From: Billi Goldberg <bigoldberg@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Present Focus of AIDS Research is Wrong
Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
Archive-Number: 5
Organization: unspecified
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 23:53:31 PST

The following article was printed in the San Francisco Sentinel on 
Thursday, January 21, 1993. There are no restrictions on reproduction of 
this article according to the author Billi Goldberg and the San 
Francisco Sentinel.

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                PRESENT FOCUS OF AIDS RESEARCH IS WRONG 
                           by Billi Goldberg

On January 5, 1993, the New York Times printed an article by AIDS writer 
Gina Kolata on new research that undercuts the various theories that HIV 
is not involved in AIDS.  The Times article stated that "Researchers 
have found that more human cells are actually  latently infected with 
HIV, which helps explain how the entire immune system is eventually 
destroyed. In 1986, it was believed that only 1 in 1,000 white blood 
cells were infected with the virus. But now, researchers are finding 
that 10, 20, even 30 percent of white blood cells may carry HIV, in 
addition to other cells. As a result, researchers conclude that direct 
infection with HIV should be sufficient to explain the destruction of 
the immune system in AIDS patients. " This research was recently 
reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The driving force behind HIV/AIDS research in the last ten years has 
been to increase peripheral blood CD4 counts. In clinical trials, the 
primary surrogate marker used to ascertain efficacy of the drugs being 
tested was CD4 counts. Approved treatments have suppressed the immune 
system's ability to destroy infected CD4 cells resulting in transient 
increases in CD4 cells. This approach is obviously artifactual when one 
considers that there are many people still alive with no peripheral 
blood CD4 cells and many people who have died with CD4 counts in the 
hundreds.  

Viral and most opportunistic infections in AIDS are intracellular.
Intracellular and extracellular pathogens have different means of 
expressing their presence and "This has led to the intrepretation that 
CD8 and CD4 T cells have a division of tasks: CD8 CTLs control 
intracellular pathogens whereas CD4 helper T cells help to eradicate 
extracellular pathogens by cooperation with B cells and by release of 
cytokines." (Koszinowski et al. Current Opinion in Immunology 
1991;3:471-475)

D.F. Nixon, a molecular immunologist, states that "The normal immune 
response to an infectious organism involves both non-specific and 
antigen-specific immunity. Virus infections stimulate specific 
antibodies, T-helper cells and cytotoxic T cells (CTL). The importance 
of virus-specific CTL in the clearance of viral infections has been 
increasingly recognized over the past decade, and it is likely that CTL 
form the major specific defence against primary virus infections." 
(Immunology of HIV Infection, 1992:59. A. Graham Bird ed., Kluwer 
Academic Publishers.)

The question now becomes: Has all the HIV/AIDS treatment research for 
the past ten years been wrong? Since there is little doubt that 10 to 
30% or more of tissue CD4 cells are infected, increasing their number 
would just result in increasing the number of infected CD4 cells. 
Research has shown that the nucleoside analogues suppress the immune 
response significantly affecting proliferating CD8 cytotoxic 
lymphocytes. It is natural for the immune system to destroy infected 
self-cells such as CD4. Inhibiting the process can only result in 
uncontrolled replication of HIV.

The focus must be on stimulating, activating, and increasing the CD8 and 
other cytotoxic lymphocytes in the immune system and disregarding the 
CD4 cells. Since it is the evolutionary responsibility of the cytotoxic 
T lymphocytes to destroy infected and abnormal self-cells, they must be 
increased. This, then, results in a treatment focus concentrating on 
boosting the HIV/AIDS weakened immune system with biological response 
modifiers (BRM) that act specifically on cytotoxic CD8 cells and other 
lymphocyte killer cells.

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Billi Goldberg is an AIDS Activist, lay-scientist, and transsexual  
whose works have appeared in Lancet, QW Magazine, Critical Path and PWA 
Newsline. She is currently involved in cell mediated immune stimulation 
as a therapy for AIDS.

Newsgroups: sci.med.aids