Are You Positive?

by Stephen Davis

  Part of that process was discovering how to relate to other people, and to women in particular. As it turned out, Frank never had any long-term relationships. There were three or four women that he felt at the time could eventually become more than just dates, but he chose not to let it happen.

  “I was terrified. I feared rejection if I told them about my HIV diagnosis, and I didn’t think I could go any deeper in a relationship without saying something. So I simply stopped the relationship when it got to that point. I figured that I’d never be able to convince my partner about the truth, so I’d wait.”

  Wait for what? In 1990, Frank was certain that the truth about AIDS and HIV would be made public very soon, and then he could get back to a normal life. His father agreed. “My dad told me that in three or four years this would all be over. ‘The truth always wins out in the end, and this fraud will be exposed,’ he said. ‘You’re just not going to have to worry about this in four years.’ So I decided that if I just waited, and not get deeply involved with anyone, my problem would be solved. But as the years passed, I realized, ‘Oh my god, this looks like it’s going to go on for a long time!’ Then I didn’t know what to do.”

  So Frank focused on his studies, got his degree, went to graduate school, and made it look on the outside like nothing was wrong, just like with his hemophilia. But inside he felt unfulfilled, and began to withdraw. He got very depressed; and when the public HIV/AIDS lies continued, he felt very disillusioned.

  Between his work and his government’s HIV-Positive compensation plan, Frank had plenty of money, and very little expenses since he still lived at home with his parents. He decided to start enjoying himself and his life. In the next few years, Frank traveled and saw the world. It was enough to ease his depression, and he stopped waiting and hoping for the truth to emerge about AIDS and HIV. Traveling was his solution to the prison he felt so strongly – his escape tunnel, if you will.

  “It really helped to get away from the terror I lived under every day, from the constant pressure from the doctors and the hospital to take the HIV medications. But more than anything, it changed the focus of my existence away from HIV. Looking back, traveling was my coping mechanism. Rather than telling myself that it will all be over soon, I gradually began to live with the reality instead.”

  “But I still missed the experience of deep intimacy with a woman. I miss being able to love, deeply, and be loved in return, to have no secrets and no walls between us. Like a lot of people, my positive diagnosis took away any chance I had of intimate love. I still think about the couple of relationships I had that could have amounted to something, where the interest was very strong on both sides, but which I terminated out of the blue without giving them an explanation. The fear of rejection was so great that I just couldn’t risk telling them why. I had this picture that if I took that risk, I could go from looking like an ideal partner on the outside to being a leper in an instant. It was too emotionally devastating for me to consider.”

  “One could argue that maybe I should have taken the chance and told one of these women the truth. But I think most people, if they really understood the big picture, would also run from this kind of situation. In my mind, I took the high road, considering that I really didn’t have much of a choice, and found a way to live and survive. The media has portrayed HIV-Positives as something horrible and contagious – and killers. There’s a court case in Canada right now where an HIV-Positive man is charged with first-degree murder for sleeping with an HIV-Negative woman who later died from taking the HIV drugs. Think of the message that sends to every other HIV-Positive man!”

  “I feel like it’s me against the world – a complete nightmare from hell. It’s like having a big red X painted on your forehead. No person should have to live with a burden like that, carrying a whole lot of extra weight around on your shoulders every single day. It wears you down mentally, emotionally, psychologically, physically – in every possible way. It’s hard to escape that.”

  When Frank read Inventing the AIDS Virus by Dr. Peter Duesberg, it was a pivotal point in his life and seemed to ease his mind, “because everything made sense to me after that. The things that I had long suspected were finally explained to me in a very clear and scientific way – how the early mistakes were made, the fraud in Dr. Gallo’s lab, and the totally unscientific pronouncement of HIV as the cause of AIDS without any proof or corroboration. I felt some inner peace knowing that there were very prominent researchers who were proving what I had always believed.”

  It was the first time Frank felt any support from outside his family, because other than his parents, Frank didn’t have anyone to talk to about this. He kept it to himself, with no close friends who knew his secret, and no support group.

  “What I’ve seen over the years is that most other HIV-Positives don’t question the doctor’s orders. Most of them just took the drugs they were handed, and they died. I truly believe that arguing with my doctor has saved my life. I’m also really grateful to my parents, because I know a lot of patients whose parents insisted their children take the HIV drugs right away.”

  Despite the intense and constant pressure from his doctors and nurses, Frank never took any of the HIV medications. “They also put a lot of pressure on my mom to put me on the drugs, which she always refused to do. One week while I was at the University, I got sick, and immediately they called my mom saying, ‘That’s a sign. You need to get your son to take the medications.’ But my mom kept resisting them, pointing out that I was not manifesting any signs or symptoms of AIDS.”

  “It was even crazy how they described you had to take these drugs. You get up at 3 or 4 in the morning, take the battery of drugs, and then try to make it through the horrible side effects for the next few hours, like the diarrhea and the nausea. Then, of course, comes the cell death, and hair loss, and anemia. You don’t have to be a genius to know that there’s something wrong with the whole picture. So I really had no problem saying ‘No’ to the drugs, or to the doctor’s orders. But I still get the same mantra every time I go to the hospital. Even the last time, after twenty years of health, the doctors and the nurses were adamant that I had to take the drugs or I was going to die.”

  To this day, Frank and his parents remain convinced about not taking the HIV medications, but it’s clear that the emotional trauma of his HIV-Positive diagnosis continues to haunt him. Frank readily admits that his greatest regret is the potential he felt he had in this life that could never be realized. He talks about having been given such a wonderful mind and body, and being unable to use them to their fullest extent.

  “So much has been taken away from me, and so unfairly; and all based on a lie. I lay some of the blame right in the lap of the government. I believe they knew, at a certain point, about the medical fraud surrounding HIV, and from that point on they covered it up. Now it may be too late. I mean, what are they going to do? Are they finally going to openly admit that people didn’t die from the HIV virus, but that they died of toxic poisoning from taking AZT or other drugs? The evidence is there; I can see it clearly. So I’ve come to the conclusion that they must know it, too.”

  “I realize that Big Pharma’s goal is to make money, and that comes first; and apparently it doesn’t matter if the HIV test kits are fraudulent. The government goes right ahead and supports the murder of those found to be HIV-Positive using these tests. The last time I went to the hospital I saw patients being poisoned with these HIV drugs; I saw people being murdered with my own eyes. I remember some of their names, and their faces. It’s a very traumatic experience, especially when I know that all of these deaths were preventable. So nothing has changed since 1984. To me that’s unconscionable.”

  “What’s the difference between this and the NAZI concentration camps? Back then the people were taken into death chambers and given gas. Today we take them to the hospitals and give them lethal drugs. It’s so hard for me to believe it’s going on right now, in 2007! At times I can’t even sleep at nigh
t, it’s so shocking.”

  “The doctors and hospitals go about their business as usual of giving lethal drugs to these patients, and then blame everything on this killer virus called HIV, while the people who don’t take these highly toxic drugs are perfectly healthy. There’s no recognition of reality, no correction in their thinking. It’s almost as if all the evidence is simply ignored. And apparently there’s no one to stop them. Now they have to save face and continue this charade, because if the public found out, they’d demand to know how they could let this go on for so many years while innocent people die from these drugs. I mean, enough is enough. What I don’t know for sure is when it stopped being a fraud and started being a cover-up.”

  It’s now twenty years since Frank was diagnosed HIV-Positive. How does he feel today?

  “Physically, I feel great. Of course, I still have to take my factor VIII injections twice a week, but that’s never been a real problem. On the other hand, there are times I say that I hate this life, that it’s not the life I want, that I can’t keep living like this, that I don’t want to keep living like this. But the will to live as a human being is very strong, so I have to believe things will get better. Or at least I cling to that hope.”

  “If you want to make someone really crazy, tell them they did something they didn’t actually do, and watch how it effects them. Well, I’ve been told there’s something wrong with me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. At the hospital they look at me like I’m some kind of lunatic, because most people just follow orders. In fact, the hospital environment is a lot more insane than the rest of the world. There have been opportunities when I have tried to explain my situation to other people – totally in a hypothetical way, of course, because I never let anyone know it’s me that I’m talking about – and they seem to understand. Just ask someone to explain why people are not dying like flies from sex if the lethal virus HIV is sexually transmitted? Why is AIDS confined to certain risk groups when HIV infection is supposedly found equally throughout the population? People know there’s something not right about this, but they don’t have the scientific background to question the so-called authorities. Besides, they are brainwashed every day with the media, which are always sure to say, ‘HIV – the virus that causes AIDS.’”

  “The people I’m most disappointed with are the health care professionals, who seem not to question anything. I believe that the general public is a lot smarter than the medical community gives us credit for. When I look around, I see signs of the AIDS Industry coming apart. The typical person on the street, even after so much brainwashing from the media, seems to have an open mind, and they know something is wrong instinctively. Maybe they can’t put their finger on it right now, but I truly believe that in the next five years – with more blogs and information available on the Internet – there’s going to be a domino effect that will eventually bring down this house of cards.”

  “There’s still some part of me that’s waiting for the day when it will be announced that HIV has been a fraud from the very beginning; and I’m to the point that if it doesn’t happen in the next five years, I think I’ll go mad. I can only cope for so long, and sometimes I lie awake at night, imagining that I will have to continue fighting with my doctors and nurses for five more years, and wondering whether I’ll make it.”

  “The one positive thing that gives me hope is that just in the last few years, people are asking more questions, and I think the Internet has something to do with that. Especially young people, because something doesn’t add up for them. They know that what they’ve been told doesn’t make any sense. And that kind of questioning is much more pronounced that ten years ago, from what I can see.”

  What about Frank’s hopes and dreams for the future?

  “I have the same dreams and aspirations as any other human being – a full life and someone to share it with. But above all, I long for freedom from the stigma, without having to feel I have anything to apologize for. Part of me was taken away with this diagnosis – my dignity as a human being. From the very beginning I’ve had to admit to something that isn’t true. That’s what’s been eating me alive, and I want my freedom back, both as an individual and as a valued member of society. What’s that old saying, ‘and the truth shall set you free?’ Well, I want the truth to be told, that’s all.”