No one diagnosed AIDS in her ever. She had some problems with health when she was in her teens for years finally finding out that some medications she was given were causing it. Then in a routine exam she tested positive for HIV, then tested negative, then tested indeterminate, and round and round as testing goes and finally got off the medical-merry-go-round and lived many good healthy years until she got on a holistic colon cleansing procedure during an extreme cold snap in Los Angeles, something I would have told her not to do, and she got pneumonia and couldn’t regain her strength. She was also emotionally exhausted from the loss of her daughter, and fighting the constant bashing from those who hail HIV/AIDS and it’s NAZI regimes that some people use as weapons telling people who get tested with inaccurate tests that they are sinners and they will die unless they accept AIDS drugs as their savior.

I knew Christine and she was a very caring person, she loved her daughter, and was positively helping the gay community. She was a peacemaker, and as such the contrast to those in the gay community and medical communities that trash her and make false accusations about her and are even so rude they are “glad she is dead” which is the most disgusting thing I have ever read and heard spewed out of the mouths of those who try to force their views on the world when disease conditions are complex, varied, and AIDS treatments are all experimental.

She died of pneumonia, not AIDS, which developed after an extreme colonic that left her in a weakened vulnerable state.

Her daughter died of amoxicillin poisoning not AIDS. The amoxicillin was prescribed by doctors.

HIV/PEACE

You REAP what you SOW!!

Her rejection wasn’t over what kinds of pills to take; it was over the very nature of the disease itself. She was wrong, and not only did she pay with her life, but she took her suffering daughter along for the ride.

These mothers don’t have the luxury of debating the pros and cons of anti-retrovirals. This is a very sad, pathetic case all around.

We have become so far removed from nature/the environment that we have almost lost our intuitive trust in the most powerful medical machinery of all, the human senses. How else did the ancients figure these things out? Many of the ancient remedies worked and science is proving it out all the time. The ancient and indigenous people used all of their senses. Even Freud wrote about how we have almost lost our keen sense of smell we once had. My own Cherokee and Osage ancestors knew that making a tea of Arnica (a native American flower) worked in overcoming back aches and other muscle aches. They also used to make an Arnica poultice for sprains and bruises. Now scientists are proving that Arnica cordifolia is a powerful anti-inflammatory plant that reduces bruising dramatically and thus aid in healing wounds. My native ancestors knew with their senses what worked. Most of us have lost our interrelationship with the plants around us that many of our ancestors once had. It’s arrogant to think that we are more advanced and to treat these things as irrelevant. It’s incredibly stupid to be that way. There is a huge universe of information out there that science has barely scratched the surface of. We need to think of things as a whole for we are all connected.

You also have failed to explain the fact that drugs, not botanicals are patented, therefore the drug industry can make a huge profit off of them. They cannot make as much of a profit off of what they cannot patent. Therefore you don’t see much money going into these studies and research that you claim ha

Jason there is a growing plethora of excellent, peer reviewed literature out there from some great leaders in the field. Ever hear of Dr. Candice Pert who discovered the Opiate receptor in the brain? She wrote a marvelous book entitled Molecules of Emotion wherein she stated very emphatically that with pharmaceuticals “Less Is Best”.

I finally took my aging mother to a physician who is a pharmacist, wetern doctor and who also has an extensive career and degrees in Eastern medicinal practice. He got my mother off of the drugs that she was taking that were actually poisoning her and she has made a major turnaround. His approach is also “less is best” even with regard to the few drugs she actually needs for her blood pressure and Lexapro which he is going to ween her off of in the Spring. She is getting physical therapy and is making some major lifestyle changes. So there is far too much “western medicine” in many of our lives. Much of it needs to be replaced. Western medicine has it’s essential place but not to the extent that Americans have trusted in it. It’s gone too far.

Another incredible physician you might wish to enlighten you is Dr. Devra Davis who is the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Environmental Oncology. Dr. Davis wrote a powerful book that is a powerful endictment of our medical industry entitled The Secret History of the War on Cancer. Read it and then come back and explain to me how you feel about our modern medical system. Aside from universal healthcare which is another important issue we need to totally rethink our medical system from the top down and the AMA and other major American Medical organizations need to think in a more “green” direction with regard to how the system is harming both humans and the environment. We cannot separate ourselves from the environment for too long otherwise the outcome is disease and disease management instead of health and a far greater quality of life.

With regard to organic food I have to tell you that you need to educate yourself about that issue. It has been proven in many studies that organic farming is not only far more healthy for us as humans (there are a lot of studies done on elementary kids who eat organic) and it is definitely without a doubt far more healthy for our environment which is in serious decline. I have been involved in the organic agricultural movement for over 6 years now and I know how strict the guidelines can be with regard to organic farming, especially if you wish to be certified by Oregon Tilth which is one of the strictest of all organic certifications. If you want to read some great literature regarding organic food and read The Omnivors Dillemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen. You’re correct that your supplementation was not a healthy thing for you and yet again it’s because chemical isolates separate from the place where they occur in nature (i.e. an Orange as opposed to a Vitamin C tablet) is something that scientists are beginning to understand.

2.) Alternative medicine is great, but cannot replace Western traditional medicine. Yes herbs and plants evolved with us, but their biological purpose has always been to make more of themselves, not to cure humans from whatever humans have. I’m not saying herbs have no effect, they may, but I work in the nutritional supplement industry and let’s just say if we don’t know what makes an herb effective, we can’t control the consistency of that effective herbal component in the pills. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, know what chemical makes a pill active, and that can be controlled. Although I do take supplements, but I’d never do anything like not take antibiotics and just take vitamin C for strep throat.

It’s ridiculous to suggest that pharmaceutical companies are keeping valuable treatments away.
Notice how much “organic” food there is out there now? It’s because the maintstream food industry decided to start making their own “organic” brands. Trader Joe’s is just the fancy organic version of ALDI, for example. If they haven’t created their own, they’ve bought out smaller organic farms.

What makes you think the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t do the same thing? Merely start their own herbal and holistic line of medicines? They only stand to profit from it, if the treatments in and of themselves were as useful as the pharmaceuticals. I took echinacea for six years, now it’s been almost a year since I stopped, and guess what, I don’t get sick any more or any less now. The echinacea did nothing for me, as the studies showed, in fact, the multivitamins and supplements I was on were probably hurting me, as I had liver enzyme problems until I stopped taking supplements.
Certainly people with big-time illnesses need to look at as many options as they can, there’s rarely a silver bullet. Studies show that a person who has the best treatments and best doctors won’t do well unless they themselves have a positive attitude, but alternative medicines won’t ever replace the medical science we have now, since they have yet to prove they are anywhere close to being as effective.