The HIV
positive patient should be cautious about quacks who promise total cures.
The only way HIV positive patients can be treated is by suppressing
the multiplication of the retrovirus and trying to postpone the onset
of AIDS. That is done by a number of methods like antibodies to various
proteins secreted by the pathogen, blocking their entry into cells,
antiretrovirals which prevent the replication of the virus etc.
There
are a number of quacks promising all sorts of cures. Though they do
not know the spelling of the word virus, they claim to have invented,
discovered or concocted panaceas which can cure AIDS! (They do not even
know the difference between being HIV positive and having AIDS.)
Their
modus operandi is very clever- they show the before and 6 to 8 months
after reports of the same patient following their so called treatment!
The trick is very simple: the first report is the one done on the patient’s
actual blood specimen. The second one is a cleverly manipulated one
the quack collects the patient’s blood and substitutes it with a normal
person’s blood, sends it to the laboratory with the treated patients
name on the label! The negative report so obtained is shown as the proof.
Another
is the breed who are HIV positive and don’t mind saying so. Though
they may be on the conventionally proven anti retroviral therapies,
they will be consuming all sorts of concoctions along with this and
claiming the efficacy of their favorite one without bothering about
any evidence of the same. It could be anything from cow’s urine to
the latest gadget which goes under the name of so called alternative
medicine. The cure all yoga ‘expert’ Ramdev went to the extent of
announcing a yogic cure for AIDS in a couple of years. Luckily everything
fizzled out after he was thoroughly grilled about it and he escaped
with the usual excuse that he had been misquoted.
One clever
rogue from Kerala had marketed a mixture of glucocorticoids (banking
on their property of causing euphoria) with some other ingredients and
had made millions out of it. The analysis of the mixture at a premier
institute of science exposed his secret. Despite of warnings from the
drugs authorities and courts he continued to market his nostrum until
the Supreme Court of India intervened and restrained him from marketing
anything. Now we are given to understand that he is not even in a position
to pay the electricity bills of the huge mansion which he had built
with his ill gotten gains from desperate patients. Needless to add,
they were all cheated by him through his useless concoction which would
cost thousands for a month’s treatment.
In Mangalore
we too have had our share of such. Just outside the gates of a major
hospital and a medical college at Derebail, we have an AIDS specialist
who advertises as such. I can also recall an item in the newspapers
last year in which a laboratory technician was brought to a press conference
to demonstrate the ELISA test for the HIV antibody, as if it was the
latest discovery in laboratory medicine. The claimants of the cure were
the owner of a nursing home with a MBBS and an organic chemist who had
claimed to have discovered a new cure for AIDS. They had brought the
laboratory technician to show how they performed tests for the cured
patients. Nothing has been heard of these people since!
On one
hand the multinationals want to exploit the HIV positive individuals
by charging exorbitant prices for drugs that are effective at least
to a limited extent. On the other we have gangs of unscrupulous charlatans
with totally useless nostrums having fancy names waiting to exploit
the gullible. The third front are the well intentioned people who want
to add their mite to help the cause of the HIV positive and end up publicizing
all sorts of unproven therapies and untested drugs.
|