AIDS Re-Appraised: I was a wide-eyed preteen at the time of the AIDS TV and billboard campaigns. Bombarded with messages about disease, death and sex, like a sponge, I adopted the mind-set of the sensible, responsible and fear led. My friends and I carried condoms, just in case a boy passed us a glance. I empathized with AIDS ridden Africa. I cried with relish at grainy documentaries and films of the sick and dying (Philadelphia anyone?), although I heard someone say all this was no more than emotional porn, I took it all on. The AIDS campaign era reaffirmed my fears about the world. And in reaction, I developed a side to my personality that was proudly aware, caring and sensitive to world issues. How righteous! But these beliefs somehow fixed me into a stalemate of just talking about how bad things were, and how we should accept the afflicted, accept their disease, and not be so stupid ourselves. I tried hard to understand what it would feel like to be HIV positive, or have AIDS. Alongside that, I developed the belief that Africa was a wild place where life was such a desperate struggle for survival, that no one cared whether they lived or died, they lived on the edge for whatever kicks they could find, and would all die from AIDS, I was frightened of Africa. As a student, having traveled widely, I became more aware of the drug company financed and fueled media spin of the Western world, and our concerned politicians of dubious intent. I often wondered if there were truths about AIDS that the media circus had distracted me from seeing. I was hearing rumours that AIDS wasn't what I had thought. AIDS is not another disease, it is the most metaphorical disease in history. It is the ultimate triumph of politics over science. Michael Fumento 1990, author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. HIV tests are not required for HIV diagnosis in Africa Geshekter C Rethinking AIDS in Africa, Reappraising AIDS Vol 3:2 February 1995. 99.5% of Africans do not have AIDS. 97% of HIV positive Africans do not have AIDS. AIDS is not the leading cause of illness or death in Africa. World health Organization World Health Report 1998 annual cases of selected diseases. I had been misinformed, the news, and my head, had been spun. The drug companies had been over zealous in their marketing plans. It is not even probable, let alone scientifically proven that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact at least with a high probability. There are no such documents. Dr. Kary Mulllins, Nobel Laureate, HIV Not Guilty, October 5th 1990. I bought a copy of What if everything you though you knew about AIDS was Wrong by Christie Maggoire. She was HIV positive, and campaigned for HIV positive women's rights. Then she got retested on a series of occasions. Each time she retested HIV negative. She realised she was healthy. Her book contains all the research she collected on the subject. She separates the science from the spin, and leaves the illusions behind. It's full of information that has shifted many people's perception of AIDS and HIV, and no doubt saved many lives. Reading the stories from onetime HIV positives that became aware that they were healthy has also helped me reinforce a new view of what a health conscious human does and is. Click on the fish for quotes about HIV and AIDS.