The following blog entry was a tirade in reaction to a debate between AIDS believers (or as the author says, "AIDS lovers") and dissidents on a medical blog.

He clearly has something on his mind and you better listen! One can't help but feel the author's anger as the great HIV debate goes on around him, about his fate, and the fates of countless others who test positive. Do you do as "they" say, or do you go your own way?

I couldn't help but wonder after reading this speech, are poz people unwitting chesspieces in a game of profiteering? Is careerism and money at the root of the AIDS? It does sometimes seem like AIDS is a boon for pharmaceutical, public health, and other AIDS establishments. It makes you wonder...

-- The Editor

The blog entry posted on Aetiology, September 28, 2006 03:26 AM. It begins here.

How many of you are HIV positive? How many of you high and mighty pundits live every day with fear that any runny nose, stomach cramp, headache, or sore throat is THE AIDS and the THE END is near?

For 20 years as an every-six-month-tester, thank-GOD-it's-still-negative! gay guy, I lived with this fear.

For the last six months this fear has been magnified by the dreaded TEST result gleefully recited POSITIVE by the "counselor" who left me alone to tremble with ashen face and shaky knees as I yelped the words, "I need water," and busy Gay and Lesbian Center employees rushed about with great self-importance.

You, HIV-ers, you, AIDS-lovers, you, you are a sorry bunch. You do nothing useful; you never actually show anybody anything about being well, getting well, or living life to its fullest. All you do is incessantly rant about the latest bullshit mutant discovery, blog on and on about an ever-growing array of "anti-virals" that cause buffalo humps, heart disease, liver failure, face deformation, and old grey skin. Do you call that helping?

Thank God I decided that this HIV scare would be no different from the other situations in my life, where I saved myself from incompetent "professionals" who doubted my own conclusions based upon my own feelings in my own body, my own thoughts in my own head.

I would research first. Foremost, I would not jump into a "regimen" and be led like a lost boy along the road to "adherence."

There was a nagging voice that kept asking, "If there is no cure, and the virus is always fatal, and anti-virals don't cure HIV, nor decrease infectiousness, then why the hell would I be interested in all those PILLS that cause all those side effects?

I don't feel sick, and never felt sick, or acute, or whatever the freaking term is you HIV storytellers use to describe the unholy SEROCONVERSION.

Well put your pens down, take off your glasses, loosen your tie, undo the knot in your head, look out the window, and think for a moment.

When you're ready to actually pay attention to someone truly in the "field" - someone truly qualified to talk about HIV, you will hear me clearly. I don't want your help. I have never taken your AIDS drugs, and I am not interested, but thanks for offering.

I am a thriving, living, person, and NOT a PWA. I am not ill, nor have I suffered any of those AIDS infections, except for the 3 or so I had over the 20 years when I was -gasp- NEGATIVE.

My CD4 count is stable, and NORMAL, and it never was anything but NORMAL, as the doctor said, there is "NOT ONE abnormal result." My weight is stable and healthy, and my life continues, unimpacted, as two doctors agree. THanks be to God he gave me a brain. One doctor, meaning well, tried with a perfunctory, "Wait...we can..uh... do things." "What things?" I ask. I don't need any "things" thank you very much.

Attention AIDS lovers, I will not adhere to your insane suggestion that I take some DNA altering pills that won't cure HIV, nor prevent AIDS, whatever that may be, and isn't certain to do anything but give me loose bowels, gaunt jowels, or to take the cushion off my ass and put it in my back. I like my butt, and I like my jaw line, and my back, that's nice too. Certainly it's my body and I'd like to keep it that way.

The unsung heroes of the AIDS century are clearly those genuine and humble scientists who want to uncover the TRUTH, who don't claim to know all the answers, who admit they are ignorant, and who stand up for a CONTINUING pursuit of proven knowledge, even if it disproves an earlier belief.

As a gay man you can imagine, (in the words of the inimitable Whitney Houston, said to some vapid news hostess) "I HAVE partied."

Do I feel resentment towards someone who suggests that certain party favors may cause changes in my cells that can generally be reversed? NO! Of course I don't. I knew exactly what I was putting up my nose; I'm not proud of it, but I won't wear HIV-branded blinders. How laughable it is. All those years of partying and -gasp- unsafe sex- oh my! - never saw me seroconvert; it wasn't until I decided to settle down and be monogamous was I served the cursed news. How's that for irony!?)

HIV/AIDS lovers, please spare us all the high-mindedness, and please don't try to speak for me, gay 37 year old "poz" guy who is fine and isn't on your pills, won't ever be on your pills, and who doesn't require any of your time. It's a shame untold billions have been spent on AIDS when we all knew sleep and nutrition were not optional.

Still reading? There must be a conference you should be attending. You better check your calendar. Do you want me to call you a cab?

Go find something to do in life where you can really make a difference if that is what you want to do. It certainly isn't HIV and AIDS. These I think have overstayed their welcome. The market is SATURATED.

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