AIDS drugs

In the 1980s medical science decided that AIDS is caused entirely by HIV. They thought AZT might be a cure, and did a clinical trial of AZT vs no drug for AIDS patients. Early in the trial, more patients died in the no drug group, so they decided that AZT works. And they decided it works by killing HIV, and allowing the immune system to recover. They stopped the experiment, because they didn't want to prevent any AIDS patients from getting AZT.

The study was very short, a few months. If it had continued, the results might have been very different.

So AZT became the standard treatment for AIDS. Newer drugs were developed, and they were tested by comparing them to AZT. Newer drugs were never compared against no drug, because it would be unethical to deprive patients of a treatment that was known to work.

However, it was not really known that AZT works. If newer drugs work better than AZT, it might be simply because they are less toxic. AZT is extremely toxic, and some people believe they actually killed AIDS patients, rather than curing them.

The mainstream consensus now is that AIDS is caused entirely by HIV, and that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) are the best treatment. It's hard to find any dissenting information now, maybe because Google feels it's unethical to allow access to alternative views on this subject.

No one really knows if AIDS is actually entirely explained by HIV. Even one of the discoverers of HIV, Montagnier, doesn't think so.

No one really knows if AZT, and the newer ARV drugs, is a good treatment for AIDS.

No one really knows exactly how toxic ARV drugs are, especially when taken for decades. It is known that there are serious side effects with long-term use, but just how serious is not really known.

Since the AIDS drugs do not cure AIDS, they must be taken for life. And they are very toxic, and interfere with some basic biological processes within cells.

I do not think this is a conspiracy, but it's like a conspiracy. The experts who are in control of the AIDS situation want their theories to be correct, and are not able to perceive any defects in their theories. They don't see things they don't want to look at. And they don't want anyone else to look either.

Good4Nothin said:

In the 1980s medical science decided that AIDS is caused entirely by HIV. They thought AZT might be a cure, and did a clinical trial of AZT vs no drug for AIDS patients. Early in the trial, more patients died in the no drug group, so they decided that AZT works. And they decided it works by killing HIV, and allowing the immune system to recover. They stopped the experiment, because they didn't want to prevent any AIDS patients from getting AZT.

The study was very short, a few months. If it had continued, the results might have been very different.

So AZT became the standard treatment for AIDS. Newer drugs were developed, and they were tested by comparing them to AZT. Newer drugs were never compared against no drug, because it would be unethical to deprive patients of a treatment that was known to work.

However, it was not really known that AZT works. If newer drugs work better than AZT, it might be simply because they are less toxic. AZT is extremely toxic, and some people believe they actually killed AIDS patients, rather than curing them.

The mainstream consensus now is that AIDS is caused entirely by HIV, and that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) are the best treatment. It's hard to find any dissenting information now, maybe because Google feels it's unethical to allow access to alternative views on this subject.

No one really knows if AIDS is actually entirely explained by HIV. Even one of the discoverers of HIV, Montagnier, doesn't think so.

No one really knows if AZT, and the newer ARV drugs, is a good treatment for AIDS.

No one really knows exactly how toxic ARV drugs are, especially when taken for decades. It is known that there are serious side effects with long-term use, but just how serious is not really known.

Since the AIDS drugs do not cure AIDS, they must be taken for life. And they are very toxic, and interfere with some basic biological processes within cells.

I do not think this is a conspiracy, but it's like a conspiracy. The experts who are in control of the AIDS situation want their theories to be correct, and are not able to perceive any defects in their theories. They don't see things they don't want to look at. And they don't want anyone else to look either.

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Wrong

A rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial of AZT was conducted by Burroughs-Wellcome and proved that AZT safely prolongs the lives of people with HIV

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198707233170401

Crovax said:

Wrong

A rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial of AZT was conducted by Burroughs-Wellcome and proved that AZT safely prolongs the lives of people with HIV

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198707233170401

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Yes, that is the study. It lasted a few months. It was the only study that ever compared AZT, or any AIDS drug, to no drug.

So, as I said, we have no idea if the AZT group would have continued doing better than the no drug group if the study had not been stopped early. It was supposed to continue for 2 years, but that probably wouldn't be long enough either.

In addition -- one medical study is NEVER considered to be conclusive. It would have to be replicated, and this one never was.

Positive results can happen by chance, or because of defects in the experiment's design or analysis.

Good4Nothin said:

Yes, that is the study. It lasted a few months. It was the only study that ever compared AZT, or any AIDS drug, to no drug.

So, as I said, we have no idea if the AZT group would have continued doing better than the no drug group if the study had not been stopped early. It was supposed to continue for 2 years, but that probably wouldn't be long enough either.

In addition -- one medical study is NEVER considered to be conclusive. It would have to be replicated, and this one never was.

Positive results can happen by chance, or because of defects in the experiment's design or analysis.

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You dont have a clue what you are talking about. The Burroughs-Wellcome study last 16 weeks (about 4 months) and it was only supposed to last 6 months. The reason it was cut short was because of how overwhelming the results were. Less than 1% of the AZT group died while over 10% of the placebo group died.

Then when it went to market it only proved it further by comparison of AZT takers vs no medicine (since virtually no other medicine was available and most couldn't even afford it) as AZT takers lived much longer.

There is no doubt that AZT works

Crovax said:

You dont have a clue what you are talking about. The Burroughs-Wellcome study last 16 weeks (about 4 months) and it was only supposed to last 6 months. The reason it was cut short was because of how overwhelming the results were. Less than 1% of the AZT group died while over 10% of the placebo group died.

Then when it went to market it only proved it further by comparison of AZT takers vs no medicine (since virtually no other medicine was available and most couldn't even afford it) as AZT takers lived much longer.

There is no doubt that AZT works

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The only controlled experiment comparing any AIDS drug to no drug lasted a few months. That is much too short, especially since the drugs are taken for decades. And ONLY ONE study is never considered conclusive. Never.

There is an enormous amount of PR surrounding this. You have to look at more than the PR.

Good4Nothin said:

In the 1980s medical science decided that AIDS is caused entirely by HIV. They thought AZT might be a cure, and did a clinical trial of AZT vs no drug for AIDS patients. Early in the trial, more patients died in the no drug group, so they decided that AZT works. And they decided it works by killing HIV, and allowing the immune system to recover.

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Wow, this is almost entirely wrong.

To start with, AZT is not a cure. There is no cure, we have never been able to "cure" a virus. Not one, ever.

And AZT also does not work by "killing the virus". Once again, we can not kill a virus. What AZT does is inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate itself. Think of it more like giving it a birth control pill. In doing so they stop the out of control replication of the disease, but they do not kill or eliminate it.

But those infected still have the virus. Stop taking the drug, and afterwards the virus count will increase again until the patient actually develops full blown AIDS.

Oozlefinch said:

Wow, this is almost entirely wrong.

To start with, AZT is not a cure. There is no cure, we have never been able to "cure" a virus. Not one, ever.

And AZT also does not work by "killing the virus". Once again, we can not kill a virus. What AZT does is inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate itself. Think of it more like giving it a birth control pill. In doing so they stop the out of control replication of the disease, but they do not kill or eliminate it.

But those infected still have the virus. Stop taking the drug, and afterwards the virus count will increase again until the patient actually develops full blown AIDS.

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I was saying what they thought, at that time. They thought AZT would cure AIDS by destroying HIV. Ok, maybe "killed" isn't exactly the right word and I should have said "prevent from replicating." Same effect. No more HIV.

That was the THEORY. One brief study supposedly confirmed the theory. That NEVER happens in medical science. You cannot confirm a theory that way, with no replication.

You have merely re-stated the current theory, which also has not been scientifically confirmed. Yes, right, we now know that HIV can't be destroyed by drugs, only suppressed. So toxic chemotherapy continues for the patient's whole life. Does that sound healthy to you?

"Stop taking the drug, and afterwards the virus count will increase again until the patient actually develops full blown AIDS."

Has that ever been confirmed by any scientific research? Or just a clinical observation here and there? How many patients actually stop the drugs and never get AIDS? How would they know, if those people are no longer patients?

The AIDS latency period can be very long, which makes it harder to know whether HIV infection inevitably leads to AIDS.

There are anecdotal stories on both sides. You have chosen to believe the official story. How do we know it's correct?

Why would there be a conspiracy to fool the public into thinking AIDS has been explained, and that ARV drugs are the best current treatment? There is a lot of money and reputations at stake. But I don't think it's a real conspiracy. Sometimes an expert consensus is formed that can be very resistant to criticism.

When you see mainstream medical news unanimously declaring the same story, you feel very secure that it's true. But think about it.

Good4Nothin said:

I was saying what they thought, at that time. They thought AZT would cure AIDS by destroying HIV. Ok, maybe "killed" isn't exactly the right word and I should have said "prevent from replicating." Same effect. No more HIV.

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They NEVER thought that!

These are scientists, they knew the simple fact that so many do not comprehend, that there is no way to cure a virus.

That is why although pneumonia is easily treatable and survivable, viral pneumonia is often fatal. Because it is a virus and can not be cured.

And they knew that "preventing it from replicating" would not solve the problem either. Because it would never be 100% effective. No more than such attempts to solve the problems with rabbits, deer and mosquitos via sterilization will work. It keeps it under control (hopefully), nothing more.

They knew it would never kill or destroy the virus. It only (like every other virus ever) keeps it under control. Because it targets our immune system it can never be eliminated because the immune system itself is compromised once somebody is infected.

And yes, there is no doubt that HIV causes AIDS. Show me a single individual that has AIDS and not HIV, an then we will talk. But in over 40 years that has never happened, so I will count this nonsense you are claiming as "Busted".

And no, it has not a damned thing to do with "believing the official story". It has to do with using logic. Something that conspiracy theories always fail to do. Especially when the theory (like yours) fails at almost every step of the process. I am a computer professional, logic is a keystone to how I have made a living for the last 4 decades. And I am also what I call a "Professional Skeptic", and reject 98% of all conspiracy theories because they simply make no sense. If your claim was true, then decades ago they would have buried the Polio vaccine. Because there was just too damned much money to be made in polio treatments, limb braces, and iron lungs.

And nobody would be working on a vaccine for Ebola, because there is so much money that can be saved if we were no longer pouring billions of dollars a year into sub-Saharan Africa. Let them all die off, and with the money saved once the area is underpopulated we could all own new cars and live in a Thanos inspired paradise.

Oozlefinch said:

Show me a single individual that has AIDS and not HIV, an then we will talk. But in over 40 years that has never happened, so I will count this nonsense you are claiming as "Busted".

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Right, every AIDS patient has HIV. All dogs are mammals. Are all mammals dogs?

Oozlefinch said:

They NEVER thought that!

These are scientists, they knew the simple fact that so many do not comprehend, that there is no way to cure a virus.

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They have been saying the reason ARV drugs don't kill HIV is because HIV mutates and becomes resistant.

I have explained that there has been almost no controlled scientific research showing that HIV inevitably leads to AIDS, or that ARV drugs are an effective treatment. One brief AZT study, as I explained.

They can't possibly know how many people with HIV do not have AIDS and are not taking ARV drugs. And they have never done a longterm comparison of HIV positive people with or without drugs.

Good4Nothin said:

Right, every AIDS patient has HIV. All dogs are mammals. Are all mammals dogs?

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Then show us some that do not have HIV.

Simply giving a snarky reply with nothing to back it up is a fail.

Good4Nothin said:

They have been saying the reason ARV drugs don't kill HIV is because HIV mutates and becomes resistant.

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No, once again you completely and utterly fail.

NO (none, zilch, nada,) Antiviral drugs kill the pathogen. And it has nothing to do with the pathogen mutating. As I previously described with AZT, all they do is inhibit the ability to replicate in the host body. We already went over this.

What happens is that in most cases, this inhibiting lowers the number of the virus in the body, allowing the antibodies of the host themselves to overcome and eliminate (not destroy) the virus. But because HIV compromises the immune system this does not happen.

HIV does not "resist" anything. It works by infecting the immune system itself. By infecting the cells that make up the immune system, they actually are how this virus replicates and spreads to the rest of the body. That it mutates does not matter a damned bit.

Why you insist on failing over and over is beyond me. Antiviral drugs do not kill a virus. HIV causes AIDS. A virus does not become "Resistant", you are thinking of bacteria there which can indeed become resistant to antibiotics. In almost everything you keep posting you are completely wrong.

https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/21/56/drug-resistance

"As HIV multiplies in the body, the virus sometimes changes form (mutates). Some HIV mutations that develop while a person is taking HIV medicines can lead to drug-resistant strains of HIV."