A blog discussion of ARVs
In February 2008 Rhodes University pharmacology tutor Roy Jobson raised the subject of antiretroviral drugs on his ‘Thought Leader’ blog hosted by the Mail&Guardian under the title, ‘Why I am not a rural doctor’. Brink and others, including some doctors and another pharmacologist, responded. Here are some fillets (with spelling fixes) illustrating the dismal workings of the western medical mind. And the perceptions of those whose opinions are derived from what they read in the newspapers. Especially the Mail&Guardian.
Jobson: …
The
KwaZulu-Natal MEC for health, Peggy Nkonyeni, is meanwhile reported to have made
the most extraordinary statements on a visit to Manguzi Hospital where Dr Pfaff
works. She stated that antiretrovirals (ARVs) are “toxic”, and questioned the
motives of rural doctors who provide Aids treatment. She suggested that they are
working for pharmaceutical companies and aren’t primarily concerned about their
patients. … The stronger echo perhaps comes from Pretoria, and the national
Department of Health’s minister herself with statements such as “antiretrovirals
are poison”. In a meeting of all the provincial MECs of health, the minister of
health stood by “Manana”, as she referred to the Mpumalanga MEC, and stated that
Manana was quite right and had done nothing wrong. … MEC Nkonyeni claims that
she is merely informing patients fully. She said in an interview (à
la Anthony Brink): “It tells you [it’s toxic] on the label!” It would
appear that her definition of “fully informed” only concerns side effects, and
nothing about benefits. The “side effects” of possible HIV infection, chronic
illnesses, Aids and eventual death in a baby or child are seemingly not being
communicated or considered.
…
* PMTCT monotherapy involves the administration of single-dose nevirapine to the
mother when she goes into labour and a single dose to the baby within 72 hours
of being born. It is about 50% effective in preventing intrapartum transmission
of the HI virus, but is associated with viral resistance. Dual therapy adds a
second drug – in this case zidovudine (AZT). The mother starts taking it at
about 28 weeks of pregnancy, and the baby receives a week’s treatment after
birth. Dual therapy further reduces the transmission rate to about a quarter or
less compared with no treatment, and reduces the development of viral
resistance.
Comments:
“Roy Jobson takes a snide crack at me and at KZN’s Health MEC in writing, ‘MEC Nkonyeni claims that she is merely informing patients fully. She said in an interview (à la Anthony Brink): “It tells you [it’s toxic] on the label!” It would appear that her definition of “fully informed” only concerns side effects, and nothing about benefits. The “side effects” of possible HIV infection, chronic illnesses, Aids and eventual death in a baby or child are seemingly not being communicated or considered.’ 1.The label to which Health MEC Nkonyeni refers is the label on bottles of AZT supplied, not to pharmacies, hospitals and maternity wards for administration to humans (in South Africa mostly impoverished Africans), but to research laboratories for use on experimental animals and in petri dishes. This label, on bottles containing as little as 25 mg of AZT, bears an orange stripe imprinted with a skull and crossbones icon to signify potentially fatal toxic chemical hazard, and the warning: ‘Toxic Giftig Toxique Toxico Tossico Vergiftig … TOXIC Toxic to inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organ(s): Blood Bone marrow. In case of accident or if you feel unwell, seek medical advice immediately (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing.’ The latest version of the label also carries a cancer warning. 25 mg of AZT is one twentieth to one sixtieth the quantity GlaxoSmithKine recommends in its package insert that people should swallow on purpose every day until they die (500 – 1500 mg). White doctors like Jobson obviously don’t tell these things to pregnant African women when pressing this stuff on them. 2.The literature on the deadly ‘side effects’ of ARV drugs like AZT is massive. For an overview, see ‘Why do President Mbeki and Dr Tshabalala-Msimang warn against the use of ARV drugs like AZT?’ http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt-mbeki_tshabalala-msimang.pdf For an introduction to the literature reporting the brain damage and other serious harm AZT does to unborn and newly born babies, see ‘Why do Zackie Achmat, Nathan Geffen and Mark Heywood want pregnant African women and their babies to be given AZT? What AZT does to unborn and newly born children’ http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt-achmat_geffen_heywood.pdf For an exhaustive review of this literature, see Poisoning our Children: AZT in Pregnancy http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/poc.pdf. 3. Whether AZT really does save African babies from being killed by their mother’s germs in their septic vaginas (according to the AIDS experts) is examined in a 130 000-word monograph ‘Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and its Prevention with AZT and Nevirapine’ http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt_nevirapine_small.pdf. 4. Some tragic historical precedents to giving deadly cell poisons like AZT to pregnant women and their newborn babies are mentioned in my group’s press statement on 31 October 2007: October 1957: Thalidomide and Pregnancy – October 2007: AZT and Pregnancy – Another Tragedy of Countless Children Killed and Maimed Foretold http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/TIG_PRESS_STATEMENT_AZT_in_pregnancy.pdf. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Anthony Brink Chairman: Treatment Information Group www.tig.org.za”
by Anthony Brink on Wed 20 Feb 2008
“Anthony Brink has said it all. I’d like an educated response to Anthony’s response to Dr Pfaff’s blog. I wasn’t aware, though, that the blog had an “L” restriction.... Those in the medical fraternity like Dr Pfaff should remember that sickening orders, protocol and systems don’t just exist in the socio-political sphere. They also exist in disciplines of training – like medicine, physics, psychology, etc. Just ask Galileo what it cost him to tell the rest of the then educated world that the earth is spherical, and Galileo is just ONE, solitary case in point out of several hundreds (if not thousands).”
by Nda Nxumalo on Wed 20 Feb 2008
“Dawn You make a good point. Knowing that AZT is exceptionally toxic (everyone agrees – having been synthesized as a purpose-designed cell poison) it makes sense to determine what its benefits are. In the case of AZT, for instance: Is it antiretroviral? Now being a pharmacologist, Roy will answer to your great surprise that it isn’t. He’ll tell you that AZT is not antiretroviral; its catabolite AZT triphosphate is said to have this activity. So your next question to Roy would be: What’s the inhibition concentration (IC50) of AZT-TP in vivo, Roy? Has it ever been achieved in vivo? If he starts stuttering here, you can draw his attention to a discussion of the problem in a paper he’s never read, ‘A Critical Analysis of the Pharmacology of AZT and its use in AIDS’, published as a special supplement to the leading edge academic medical journal Current Medical Research and Opinion in mid-1999. http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt_pharmacology.pdf AB” –
by Anthony Brink on Wed 20 Feb 2008
“1. MFB: You say, ‘Nevirapine reduces transmission rates of 30-50% to 15 % or less’. In shilling for Boehringer Ingelheim and its patented drug, may I enquire whether you’ve actually researched it? Or are you just repeating what you saw and heard on TV in your Easy Chair with a beer in your hand? If it’s not too much trouble, please have a close look at this ‘nevirapine for beginners’ presentation, and tell me once you have whether you still think ‘Nevirapine reduces transmission rates of 30-50% to 15 % or less’, and if after reading it you still do, whether you possibly work for the railways: A Critical Analysis of the Evidence Considered Proof that Nevirapine Prevents Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV PowerPoint version (2.4 MB): http://www.theperthgroup.com/PRESENTATIONS/nevppsn1.ppt PDF version (1.18 MB) http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/nevppsn1.pdf You also make the claim that ‘There is no cover-up re nevirapine.’ I don’t know what ‘cover-up’ you’re referring to, or whether you even have any specific ‘cover-up’ in mind, perhaps because the lazy mind likes to cast ARV drug critics as conspiracy nuts, but on the subject of ‘cover-up[s]’, I commend you to the opinion of Dr Jonathan Fishbein on the IOM enquiry in the US on the Ugandan HIV NET 012 study (he’s the highest ranking whistleblower in US history – and, by the way, no AIDS dissident). Again, if it isn’t too much trouble for you, you can find this in Chapter Eight of ‘The trouble with nevirapine’ posted at http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/trouble_nevirapine.pdf
2. Afronooit: You say ‘Get a life.’ Could you perhaps help me to understand in what manner I lack a life? Thanks. You say ‘I mean why don’t you campaign against cancer chemotherapy. Some of that has some pretty nasty side effects.’ Yes, actually all of it does; all of it is designed to poison human cells, and that’s why I wouldn’t take it, ever, any more than I’d undergo bloodletting. I don’t campaign against chemotherapy because there are plenty of others who do; I work in a specific ‘Problemfeld’, as the Germans put it, and if it’s all the same to you, I’ll do what I please. Thanks again. ‘An allergic reaction to penicillin can kill you.’ Indeed it can. I don’t take any antibiotics of any sort ever, but please feel free to buy and swallow whatever makes you happy. The rest of your post goes to pieces here, and so I’m going to pull back to my point: AZT is deadly poisonous and useless, like arsenic injections in the first half of the 20th C. I posted some primers on this in my earlier post, and readers interested in informing themselves about this can read them. Any readers not interested in informing himself about this shouldn’t feel obliged to do so.
3. Paddy: You say, ‘Please read the warning labels on just about ANY over the counter or prescription drug – many have just as dire warnings.’ Do they also bear skull-and-crossbones decals on them, orange stripes (industry standard for deadly toxic chemical hazard), and warnings that the drug shouldn’t be inhaled, swallowed or be allowed to come into contact with the skin? You ask ‘please explain this to me? http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/ancdoc.htm What part of ‘Castro Hlongwane’ were you unable to understand and need my help in explaining to you?
4. John: You say, ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about AZT.’ Would it be fair to conclude that you don’t know what the fuss about AZT is because you don’t know about the harm it causes unborn and newly born children, in South Africa, mostly African. Have you read this? http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt-achmat_geffen_heywood.pdf And if not, does this answer you question. You don’t know what the fuss is about, because you’re an uninformed person who thinks like cows in a herd.
5. Chris asks, ‘Did the MEC read the warning on the label of Nevirapine? It clearly states “Nevirapine can cause severe, life-threatening liver damage” That is presuming she can read.’ Is Chris aware that nevirapine is so toxic that it was banned for even short term use in the US by medical personnel suffering needle-stick injuries, and it’s not licensed for giving mothers and babies in any first world industrial country. This is all referenced and discussed in ‘The trouble with nevirapine’, linked above. Presuming Chris can read. AB”
by Anthony Brink on Thu 21 Feb 2008
“We have an epidemic on our hands, and people are worried about policies and procedures. I a baby could choose, it will probably take its chances with “toxic” ARV’s and have a chance, than with garlic and beetroot! Anthony Brink, you are obviously a guru on the subject, it’s a pity you are not working there where the babies are dying. You remind me a bit of the doctors the cigarette companies would hire to “prove” that smoking does not harm you!”
by Solo on Thu 21 Feb 2008
“Mr Brink, has it ever occurred to you that the overwhelming majority of scientists might just have got it right on AIDS and that you and your loud fringe academics could, just could be wrong?”
by udo schuklenk, prof on Thu 21 Feb 2008
“Anthony – Medical labels are aimed at alerting illiterate people to the dangers – hence the toxic labels and pictures – don’t many scheduled medicines have them? http://www.ajhp.org/cgi/content/abstract/63/11/1048 ‘Castro Hlongwane’ – Who actually authored it for a start? What killed Peter Mokaba?”
by Paddy on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“Anthony, old mate, you deserve all the snide cracks you can get. Why hasn’t anyone taken this prat to court? He’s attitudes and actions can surely be construed to be costing lives. Despite the articles he loves quoting there is overwhelming evidence that appropriate use of anti-retrovirals, particularly as multi-drug therapy, does improve and extend the lives of HIV sufferers. If anyone was to take him to court the bulk of the scientific evidence would be with them (and Tony might even enjoy it, he does seem to have a flair for the dramatic and a love of the spotlight to rival Manto).”
by Zap on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“The efficacy of drugs like AZT and NVP in the field of PMTCT have been well researched and published. The protocols of the CDC, WHO and BHIVA are put together by epidemiologists and clinicians who are trained to interpret evidence of the highest level. Usually the evidence comes from studies that have been conducted by reputable academics and published in reputable journals. Okay AB, before you start throwing me another list of dissident website addresses to prove your point– I have to tell you that I have been managing a privately funded PMTCT programme for the past 2 yrs in South Africa. Thanks to international funding we have been able to offer not just monotherapy (AZT +NVP), but also tripple therapy specifically for the purpose of PMTCT. If you are so convinced by the evidence you quote on paper, why don’t you see how practice works? Our transmission rate is currently only 2%, comparable to the rate in the first world. Our mothers and infants are well and most of the babies are HIV negative. In countries like the US, paediatric HIV has virtually been eliminated due to these regimens. Before you start talking about the long-term side effects, I need to tell you that we also have been following up our mothers and babies since the program started. I have never seen a child with any of the side effects you describe. Before PMTCT, I have seen MANY with PCP pneumonia and end stage AIDS– something that does not have to be. I also have had only one woman in the history of the programme who developed the bone-marrow suppression side-effect you have referred to (See, when dr’s give drugs, we take cognisance of the fact that patients can get side-effects and so we monitor our patients for this). She is doing well on her new regimen. Of course drugs have side-effects. Even garlic and beetroot will have side-effects if you take it in the quantities required to have any effect on HIV. I do agree that single dose NVP as a regimen is a problem. Together with AZT it does work better. The ideal is tripple therapy like in the first world. If you really want to protest about ART in PMTCT, why don’t you complain about the fact the the new DOH monotherapy policy has not made provision for the AZT+3TC tail that you need after NVP exposure– this is vital to prevent the development of virological resistance. The proof of the literature is in the practice of it. Just find yourself one mother to tell you the sad story of how her 6 week old baby died of AIDS (there are thousands out there)and then contrast that with the happy, chubby babies and mothers who come to our follow-up programme. I sincerely hope this will convince you. Dr Erika Drewes”
by Erika Drewes on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“Ant If you really care for your people, you should either: 1) Go and study pharmacology at a proper university facility (even Roy may take you on as a student – for his sins), where you’ll find that all that web-claptrap pseudo-pharmacology he’s been spewing on us now for years, was just a bad acid trip. 2) Work for a rural NGO HIV clinic as an volunteer assistant for even a month. When you see’s the dead rising like Lazarus; viral counts dropping and the immune marker CD4 counts rising from as low as 40 to well over 800. All due to ARV treatment and the side effects can and are managed You’ll also be relieved to know that Most ARV’s are now generic and few sourced from your demonised big pharma GSK, Boehringer, MSD etc. You would return to the thoroughly fabulous chap you were when you worked in your area of competency – law. And we could listen to you playing great jazz and talk cr@p till dawn about real issues. I’ve absolutely no doubt in my mind that HIV/AIDS denialism (Refer: Manto, Mbeki, MEC’s like Mkonyeni and all those petty bungling bureaucrats like Gus), will be judged by history as an act of deliberate dereliction of duty amounting to genocide that killed millions of innocent African people Please Ant my bru –! I don’t want to be associated with a mass murderer”
by Terry on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“The TIG share with the support groups for Alien abductees, the Illuminati, and the Knight’s Templar, a common feature. They are all conspiracy nuts. We are all fully aware of the double standards and corruption in the large drug companies. This is what makes conspiracy theories so powerful. They take elements of truth and combine them with complete fantasy to make a really potent story. Karl Popper believed that a theory could only be scientific if you could disprove it. He called this falsibility. The problem with Marxism and psychoanalysis was that it could never be disproved. Whenever a something happened which wasn’t predicted then you simply changed the explanation. When Einstein said that a heavy mass would bend light this was a risky statement as it was open to falsification. When light waves were noted to bend in their journey past the sun, then his theory was confirmed. The TIG theories are not open to falsification. There will always be a new explanation whatever the facts. The TIG believes that AIDS is a plot by wealthy multinationals to squeeze money out of the third world. I have no doubt that the drug trade does squeeze money out of the third world, but to deny the existence of AIDS or the role of chemotherapy is highly irresponsible. The TIG have linked their conspiracy theories to an Africanist agenda which seeks to elevate traditional African beliefs to a complete knowledge system just as valid as that taught in any western university. The problem is that the African knowledge based systems are also like Marxism and astrology incapable of being falsified and hence are not science. They are all epistemologically flawed. The TIG is a dangerous organization. I note most of the references are to their own publications and no others. This is self referential in the extreme. So Mr Brink when I say get a life that is what I mean. Stop your senseless crusade as it is hurting people. Why don’t you go and rescues people from aliens. You will be doing much more good then.”
by afronooit on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“1. Solo: Firstly, supposing an unborn child could think like an adult, it may want to ‘take its chances with “toxic” ARVs and have a chance’ if told by a frowning doctor, probably white, that AZT is good for it and will assure of a long and healthy life, but no baby (able to think) would choose to be exposed to a drug that, consistent with its basic pharmacological action as a cell-poison, has been found in dozens of studies to cause a massively increased incidence of early death, serious disease, immunological disorders, brain damage, blindness, paralysis, spasticity, epilepsy, mental retardation, learning difficulties and other neurological injuries, as compared with unexposed babies born to untreated HIV-positive mothers. The studies are reviewed and discussed in ‘Poisoning our Children: AZT in Pregnancy’ and cited without comment in ‘Why do Zackie Achmat, Nathan Geffen and Mark Heywood want pregnant African women and their babies to be given AZT? What AZT does to unborn and newly born children’. I think it behoves anyone who wishes to debate the merits or demerits of giving AZT to pregnant women and their babies, nearly all African, to at least be familiar with this literature and not just frothily parrot the sales propaganda they read in the newspapers. Yes indeed I’m a ‘guru’ on the subject; I’ve been studying these drugs very closely for nearly twelve years and have written extensively about them. But how can my campaigning against useless, toxic drugs like ARVs possibly remind you of doctors who promoted smoking? The fact that many doctors promoted smoking, and that cigarettes were advertised in their medical journals such as Lancet for their alleged health benefits, is a comment on the medical profession, the sort of medical profession, mostly white, that promotes the administration of AZT to pregnant African women and their babies – indifferent to the terrible harm that the drug, a purpose-designed metabolic poison, causes them.
2. Udo: Yes, of course it’s occurred to me that the majority of scientists have got it right on AIDS and that I could be wrong. This is why I decided to investigate the matter for myself. But let’s stick to the point. This discussion is not about whether you can die from lovemaking, as the Americans tell us (thanks to a miniature invisible demon that jumps between our favourite organs); it’s about giving AZT to pregnant mostly poor African women and their newly born babies, who’ll be disappearing into their peri-urban shacks or rural huts, after the doctors are done with them, and wondering why several months later the mitochondrial damage caused to their children manifests in leaning disabilities, epilepsy and all the other clinical manifestations of neurological and other injury mentioned earlier. The majority of scientists blessed the injection of arsenic just a few decades ago, the deadliest, most toxic substance known to man, weighted for risk of exposure, by the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The Health Organization of the League of Nations (predecessor of the WHO) formally commended arsenic injections for syphilis, yaws, malaria and recurrent fever in 1934. I go with Mark Twain: Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect. But please feel free to stay with all the neighing sheep, reading nothing, and expressing smug, ignorant opinions. As a bio-ethics professor do you teach your students to debate serious subjects by slapping the opposition down with pejoratives around such as ‘loud fringe academics’? If I wrote this in one of your exams, would you give me a First? Readers will be interested to learn that Professor Schuklenk, who’s a very thoughtful person, decided, on the basis of a meticulously careful conspectus and evaluation of the available data, that the American HIV theory of AIDS wasn’t supported to his satisfaction by the scientific evidence. In fact Professor Schuklenk was so dismayed by this discovery that he put his name to a petition, joining hundreds of other eminent scientists, clinicians and other academics, in calling for a reappraisal of this American theory in the form of a brief statement submitted to the editors of a number of top scientific journals in the following terms: To the editor: ‘It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group diseases called AIDS. Many biochemical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken.’ Readers will find this petition with Professor Schuklenk noted as a signatory at http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/group.htm. In fact, the learned professor was way ahead of me in this thing: he was a signatory by March 1993 already; I only wised up in September 1996. He’s the co-author of an excellent article – really – entitled, ‘DEATHLY DOCTRINE: Christian Churches and AIDS’ (http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/dmchurch.htm) and he’s thanked for his helpful input in the writing of a seminal scientific critique of the HIV theory of AIDS: ‘A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE HIV-T4-CELL-AIDS HYPOTHESIS’, (Genetica 95: 5-24, 1995) (http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/ept4cells.htm). Does this outstanding contribution to the AIDS dissident discourse by Professor Schuklenk qualify him as one of those ‘loud fringe academics’?
3. Zap (Zapiro?): You’ll be pleased to hear that I have indeed been taken to court – by your friends in the TAC. You can read my affidavit here: http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/affidavit-aug06/BRINK%20AFFIDAVIT%20WITH%20ANNEXURES%20HYPERLINKED%20AND%20TYPO%20FIXES.pdf (PDF, 514 kB) Please share with us the ‘overwhelming evidence’ that ARVs improve and extend lives. Perhaps after pondering the largest study yet performed and reported: ‘The results of this collaborative study, which involved … over 20 000 patients with HIV-1 from Europe and North America, show that the virological response after starting HAART [Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy] has improved steadily since 1996. However, there was no corresponding decrease in the rates of AIDS, or death, up to 1 year of follow-up. Conversely, there was some evidence for an increase in the rate of AIDS in the most recent period. [We noted a] discrepancy between the clear improvement we recorded for virological response and the apparently worsening rates of clinical progression’. – The Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Cohort Collaborative, Lancet 368:451-458 (2006) ‘The major findings are that, despite improved initial HIV virological control … there were no significant improvements in early immunological response as measured by CD4-lymphocyte count, no reduction in all-cause mortality, and a significant increase in combined AIDS/AIDS-related death risk in more recent years.’ – Lancet editorial commenting on ‘these somewhat paradoxical trends’ reported in the above-cited study
4. Paddy: The curious thing about the skull-and-crossbones label on bottles of AZT with the warning that you should cover yourself up with ‘suitable protective clothing’, not even sniff it or let it come into contact with your skin, is that this is for research workers to heed. Pregnant African women aren’t told this when smiling white doctors press them to swallow it, threatening that unless they do their babies will die, because of the germs they harbour in their septic vaginas (according to the white doctors, who are clever because they’re white). It’s an open secret that President Mbeki is the principal author of ‘Castro Hlongwane’; see Gevisser’s book, ‘Thabo Mbeki: A Dream Deferred’. The veteran journalist Patrick Laurence confirmed to me that Peter was in perfect health when he interviewed him on the Thursday before the weekend in which he suddenly died. You’ll see photos of him on the day in question in the Helen Suzman Foundation magazine ‘Focus’ looking just fine. On the advice of a doctor, he took a dose of antibiotics prescribed to him for the sniffles that had set in on Friday; he suffered an acute allergic reaction to them, fell very ill, and died as a result on Sunday. But there isn’t a white in South Africa who doesn’t know for a fact that Peter died of ‘AIDS’ (it’s what the blacks get, you know).
5. Erika: Would you be interested in hearing ‘the sad story’ of the prominent African woman in this country who phoned me distraught over how AZT had caused her daughter brain damage, consistent with the published research literature on this score? You say AZT, nevirapine and a third drug (AZT-similar 3TC?) administration turns out ‘happy chubby babies’. Really? ‘Children born to HIV-positive women who take antiretroviral therapy (ART) during pregnancy are significantly smaller in terms of height, weight and head circumference compared with children born to HIV-positive women not on ART, or who took monotherapy, according to the results of a European study examining the effects of ART on uninfected children’s growth up to the age of 18 months [European Collaborative Study, JAIDS 40(3):364-370 (2005)].’ Edwin Bernard, AIDSmap News, 3 November 2005 ‘[In a major review of data collected between 1986 and April 2004, AIDS drugs such as AZT were found to cause a] substantially increased risk of severely curtailed pregnancy [i.e. dangerously critical prematurity] ... coupled with a very high neonatal mortality rate.’ Thorne et al. AIDS 18(17):2337-2339 (2004) ‘The study cohort included 92 HIV-1-infected and 439 uninfected children … Antiretroviral therapy (nonprotease inhibitor) was independently associated with FTT [Failure to Thrive] in our cohort … ZDV [AZT], in particular, alters mitochondrial metabolism and may have direct nutritional effects.’ Miller TL et al. Pediatrics 108(6): 1287-96 (2001) ‘In this retrospective study, the risk of RPD [rapid progression of disease] was five to six times higher among infants born to [AZT] treated compared with untreated mothers. … RPD was three times more likely to occur in infants born to [AZT] treated compared with findings in untreated mothers.’ De Souza et al. AIDS 24(2):154-61 (2000) ‘The probability of developing severe disease at 3 years of life was significantly higher in children born to mothers [administered AZT during their pregnancies] than in those born to [untreated] mothers. … The same pattern was observed for severe immune suppression: the probability of developing severe immune suppression was significantly higher in children born to [AZT-treated] mothers … than born to [untreated] mothers. … Finally, survival probability was lower among children [born to AZT-treated mothers] … compared with children born to [untreated] mothers.’ De Martino et al. AIDS 13(8):927-33 (1999) ‘Prenatal and perinatal ZVD [AZT] exposure were associated with 1.8-fold increased risk of progression to AIDS or death after adjusting simultaneously for all variables associated with disease progression … Restricting the analysis to children born after April 1994 (date of public release of the results of ACTG 076), ZDV exposure was associated with 2.5-fold increased risk of progression to AIDS or death after adjusting simultaneously for the same variables. … Steady improvements in prognosis of [HIV] infected children unexposed to ZVD were observed in each successive birth cohort, but infected children exposed to ZVD lagged behind these temporal changes. Our results ... are consistent with recent results from the Italian Registry for HIV Infection in Children [reported by de Martino, cited above].’ Kuhn et al. Journal of Infectious Diseases 182(1):104-11 (2000) Happy, chubby, bouncing babies, eh? Do you find that exposing unborn and newly born African babies to AZT and similar cell-poisons also makes them more intelligent? ‘Our findings support the hypothesis of a link between mitochondrial dysfunction [in babies and infants] and the perinatal administration of prophylactic nucleoside analogues.’ [Eight children were born with severely impaired energy metabolism and corresponding muscle and other cell damage, manifesting in heart muscle injury and muscle weakness generally. Five children, of whom two died, presented with delayed neurological symptoms – extensive brain damage in the form of massive cortical necrosis, cortical blindness, epilepsy and spastic quadriplegia, and three were described as ‘symptom-free’ but had ‘severe biological or neurological abnormalities’. Four of the children had been exposed in utero and after birth to AZT and 3TC (a similar drug) combined, and four to AZT alone. None were HIV-positive. Please see the annexed APPENDIX for an excerpt from this report detailing these injuries. Following further ‘exhaustive’ investigation by Barret et al., the ‘hypothesis of a link’ between perinatal AZT exposure and grave harm to unborn and newly born babies was ‘confirmed’; see the report cited immediately below.] Blanche et al. Lancet 354(9184):1084-9 (1999) ‘An exhaustive study in a large prospective cohort [of AZT- and 3TC-exposed children found] unexplained symptoms compatible with mitochondrial dysfunction. A total of 2644 of 4392 children were exposed to antiretrovirals … All the children with “established” or “possible” mitochondriopathy diagnosed in this study had been exposed to antiretroviral drugs … in the pre, peri- and post-partum periods. … The finding that the use of antiretroviral nucleoside analogues in the perinatal period is associated with persistent mitochondrial disease is confirmed … a risk about 30 times higher than that in the general population. … Despite active screening, no similar cases were found in the antiretroviral unexposed group. … by age 18 months … a coherent syndrome is appearing with three main features: neurological symptoms (principally developmental retardation, seizures and behavioral disturbances), significant abnormalities on cerebral MRI (principally lesions of the white matter and brainstem) and often hyperlactataemia either persistent or transient outside the treatment period. First described as a myopathy associated with zidovudine [AZT], the issue of mitochondrial toxicity of nucleoside analogues is currently a growing problem. Its clinical expression is highly variable, from peripheral neuropathy to severe lactic acidosis.’ Barret et al. AIDS 17(12):1769-1785 (2003) ‘Mitochondrial dysfunction has been reported in HIV-negative children perinatally exposed to zidovudine [AZT], a drug often used in HIV-seropositive mothers during pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of cerebral MR imaging findings in HIV-uninfected children exposed to zidovudine who present with unexplained neurologic symptoms. … Images observed in children with antiretroviral-induced mitochondrial dysfunction are similar to those observed in congenital mitochondrial diseases.’ Tardieu et al. American Journal of Neuroradiology 26(4):695-701 (2005) Erika, you argue: ‘The efficacy of drugs like AZT and NVP in the field of PMTCT have been well researched and published. The protocols of the CDC, WHO and BHIVA are put together by epidemiologists and clinicians who are trained to interpret evidence of the highest level. Usually the evidence comes from studies that have been conducted by reputable academics and published in reputable journals.’ Would I be right in concluding from this sort of appeal to authority that you have never taken the trouble to evaluate for yourself the quality of the studies to which you allude: their design, execution and interpretation? If not, would it be too much to expect that you do so now? Have you read this paper for instance? Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and its Prevention with AZT and Nevirapine (PDF, 2.03 MB) http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt_nevirapine_small.pdf It’s a critical evaluation of the studies claiming to support the administration of those drugs to pregnant women, following which might think of abruptly changing careers, horrified to learn what you’ve been doing – in the belief that you’ve been saving little African babies with the miraculous strong medicine from overseas. AB”
by Anthony Brink on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“Hey Terry in exciting Pietermaritzburg, you say: ‘Ant If you really care for your people, you should either: 1) Go and study pharmacology at a proper university facility (even Roy may take you on as a student – for his sins), where you’ll find that all that web-claptrap pseudo-pharmacology he’s been spewing on us now for years, was just a bad acid trip.’ Well I’m sure this is very entertaining writing, Terry, the tremendously colourful way you write and everything, but seriously, do you think Roy can really teach me anything I don’t know about AZT and nevirapine? I mean I’ve written whole books about these drugs, having researched them intensively for ore than a decade. Roy, on the other hand, can’t even tell us what the triphosphorylation problem is. Actually, until I mentioned it, he’d never even heard of it before. Which is why he smugly announced on his own blog, that he will not debate with me the issues that he himself raised. Because he can’t. He’s outclassed. He doesn’t know what’s going on. If you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, as you suggest in your post, maybe because I didn’t take notes in Roy’s class at university and then write in his exams in nice neat easy-to-read handwriting that AZT is ‘life-extending’ (in the words of George Bush), what should we make of this statement by the guy who invented AZT in 1961? I’m quoting from Professor Richard Beltz’s email to me on 11 May 2000: ‘… you are justified in sounding a warning against the long-term therapeutic use of AZT, or its use in pregnant women, because of its demonstrated toxicity and side effects. Unfortunately, the devastating effects of AZT emerged only after the final level of experiments were well underway, that is, the experiments which consisted of giving AZT to large numbers of human patients over a long period of time. Your effort is a worthy one … I hope you succeed in convincing your government not to make AZT available.’ Could he learn something from Roy’s pharmacology classes too, do you think? Particularly concerning giving AZT to pregnant African women and their babies. You say that fed ARVs in rural clinics, one sees ‘the dead rising like Lazarus’. Do you mean like the touch of Jesus? Fantastic! AZT brings dead people back to life! Even if you meant that ARVs restore mortally sick people to vibrant good health, but not being a person who thinks clearly you weren’t able to express yourself clearly, your enthusiastic biblical convictions are not supported by any clinical research; and this is why not a single ARV manufacturer makes the claim that its drug makes sick people better. Not one. If there was any scientific basis for your claim in the form of cogent clinical research findings, the drug corporations would be quick to trumpet it, wouldn’t it now? You say that on ARVs patients’ ‘viral counts drop[…] and the immune marker CD4 counts ris[e] from as low as 40 to well over 800’. It seems you prefer reading Loslyf to your medical journals, because in August 2006 Lancet published the biggest ARV clinical study yet conducted, involving more than 20 000 cases, and it found that the better you got on the drugs according to the laboratory tests, the sicker you got: ‘The results of this collaborative study, which involved … over 20 000 patients with HIV-1 from Europe and North America, show that the virological response after starting HAART [Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy] has improved steadily since 1996. However, there was no corresponding decrease in the rates of AIDS, or death, up to 1 year of follow-up. Conversely, there was some evidence for an increase in the rate of AIDS in the most recent period. [We noted a] discrepancy between the clear improvement we recorded for virological response and the apparently worsening rates of clinical progression’. – The Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Cohort Collaborative, Lancet 368:451-458 A covering editorial commented: ‘The major findings are that, despite improved initial HIV virological control … there were no significant improvements in early immunological response as measured by CD4-lymphocyte count, no reduction in all-cause mortality, and a significant increase in combined AIDS/AIDS-related death risk in more recent years.’ Now in the light of these findings, especially the bit about how ARVs accelerate the death rate of HIV-positive people given them – which is not so incredibly complicated for non-doctors and non-pharmacy shopkeepers to understand, considering that AZT was specifically designed to kill human cells – why would anyone with any brains want to swallow it, or want anyone else to? Perhaps because, as the late great philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend put it: ‘It is very difficult, and perhaps entirely impossible, to combat the effects of brainwashing by argument.’ AB”
by Anthony Brink on Fri 22 Feb 2008
“AB Like I said. All drugs have side-effects. Taking a drug is like getting into a car to get from point A to point B. We all know that there is a risk of the car breaking or getting into a car crash, but if the car is the best available means of transport, that is what we will use. Patients need to be informed of the risks (which is what is called informed consent,) and then choose for themselves. When faced with a life threatening illness (HIV), most women will choose the risk of “possible” side effects above the risk of certain death. As long as people are informed, they can make an informed choice. It can be compared to the Hormone replacement therapy and chemotherapy choices patients often have to make. Don’t assume that just because I don’t agree with you I don’t read the evidence. 1000 signatures in support of Colin Pfaff is evidence that many agree with this.”
by Erika Drewes on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“Dear Anthony et al Seems you have high jacked this thread but I can’t resist adding my bit. I am a colleague of Dr Pfaff and have worked with him for the last six years. We are in an almost perpetual state of moribund depression watching close friends and colleagues and masses of patients suffer and die. Sure poverty contributes but the relatively wealthy are dying too. Yes, from AIDS. Of course AZT is toxic, so is panado. Roy will remember the debates we had in the family medicine department at Wits whether a warning should be put on the bottle of panado about the fatal consequences of an over dose. On the whole panado is a very useful drug, and yes some people do die from it. I can’t resist using one of your favoured quotes:” Gentlemen, I beseech you. In the bowels of Christ, think it is possible that you are wrong.” Oliver Cromwell. You repeatedly mention the skull and crossbones on a bottle of AZT. Remember that was from the sixties and pre clinical trails. I accept that many people have been killed by the bone marrow suppression due to AZT and thank god (lower case intentional) we have learned how to use the drug better. Your research is astounding in its depth, but still significantly out of date and frequently out of context. I can’t help wondering if this is all a preamble to a massive tort case. To go back to Colin Pfaff. Should he be considered a hero? I know that was never his intention. The program was very carefully thought out and initiated looking at results from the Western Cape and other places were dual therapy has been successfully used for some time. If you think we are still doing the wrong thing I invite you to come and spend time in our wards. Not just a fleeting glimpse, but a significant time were you can get to know the mothers of dying children and get immersed in their pain. I now you too have lost friends to AIDS/AZT, but treatment has improved dramatically since. A single drug (stretching a one month course over two) will certainly not provide any improvement. You also seem to keep omitting why your friend was on the drug in the first place. He was dying wasn’t he? Please spend time away from your computer and in the wards. You may find your concerns alter course dramatically. Mark from Manguzi”
by Mark at Manguzi on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“Mark, you say: ‘Of course AZT is toxic, so is panado.’ This is like arguing, ‘Of course cancer chemotherapy is toxic, so is cough mixture.’ It’s no argument at all: ‘It is self-evident that ANAs [antiretroviral nucleoside analogues, such as AZT], like all drugs, have side-effects. However, the prevalent and at times serious ANA mitochondrial toxic side-effects are particularly broad ranging with respect to their tissue target and mechanisms of toxicity: Haematological [blood]; Myopathy [muscles]; Cardiotoxicity [heart]; Hepatic toxicity [liver]; Peripheral neuropathy [nerves].’ – Lewis and Dalakas, Nature Medicine 5:417-22 (1995). You say: ‘I can’t resist using one of your favoured quotes:” Gentlemen, I beseech you. In the bowels of Christ, think it is possible that you are wrong.” Oliver Cromwell.’ Yes Mark, please do. And thanks for at least troubling to read my book Debating AZT. Most people mouthing off on this subject have never read further than the Sunday Times. You say: ‘You repeatedly mention the skull and crossbones on a bottle of AZT. Remember that was from the sixties and pre clinical trails.’ You are quite wrong about this. Sigma-Aldridge’s label currently appears on bottles of AZT containing as little as 25 mg – one quarter the quantity in a single capsule supplied by GlaxoSmithKline. Strictly speaking, you’re right to imply the label is out of date. It is. The current one carries the additional warning that accidental contact with the drug may cause you to develop cancer. You say: ‘I accept that many people have been killed by the bone marrow suppression due to AZT and thank god (lower case intentional) we have learned how to use the drug better.’ Mark, how have we learned to use AZT better, this drug that you concede has killed so many people? It sounds to me like a doctor defending bloodletting – still being recommended for the cure of pneumonia in Osler’s standard Principles and Practice of Medicine as recently as the 1943 edition. Doctors, the clever guys! You say ‘Your research is astounding in its depth, but still significantly out of date and frequently out of context.’ Thanks for the first compliment. But as for the rider: I’ve been tracking the research literature closely for over a decade, and it just mounts up. Please let me know what research findings that I cite are ‘out of date’, and how they’ve become ‘out of date’. Is talking like this an easy way out of not having to think about it, and not have to change you mind? Take this study for instance: ‘[AZT and other nucleoside analogue drugs] are much more toxic than we considered previously. … The layer of fat-storing cells directly beneath the skin, which wastes away … is loaded with mitochondria … other common side effects of [AZT and similar drugs are] nerve and muscle damage, pancreatitis and decreased production of blood cells … all resemble conditions caused by inherited mitochondrial diseases.’ – Brinkman et al. Lancet 354(9184):1112-5 (1999) Would you say that’s ‘significantly out of date’ now? Concerning Colin Pfaff, I don’t doubt for a moment that he’s a very nice guy, compassionate and dedicated. Of course I think that he was misguided in giving pregnant African women AZT and exposing their unborn children to this stuff, but I accept completely that he acted with all the best will in the world. Had Colin been practising in the 1940s, with the same best intentions, compassion, professional concern for his patients, and faithful eye on best medical practice according to the unanimous expert medical conventions of the day, he would have been injecting these women with arsenic: Michael Gelfland’s The Sick African, published in Cape Town in 1944 (Stewart Printing Co) put it like this: ‘Syphilis is a subject of paramount importance. The incidence is difficult to gauge, but it seems to be present in 20 per cent. or more of all Natives. Its recognition is important, not because the treatment given to the Native is in any way inadequate, but largely in order to prevent his spreading the infection by contact with the Europeans or his own people. This is accomplished by giving the syphilitic a short course of arsenical injections, to render him non-infectious. … Of course, if ... the Native can be persuaded to attend for a longer course, better results will be obtained. … Perhaps the solution to the problem may be found in the administration of arsenic in massive doses by intravenous injection continued over a few days. Reports from the Union of South Africa … appear to be promising. This is certainly a form of therapy that should draw the attention of the public authorities. … I am confident that the solution to syphilis in the Native lies in this form of treatment, but its potential danger must not be overlooked.’ Of course any doctor injecting arsenic into anyone, let alone a pregnant woman, even one, never mind repeatedly in ‘massive doses’, would be arrested by the police for attempted murder today and locked up as criminally insane. You say ‘I [k]now you too have lost friends to AIDS/AZT, but treatment has improved dramatically since. A single drug (stretching a one month course over two) will certainly not provide any improvement. You also seem to keep omitting why your friend was on the drug in the first place. He was dying wasn’t he?’ The fellow you speak of wasn’t a friend of mine, he was a legal colleague practising in a faraway town. He wasn’t sick, he was run down. No clinical symptoms of any disease of any sort. Just tired, always tired, his wife complained. He went for a battery of tests. He was found to have hypogammaglobulinaemia – a raised level of non-specific antibodies, a textbook cause of false reactivity to HIV antibody tests (so guess what other test he lit up). He was put on AZT and 3TC, took violently ill on them, never recovered and was dead in months, vomiting his life away into a bucket, unable to get up from the floor when he fell, unable to speak, his muscles wasted away – just as the AZT literature, even the package insert, predicts. You say ‘Please spend time away from your computer and in the wards.’ You may find your concerns alter course dramatically. If you don’t mind, I’ll continue researching this drug and continue ventilating the research literature on it until someone else takes over, so I can move on. No one else here is. AB”
by Anthony Brink on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“Terry Have you possibly been quietly tucking into the anti-depressants that you sell in your chemist shop? I ask because your writing has this sort of thorazine, slipping-clutch quality. Just wondering. Whether a single research report that I cited actually went in. Cheers AB”
by Anthony Brink on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“Anthony Brink wrote: “If you don’t mind, I’ll continue researching this drug and continue ventilating the research literature on it until someone else takes over, so I can move on. No one else here is”. You’re on your own Ant – much of the hysterical data and information you spew, is based on outdated and discredited debates that revolved around initial skepticism to a disease that was unknown before 1983 and required totally tests, new drugs and treatment protocols. There were many mistakes made but dedicated people have honed the art of testing for and treating this incurable disease with cocktails of 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations of ARV’s, to the point where victims can lead relatively healthy and productive lives. It’s been incontrovertibly shown that PMCTP 2 or 3 ARV drug treatment protocol protects the infant from sero-conversion as Nevirapine alone was insufficient. The NDoH adopted this program over 2 years ago but is still prevaricating over its implementation. Hence the Dr Pfaff and similar debacles by Health workers with a conscience and a strong need to save lives . All you do is sit at you laptop and spew reams of bilge on two subjects – Aids denialism and AZT toxicity. The train has long since left the station and even your chums Mbeki, Ronnie SR and Christine Qunta have passed their sell by date. Wake up and smell the roses. Lives are being saved by the likes of Dr Pfaff against homicidally obdurate official resistance and bureaucracy – in part encouraged by you Ant. Recant now Ant, and move on, before its too late – no-one is interested in your job. Get back to your keyboards and chill – Bru!”
by Terry on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“… Let’s round this off by going back to the beginning. Roy dragged me into this by slagging me off: ‘MEC Nkonyeni claims that she is merely informing patients fully. She said in an interview (à la Anthony Brink): “It tells you [it’s toxic] on the label!” It would appear that her definition of “fully informed” only concerns side effects, and nothing about benefits. The “side effects” of possible HIV infection, chronic illnesses, Aids and eventual death in a baby or child are seemingly not being communicated or considered.’ In order for AZT to have ‘benefits’ such as preventing ‘HIV infection, chronic illnesses, Aids and eventual death in a baby or child’, it must have the pharmacological activity claimed for it, namely that it’s an antiretroviral drug. Pharmacologists like Roy know, or should know, that AZT is supplied a pro-drug. In its native form administered to people as a medicine, it is therapeutically inert. It can only exert its claimed pharmacological action as an antiretroviral after being triphosphorylated within the patient’s cells by the sequential action of intracellular enzymes. You can read this on the package insert. So the question is: is it? Is it Roy? You tell us whether AZT is triphosphorylated in vivo – and I mean significantly, and not to one or more orders of magnitude below its inhibition concentration. No one around here will be dumb enough to interpret your sulking silence as holding some sort of moral high ground in refusing to debate ‘denialists’ (ARV drug pushers’ favourite stunt when stuck for an answer to a hard question). If you can’t answer the question, providing a supporting citation in the form of a research report in which AZT-TP was found at a concentration in vivo equal to or exceeding its inhibition concentration, we’ll all accept there isn’t any such data available. Actually, it’s a trick question; there’s no such paper. Which is another way of saying AZT isn’t antiretroviral. Just as, contrary to popular European belief, garlic isn’t anti-vampires. So it’s all risk and no benefit. AB”
by Anthony Brink on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“It is a pity that Anthony Brink has chosen to hijack this thread with his
misguided and WRONG information – people that he quote has been shown to be
WRONG in the information that they spread – refer to the very long trial held in
2006 in Australia where there was an in depth look at the issue and where the
evidence submitted by Brinks’ friends where thoroughly rejected by a supreme
court after extensive arguments by experts on both sides
(http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21631724-1702,00.html) –
unfortunately the full trial information is no longer freely available on the
Net but I DID read it when it was originally available and as a doctor and a
biochemist I was once again re-affirmed in my beliefs that mainstream HIV
theories are CORRECT. If even ONE person listens to your pseudoscience Mr Brink
you will have blood on your hands. To peddle this snake oil BS to sick and
scared people is absolutely criminal and you and your ilk have the deaths of
many people on your hands.”
by Thinus on Sat 23 Feb 2008
“If I wasn’t living here, I might find some humour in Thabo&Manto’s mad hatters party. Spike Milligan or Monty Python could run an entire season on the odd ball antics of the Dept of Health. But it’s not just a clash of paradigms or ideology. It’s not just gross incompetence and lack of Batho Pele and ubuntu. Its a deliberate policy of demonising all western medicine in favour of some mumbo jumbo afrikanist hallucination – that bears no resemblance to reality. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, our health intervention benchmarks score badly, even compared to blighted Uganda and poor African countries. It’s not just money – we spend somewhere close to 8% GDP on public health. It all boils down to a lack of coherent leadership and a gross dereliction of duty by those in stewardship roles (MoH, MEC’s, DoH etc) Yes Ant! I do take antidepressants to dull the fact that I live in Mamparaland where we would rather sack national heroes like Dr Pfaff than dismiss the entire top structure of the DoH and put them on trial at the High Court in de Hague – for crimes against humanity. Would you defend them – of course you will! At least you’ll be doing something within your area of competence Good luck Ant”
by Terry on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“Did any one read the tome by Peter Mokaba just before he died about HIV not causing AIDS. Fair enough to deny yourself treatment but another to hamper others. I picture a lot of hand wringing in the future to the mantra; out, out, damned spot.”
by Mark at Manguzi on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“Mark: Peter Mokaba was not the principal author of ‘Castro Hlongwane’, President Mbeki is. Read up in Mark Gevisser’s new biography, ‘Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred.’ I revealed what killed Peter in an earlier post, and it had nothing to do with ‘AIDS’. So why do you persist in insinuating that he was ‘HIV-positive’, that he died of ‘AIDS’, and that he should have taken ARVs? Is it because he’s black? And all whites like you know, they just know, that Peter died of AIDS. AB”
by Anthony Brink on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“Thinus: You say, ‘I have a degree in Biochemistry and a medical degree so I have a reasonable grasp on the subject matter.’ If it’s true that you have a ‘reasonable grasp of the subject matter’, kindly state for readers of this discussion (a) what the IC50 of AZT-TP is in vivo; and (b) the range of concentrations of AZT-TP in vivo that have been reported in the scientific literature. I asked you to elucidate the triphosphorylation problem in my last post. Instead of doing so, you come back huffing and puffing about how clever you are because of your academic wallpaper. Would it be right to conclude from this that in truth you don’t have ‘a reasonable grasp on the subject matter’; that, to put a point on it, you lied about this; and that you’re a actually conman, the sort of ignoramus who says, Trust me, I’m a doctor. You say you ‘could send … hundreds of references from Medline, pubmed and Cochrane databases that shows that these toxic (never argued that they were not) drugs saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of babies.’ I’ll be satisfied with just one single paper from any of these databases showing that these ‘drugs saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of babies’. You may have some difficulty here, because I know the literature well, and no such study exists. On the contrary, the research literature consistently shows that children exposed to these drugs in utero and after birth have a much higher rate of serious disease and death than untreated children. For instance: ‘Children born to HIV-positive women who take antiretroviral therapy (ART) during pregnancy are significantly smaller in terms of height, weight and head circumference compared with children born to HIV-positive women not on ART, or who took monotherapy, according to the results of a European study examining the effects of ART on uninfected children’s growth up to the age of 18 months [European Collaborative Study, JAIDS 40(3):364-370 (2005)].’ Edwin Bernard, AIDSmap News, 3 November 2005 ‘[In a major review of data collected between 1986 and April 2004, AIDS drugs such as AZT were found to cause a] substantially increased risk of severely curtailed pregnancy [i.e. dangerously critical prematurity] … coupled with a very high neonatal mortality rate.’ Thorne et al. AIDS 18(17):2337-2339 (2004) ‘The study cohort included 92 HIV-1-infected and 439 uninfected children … Antiretroviral therapy (nonprotease inhibitor) was independently associated with FTT [Failure to Thrive] in our cohort … ZDV [AZT], in particular, alters mitochondrial metabolism and may have direct nutritional effects.’ Miller TL et al. Pediatrics 108(6): 1287-96 (2001) ‘In this retrospective study, the risk of RPD [rapid progression of disease] was five to six times higher among infants born to [AZT] treated compared with untreated mothers. … RPD was three times more likely to occur in infants born to [AZT] treated compared with findings in untreated mothers.’ De Souza et al. AIDS 24(2):154-61 (2000) ‘The probability of developing severe disease at 3 years of life was significantly higher in children born to mothers [administered AZT during their pregnancies] than in those born to [untreated] mothers. … The same pattern was observed for severe immune suppression: the probability of developing severe immune suppression was significantly higher in children born to [AZT-treated] mothers … than born to [untreated] mothers. … Finally, survival probability was lower among children [born to AZT-treated mothers] … compared with children born to [untreated] mothers.’ De Martino et al. AIDS 13(8):927-33 (1999) ‘Prenatal and perinatal ZVD [AZT] exposure were associated with 1.8-fold increased risk of progression to AIDS or death after adjusting simultaneously for all variables associated with disease progression … Restricting the analysis to children born after April 1994 (date of public release of the results of ACTG 076), ZDV exposure was associated with 2.5-fold increased risk of progression to AIDS or death after adjusting simultaneously for the same variables. … Steady improvements in prognosis of [HIV] infected children unexposed to ZVD were observed in each successive birth cohort, but infected children exposed to ZVD lagged behind these temporal changes. Our results … are consistent with recent results from the Italian Registry for HIV Infection in Children [reported by de Martino, cited above].’ Kuhn et al. Journal of Infectious Diseases 182(1):104-11 (2000) If, as you say, you’re ‘happy to stick with what much more authoritive medical resources say’, what ‘more authoritative medical resources’ than Pediatrics, AIDS and the Journal of Infectious Diseases did you have in mind? Zoe: You make a sound point that all synthetic chemicals administered by Western doctors as medical drugs are toxic to some degree (because they’re alien and inimical to healthy human metabolism). But we’ve been through this sort of argument before. Search in this blog for ‘Lewis’. And read the distinction he and Dalakis drew between AZT and similar ARVs and other drugs – on account of how exceptionally dangerously toxic they are. You make a long argument well summed up in your last line: ‘ARV’s aren’t perfect and they are dangerous but worth the risk in fighting a lethal disease for which there aren’t better alternatives for a while to come.’ For AZT to be ‘worth the risk’ of being severely harmed or killed by it – having been designed as a cell poison, which is to say to poison our cells – it’s necessary to show that it has the pharmacological activity claimed for it, namely that it’s triphosphorylated within our cells into its active form as an antiretroviral drug: AZT-TP. But it isn’t. This risk-benefit ratio is therefore infinite. Anyone who wants to contradict this conclusion, should start by referring me to any reported finding that AZT works in the body as alleged. And after that, we can look at the clinical studies, perhaps starting with the biggest ARV study yet done, which found that ARV treatment doesn’t save lives and conversely actually accelerates the death rate of HIV-positive people: ‘The results of this collaborative study, which involved … over 20 000 patients with HIV-1 from Europe and North America, show that the virological response after starting HAART [Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy] has improved steadily since 1996. However, there was no corresponding decrease in the rates of AIDS, or death, up to 1 year of follow-up. Conversely, there was some evidence for an increase in the rate of AIDS in the most recent period. [We noted a] discrepancy between the clear improvement we recorded for virological response and the apparently worsening rates of clinical progression’. – The Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Cohort Collaborative, Lancet 368:451-458 (2006) ‘The major findings are that, despite improved initial HIV virological control … there were no significant improvements in early immunological response as measured by CD4-lymphocyte count, no reduction in all-cause mortality, and a significant increase in combined AIDS/AIDS-related death risk in more recent years.’ – Lancet editorial commenting on ‘these somewhat paradoxical trends’ reported in the above-cited study AB”
by Anthony Brink on Mon 25 Feb 2008
“‘Yes Ant! I do take antidepressants’. I thought so, Terry. Your sparkplugs always seemed a bit clogged to me. Cheers A”
by Anthony Brink on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“I was just wondering whether Roy’s unwillingness to answer my question about whether AZT is triphosphorylated intracellularly, as GlaxoSmithKline and other generic producers claims it is, might have to do with the fact that a direct, honest answer in the negative (meaning it can only poison people, and nothing else) might harm his prospects of scoring a cushy big-ticket job with a pharmaceutical corporation when he pitches up offering his services waving his new ‘PhD in advertising and marketing of medicines’, as his ‘Profile’ puts it. Is that it, Roy? AB”
by Anthony Brink on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“AB1: Yurtdisi: What particular language did you have in mind? My leaflets, ‘Why do President Mbeki and Dr Tshabalala-Msimang warn against the use of ARV drugs like AZT?’ and ‘Why do Zackie Achmat, Nathan Geffen and Mark Heywood want pregnant African women and their babies to be given AZT? What AZT does to unborn and newly born children’ are now in Spanish, Russian, German and Italian; and my criminal complaint against the TAC’s Zackie Achmat in the International Criminal Court (a sophisticated parody that some got, some didn’t) is in French and Dutch too. http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt-mbeki_tshabalala-msimang.pdf http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/azt-achmat_geffen_heywood.pdf http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/icc_achmatcomplaint.pdf”
by Anthony Brink on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“Guys, it’s all about RISK-BENEFIT ratio. A lot of things we do in clinical medicine are not perfect treatments, far from it: anti-mitotic drugs used in cancer are lethal and have horrific side effects but we still use them because we don’t have better alternatives. These drugs in effect interfere will all normal cell processes and slowly kill patients, it’s just a question of killing the tumour at a lower dose than needed to kill the patient. Pretty horrific and unacceptable if you think about it like that but cancer isn’t such a politicised illness. We could wait for the perfect cure/treatment but we’ve been waiting several decades and we’re still making slow progress. ALL drugs, and I mean all drugs are lethal and have bad side effects: Amoxycillin can be lethal to people who have severe allergic reactions to it but it’s prescribed so frequently, for minor things because the risks are low. Ibuprofen (Nurofen) can cause bone marrow suppression as well as renal failure and you don’t even need a prescription for it. Chlorpromazine (used for Schizophrenia) also causes bone marrow suppression. Every time a medicine is prescribed, you have to ask yourself as a prescribing doctor and informed patient: ‘Will I be better off without this, would I rather take my chances with the disease?’ Surgery could be considered torture or grievous bodily harm or assault if done without consent or if not necessary. But I’m sure many people who’ve had an infected appendix will tell you, it was a better option than letting the disease run it’s course. ARV’s are toxic drugs, they’re not great and they have higher side effect profiles than would be permitted for other classes of drugs or drugs for minor illnesses but HIV is also a nasty, lethal disease that has horrible side effects. We could say that these drugs are too toxic and let’s wait for better options but there really aren’t any at the moment and won’t be a low toxicity treatment for decades. We are in an epidemic and have to do what we can to help people through it with what we have. I’m a doctor and have prescribed them. I’d be very concerned about taking them myself if I had to but I’d still do it. ARV’s aren’t justified if you have HIV and no symptoms of AIDS because they’re so toxic. But once you have AIDS, the risk of dying from the virus and consequent immune suppression are higher than dying from the treatment. Informed consent and whether we are adequately informing patients is an other issue in a poorly resourced health care system is a separate issue. But many patients do refuse the treatment and that’s their right which we have to respect. These drugs are used all over the world so it’s not a case of providing risky care in the third world, on the other hand; giving mixed messages to the public and denying we have a problem is very third world. We now have the highest infection rate in the world. Not something to be proud of in light of the years of questioning international committees’ consensus on the disease and treatment. ARV’s aren’t perfect and they are dangerous but worth the risk in fighting a lethal disease for which there aren’t better alternatives for a while to come.”
by Dr Zoe Momberg on Mon 25 Feb 2008
“AB4: Thinus: The Parenzee case was not lost on a determination of the merits of the Perth Group’s contentions, but for other reasons that would take a while to explain. Be patient: a detailed analysis of the reasons for the failure of the case is in preparation and will be posted online in a few weeks (I’ve read the draft). I’m thoroughly familiar with the case, having been consulted repeatedly by the defence counsel and the expert witnesses. It doesn’t surprise me to learn that you’re ‘a doctor’. The quality of your reasoning in your post squares with my general experience of the constipated thinking style of you guys. Everything you know, you learned off by heart. No knowledge of history, no cultural studies, no philosophy, no literature; you blokes are complete barbarians, man! But since you’re also a ‘biochemist’ could you possibly enlighten readers about the AZT triphosphorylation problem? See if you can understand this easy-to-follow explanation: http://www.tig.org.za/pdf-files/openletter_gsk.pdf. Just let me know if there are any big technical words in there that you can’t understand, and I’ll try to explain them for you. Which of the citations from the peer-reviewed medical literature that I’ve put up in this discussion would you describe as ‘pseudoscience’? What ‘snake oil BS’ do I ‘peddle’? I’m not peddling anything; I’m critiquing a very bad drug, the contemporary version of arsenic injections between 1910 and the mid-fifties. That’s all. If you now persist in telling ‘sick and scared people’ that unless they swallow AZT or a similar drug in combination with other similar drugs, or they’ll surely die, now that you know how it will poison them, who’ll have the ‘blood on [his] hands’ and whose conduct will be ‘absolutely criminal’ causing the ‘deaths of many people’? You tell us, Thinus.”
by Anthony Brink on Sun 24 Feb 2008
“It’s sad when a brilliant mind wraps itself around a singular obsessive crusade – especially when he’s criminally wrong! I could prescribe an extra strength elephant mood stabilizer, preferably shot from a dart gun, from a helicopter. This may ease the ranting, foaming at the mouth and gnashing of teeth, but regrettably, blog bog dysentery is as incurable as HIV/AIDS”
by Billy C on Mon 25 Feb 2008