NotAIDS! News Analysis
15 January, 2007

Anthony Brink of the South African Treatment Information Group (TIG) filed charges of genocide against Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) head Zackie Achmat at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Netherlands.

The unusual charge was reported widely in the media. The first mention online was found on the Mail & Guardian's online blogging site which had a user comment listed on the 7th about the ICC filing. In what appears to be the first in-print report, the Cape Argus carried the devloping story last Thursday, 11 January, 2007.

In the 59-page criminal complaint filed at the international human rights court at The Hague, Brink accuses Achmat of promoting the provision and use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to treat HIV, knowing that they are highly toxic and damaging to thousands of South Africans.

The charges are seen as the latest development in the continuing media battle between TAC and its nemesis, the growing "rethinking AIDS" groups who vehemently reject the widespread use of ARVs due to their horrific side effects and the fact that they are known to cause AIDS-like symptoms or death.

David Brink receives funding from the foundation set up and managed by Dr Matthias Rath, who promotes feeding the malnourished, and argues the obvious but often forgotten fact that good nutrition is essential in preventing AIDS.

TAC has been instrumental in pushing antiretrovirals (ARVs)and protease inhibitors to many thousands of South Africans.

ARVs including NNRTI (non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) and NRTI (nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) have been proven to cause severe immune deficiency. Pneumonia, digestive complications, anemia, neutropenia, vulnerability to infections, and cardiac arrest have all been attributed to drugs in this class such as AZT, Combivir, Atanivir, Abacavir, and Retrovir.

As the name suggests, a protease inhibitor (PI) targets and limits production of protease, arguably the body's most important enzyme. The body requires protease to metabolize protein, one of the most difficult substances to digest. Consequently, PIs destroy the body's ability to regenerate, repair, and maintain physical health.

Both classes of AIDS drugs are the cause of liver disease, renal (kidney) failure, dangerously high lipid cholesterol levels, Stevens-Johnson syndrome (the sloughing off of the skin, nails, and hair), mitochondiral damage (mitochondria are the energy producing factories inside cells), cardiac arrest, lipodystrophy (rearrangement and abnormal distribution of fat, 'buffalo hump') and AIDS wasting.

Studies utilizing magnetic resonance imaging have shown that many infants who are exposed to these drugs, particularly Nevirapine (Viramune) while in the womb are born with brain damage.

Many report that although HIV positive for some time before starting ARVs, they were rarely if ever sick until they began their "regimen" of HIV medications.

Many researchers don't believe that HIV is a causative agent for the AIDS, but rather assert there is a blend of factors such as malnutrition, excessive antibiotic use, abuse of recreational drugs, sanitation issues that lead to intestinal parasites, and other known infections like malaria and tuberculosis.

Despite the widely reported severe, and often fatal side effects of the HIV medicatons, NGOs around the world along with UNAIDS and WHO clamor for these drugs while pharmaceutical companies happily sell to them with the idea they will prolong life.

Studies have shown that ARV-treated HIV positives do not actually live longer on average than HIV positives not treated with the highly sought after pills.

The reaction from Zackie Achmat and TAC has not been unexpected and fits a pattern by those in the AIDS industry of going on the attack. Calling Mr. Brink a "madman," Mr. Achmat implored the media to stop reporting on the charge against him at the Hague.

One could argue that the position of those promoting experimental drugs, also known as HAART or ARVs, could make a better case for themselves if they actually responded to the allegations.

More news on the struggle between the two factions will certainly be forthcoming. The move by Brink will likely draw more publicity to the debilitating effects of the drugs erroneously believed to prevent AIDS.

AIDS drugs will, for a time, increase CD4 cell counts mostly through first destroying the cells, thereby leading the body to overcompensate and produce more.

However, the adverse effects including anemia, neutropenia, extensive tissue and bone damage, infections, and other illnesses resemble and often are even worse than AIDS.

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