We hear this claim often. Mainstream AIDS science uses this argument to convince the public that AIDS death dropped significantly in the US after HAART was implemented.
Unlike monotherapy with AZT, HAART offers drug cocktails which are less toxic but often still contain AZT or AZT like substances. Still HAART is proven to have some severe side effects, i.e. liver and kidney damage.
Looking at the CDC's statistics regarding AIDS death in the 90-ties, it is tempting to assume at first glance that HAART indeed is responsible for that drop in AIDS mortality.
A second look shows a different picture, because the following factors need to be taken into account when reading those official statistics:
- AIDS and HIV cases were already declining as early as 1993 before HAART became available.
- the CDC reclassified AIDS in 1992, including until then otherwise healthy individuals who had a CD4 T-cell count of less than 200. Those healthy individuals were given AZT and as a result became very ill.
- HAART was introduced in 1995, but by the CDC's own admission, only 10% of AIDS patients actually received HAART in 1995. It is not possible to explain the AIDS death drop following 1995 with only 10% of AIDS patients on HAART. (Quote by James Curran, former Director of the CDC. "Fewer than 10 percent of infected Americans have access and are currently taking these new wonder drugs, let alone the access in developing countries.)
In March 1998 Vladimir L. Koliadin published paper going through all of this in more detail. (http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/vknewdef.htm) He compared AIDS mortality according to the old AIDS classification with AIDS mortality according to the new post-1992 AIDS classification. This is his conclusion:
"The purely formal reclassification of these individuals from "asymptomatic HIV-positives" into "AIDS-patients" coincides in time with a noticeable increase in mortality. A reasonable explanation for this phenomenon is that just the additional AIDS-specific medication administered to some of these individuals (because of their formal reclassification into "AIDS-patients") caused this increase in mortality."
HAART of course is also a great deal less toxic than AZT. So as AZT was given less and HAART was prescribed more to patients, it is not surprising that survival rates increased. That however cannot be ascribed to the benefits of HAART, other than perhaps the well documented short-term Lazarus effect.
HIV dissidents have been putting forward arguments explaining the drop in AIDS mortality for a long time. Professor Peter Duesberg is one of them. And being a survivor of the AIDS iatrogenic holocaust myself, the below arguments make much more sense:
- AIDS is a lifestyle issue. During the late 70-ties and early 80-ties drugs and sexual in the gay community meant that many gay men lead a lifestyle which included multiple partners, frequent and regular use of recreational drugs and prophylactic use of antibiotics. Eventually that had to cause some immune suppression in some individuals.
- During the late 80-ties AZT was brought back from cancer research to treat AIDS patients. AZT had been banned for cancer therapy - it was simply to toxic. But AIDS patient however were desperate. More and more people began taking AZT in the late 80-ties as testing for HIV increased. This explains very well why HIV / AIDS cases increased during that time.
- A few years later AIDS victims began to realise that AZT was killing them. So they stopped - but did not tell their doctors. Many AIDS patients enjoyed 1st class medical treatment and were risking of losing all of their benefits if they admitted that they no longer took AZT.
All of the above explains much better why AIDS death started to go into decline as early as 1993, peaking in 1995. HAART had very little to do with it - other than being a less toxic treatment option which offered the Lazarus effect. (http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/the-lazarus-effect-in-hivaids)
For more information on the above visit the following sites:
CDC AIDS mortality statistics:
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/mortality/index.htm
The Rethinking AIDS group:
A group of scientists highly critical of the mainstream AIDS industry
http://www.rethinkingaids.com/
Henry Bauers HIV sceptic site:
http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/
The No AIDS site:
http://www.noaids.ca/
The Office of Medicial and Scientific Justice frequently defends HIV+ individuals accused of HIV crimes:
http://www.omsj.org/
The Questioning AIDS forum offers in depth and on going debate on the HIV/AIDS paradigm:
http://questioningaids.com/
Professor Peter Duesberg, Berkeley University:
http://www.duesberg.com
