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HIV/AIDS White Papers Winning the Battle Against HIV: It's August in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the informal settlement of Finetown fails miserably to live up to its name The informal settlement of Finetown, South Africa fails miserably to live up to its name. The clinic set up in the Sancta Maria/Don Bosco School is filled with the intense smell of illness but offers hope to the small children who seek health care within its walls. The children, particularly those with pediatric HIV infection, are scarred from sores, plagued by hard, dry coughs and exhaustion. Their little bodies have never known what it is to feel well. They have been orphaned by AIDS, and they’re now fighting for their own lives. The country’s number of HIV-infected orphans, while tragic, is not surprising. With a total of 4.2 million infected people, South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Up to 40 percent of women of child-bearing age are infected, and the average lifespan has decreased from 94 to 56 years. South Africans don’t receive antiretroviral therapy (ART), the standard of care in the U.S. for HIV/AIDS, until they have full blown AIDS. In addition, these patients have inadequate access to properly trained doctors who understand the complexities of antiretroviral therapies (ARTs), rotations of medications and toxic side effects. The South African epidemic, like any in poverty-stricken locations, demands a therapeutic solution that is effective, inexpensive and free of side effects. Fortunately, a proven, affordable treatment to curb the advance of HIV to AIDS has been discovered. The Hypothesis The seeds of this tremendous breakthrough were planted a decade ago. While Barbara Brewitt, a researcher with a PhD from the University of Washington’s School of Medicine in Biological Structure, was conducting post-doctoral research on growth factor effects on gene regulation at the National Institute of Health (NIH), she had a vision – to develop a safe and affordable treatment for HIV and AIDS. Up to that point, conventional medical wisdom had largely avoided the immune system in its quest for HIV treatments, focusing on ways to inhibit viral replication. Yet Dr. Brewett suspected that the key to treating immune system diseases like AIDS was to bolster the patient’s immune system. By strengthening the body’s own defenses, she hypothesized, the body may be best able to defend itself. In the mid-1980s, researchers learned how to make cell signaling proteins, which the human body would recognize and accept just as if it had produced them. Dr. Brewitt developed oral growth factor medicines as active cell signaling proteins. Growth factors regulate and coordinate immune, nervous and endocrine communication in order to effectively and efficiently coordinate optimal functioning and defenses within the body. Because growth factors are so important to immune function, including immunosuppression of various sorts, Dr. Brewitt theorized that homeopathic doses of growth factors may provide therapeutic benefits to people with HIV infection. She recognized that growth factors used the same signaling pathways and DNA regulatory mechanisms within the cell as HIV does; therefore, presenting a possibility of growth factor signaling competition to HIV replication and an affordable, safe, survival approach for people across the globe. During her research at the NIH, Dr. Brewitt was also studying at the National Center for Homeopathy. A system of healing the whole person, homeopathy uses extremely small doses of highly diluted organs, tissues, metabolic factors, recombinant materials, plants, animals and minerals to stimulate the body's own immune system. Homeopathy has a history of success in the treatment of infectious disease, including many of the most serious and potentially fatal infectious diseases known to humankind. In the 1800s, death rates in homeopathic hospitals from cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever and pneumonia were commonly one half to as little as one eighth of those in conventional medical hospitals. While pharmacologic doses of growth factors that were tested on people with AIDS in the early 1990s caused many side effects, Dr. Brewitt believed that growth factors that were prepared homeopathically (HoGFs) would eliminate side effects while achieving measurable results. The Studies In 1994, Dr. Brewitt first put her hypothesis to the test. Collaborating with the Director of Research at Bastyr University in Seattle, Leanna Standish, N.D., Ph.D, Dr. Brewitt began a clinical study using homeopathic doses of a combination of four growth factors: insulin-like growth factor-1, platelet-derived growth factor BB, transforming growth factor ß-1 and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factors. This 12-week, double-blinded placebo-controlled clinical study (DBPCS) involved 21 adults with HIV and AIDS who were using natural therapies and no ART. Patients were given 10 drops of these homeopathically prepared medicines three times per day from each of four bottles or the placebo. The patients receiving the combination of HoGFs experienced:
Dr. Brewitt then conducted an open label study for nine months with the same 21 adults, plus six additional subjects. Again, the results were the same. With two successful studies completed, Dr. Brewett sought to answer her critics who claimed her results were, at least in part, attributable to her involvement. In 1996, she found seven independent urban clinics to conduct DBPCS in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Kona, New York City and Tucson. The 55 subjects, none of them using ARTs, experienced the same benefits from the treatment as discovered in the original Seattle studies. Two and half years after the second Seattle study, she conducted a year-and-a-half-long follow-up study with those same subjects. In this study there were three sub-groups: 1) those taking HoGFs with other natural therapies of their choice; 2) those taking natural therapies of their choice; and 3) those on ARTs that were also taking HoGFs. Once again, the results were consistent with the prior studies. In addition, those with HIV/AIDS given HoGFs experienced no hospitalizations or new opportunistic infections during the 2.5-year follow-up versus 25% and 40% hospitalizations and opportunistic infections in those with AIDS taking ARTs or using only natural medicines, respectively. The studies show that HoGFs alone increased a greater diversity of cells in the immune system without any toxic side effects, which is fundamental to preventing infections and defending the body against pathogens. The data from these studies implied that HoGFs alone stimulated a more diverse population of immune cells without any toxic side effects. Global Significance The clinical data from the first four studies were presented at peer-reviewed international AIDS conferences in six different countries and were translated into five languages. The studies were published in medical textbook about complementary and alternative therapies for AIDS (Churchill Livingstone 2002). Additionally, editors from the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and an author in public health, Dana Ullman, have published third-party reviews about this work that were read worldwide. Studying South Africa’s Orphans One such online viewer was a student embarking on her doctoral thesis for her homeopathy degree from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Monica Da Silva contacted Dr. Brewitt requesting to test HoGFs on children with HIV and AIDS. Dr. Brewitt knew this was a critical step to filling South Africa’s desperate need for an affordable, effective treatment. The study protocol was presented to three levels of safety and scientific review through the University of Johannesburg prior to its start. Ms. Da Silva and her research supervisor, Dr. Radmilla Razlog, designed and began the study in April of this year with 24 children in Finetown, ages one to 12, who have spent their lives sick, undernourished and small for their ages, as is typical of pediatric HIV sufferers. These orphans received the HoGF for 12 weeks after two weeks of pre-treatment. The results not only confirmed the prior findings, but proved exceptionally promising for this population. While the disease usually stunts growth, these children experienced “catch-up” growth with significant increases in height averaging 6-7 centimeters, head circumference and lean body mass. The children’s CD4 T-cells increased by five percent, and they enjoyed an improved quality of life and required no hospitalizations. The Future of HIV/AIDS Therapy The effect of this new treatment could have astounding results, not only for the children of Finetown, but for the entire country of South Africa and those stricken by this pandemic around the globe. These HoGFs represent a new class of medicines, combining today’s advanced biotechnologies, modern molecular biology and basic homeopathic principles formed two centuries ago. Presently, the standard treatment for HIV/AIDS is the use of multiple ARTs through a highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART). While these drug cocktails led to the first real medical progress in the treatment of the disease, HAART has not effectively stopped viral replication. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 78 percent of people taking HAART are resistant to one form or another of these drugs, and 27 percent are resistant to all HAART drugs. Another 40 percent of people on HAART suffer from unwanted side effects such as insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. For underdeveloped countries or populations lacking economic resources, HAART therapy is out of reach and risks unwanted, potentially dangerous side effects. In fact, researchers from the NIH report that even the most sophisticated of today’s ARTs may never completely cure HIV-infected individuals. After more than 15 years of research into the cause and potential cure for AIDS, the message remains the same: a human immune system must destroy HIV. Without effective, expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, the AIDS death toll in South Africa, and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, is expected to continue rising before peaking around the end of this decade.Treating and caring for the millions of Africans living with HIV/AIDS poses an inescapable challenge to the continent and the world at large. HoGFs provide an affordable option without side effects for people around the world. All five studies demonstrate that HoGFs strengthen the immune system and immune diversity, improve the nervous system and increase lean body mass and quality of life. And because these homeopathic medicines are highly diluted, HoGFs reduce costs up to 80 to 90 percent of conventional medicines. This breakthrough is not only a potential solution to South Africa’s AIDS epidemic; HoGFs can also be used prophylatically around the globe to stem the spread of HIV. Dr. Brewitt’s vision is becoming a reality. Providing sustainable worldwide medical options to people and industry for a healthier future. Read about the trip to South Africa. Read the HIV/AID Winning the Battle Press Release. Read about HIV/AIDS Fact in South Africa. More on Benefits of Growth Factors for HIV Infection, A clinical summary. |
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