The Legal System Turned Upside Down: Defining, Diagnosing, and Denying HIV

Nushawn Williams. Remember him? In 1999 Williams was convicted as a sexual predator in New York State; Guilty of rape and reckless endangerment. Williams is HIV infected and he infected his victims, including a 13 year old.

It looks like Clark Baker and his AIDS Denialist crew of medical mischief and pseudoscientific scams have come to rescue Nushawn Williams, who now claims that he is not HIV infected. Williams may have tested HIV positive, but the tests were, of course, invalid.

New tests ordered by the defense, with what appears to be consultation from Clark Baker, uses an AIDS denialist favorite scheme -- electron micrographs.

For an AIDS Denialist, the only proof that HIV exists would be an image of the ‘pure virus’. AIDS Deniers refute science that relies on combinations of antibody/antigen/PCR testing to diagnose HIV. They also, by the way, refute images of HIV because they are not ‘pure virus’.

While in prison, Williams had been receiving treatment for his HIV infection. Successful treatment leads to viral suppression, making it very hard to get an image of the virus.

This is the new tactic of AIDS Deniers Clark Baker and David Rasnick. They have been using services of The Core Electron Microscopy Facility at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. A cell biologist named Gregory Hendricks has been running these tests in cases that employ Baker and Rasnick.

There is no reason to believe that Gregory Hendricks is an AIDS Denialist. I doubt that he is aware that he his providing pseudoscientists like David Rasnick with material for testimony in legal cases. Aware or not, that is what is happening. Dr. Hendricks and U-Mass Medical School probably want nothing to do with these clowns. Talk about a credibility liability. Hopefully they will figure this out.

AIDS Denialists are masters of confusion. Doubt is the one thing that they seem good at generating. That is why they have found a place in the courts.

Below are the news stories…

In court, lawyer says Nushawn Williams ‘doesn’t have HIV’ Man is said to have infected 13 women

By Gene Warner Jay Tokasz

Throughout Western New York, Nushawn Williams has been known for 16 years as a sexual predator who infected young women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

But Williams, 36, appeared in State Supreme Court in Erie County on Tuesday to argue that he never had the virus.

His attorney, John R. Nuchereno, dropped the bombshell revelation Tuesday morning in a hearing before Justice John L. Michalski.

“He doesn’t have HIV,” Nuchereno said. “Now, it doesn’t just go away, and it leads me to believe the victim in this case is right here. His liberty has been denied for 16 years.”

Nuchereno had a sample of Williams’ blood sent to the Core Electron Microscopy Facility at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where an analysis showed no HIV, according to a report by Gregory Hendricks, a cell biologist and the facility manager.

In February 1999, Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree (statutory) rape and one count of reckless endangerment for his Chautauqua County crimes. Authorities have said he infected at least 13 young Chautauqua County women, including one 13-year-old, with the virus that leads to AIDS.

After his plea, Williams, in an interview with a New York City television station, said he had slept with 200 to 300 young women before he was put behind bars.

Williams’ 12-year prison term ended in April 2010, but he continues to be held in Wende State Correctional Facility under a state law that permits civil confinement of sex offenders. A trial had been scheduled for this summer in Chautauqua County to decide whether the state can prolong his confinement.

When his story broke in 1996, Nushawn Williams made headlines around the world. He was widely portrayed as a pariah, and Chautauqua County was thrust into the spotlight as an unlikely hotbed of sordid sexual activity and drug use among teens.

Tuesday’s hearing brought the furor back to the forefront.

Chautauqua County Sheriff Joseph A. Gerace had trouble making sense of Williams’ new claim in court.

“I think it’s a desperate effort to try to get him released from custody,” said Gerace, who has been sheriff since 1995. “I don’t recall any claim that he wasn’t HIV-positive. In fact, it was shown in court that he was HIV-positive and continued to have unprotected sex with girls as young as 13. That’s what made it so heinous.”

But Nuchereno said Williams wasn’t made aware of the HIV test results until shortly before he was arrested and after the public was warned about him.

“He wasn’t told. That’s always been a major contention. It was never litigated,” Nuchereno said.

Williams now goes by the name Shyteek Johnson, largely to shield himself from notoriety in prison, Nuchereno said.

“His name’s been slandered across the country. He has been a target in the Department of Corrections. He’s notorious,” Nuchereno said after Tuesday’s hearing.

Handcuffed and wearing green prison garments, Williams listened intently to the court deliberations.

Lawyers for the State Attorney General’s Office questioned whether the blood sample was properly handled and whether the electron microscopy is a scientifically valid method for detecting HIV.

“It’s sort of a Pandora’s box at this point, this test,” said Joseph Muia Jr., an assistant attorney general. “The information we have is that the electron microscope testing is not the gold standard, so to speak, of testing in this area.”

Muia also suggested that with proper treatment, HIV-infected people can have their “viral loads” reduced to the point that the virus becomes undetectable.

“That may be what we have here,” said Muia, who asked the judge to allow the state to draw Williams’ blood and do more testing.

Assistant Attorney General Wendy R. Whiting reminded the judge that Williams admitted to his crimes, and medical experts are able to link people infected with HIV to a source of the infection.

“Links can be made that, at a minimum, many parties came up HIV-positive,” Whiting said.

Nuchereno tried to cast doubt on those links.

“My concern with the victims is I don’t know if they were even properly tested,” he said. Back in 1996, HIV testing was still relatively new and potentially riddled with error, Nuchereno said. “It was the equivalent of taking a home pregnancy test,” he said.

Williams’ HIV-positive status stuck, even though the test wasn’t confirmed, Nuchereno said.

“Everybody’s just assumed it all along – and, most importantly, he even assumed it,” he said. “He accepted those results. He stated, ‘They must be true because the government told me that.’ ”

Muia said Williams was tested four times a year for HIV in prison, but when pressed by Michalski, the state’s lawyers said they did not have documentation of such testing.

That’s because it did not happen, Nuchereno said.

“They kept telling him, ‘We’re treating you, but we don’t find any evidence of the virus,’ ” he said.

Williams stopped taking HIV medication in preparation for the electron microscopy, Nuchereno said. He has remained off of HIV drugs since discovering the results of the test in April.

Additional Reporting from the Associated Press


Lawyer: NY man at center of HIV scare not positive
BY CAROLYN THOMPSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Nushawn Williams, a New York drug dealer imprisoned amid accusations he infected 13 young women with HIV in the 1990s, does not have the virus that causes AIDS, according to his attorney, who said he arranged for a new blood test as part of efforts to get him released from prison.

"The results were that there was no HIV," lawyer John Nuchereno said Thursday, after revealing the findings during a court hearing earlier in the week.

He said Williams, 36, may have been the victim of a false positive when tested 16 years ago.

"Everybody just assumed the results were correct. Everyone just accepted it," he said.

State officials, seeking to keep Williams locked up, have questioned the validity of the new results.

Williams has been in prison since pleading guilty in 1999 to statutory rape and reckless endangerment.

In 1997, before he was charged, authorities in the western New York city of Jamestown took the unusual step of announcing publicly that Williams was HIV positive in an effort to stem further spread of the virus by Williams' partners to others. News that the dreadlocked Bronx native known as "Face" had been found to be the common denominator in numerous HIV cases, including that of a 13-year-old girl, set off a panic in the small city and sent lines for HIV testing out clinic doors.

He told a reporter in 1999 that he'd had sex with 200 to 300 partners.

Williams, who now goes by the name Shyteek Johnson, completed a 12-year prison sentence in April 2010 but has remained in custody as the state seeks to have him committed indefinitely under a civil law that allows extended confinement for sex offenders with mental abnormalities that make them likely to offend again.

Nuchereno argues that Williams, without HIV, is not a danger and should be freed.

"Are you dangerous because at 19 or 20 you liked to have sex?" he asked.

A trial is scheduled for next month.

The state's request to conduct its own HIV test on Williams was denied on Wednesday.

Assistant Attorney General Joseph Muia Jr. questioned whether the April blood sample had been properly handled, as well as the reliability of the test submitted by Nuchereno, which was conducted using an electron microscope at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

"The information we have is that the electron microscope testing is not the gold standard, so to speak, of testing in this field," Muia said during a motions hearing Tuesday in state Supreme Court.

He told the judge that Williams had been tested quarterly while in prison and treated for HIV because of consistently positive findings. But he said he did not have access to the prison medical records to show the court.

State corrections officials said Thursday they could not discuss specific inmates' care but that offenders generally receive services consistent with the standard of care in the community.

Muia also suggested the treatment Williams received in prison had made his HIV undetectable.

Dr. Joseph McGowan, medical director of the Center for Aids Research and Treatment at North Shore University Hospital, told The Associated Press that the accepted protocol for HIV testing involves screening the blood for antibodies and then confirming the results with a second test. An electron microscope would be unreliable, particularly for someone infected a long time, because the number of cells harboring virus genes would be diluted over time and difficult to detect, said McGowan, the New York and New Jersey chairman of the American Academy of HIV Medicine.

"Electron microscopy is not typically a means for confirming or ruling out HIV infection," said Dr. Joseph Cervia, who is also a certified HIV specialist with the American Academy of HIV Medicine and a clinical professor at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine.

In its 2010 petition seeking civil confinement, the attorney general's office described Williams as a mentally disturbed, sex-obsessed drug user who was unruly and sometimes violent in prison and would likely infect more women if set free. A psychologist's report said Williams targeted vulnerable young women who were underage and/or drug addicted and "used charm and coercion to secure sexual contact."

For more on the original Nushawn Williams Case see

http://www.poz.com/articles/204_1380.shtml

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Goodbye and good riddance, Karri Stokely, you AIDS denialist bitch.

Karri Stokely, prominent AIDS Denialist, is dying. Below is an excerpt from the blog of Karri Stokely's cousin. I was aware that she had a relative who was outraged by her AIDS Denialism, but I had not seen his blog before today. I heard that he was concerned about her and tried to talk her back to reality. She obviously did not listen. His frustration is apparent. 

Perhaps he should direct his anger at those who facilitated her Denialism, rather than the victim herself. But Karri, like Christine Maggiore before her, is a victim with blood on her hands.

If you are not familiar with Karri Stokely, look back over some of my older posts. You can also visit numerous AIDS Denialism websites, where she is a common feature. Rethinking AIDS shamelessly exploited this woman and her family.  Our goal should be to make it impossible for them to replace her with a new poster-person.

UPDATE: Karri Stokely passed away yesterday. Her health deteriorated and she developed opportunistic infections. Reader comments regarding her death are posted near the end of this thread.  

Goodbye and good riddance, Karri Stokely, you AIDS denialist bitch.

By Todd (guyn2gear), Karri Stokely's Cousin

I received news this morning that Karri is in hospice care with a bad pneumonia infection. As any rational person would deduce from the above, it is an opportunistic infection, known as part of ARC (AIDS-related complex). Most people can fight off most forms of pneumonia with antibiotic and antiviral drugs — and we can thank AIDS research for invention of the antivirals. Karri is not able to fight this one off, not because it's a strange or particularly strong infection, but because her immune system is too compromised to do anything about it anymore.

The person who told me asked me not to say anything about it, to keep it quiet. I'm sorry, Karri, but your shameful actions drove me to shout this to the world:

Karri Stokely, you are getting what you deserve.

Yes, that's a horrific thing to say. I've never before said that about any dying person. Karri, however, has done something much more horrific herself: She has played the pied piper to audiences who are confused and looking for answers, and her unscientific, already debunked answers will get some of those people killed, likely in slow, tortuous ways. Her public denial of the HIV/AIDS connection is itself a virus of the mind, and she has been spreading that virus to the world, consequences be damned.

I'm sorry to Karri's husband, and to her children, who will soon be without a mother, though I'm happy that Karri was able to have time with them without the drug side effects. I'm sorry to Karri's mother, who will now outlive her own child. No one, Karri included, deserves HIV. On the flip side, no one deserves to be harangued by deadly false hope.

To my friends who are HIV+ and taking care of yourselves, I applaud you for keeping it together. I can't begin to imagine how it has reshaped your life.

To those who are HIV-, do what I do. Get tested regularly. Be vigilant about your health. Learn about HIV and other STIs, and talk to your doctor about them.

Regardless of your status, keep yourself protected. The most caring thing you can do for your sexual partner is to cover it up. (Most of the people I know enjoy rubber, right? ...Oh, here's the lyrics for that as well.)

This posting may mean that family members, who didn't know much about my personal life, will discover that I have a very "alternative" view of sexuality. As my inaugural post on this too-infrequent blog said, I'm not hiding myself anymore, so I had no qualms about calling out people, myself included, by name. The topic of AIDS disinformation makes it ever more important for me to stand out and be seen... consequences be damned.

To read the entire post, click here

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How AIDS Denialism Can Kill You Part VII: Nadezhda

David Crowe AIDS Denialist

A Russian woman has posted her story at David Crowe's Alberta Reappraising AIDS website. It illustrates how the AIDS Denialism movement attracts people who are unable to cope with their HIV diagnosis. Her T-cells are dropping and she believes it is nothing to worry about. Nothing to with AIDS. Rather than correcting her misinformed beliefs, Crowe is happy to confirm them. He is a primary vector for the spread medical misinformation. If you have read the tragic story of Emery Taylor below, Nadezhda's post will sound very familiar. Here are some excerpts. I encourage you to visit Crowe's website, if you can stomach it. 

My name is Nadezhda. I am 31 years old. I tested HIV-positive 2 years ago, I am asymptomatic and healthy and never have been sick since my “diagnosis”. I didn’t ask for this testing, it was mandatory testing for official purposes.

Prior to my test I already had seen sites online saying that “HIV=AIDS” is a myth. One of them is run by a doctor who writes about healthy lifestyle and natural ways of healings. He also writes against HIV=AIDS and vaccinations and other medical dogmas and since he was a doctor himself I trusted his opinion. When I read that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, I just knew that he was right deep in my heart. But I didn’t know any details.

Then I myself got this diagnosis and, at first of course, I was very stressed and depressed for several months. My husband is “negative” despite unprotected sex with me and stays negative even today. Soon after my diagnosis he found a film for us to watch – “AIDS hoax” – we saw Peter Duesberg talking and we both believed him. After that I did my own research, reading all the information I could get both from orthodox AIDS sites and from dissident sites and many other educational, medical and scientific sites. So my opinion now is not just because I trust that first doctor’s site or because I like Peter Duesberg, but also because I found my own evidence of the HIV=AIDS fraud.

I am not just alive and well but also happy in my marriage and my everyday life. My husband is also a happy man. I want to say to all of my Positive brothers and sisters around the world – you don’t have to be a monk if you are Positive, you don’t have to hide your “status” and hide yourself from finding somebody to share your life with – because the person who loves you would never leave you just because you are “positive”

And by the way – about my “risks of transmission of the horrible virus” – as I said – my husband is negative and I also checked some of my former boyfriends and I didn’t find any of them HIV positive. I had never used IV drugs, had surgery or received blood transfusions.

”Positive” for me is being really positive in all aspects of my life from a healthy lifestyle to positive thinking. I do exercises every day – yoga, cycling or jogging, I have very careful eating habbits, trying to exclude everything that can be bad. I also meditate and do mind and breathing work. I never took any recreational or other drugs, never HAART, of course, and I am never going to take them no matter whether my doctor prescribes them to me or not. He didn’t prescribe me HAART yet because my CD4+ count is not very low yet (they are a little bit lower than considered to be a normal during all recent years despite that fact I had not been sick recently) and my PCR RNA (viral load) is really low. All my other blood work is absolutely good, within the normal ranges. I don’t care about “viral load” because I have looked into those RNA primers myself and they are not indicating HIV or any other viruses – they show “human chromosomes” – that’s it.

So the only thing which is not “normal” is my CD4+ count, about 370 now, and during all 2009 and 2010 they were also low like this.

I have read immunology sites to find the true scientific answer to this question: Are CD4+ T cells the most important cells in our immune system?

I didn’t find the answer – there is no any scientific article telling us that CD4+ cells are the most important. On the contrary, I found that the most important cells that fight against opportunistic infections are CD8+ T cells! 

So this is what I am doing: I look at CD4/CD8 ratio from “another side” and it works for me because I know I have many good cells protecting my immune system CD8+ lymphocytes and I don’t care about “helpers”. 

And here is a more funny thing illustrating what modern science really knows about how the human immune system works and about all those cells and what are they doing there. Look here please and laugh:

neulasta.com/patient/about/blood_counts.html

It’s the first website that Google gives you when you search for WBC (White Blood Cells).

There is nothing about lymphocytoses at all :) The most important cells are Neutrophils! he he he. So forget all the bullshit about risk for your immune system even if your CD4+ is very low – it doesn’t matter! Modern science doesn’t know how our immune works – please don’t let them fool you. If you doubt – try to research immunology as I did – about the different cells of immunity and you will see – they don’t know how our immune system works and they are not certain what those many different kind of immune cells are for. Just remember – there are so many types of cells of the immune system, and CD4+ is just one of them and not the most important one.

Nadezhda K

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How AIDS Denialism Can Kill You Part III: Lambros Papantoniou

In Memoriam, Lambros Papantoniou
by George N. Pavlakis, Rockville, MD USA
[Reposted in honor of Lambros]
Note that this story was originally posted in December 2009. I have been in touch with more of Lambros' friends who have confirmed the horrific acts of AIDS Denialists described in this touching essay. AIDS Denialists are on notice... you are on the minds of loved ones. SCK

What do you do about someone who claims to be an expert, serving up half-truths, twisting the facts in credible-sounding sentences and misleading a patient? There must be some rules that apply to someone who professes to be an expert and induces patients to stop their doctor-prescribed medication. These must be applied to prevent harm to more patients. And what if these actions lead to the patient’s death?



Such is the case of Lambros Papantoniou, a journalist living in Washington, a diplomatic correspondent for several Greek media institutions for more than 30 years and a man loved by all who met him. Even in the higher political echelons of Washington, he was affectionately known as “Mr Lambros”.

During a hospital stay approximately ten years ago, Lambros was diagnosed with AIDS and given anti-retroviral therapy. Following this, his interest in the AIDS problem skyrocketed, and he sought information on it. Although he was a diplomatic correspondent, he reported on AIDS issues several times.

 Unfortunately, Lambros attracted the attention of Andrew Maniotis, a scientist and self-proclaimed expert on many fields, and AIDS denialist. Dr. Maniotis is not a medical doctor, nor a pathologist, as he occasionally describes himself. He is not a tenured professor, nor a tenure-track candidate for a higher academic career. At times he denies he is an “AIDS denialist,” but this term accurately describes public opinions. He does not shy away from controversy and publicizes naïve opinions that contradict the established knowledge and medical science, trying to nullify the medical gains of generations of researchers and doctors.

Maniotis claims that Lambros was like a brother to him. With such brothers, who needs enemies? The two men became friends, and Maniotis visited Lambros often in the last few years, his influence growing stronger and stronger, ultimately convincing him that HIV did not exist. Lambros stopped taking his medication and the result was devastating. After his death, Lambros’s family and friends found his medication in his refrigerator, untouched since 2007. Instead of his life-saving doctor prescribed medicine, Lambros was convinced to consume Maniotis-promoted vitamins.

During 2007, increasingly influenced by Maniotis, Lambros became more aggressive in interrogating scientists and government officials about AIDS. In his attempts to discredit Dr. Robert Gallo, Maniotis urged Lambros to seek an interview with Gallo, hoping to confront him with an AIDS denialist agenda and publish articles containing slander and misinformation.

Dr. Gallo took the bait and spoke with Lambros openly and frankly. To his credit, Lambros published a series of articles in which he reported on the issue ethically and to the best of his ability. Undaunted by this failure, Maniotis intensified his efforts to convince Lambros of his outlandish ideas on AIDS. Lambros was finally convinced and published an extensive interview, in which Maniotis disputes all scientific facts about HIV and AIDS, advising HIV positive people, like Lambros himself, to stop taking their doctor-prescribed medication and to rely on vitamins and other unproven methods.

Unfortunately, Lambros’ non-scientific background and his personal vulnerability as an HIV positive person got the best of him, and he became more and more a spokesperson of the AIDS denialists, putting his complete trust in Maniotis.

This trust eventually cost him his life. He simply stopped taking his medication. Already hospitalized once, Lambros’s health depended on blocking HIV through anti-retroviral drugs. Without this protection, the virus continues to damage the immune system, until the patient becomes vulnerable to a multitude of common infectious agents, which would ordinarily be blocked by a functioning immune system. With the medication, he likely would have lived a longer and healthier life.

Having finally succumbed to Maniotis’ 'freindship', at several White House and State Department briefings in Washington, Lambros asked hostile nonsensical questions repeating the statements of Maniotis verbatim. He asked whether anyone had actually seen the virus. He accused the medical profession of poisoning the “so-called AIDS” patients with drugs.

In retrospect, Lambros’ increasingly erratic behavior can be partially explained by his deteriorating health. HIV ultimately landed him at Howard University Hospital under unclear circumstances. The most likely scenario is that he was found confused and disoriented and was taken to the closest emergency room. He had developed encephalitis, a common outcome of end-stage HIV infection. He was later transferred to Georgetown Hospital, where he died of encephalitis. During his more lucid moments at the hospital, Lambros told his friends he was dying of AIDS.

In the meantime, Maniotis, having the trust of Lambros’s family, was calling both hospitals and arguing about prescribed treatments, accusing medical personnel of trying to kill Lambros, all while denying the existence of AIDS. The doctors found the situation highly distracting and asked that Maniotis does not contact them. The Greek Embassy had to intervene and tell Maniotis to back off.

During this last period of his life, Lambros was clearly very sick and confused, making several statements reflecting this confusion. To their shame, AIDS denialists are promoting these statements on the Internet in order to build up their own agenda, disrespecting the memory of a sick and confused man, and, of course, not acknowledging their part in his death.

"Nobody really knows why he's gone," claims Maniotis. But in the end, Lambros knew, and so do we. He died of encephalitis following the collapse of his immune system, an outcome of HIV infection. We know from millions of other cases that, had he taken his anti-retroviral medicine and prevented further damage by HIV, he could have had many more productive years.

Some of us who knew him also feel a bit guilty at times about not being able to protect him more from predators like Maniotis.

Consequently, we feel that along with celebrating his contributions, his achievements, his life of giving, of helping many people in his community, we also need to tell his true story. Lambros was a defender of our democratic ideals, a stalwart defender of the truth, a man who gave freely of himself, his time and the limited money he had, helping countless people in his neighborhood in Washington, in cities throughout the U.S. and in Greece. He is missed even by those he criticized.
We must honor him by not allowing his death to be used to hurt others. We must not be silent, as silence did not become Lambros himself.

As a generation of AIDS activists realized some time ago, Silence = Death.

May 28, 2009 - Lambros Papantoniou of Washington D.C. passed away peacefully this morning.

He was 63, weeks shy of his birthday on July 4th, the American holiday which filled this proud immigrant son of Greece with immense honor.

Mr. Papantoniou, known to official Washington for decades as "Mr. Lambros," was the Washington diplomatic correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper Eleftheros Typos, Radio Thessaloniki, and the U.S.
weekly newspaper Greek News.

He was born on July 4, 1945 in Mandra Xanthi, a village in Greece's Western Thrace region. His parents were refugees, who fled from Asia Minor in 1922 to settle in Greece.

He studied law at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, and arrived in the United States in 1973. He studied international law and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his Master's Degree and Juris Doctorate.

In 1975, after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, he began working as a journalist, specializing in U.S. foreign policy issues relating toGreece, Turkey, Cyprus and the Balkans. Over the course of a prodigious career, he was correspondent to many Greek and Greek-American Media, and participated at numerous foreign policy conferences and panels in the United States, Greece, Cyprus andAustralia.

A member of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C., he is survived by three sisters and one brother in Greece, one brother in Boston, and his beloved nephew Stavros Stavrakis, who resides in Philadelphia with his wife Vasiliki and their children Prometheus, Aristotle and Elektra Cynthia.

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Another Tragic Case of AIDS Denialism: Kim Bannon

Another cast member of the AIDS Denialist film House of Numbers is dying of AIDS.

A post at the Denialist website 'Questioning AIDS Forum' reads "Kim Bannon gravely ill".  

"Kim is deteriorating rapidly and there is little hope left. As of now, she can still recognize people, but it seems this will not last long. Her delusions are getting worse. ...The dissident movement owes her a lot, and we can't afford to forget what she did for all of us."

It is fair to say that the 'AIDS Dissident Movement' owes Kim Bannon nothing less than her life.

In April 1992, at the age of 29, Kim Bannon tested HIV positive. She was diagnosed  at her local health department after learning that she may have been exposed to herpes. Kim was referred to a well known HIV/AIDS specialist, Dr. Donna Sweet of the Kansas University School of Medicine who described her diagnosis as "indisputable" and "classic".  Dr. Sweet told Kim that without proper treatment she would develop the full spectrum of AIDS within five to seven years and die soon thereafter.

But Kim is a rebel. A free thinker who unfortunately found what she was looking for - a way out. Seeking AIDS information on the Internet, Kim read that HIV tests are invalid and that HIV may not even exist at all. Kim believed what they said. She believed what she wanted to hear. She soon fell into a sea of convincing propaganda by AIDS Denialists from Perth Australia.

Kim ignored her test results  and refused treatment. And here we are today. Kim has AIDS. She is indeed gravely ill. 

Kim Bannon has told her own story. Here she describes how she became an AIDS Denialist.  

In April of 1992 I was twenty-nine years old. I was a well-respected business woman and an accomplished freelance court reporter in Wichita. I traveled frequently for business as well as pleasure. I spent a lot of time at the gym and in outdoor sports, and I took good care of my diet. I was attractive, healthy, intelligent, successful and energetic. Even though I’d been seeing a certain young man exclusively for a few months, I referred to myself as “happily single”. I was financially and spiritually independent, and my sense of well being was off the charts.

Then the certain young man in my life, Don, went to the local county health department for a sore he thought might be herpes. When he told me the nurses there had confirmed it as herpes, I thought the responsible thing to do would be to find out if I had it as well. At the health department, I was told that since I didn’t have a sore that could be cultured, they could not test me for herpes; but how would I like to have an AIDS test? They were offering it to everyone these days.

I was embarrassed and confused. I felt that a refusal of this AIDS test would be tantamount to a confession of illicit drug use or promiscuity. I had heard that anyone can get AIDS, but I still felt I was in a very low risk group. I agreed to the test and was told to come back in a week for my results.

A week later, I sat in the waiting area for two hours waiting to get my results. I was finally taken to a private exam room by two women. They apologized for making me wait for so long and then explained that the reason for my wait was because they were trying to figure out how to handle the situation. My test was positive. Almost everyone who tests positive is either gay or on drugs or suspects they are positive for some reason. Here I was a heterosexual female, non-drug user, non-prostitute, and I was really giving them a problem.

Then they told me it was just a “screening” test, which was called an ELISA. They said I was not in any risk group, and it would most likely turn out to be negative when I was given the “confirmatory” test. They wanted to know if I’d been recently pregnant, but they didn’t inform me of anything else that could cause a false positive result.......

On April 18, 2002, a friend of mine emailed a link to Nexus Magazine, asking me to check out an article about the benefits of coconut oil. As I scanned the magazine index for the title, I noticed another article entitled “The Yin and Yang of HIV”, and I clicked on it. It was long, it was technical, it was heavily referenced and footnoted. I decided to print it out after reading only a few paragraphs, and settled myself onto the sofa in the lodge to study it.

I emerged from the sofa several hours later in a state of amazement. I began with my friends at the Ranch, telling them what I had found. Then I emailed Dr. Valandar Turner of the Perth Group who had written the article, and at last I started searching the web. I could do nothing but read for hours and hours each day all of this enormous volume of information which confirmed the suspicions I had had about my own supposed “diagnosis” as well as giving support to the holes I perceived in the prevailing AIDS dogma.

Since that time I have done a tremendous amount of research into this subject, first for the purposes of my own health, then in outrage, and finally in an effort to help as many people as I can who find themselves in a similar situation as myself. Now, more than twelve years after my diagnosis, I remain healthy and have never taken any AIDS medications.

Kim became so convinced that her HIV diagnosis was meaningless, she launched a lawsuit against the companies that manufacture HIV antibody tests. Kim's law suit brought her increased attention from AIDS Denialists.

Kim followed the path of AIDS Denialism all the way to the poor house. She spent everything she had on acupuncture, Chelation Therapy, Meta-Physical Therapies,  and Scientology. Kim lost nearly everything in her pursuit of fake cures and quackery. Kim is not the first person to live the contradiction of seeking natural cures for a disease that she believes does not exist. 

Ultimately, Kim was featured in the AIDS Denialist film House of Numbers.  The film was shot in 2006 when Kim appeared healthy. But Kim was not healthy. Within two years of appearing in House of Numbers, Kim's condition deteriorated and she developed AIDS. Indeed, three people featured in House of Numbers have since died of AIDS. 

AIDS Denialists are now scrambling to explain Kim's declining health, especially because of her portrayal in House of Numbers. While Kim's family and doctors try to treat her HIV infection, the AIDS Denialists have other suggestions.

Celia Farber, for example, has written "It is clear she need (sic) intense and radical brain rehabilitation, and treatment for severe trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, brain injury, and over medication with HIV drugs and psych drugs."

Celia Farber recommends treatment at the Life Vessel Institute in New Mexico.

"The Life Vessel uses light, sound, frequency and vibration to balance the Autonomic Nervous System. Detoxify in our beautiful relaxing suites with Far-Infrared Saunas. Release subconscious emotional stress with our highly effective technology utilizing Voice Mapping, Galvanic Skin Response and Frequency. Deep tissue Pain Laser Therapy for back pain, sports injury, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel and many additional injuries. MEDI-SPA offering massage, Facial Treatments, DNA Cryo-Stem Cell Therapy, Micro-Current face enhancements for wrinkle reduction and lifting. Arasys III device for muscle building and inch loss."

The "Life Vessel Package" includes 'one Life Vessel Series of one hour on the first day, two hours on the second day and one hour on the third day.  One Asyra  to determine areas of stress in the body, and one Evox for emotional clearing" for a mere $895.

Another AIDS Denialist, Henry Bauer (also the leading authority on the existence of the Loch Ness Monster) cheers for Kim refusing HIV treatment.  

"Quite often I wonder how many other healthy women have been subjected to the same sort of ordeal that Onnie experienced for years and managed to survive. We know of Kim Bannon, Maria Papagiannidou, Audrey Serrano, Karri Stokely."

While Kim suffers full blown AIDS, Denialists are lying and denying. They are saying that Kim has health problems, but not caused by HIV.

AIDS Denialist Christine Maggiore did the same thing  when David Pasquarelli died of AIDS. Maggiore said it had been the stress of jail that killed him.  When Christine Maggiore died of  AIDS, Denialist Celia Farber said it must have been a 'radical detox' that killed her.  Other AIDS Denialists said that Christine Maggiore could not handle the stress of watching a Law Order SVU episode that portrayed her story of AIDS Denialism. That is right, they said she died from watching a Law and Order episode. AIDS Denialists die of anything, except AIDS.

The same AIDS Deniers are claiming that Kim is weak minded and unable to cope with stress. 

They are....

Lying about her past and present life situation.  

Saying that she was abused and traumatized, and that is why she is ill.

Implying that she is weak and unable to cope with stress. 

Claiming that HIV medications have caused her to become ill.

Kim's condition would be quite different if she had accepted treatment for her HIV infection. Tragically, and with the encouragement of AIDS Denialists, Kim Bannon refused treatment.

How have the AIDS Denialists contributed to Kim's deteriorating health? Kim's friend explained on her Facebook Page.

I have been friends with Kim since 3rd grade, best friends.......she was  always a Daddy's girl.......ALWAYS......everyone was jealous of their relationship, they were so close....Kim worked for her Father and things became tense and Kim removed herself from him and was involved in Scientology, at this time she also removed herself from our friendship, only to call a year later and acted like nothing had happened........this was Kim's personality......still is.......She and her Father are close again, they are Best Friends.....
 
 A little insight......I stayed with Kim many weekends when she was living at her parents home.......so her parents could get away from the 24 hr care......Kim required constant care......and she wasn't always, uhm, cooperative, she can be VERY difficult........I was with them when they made the decision to let her go to the AID's hospital in KC (that she wanted to go to) this was very difficult for them.......I received calls from both of them, they were in constant turmoil.....this was their baby, they couldn't put her into assisted living........it had taken toll on them and their health......they simply couldn't care for her any longer.  And she certainly made it clear that she would never move back to their  home. Ironically, she now asks me to talk her parents into letting her  move back home.........
 
 Kim and I spoke for hours and she wanted me to tell her story.....She  wanted me to help her write something to the effect of......The second  chapter.......living with AID's, she was taking the meds and she was  improving, I witnessed this, she was strong, she still had what my son  called her "6pack", she was still going to the gym and working out with a  personal trainer........she was eating all natural stuff.....(that made  me want to gag).......she was improving..........her mind was good, we did  a lot of talking about Non HIV AID's, she admitted at this point that she  had Aid's.........her counts were doing good........everything was  good.........she did have the neuropathy which she had started showing  signs in 2007....she had to be fed because of her arms trembling.......we  laughed, we cried...we remembered the old days......She felt the drugs  were saving lives.......This was July

Denialists started calling and she got off the meds......I stayed with her  one night, home health had been there til I got there.......she was delusional, she said the devil was on her arms and yelled for him to "Be  Gone".......it got worse quickly.......This was Sept or Oct.......This is  when she started speaking of the dentist and was in denial again......

Kim Bannon's story is chillingly similar to that of Lambros Papantoniou. Lambros died of AIDS. He too bought into AIDS Denialism. He was persuaded by AIDS Denialists to refuse treatment.  His friends are vocal about the role AIDS Denialist Andrew Maniotis played in Lambros' death. (see April 5, 2010 repost below) Maniotis is said to have gone so far as to actually talk with Lambros' doctors, telling them not to treat Lambros for HIV/AIDS. Instead, he wanted Lambros to go to Germany for an intensive nutritional treatment that would supposedly cure him of his ailments. Sound familiar?

AIDS Denialism is at its worst when it hooks those who are most vulnerable and sells them a bill of self-promoting false information that ultimately kills.

There is a lot of talk about the 340,000 South Africans who died at the hands of AIDS Denialists. But how many Kim Bannons and Lambros Papantonious are there?

No one knows. But 300,000 deaths from denialism is sounding like a small number.

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