VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE
INTERVIEW MOHAMMED ALI AL-BAYATI
Are Steroids the Real Cause of AIDS?
By Mark Gabrish Conlan
Zengers Jan. 2000
As the mainstream AIDS researchers continue to focus on the so-called
“Human Immunodeficiency Virus,” or HIV, with the dogged persistence of
Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick — and with the same lack of any positive
outcome — a small but growing number of scientists worldwide continue
the search for better, more rational explanations of the true causes,
treatments and preventions of the 29 previously known diseases that
constitute the “AIDS” syndrome. Some of their names will be familiar to
long-term Zenger’s readers, who have already been exposed to interviews
with Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick, Stefan Lanka and others who have
taken fresh looks at AIDS and, whatever their differences with each
other, have all come to the conclusion that HIV either doesn’t do
anything or doesn’t exist at all.
In June 1999 a new name was added to the list of alternative AIDS
researchers who have critiqued the established scientific literature,
rejected the belief that HIV causes AIDS and come up with a different
explanation and the evidence to back it up. Dr. Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati,
an immigrant from Iraq who was educated in the U.S. and Egypt in
pathology and toxicology, self-published a 183-page large-format book on
AIDS that directly attacked the HIV/AIDS model. Much of it endorsed the
arguments of Duesberg and others that recreational drug use and repeated
exposures to common infections and antibiotics used to treat them cause
the immune system to break down and open the body to diseases which are
called “AIDS.”
But Dr. Al-Bayati’s book also fingered a new culprit, previously
undiscussed in either mainstream or alternative AIDS literature:
steroids. These aren’t the anabolic steroids widely used by athletes,
including bodybuilders and baseball players like Mark McGwire, but an
even more commonly prescribed class of drugs known as corticosteroids or
glucocorticoids. It shouldn’t be surprising that these drugs, which
include azathioprine and prednisone, suppress the immune system, since
they were originally developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s to do just that;
they were given to transplant patients to keep their immune systems from
rejecting the transplanted organs.
In today’s medical practice, however, corticosteroids are far more
widely used than ever before. These drugs are given to hemophiliacs to
treat the joint disorders often associated with hemophilia and prevent
them from developing antibodies to the Factor VIII and IX treatments
they get to allow their blood to clot. Corticosteroids are also given to
infants and children to treat their chronic illnesses, to Gay men to
treat bowel and other gastrointestinal problems associated with anal sex
and anal-oral contact, and to “recreational” drug users to treat the
respiratory illnesses caused by the drugs they take. Dr. Al-Bayati
argues that virtually every person with AIDS has a far higher than
normal level of these chemicals in their bodies, either from taking
corticosteroids as pharmaceutical drugs or from having naturally
elevated corticosteroid levels as a side effect of malnutrition and
starvation, which he suggests is the real cause of so-called “AIDS” in Africa.
In his book, Get All the Facts: HIV Does Not Cause AIDS, Dr. Al-Bayati
also explores some of the other misconceptions behind the HIV/AIDS
model. He notes that standard textbooks like Harrison’s Principles of
Internal Medicine, whose current edition is co-edited by “HIV/AIDS” guru
Dr. Anthony Fauci, actually offers all the information needed to treat
people with so-called “HIV/AIDS” correctly — yet Dr. Fauci and his
co-authors of the current Harrison’s ignore the time-tested knowledge of
infectious diseases stated elsewhere in the book to attribute all the
problems of people with AIDS to HIV. Dr. Al-Bayati also makes the
striking claim that 77 percent of the people in the original 1986-92
trials that approved the first AIDS chemotherapy, AZT, never had HIV
infections at all.
Get All the Facts: HIV Does Not Cause AIDS is available for $35 from Dr.
Al-Bayati’s company, Toxi-Health International, 150 Bloom Street, Dixon,
CA 95620. Dr. Al-Bayati can also be contacted by phone at (707)
678-4484 or by e-mail at maalbayati@toxi-health.com, and he has a Web
site at http://www.toxi-health.com
Zenger’s: I’d like to begin just by getting an account of your
experience, background and training.
Dr. Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati: O.K., I’ll tell you, because it’s all there.
I graduated from veterinary medical school in 1975 at the University of Baghdad,
Iraq. I studied veterinary pathology at the University of Cairo in
Egypt and graduated with a Masters’ in veterinary pathology in 1978. I
came to the United States in 1978 and started to do research in
toxicology, using animal models to study the effects of pollution in
general and fuel by-products in particular on biology. Then I studied
comparative pathology, which includes human pathology, along with
toxicology, biochemistry and immunology at the University of California,
Davis. I graduated with a Ph.D. in 1989.
I was certified by the American Board of Toxicology in 1994 and by the
American Board of Veterinary Toxicology in 1996. My experience in
pathology and toxicology includes human pathology and toxicology,
veterinary pathology and toxicology, experimental pathology and
toxicology, and environmental toxicology.
Zenger’s: How did you get interested in AIDS?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: In 1997 I started my consulting firm, Toxi-Health
International. My main goal was to evaluate cases of people exposed to
chemicals in their workplace and to find out the short-term and
long-term effects of these chemicals. I would report to the physician
and to the victim’s attorney, and work as an expert witness in these
cases. Since that time I’ve got involved not only in occupational
exposure but people who have side effects to chemicals.
In 1997 I got a case of a 60-year-old man who was exposed to jet fuel. I
looked at the pathology and the toxicology of his case. I saw he had
severe lymphocytopenia, which means the number of lymphocytes was very
low [CD4 T-cell count of 255 and CD-4/CD-8 ratio of 0.6]. I contacted
the physician and submitted a report which asked him to stop giving this
patient immunosuppressive drugs. That’s when I found out was this
individual had had “AIDS.” His immunosuppression had come from the use
of corticosteroids, azathioprine and prednisone, which I described in
the report.
That case alerted me, because until then my understanding had been that
AIDS was caused by the virus HIV As a toxicologist I had not been
interested in AIDS before, and I’d trusted the virologists who have
experience in infectious agents. But that case alerted me, and I started
to do complete differential diagnoses, including drugs, chemicals and
infectious agents — and my understanding in the field of biochemistry
and immunology told me how to understand the literature.
I did a very wide evaluation of the medical literature on HIV and AIDS,
and I was really very surprised to see the link between them is an
assumption. The conclusion that HIV causes AIDS is based only on a
misreading of the epidemiology, which really indicates the AIDS in the
risk groups has resulted from the exposure to illicit drugs and
corticosteroid treatments. So I explained that.
Zenger’s: I’ve interviewed a number of scientists who question the link
between HIV and AIDS. What makes your work different from that of most
of the people I’ve talked to is your particular focus on the role of
steroids. Could you tell me a little about which steroids suppress the
immune system, how they suppress the immune system and why you regard
that as a major factor in what is called AIDS?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: Steroids are a family of medications. I refer
specifically to corticosteroids, steroids released from the adrenal
cortex. These agents can reduce the number of T-cells and B-cells, and
the function of the entire immune system. Use of the steroids can cause
all the clinical symptoms that show in people with AIDS.
Zenger’s: How do you know the use of these steroids actually depresses
T-cell levels?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: From the clinical evidence. If somebody is healthy now
and is given prednisone, 60 mg. per day for about two to three months,
that will reduce the T-cell counts and the B-cell counts. Let’s say the
normal CD-4 count is about 900 of CD4 per microliter of blood. That will
reduce it to about 250 in most cases.
Zenger’s: So you’re saying that this is what had happened to your first
patient in 1997.
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: Yes, yes. In Table 14 on page 62 of my book, I list 32
illnesses and health conditions which are caused by drugs — illicit
drugs, alcohol and therapeutic drugs. All these chronic illnesses are
treated by high doses of therapeutic steroids. The dose I mentioned
earlier, 60 mg. per day, is really a normal dose of steroid. Some of
them, they use a higher dose than that but for a shorter period of time.
Zenger’s: So what you’re saying is that in some cases people get AIDS
because they do alcohol or recreational drugs, and they get sick — and
then, in order to treat these diseases, they’re given these
corticosteroids, and they get sicker.
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: Yes, because these are anti-inflammatories, to reduce the
inflammation often caused by drug use. In the mid-1970’s inhaling drugs,
including cocaine and heroin, became far more common than it had been
earlier. Inhaling cocaine produces a lot of problems in the lungs and
nasal cavity, because cocaine produces asthma and lung fibrosis. Because
it also decreases the blood supply to the nasal septum and the nasal
cavity, heavy cocaine users get perforation of the nasal cavity and a
lot of other problems. Now to treat these problems, the FDA approved the
use of corticosteroids by inhalation in 1976. That’s really what started
the AIDS problem. When this product became approved and widely used, it
took about three to four years to show, and then the AIDS cases started
to appear.
Homosexuals are at special risk for AIDS because they use the steroids
more than any other group. They use the steroids to deal with the
respiratory problems because they are inhaling drugs. Peter Duesberg’s
work provided scientific information on homosexual use of drugs. They
also use steroids rectally to deal with rectal infections. Also, the use
of alcohol and the use of aspirin and the use of other drugs produce
lymphocytopenia, which is a reduced platelet count. And the standard
treatment for all these conditions is the long-term use of
corticosteroids. So homosexuals get steroids to deal with respiratory
illness, bone-marrow depression and rectal infections.
Zenger’s: What is your answer to the question that is always being
thrown at Peter Duesberg and the other people who question the HIV/AIDS
model — “Well, if recreational drug use is the cause of AIDS, how come
many people use these drugs for some time and don’t get AIDS?”
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: My answer would be that whether you use corticosteroids,
and how much you use corticosteroids, depends on how much infection you
get. And that could be explained very well by hyperplasia in the lymph
nodes. In Table 3, on page 13 of my book, I described the pathology in
the lymph nodes in the “HIV-positives,” which is similar to the
“HIV-negatives.” You get the three stages of changes in the lymph nodes.
The first stage is the hyperplasia [higher than normal CD-4 counts and
CD-4/CD-8 ratios], the second one we call “mixed stage” and the third
one is the atrophy [lower than normal CD-4 counts and CD-4/CD-8 ratios].
Now, people using “recreational” drugs by inhalation, which produces
effects in the whole respiratory system, first get a lot of
inflammation. That is marked by the hyperplasia in the lymph nodes.
Then, when they go to their physicians, they are given corticosteroids
as the standard treatment. Just using heroin and other drugs will not
suppress the immune system. Quite the opposite: it causes hyperplasia
and increases the level of the CD-4 and the CD-8.
The hyperplasia in the thymus and lymphoid organs of the drug users
explains the result of Mary Jane Kreek’s 1989 study, which observed
increases in the CD-4 T-cells of heroin addicts. Kreek reported that 11
long-term heroin users had a mean of 1,500 CD-4 T-cells/microliter,
which is a significant elevation from normal (600 to 1,200) and the
opposite of what is seen in AIDS. “Heroin is a blessedly untoxic drug,”
Kreek concluded.
Jon Cohen, in the December 4, 1994 Science, cited the result of Kreek’s
study as an argument against Peter Duesberg’s hypothesis that the use of
illicit drugs, not HIV, is responsible for AIDS. The observations of
Kreek and Duesberg are both correct. The true problem is that the
leaders of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis do not understand the sequence of
events that leads to AIDS in patients in each risk group. They have been
ignoring important medical facts related to this subject, including the
information presented in their own publications, and are blindly
attributing AIDS to HIV.
Zenger’s: In your book, you make the claim that 77 percent of the people
in the four original AZT trials [Fischl/Richman, 1987; Fischl/Corette,
1990; Volberding, 1990; Hamilton, 1992], who were supposedly suffering
from “HIV/AIDS,” were actually “HIV-negative.” I got the impression that
what you were actually saying is that they were HIV antibody-positive
but they were p24 antigen-negative. Is that correct?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: What they are measuring is just the p24 [one of the nine
proteins that supposedly make up HIV]. They use it as the indicator for
the HIV infection. And they used the baseline mark, which is 20 p24’s
per microliter. So even with that very small concentration, 77 percent
of the people were negative. They did not have any.
Zenger’s: So the 77 percent were p24 negative under that standard. But
they did test positive for HIV antibodies, or they wouldn’t have been
let into the trials.
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: No, they didn’t. In all those papers except one
[Fischl/Richman, 1987], they based their study on what they called
“isolation.” In about 50 percent of these people they did not have HIV.
In the other three studies, they based their work on the p24. So they
did not have any isolation of HIV. They did not measure any other
antibodies. And this amount as a baseline is very, very low. Twenty
p24’s per microliter is a very small amount. Even based on that, they
have huge numbers where they are not showing anything. No antibody, no nothing.
Zenger’s: So if these people were antibody-negative and p24-negative,
how did they get into a clinical trial that was ostensibly designed to
prove the utility of AZT in people who were “HIV-positive”?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: That was my question. The sponsors of the study did not
ask questions. The scientists did not ask questions. The FDA did not ask
questions. What is going on? That is the question I am asking, based
just on the symptoms. I reviewed all these studies, and I reviewed about
50 clinical trials, which are the subjects of other books. They really
did not look at the indicators of AIDS like adrenal insufficiency, which
I have listed in my book.
In the 1987 Fischl study, they looked only at CD4’s. When they started
the people on the clinical trial, they had the CD4 counts were about
100-110 per microliter. That was the starting point. By the end of the
study, they were about 45 CD4’s per microliter. AZT depressed the CD4
count. And they didn’t really describe the shape of the lymph nodes, or
the adrenal insufficiency — which manifests as Kaposi’s sarcoma — or
atrophy in the lymphoid system, or all these other symptoms AIDS people
have, which are also associated with corticosteroids.
That study, which was the first one on AZT, published two reports, one
on what was supposed to be the benefit of AZT and the other on the
toxicity of AZT. All the literature on AZT agrees that AZT depresses the
bone marrow. All the people in this clinical trial who were on AZT were
also getting blood transfusions. As I recall, about 30 people in the AZT
group got blood transfusions, versus about four from the control. So
while the researchers said that AZT increased survival, the survival
benefit actually came from the blood transfusions. As, you know, when
you get a blood transfusion, it is helpful for many things, including
helping the oxygen levels and the immune levels. But they didn’t adjust
for that. In fact, the first study was cut short. It did not last more
than about six months.
Zenger’s: In fact, it was my understanding that the longer-term studies
on AZT — the John Hamilton/VA study and the Concorde trial — showed
essentially the same pattern that you’ve been talking about with
steroids: an initial increase in CD4 T-cells, which is where that first
trial was stopped; and then a quick decline, until they ended up at
levels below the levels at which they started.
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: Yes. Both AZT and the protease inhibitors cause
inflammation. I listed in my book cases of patients who were
“HIV-negative” and given AZT, and it increased their CD-4’s short-term.
So CD-4’s are an indication of an inflammation, and inhaling cocaine and
heroin also increases the CD-4’s and CD-8’s by causing inflammation in
the lymph nodes or other tissues. Why, if HIV is killing the CD-4 cells,
would all these people I mentioned in Table 3 have hyperplasia?
Robert Gallo called AIDS as “a CD-4 disease.” It is not a CD-4 disease.
There is no lymph-node disease in the entire literature that affects
only CD-4’s. You have the three stages. The changes are always in all
lymph node structures, including the stroma; in the hyperplasia stage,
and then in the atrophy, all lymph nodes shrink. That’s characteristic
of the steroids. Now the people in Africa, when they starve, starvation
produces the corticosteroids, and these corticosteroids shrink the
immune system along with the thymus, lymph nodes and all the peripheral tissues.
Zenger’s: That was a point that confused me in the book. Since people
who propose non-infectious causes for AIDS are always being asked,
“Well, what about Africa?,” what you’re saying is that in Africa
they’re not taking corticosteroids, but somehow the natural chemical
changes your body goes through when it’s malnourished produce the same
kinds of chemicals that are in these drugs.
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: That’s right. We learned about corticosteroids in 1947.
The first time that corticosteroids were approved in the United States
in 1947. We learned about the benefits of steroids based on the
naturally occurring steroids. When people starve, they release
corticosteroids, which are emergency hormones released when people under
stress conditions — infections or starvations — release this hormone to
take proteins and nutrients, send them to the liver to make glucose, and
then send it to the brain.
If you look at the AIDS in Africa in terms of Kaposi’s sarcoma, lymphoma
and muscle mass, this is similar to homosexuals. Homosexuals have AIDS
because they are heavy users of corticosteroids; and the people in
Africa have corticosteroids because they are naturally released. I
presented information on how the thymus shrinks when a person is
starved. It goes to 90 percent in nine weeks, and after nine weeks of
normal feeding the thymus goes up to 107 percent.
The corticosteroids have the ability not only to affect the numbers of
CD4’s and CD8’s, but also their functions. They get slowed down. These
are the biomarkers of AIDS which the HIV hypothesis does not explain.
All these can be explained by the use of steroids, or the release of
steroids. The HIV [hypothesis] does not explain anything. As a source, I
cited a 1985 study from San Francisco. They incubated HIV with T-cells
for four months, and the cell went on producing the virus. It did not
kill any cells.
Zenger’s: What should people who are told they’re “HIV-positive” or they
have AIDS do about this?
Dr. Ali Al-Bayati: It depends on what their risks are. For people with
hemophilia, because they have to use immunosuppressive drugs, their
physicians have to pay attention to their CD-4 and CD-8 counts, and they
have to be willing to give the treatment a period of rest so the immune
system can go back to a normal level, because if you keep giving
corticosteroids without paying attention to that, then you get people
with AIDS.
Healthy people who just have the “HIV-positive” antibody do not need to
take anything because the body will take care of it in five weeks and
it’s gone. It just becomes an antibody, like a three-year-old child
infected with chickenpox will carry the antibody all their life, long
after they’ve stopped having the disease. If you look at the history of
all infectious agents — bacteria or viruses — if somebody gets infected
and shows antibodies, this is considered immunity — except for the
people who are said to have “HIV/AIDS.” When they show the HIV antibody
they’re told they have a risk of dying. I don’t understand what the
scientific basis for that is, and I’ve never met or read anybody who
could explain it.
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