What is AIDS?

What is AIDS?
 
AIDS stands for acquired immunity deficiency syndrome. To have AIDS, one must have tested positive on an HIV test and have another disease that is known as an "AIDS defining disease." These diseases include: yeast infections (candida), cervical cancer, Kaposis Sarcoma, tuberculosis, cytomegalovirus, and pneumonia. While some of the "AIDS defining" illnesses and conditions can be fatal, many of them are not. Some of these conditions can actually cause a person to receive a "positive test result." Some of the drugs currently available for people diagnosed with HIV cause side effects that are now known as AIDS symptoms - facial wasting, brittle bones, fat redistribution, etc. For example, AZT, a commonly used AIDS drug, has recently been found to cause cancer.
The symptoms of AIDS seem to have changed over the years. That's because illnesses and conditions have been gradually added to the group of maladies that are now called AIDS. In the beginning, only 12 conditions were called "AIDS."
Now there are 28 illnesses and conditions in this group. That's why there were sudden increases in the number of "people with AIDS."
When the Centers for Disease Control give statistics for AIDS deaths, we are often given cumulative figures for deaths over several years, rather than numbers of how many people died each year. When the figures are scrutinized it is found that the actual numbers of deaths attributed to AIDS has been declining since 1993.
AIDS appears to be declining in the United States, yet AIDS service organizations scramble for funding as if there were an exploding number of AIDS cases. Money raised to aid these groups seems to go to everyone except those who need it most, the very poor.
The number of AIDS cases are estimates, not real figures. It is not possible to get an accurate count because there are problems simply to get the population correct due to war, flooding and drought. Many people are being forced to temporarily relocate or permanently seek refuge somewhere new.
It's important to know that AIDS in many countries is still defined by four clinical symptoms only. These are: diarrhea, fever, persistent cough, and a weight loss greater than 10% over two months. If a person in a very isolated rural setting dies and has one or more of these symptoms, they may be labeled by a health-worker as having died of AIDS, when the actual cause of death is often not investigated or known.
Far more people are ill (and often die) from tuberculosis and malaria than AIDS, but it is hard to get relief for these diseases. Many people are faced with a crisis of finding nutritious fresh food and clean drinking water, but there seems to be plenty of US dollars to send questionable AIDS drugs to poor countries as a "good will" gesture.
Sending AIDS drugs to poor countries would be indicated except that many of the AIDS drugs seem to be killing more people than they are saving, with side effects like heart attacks, strokes, fatal rashes and liver disease.
AIDS is known as immune suppression, but what does that mean? That seems terribly vague, somehow. There many factors that help break down someone's natural defenses, but malnutrition, toxic environment, and emotional distress seem to be the most obvious reasons.
 AIDS makes it possible for some people to feel justified in hating those who have been placed in "high-risk groups". Violence against the homeless, prostitutes, people who use drugs and gay men has somehow become acceptable - because they are portrayed as "spreaders of disease" by the media, clergy and politicians. Africa, long blamed for AIDS, now too is a target of scorn, pity and horrendous experiments..
 It is my wish that this website will help sort through the mystery that has shrouded the AIDS phenomenon. If you want to know the truth, open your mind and get busy reading - knowledge is power. However, news from the mainstream press about AIDS is often confusing. For instance, why is AIDS more common in gay men in the US, but more common in straight people in Africa and other places?
Why is funding for AIDS research our top priority when more people die from heart and lung disease, and car-related accidents? Read from every source you can, including the so-called "dissident" AIDS information. Read HIV test kit inserts - ask your doctor for one.
What's the controversy? Well, for one thing, where's the virus? Although there are plenty of images supposely representing HIV on the internet and in books, there are no actual photos of HIV because the virus hasn't been properly isolated. It cannot be duplicated in a lab, like other viruses traditionally have. HIV tests look for antibodies rather than a virus. Also, if these tests are so accurate why are risk-factor surveys given before the test? Often if a test comes back indeterminate - not positive or negative - the technician will refer to the background of the patient - how many sex partners, what drugs taken, what race you are, etc. If the patient is poor, an injection-drug user, a prostitute, in prison or gay, the technician or doctor may conclude that it means a positive result. A truly accurate test shouldn't have to rely on what a person writes in a questionnaire.