Important comment from a reader

A reader by the name of Johannes Kries left two comments regarding antiretroviral drugs in general and AZT in particular on my recent post, The Drugs Don’t Work. The information contained in these comments is important enough that I’m reposting them here, with permission, rather than leaving them lost and buried in the comments section. I don’t agree one hundred percent with every word (when does that ever happen for anyone?), but please read this. It’s very important. The very first sentence of this comment is extremely relevant, so I’ve added boldface, as well as in other places I’d like to highlight. Other than adding boldface, I have changed nothing about the original comments.

One of the many tricks of the pharma industry concerns the massive dosage reduction of the putative antiretroviral medication and the switch to far less toxic substances over the last decades. One had started with 1500 mg AZT in the Burroughs-Wellcome trial in 1986/87,

• Richman et al., “The toxicity of azidothymidine (AZT) in the treatment of patients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex. A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial”, N Engl J Med, 1987 Jul 23;317(4):192-7, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3299090/

“Twenty-one percent of AZT recipients and 4 percent of placebo recipients required multiple red-cell transfusions (P less than 0.001). Neutropenia (less than 500 cells per cubic millimeter) occurred in 16 percent of AZT recipients, as compared with 2 percent of placebo recipients (P less than 0.001).”

“Although a subset of patients tolerated AZT for an extended period with few toxic effects, the drug should be administered with caution because of its toxicity and the limited experience with it to date.”

Nobody can survive 1,5 g AZT per day(!) over months. The patients received blood transfusions to survive the treatment, because AZT damages the bone marrow where the blood cells are formed. That is all well documented but it was never mentioned by the press.

Over the next decades one reduced the dosages drastically and switched to far less toxic medications like Tenofovir. Many highly toxic substances have been taken from the market. Lo and behold, people treated that way live longer.

This dosage reduction over the last 37 years (counted from 1986) is not monitored and it is never mentioned in studies on the life expectancy of HIV+ measured persons under treatment. But the claim is that due to the "improved" substances HIV+ measures people live longer. The opposite is true. Because of the less toxic substances in much lower concentration they die less fast.

The latest putative HIV (not AIDS!) medication is Descovy. One of the active substances is Tenofovir. It is also used for PrEP, i.e. a supposed prophylaxis in HIV-neg. measured persons. Descovy contains by a factor of 9 less Tenofovir as the predecessor Truvada with respect to the molecular weight of the Tenofovir formulations. And people taking Descovy show much less kidney damages and reduction of the bone density than persons taking Truvada.

There was a real AID Syndrome in the 1980s and 1990 in homosexuals in the USA, who suffered from multiple infections with sexually transmitted diseases (due to frequent anal intercourse), after years of drug abuse (especially amyl nitrites, poppers) and years of antibiotics abuse (to protect against sexually transmitted diseases, like gonorrhoea, syphilis, herpes, hepatitis A and B, CMV and so on).

But it never had anything to do with a virus, that infects 1 in 5000 CD4 cells and thus in a far to low concentration to explain the decline of CD4 cells in the real AID Syndrome. In the real AID Syndrome, in severely drug addicted and multiple infected homosexuals, the not-infected CD4 cells died. That is called the "bystander cell enigma". This problem of the virus hypothesis of the AID Syndrome can be traced back to the 1980s and even publications by Robert Gallo on this point.

In a publication from 2013 John Coffin and Ronald Swanstrom point that problem out very clearly, "we still cannot answer the one big question: How does HIV-1 cause AIDS?”

• Coffin, Swanstrom, “HIV Pathogenesis: Dynamics and Genetics of Viral Populations and Infected Cells”, Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2013 Jan; 3(1), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3530041/

“HOW DOES HIV-1 CAUSE AIDS? As is apparent from this article and the rest of the collection, in the 25+ years since its discovery, we have learned an enormous amount about HIV, but we still cannot answer the one big question: How does HIV-1 cause AIDS?”

“Even if we knew the mechanism of HIV-mediated cell killing, we would not know how HIV-1 causes CD4+ T-cell decline and AIDS in humans. The observation that virus and cell turnover rates in various SIVs in their natural hosts (such as SIVsm in sooty mangabeys), which do not progress to AIDS, are essentially identical to those in humans, who do progress, implies that cell killing alone cannot account for AIDS pathogenesis. Indeed, this result is consistent with the high natural turnover rate of activated effector memory helper T cells, the primary target for HIV-1 infection, on the order of 10^10 cells per day, of which only a small fraction are infected after the initial primary infection phase.”

We know from the co-discoverer of the HI Virus and Nobel Prize winner Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, that every HIV+ measured person carries his own variants of the HI virus.

• Barré-Sinoussi et al., “Expert consensus statement on the science of HIV in the context of criminal law.”, J Int AIDS Soc. 2018 Jul;21(7):e25161, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30044059

“Mutations of the virus occur repeatedly so that every person living with HIV has more than one virus variant [154]. During transmission, a limited number of virus variants (one to a few) are transmitted, but these will also mutate to form new variants so that no two persons’ HIV is identical [155].”

Thus every HIV+ measured persons has his own individual infection. But it is supposed to be always the same molecular mechanism.

There is absolutely no proof, that at least 13 zoonoses occurred in Africa around 1930 from SIV in apes and monkey to HIV in humans, as science claims,

• Hahn et al. “AIDS as a zoonosis: scientific and public health implications.”, Science. 2000 Jan 28; 287(5453):607-14, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10649986

“How the AIDS epidemic actually began, what the contributing factors were, and why it appeared in the mid- to late 20th century (and not before) are not known. Whatever the final answers are, they must account for

(i) at least seven separate introductions of SIVcpz and SIVsm viruses into humans;

(ii) the fact that the HIV-1 group M, N, and O viruses are significantly more closely related to SIVcpz viruses from P. t. troglodytes than to the single SIVcpz isolate from P. t. schweinfurthii; and

(iii) the estimation of 1930 (range 1910 to 1950) as the timing of the last common ancestor of the HIV-1 group M viruses.”

• Peeters et al., „Origin and diversity of human retroviruses.”, AIDS Rev. 2014 Jan-Mar;16(1):23-34, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289907/

“More in detailed studies showed that SIVs from chimpanzees and gorillas have crossed the species barrier on at least four occasions leading to HIV-1 group M, N, O and P in humans [6,23]. The different HIV-2 groups are the result from at least nine independant transmissions of SIVs from sooty mangabeys in west Africa [6,23,24].”

That would have been a very bizarre coincidence in Africa around 1930 which 50 years later lead to an epidemic among homosexuals in the USA.

Until today there is no animals model for HIV. Apes don't get AIDS.

Here is the second part:

First of all, AZT (Zidovudine, ZDV) is not discontinued. It is worldwide in use. One finds it for example in Table 20 on the severe adverse effects of antiretroviral substances (against HIV, not AIDS!) on HIV.gov,

• HIV.gov, “Adverse Effects of Antiretroviral Agents”, Dec. 18, 2019, https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/guidelines/adult-and-adolescent-arv/adverse-effects-antiretroviral-agents

[Table 20]

AZT is listed as ZDV there, with reference to the marketing name Zidovudine.

As the text on the webpage states Didanosine (ddI), Stavudine (d4T), Fosamprenavir (FPV), Indinavir (IDV), Nelfinavir (NFV), Saquinavir (SQV) and Tipranavir (TPV) have been removed from the market, though some are kept on this list because the adverse effects can persist over many years.

Secondly, and more importantly, it was AZT that created the myth of the killer virus. AZT was released for broad use around 1990 without proper testing under the pressure of activists groups like ACT-UP and Anthony Fauci. By the "parallel track" program instigated by Anthony Fauci more experimental drug similar to AZT, like Didanosine (ddI), became available for broad use at that time. That opened the box of the Pandora, because AZT, ddI and all the other substances are highly toxic, see below. Listen to Jim Eigo from ACT-UP in 1989,

• Jim Eigo (ACT UP), “AIDS Issues: Parallel track proposal for clinical drug development”, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, Testimony July 20 1989, https://books.google.de/books?id=t7UdAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA42&ots=loBsGOTbIO&dq=azt%20%E2%80%9Ccompassionate%E2%80%9D%20drug%20release%20program&hl=de&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q=azt%20%E2%80%9Ccompassionate%E2%80%9D%20drug%20release%20program&f=false

“PARALLEL TRACK RATIONALE”

“AIDS is a new disease one which makes a person susceptible to a host of opportunistic infections There is only one approved anti AIDS drug AZT a drug which many people cannot tolerate."

"In addition, many of the drugs that are used to treat AIDS related opportunistic infections become standard of care long before they are fully approved by FDA. It's imperative that drugs to fight AIDS or related infections be available to people who are ill and have no reasonable treatment alternatives long before those drugs gain the FDA's full marketing approval. Yet most of the people who could benefit from investigational AIDS drugs will be ineligible for the drugs, clinical trials or otherwise unable to enter then. The best treatment for many people with acquired immune suppression and its related infections will for the foreseeable future be with drugs that are still investigational. People for whom the only alternative is death or the deterioration of the quality of life cannot ethically be asked to wait for drug until all the bureaucratic niceties have been fulfilled.”

In the 1980s and 1990s the homosexuals were severely sick from their life style. (OKT4 and OKT8 are old names for CD4 and CD8 cells.)

• Pifer et al., “Borderline immunodeficiency in male homosexuals: is life-style contributory?”, South Med J. 1987 Jun;80(6):687-91, 697, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2954211

“Seventy-four percent of the homosexual male subjects were "recreational" drug abusers, 81% used inhalant nitrites routinely, and 41% routinely treated themselves with antibiotics. Eighty-one percent practiced active and/or passive penile-oral insertion, and 55.5% practiced both active and passive anal intercourse. Of the latter, 19% reported anal bleeding.”

And Jim Eigo referred to safety studies for new experimental drugs as “bureaucratic niceties”.

Before 1990 AZT was given for “compassionate use”. The without any new virus severely sick homosexuals now received as a “treatment” a highly toxic drug, AZT. And that in extremely high concentrations, 1500 mg per day(!). Nobody can survive that. The CDC, the FDA, the NIAID (under Anthony Fauci), the science and the pharma industry ignored the toxicity of AZT and instead promoted the story of the killer virus.

The activists together with Anthony Fauci condemned their fellow citizens to a painful and terrible death by AZT the moment one of these bogus HIV tests showed positive. At the time the main test was the Western Blot test which shows as a result a pattern of bands, caused by proteins that are supposedly associated with HIV. Until today, with the same pattern of bands, one can be HIV positive in one country and HIV negative in another country.

In 1994 Seligmann et al. repeated the phony Bourroughs-Wellcome trial on AZT from 1986/87 in the CONCORDE trial (with a dosage reduction from 1500 mg AZT to 1000 mg AZT per day). To not damage the narrative Seligmann et al. were only allowed to compare the immediate use of AZT (Imm) to the deferred use of AZT (Def). They found no effect, but they confirmed the high toxicity of AZT.

• Seligmann et al ”Concorde: MRC/ANRS randomised double-blind controlled trial of immediate and deferred zidovudine in symptom-free HIV infection” Lancet 1994; 343: 871-81, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2894%2990006-X/abstract

“The results of Concorde do not encourage the early use of zidovudine in symptom-free HIV-infected adults. They also call into question the uncritical use of CD4 cell counts as a surrogate endpoint for assessment of benefit from long-term antiretroviral therapy.”

“In all, 99 Imm and 38 Def participants stopped trial capsules because of adverse events. In only 16 Imm and 2 Def was haematological toxicity the main reason; in the rest it was predominantly gastrointestinal or neurological symptoms (headache) or malaise (table 6). One or more blood transfusions were received by 18 Imm and 11 Def while they were taking trial capsules.”

And again some of the participants had to receive blood transfusions to survive the trial, because AZT destroys the bone marrow where the blood cells are formed.

In the beginning AZT was the only substance used for the alleged treatment of HIV (not AIDS!) starting 1986 until the early 1990s, i.e. for almost 10 years, and all adverse effects up to death were attributed to the HI virus. The HI virus did nothing. It was the AZT that damaged and killed HIV+ measured people under treatment. At that time, between 1986 and the early 1990s, the story of the killer virus was created.

AZT was the first substance from the class of nucleoside analogues. Tenofovir is a nucleotide analogue, which is a similar substance class. AZT and all the other substances from these substance classes damage the mitochondria, the energy supply of the cells. That is undisputed.

• Gardner, “HIV treatment and associated mitochondrial pathology: review of 25 years of in vitro, animal, and human studies.”, Toxicol Pathol. 2014 Jul;42(5):811-22, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24067671

“In 1988, the suggestion that the first antiretroviral drug, zidovudine, was the potential cause of muscle pathology in HIV-infected persons resulted in structural and biochemical patient studies demonstrating acquired mitochondrial dysfunction. Assessment of subsequent nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) antiretroviral drugs has indicated that mitochondria are a common target of NRTI toxicity in multiple tissues, leading to a wide variety of pathology ranging from lipodystrophy to neuropathy. Overwhelmingly, these complications have emerged during post-licensing human studies.”

“Millions of patients have been treated with mitochondrially toxic NRTIs and these drugs remain the backbone of antiretroviral rollout in much of sub-Saharan Africa.”

The damaging of the mitochondria, which are in all cells, lead to many kinds of tissue damages, in the heart, the nerves, the kidney, the liver, the stomach, the gastrointestinal tract, the bone marrow, the skin and so on. And always science claimed that is was the virus. AZT killed people from the start and ACT-UP and Anthony Fauci made it possible.

In 1996 the so called “highly active antiretroviral therapy” (HAART) was invented, which consists of a combination of 3 to 4 different substances. But one of the substances is always a nucleoside or nucleotide analogue like AZT. Due to the now lower concentrations of the nucleoside and nucleotide analogues, it took longer in the lifelong therapy until the severe damages showed up. The official interpretation was, that the “medication” helped better. The opposite is true. The damages progressed more slowly.

That the so called “therapy” did not have any effect, can be also seen from the fact that many people, who did not take these substances, did not show symptoms of the AID Syndrome, even with a CD4 cell count below 200. That was already known in 1995.

• Hoover et al., “Long-term survival without clinical AIDS after CD4+ cell counts fall below 200 x 10(6)/l.”, AIDS. 1995 Feb;9(2):145-52, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7718184

“Although antiretroviral therapy and Pneumocystis carinii prophylaxis extend AIDS-free survival, 45% of the group who were AIDS-free > or = 3 years after CD4+ cells fell below 200 x 10(6)/l had not used these treatments.”

“CONCLUSIONS:

Significant numbers of individuals remain free of illnesses and AIDS symptoms > or = 3 years after CD4+ cell counts drop below 200 x 10(6)/l. This occurs even in the absence of treatment. The associations seen here suggest that host and viral factors play important roles.”

But science and the pharma industry claimed that they had developed a “live saving therapy”. AZT had been a cancer drug, which was not approved because it was too toxic. But instead of taking it for 10 – 14 days as in chemo therapy, AZT and the drugs from this and similar substance classes (nucleoside and nucleotide analogues) are now taken for the rest of the remaining life.

Thank you so much Mr. Kries for this extremely relevant information, and for kindly allowing me to reprint it. Here are two links to articles written by Mr. Kries for those curious for further information.

The Real AIDS Epidemic available in Kindle and hardcover.