If, as recent articles and blogs have suggested, neither viral load, nor CD4 T-cell counts are prime indicators for activity of HIV/AIDS, then what is the magic bullet? Is there a magic bullet to measure HIV? If it cannot be measured, nor seen, is it real ?

Up until now, viral load was said to indicate virus activity, predict T-cell death, and human death. Combined with CD4 cell counts, viral load is used to guide the subject into treatment, namely ARVs, or HAART. I believe the WHO recommendations to start treatment has been based upon CD4 cell counts of under 350.

Now, WHO researchers says that up to 15% of a cohort of HIV negatives studied in Africa had CD4 t-cell counts below 350. What does that mean for the accepted dogma regarding what AIDS is and when to begin prescribing highly toxic medications? Does it throw the entire prescribing mechanism into disarray? Some say it does.

Those in established situations, working for pharmaceutical companies, either directly or indirectly, may fear the consequences of having to admit that the past 25 years of pushing pills was done in the dark. No matter, people have made a lot of money, and the industry has used NGOs, governmental agencies, and earnest well meaning researchers around the globe as pawns in their quarter-century chess match.

The paradigm the world has been told to believe is this: HIV stalks t-cells, hijacks them kills them, but not before converting the new digs into a factory for replicating itself. This hell-mouth called HIV then causes any combo of 32 AIDS infections, including tuberculosis, dementia, cervical cancer, and no doubt, special reserved seating for the bugs that have us on their shit list, like Cryptospordium.

But now, the WHO's own researchers reveal that viral load isn't a true measure of infectiousness vis-a-vis CD4 t-cell death. CD4 cell counts under 350 occuring in HIV negatives would suggest that CD4 cell counts are affected by something other than HIV. As to viral load, given the recent studies, the question remains: what of relevance does it measure?

Individual levels is a term used in many posts, as if to say that cohort levels are irrelevant. But a cohort is many individuals, and patterns uncovered are critical in determining health policy recommmendations. HIV, a stigma, not an illness, always affects an individual.

It is telling that to AIDS devotees and researchers worldwide, HIV has historically been a faceless nonindividual.

What is HIV but a dirty stain leeched from money weighing down a sea of subjects who have become fodder for future drug studies?

Sadly, the marketing professionals in the world of pharmacoepia cleverly co-opt the moral high-ground, falsely and in the most egregious manner, ending trials early, saying "it would be unethical to hold back the drug; giving the placebo is unethical because the new drug worked so well, we'll ram this through FDA" (or however it works over there) "and make a billion next year."

I digress.

Tuberculosis disease dates to the Pharaohs, cervical cancer is caused by HPV, not AIDS, cryptospordium affects a large percentage of the at large population and HIV has nothing at all do with it.

There is good reason to say the paradigm is falling apart. We are all catching on to the mystery usually shrouded in fancy terms and the research within the industry itself is dissolving the 25 year cover. Despite how HIV & AIDS devotees wrap research results around a core predetermined belief in support of AIDS drugs the facts will speak for themselves.

-- The Editor

WHO report | paradigm

The Editor

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