NotAIDS! Excerpts

Editor's note: As you read the following, ask yourself, how many people have died from the AIDS drugs and not AIDS? Note the AIDS drug-disease connection in these well-written, emotionally charged stories. It is unclear if the author did it intentionally, but in these stories, only the individuals who are taking AIDS drugs are sick.

The New York Times and major media outlets insist that without HAART, or ART, or ARVs - whatever the term they use these days for toxic AIDS drugs - HIV positives couldn't go on living. The AIDS drugs like Retrovir which is AZT, or Viramune, or Sustiva, and other RNA / DNA drugs, are poison. You may not know who, but everybody knows somebody who is HIV+ and AIDS-drug free, yet they are living and healthy.

People thrive on nutrition and proper rest. While the occasional antibiotic or herbal supplement is warranted or required, there is no rationale for taking blood-cell-killing, DNA-altering antiretrovirals that block essential body processes. Need proof? Read on.

"The New Face of HIV"
BY MEG NUGENT, Staff Writer, The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ
Sunday, July 16, 2006

"...some also are facing serious side effects -- including lipodystrophy, a disturbance in the way the body handles fat that can result in disfigurement -- from long-term use of potent anti-HIV medications."

-- Meg Nugent, "The New Face of HIV."

"...People can live the rest of their lives with it and die of other, unrelated causes," said physician
Stephen Smith, chief of the department of infectious diseases at Saint Michael's Medical Center in Newark.

He calls it "the new face of HIV."

An estimated 32,885 people are now living with HIV in the State of New Jersey.

But while many patients are thriving for 20 or more years after being diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus, some also are facing serious side effects -- including lipodystrophy, a disturbance in the way the body handles fat that can result in disfigurement -- from long-term use of potent anti-HIV medications.

Here are the stories of five New Jersey people now living with
HIV/AIDS.

Brenda Boone, 56, Newark

Ten years after she was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1983, Boone was wondering why she wasn't getting sick from the virus while scores of her friends were already dead.

"People were dying all around me and I was waiting for my turn," said Boone, who thinks she got infected through unprotected sex or sharing needles when she was a drug addict. "What was going on?"

Her doctor explained Boone is among a small percentage of "nonprogressors," meaning they are HIV-positive but the virus does not attack their immune systems.

"I was elated by that. Knowing I'm a nonprogressor, I can appreciate I have some time. I stop looking at time I might not have and be grateful for the time I do have," said Boone. "There are days I don't even remember I'm HIV-positive. I'm a nonprogressor, so, I'll live."

That's not to say Boone can forget about being HIV-positive, even though she's never needed medications. Boone still gets checked every three months to make sure her body's level of T-cells is high enough to do their job.

She also isn't in perfect health. Boone is being treated for a slow-growing form of breast cancer and is a cervical cancer survivor. She has hepatitis C, which she attributes to needle sharing, and has battled a lifelong case of anemia.

She said her past includes years of homelessness, two brutal rapes and serious depression that led to a couple of suicide attempts.

Today, Boone has her own apartment, works full time as an HIV prevention counselor at Isaiah House in East Orange, and is an active member of her church. She decided to be celibate years ago, partly because of the stigma she said continues to haunt those with the virus.

"I have an issue with rejection," she said. Still, she has chosen to be open about being HIV-positive. "I will not let anybody hold my past or my status against me.

"God wakes me up every day, and I'm all right with being HIV-positive. There are so many more important things I have to do than live in the shadows."

Rick Webster, 16, Tewksbury

He just completed his sophomore year of high school, performs in a rap group, plays basketball, wants to be an actor and likes to break-dance.

"I have the virus," Webster said, "but I try not to think about it. I don't want it to ruin my day. It's a priority, but I want to live like a normal person."

Right now, he's feeling quite normal because he's not on any medication for his HIV, which he contracted through his birth mother. Since infancy, Webster has lived with his adoptive parents, who were told he wouldn't live beyond 5 or 6.

At one point, Webster was swallowing 11 pills each day. "It was a hassle," he said. So sometimes he would hide pills instead of taking them. But he stopped when he realized, "It is what it is and I need to take them."

Webster was taken off HIV medication about two years ago because it caused kidney stones. His medical team closely follows his health and will not put him back on medication as long as his viral load, the amount of HIV virus in his blood, and his T-cells remain at acceptable levels.

"We don't usually have cases that have done as well as he does," said James Oleske, an AIDS researcher at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School, in Newark. He also acknowledged Webster likely will resume taking HIV medication in the future. "The virus has the ability to mutate and change, and become resistant."

Webster's adoptive mother, Kathie, said the family has always been open about her son's HIV-positive status. The teen says his peers always have been supportive. "No one really talks about it. Every kid I hung out with in kindergarten is still my good friend."

Webster's not currently dating, but he has had girlfriends. "I have always told them the truth" about being HIV-positive. He also said he is abstinent.

Webster hasn't always enjoyed the same level of acceptance from some of his peers' parents.

"Parents are not really educated. They didn't know basically about the disease," he said. Webster summed up some parental attitudes as, "You got it, you die."

Elizabeth Perez, 52, Hudson County

She used to wear her hair long to conceal her "buffalo hump," a 4-pound mass of fat on the back of her neck, the result of the lipodystrophy she developed during her 23-year battle with HIV and AIDS.

Although Perez had the hump surgically removed in 2004, she didn't cut her hair short until three months ago. "I thought it (the hump) was going to grow back," said the Cuban native, who was diagnosed in 1990
and traces her infection to 1987, after she divorced and became involved with a boyfriend who she later discovered was bisexual and had AIDS.

Perez, whose T-cell levels fell low enough to be considered a full-blown AIDS patient, takes four pills for the disease and an additional 20 each day to manage side effects and other medical conditions, such as high cholesterol, high tryiglycerides, sleeplessness, nightmares, hypertension, depression and anxiety.

"Living with the virus for so long, your body takes a big toll from the medications and you get tired very easily," Perez said. "I am so tired. I come home, get comfortable and lie down and watch TV until it's time to have something to eat. I take my meds and I go to sleep.

"What keeps me going is anger," said Perez, who has a grown son. "Anger at seeing people getting infected when there is no need for it."

She said she appreciates every day, but she thinks about what might have been. "I wonder what it would have been like to have a normal life -- to be a housewife without HIV, what it would have been like to have family vacations with a husband and child." Perez said she chose not to date again after she learned of her diagnosis.

She finds great purpose in her part-time job as a consumer advocate for the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation. "If God has given me this long time to be healthy and alive for a reason, the reason has been to teach and help others not get infected."

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