by Ulrich E. Schaible*, Stefan H. E. Kaufmann

I am not interested in the bloody system! Why has he no food? Why is he starving to death?                                          - Bob Geldof in The Observer, 1985

Activation and sustenance of immune responses during infection requires increased energy consumption. Protein energy malnutrition (PEM) is a critical, yet underestimated factor in susceptibility to infection, including the “big three” infectious diseases: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In this article, we discuss current concepts and controversies surrounding the complex influences of malnutrition on infection and immunity, and point to practical consequences of countermeasures in acute malnutrition.

We call for new strategies to overcome worldwide morbidity and mortality caused by chronic malnutrition in impoverished countries and by the newly emerging public health threat of overnutrition in industrialized societies.

Background 

In response to infection, the immune system first executes innate and then subsequently acquired host defense functions of high diversity. Both processes involve activation and propagation of immune cells and synthesis of an array of molecules requiring DNA replication, RNA expression, and protein synthesis and secretion, and therefore consume additional anabolic energy. Mediators of inflammation further increase the catabolic response. Studies in a simple system, involving measurement of the survival of malnourished bumblebee workers, showed that the energy cost of immunity further impairs fitness [1].

Consequently, the nutritive status of the host critically determines the outcome of infection.

Apart from deficiencies in single nutrients, such as vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids, iron, and trace elements, undernourishment based on PEM greatly increases susceptibility to major human infectious diseases in low-income countries, particularly in children [2–4].

Malnutrition is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 54% of the 10.8 million deaths per year in children under five and contributes to every second death (53%) associated with infectious diseases among children under five years of age in developing countries [5]. Infection causes energy loss on the part of the individual, which reduces productivity on the community level and perpetuates the alarming spiral of malnutrition, infection, disease, and poverty (Figure 1).  read more »

NotAIDS! Essay
December 22, 2006 (updated May 22, 2009)
UPDATE: New evidence indicates that KS may be related to intestinal parasites. More to come on this story.
Why did the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) look for a singular agent underlying uncommonly occurring illnesses afflicting 5 Los Angeles gay men, and 12 other men in New York and San Francisco, in 1981?

It was 1981 when Dr. Michael Gottlieb reported five patients to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) because each had an uncommonly intensive infection.

The men had Pneumocystis Carini pneumonia (incorrectly identified as PCP, now known to be Pneumocystis Jiroveci); they also suffered from cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections, and intestinal and/or oral Candida Albicans overgrowth. Kaposi's Sarcoma lesions were reported at other clinics, in New York and San Francisco, and noted on the page following Dr. Gottlieb's report.

Dr. Gottlieb's Los Angeles report, and the KS "outbreak" in NYC and San Francisco, spurred a race among epidemiologists at the CDC and NIH - and simultaneiously at the Pasteur Institute - to find a cause celebre, a 'bug' that was making gay folk sick, even though the reasons for these illnesses caused by the mens' immunocompromised state was plainly attributable to behavioral causes.

The late seventies were characterized by a mentality of free-flowing sex, love, drugs, and rock and roll, and sex. In the late seventies and early eighties, there were thousands of other gay men who were dealing with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) - caused by parasites and candida overgrowth, sometimes severe or entrenched enough to cause wasting and other so-called "rare" illneses.

Dr. Michael Gottlieb described these infections in his 1981 report to the CDC on five patients of his Los Angeles office. What is not in the report is the setting of this medical drama about to unfold on center stage for the next 30 years.  read more »

NotAIDS! News
December 30, 2008

In memoriam: Christine Maggiore
by The Editor

When the rabid AIDS promoters hit the media channels and the Internet gloating over the death of leading HIV "rethinker" Christine Maggiore, it will be in the sadistic manner of which only AIDS-lovers are capable, and they will twist the truth into a scary fable meant to coax you into taking your meds.

Yet, it would be prudent to resist any temptation to believe their false assumption that Christine Maggiore succumbed to an "AIDS-related" illness, specifically, HIV-related pneumonia. If she tested negative, after testing positive, and her son tests negative, how is that HIV-related? Even if she was HIV positive, on what basis is her death attributed to HIV?

In an international study of bacterial pneumonia outcomes, conducted in part by the University of Alberta, researchers concluded that pneumonia doesn't appear to harm HIV-positive patients any more than those who are HIV-negative.

There was also negligible difference in the mortality rate; total deaths among the HIV patients was 3.5 per cent (two of 58 patients), and 4.8 per cent (seven of 174) among the HIV-negative patients.

Mourners and revelers alike, consider the following, as noted on Medicine.net.

Currently, over 3 million people develop pneumonia each year in the United States. Over a half a million of these people are admitted to a hospital for treatment. Although most of these people recover, approximately 5% will die from pneumonia. Pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

The latest numbers from the CDC put pneumonia as the 8th leading cause of death in the United States as of the last officially available government numbers from 2005.

NotAIDS! Commentary

November 30, 2008

"Coming of age"

by The Editor

This year's aptly themed World AIDS Day, for those in the AIDS industry, a high holiday, certainly has different meanings among different people.

A headline grabbed me this week and it is telling of the ludicrous corner these people have backed themselves into. 

With the red ribbons of World AIDS Day observance everywhere, the newsflash reminded me that my entire adult life has been in the shadow of AIDS and promised death, and 3 decades of AIDS research have come full circle. 

It is obvious they don't know what they're doing.

The headline stated backwards that viral load has no statistically significant impact on CD4 counts, according to the research.

The backdoor actual headline described the researchers' inabilty to detect a link between what they term "virolgic failure" and CD4 T-cell counts.

Over 1600 antiretroviral newbies were monitored over intervals across a six month span.  What they found is obvious to those with real life experience outside the lab.

Suppression of what is improperly dubbed "viral load" - a misappropriated lab DNA count exxaggerated by laboratory magnification - is pointless.

Success of suppression means no DNA count. But this count does not measure virus particles, only DNA litter, remnants from unknown acttivty that has never been proven to be HIV activity.  read more »

NotAIDS! has been saying for some time that many of the same immunosuppresive symptoms attributed to HIV can be a misdiagnosis of intestinal or other parasite infections.

Research has been published here that shows identical proteins and surface proteins are expressed by various parasites as by HIV, such as p24, gp160.

Not long ago, there was a splashy announcement in the mainstream press that "HIV lives in the gut" and hides out in the lymphatic tissue.  Interesting, since intestinal parasites hang out in the same neighborhood.

How coincidental that Irritable Bowel Syndrome affected a great many gay men in the 1970s, but this "syndrome" - a eupheism for intestinal parasites - disappeared suddenly around 1981, and was replaced with something called GRID - Gay Related Immune Deficiency -, ultimately becoming known as AIDS.

To fit the HIV/AIDS model, any disease occuring in the presence of a silly little antibody to an even sillier little retrovirus named unimaginitively,  Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is "coinfection." 

Keeping this in mind, divert for a moment and ask yourself, when you have the flu, or  a cold, is it said that you are "coinfected" with mononucleosis or meningitis - which you had when you were in college and for which you still have antibodies?  read more »

NotAIDS! Opinion
March 22, 2008

A comment on the press release, Poor Sanitation Threatens Public Health by the UN and WHO

Over the last two years, NotAIDS! has featured numerous articles on the twin health problems whose parent is poverty, malnutrition and sanitation.

The lack of adequate caloric and nutritional intake, and the basic lack of potable, parasite-free drinking water because of insufficient sanitation systems in Africa and in other areas of the world, such as India, China, and many developing nations, has more to do with immune deficiency everywhere than an engima called HIV.

Indeed, NotAIDS! has published vitriolic opinions against the policies and diatribe of the United Nations (UNAIDS, UN Health) and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their dogged misplacement of financial and political support of the behemoth that is the AIDS industry.

In editorial fairness, the wisdom in the press release republished here is lauded. Hopefully it signals a shift toward common sense dictating policy rather than meddling into people's sex lives or trying to circumsise the African continent.  read more »

Joint News Release WHO/UNICEF

Poor sanitation threatens public health

6 in 10 Africans remain without access to proper toilet

20 MARCH 2008 | GENEVA --

Sixty-two per cent of Africans do not have access to an improved sanitation facility -- a proper toilet -- which separates human waste from human contact, according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.

A global report will be published later this year, however, preliminary data on the situation in Africa was released today as part of World Water Day 2008.

The Day, built around the theme that “Sanitation matters," seeks to draw attention to the plight of some 2.6 billion people around the world who live without access to a toilet at home and thus are vulnerable to a range of health risks.

"Sanitation is a cornerstone of public health," said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Improved sanitation contributes enormously to human health and well-being, especially for girls and women. We know that simple, achievable interventions can reduce the risk of contracting diarrhoeal disease by a third."

Although WHO and UNICEF estimate that 1.2 billion people worldwide gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2004, an estimated 2.6 billion people - including 980 million children – had no toilets at home.

If current trends continue, there will still be 2.4 billion people without basic sanitation in 2015, and the children among them will continue to pay the price in lost lives, missed schooling, in disease, malnutrition and poverty.  read more »