Health Plus Letter Vol. 2, No. 8

The Health Plus Letter

March 2, 2004, Vol. 2, No. 8

By Larry Trivieri, Jr. – founder & publisher

Table Of Contents:

What’s New

Quote of the Day

Fast Facts

Medical Freedom Alert

Health News and Commentary

The AIDS Debate: The Gay Plague (Part 2) by Liam Scheff

Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Managing Anxiety

The Power of A Human Spirit - A Tribute to My Sister Andrea (Part 15)

Recommendations

Unabashed Plug

Both Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online are offering my newest book, Health on the Edge: Visionary Views of Healing in the New Millennium at a healthy discount. To order it, visit either http://www.amazon.com (which gave it 5 stars, its highest rating) or http://www.bn.com (Barnes and Noble). Simply type in the title or my name on their homepages and you’ll find it. Please tell others about it, too, because the information and self-care exercises it contains are important, and it’s the first book of its kind to contain such a range of topics related to the future of health and healing.

To hear me interviewed about the information my book contains, visit http://www.beyondhealth.com/radioshow.htm

What’s New

This issue continues the multi-part series by investigative journalist Liam Scheff on the subject of AIDS and HIV that calls into question the widely accepted hypothesis that HIV=AIDS. Also in this issue is information on treating and preventing anxiety. And I bring to a close the heroic journey of my sister Andrea’s passing, a story I feel very privileged to have been able to share with you.

Due to length, I’ve omitted the Health News and Commentary and Reader Feedback sections. Both will return next week.

Please continue to send me your comments and suggestions. You can email me at larry@1healthyworld.com.

And please spread the word about The Health Plus Letter by passing it along to your friends and inviting them to subscribe.

Quote Of The Day

“A bunch of shit.”

- Nobel laureate James Watson, co-discover of the DNA double helix, describing the so-called War on Cancer, and charging that the American public had been sold a “nasty bill of goods about cancer.”

Fast Fact

According to John Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, and formerly of the Atomic Energy Commission, “about three-quarters of the current annual incidence of breast cancer in the United States is being caused by earlier ionizing radiation, primarily from medical sources [x-ray, mammography, CT scans, etc.].”

Source: Preventing Breast Cancer by John Gofman

Unabashed Plug

Dr. Garry Gordon’s entire line of nutritional products are available for purchase directly from 1HealthyWorld.com. Dr. Gordon is a member of 1HealthyWorld’s Medical Advisory Board, and an internationally acclaimed expert in the areas of cardiovascular health, anti-aging medicine, and the use of nutritional medicine to prevent and reverse chronic disease. He is also one of the most accomplished and knowledgeable physicians it’s ever been my privilege to meet, and the nutritional products he’s developed reflect his expertise. You can order his products by visiting http://www.1healthyworld.com/healthproducts/garrygordon

Medical Freedom Alert

Please do your part to ensure that the misleadingly named “Dietary Safety Supplement” Act (S. 722) is defeated. To become informed about S. 722 and to take action to help defeat its passage, please visit: http://capwiz.com/nnfa/S722.html

To stay informed of other developments related to medical freedom, please visit http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org the website of Dr. Mattias Rath, a leading crusader for medical freedom.

The AIDS Debate: The Gay Plague (Part 2) by Liam Scheff

[Note: This article was originally published May, 2003, in Boston’s Weekly Dig. Part was reprinted in Last week’s edition of The Health Plus Letter and is available online at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine/vol2no7.com.

Some readers may find the lifestyle activities described below offensive, but I feel the information in this article is very important, showcasing as it does the inherent health risks of the behavior described. And also illustrating how the pharmaceutical industry has used its influence to dominate the AIDS issue for significant financial gain, while convincing increasing numbers of people to use know toxic drugs that are in fact killing them. I have long been aware of and accept the basic premise expressed by the scientists Liam interviews below and wish to help share it with a wider audience. I also urge you to read Liam’s most recent reporting from the AIDS front, which can be found at http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/house.htm and http://www.altheal.org/toxicity/nurse.htm.]

Duesberg: The defining symptoms of AIDS are chronic diarrhea, dementia, weight loss and increased incidence of viral and bacterial infection. These are the very conditions that define chronic drug abuse and malnutrition, but no one’s funding this research. Instead, billions of dollars are poured into beating AIDS with deadly drugs like AZT and protease inhibitors.

Many Americans use amphetamines, diet drugs, cocaine and designer party drugs. When you do this for years, you start getting sick. You go to the doctor, who says the first thing you need is an HIV test. You test positive because HIV tests cross-react with antibodies produced by drug use. The doctor puts you on AZT, a DNA chain terminator, which, in high doses, will finish you off in six months.

I’m not talking about a one time use of a party drug. We’re designed to consume a lot of junk, but we’re not designed to tolerate a gram of cocaine, nitrite inhalants or heroin per day, and we’re even less capable of handling AZT.

What is AZT?

Duesberg: AZT is a DNA chain terminator. AZT kills your DNA. It kills your bone marrow, where your blood is produced; it kills the cells in your intestines so you can't eat.

AZT was designed 40 years ago as a chemotherapy drug to treat cancer. The principle of chemotherapy is simple – to kill all cells. If chemotherapy works, the cancer cells are dead before you are. But it doesn‘t work often, and there’s terrible collateral damage. Of course, chemotherapy is a short-term process. A cancer patient is only treated for a short time, because the treatment is so toxic. But AIDS patients are given AZT daily, presumably for the rest of their lives.

How was such a toxic drug approved for use on sick AIDS patients?

Lauritsen: AZT was approved on the basis of fraudulent research. The Phase 2 AZT Trials were conducted by the FDA in 1986 and monitored by Burroughs-Wellcome (now Glaxo-Wellcome), who manufacture the drug. Incidentally, Wellcome is the same corporation that first manufactured nitrite poppers for heart pain.

The Phase 2 trials were supposed to demonstrate that AZT was "safe and effective." The report on the trials, published in 1987, claimed that AZT dramatically prevented people with AIDS from dying. But these results were based on fraud.

How was fraud committed?

Lauritsen: First, the study wasn’t truly blinded. Doctors and patients knew who was taking AZT and who was taking placebos. In a medical study, one group of patients is given the test drug, the other is given harmless sugar pills. This allows doctors to observe the effects of the drug by comparing the two groups.

In a true double-blinded study, neither the doctors nor patients are supposed to know who's on the drug. This is considered the most accurate and bias-free method for approving a pharmaceutical.

In the Phase 2 trials, everybody knew who was on AZT; the information was shared among doctors and patients. Patients in the placebo group wanted to be on AZT because they thought it would help them, so they got it from other patients or their own doctors. But they were still recorded in the placebo group.

Most importantly, the case report forms were falsified. Patients taking AZT who almost died from anemia were recorded as having “no adverse reactions” to the drug. These patients had to get multiple blood transfusions to save their lives. [AZT causes anemia by destroying bone marrow, where blood cells are produced.]

One patient, who was supposed to be in the placebo group, was actually being given AZT by his doctor. He dropped out of the study but continued to take AZT, and quickly died. The investigators recorded his death in the placebo group, as if not taking the drug is what killed him. If that’s not fraud then the word has no meaning.

On the basis of these tests, AZT was approved and introduced to patients in 1987. HIV-positive men became the focus of a multimillion dollar media campaign from Wellcome. Full-page ads promoting AZT appeared in The New York Times and in lesser publications all over the world. City public health departments echoed the idea that AZT would help people live longer.

Duesberg: Doctors give HIV-positive patients drugs before they‘re even sick. As of 1993, the CDC no longer requires people to be sick to call them AIDS patients. If they have a positive antibody response to the nonspecific Elisa test and a one time T-cell count below 200, the CDC says they have AIDS. Based on this criteria, doctors are prescribing AIDS drugs to healthy individuals.

This is what I call AIDS by prescription. Imagine that you go to your doctor and are told that you’ve tested HIV-positive. You’re perfectly healthy, but your doctor tells you that you have AIDS because your T-cell count is low, and you’d better take the drugs to stop the progression of the disease. You’re confused and alarmed, but you trust your doctor, so you take the drugs, which destroy your intestines and your immune system. Your hair falls out, you become impotent, and sooner or later you have the diseases you were trying to prevent.

The doctor says, “If you hadn’t come to me, you would’ve had the same problems six months earlier. I’ve added a half-year to your life.”

Now, because so many people died taking AZT, doctors are prescribing lower doses, which simply delays and masks the damage being done to the body.

Who’s taking AZT?

Duesberg: According to the New York Times and Time magazine, 450,000 Americans are taking AZT every single day of their life. Many patients can’t take the drugs because they’re throwing up so badly. But they try to follow their doctor’s orders.

Lauritsen: Ninety-four percent of all AIDS deaths have occurred since people started using AZT in 1987. More people died taking AZT in 1993 alone than died in the first six years of AIDS.

Did AIDS stop recreational drug use?

Lauritsen: No, by the early ’90s, gay men in San Francisco and New York had returned to the levels of drug abuse and promiscuity of the ’70s.

In ’92, several thousand gay men attended a "morning party" on Fire Island, held to benefit Gay Men's Health Crisis. At least 95 percent of them were in a state of extreme intoxication from ecstasy, poppers, cocaine and alcohol. The playwright Larry Kramer described it, saying, "There were 4,000 or 5,000 gorgeous young kids on the beach drugged out of their minds at high noon, rushing in and out of portosans to [have sex]. All in the name of GMHC.”

Darren Main: Drug use is very high in the gay community right now. Large circuit parties are very popular.

What’s a circuit party?

Main: It’s an event that occurs at a specific location, like the "White Party" in Palm Springs or the "Black and Blue" in Montreal. Thousands of people attend. It’s four to five days of heavy drug use, like nothing you can imagine – crystal meth, ecstasy, special K, designer drugs, poppers.

People are still using poppers?

Main: Absolutely. It’s a real pharmacy. Guys stay up for four to five days, taking drugs and having orgy-like sex. In addition to the big circuit parties, there’s a regular party scene. A lot of guys spend their weekends going to dance clubs and getting stoned out of their minds.

These party drugs are being combined with antibiotics, because these guys are constantly exposed to syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, amoebic infections and other STDs, which are all on the rise again in the gay community.

This sounds like the first AIDS crisis.

Main: It is. A lot of guys think that that they're protected from infections because they're taking the new AIDS drug cocktails, called HAART (highly-active anti-retroviral therapy). HAART is a combination of the older nucleoside analogues like AZT, DDI and 3TC, and the newer protease inhibitors like Saquinavir and Crixivan. [Nucleoside analogues work by stopping DNA production; protease inhibitors work by stopping protein assemblage in your cells.]

What are common side effects of protease inhibitors?

Main: Protease inhibitors cause lypodystrophy – a deformation of fat. Body fat moves out of the face, arms and legs, which become veiny sticks; the face becomes skeletal. The fat collects into a “buffalo hump” on your upper back. The belly becomes distended and bloated.

And that’s just what’s visible. The drugs cause massive cholesterol increase, which frequently leads to heart attacks. Diabetes and blood-sugar imbalances are also common. Protease inhibitors do the most damage in the liver. As a result, liver failure is now the No. 1 killer of AIDS patients in this country, though it’s not an AIDS disease.

I’ve observed that if you go on the drugs, your symptoms will start with an upset stomach and diarrhea. Within a year, it’ll begin to show in your face. The people I know who’ve been taking the drugs for a few years are visibly altered. There’s no way to know if quitting the drugs will reverse the damage. In LA, San Francisco and South Beach, there are plastic surgeons whose entire practice is based on liposucting buffalo humps and putting in cheek implants.

You consult with people diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. What do you tell them?

Main: I teach them how to rebuild and support their immune systems by doing very basic things: Developing a supportive diet, getting enough sleep, no recreational drugs, no stimulants, and adding supportive supplements. If someone’s on AIDS drugs, I encourage them take a “drug holiday.”

A lot of people are afraid to quit the drugs or challenge what doctors and pharmaceutical companies tell them. I have a client we’ll call “Jack,” whose partner died a couple years ago from drug toxicity. Jack is HIV-positive and takes the drugs. He had a very severe reaction to them – he went blind. His eyes stopped working and began to waste away due to the AIDS drugs. Jack’s doctors confirmed that the blindness was indeed caused by the drug cocktails, not by any virus or AIDS disease. When I met him, he’d just had his eyes removed. He now has prosthetic, glass eyes.

So he finally quit the drugs?

Main: No, he’s still taking them. I asked if he’d consider going off them. He said no, because he didn’t feel comfortable with his T-cell count or his viral load. He felt better losing his eyes than quitting the drugs. Protease inhibitors are slightly less toxic than AZT, but they still can be deadly. It’s a slower death.

You don’t take the drugs, even though you have an AIDS diagnosis. How’s your health?

Main: Perfect – no health problems that I know of. I’ve ne/ver had an opportunistic infection or AIDS-defining disease. I have AIDS because of a T-cell count. Mine is 120. According the CDC, that’s what AIDS is; HIV-positive plus a T-cell count below 200. Of course, in other countries, I don’t have AIDS. This is just how the CDC defines AIDS in the US, and only since ’93. But I’m quite healthy. I rock climb, go hiking and teach yoga for a living. Because of my AIDS diagnosis, I’ve been harassed by doctors to go on the drugs. “Hit hard and hit fast,” they say.

According to Dr. Amy Justice of the University of Pittsburgh, gay men are dying taking AIDS drugs. They're taking them even though HIV theory is highly debatable, and more supportive treatment options exist. Why are gay men buying into this treatment option, if it causes them so much pain and suffering?

Main: If you look at the history of the gay movement, you’ll find that HIV and AIDS have, ironically, really brought people together. In the early days, gay liberation was a bunch of guys whose main interaction was partying. When people started getting sick, these guys, who’d been rejected by mainstream society, had to support each other. They took care of each other and developed a real community. They supported each other in a way that they’d never been supported by their own families or society.

HIV and AIDS became the glue that kept people together. We’ve got a lot invested in AIDS – billions of dollars, AIDS drives, thousands of volunteer hours at community centers, full-time jobs and organizations invested in the notion that HIV is killing gay men. It’s very hard for people to let go of something they’ve put their whole lives into – their hearts, their minds and their beliefs. It’s very difficult.

It would be nice if gay men felt that they could find validation, support and community outside of HIV and AIDS. But I think that too many people are too attached to have that happen soon. Which is unfortunate, because that attachment is killing a lot of people.

Organizations dedicated to treating AIDS illnesses without toxic AIDS drugs do exist. For alternative AIDS treatments and action, go to:

HEAL – www.healaids.com

Alive and Well AIDS Alternatives – www.aliveandwell.org

Darren Main – www.darrenmain.com

Act Up San Francisco – www.actupsf.com

Articles by Peter Duesberg and John Lauritsen can be found at: www.duesberg.com and www.virusmyth.net

(Liam’s investigation continues next issue.)

Self-Care Tips for Preventing and Managing Anxiety

Anxiety is a sense of fear and, in some cases, a feeling of impending doom. The term anxiety disorder refers to a category of disturbances that includes generalized anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. A panic attack is an acute anxiety episode that may be accompanied by sweating, shortness of breath, hot or cold flashes, heart palpitations, and other forms of discomfort. Anxiety disorders occur in people of all ages, but appear to be more common among women. The exact cause is complex, involving constitutional factors, emotional stress, biochemical imbalances, and environmental triggers.

Symptoms: The occurrence of a panic attack is often unpredictable, but it may be associated with certain situations such as driving a car. Anxiety is an emotion that may feature excessive worry, sleep disturbances, shakiness, ritualistic behavior, fear of being alone or in public places, impatience, easy distraction, and great apprehension concerning the welfare of loved ones. Associated physical symptoms include racing pulse, heart palpitations, shortness or rapidity of breath, sweating, dry mouth, numbness and tingling of the hands and feet or cold/clammy hands, lightheadedness or dizziness, fatigue, trembling, indigestion, and diarrhea.

Self-Care

Diet: Assess diet for excessive consumption of stressor foods such as: refined sugars, honey, maple syrup, or dairy products. Consume vegetable soups, broths, and a wide variety of green and yellow vegetables. Add more complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts.

Nutritional Therapy: The following nutrients have been shown to help address the biochemical conditions associated with anxiety: calcium, magnesium, vitamin B complex, pantothenic acid, adrenal glandulars, kidney glandulars, 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan).

Stabilium, a product containing Garum Armoricum (a fish, salt, and herb preparation dating to the Roman Empire and traditionally used for its high nutritive value), is an adaptogen which can also help balance mood, improve sleep, and increase energy and stamina. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), an amino acid, can also affect mood by increasing levels of the brain neurotransmitter serotonin (a mood regulator).

Flower Essences: Flower essences may prove helpful. Aspen is for apprehension, foreboding, and fear of unknown origin while mimulus is for fear of known things, shyness, and timidity. Red chestnut is used for excessive anxiety and over caring for others. Rescue Remedy® (combination formula) for general stress from anxiety; Rock Rose for terror and panic from known fear.

Herbs: Panax ginseng has a nutritive or tonic effect on the adrenal glands, improving blood flow to the brain and reducing the stress associated with mental/emotional issues. Valerian root, an herbal tranquilizer and muscle relaxant, is another good agent for calming the nervous system. It helps balance mood swings and is not habit forming. Valerian-hops combination formulas are good daytime sedatives because they don’t interfere with reflex actions. Passionflower is another mild sedative that helps reduce anxiety, high blood pressure, nervous tension, and muscle tension, and encourages deep, restful sleep. Extract of the kava-kava plant, an herbal tranquilizer native to Polynesia, can lower anxiety levels and alleviate panic disorder and general tension in as quickly as a week. St. John’s wort, a highly popular remedy for depression, has proven effective for anxiety and mood swings as well.

Homeopathy: Aconite, Actaea rac., Drosera, Calc carb., Sulfur.

Hydrotherapy: Constitutional hydrotherapy, immersion bath, or wet sheet pack: apply two to five times weekly, neutral application as needed for sedation.

Hypnotherapy: Self-hypnosis to impart to the mind imagery designed to bring about deep leels of relaxation.

Meditation: Develops the mind’s ability to stop anxiety at its source.

Professional Care:

The following therapies should only be provided by a qualified health professional - Bodywork (Rolfing may be very helpful if used in conjunction with psychotherapy.), Environmental Medicine, Hypnotherapy, Light Therapy, Magnetic Field Therapy, Naturopathic Medicine, Orthomolecular Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Note: The information above was adapted from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, 2^nd Edition, co-authored and edited by Larry Trivieri, Jr. (Celestial Arts, 2002).

Unabashed Plug

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The Power of A Human Spirit - Andrea’s Passing (Part 15 of my tribute to my sister)

[The first 14 parts of this article appeared in issues 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 of Volume 1, and issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Volume 2 of The Health Plus Letter, all of which are archived at http://www.1healthyworld.com/ezine.]

My friend, Dr. Valerie Hunt once described oncologists to me as “the best death coordinators on the planet,” referring to the fact that cancer patients, when told by oncologists how much longer they have to live, so frequently pass away within that time-frame.

In early June, Andrea’s oncologist told her she had three months to live and Andrea planned accordingly. Determined to make the most of the days left to her, she actively set about preparing herself, her children, and the rest of us who loved her for her passing. To that end, she began to select and bequeath various of her possessions to each of us, while at the same time planning her memorial service, and continuing to knit her beautiful scarves as gifts by which we would remember her. If she was sorrowful during this time, I was unaware of it. I spoke with her almost daily and her attitude was always one of positive cheerfulness. In one of the cards she sent me then, she wrote, “Don’t be sad for me,”and went on to relate how she had shared a wonderful day and dinner with her children at her favorite restaurant in Manhattan. In a later note to me, she concluded, “I’ll always love you where my journey takes me next ...” On both occasions, I wept for a long time as I read her words.

At the end of June through early July, Andrea made her last visit to Utica. Because of her failing strength and the size of our family, we had to coordinate our visits with her, so I only spent one day with her then. Throughout it all, I did my best to be strong, hiding as best I could how choked up I was inside to see how weakened she’d become since I’d seen her three weeks earlier. At the same time, I marveled at how peaceful she was, and how able she was to laugh so joyously whenever something struck her as funny. Towards the end of our visit, she turned to me and said very simply, “Every day I get weaker and weaker. I’m dying, Larry. But it’s peaceful.” What a blessing those words were to me! For I saw how truly she meant them. They were said as simple truth, and instantly I realized how ready she was to take the next step in her Soul’s journey, without any fear. The comfort that gave me remains a great gift from which I shall always draw strength.

Soon after Andrea returned home, she lost her voice, due to tumors that were now pressing on her vocal cords. From that time on, her voice was soft and akin to laryngitis, yet we both delighted in it whenever we spoke because of how much she suddenly sounded like our long-departed and beloved Grandma Jenny Trivieri. To me, this was a sign that Jenny would be there waiting for her when it came Andrea’s time to move on. But first, Andrea still had a lot of living to do. Including book a stay at New York’s Plaza Hotel for a week to share a final “New York adventure” with her children in grand style. After that, upon her return home, hardly a day passed when she did not receive visits from all of her friends and family. But so many people wanted to spend time with her, that she had to again coordinate who could see her when. So, though we spoke often, I did not see her again until mid-August, when I drove down with my brother Michael to spend the weekend with her and our Dad. The night before the trip, as I went to bed, I suddenly found myself unable to stop crying. Memory after memory of Andrea flooded my consciousness and I wept well past sunrise, finally managing to fall asleep for an hour before I had to get up and make the drive with Michael. I was fine all along the way, but privately I feared I would be a basket case once I saw Andrea again. By this time, she was on oxygen support, was attended to part of each day by a nurse, and needed a walker to get around. And she was also suffering from seizures that would strike without warning and last for long minutes, caused by her deteriorating condition.

As Mike and I knocked on her door, I felt a wave of apprehension come over me, fearful that I would start crying again. Instead, I passed the most joy-filled two days of my life. Greeted by Andrea’s nurse and the happy yips of Bebe, her dog, Mike and I entered the apartment to find Andrea contentedly knitting another scarf as she chatted with our Dad. For a moment, I was shocked to see how marred her features had become due to the tumors that pressed on her brain. She looked like a mongoloid, yet there was nothing any disease could do to impede the power of love, light and intelligence flowing from her eyes. As soon as she looked at me, all the sorrow in my heart was arrested, replaced by a joy that abided with me for the entire weekend. Even the three times when I witnessed her seizures, I didn’t cry, though all of us were powerless to do anything to stop them. Very quietly, Andrea would endure them, then sigh as they passed, and then resume our conversations. As I sat with her those two days, I perceived her sloughing off the last vestiges of her egoic personality, as who and what she is as Soul increasingly stood forth. And I realized anew what I’ve always known to be true - that death is nothing more than a setting down of the bodies we as Soul take on in order to fulfill our earthly mission. By the weekend’s end, I felt as if I was sitting in the presence of a spiritual teacher, and indeed I was, for Andrea had fully returned to her Self. Our time together that weekend passed all too quickly, yet the memory of it is rich with all I received from that visit.