Curing AIDS with Vitamin C- who knew?

[Geek Goddess]

I looked back several pages and didn't see this discussed recently. An 18-year-old friend of my son sent this. He had accompanied my son and I on the recent JREF cruise, and got to be around some critical thinkers and scientists, which I believe opened his eyes to a new way of looking at the world.

He was doing a research project for school and came across this link, where a doctor 'ignored by the medical community' has been curing AIDS for over 10 years. Riiiight.

Link (http://www.cqs.com/aidscure.htm)

[fls]

I looked back several pages and didn't see this discussed recently. An 18-year-old friend of my son sent this. He had accompanied my son and I on the recent JREF cruise, and got to be around some critical thinkers and scientists, which I believe opened his eyes to a new way of looking at the world.

He was doing a research project for school and came across this link, where a doctor 'ignored by the medical community' has been curing AIDS for over 10 years. Riiiight.

Link (http://www.cqs.com/aidscure.htm)

That's probably how my mom was cured of AIDS. She's always taking megadoses of Vitamin C. She had a positive test for HIV the last time she went to donate blood, but it was gone when she had it checked again a few weeks later.

Screening in an extremely low prevalence population and the long pre-clinical period has been a real boon to the DIM* industry.

Linda

*Demonstrably Ineffective Medicine (my new name for sCAM).

[Miss Anthrope]

I just never stop getting angry about this. What gets into the hearts and minds of these quacks. These are human lives!!!

I'm probably going to lose a second person in my life to AIDS in the next year or two. The first one was my brother. He was only 32.

I really, really want to kick these people where it hurts. Repeatedly.

[fagin]

This is the chap

Dr Ian Brighthope, m.b., b.s., DIP. Agr. Sc., M.A.T.A., F.A.C.N.E.M.
President of the Australasian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine

Looks like he originally studied to be a farmer.

One of his editorials here.

http://203.31.16.60/Resources/Brighthope.htm

Basically bangs on about how conventional medicine treats alt medicine unfairly

'Double standards exist in judging orthodox and complementary medicine and these double standards should not remain unchallenged.'

What this means in brighthope doublespeak is that

"Critics of complementary medicine often seem to operate a double standard, being far more assiduous in their attempts to outlaw unevaluated complementary medical practices than unevaluated orthodox practices".

Unevaluated orthodox practices? I would have thought all unevaluated practices should be outlawed.

"There is a poverty of medical evidence to support the majority of present day medical practices. Action is required to correct these deficiencies. The call was backed by the Prince of Wales."
Good old Charlie - no woo woo there obviously.

"I am arguing for a clear demedicalisation of' the health system."

nuff said

[fagin]

I just never stop getting angry about this. What gets into the hearts and minds of these quacks. These are human lives!!!

I'm probably going to lose a second person in my life to AIDS in the next year or two. The first one was my brother. He was only 32.

I really, really want to kick these people where it hurts. Repeatedly.

Hearts?
Minds?

Yeah right

(sorry just wanted my 51st post. Finally all growed up)

[Madalch]

Wallets, obviously. These quacks have neither hearts nor minds.

[zombiebex]

Brighthope?! Seriously?? That can't be the guy's real name. :rolleyes:

[fagin]

It's his name, no idea whether it's real.

[fuelair]

I just never stop getting angry about this. What gets into the hearts and minds of these quacks. These are human lives!!!

I'm probably going to lose a second person in my life to AIDS in the next year or two. The first one was my brother. He was only 32.

I really, really want to kick these people where it hurts. Repeatedly.



So they can practice internal auto fellation.

[Deetee]

I have been debunking and countering this drivel for the last 10 years or so. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Mathias Rath (http://www.skepdic.com/rath.html) is a quack of the highest order. After being accused of causing the death of a child in Germany with his vitamins (a charge he somehow evaded and extracted $100k damages from the British Medical Journal (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=37846&c=1) in so doing) he found a spiritual home in South Africa where the Government's line was that mulnutrition and vitamin deficiency caused AIDS, not HIV.

He created a company in SA to sell vitamin cures for AIDS (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jun/30/badscience), at great profit. He has set up unapproved studies (http://www.tac.org.za/ns02_11_2005.htm) to give vitamins to AIDS patients (http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Aids_Focus/0,,2-7-659_1826673,00.html) while claiming that HIV therapy is "toxic" and "lethal" and discouraging patients from taking it.

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/59AB8C74-AF40-4500-A389-9B39DA28E7EA.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1483821,00.html


This is the man who tried to accuse drug companies of the world of genocide (http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/The_Hague/complaint/index.html) for making life-saving drugs.
A man who has tried to get the AIDS activist Zackie Achmat charged with genocide (http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/pdf-files/TIG_Achmat_pressrelease-20070115.pdf) for campaigning to introduce life-saving HIV therapy into South Africa.
A man who was completely unabashed when it was revealed that of the 3 patients he paraded at a press conference attesting to the remarkable success of his vitamin AIDS cure, 2 were actually on antiretrovirals and had been told to deny this, and the third died within 4 weeks from AIDS.

People like Rath not only have no heart, soul or brains, but are positively evil.

[Naughtyhippo]

Is he the guy that claims all the doctors in the west are in a giant conspiracy to cover up the fact that it's the drugs prescribed for HIV that cause AIDS symptoms, that the initial diagnosis was a mistake but no-one will recant because the pharma companies make too much money from it? Or is this drivel I've picked up on the internet somewhere.....

ETA: Hmmmm, thinking over this I don't think it's the same guy as this 'theory' implies AIDS doesn't exist.

[Deetee]

Is he the guy that claims all the doctors in the west are in a giant conspiracy to cover up the fact that it's the drugs prescribed for HIV that cause AIDS symptoms, that the initial diagnosis was a mistake but no-one will recant because the pharma companies make too much money from it? Or is this drivel I've picked up on the internet somewhere.....

ETA: Hmmmm, thinking over this I don't think it's the same guy as this 'theory' implies AIDS doesn't exist.
Depends - there are severall kooks who subscribe to these theories. One of them is a chap called Duesberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg) - that may be the one you heard about as he is one of the most prominent denialists

[Naughtyhippo]

Thanks Deetee this was the guy.

I'll never understand the whole megadose with supplements crowd. Isn't the digestive system a little inept at absorbing vitamins etc in pill form? I looked for some studies on this, but after dredging through pages I read about 'you body attacking the glutamine as if it was a disease organism, and causing paralytic attacks' and my brain asploded. So sorry for my lack of evidence for this assertion.

[HansMustermann]

It's nothing new, though.

Btw, if you're interested in a good site on bad medicine, I find that http://www.badscience.net/ is pretty good, and it's written by a real doctor. You'll find even scarier stuff in there, like a South African minister promoting AIDS cures based on sweet potatoes and whatnot instead of those evil western medicines.

[Skwinty]

It's nothing new, though.

Btw, if you're interested in a good site on bad medicine, I find that http://www.badscience.net/ is pretty good, and it's written by a real doctor. You'll find even scarier stuff in there, like a South African minister promoting AIDS cures based on sweet potatoes and whatnot instead of those evil western medicines.

agreed, her's what I posted in another thread

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4499055#post4499055)
Instead of saying something like, "we have further evidence here in support of taking B12 supplements for those over the age of 50," they said, "This doesn’t mean you should go out and buy vitamin B12 tablets tomorrow


Perhaps they don't wish to compared to the Mattias Rath foundation.
He came to South Africa and caused untold damage with his
supplement quackery. Mind you he did have a partner in crime
Manto Tshabalala Msimang the South African minister of health. She was known as Dr Beetroot.

Take 2 veg and call me in the morning. All this to cure AIDS.

ETA: She was also accused of:
Stealing a watch from a patient in hospital.
Jumping the queue for a liver transplant and drinking alcohol in hospital after the op.

[Octavo]

It's nothing new, though.

Btw, if you're interested in a good site on bad medicine, I find that http://www.badscience.net/ is pretty good, and it's written by a real doctor. You'll find even scarier stuff in there, like a South African minister promoting AIDS cures based on sweet potatoes and whatnot instead of those evil western medicines.

To be fair, the Health minister has since been replaced by someone far more rational and finally (after many years of denial) ARV's are being provided and hopefully duel therapy MTCT will begin.

[a_unique_person]

I looked back several pages and didn't see this discussed recently. An 18-year-old friend of my son sent this. He had accompanied my son and I on the recent JREF cruise, and got to be around some critical thinkers and scientists, which I believe opened his eyes to a new way of looking at the world.

He was doing a research project for school and came across this link, where a doctor 'ignored by the medical community' has been curing AIDS for over 10 years. Riiiight.

Link (http://www.cqs.com/aidscure.htm)

Vitamin C, is there nothing that stuff can't do?

[Psi Baba]

Vitamin C, is there nothing that stuff can't do?
Really. Even Linus Pauling didn't think so (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html). And he already had the respect of the scientific community, yet it was obvious that his beliefs about Vitamin C were unfounded and based on faulty science. This Jonathan Campbell is being arrogant thinking he is being ignored by "the medical community". Linus Pauling, being a two-time Nobel Prize winner, was not ignored, but it gradually became clear that he was wrong about Vitamin C doing things like curing cancer and killing viruses. If Pauling's alleged findings didn't "send sock waves through the research communities," then it's doubtful that this quack's ideas will.

[HansMustermann]

Thanks Deetee this was the guy.

I'll never understand the whole megadose with supplements crowd. Isn't the digestive system a little inept at absorbing vitamins etc in pill form? I looked for some studies on this, but after dredging through pages I read about 'you body attacking the glutamine as if it was a disease organism, and causing paralytic attacks' and my brain asploded. So sorry for my lack of evidence for this assertion.

Depends.

For some things, the body does have safeguards. You can't overdose on vitamin C orally for example, because your guts will flush the excess down the toilet.

With other stuff, though, it is very much possible to even kill yourself. E.g., with vitamin A from fried liver. As in, there are actually recorded deaths.

Glutamine is one of the 20 proteins that your body uses. It is needed for a large number of proteins. I.e., without it you'd die, because the body couldn't transcribe most genes to proteins for lack of building blocks. A bit like having the schematic for a Lego truck but no wheels, if you will.

So I would at least assume that any auto-allergic reaction to glutamine would be very quickly fatal.

Maybe you mean to gluten?

[sanguine]

Depends - there are severall kooks who subscribe to these theories. One of them is a chap called Duesberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg) - that may be the one you heard about as he is one of the most prominent denialists

Ah, my undergraduate faculty advisor.

And no, I'm not kidding. I have his signature on one of my elective waiver sheets. He also taught part of one of the lab courses I took, and each lecture period there came down to him spouting nonsense and me arguing facts back at his nonsense. He's a total kook, but a genuinely affable guy, and other than the bitter arguing over the kookery, we got along.

That said, Duesberg is really more of a sad case, since I think something is just off in his head. Sometime in the 80s, he became an auto-contrarian, and now he argues against orthodoxy no matter what (his other major theme being that all cancers are spontaneous aneuploidies rather than being aggregations of mutation). His beliefs cause problems because other kooks latch onto them, but he genuinely isn't trying to make money or a name for himself -- he's just someone who went wrong for some reason.

Rath, on the other hand, is a death profiteer.