why don’t the doctors show us this test disclaimer?
I will continue with my next five questions for Magic Johnson in the next comment.
NBA Legend Magic Johnson and The New Faces of AIDS in America
Total Messages: 330
New Messages This Week: 17
Basketball legend Magic Johnson 15 years after the announcement…what he wants to say now. Then, they are the new voices of AIDS in America. What you don’t know. Share your thoughts.
# See what happened on The Oprah Show
View Messages:
by Date/Time Order with Replies in Outline
Can you please tell me….
Posted by: sandrad06
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 3:05am (11 of 330)
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Is it true that you receive money from GlaxoSmithKline, the company that makes AZT?
Is it true that you started taking AZT shortly after being diagnosed HIV positive in November 1991, but it made you so sick that you stopped taking it within a month. At least, the joke going around the NBA in December 1991 was that “there is no magic in AZT and there’s no AZT in Magic.â€
But you have never said publicly when and why you stopped taking AZT, have you?
If you were still taking AZT when you won the Most Valuable Player award for the 1992 NBA All-Star game, did GlaxoSmithKline (then known as Burroughs Wellcome) ask you to make a commercial for them, as a fantastic success story for their drug? Why not?
If you were still taking AZT when you won the gold medal as part of the 1992 USA Basketball team, did Burroughs Wellcome come to you then asking you to hold up your gold medal and make a commercial for them for AZT? Why not?
If you were still taking AZT when you came out of retirement in 1995 and posted some pretty impressive stats for that year, including a near triple-double, did Burroughs Wellcome come to you then asking you to make a commercial for them for AZT? Why not?
Why have you never been honest about when you stopped taking AZT? Were you paid not to say anything? Are you still being paid not to say what drugs you have taken and not taken over the last 15 years?
The magazine ads for Combivir and Trizivir (two of GlaxoSmithKline’s AZT drugs) have your picture in them, but you never say yourself in these ads that you are taking these drugs. Are you? For how long? Have you experienced the side effects that most people experience, such as chronic diarrhea, lipodystrophy, and liver failure?
Thanks.
Sandra
no1healthy
In Response to: 10 questions for Magic Johnson - Part 2
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:18am (12 of 330)
WHAT CAUSES AIDS
sadavissr is 100% correct in the comments which were made. HIV has never been proven scientifically to cause AIDS or anything else for that matter. HIV is a retrovirus which occurs naturallly in animals and man and can only be passed down by the mother.
There is not one scientific paper written in the whole world which proves that HIV causes AIDS. In fact, however, Dr. Nancy Padian has completed the longest study in history concerning the transmission of HIV and it was not proven to be sexually transmitted.
In the United States, there are approximately 12,000 new AIDS cases per year. Does this sound like a pandemic or epidemic to you? Many HIV+’s are getting educated to the facts of life and are not taking these toxic drugs.
Statistics have shown that more people have died on the HAART than not on the HAART. The number one killer of HIV or AIDS persons is liver failure from the drugs. Which incidentally, liver failure is not one of the 30 aids-defining diseases.
I think that people should take a closer look at the AIDS definding diseases. Every one of them were on the planet prior to 1982. There is no new diseases, just a rename or reclassification of old diseases which now greatly impact the lives of its victims who are labeled with a sexually-transmitted disease, cannot get insurance, are looked upon as an outcast, told that they must take toxic drugs and told that they will get AIDS and dies. All of this ruining their lives and because of what, a “hypothesis”, not facts.
I had more than HIV. I escalated into full-blown AIDS and nearly died. However, I got educated in a hurry, no longer take these medications and can assure everyone that I am quite healthy.
All that the AIDS Rethinkers ask is for equal time to get our point of view out to the viewers so that they can make up their own minds as to what is true. This is still America where freedom of speech is allowed and cherished as one of our greatest freedoms.
Something needs to change
Posted by: pmc1219
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:00am (13 of 330)
I was told 6 yrs.ago that I was postive and would be died within a yr.I am a white woman who never did anything risky but was the mother of 8 children.I have never taken any drugs for this disease and they can’t find a viral load in me and I have never even had a cold in these 6 yrs.But I do know that the tests can react to over 70 things that can cause a cross reaction and prior pregrancies is one of them.And I have 8 children.HELLO. I feel I have been misdiagnosed and I have to live like I’m dying but I’m not.There are alot of people out there like me that this is happening to and this is so so wrong.And they need to do something about this injustice.Its the people that are taking the drugs that are dying.Please can’t someone come up with a reliable tests that can be trusted so that I and many others will know the truth?
Don’t worry, live life!
In Response to: Something needs to change
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:13am (14 of 330)
You are correct that up to 70 things can cause a false positive. However, even if the test were 100% accurate, it is meaningless. To prove this point, you must realize that HIV was not found in all of the original AIDS cases. It is not in the fluids or the blood of anyone and the so-called viral load test is in fact a measure of one’s antibodies. So you see, either you had a false positive test or the test was correct and you have antibodies to HIV which throughout history, antibodies have always been a good thing, except in this one particular case.
Having said all that, as stated above a HIV+ test will ruin your life just the same. More importantly than that, is how are you going to react to all of this. If you accept the current point of view then you will start worrying and at some point may be placed on the most toxic chemotherapy that has ever been invented by man.
I would highly recommend that you do what most of us have done and that is to get educated about all of this. Talk to others who are in the same boat. Listen to what both sides have to say and then you can make a better determination of who you believe is right and how to proceed forward with your choices in life.
If you live in a smaller city or cannot find support, then do as I did, turn to the internet where there is a world of help and many organizations. For my point of view go to the Aid’s Rethinker sites or blogs.
HIV?????
Posted by: oigens
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:21am (15 of 330)
Think of AIDS this way. Unless we all assume we are all born perfect specimens then we all come into this world with some Immune Deficiency, the ID in AIDS, which can be further worsened by any number of common afflictions or conditions like the flu or pregnancy, the A in AIDS, which in turn could lead to suffering simultaneously any number of opportune diseases, the S in AIDS. No need for some phantom HIV retrovirus to end up with AIDS. In other words AIDS has always existed and is just a renaming of common afflictions known for centuries along with known cures. And this is especially so in Africa. Under no circumstances should anyone allow themselves to be tested for that will-o-th-wisp HIV unless one, with a false positive reading, wishes to end up a pariah suffering a life of abject misery despite being perfectly healthy. If you are sick insist on being treated for what is really ailing you. HIV has never been proven to be the so called single cause of AIDS. Just as yellow fingers are not the cause of lung cancer, HIV, according to some of the best scientific minds in the world cannot cause AIDS despite what the HIV=AIDS=CERTAIN DEATH protagonists mumble to the contrary. If it is anything HIV is the yellow fingers of AIDS. Magic Johnson and others, the so called “long term survivors”, and their numbers are legion, are surely testament to that.
Even test kit manufactures are not sure what they are testing for. A typical test kit insert caveat…….
“The Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection” 1. Abbott Laboratories, Diagnostic Division, 66-8805/R5; January, 1997
no1healthy
In Response to: HIV?????
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:36am (16 of 330)
The commentor is correct. The question to ask is why are the physicians using these unreliable tests and why do physicians have to use a PCR or DNA test to search for “fragments” of a virus if HIV is suppose to be so destructive and lead into AIDS when in fact it is non-existent.
City of New York is opening up an “HIV Jail”
Posted by: jgkiefer
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:46am (17 of 330)
Mr. Johnson,
Did you know that the City of New York is talking about opening up an “HIV Jail” in Bellevue Hospital, like the “TB Jail” that has been operating there for more than 10 years?
If you don’t remember, thanks to a major infusion of federal financing in the mid-90’s, New York health officials took an active approach to tuberculosis, getting as many patients as possible on directly observed therapy, known as D.O.T., in which outreach workers administered tuberculosis medications in clinics, patients’ homes and on the street. For patients who “failed” D.O.T., the health department employed forcible detention, either at Bellevue Hospital or at Goldwater Hospital, where they were “detained†for as long as two years. They called it the “TB Jail.â€
The New York City Health Department is now proposing the same thing for people who test Positive for HIV but “fail†or refuse to take the prescribed HIV medications, even though there is ample evidence that the medications themselves make people sick. They want to create an “HIV Jail†in Bellevue and lock you away if you don’t comply. This would include HIV-Positives who had AIDS, but also HIV-Positives who are perfectly healthy, with no symptoms of AIDS or any other disease, who simply didn’t want to take the dangerous HIV drugs.
Is this the right thing to be doing in America, the land of the free?
HIV?????
Posted by: oigens
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 9:47am (18 of 330)
Think of AIDS this way. Unless we all assume we are all born perfect specimens then we all come into this world with some Immune Deficiency, the ID in AIDS, which can be further worsened by any number of common afflictions or conditions like the flu or pregnancy, the A in AIDS, which in turn could lead to suffering simultaneously any number of opportune diseases, the S in AIDS. No need for some phantom HIV retrovirus to end up with AIDS. In other words AIDS has always existed and is just a renaming of common afflictions known for centuries along with known cures. And this is especially so in Africa. Under no circumstances should anyone allow themselves to be tested for that will-o-th-wisp HIV unless one, with a false positive reading, wishes to end up a pariah suffering a life of abject misery despite being perfectly healthy. If you are sick insist on being treated for what is really ailing you. HIV has never been proven to be the so called single cause of AIDS. Just as yellow fingers are not the cause of lung cancer, HIV, according to some of the best scientific minds in the world cannot cause AIDS despite what the HIV=AIDS=CERTAIN DEATH protagonists mumble to the contrary. If it is anything HIV is the yellow fingers of AIDS. Magic Johnson and others, the so called “long term survivors”, and their numbers are legion, are surely testament to that.
Even test kit manufactures are not sure what they are testing for. A typical test kit insert caveat…….
“The Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection” 1. Abbott Laboratories, Diagnostic Division, 66-8805/R5; January, 1997
What are we becoming?
In Response to: City of New York is opening up an “HIV Jail”
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 10:08am (19 of 330)
Does this strike you as appalling that this could happen in America? Well, for the history buffs let’s go back to the 1930’s when children were taken from their homes and families and placed in orphanges because it was thought that they had a communicable disease. In fact, it was later determined that they had pellagra, which was caused by a vitamin deficiency. Now, what hardships did that place on the families?
And to the other end of the spectrum, we knowing withheld antiboitic treatments to black men with syphilis to monitor the affects.
In this case placing adults in jail for refusing to take toxic drugs is horrendous and a violation of one civil rights and HIV has not proven to cause AIDS.
Today, there is a case going on in an Australian court because a HIV+ man had unprotected sex with women. His legal defense is that HIV has not been proven to cause AIDS or HIV is not sexually transmitted.
This discussion is very necessary to prevent more tragedies in life and to bring the truth out to the public.
Question for Magic
Posted by: catmccraw
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 10:18am (20 of 330)
Mr. Johnson,
We’re constantly told that HIV is sexually transmitted. But Nancy Padian, in the largest and longest study of its kind, followed 175 discordant couples (one partner HIV positive, the other HIV negative) for anywhere from 4 to 6 years. At the end of the study, not one - NOT ONE - of the HIV negative partners became HIV positive, even though almost a third of them were not using condoms consistently and 39% were engaging in anal sex. If HIV was sexually transmitted, why didn’t any of the HIV negative partners get HIV?
333333333
NBA Legend Magic Johnson and The New Faces of AIDS in America
Total Messages: 330
New Messages This Week: 17
Basketball legend Magic Johnson 15 years after the announcement…what he wants to say now. Then, they are the new voices of AIDS in America. What you don’t know. Share your thoughts.
# See what happened on The Oprah Show
View Messages:
by Date/Time Order with Replies in Outline
Questioning..
Posted by: firstblood
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 10:18am (21 of 330)
As a so-called HIV Positive Gay male since 1997 I have had a series of Questions for BOTH the AIDS Establishment and the Group Of Scientists that are Reappraising HIV/AIDS. In My own Experience as a HIV+ Patient I have only encountered grief and Many Unanswered Questions.
I was Told I was going to die from HIV and AIDS Complications and I have Never Been Sick with anything Defined or related to HIV/AIDS.
Why Did I Test Indeterminate(Negative) After 6 years of being treated with a Chemotherapy Drug(AZT) and a Toxic Combo?
If there is No Cure Why did I HAVE to Retest 6 years later?
Why are the Symptoms I have Now Only related to the Toxic Drugs?[The Fine Print.Complete Horror.]Anemia and Neuropathy.
Why Do My Medical Records Indicate that The Tests are Not Intended to be used to Diagnose My so-called HIV Infection?
Why aren’t these Disclaimers Posted in Public HIV Clinics across America?
Why Is a Tcell Definition for AIDS Required in the United States and Not Other Countries?
Why Is some HIV Annonymous HIV testing Free in the USA and Not Required at all in Africa?
Why Has Africa doubled In population?
Since HIV/AIDS supposedly Infects Men More than Women according to the State Health facts Why is HIV/AIDS Considered a Disease?
My Last Question: Does Magic Johnson Believe he has a “Gay Disease” according to the latest Campaign from the LA Gay and Lesbian center?
Sincerely Tomás Brewster
Florida
Keep on Questioning
In Response to: Questioning..
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 10:35am (22 of 330)
Tomas Brewster has asked some very valid points that I am sure that most would like to know the answers too. If I may, I would like to address them for those who may not be familiar to the controversy about AIDS. I also would hope that Mr. Johnson would address them too.
According to Dr. Kary Mullis, the Nobel Prize winner for the invention of the PCR or DNA test, if one stays on the anti-virals or HAART, the anitbodies can be wiped out so therefore one can test negative as anitobodies are only being tested for in the first place. This used to confuse me because while on the medications, the doctors will say that your viral load is non-detectable. In fact, one’s antibodies are non-detectable.
Medicine will rarely say that anyone is cured of anything, maybe acne, but not anyone with a serious disease. The best that they will say is that one is in remission. Kinda keeps you hanging on.
The anti-viral or HAART are well known for causing anemia and neuropathy. My anemia did not subside until I came off the meds.
The standard saying that this is not intended to diagnose…. is a legal out for somebody.
You make a great statement, why don’t we see posted in every lab, doctor’s office and hospital about the disclaimer of these tests especially since so much is at stake here and will have life-time consequences to the patient.
When the Center of Disease Control added the CD4 requirement to the AIDS stew, well, this overnight doubled the number of AIDS cases in this country. Talk about inflated statistics. Most of these newly diagnosed people did not have any clincal symptoms whatsoever. Case in point, my CD4’s are under 200 and I am in perfect health.
These are excellent questions that you have asked and our government should have to answer them.
Angel522
In Response to: Finally
Posted by: firstblood
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 11:23am (23 of 330)
Antibodies to Pregnancy are listed as a “Cross Reactor” in the Medical Literature.. along with about 70 other conditions..You may want Question your so called HIV test results.
AIDS is Hype
Posted by: shaft459
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 12:46pm (24 of 330)
Magic is not even sick. He’s as healthy as a horse.
HIV is mostly hype. They can’t even find the virus. The drugs they give you, though, are dangerous as hell.
In fact, Arthur Ashe was killed by AZT, the drug that was supposed to help him.
Tony Brown and Lee Evans are best resources on AIDS. They’ve figgured it out. Magic hasn’t.
These people don’t know what they’re doing.
Is My Dream Big Enough?
Posted by: gmstmtch
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 12:53pm (25 of 330)
Oprah,
At 27 years old I have seen it all, or so I think. I am HIV+ and have just been Honorably Discharged from the United States Army. I want more out of life. In referencing your show with the gifts you gave to Africa, you stated have you ever felt joy that was palpable. Indeed, this is the joy I felt after viewing such a show as this. I want to not just have that joy contained but I want to be active and DO something to help in any way I can. After my training in the United States Army I am confident that I can go into remote villages and teach about HIV/Aids prevention. I want to be a voice that gets retro-virals not only provided but also to be a voice that gets laws passed in Africa. With my HIV+ status I am currently not on any medication and am capable of going to the ends of the Earth to speak out for what change needs to occur. Oprah, my dream is big, and it’s simply to be able to go to Africa to live and teach HIV/Aids prevention, to help pass laws, to give that palpable joy to children and adults by whatever means possible. Oprah, I am unique in nature as God has granted me this dream, but I believe in it…..will you?
Sincerely,
Gregory R. Volle
More Information
In Response to: Keep on Questioning
Posted by: lvlyblkldy
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 1:30pm (26 of 330)
I was told I was HIV positive about 17 1/2 years ago I was 18,6 months pregnant and was told if I had the baby it would die by the age of two, so I had an abortion, mind you I had already had a child that was 9 months old, I found out after I had him that I was positive. Okay so again I was told my child would die, well since then I had 2 more children after I was dianogesed, all three of my children are negative.Although, I have had this virus for almost 18 years now, my Tcells have dropped down to 49 once before and then back up, they have not ever been over 200. I have been told that when my Tcells were at 49 they could not believe that I was still able to work a full time job, go to school and take care of my family. I thank GOD that I have not ever experienced any AIDS related illnesses. Now my question is simply this I don’t take medication I am perfectly healthy, my husband is not infected, my children are negative and when my tcell drop’s due to stress from what I was told.I have been asked by a few doctors (not my doctor) if they could do a study on me.Organizations are amazed that I have not evver had a symothon oh wait I did have thrush before but anything serious Thank GOD I have not. What is really going on with HIV/AIDS. I know that I am blessed by GOD, is there something that the goverment will not tell us about the disease and the medication. I speake about how this Disease is affecting the Black and Latino women in my community, but when I speak I want to share as much, my own personal experiences and information on being healthy, staying safe and as much knowledge that I can possibly inform people. Do you have any answers to any of my questions or maybe why some people that have the virus do well and others do so bad. I have had the virus longer than people that I know that have it and I tell you they are not doing great at all.
Blessed.
A Friendly Reminder from Oprah.com
Posted by: HarpoBear - Community Producer - Oprah.com
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 1:32pm (27 of 330)
A friendly reminder…
Online safety is very important to us here at Oprah.com. For this reason we ask that members refrain from posting messages that contain links or URLs. To learn more about this and the other message board rules, please click the House Rules link above. We appreciate everyone’s cooperation and understanding. 
You are normal
In Response to: More Information
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 1:53pm (28 of 330)
Yes, you are truly blessed and very normal. I am so sorry to hear that due to fear you had an abortion. You are a wonderful testiment to the fact that HIV is harmless in itself.
Do not be alarmed by CD4’s as way back in the 1970’s they were not given credit to mean very much. However, now with AIDS, they seem to be given a great deal of significance by the CDC and the AIDS doctors. Olympic athletes have been known to have low CD4’s, a fact that my doctor admitted too. They go up and down and many things can influence them to the time of day that the blood test was drawn to the the lab which is reading the tests.
I do not personally put too much stock into them because I have had low CD4’s with low viral loads and high CD4’s with higher loads. So in essence they are not the best yardsticks to be using when gauging one’s health. I believe that the old-fashioned way, of determining if the patient has any symptoms, is the best method.
To answer your question in regards to why some people do better than others? This is easy, it all depends upon one’s overall health and life-style habits. Many of us believe that this is the true cause of AIDS and not some illusive virus.
You might want to do research about Stephen Davis as he would be very interested in your story.
HIV=AIDS - Fact or Fraud?
Posted by: hivlies
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 3:13pm (29 of 330)
Dear Oprah and Magic, Did you know that there is a video documentary currently on Google video that you can download for free called “HIV=AIDS - Fact or FRAUD?” that is being seen around the world? This documentary explains 10 scientific reasons why HIV can NOT be the cause of AIDS, what the REAL causes could be, why AID$ drugs are fatally toxic and cause AIDS by prescription, and who perpetrated this deadly myth of HIB/AID$ while ripping off nearly 300 Billion Dollars as they poisoned 300,000 people. I have three questions: 1. Do you STILL stand by your statements that HIV is THE “cause of AIDS” after 15 years? 2. Are you aware that many people now question HIV and the AID$ industry, and that testing with this inavalid test can ruin millions of lives needlessly? 3.Things have changed! People are now becomming aware of this monstrous and deadly FRAUD, and that they are going to be angry about it! Do you realize how this could ultimately effect your credibility and public image? Would you consider making this right and publically denouncing HIV=AIDS for what it really is? Do you realize that the growing population of people now aware of this mass-genocidal rip-off will be wathcing your program to meticulously rip it apart and blast it out all over the internet as Deadly HIV=AID$ propaganda! I hope you understand that this debate is NOT going to go away. HIV/AID$ will be reavealed for what it really is, and I am honestly concerned about your stand on this issue as it will effect your legacy and public image. I hope that you can take what I say in an honest and friendly manner. HIV=AIDS. like a lot of other huge LIES the government told us, are going to be brought to justice!
THE TRUTH CANNOT BE HIDDEN
In Response to: HIV=AIDS - Fact or Fraud?
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 3:29pm (30 of 330)
This commentor adds some fuel to the fire in a very strong manner but speaks the truth. The public is becoming more and more aware of this injustice thanks to the many sites on the internet and due to the coming out of so many of the HIV+’s who do not take these medications and are living normal lives.
It’s high time that this issue be addressed by the mainstream news media instead of showing us dying people around the world who are starving, living in unsanitary conditions, don’t have access to clean water or adequate medical care. How could anyone be expected to survive under these conditions. Strong drugs is not the solution for these people, better living conditons and the proper nourishment is the answer.
We can only hope that news reporters and hosts will do their jobs, investigate and report the truth to the world.
44444444444444444
HIV and AIDS are NOT synonymous!
Posted by: drheide
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 4:21pm (31 of 330)
As a doctor I am very concerned about the CDC considering mandatory HIV testing for all citizens. The HIV blood test has so many “false positives”. That is, there are many conditions from recently having a flu shot to pregnancy that can result in a positive HIV blood test. Just imagine the stigma in your life of being branded HIV POSITIVE when it turns out it was a false reading? Oprah I can’t say enough about the fact that, in my opinion, we’ve gone down the wrong road concerning AIDS.
Thanks to the Good Doctor
In Response to: HIV and AIDS are NOT synonymous!
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 5:05pm (32 of 330)
It’s refreshing to see a doctor speak the truth and not go down the same old path like most of the his or her chosen profession. Being a doctor gives one a license to learn, not know it all.
We started going down the wrong path over 20 years ago when true science was thrown out the window in lieu of conjecture. Next, someone decided to give the sickest people on the planet one of the worse, failed, cancer drugs that there was AZT. AIDS patients were killed by this disaster. Then we continued on and developed more toxic drugs which cause liver problems, heart failure, anemia, diarrhea, disfigurement, abnormal blood levels and elevated liver enzymes to name a few and we gave and still give them to people who are clinically healthy. Does this make any rational sense to any one?
Now, we want to test the whole population for this non-proven virus. Where will it all end? How many more lives will be destroyed or taken?
We, as a nation cannot allow this to contiune. We must start over admit to our wrong-doings and stop this madness.
HIV causes AIDS?
Posted by: tmahood
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 5:23pm (33 of 330)
Mr. Johnson,
I’ve heard for years that HIV causes AIDS. But I have looked and looked, and I cannot find a single scientific paper that proves that. Dr. Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in 1993, says he can’t find it either.
Can you tell us where to look for the proof that HIV causes AIDS?
HIV+ mother, grandmother, sister, daugther
Posted by: whittyc19
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 5:44pm (34 of 330)
I have been reading several of the comments and as a person living with HIV, I am most upset about the lack of education. Someone said her daugther died at the age of 20 not because she did not have the meds but because of the way she was treated. America treats people that are HIV infected totally different than a person with Cancer. Both can kill you and cause your life cycle to be cut short. But that is God’s will not ours.
I do not claim HIV. I was diagnosed with HIV in 2000. I know that I am healed by HIS strips and that no weapons that form against me shall prosper. Your faith and education (America)will change the minds of millions. I am a new face of HIV. I believe that we (HIV+) people have to teach those around us about the disease. I have stepped out on faith and have begin acknowleding that I am HIV+. When people see me they cannot believe that I am postive. It did take me sometime to get to this level, but with God’s grace and love, I am doing better. I am helping other newly infected women to allow themselves acceptance of the disease.
We need your love and support. Oprah I hope you get to talk with other women of color that are HIV+ and living normal lives. I am looking forward to seeing the show.
I am a mother, grandmother, sister, daugther and aunt. I fit all the hats of a woman and I am also a teacher in the new face of HIV?AIDS>
There is more information!
In Response to: More Information
Posted by: ooohboy
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 6:26pm (35 of 330)
Dear lvlyblkldy, There is an answer to your question which I will frame as “Why am I a non-progressor”? The answer is found in the PBS series “Secrets of the Dead” episode “Mystery of the Black Death”. The Black Death was the name used to describe the victims of The Plague that went thru Europe in the late 1340’s. The Plague took 35 million lives, 60 to 75 percent of the European population. Here is the key. The survivors of the Plague had the “Delta 32 Mutation” of the CCR5 Gene. The Plague was the bacterial equivalent of the HIV virus. Both take down the immune system and allow opportunistic infections to destroy the body. (I’m a layman so please bear with me). Fast forward to today. It has been found in HIV positive people that “Slow Progressors” have a single Delta 32 Mutation and “Non-progressors” have two copies of the Delta 32 Mutation. The single mutation from a plague survivor and the double mutation from the off-spring of couples both being survivors. That is one possible answer. The episode detailing the above can be obtained at 800-336-1917. Another factor is that there are different strains of the HIV virus. Some more aggressive than others.
Yes you are blessed. We are all blessed, but not all have the eyes to see.
QUESTION
In Response to: There is more information!
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 6:41pm (36 of 330)
You say that HIV “takes down” the immune system, would you please explain to us how this is accomplished since retroviruses are not known to harm anything?
this is one of those moments
Posted by: pmc1219
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:18pm (37 of 330)
Oprah,this is the moment that you can really make a difference in poeples lifes.I’ve been told I’m postive,but I have no other reason to believe that I have it.I’m prefectly healthy and Have always been that way.I have never taken drugs for it and you can see from all of these messages there is reason to question what we are being told.Please look into the truth,seek out the real answers so we may all know for sure the truth.You have Dr.Oz and he gives the real truth about our health.Why not have others who have written books about the Unreliabity of these tests on to explain how all of this happened.It’s no secret there are over 2000 Dr’s and researchers out there that say this and some are Nobel Prize winners.They can’t get the truth out there because the drug companies don’t want the truth out there.You can make a differnce in my life by bringing this debate to the forefront.I’m a great person but I could be so much more if I could find out the truth.Either I have it or I don’t.Right now I’m not sure,and there are alot of things I could be doing if I knew for sure I didn’t have it.Please don’t close your eyes to this just because you think you know something.You have alot of people that could investigate this and find out the answers.Alot of us are counting on you for the truth.Do you remember when it was just a gay disease and then it was the black community being attacted and now here we are that everyone needs to get tested.How does a virus no your black or gay?I’ve always wondered that.Please help us out here so the truth can be known for sure.
All I Ever Did Was Love a Man Sharon Allison-Ottey
Posted by: constreed
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:27pm (38 of 330)
I want to share this book with your readers by Sharon D. Allison-Ottey, MD which is a new genre in fiction writing. The book is about a woman that looks like me and you–a divorcee with 2 children, did not sleep around alot, no drugs and just wanted to find love. She is unexpectedly tired, and can’t get rid of a yeast infection–she found out that she had HIV. However, this is not a sob story about this woman but you see up close and personal what her life is–her loves, her ups, downs, the power of friendship and how she conquers this challenge. The author spoke at my church and I can tell you that hundreds of us listened and finally “got it” and became aware. Our church had over 600 women come out on a Monday night to talk and interact with the author and the conversation has not stopped.
The book is fabulous–I felt like I was up close and in person with the disease, things I never thought about like sexuality, living wills, how a mother feels, kissing, how a best friend is affected and it is great reading with love, mystery and dramatic twists. The author’s proceeds go to fund HIV testing and support for persons that cannot afford medications. My church was pleased to help support these efforts. This should be mandatory reading for all and I have made my girlfriends read it and we have used the study guide.
If you want your teens, friends, parents, and grandparents to have their eyes opened, I advise that you learn all you can about HIV/AIDS. While there are great advances it still is a terminal disease that we all need to prevent. I have become an advocate and try to educate myself. I have had 2 friends die of the disease and unfortunately my fear & ignorance kept me from being a true “friend” . My eyes have been opened and I will never make the same mistake. Thank you for the show– I look forward to seeing it tommorrow.
we need your help oprah
In Response to: this is one of those moments
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:27pm (39 of 330)
Oprah, can you see the sincerity in the above person’s comments. We need your help because although there are many of us out here, we do not have the news platform to get our voices heard. Nevertheless, we are making waves on the internet.
Why don’t you have a show that consists of Aids Rethinkers and there are many prominent ones in this country and others. Be fair and let the untold side of AIDS out of the bag so to speak. I can direct you to some individuals to contact to see if they would be a guest on your show.
We are now black, white, men, women, children, ethic groups, gays and straights. This unfortunate labeling can occur to any one and at any age. Be the first, bold celebrity to take a stand so that we can begin to heal and right this wrong in our society.
I know that I speak for many in thanking you for your concern,
A Grateful Aids person
Can Anyone Help?
Posted by: wildflwer7
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:38pm (40 of 330)
My mother passed away 3 weeks ago as a result of complications during her treatment for pnemonia. She might have been susceptible to the infection because of her weakened immune system, but I, have also contracted pnemonia multiple times since living in our apartment. Her health records will show her condition rapidly deteriorated over the course of living in our apartment. I have letters from doctors and social workers, written as recent as 2 months ago, urging for her to be moved out. For approximately 5 years now my mother and I have been with Harlem United (a agency specificly for people who live with HIV/AIDS) and for the past 3 years we have resided in the apartment. The agreement with the organization was that we would be temporarily placed in the building and would be out within 12 months. Three years later we were not only still in the building, but since day one there was a laundry list of violations. My mother met with Harlem United, as well as 311 and HASA. She also called the landlord directly several times to report the problems, and with the exception of one, none of the violations were fixed.These unacceptable living conditions included various electrical problems (a short circuit in the kitchen and numerous broken electrical outlets which resulted in the extensive use of extension cords in the apartment, even necessary for powering major appliances), a broken toilet, and sporadic hot water, just to name a few of the minor conditions. These conditions while unacceptable only indirectly affected our well-being. At 4:58am on Mothers Day of this year, due to a lack of security in our building (a faulty intercom and unlocked main entrance) our front door was shot through seven times. One of these bullets landed less than one foot from where my mother was sleeping. The landlord promised that he would change our door, but instead he filled the holes with wood. Even when I am able to leave my house, I am reminded of how unsafe I am in my own home.In addition to our lives being threatened there were also conditions that directly made my mother’s health worse. Due to a constant leak in the bathroom, the ceiling has fallen in twice. The second time it fell on my mother, and she developed a rash which never properly healed.
555555555555555555555555
21 years of this preventable disease and counting.
In Response to: Thanks Oprah for the attention to HIV
Posted by: cjam4jazz
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:41pm (41 of 330)
First and foremost I want to thank Oprah also for doing a show on a subject that many people don’t want talk about. I am a 38 year old Hispanic female and I am living with AIDS. I’ve struggled with my health for quite sometime now but with the Grace of GOD I am still around my task here on earth is not completed. I am a single parent of three. My children at one point had to become my parent because I became very ill. I can proudly say that even through all that my kids have gone through they too have succeeded. They did not let AIDS bring them down. You see all of this could’ve been preventable if I had used condoms and not fully trust in a man not so quick. The man that passed HIV to me always knew he was infected and never once told me, I had to find out once he became very ill and ended up in emergency. For the past 8 years now I have done nothing but to educate people on they really need to be careful with self not everyone is honest with their health status. So many want to believe in their partners and now adays we can’t just go by what is said to us, I say to people if you want to engage in a intimate relationship without the use of condoms both you and your partner would have to get tested and together see each other result that is the only sure way. Currently I am a Health Services Coordinator in the Correctional Facilities, previously I have been an Outreach Worker primarily focused on HIV/AIDS Prevention. I have had the privilage to see Mr.Johnson speak at one of our events in Rochester and he is a wonderful speaker especially I really enjoy that he keeps it real with the people. So again thank you Oprah.
Yes I will.
In Response to: QUESTION
Posted by: ooohboy
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 7:44pm (42 of 330)
Ok, remember I am a layman. So it will be “simplistic”. The “overview” of the process does seem simple. So simple. Here is my rendetion of the reproduction cycle of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus - HIV. Viruses cannot not reproduce on their own. This includes HIV. They must invade another cell in our body, take it over and make it produce copies of itself (the virus). HIV uses the CD4 cell that is part of the immune system. Once a CD4 is taken over it produces HIV and no longer functions as a CD4 cell. That is the taking down of the immune system in the simplest of explanations. Now for the fun part.
How do the meds work? Well, it is much like a treatment for termites (the overview of the processes). The reproduction cycle is interupted causing no reproduction, or defective reproduction leading to the reproductions not being able to reproduce. HIV uses 3 enzymes to cause the CD4 cell to make copies of the virus. There has been a med developed for each of these enzymes that inhibit that part of the process. I believe “Protease Inhibitors” are the most widely known class of these drugs. (OK working from memory here) There are I think 5 classes of drugs now. Three are the enzyme inhibitors and I believe the other 2 are: 1. Prevent the virus from entering the CD4 cell and 2. Prevent the virus from attaching to the CD4 cell. All together there are 20 or more drugs to treat HIV. A more detailed description of the processes of reproduction and their interuption can be found in the pamphlet “How HIV Works In Your Body” from Glaxo Smith Kline.
I try to keep an open mind about things no1healthy. I like to quote Patrick Swayze in a tv interview when he said “I don’t have room to grow when I’m right”. I will be Googling the sources and names mentioned in this thread. I have too much to lose to be ignorant of all available information. For those of you into herbal treatments. Echinacea is contra-indicated for HIV+ people. Don’t take it.
Can Anyone Help? IF SO, PLS EMAIL
Posted by: wildflwer7
Posted on: 10/25/2006 at 8:19pm (43 of 330)
My mother passed away 3 weeks ago as a result of complications during her treatment for pnemonia. She might have been susceptible to the infection because of her weakened immune system, but I, have also contracted pnemonia multiple times since living in our apartment. Her health rapidly deteriorated over the course of living in our apartment. I have letters from doctors and social workers, written as recent as 2 months ago, urging for us to be moved out. The agreement was that we would be temporarily placed in the building and would be out within 12 months. 3 years later we were not only still in the building, but since day one there was a laundry list of violations. My mother met with Harlem United, 311 and HASA. She also called the landlord several times to report the problems, and with the exception of 1, none of the violations were fixed. At 4:58am on Mothers Day of this year, due to a lack of security in our building our front door was shot through seven times.1 of the bullets landed less than one foot from where my mother was sleeping. The landlord promised that he would change our door, but instead he filled the holes with wood. I am reminded of how unsafe I am in my own home daily. Due to a constant leak in the bathroom, the ceiling fell in twice. The 2nd time it fell on my mother, and she developed a rash which never healed. she also DVT’s and open ulcers in both of her legs. This greatly affected her mobility, especially climbing stairs. Since the elevator is contstantly broken she was not always able to attend her medical appointments. We attempted to move on our own, but by then my mother’s condition had worsened to the point that she was unable to go to meet with the landlord of the new apartment. The landlord eventually rented the apartment to another party, thus we were back to the starting point. To add insult to injury, one day after my mother’s funeral, i was informed that I needed to vacate our apartment by November 12th. My mother was estranged from her family i have no one. tawanagill@gmail.com
I know I am prying perhaps
In Response to: New face of AIDS is my sister…
Posted by: mirahjay
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 5:02am (44 of 330)
but how does a person who is HIV positive have unprotected sex?
I thought that they were confined to having to use condoms so as to not pass along the disease?
it diesn’t matter whether or not Oprah
In Response to: Is My Dream Big Enough?
Posted by: mirahjay
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 5:21am (45 of 330)
believes in your dream ever….so long as long as you do.
write madonna and hook up with her. or the state department, some of the pharmaceutical companies. the foreign relations department, the embassador to south africa, malawi etc..
put together a plan to go over there for six months.
make it happen because it is YOUR dream.
Oprah has her own.
good luck to you btw
Are you planning to stay in the apt?
In Response to: Can Anyone Help?
Posted by: mirahjay
Posted on: 10/24/2006 at 10:28am (46 of 330)
Where you eligible to move there as a result of your mother’s HIV/AIDS infection or yours? If you are planning to stay are there others with whom you can unite in order to protest the conditions in the building?
Surrepitiously make a video of the apartment. Keep a record of the dates that you have called for repairs who you spoke to and their response. I would write a letter to several of the editors of the NYT. Also all of the “alternative” newspapers. What about your faith organization? Can you ask them to advocate on your behalf?
Since all of the major news organizations are located in NY I would compile a list and write (email) each one. I would also write any and all of the AIDS support groups throughout the region. If conditions are as poor as you state, it most definetly should not be ignored. How could the NY health department tolerate ill people to housed in unhealthy conditions?
I am sorry to hear of your mother’s passing. Take care.
Wonderful day in the News(Media)
In Response to: THE TRUTH CANNOT BE HIDDEN
Posted by: firstblood
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 6:07am (47 of 330)
HIV Goes on trial in an Australian Court of Law…
and
so-called Co Discoverer of HIV/AIDS Dr Robert Gallo up for Scientific Misconduct…
Rethinkers United
THE FACTS OF LIFE
In Response to: I know I am prying perhaps
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 6:12am (48 of 330)
The facts of life are simply this, HIV is a retrovirsus which cannot be passed through sex, only passed down from the mother to her child.
To prove this point, go to the CDC websites and take a look at all of the top, say 4, sexually transmitted diseases. First, you will find many, many thousands of them.
Secondly, by doing the research, you will find that most of these diseases occur within the 12-24 age group, in a certain sex, race and even a certain location of this country.
Now, do the same for HIV and you will see that the statistics do not match in any way shape or form because by doing the math, HIV is still mainly in the gay, male population.
Dr. Padian has done a study where one partner had HIV and the other did not and guess what, having non-protected sex, the non-HIV person did not contract HIV.
Add the fact, that only about 12,000 new AIDS cases occur every year, not even 1% of the population in this country. This is not a raging sexual epidemic.
Magical CD4’s
In Response to: Yes I will.
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 6:23am (49 of 330)
That’s an interesting theory but I have never heard of CD4’s changing into anything and if this virus is so prevalent, then why is it not in anyone’s blood and why do they have to use a sophisticated magnifing glass so to speak to try to find it in the first place? And lasty, why are the drugs worse than the disease?
YES AND NO
In Response to: AIDS is Hype
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 7:17am (50 of 330)
The problem is that since the early 1980’s HIV and AIDS have been living together without official paperwork. They have been linked together over the years so it is natural for the public to associate them together.
However, they are two separate entities. Case in point, HIV is a harmless, retrovirsus which hasn’t been scientifically proven to harm a flea.
When we hear that someone died of AIDS, well that is not possible bacause the person has died from one or more of many diseases. AIDS is only a reclassification of many, old diseases. All of which were on planet Earth, prior to the first case of AIDS which by the way, it was called GRID then, in reference to being a gay disease.
Stop and think, just by looking at some of the comments on this site, we have heard of a lot of HIV+ people say that they are doing fine. Even some wonder why are they doing well. It’s because the HIV test is really a bogus and meaningless test. These people are healthy because they have good health habits or they too would be sick.
Now, the Aids category is more complicated as the CDC has changed the rules about 3 different times. So now one needs to have an AIDS defining disease(one of many)or have CD4’s under 200 and be HIV+. They might not tell you this, but there have been HIV-cases of AIDS.
In my humble opinion, the CDC needs to first do away first with HIV and the test which made Robert Gallo an overnight millionaire. For those who don’t know, he stole the HIV specimens from the French and claimed them for his own. So you see, this AIDS has always been a mess. Hollywood should be making a movie about all this, I’m available for a part!
Next, CD4’s are another little item that should not be given the significance that they are. There again, if you have read the above comments will see that people have low CD4’s that in theory should be sick but they’re healthy.
Lastly, the AIDS classification can stay or go. In one way it makes it easier to say that someone has AIDS instead of listing a whole bunch of diseases because when anyone hears that, they realize that the person is sick and probably dying. There again though, I think that the criteria for AIDS should be more strict and involve actual symptoms and sicknesses. For you see as of this writing I have AIDS.
I would have to agree with your last comment, that they don’t know what they are doing. Our governmental agencies must be help accountable for the harm done to its citizens.
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Faulty facts
In Response to: THE FACTS OF LIFE
Posted by: ooohboy
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 7:18am (51 of 330)
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But no one is entitled to report mistaken data as facts.
The annual rate of new infections in the US has held steady at roughly 40,000 for the past several years. Check the CDC for that.
Now this passing from mother to child. Didn’t you say you are pos in one of your posts here? Does your mother have HIV? I am pos and my mother isn’t. What about the rest of the pos people on earth? And this gay male thing. The statistics probably currently support that in the US. However, only in the US. In the rest of the world that is not the case. It will not be long till it is not the case in the US. That is part of what the tv program is trying to tell the world, isn’t it?
When the only tool one has is a hammer, then pounding on things is the only way to make a repair. Open up your world and read something other than the alternative view points on this pandemic.
I was into alternative medicine, herbs etc. Then September 7, 1999 I had a date with death that I missed. Thanks to the hard work of EMT’s and hospital staffs. I had PCP and my friend that called the squad was told at the hospital that I probably would not have made it through the night had I not gone to the hospital. 30 pounds had wasted off my 165 pound normal weight. My CD4 count was 36 and my viral load was over 500,000 (as high as they count). It took over 7 days of mainlining antibiotics to just break the fever. I spent 30 days in hospitals and got walking again.
I was put on HIV meds and have not missed a dose. Currently my viral load is undetectable and my CD4 counts run in the 6 and 700 range.
Thank God for conventional medicine. There is an overwhelming wealth of information on HIV/AIDS available to those that seek it. As a person living with AIDS I have sought it.
A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an idea. Be it medicine or God. I know that I know what I know.
Peace.
Cnange of data
In Response to: THE FACTS OF LIFE
Posted by: no1healthy - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP
Posted on: 10/26/2006 at 7:32am (52 of 330)
The annual rate of HIV is