O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive. - Walter Scott
N.B. HIV is a fabulous monster, actually. Read all about it in Inventing the AIDS Virus and at Virus Myth (Delphi) Forum and at Alive and Well.
I report and link. You decide. - J :)
From a New York Times article, Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy:
Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy [/] By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. [/] October 24, 2006
With affordable AIDS drugs arriving in many poor countries, experts say a startling and worrisome side effect has emerged: in some patients, the treatment uncovers a hidden leprosy infection.
No one knows how widespread the problem is. Only about a dozen cases have been described in medical literature since the first one was found, in London in 2003. But AIDS specialists in Brazil, India, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere are reporting that some patients on life-saving antiretroviral drugs are developing painful facial ulcers or losing feeling in their fingers and toes.
N.B. These "life-saving" drugs are highly toxic. The observed "good" effects are ephemeral and may be mostly due to other well-known health providing factors such as hospital care. See links in N.B. at top.
And in the third world, where 300,000 new cases of leprosy were discovered last year and where 38 million are infected with the AIDS virus, the problem will inevitably get worse, experts say.
N.B. The evidence indicates that AIDS is a lifestyle disorder and is not infectious. "HIV" is either harmless or cellular debris. Official AIDS statistics are 90% world and national health establishment hype. See links in N.B. at top.
“This is just the peak of the iceberg,” said Dr. William Levis, who treats leprosy patients at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. “It’s early in the game. Most physicians don’t even think about leprosy, so there’s probably much more around than we know.” [/] Dr. Gilla Kaplan, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and one of the first to study connections between AIDS and leprosy, agreed.
Antiretroviral treatment, she said, “is going to flush out the silent leprosy by making it symptomatic.”
Because leprosy, a bacterial disease, can be treated with specialized antibiotics that are supplied free by the Novartis pharmaceutical company, there is little prospect of a worldwide epidemic or large numbers of deaths. “It’s a matter of concern for the individual patients,” said Dr. Denis Daumerie, who leads the efforts by the World Health Organization to eliminate leprosy. “It’s not a matter of concern for public health.”
Still, the disease requires taking multiple pills for six months to two years — an added burden for people who typically already take three AIDS drugs. And because the problem is little known, it often takes doctors weeks to figure out what new ill is besetting their AIDS patients. [/] Experts say the problem arises when the AIDS drugs cause the immune system to recover. It then generates new white blood cells that carry the bacteria from old, silent leprosy infections to the skin of the face, hands and feet.
N.B. This last statement is most probably conjecture based on the "tangled web". See links in N.B. at top.
That is a new twist on a medical paradox that has confounded tropical-disease specialists for 20 years. [/] In the mid-1980’s, as it became clear that AIDS was not primarily a disease of gay American men but was killing millions of people — men, women and children — in poor countries, many public health doctors prophesied that it would be a double disaster for those with leprosy. [/]
It seemed a logical assumption since leprosy is caused by a germ from the same family of waxy-walled bacteria as those that cause tuberculosis and mycobacter avium, two major killers of AIDS patients. But it proved a false alarm.
“People expected a big surge in leprosy, but it didn’t happen,” said Dr. Diana N. Lockwood, a leprosy expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
When the predictions did not come true, she said, “we assumed that co-infected people just died before their leprosy became manifest.” The incubation period for the most easily diagnosed form of leprosy is 8 to 13 years, while the incubation period for AIDS is 8 to 10. [/] But leprosy in people known to have been already infected did not seem to worsen when those patients developed AIDS, too, showing that the two diseases can apparently coexist without reinforcing each other. [/] So it came as a shock to doctors when AIDS treatment caused hidden cases of leprosy to appear.
N.B. A shock to those who rely on the official "tangled web". Not to those who realize that much of the AIDS suffering and death is a result of the official medication. In the developed world, heavy drug users, including promiscuous male homosexuals, particularly the anal receptive who are prone to all sorts of ill health, remain most at risk. See links in N.B. at top.
The first such patient described in a medical journal was Dr. Lockwood’s, a Ugandan exile in London who was being treated for both tuberculosis and AIDS, and suddenly developed a swollen lesion on his face. [/]
“It took us a while to realize it was leprosy,” Dr. Lockwood said. “Since then, we’ve seen more cases in people from Brazil and India.” [/] Depending on symptoms, leprosy is often initially misdiagnosed as arthritis or lupus. Painful facial lesions, which are less common, can have many causes; in the Uganda man’s case, doctors said, his immune system probably formed nodules around bacteria next to a facial nerve.
[…] [My ellipses and emphasis]
