Modern Homoeopathy
Monthly E-Newsletter March 2008
HIV / AIDS is speeding up.
by
Dr. Sayeed Ahmad D. I. Hom. (London)
As per The Guardian dated 7th July, 2004, the lethal spread of the HIV/Aids pandemic across the globe is speeding up, in spite of intensifying efforts on the part of UN agencies, the US, Britain and other European governments to turn the tide. A record five million people were infected by the virus last year and nearly three million died.
The UN's latest bi-annual report on the state of the pandemic made it plain yesterday that the HIV virus that causes Aids is defeating man's best efforts to contain it. There are 38 million people carrying the virus, sub-Saharan Africa is being devastated, and the fastest spread is in Asia and eastern Europe.
"More people than in any previous year became infected with HIV. That is clearly a failure to reach the people who need it with prevention methods. More people than ever before died of Aids. That is a failure to reach them with treatment," said Peter Piot, executive director of Unaids, at the launch of the report in London yesterday. The epidemic, he said, is reaching its global phase, and is no longer is a problem largely confined to sub-Saharan Africa.
One in every four new infections is occurring in Asia, where huge populations are at risk, said the report, published just before the international Aids conference in Bangkok which opens this weekend. There have been sharp increases in the numbers infected in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, while India alone has 5.1 million people with HIV - the second largest number infected in any country, after South Africa.
In eastern Europe and central Asia, 1.3 million have the virus, spread largely by injecting drug use. Russia, with more than three million injecting drug users and 860,000 with HIV, is one of the worst hit.
It is a dispiriting picture, because more work and money is going into the battle against the world's worst disease outbreak than ever before, both in helping people to protect themselves against contracting the virus and more recently in efforts to get drugs that can prevent HIV developing into Aids to people in poor countries.
But still not enough is being done, said Dr Piot. "The world is falling short on prevention. Preventing new infections will at the end of the day stop this epidemic," he said. "Only one in five who need it have access to HIV prevention - [such as] education of children in schools, access to condoms and access to clean needles for those who are injecting drugs."
What Is AIDS?
AIDS stands for Acquired imunodeficiency (or immune deficiency) Syndrome. It results from infection with a virus called HIV, which stands for human immunodeficiency virus. This virus infects key cells in the human body called CD4-positive (CD4+) T cells. These cells are part of the body's immune system, which fights infections and various cancers.
When HIV invades the body's CD4+ T cells, the damaged immune system loses its ability to defend against diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms. A substantial decline in CD4+ T cells also leaves the body vulnerable to certain cancers.
There is no cure for AIDS, but medical treatments can slow down the rate at which HIV weakens the immune system. As with other diseases, early detection offers more options for treatment and preventing complications.
AIDS affects women differently than it does men, and it presents unique issues related to sexuality, childbearing, and side effects of treatments.
What Is The Difference Between HIV And AIDS?
The term AIDS refers to an advanced stage of HIV infection, when the immune system has sustained substantial damage. Not everyone who has HIV infection develops AIDS.
When HIV progresses to AIDS, however, it has proved to be a universally fatal illness. Few people survive five years from the time they are diagnosed with AIDS, although this is increasing with improvements in treatment techniques.
Experts estimate that about half the people with HIV will develop AIDS within 10 years after becoming infected. This time varies greatly from person to person, however, and can depend on many factors, including a person's health status and health-related behaviors.
People are said to have AIDS when they have certain signs or symptoms specified in guidelines formulated by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC's definition of AIDS includes:
All HIV-infected people with fewer than 200 CD4+ T cells per cubic millimeter of blood (compared with CD4+ T cell counts of about 1,000 for healthy people).
People with HIV infection who have at least one of more than two dozen AIDS-associated conditions that are the result of HIV's attack on the immune system.
AIDS-associated conditions include :
Opportunistic infections by bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Opportunistic infections are infections that are rarely seen in healthy people but occur when a person's immune system is weakened.
The development of certain cancers (including cervical cancer and lymphomas)
Certain autoimmune disorders Autoimmune disorders are illnesses that result when the immune system attacks an individual's own tissues or cells.
Most AIDS-associated conditions are rarely serious in healthy individuals. In people with AIDS, however, these infections are often severe and sometimes fatal because the immune system is so damaged by HIV that the body cannot fight them off.
The History Of AIDS :
The symptoms of AIDS were first recognized in the early 1980s:
In 1981, a rare lung infection called Pneumosystis carinii pneumonia began to appear in homosexual men living in Los Angeles and New York.
At the same time, cases of a rare tumor called Kaposi's sarcoma were also reported in young homosexual men. These tumors had been previously known to affect elderly men, particularly in parts of Africa. New appearances of the tumors were more aggressive in the young men and appeared on parts of the body other than the skin.
Other infections associated with weakened immune defenses were also reported in the early 1980s.
Groups most frequently reporting these infections in the early 1980s were homosexuals, intravenous drug users, and people with hemophilia, a blood disorder that requires frequent transfusions. Blood and sexual transmission were therefore suspected as the sources for the spread of the infections.
In 1984, the responsible virus was identified and given a name. In 1986, it was renamed the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Need To Know :
Because many of the first cases of AIDS in the United States occurred in homosexual men and intravenous drug users, some people mistakenly believe that other groups of people are not at risk for HIV infection. However, anyone is capable of becoming HIV-infected, regardless of gender, age, or sexual orientation.
Facts About AIDS :
As of the year 2000, nearly one million people in the U. S. were confirmed to be HIV-positive.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2.2 million Americans now carry the HIV virus but do not yet have symptoms.
About one out of every three people with HIV infection in the U. S. is a woman.
AIDS is a leading cause of death for American men and women between the ages of 25 and 44.
Since 1992, AIDS has been the fourth leading cause of death among U. S. women between the ages of 25 and 44.
Through June 2000, 438,795 people in the U. S. had died from AIDS (374,422 men and 64,373 women).
By the end of 2000, 36.1 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, with the vast majority living in developing countries.
Through 2000, 21.8 million people worldwide have died from AIDS.
Between 1991 and 1996, there were more new cases of AIDS among people older than 50 than those between ages 13 and 49. Today, 11% of all new cases of AIDS in the U. S. are now in people over the age of 50.
The HIV carrier rate in the U. S. is now 1 carrier for every 100 to 200 people.
Teenage and young adult women currently make up half of all new HIV infections reported in people 13 to 24 years old.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some frequently asked questions related to AIDS And Women.
Q: What if I'm attracted to someone I don't really know? What should I do?
A: Know the sexual history and health status of partners. Avoid anonymous sexual contact and learn about safe sex practices, such as the use of condoms.
Q: Are my children going to get AIDS if I have it?
A: Research indicates that HIV is NOT transmitted by casual contact, such as touching or hugging; sharing household items such as utensils, towels, and bedding; contact with sweat or tears; sharing facilities such as swimming pools, saunas, hot tubs, or toilets with HIV-infected people; and coughs or sneezes. HIV transmission requires intimate contact with infected blood or body fluids (vaginal secretions, semen, pre-ejaculation fluid, and breast milk). Activities that don't involve the possibility of such contact are regarded as posing no risk of infection.
Q: Is an AIDS test required of new job applicants and/or employees?
A: Probably not. In fact, under most state laws, employers cannot ask whether applicants or employees have AIDS - only if they can do the job.
Q: Should I avoid sharing personal hygiene items, like razors or toothbrushes?
A: Yes. These devices might be contaminated with blood. However, this is an unlikely mode of transmission for the AIDS virus.
Q: Does everyone who has AIDS die from it?
A: When scientists first recognized AIDS in 1981, most people died within a year or two. Now, with numerous drugs available to help suppress HIV's attack on the immune system and prevent or treat AIDS-related opportunistic illnesses, many people with AIDS are living longer and healthier lives. However, AIDS still is considered a fatal illness. Few people survive five years from the time they are diagnosed with AIDS, although this is increasing with improvements in treatment techniques.
Q: How can a person tell if she is infected with HIV?
A: A blood test can determine whether or not a person is infected with HIV. The most commonly used test detects antibodies (disease-fighting proteins) against HIV. It may take as long as three to six months for HIV antibodies to reach levels that are measurable in standard blood tests.
Q: Can I keep my test results private?
A: People can have the procedure done at HIV testing centers that offer anonymous HIV testing.
Q: Can HIV be spread through kissing?
A: Although studies have found tiny amounts of HIV in the saliva of some people with HIV, researchers have found no evidence that HIV is spread to other people through kissing. However, the CDC recommends against "French" or open-mouthed kissing because of the possibility of contact with blood if the people kissing have any cuts or sores in the mouth.
Q: Can HIV be transmitted during oral sex?
A: Although the risk of infection during oral sex is considered lower than during vaginal or anal intercourse, HIV may be transmitted during oral sex through contact with vaginal secretions, semen, pre-ejaculation fluid, and blood.
Q: Is a home test kit for HIV available?
A: No approved HIV test kit will give you a result at home. There is a kit available that is designed for you to collect a sample of your blood at home. Then you send the sample to a laboratory where it is tested for HIV.
Q: How likely is an HIV-positive woman to infect her baby?
A: Approximately one-quarter to one-third of all untreated pregnant women infected with HIV will pass the infection to their babies during pregnancy or childbirth. But this risk is significantly reduced if the mother is treated with AZT (during pregnancy, labor, and delivery) and her baby receives AZT during the first six weeks of life.
Q: Can HIV be transmitted in breast milk?
A: HIV can be transmitted from a nursing mother to her infant through breast milk. Women who live in countries where safe alternatives to breast-feeding are readily available and affordable can eliminate the risk of transmitting the virus through breast milk by bottle-feeding their babies. In developing countries, however, where such safe alternatives are not readily available or economically feasible, breast-feeding may offer benefits that outweigh the risk of HIV transmission.
Q: How effective are latex condoms in preventing HIV?
A: Health authorities say that latex condoms are highly effective when used consistently and correctly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends using latex condoms (or dental dams ) whenever having oral, anal, or vaginal sex. If a lubricant is used, it should be a water-based lubricant.
HOM�OPATHY AND HIV / AIDS
In his Article, "AIDS: The Real Cause", Dr. George Vithoulkas views are described as under:
I think that a controversy has already started between two main and opposing points of view:
a. That Aids is caused by the HIV virus and
b. That AIDS is the result of drug overuse
As I think I have already contributed a lot to such arguments through my writings, I believe Nature will give me the privilege to express my views in a nutshell.
It seems to me that both the above assumptions are over-simplifications of a much more complicated issue.
In case (a) the final phenomena, which is the appearance of a virus in the body, is considered as the cause of the disease when in effect it is actually the result of it.
In case (b) only part of the truth is stated. Not every one who takes antibiotics will risk developing the AIDS symptomatology - though they may risk developing other syndromes like the post-viral syndrome (the chronic fatigue syndrome). Only those individuals who have been repeatedly infected by venereal diseases and who have used repeatedly and for long periods of time antibiotics are in the risk group.
The whole of the above argument has been dealt with in a hypothesis I wrote in 1986 with all the supporting evidence I could find at the time. The title of this book was "A New Model for Health and Disease, the real cause of AIDS" published first in Dutch in 1988 by Elmar, in Italian in 1989 by the Editora Cortina and in English in 1991 by North Atlantic Books in the U. S. A. I first spoke about these ideas in a congress in Burlingame in California as early as 1984 as well as in different other seminars.
The main points that I support through this hypothesis about the specific AIDS syndrome are the following:
1. The AIDS virus first appeared in the promiscuous group of homosexuals. The research, at least in the beginning, showed clearly that these individuals had already been infected several times by venereal diseases and treated repeatedly with antibiotics.
Actually the high-risk groups (promiscuous homosexuals, prostitutes, promiscuous heterosexuals or bisexuals, Haitians and finally the African people during their sexual liberation era) were all people with repeated exposure to venereal diseases and consequent treatment with antibiotics. Actually, promiscuous homosexuals with AIDS had confided to me and to my students that they would take antibiotics every day, before their casual encounters and for long periods of time as a preventive measure.
2. The initial appearance of a specific virus in the human body was only the result of a depleted and harassed immune system and not the cause of it.
It is a similar phenomena with worms eating up a dead body. Every stage of degeneration of a human organism has its own particular microbes, bacteria, virus, etc. thriving on it. The appearance of the virus took place initially because the immune system was degraded to a specific degree through a series of repeated assaults of antibiotics in a considerably short time, while it was already under the stress of a venereal disease - mainly syphilis and/or gonorrh�a. It seems that the combined stress of an organism, which is repeatedly infected with venereal diseases and treated with antibiotics, develops a state that resembles the AIDS syndrome.
3. The virus must have initially developed through an endogenous process of repeated mutations. After staying in the bodies of the victims for long periods of time it became stronger and stronger as if in a friendly incubator. This fact had a two-fold effect:
a. That the sick individual was quickly destroyed and
b. That the virus became stronger and more virulent during this incubation. Research will most probably show in the future the different states of the virus and its different virulence in different stages of the disease and in different individuals. At the moment there is confusion because of these issues.
4. Once the virus had become mature -virulent- through such nurturing, it could then infect other organisms more easily.
I believe that we are actually witnessing in our times the maturing of different viruses with unknown consequences. We are observing a part of a process and we are confusing it for the cause.
5. The severity of the infection depends on the predisposition and the state of depletion of the immune system during the time of infection. I believe that soon some genetic parameters will be found accounting for a predisposition in the severe AIDS cases. Some people with great susceptibility were infected and immediately developed the disease, culminating speedily in a fatal outcome, while others with not such a great predisposition will either develop a milder or a similar disease or will not develop the disease at all..
6. If the above assumptions are correct then there must be several other viruses that will be discovered soon to account for similar symptomatology, in different predispositions. It may not come as a surprise that in the future we will be creating newer and newer species of viruses through mutations if we do not stop unwisely intervening in to the human organism with stronger and stronger chemical drugs.
The whole argument cannot be expostulated here but one can read it in my book ''A New Model for Health and Disease - the real cause of AIDS''.
Conditions under which the correct homeopathic remedy is found
To find the right homeopathic remedy means to save a lot of suffering to the individual, it means that you give him the greatest boon, that you give him the possibility to be happy. A healthy person is one who feels free, with a sense of well being. You give him something, which has immeasurable value.
Let us now consider the difficulties and the conditions that should prevail in order for such a fortunate change to take place.
We all know the difficulties encountered by the practitioner in order to strike the right remedy. In the beginning of a case taking everything looks blank, everything is possible and as you proceed towards the investigation and the evaluation your brains speeds up in analysing and combining the symptoms.
The greatest difficulty that you will encounter is the evaluation of symptoms.
Which are the symptoms that you will take into consideration? Which are the symptoms that you will ignore?
The struggle is difficult mainly because you do not know whether the patient is giving you the whole story:
Is he omitting some small but strange and therefore important symptoms?
a. From lack of care?
b. Or lack of observation?
c. Or out of shame?
d. Or out of false thinking that certain of his ailments or discomforts do not concern you?
e. Or he feels that a symptom is insignificant or irrelevant to the case, yet this very little symptom constitutes the clue to the case?
f. Or he is not aware of the most important thing that is happening in him, which is perhaps an excessive fear of death, a fear that he is going insane but that he does not want to acknowledge or to admit to himself?
Intellectuals will give you a false impression about their overall health condition most of the time.
It is strange that so many times intellectuals have told me that as they understand (and surely they are fast to understand) that homeopathy is very difficult to practise as it requires "intelligent" people (like themselves) to be able to describe their symptoms correctly. The truth is the opposite. Simple uneducated people describe their symptoms much more intelligently than them because they express their feelings directly without filtering them as the intellectuals do. They express nature as it is while the others distort nature interpreting it according to their whims.
For all these reasons I consider that finding the right remedy is like accomplishing a miracle.
So our investigation should be: what are the inner conditions when two people meet -the practitioner and the patient- that enable the miracle of the balance of health of the patient to take place?
If you want to see the true picture of a person's soul, that person has to undress in front of you. The idea of the old doctor undressing the patient, never mind what the problem was, was symbolic of materialistic medicine. The doctor wanted to see everything he could with his eyes, on the physical/material level.
The homeopathic practitioner who deals with the subtle energies of the human being wants to see the subjective symptoms, wants to see the patient's inside structure. The idea is of confession. The individual has to stay naked in front of the practitioner in order that he will see the whole picture.
There are some requirements, as everybody understands, for someone to undress in front of you and allow you to see his soul, his sorrows, his hurts, his fears, and his unnatural desires and perversions, in order to allow you to see him totally naked in physical ailments, mind and soul.
The first is the desire of the healer to do well, to help the person who seeks help to restore his health.
The second is a mutual sympathy or homogeneity, which can be created instantly, or as the taking of the case progresses, which allows communication on another level not simply the verbal.
Once this communication is established then the patient can decide whether he can trust the practitioner or not.
The patient perceives the inner intentions of the healer and if they are egotistical or of self-interest, he will not open up, nor will he "undress", never mind how hard you may try.
Do not be lured into thinking that because you have cured some patients without all these requirements, you can bluff the patient. Quite simply, the patient has had no other occasion or no other way of comparing, as he has not experienced the warmth of the really interested healer against the coldness of a logical examiner with a white coat.
Yet this must not be mistaken for familiarity and cheap exhibition of affection or love. I would say that if this sympathy takes a turn towards the erotic, there is no chance that the individual will be helped by the healer, as the healer is then seeking out to take things from the patient and not to give.
The third condition is respect for the freedom and the integrity of the patient. Do not try to intrude and rape his soul by rude force just because you want to find the remedy quickly.
The fourth is a silent moment of meditation when you have been given all the information from the patient. You have taken all the pieces and you are putting them together, and through the process of constructing the picture it suddenly clicks and you arrive at the right remedy. The miracle has been accomplished! This is a great moment, which gives great satisfaction to the healer even before he has seen the actual result of his prescription.
Do we have today in our settings all these conditions? Surely not.
In order to have these conditions you first of all need a quiet environment, an environment that will be pleasing and will give the patient a feeling of safety. Do we have this environment?
I want to show you the art of taking the case under the situation in which we find ourselves today. I want to communicate to you my thoughts during every step of the process. This automatically stops the continuity and the rapport with the patient and makes the whole process extremely difficult and tedious.
I need absolute respect for what we are doing, because I am not doing it myself, we are taking the case together. Your good intentions will be crucial to the outcome, whether positive or negative.
If we could synchronise out feelings and intentions, I can assure you that you could be learning in those few hours we will be together more than you could learn in a thousand hours.
I know that in the class there are people who have all these qualities and they exercise them but there are others who are still learning, who are disbelievers.
Is it possible??
During my 4-year course on Alonissos I have shown the art of taking a case under the situation in which we find ourselves today. I communicated all of my thoughts to the students during every step of the process and I honestly believe that if they have followed the whole process with full attention, they will have learned in these few hours, which we had together, more than they could learn by themselves in a thousand years!
Over and above, Dana Ullman, M. P. H., describes this subject in his Book "Consumer�s Guide to Homeopathy" with a heading "A Homeopathic Perspective on AIDS" as follows:
As horrific as the AIDS epidemic is, it has had one silver lining: it has implanted into the awareness of the medical community and the general public the importance of the body's immune system. Prior to the emergence of AIDS, few people were familiar with or cared about the immune system.
Now more than ever, the general public is interested in exploring ways to bolster immune response to prevent the progression of AIDS, as well as to reduce the number and intensity of opportunistic infections and to improve the overall state of their health. The medical community, however, has focused its AIDS resources on creating antiviral medications, which despite great hope and expectation have not achieved the results anticipated. In fact, the leading AIDS drug, AZT, has been found to prolong the lives of people with AIDS by only seven or eight months,1 but due to its side effects, the quality of life during this time is not high.
What is yet to be understood by the medical community is that they need to direct more attention and research to ways to augment immune response, rather than ways to inhibit viral replication. By strengthening a person's own defenses, the body is best enabled to defend itself.
Homeopathy is one way to do this. Although no therapy can or will help every Seropositive person or everyone with AIDS, homeopathy is beginning to develop a reputation for helping people at varying stages of this disease. To understand what homeopathy has to offer, it is necessary to learn something about a different approach to infectious disease than simply attacking a pathogen.
Louis Pasteur, who initially suggested that bacteria cause disease, later realized that bacteria may not necessarily be the "cause" of disease as much as the "results" of disease.2 Like Claude Bernard,3 the father of experimental physiology, Pasteur came to realize that the susceptibility of the individual, the "host resistance," was a greater determinant of the development of disease than the infective agent itself.
Despite the later recanting by Pasteur, he had already set in motion a medical mind set that focused entirely on eliminating pathogens and that ignored exploring ways to augment immune and defense response. Just as physicians and scientists are finally realizing the limitations and problems inherent in antibiotics as antimicrobial agents, antiviral drugs will inevitably suffer a similar fate. While physicians tend to know this both rationally and intuitively, they ignore these obvious problems in their clinical practice, in part because they don't know what else to do and in part because their biomedical paradigm limits their vision of alternatives to antimicrobial therapy.
As increasing numbers of physicians learn about homeopathic medicine, they will be exposed to viable alternative treatments which can play an integral role in the care and treatment of people with HIV and AIDS. A recent survey of physicians in the Netherlands verified this possibility. The survey showed that 50% of Dutch physicians instigated and supported the use of homeopathic and natural therapies in the treatment of people with AIDS.4
Preventing AIDS
The best and most certain way to prevent AIDS is to avoid exchanging bodily fluids with people who are Seropositive. Exposure to these bodily fluids most commonly occurs through sexual activity, sharing needles, or receiving blood transfusions. However, just because an individual is exposed to a person with HIV does not necessarily mean that the individual will get the virus. And further, just because an individual becomes infected with HIV does not necessarily mean that he or she will get AIDS.
The various factors that influence whether exposure leads to infection and whether infection leads to disease remain unknown. However, as with many infectious conditions, a stronger immune system reduces the chances of getting the disease or at least decreases the chances of complications from the infection. It therefore seems prudent to avoid the factors that inhibit immune response and to utilize those that augment it. The factors that inhibit immune response include an unhealthy lifestyle (i. e., smoking, poor diet, significant stress, sedentary habits) and the use of therapeutic and recreational drugs, while those that augment immune response tend to be a healthy lifestyle and utilizing natural therapeutics, including homeopathic medicines.
While the precise mechanism of action that leads to AIDS isn't known, a new and significant study suggests that homeopathic medicines may have a dramatic effect on some people with HIV. A study performed by a government research center in India with 129 asymptomatic Seropositive patients (120 male and 9 female) showed that during homeopathic treatment over a period of 3 to 16 months, 11 patients changed from Seropositive to HIV-.5 No conventional drugs of any type were prescribed to these patients.
The medical literature has on rare occasions reported individual patients who for unknown reasons converted from being Seropositive to being HIV-. This study is the first to report more than one.
It should be noted that this writer acknowledges that it does not initially make sense that people can turn from Seropositive to HIV-, because the tests that determine this status are simply evaluating a person's antibodies, not the disease itself. It is generally assumed that people who become Seropositive will remain that way throughout their lives. It therefore seems obvious that the work by the Indian researchers should be more carefully studied to evaluate this potentially significant clinical result. It should also be noted that these researchers have elsewhere published more up-to-date data which shows significant improvement in immune panels and blood work in Seropositive and AIDS patients as the result of homeopathic treatment.6
These same researchers also conducted a study on the immunological status of 34 Seropositive patients.7 After six months of individualized homeopathic treatment, 23 (67%) of the 34 subjects' immune profiles improved. Thirteen patients experienced a 0-10% increase in CD4 lymphocytes (a higher number of CD4 lymphocytes suggests a stronger immune response) and 10 patients experienced a greater than 10% increase. Because there is a tendency for people with HIV to have continually decreasing CD4 lymphocytes, this study suggests that homeopathic medicines provided a benefit to the subjects.
A San Francisco Bay Area homeopath, Lawrence Badgley, MD, reported on a six month study of 36 patients with AIDS or HIV whom he treated with homeopathic and other natural medicines. He observed a 13% increase in T4 helper cells and an average weight gain of two pounds.8 AIDS tends to have increasingly degenerating effects on the body, and improvement in the immune profile and weight gain seem to be rarely experienced under conventional medical treatment.
In addition to what homeopathy offers in the prevention of AIDS, other natural therapies that strengthen the body's own defense should also be considered. For instance, a recent study of Seropositive patients who were given only a multivitamin/mineral supplement were found to develop AIDS at a substantially slower rate than those who did not supplement their diet. If this simple addition to one's prevention program is so effective, it isn't hard to imagine what more individualized nutritional and natural medicine programs can do to slow down onset of this dreaded disease.
Treatment of Acute Illnesses During AIDS
Because of the seriousness of this disease, the treatment of people with HIV or AIDS requires professional health care, even when their ailments are seemingly minor. Ideally, they should receive treatment from a homeopath who is an M. D. or a D. O., but otherwise the best care is one that integrates homeopathic treatment with appropriate medical diagnosis and, in emergency situations, with appropriate medical treatment.
People with AIDS are prone to opportunistic infections due to their immunodeficient state, ranging from fungal infections in the mouth to respiratory infections. The use of conventional drugs can provide valuable temporary relief; however, occasional or repeated use of these drugs takes its own toll on their health and immune system, and thus provides short-term relief but longer-term immune complications. Safer therapies that are not as physiologically disruptive as conventional drugs are necessary for the long-term improvement of people with AIDS. Homeopathic medicines can play an important role in the treatment of these opportunistic infections.
One of the advantages of using homeopathy in treating people with AIDS is that they tend to get various unusual symptoms, diseases, and syndromes which evade immediate diagnosis. A homeopath, however, can prescribe a remedy before a definitive conventional diagnosis is made. Because homeopathic medicines are prescribed on the basis of a person's unique pattern of symptoms, a conventional diagnosis is not necessary for a curative remedy to be prescribed.
Treatment of People with AIDS
Despite the seemingly positive results that homeopathic medicines provide for people who are Seropositive, for those with early onset of AIDS, and for those with nonextreme cases of AIDS, most homeopaths do not observe significant improvement in treating people who have advanced stages of AIDS. That said, it should also be noted that there are exceptions to this general rule, and numerous homeopaths find that select patients with advanced stages of AIDS experience dramatic improvement in their quality of life.
The experience of Bill Gray, MD, a homeopath in Davis, California, is typical of many homeopaths. He has had 33 AIDS patients, only three of whom have survived. The remaining three patients were the only ones who insisted on avoiding AZT and ddI (another popular AIDS drug). Dr. Gray has also had 30 Seropositive patients for an average of five years, only one of whom developed AIDS. Although this one patient has suffered from two bouts of pneumocystis pneumonia, he is actually doing quite well under homeopathic treatment.
Dr. Gray and most homeopaths utilize classical homeopathy in the treatment of people with AIDS, using a single remedy prescribed individually to the unique pattern of symptoms experienced by the patient. This highly individualized treatment generally includes the use of homeopathic medicines which are highly potentized (usually higher than the 200th potency).
Because of the urgency of some AIDS patients' situations, some homeopaths experiment with new homeopathic remedies and with nonclassical approaches to homeopathy. For instance, Dr. Elliot Blackman, an osteopathic physician in San Francisco, occasionally prescribes Cyclosporin in homeopathic doses as an intercurrent medicine (an intercurrent medicine is one that is prescribed after another medicine which is individually determined). In conventional doses, Cyclosporin is an immunosuppressing drug, thus suggesting that it can be effective in homeopathic doses for treating people who have an immunosuppressed condition (this prescription is not "classical homeopathy" because each immunosuppressing drug creates its own unique pattern of symptoms, and the classical use of this drug would be more individualized).
In addition to the nonclassical approach, some homeopaths have been experimenting with giving AIDS patients homeopathically potentized doses of their own blood. The clinical benefit of this approach, however, has not yet been systematically tested.
Alan Levine, MD, a San Francisco physician who integrates homeopathic and other natural medicines with occasional prescription of conventional drugs, has one patient who was so sick with AIDS that he developed dementia, a state of mental deterioration that tends to occur in late stages of AIDS. This patient refused all conventional drugs from Dr. Levine and from all other physicians. Using homeopathic medicines, acupuncture, and herbs, the patient is now very healthy, has no signs of dementia, and has not had a single opportunistic infection in several years.
This case is mentioned because, despite the small chances of surviving late stages of AIDS and despite the generally accepted experience that dementia represents an irreversible neurological change, it is inspiring to know that significant and even substantial improvement is sometimes possible.
It should be noted that people with AIDS occasionally develop a fever shortly after taking the correct homeopathic medicine. This fever is considered a beneficial response of the body to the remedy and should not be suppressed. Physiologists recognize the therapeutic value of fever as a response to infection, and homeopathic medicine seems to be one way to augment this healing response.
Homeopathic Treatment of Infectious Diseases and Immunological Disorders
In order to fully appreciate the potential of homeopathic medicine in the treatment of AIDS, it is useful to get some historical perspective as well as to investigate what homeopathy has to offer in the treatment of viral and immunological disorders.
Homeopathy has an impressive history of successes in treating infectious disease, including many of the most serious and potentially fatal infectious diseases known to humankind. The significant successes of homeopathic treatment of the infectious diseases that raged during the 1800s in the United States and Europe created tremendous support for this natural therapy. Death rates in homeopathic hospitals from cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and pneumonia were commonly one half to as little as one eighth those in conventional medical hospitals. Besides hospitals, prisons and insane asylums that employed physicians who specialized in homeopathy experienced a similar success rate compared to other institutions under the care of conventional physicians.
Just as homeopathy became known in the 19th century for its successful treatment of infectious diseases of that era, based on growing clinical and laboratory evidence, it is likely that it will become known in this era for its results in treating contemporary viral infections.
Although homeopathic medicines are not considered to have traditional antiviral action, their ability to augment the body's own defenses suggests that they have antiviral effects. One study on chicken embryo viruses showed that eight of ten homeopathic medicines tested inhibited the growth of the viruses by 50 to 100%.9 A similar study done by the same researchers did find, however, that none of the four homeopathic medicines tested for their effects on a mouse virus had any effect.10 Taken together, these studies suggest that homeopathic medicines can have significant antiviral effects, but it is necessary to find the individualized remedy for each situation.
Despite this preliminary work, it is conjectured that homeopathic medicines do not have traditional antiviral effects but have immunomodulatory effects ("immunomodulatory effects"
refers to a tonification of the body's immune system--that is, an ability to augment immune response when it needs to be stimulated and to depress an already overstimulated immune system). One laboratory study showed that the homeopathic medicine Silicea had dramatic effects on stimulating macrophages, an important part of the body's immune system, by 55.5% to 67.5%11. On the other hand, another clinical trial showed the efficacy of individualized homeopathic medicines on the treatment of people with rheumatoid arthritis,12 an autoimmune disease, which is when a person's immune system is overly active, leading the body to attack itself. This study suggests that homeopathic medicines decreased the overly active immune system.
Other studies have shown the immunomodulatory effects of homeopathic medicines,13 though their description is too technical for this book (See P. Bellavite and A. Signorini, Homeopathy: A Frontier in Medical Science. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 1995).
In Summary
The history of homeopathy's successes in treating infectious disease epidemics, the research that suggests the immunomodulatory effects of homeopathic medicines, and the clinical research on Seropositive and AIDS patients that indicates beneficial response to homeopathic medicines should command attention by physicians, scientists, and public health officials. Despite this body of work, it is both surprising and depressing that homeopathic medicine has been consistently ignored as a viable part of a comprehensive program in treating Seropositive and AIDS patients.
Homeopathy is not the only alternative that is being ignored by the AIDS medical community. Even though a large number of people with AIDS, especially long-term survivors, are using one or more alternative treatments, there is little data on their use or success. The leading AIDS organizations are likewise ignoring any serious investigation of their use. Until AIDS activists, the concerned general public, and open-minded health professionals start insisting that research on alternatives be performed, the potentially valuable therapies will continue to be ignored, and the AIDS epidemic will continue to devastate our society. When these alternative therapies are integrated within a comprehensive program which includes public health measures that seek to prevent infection, the AIDS epidemic will finally begin to recede.
Reference:
1. Above information has been taken from various sources in the best interest of the general public awareness to know much about HIV / AIDS and Homp�opathy so that they can protect themselves from this deadly disease. I express my thanks and gratitude to the contributors of the valuable information.
2. "AIDS: The Real Cause" by Dr. George Vithoulkas.
3. "A Homeopathic Perspective on AIDS" by Mr. Dana Ullman, M. P. H.
Copyright
© Dr. Sayeed Ahmad 2004