Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Eastern Alternative Medicine Leads By Example Curing 68 People With HIV or AIDS



Eastern Alternative Medicine Leads By Example Curing 68 People With HIV or AIDS
By: Adam Busuttil
12-12-12

Gambian President Yahva Jammeh has developed a blend of boiled herbs that have been reported responsible for curing 68 people of either HIV or AIDS beginning since 2007. The 68 people  cured at Gambia’s Presidential Alternative Medical Treatment Program (PAMTP) is yet another example of the proven effectiveness of eastern alternative medicine, but western nations still tend to not only ignore and discredit natural remedies, but also fight against the practices, making them less accessible or not even an option under most health insurance policies. A clear example of this can be seen as the United Nations (U.N.) and the World Health Organization (WHO) has continued to battle against the success of Gambia’s PAMTP’s treatment claiming that it “puts patients at risk”.

Western medicine has made some progress in the 30 years of the HIV and AIDS epidemic, but it has been very limited progress at best. For example, there is the popular case of the “Berlin patient”, where Timothy Ray Brown had been claimed to be the first person “cured of HIV” by western mass media earlier this year, despite the earlier reports dating back to 2007 from Gambia’s PAMTP and doubts to Brown’s case from doctors. Steven Yuki at the University of California spoke about Brown’s case at the International Workshop on HIV and Hepatitis Virus in Spain earlier this year and said; "There are some signals of the virus, and we don't know if they are real or contamination", "and, at this point, we can't say for sure whether there's been complete eradication of HIV." The key treatment in Brown’s case relied upon bone marrow stem-cell transplants.

There has been 2 reported cases this year in the U.S. involving the use of stem-cell transplants, which have seen progress. Over the course of this process, the patients endured several treatments for lymphoma, then several stem-cell treatments while staying on their HIV drugs. Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston stated; “We found that immediately before the transplant and after the transplant, HIV DNA was in the cells. As the patients’ cells were replaced by the donor cells, the HIV DNA disappeared,” Both patients have been reported as HIV-free for over two years, but when asked if the patients can be told that they have been cured Kuritzkes said; “We’re being very careful not to do that”. Both patients still remain on AIDS drugs and are considered to still be under “experimental conditions”.

Despite this limited progress in western medicine’s success of curing the HIV epidemic, stem-cell procedures are so difficult and expensive that most agree it is unlikely that it will be used. Dr. Kuritzkes stated that “We’re never really going to be able to do bone marrow transplants in the millions of patients who are infected”.  There are approximately 34 million people infected with HIV and 25 million who have died from it globally.

This is a clear example of how, in many cases, western medicine creates several problems in the practicality of cures as it strictly affirms the almost exclusive use of expensive drugs and treatments for medical care, despite their many side-effects or failures. So why then has there been so much resistance in the western medicine society to alternative remedies? Author Joel Skousen, says that it is due to the claim of its proof of effectiveness, which comes from governments and medical boards whom only accept evidence in the case of random control, double-blind studies which are very costly and are often subject to skewed results by professional bias. Skousen states in his book, Strategic Relocation, that “Because none of the drug companies have any incentive to prove the efficacy of alternative therapies, the world’s body of knowledge comes mostly from anecdotal evidence, coupled with a lot of trial and error on the part of the user. “ Skousen goes on to explain that one of the greatest dangers of personal liberty is the tendency of western nations to legally restrict or prohibit people’s access to and use of natural health remedies-even when found to be more effective in practice and that the passage of Obamacare was a considerable step in this direction.


Sources:

Benson, Jonathan. "President of Gambia says special herbs cured dozens of patients with HIV, AIDS”. 10/13/12.  Naturalnews.com. http://www.naturalnews.com/037530_Gambia_herbs_AIDS_cure.html#ixzz2EtUHMtg4


McClellan, Liza A. M.D. “'Berlin Patient' Timothy Brown Says He Is Still HIV-Free”. 7/24/12. Abcnews.go.com. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/berlin-patient-timothy-ray-brown-hiv-free/story?id=16846827#.UMlM76zNmU4

 

Fox, Maggie. “Two more men with HIV now virus-free. Is this a cure?” 7/26/12. NBC News. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48338421/ns/health-mens_health/t/two-more-men-hiv-now-virus-free-cure/#.UMk9lqzNmU4

 

Skousen, Joel M., Skousen, Andrew L. Strategic Relocation North American Guide to Safe Places 3rd Edition. Printing Resource, Lindon, Utah. 2010.

 

© 2012

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