Are You Positive?

by Stephen Davis

  Chapter Eleven

  “Sarah, do you know about something called the ‘nocebo effect’?”

  “No, Gwen. Never heard of it.”

  “How about ‘bone pointing’?”

  Sarah laughs. “Gwen, you’ve either gone totally wacko, or you’re so far ahead of me that I’m not sure I can keep up. Which is it?”

  It’s Gwen’s turn to laugh, and it feels good to be back together with her old friend. They had shared dinner together, drunk a little wine, and are now lounging in Gwen’s living room watching a light snow start to fall outside.

  Sarah hadn’t seen snow for a long time, and it brought back many memories of her childhood in Connecticut – lots of good ones as well as not-so-good ones. She had given Gwen all the latest details of the murder trial over dinner, and they had talked about other things as well. But so far, neither one had mentioned their brothers.

  Gwen knew all about Greg’s death. It had only been a couple years after losing Greg that Sarah had met Gwen in California. As a result of the close friendship that formed very quickly, Sarah was able to tell Gwen everything, to say things she couldn’t talk about with her parents and process emotions she didn’t know she had.

  Brad, on the other hand, died well after Sarah and Bill had moved to Arizona. Although they stayed in touch by phone, it was clearly not something Gwen wanted to discuss in depth long distance.

  Tonight it’s Gwen who first broaches the subject. “You know, Sarah, Brad – my little brother – died less than two years after he was diagnosed HIV-Positive.”

  “Yes, you told me he died of AIDS.”

  “Well, they said he did, because he had HIV.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  Gwen takes another drink of wine and pulls her legs up under her on the sofa, covering them with an afghan. She offers one to Sarah, who declines.

  “That’s a tough one. Yes, I think he died of AIDS, as AIDS was originally defined. In other words, I think his immune system gave out, and then he developed toxoplasmosis, and that’s what did him in. But it didn’t have anything to do with HIV. Actually, that’s not true, it had everything to do with HIV, but I don’t believe it was the HIV that killed him.”

  “I’m not following you, Gwen.”

  Gwen nods her head, agreeing that she wasn’t making much sense. “After Brad was diagnosed HIV-Positive, he started to get sick. Up until that point, he had been as healthy as you and I. Of course, they told him he only had a couple years to live, and he decided he was going to see the world before he died. So he traveled all over the place, doing lots of crazy things. I’m not talking about visiting Paris or Rome or anything like that. I’m talking about the jungles of Brazil, the outback of Australia, and the mountains of Tibet and Nepal. And everywhere he’d go, he’d live like the locals did, and eat their food and drink their water.”

  Gwen pauses for a moment, looking out the window at the snow. Sarah doesn’t say anything, waiting for Gwen to continue, which she does after taking a deep breath. “But more than anything, the HIV diagnosis prayed on his mind. He lived in fear, afraid of getting sick, afraid of dying, afraid of infecting someone else. He told me on the phone once that every night, when he went to sleep, he wondered if he would wake up the next morning, and often wished he wouldn’t. Every little sniffle, every sore throat, every cough made him wonder whether he now had AIDS.”

  Gwen fights back the tears as she recalls her conversations with Brad, calls he would make to her from a different far-away place each time.

  “I think one of the reasons he never stayed put for very long was that he was afraid of making any deep, intimate connection with anyone, since he believed he would be dead soon and it wouldn’t be fair to them.”

  It’s clear to Sarah that Gwen wants to talk about this in detail. More than that, Sarah feels Gwen needs to talk about it, and wonders whether she ever had with anyone else. When Gwen didn’t continue immediately, Sarah took the lead.

  “When did the toxoplasmosis kick in?”

  “It took about a year before there were any signs or symptoms, but he wasn’t healthy ever since the HIV diagnosis.”

  “Didn’t he take medications to treat the toxoplasmosis?”

  “They wouldn’t give them to him. They kept telling him he had AIDS and needed to take Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy instead, because they said it was the HIV that was causing his problems. They simply wouldn’t treat him for what he actually had.”

  “And he didn’t want to take the anti-retrovirals?”

  “No, and partly that was because of me. I knew about all the studies that show that these drugs are very toxic, sometimes even lethal. And you know how I feel as a chiropractor about drugs in general and the pharmaceutical companies.”

  “So Brad finally died from the toxoplasmosis?”

  “Again, the answer is Yes and No. The deeper question is how he ever got toxoplasmosis in the first place. It’s not a common disease in adults. Lots of people actually carry the parasite in their bodies without getting sick. It’s one of those opportunistic diseases that depend on someone’s immune system being destroyed before it can take hold.”

  “I’m sure a lot of people would say that it was the HIV that destroyed Brad’s immune system.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second, not after all the research I’ve done; and I’ve done a lot of research, Sarah, believe me. But I do think it was his HIV-Positive diagnosis that destroyed his immune system.”

  “I’m a little confused, Gwen, and I don’t think it’s just the wine.”

  Gwen blows her nose and looks like she’s trying to decide where to start.

  “You know about the ‘placebo effect,’ right – where someone is given something, usually a sugar pill, and told it will help them; and they actually get better, not because of some chemical action of the placebo, but because they simply believe the placebo can make them better.”

  Sarah changes her mind, grabs an afghan as well, and settles back to let Gwen continue.

  “Well, for many years medical science has recognized that there is an equal and opposite effect, called the ‘nocebo effect.’ That’s where you give someone something and tell them it will harm them, when in fact there’s nothing in the nocebo that can hurt them at all. But they still get sick.”

  “I’ve never heard of that before.”

  “It’s not a well-known term, but the phenomenon is well-accepted; and I can think of no greater example of a nocebo than being told you are HIV-Positive.”

  Sarah immediately sees the picture quite clearly. “Assuming HIV itself is a harmless passenger virus, as Dr. Peter Duesberg says, there is nothing about HIV that would actually cause anyone any harm. But if you are told that it will – in fact, if you are told that it can kill you…”

  “…and you believe it, then the ‘nocebo effect’ can make you sick even when the HIV won’t! I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to Brad. He got sick shortly after getting his HIV-Positive diagnosis; and, you know, Brad was always very impressionable.”

  “I only met Brad briefly a couple times. I didn’t get to know him that well.”

  “Well, he was; and unlike me, but like a lot of other people, he had great faith in the medical system. So when his doctor told him he was HIV-Positive, and that he would eventually get AIDS and die – probably within a couple years – Brad believed him.”

  “And you think it was that belief that made him sick, and not the HIV. I can see that.”

  Gwen is relieved to be able to talk to someone who would understand, who has both the knowledge and the compassion to really listen. She couldn’t say this to just anybody, and hadn’t. It feels good to let it all out.

  “There are other examples of this that support what I’m saying, you know. One of the most famous is called ‘bone pointing.’ You said you had never heard of it, so here’s the whole story….”

  Gwen uncoils her legs from underneath her and puts her socked feet up on the c
offee table.

  "’Bone pointing’ is a method of execution used by the Australian Aborigines. It is said it never fails to kill its victim. If someone is found guilty of committing a serious crime against the tribe, the shaman simply points a bone at the person and chants. The condemned man may live for several days or even weeks; but he believes so strongly in the curse of the bone that he soon dies. Apparently the bone represents a ‘spear of thought’ which pierces the victim when it is pointed at him. It’s as if an actual spear has been thrust at him and his death is certain.”

  “And this actually worked?”

  “Apparently it worked on the members of the tribe very well 100% of the time. But when the missionaries arrived, who of course did not believe that the bone could hurt them, it didn’t work on them at all, and the tribe became very confused.”

  “But just believing the bone was harmful, people died when it was pointed at them?”

  “That’s what they say, and I am convinced that my brother died after his doctor pointed the ‘HIV bone’ at him.”

  Sarah doesn’t really want to argue, but it seems a little extreme to her. “But, Gwen – with all due respect to the Aborigines – haven’t we come a long way since then? I mean, do you really think that in these modern times, just telling someone they’re going to die will actually kill them?”

  Gwen smiles, which makes Sarah relax a little. She was afraid that she wasn’t being the right kind of friend to Gwen, who was obviously in need of support and compassion rather than a challenge or debate.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you, Sarah? But the latest research is showing that this is not only true today as much as it was hundreds of years ago, but we now are starting to understand why and how it works that way.” When Sarah doesn’t respond immediately, Gwen decides to press on. “Sarah, ever heard of epigenetics?”

  Sarah laughs out loud again. “Obviously, Gwen, I must really be behind the times.”

  Gwen laughs as well. “Don’t kick yourself. This is really cutting-edge stuff. I ran across it in a book called The Biology of Belief, by Dr. Bruce Lipton. Are you interested in hearing about it?”

  “If you’re willing to talk about it… sure!”

  “Then we’re going to need more wine. Would you get another bottle while I go find Bruce’s book.”