Are You Positive?

by Stephen Davis

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It had taken longer than Campbell thought to parade couple after couple through the witness box to testify about their HIV status and their sexual history, mainly because Wilson insisted on cross-examining each one of them. One after one, they testified that after years of unprotected sexual contacts, none of the HIV-Negative partners had become HIV-Positive. The last couple had been married sixteen years and still claimed to have sex three times a week, and more often when they were first married. A quick mathematical calculation showed they had intercourse well over 3000 times without the transmission of HIV.

  By the time Campbell finally finished with this group of witnesses, it was already mid-afternoon on Wednesday, and the judge decided to recess until the next morning rather than start something new at that late hour.

  Campbell felt like he could actually stop at this point, if he wanted to. He was certain he had created a reasonable doubt in the juror’s minds of whether the defendant was unquestionably HIV-Positive, and whether Beth Ann Brooks was unquestionably HIV-Positive, and whether the defendant had unquestionably infected Miss Brooks with HIV. And that was the best he could do – create a reasonable doubt. It was also all he needed to get a not guilty verdict.

  As he sits waiting for the judge to arrive to start Thursday morning’s session, his one concern is the amount of information brought out in all the testimony during this trial. It had taken him almost a year of study to learn it, assimilate it, and have it all make sense. This jury had less than a month.

  But Campbell also knows that unless he calls one more witness, the jury is likely to go into its deliberations with an unanswered, burning question: If Beth Ann Brooks didn’t die from HIV/AIDS, what did she die from? Knowing the need and the desire of a jury to find something or someone to blame for the tragic death of any young woman, he is afraid all the evidence might get swept aside and emotions prevail, unless he gives them another reason for her death. However, he is determined to keep this last witness’s testimony to a minimum.

  “Dr. Roderick, where were you and what were you doing in the early 1990’s?”

  “I was at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching and working in my field.”

  “Which is?”

  “I wrote my doctoral thesis at Georgia Tech on protease inhibitors. I’ve been studying them all my life.”

  Campbell knows he can’t go beyond this point without explaining what protease inhibitors are. “Dr. Roderick, can you briefly tell us what a protease inhibitor is?”

  “How about if I just say that it is a drug that interferes with the ability of a virus to replicate – to make copies of itself – and therefore can stop them from spreading.”

  “That’s fine, for now. So you were trying to find a better way to combat HIV?”

  “Not just HIV, no. Any virus, for that matter. I was never focused on HIV, although it had taken center stage by that time for most other protease inhibitor researchers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we had learned that AZT, the only drug that was prescribed for HIV for almost a decade, was highly toxic and often lethal. In fact, there is a trial going on in Phoenix right now suggesting that AZT actually caused 95% of the AIDS cases up through 1997 in this country, and that it was responsible for the death of over 300,000 HIV-Positives, rather than HIV. It’s being called The AIDS Trial.”

  Sarah’s ears perk up with the mention of The AIDS Trial, proud to have been involved, wondering how Gene was doing with his coverage of the AZT section.

  “Dr. Roderick, why would AZT be so lethal?”

  “Because it is a DNA-chain terminator. That is, it interferes with cell reproduction. It was actually developed as a chemotherapy whose purpose was to stop cancer tumors from growing. The problem was that it stopped all cells from duplicating – not just HIV – destroying the immune system, and allowing opportunistic diseases to manifest and kill the patient. And that’s the definition of AIDS.”

  “So you were trying to find a different way of attacking HIV?”

  “Well, again, yes and no. I never got directly involved in the HIV research, for my own reasons. But I was at a professional conference in 1994 and heard a presentation by a British researcher named John Kay who had just finished an eighteen-month-long drug trial for the drug company Hoffman-LaRoche, using their experimental protease inhibitor on AIDS patients. Unfortunately, the results of the trial were very disappointing.”

  Campbell likes the clear, concise way Roderick is answering the questions, and then letting him ask the follow-ups. “In what way?”

  “Initially, the patient would show signs of getting better, but by the end of the study there was no clinical improvement at all compared to the study’s control group. John Kay thought that there was something wrong with the protease inhibitor.”

  “But you disagreed?”

  “Yes. From all of my research, I knew the drug was working perfectly, doing exactly what it was supposed to do. The fact that AIDS patients didn’t get better was not the fault of the drug. It was because HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, so destroying HIV would have no effect on the disease.”

  Campbell definitely does not want to get into a discussion of whether HIV causes AIDS. That trial had already taken place a few months ago, and the whole question was really not pertinent to this case. Let’s move on quickly and hope the jury doesn’t get sidetracked by that.

  “But protease inhibitors soon took over the market as the drug of choice against HIV, didn’t they, Dr. Roderick? How did that happen?”

  “Well, the study John Kay did for Roche never got published, and there was such a political urgency to replace AZT that protease inhibitors quickly got FDA approval anyway, and took off.”

  “That was when?”

  “1995-96.”

  Campbell checks his notes. “And that’s what we know today as Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy, or HAART?”

  “Actually, protease inhibitors are just one part of HAART. No one could really hide the fact that protease inhibitors alone weren’t producing the desired effects of lengthening the lifespan or improving the condition of these AIDS patients. They decided to blame that on HIV itself, claiming that it was mutating and developing resistance to the drugs. To counteract that, they combined the protease inhibitors with smaller doses of AZT – now being called ZDV instead – and sometimes with other what-are-called nucleoside analogs.” Campbell must have frowned, because Roderick quickly adds, “But don’t worry about what those are. Just realize that the famous ‘drug cocktail’ was created, and it included these new protease inhibitors along with some other things.”

  I think that’s enough background. Let’s get down to it. “Dr. Roderick, are these drugs safe?”

  “No, they aren’t. They come with a ‘black box warning’ from the FDA.”

  “What’s a black box warning?”

  “A ‘black box warning’ is a type of warning that appears on prescription drugs that may cause serious adverse effects, and it means that medical studies indicate that the drug carries a significant risk of serious or even life-threatening side effects. It’s the strongest warning that the FDA requires on a drug; more serious problems would result in the outright ban of the drug.”

  “And all HAART drugs come with this black box warning?”

  “As far as I know, they all do.”

  “Which means that there are very dangerous side effects if you take them, maybe even death.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Campbell leaves the lectern and goes to his table as if he wanted something on it. Instead, he stops and turns back to the witness. “But all we hear about is how great these drugs are, and how they save lives, or at a minimum prolong life for so many AIDS victims.”

  “There’s no question that when the HAART drugs were first introduced, they saved people’s lives, or at least prolonged them. But it wasn’t because of how good the HAART drugs were; it was because they got people off full-strengt
h AZT, which is what was killing most HIV-Positives. But the AIDS Industry started this huge propaganda campaign about how HAART saves lives, although that claim is definitely not backed up by any scientific study or published drug trials, I can assure you.”

  “Why not?”

  “To make the claim that these drugs save lives or prolong life, you would have to run an approved FDA study comparing two groups of people: one group would take the drugs, and the other group wouldn’t; and you’d see who lived the longest. But that kind of study could not be done in this day and age.”

  Campbell goes back to the lectern, empty-handed. “Why not?”

  “Because ever since HIV came along, it is considered unethical to run a study full-term that might have a negative impact on one of the two groups. The most famous example was the AZT drug trials, which were stopped when it was decided the trials were so successful that it was unethical to withhold AZT from anyone any longer. Of course, now we know the opposite was true, and that the AZT drug trials were a total farce. But the most recent example happened in Africa, where they were running a study about the so-called benefits of circumcision in preventing the transmission of HIV, and they even stopped that trial short, saying that the evidence was so overwhelming that they weren’t going to wait for the final outcome to start cutting on every African man’s penis.”

  Campbell hopes the ‘p’ word hadn’t offended any of the jury. “But, Dr. Roderick, isn’t there some evidence that – at least for some people – the viral load can go down, and the CD4 cell count can go up when they start taking these HAART drugs.”

  “That might be true in some cases. As I said, protease inhibitors interfere with the ability of a virus to replicate –

  any virus; and although HIV has never been proven to replicate in a human being, other viruses can. And since the so-called HIV viral load test has also not been proven to have anything to do with actually counting HIV, whatever it is counting might be impacted by the protease inhibitors, causing the viral load results to go down temporarily.”

  “And what about the CD4 cell count going up?”

  “The immune system will kick into gear as soon as any foreign substance enters the body. If you put a highly toxic substance, like these HAART drugs, into your body, you better get an increase in your CD4 cells or there’s something wrong with your immune system. But this increase in CD4 cells is not because you’re fighting HIV or AIDS, but because your body is fighting the drugs you just took. And eventually, the CD4 cell count will go back down – often times even lower than where it began – because the nucleoside analogs in the cocktail, like AZT/ZDV, have started to destroy your immune system.”

  Campbell wants one of his pauses to give the jury a break. He’s looked at his notes on the lectern as an excuse so many times that he’s worried the jury has tired of that routine. Fortunately, something makes a sound in the back of the courtroom, like a door closing, so he takes the opportunity to look around. Everyone else does, too. When no one can see anything out of the ordinary, Campbell waits for them to bring their attention back to him, and then continues.

  “Dr. Roderick, let’s get back to the studies on these HAART drugs. The AIDS Industry says these studies exist.”

  “There are some studies, yes, but they do not test the HAART drugs against a control group that is taking no drugs at all. Instead, they test them against a control group that is only taking nucleoside analogs, like AZT/ZDV. I don’t have any doubt that the HAART drugs are less toxic than AZT/ZDV alone – at least, initially. In fact, some researchers have suggested that the protease inhibitors actually interfere with the toxic effects of the AZT/ZDV, making these drug cocktails safer to take than just the nucleoside analogs by themselves. Personally, I think it’s simply because of the lowered dose of the nucleoside analogs in the cocktail.”

  This time, Campbell really does need to look at his notes, but he doesn’t delay very long. “It’s my understanding, Dr. Roderick, that no one could survive taking full-strength AZT by itself for much more than three years, and usually only around two. Are there are people taking these drug cocktails, this HAART, who have survived for longer than that?”

  “Yes, they have definitely survived longer than anyone could on just AZT. The question is, do they survive longer than someone who took nothing? And that would have to be proven by drug trials and double-blind studies if these companies wanted to claim that their drug prolonged life. But it’s not the drug companies who are claiming that; you’ll never see that on any printed insert that comes with the drugs. It’s the AIDS Industry – the so-called AIDS experts – who spread that propaganda around the world using the mass media.”

  “Are there people dying from these HAART drugs, like the people died from AZT?”

  “Absolutely, and unfortunately, in large numbers. In fact, the AIDS Industry has admitted, ever since the International AIDS Conference in 2002, that more people die every year in the United States from the side effects of these drugs than from AIDS-related illnesses?”

  “Is there any scientific proof of that?” Campbell is prepared to hand Roderick a copy of one of the scientific studies, if he needs it. Apparently, he doesn’t. He has all these facts memorized, probably as a result of his years of research.

  “Yes. There was a study published in December of 2003 in the Journal of AIDS – a well-respected mainstream magazine – and I am quoting it by heart, but you can easily check me out, that said ‘Grade 4 events are as important as AIDS events in the era of HAART.”

  “What’s a ‘Grade 4 event’?”

  “Grade 4 events are defined as ‘severe or life-threatening.’ In this study, however, Dr. Reisler and his colleagues specifically said that the risk of death from the first Grade 4 event caused by the drugs and the first AIDS event were essentially statistically equal. But if you read the paper carefully and examine the data, you will find that HAART deaths actually exceeded AIDS deaths.”

  “Say that in English for us, please.”

  “It means that more people are getting severely sick and dying from the side effects of the drugs as there are getting sick and dying from AIDS, at least in the United States.”

  What a great witness, Cambell thinks. And what a great way to end this trial.

  “Dr. Roderick, why are these HAART drugs so dangerous?”

  “One of the reasons is the huge dosages, and the fact that people are told to take them every day for the rest of their lives. Even cancer patients don’t take their chemotherapy every day for years on end. They take it for a while, take a break to let their bodies recover from the drug’s toxicity, and then go another round. That’s not what’s happening with the HAART drugs, which, by the way, are simply another form of chemotherapy, designed to destroy cells.”

  “And what about the side effects of these HAART drugs.”

  “There are many of them, including horrible nausea, loss of fatty tissue – especially in the face – which is called lipodystrophy, a distended abdomen that looks like a pot belly, buffalo humps on the back and neck, and more. But the most common is organ failure, specifically liver failure.”

  “Why?”

  “Unfortunately, some of these HIV protease inhibitors interfere with certain enzymes in the body, preventing the liver from getting rid of all the toxins it collects. When you have all of these HAART drugs that your liver is normally trying to eliminate, but can't, the concentrations are going to build up. You will start seeing toxic effects even at doses that would ordinarily be perfectly safe. Finally, the liver can get overwhelmed and stop working altogether; and if that happens, you die. This is particularly dangerous for AIDS patients because they are often taking almost a whole drugstore's worth of pills every day.”

  Campbell looks at the jury as he slowly repeats what Roderick just said. “You die from liver failure.” Then he looks back at the witness. “But haven’t there been major improvements in the HAART drugs in the last ten years?”

  “There have been some improve
ments, yes, but I wouldn’t call them ‘major,’ and they still have the same problems with the side effects. As a matter of fact, there was a recent study that showed that the side effects have gotten even worse.”

  “When was that study published?”

  “August 5, 2006, in the Lancet magazine – again, one of the most respected magazines specializing in this kind of research, and definitely an arm of the AIDS Industry.”

  “And what did this study say?”

  “A number of things, all of them bad. But the conclusion was that the HAART medications being given today – or at least in 2005 when the study ended – are worse than the HAART drugs we started off with ten years ago.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, first, the study says that the recent HAART drugs do not prolong life any more than they did in 1996. We’ve already discussed that there’s no evidence they prolong life at all; but even if they did, this study found that no one is living longer today than they did ten years ago.”

  Let’s get through this fairly quickly, Campbell decides. “You said ‘first,’ so I assume there were other parts to this study?”

  “Yes. They also found that there was now actually a decline of CD4 cells when people started taking HAART, that there was ‘an increase in the rate of AIDS in recent years’ while on HAART, and that ‘the median time to the first AIDS event after starting HAART decreased over time.’ In fact, the study concludes that while there may have been ‘clear improvement for virological response,’ there were ‘worsening rates of clinical progression.’”

  “Okay, we need you to translate all of that for us.”

  “Very simply, the newer HAART drugs, compared to the HAART drugs that came on the market in 1995-96, depress the immune system rather than improving it, and cause more AIDS, faster.”

  Campbell doesn’t know the answer to his next question; but he’s curious, and he trusts Roderick won’t sandbag him. “Has there been any action taken about the HAART drugs since this study came out?”

  “Not that I’m aware of; and I’m beginning to think that nobody cares. The pharmaceutical companies are making obscene profits from these drugs, and the AIDS Industry doesn’t want this information out in public, because it would raise too many questions about their whole HIV=AIDS=Death theory.”

  Campbell knows that there’s a lot more damning information he could bring out about the HAART drugs, but he feels like the point has been made, and it’s time for the key question.

  “Dr. Roderick, the County Coroner’s report says that Beth Ann Brooks died from AIDS, but that the main cause of death was liver failure.”

  “That’s understandable. They are required to list AIDS as the cause of death if the person is HIV-Positive, Mr. Campbell. But liver failure is not a result of any AIDS-defining disease. It is strictly one of the side effects of the HAART drugs.”

  “So, in your expert opinion, Dr. Roderick, what did Miss Brooks die from?”

  “She died – and my heart goes out to her family, and many other families in the same situation – from taking the very drugs she was prescribed to treat her AIDS.”

  “And not from an HIV infection?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Roderick. Your witness.”

  Wilson gets up slowly and then just stands at his table, apparently unsure of what to ask. Finally, he walks to the lectern.

  “Dr. Roderick, did you do the autopsy on Miss Brooks?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then how can you say for certain that she did not die from the HIV infection she got from the defendant?”

  “How can you say for certain that she did? I would ask your Coroner whether, in fact, he was able to culture any live, active HIV from her body to substantiate your claim.”

  Wilson knows he is in deep trouble with this witness if he continues. He’s already committed the cardinal sin for an attorney: asking a question when he wasn’t sure of the witness’s answer, just hoping for the best. Well, he got the worst. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Without looking up, the judge asks, “Re-direct, Mr. Campbell?”

  “No, Your Honor.” Campbell figures that Roderick’s last line was enough.

  “Then the witness may step down, and you may call your next witness, Mr. Campbell.”

  Campbell remains standing at his table. “Your Honor, Dr. Roderick was our last witness. The defense rests.”

  Now the judge looks up, somewhat surprised, but happy that’s it’s almost over. “Then, gentlemen, are you ready with your closing arguments?”

  Wilson also stands. “Your Honor, you’re aware that I took over this case well into the process.”

  The judge smiles. “You know very well, Mr. Wilson, of how very aware I am of that.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. So I would ask the court for some additional time to better prepare my closing argument.”

  “How much time, Mr. Wilson?”

  “Your Honor, it’s already Thursday, close to lunchtime. I’d like to recess until Monday morning.”

  The judge sits up suddenly. “Monday? You can’t be ready tomorrow if I give you this afternoon off?”

  “Your Honor, I really need the weekend to prepare.”

  Somewhat disappointed, the judge looks at Campbell. “Any objection?” he asks, hoping there would be.

  “No, Your Honor.”

  Not seeing much choice, the judge announces, “Very well, then. This court will stand in recess until Monday at ten a.m.”