AIDS update

Better Nutrition (1989-90), Jan, 1989 by Frank Murray

A.I.D.S. U P D A T E Holistic vitamin-mineral therapy has succeeded where traditional drug treatments have failed.

When Louie Nassancy began suffering from complications associated with Kaposi's sarcoma, he knew bad news soon would follow. In 1983, he was diagnosed with AIDS. Instead of turning to prescription drugs, he chose to rely entirely on nutritional therapy. Since that time he has improved steadily through a combination of diet, supplements, exercise and positive attitude. "I have a very effective nutritional program which utilizes beta-carotene, vitamins C, E and A and other nutrients. Kyolic garlic also is an important part of my program," he says during his lectures around the country. "I also believe that exercise is necessary in recovering from this disease and I have a variety of physical fitness activities."

If "too little, too late" is not to be the epitaph on the tombstone of America, we have to stop trifling with the AIDS epidemic and respond in a way consistent with our democratic values, said James G. Glimm, a professor at New York University, and colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Georgetown University.

"Within present standards of medical practice, the cost of treatment for the acutely ill, among whom we must assume most of the two million infected will be, is approximately $200,000 per patient," Dr. Glimm said. "Even if there were no further spread of AIDS, current standards of health care imply that society already faces a direct expense of about half a trillion dollars. This does not include the indirect costs of lost production, the impact of higher than expected mortality rates on insurance companies, the lost contributions to Social Security, and the lost federal, state and local tax revenues."

Researchers are frantically working to discover new drugs and vaccines for AIDS, many of which may have dangerous side effects. AZT, the first drug approved by the FDA to treat AIDS, not only is expensive, but its side effects are so debilitating that many physicians will not prescribe it.

A study using Ampligen, once thought to be one of the most promising new anti-AIDS drugs, has been stopped because the drug failed to show any benefits.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute said Suramin offered a glimmer of hope as a cure for AIDS, and yet studies of the drug ended at San Francisco General Hospital, one of the five centers selected to study the drug in 1985.

Of the 23 patients in the San Francisco study, 20 are now dead. Researchers in Africa and South America already knew that Suramin, used for more than 60 years to treat African sleeping sickness, is a very toxic drug.

The medical literature warned of Suramin's effect on human livers, kidneys and adrenal glands, according to a report in San Francisco Magazine. Scientists at the National Cancer Institute warned that extreme caution had to be exercised if testing was to be expanded.

While the drugs tested for AIDS therapy have met with little success, holistic medicine has produced a number of success stories.

In the United States, Emanuel Revici, M.D., New York, has successfully treated 17 AIDS patients with zinc, iron, sulfur, magnesium, copper, selenium, lithium, lipid alcohols and organic acids that occur naturally in the body.

In California, Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D., Los Altos, said that since early 1983 he has treated more than 200 AIDS and AIDS-infected patients with large doses of vitamin C, along with other nutrients and a diet eliminating junk food. "These treatments have not resulted in a cure for AIDS but have, on the average, doubled life expectancy and considerably ameliorated the symptoms, resulting in less disability until shortly before death," said Dr. Cathcart. "They have also considerably reduced the expense of treating the AIDS patient due to the reduction of necessary hospital care. One patient has survived six years; another four years. Six patients seem to have stabilized the loss of T-helper cells for two to three years."

Dr. Cathcart, like most holistic physicians, believes most AIDS patients can return to work and live productive lives if the disease is holistically treated in its early stages. Once some of the opportunistic diseases that often accompany AIDS - pneumocystitis carinii pneumonia (PCP), Kaposi's sarcoma (a deadly form of cancer), candida and tuberculosis - have debilitated the patient, it is difficult to halt the spread of the disease.

Also in California, Joyce Willoughby, D.C., Ph.D., has treated AIDS patients since 1980. At the Medical and Holistic Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Willoughby has treated 24 patients with PCP, ARC, Kaposi's sarcoma, ARC-TB, ARC-hepatitis and other problems. Many of the patients are in remission from the disease and many others are free of the virus.

"These patients are alive and well," Dr. Willoughby said. "The program includes six capsules per day of the Gold Stake dietary mineral supplement, herbs, digestive, tissue and blood detoxification, three types of baths and dietary nutritional therapy."