This Is Your Brain on HHV-6

Posted with the author's and the publisher's permission.
New York Native November 14, 1994 This is Your Brain on HHV-6 by Neenyah Ostrom Last Week, we told you that the same kinds of pathological changes occur in the mouths of "AIDS" and "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" patients. This week, the focus shifts to the similarities in the brain.
Damage to "AIDS" patients' nervous systems is occurring more often than ever before, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, despite widespread use of drugs that attack the alleged cause of the damage, HIV. Several types of nerve damage-like dementia and "sensory neuropathy," nerve pain and tingling-are, surprisingly, not showing the projected decreases in incidence.
Some of this damage has been detected by increased use of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans. The MRI scans show physical damage, such as the development of lesions, in the brain and other nervous system tissues.
MRI scans performed on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome(CFS) patients show organic brain damage that is described in language eerily similar to that used in descriptions of "AIDS" patients.
And an even newer type of brain scanning technology, called SPECT, has recently revealed that the brain damage seen in CFS patients and in patients with "AIDS dementia" is virtually indistinguishable, suggesting a common disease process at work.
While "AIDS" researchers continue to claim that HIV is responsible for causing the organic brain damage observed in their patients, they acknowledge that the mechanism by which HIV does so remains unelucidated.
In fact, HIV is not even capable of infecting the major cells in the brain, such as neurons. HIV is found in the brain only in blood cells, like macrophages.
Although the organic brain disease seen in "AIDS" patients has not been causally linked to HIV infection, the brain lesions seen in MRI scans of CFS patients have been ***ociated with an active viral infection: Human Herpes Virus 6 (HHV-6).
HHV-6 is also the most common viral infection seen in "AIDS" patients, according to very recent research.
And HHV-6, unlike HIV, is capable of infecting nervous system cells (such as the glial cells that form the supporting structure of nervous system tissues).
Has the wrong virus been fingered as the cause of "AIDS dementia complex" and other organic brain damage seen in the syndrome?
And is the virus that probably is causing the organic brain damage in "AIDS"-HHV-6-causing almost identical damage in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients?
The new survey of the nervous system damage in "AIDS" patients was published by Justin C. McArthur of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and NIAID's Dr. Lewis K. Schrager and colleagues in the October issue of the journal Neurology. They report an analysis of seven years of data from 2,641 HIV-positive men who are enrolled in NIAID's Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (abbreviated, "MACS"). The study was conducted at four sites: Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh.(1) These researchers found that, from 1985 to 1992, "the rates of HIV-related neurologic conditions, particularly sensory neuropathy, increased among the men," according to the October 27 issue of NIAID News.(2) "While therapy with antimicrobial drugs has protected HIV-
infected patients against certain infectious diseases of the nervous system, the more wide-spread and earlier use of antiretroviral agents has not protected against the development of AIDS-related dementia or sensory neuropathy," McArthur commented.(3) "The results of this study emphasize that despite the effectiveness of pre-AIDS prophylactic medications to temporarily prevent certain HIV-related opportunistic infections of the central nervous system, new and better drugs and therapeutic strategies directed specifically at HIV must be developed," Shrager said.(4) But it isn't at all clear, these scientists admit, how HIV is causing this nervous system damage. Which, of course, raises the perennially unanswered question: Is HIV causing the damage?
And, according to the study's first author Helena Bacellar (a "senior analyst" at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), the use of antiretroviral drugs that attack HIV is causing a certain amount of the increase in nervous system damage observed in "AIDS" patients.
"The increase in incidence rates of central nervous system OI's [opportunistic infections] among the men in MACS may stem from their use of antiretroviral therapy, which allows them to survive longer with more severely suppressed immune systems and lengthens the vulnerable period for brain infection," said first author Bacellar.
Let's go through that again: According to these scientists, HIV causes nervous system damage, such as "AIDS" dementia and neuropathy.
So, according to this theory, drugs that attack HIV should stop the nervous system damage from occurring.
But these scientists are blaming the drugs that attack HIV-the antiretrovirals such as AZT-for contributing to the increased nervous system damage now observed.
In fact-this bears repeating-these scientists acknowledge that AZT and its sister compounds may actually cause some of the nervous system damage now seen in "AIDS" patients.
Neuropathy-defined by these investigators as "the painful, crippling degeneration of nerves that numbs or weakens a patient's hands, feet, or limbs"-can occur in people whose immune systems are still relatively intact, according to the NIAID scientists.
"While neuropathy occurred more frequently at lower levels of CD4-positive T-cells, it also occurred at counts above 500 cells/cubic millimeter and sometimes was induced by antiretroviral therapy," the NIAID newsletter acknowledges.(5) In fact, the greatest increase in neurologic disease was in neuropathy-the condition "induced" by AZT, ddI, and similar drugs-during the period in which such antiretroviral therapy became widespread.
"Of six neurologic conditions studied in the MACS enrollees between 1988 and 1992, the greatest annual rate of increase-
50 percent-occurred for neuropathy," NIAID reports.(6) At autopsy, organic brain damage is found in 90 percent of "AIDS" patients, the new study reveals. Brain damage specific to "AIDS dementia" is found at autopsy in 66 percent of patients.(7) Neuropathy increased at a rate of 50 percent per year.
Paradoxically, neuropathy rates were much higher in men with more than 500 CD4 cells-84 percent-than in men with fewer than 200 CD4 cells, who had a rate of only 27 percent.(8) Dementia, according to these researchers, was the only one of the six neurologic conditions that did not increase in incidence. Dementia was seen in only three percent of men receiving an initial diagnosis of "AIDS", and developed at a rate of seven percent during the next two years. (N.B.: These numbers contradict those showing dementia-related organic brain damage in 66 percent of "AIDS" patients at autopsy, as well as the statistic that non-specific organic brain damage is found in 90 percent.) Another neurologic illness studied was primary central nervous system cancer (lymphoma), the incidence of which rose 47 percent per year over the study period.
The next fastest rise occurred in "progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy," an opportunistc infection; it increased 24 percent each year.
The other two conditions studied, cerebral toxoplasmosis (caused by protozoa) and cryptococcal meningitis (a fungal infection), occurred less frequently in men "who took antimicrobials" than in men who did not, according to these scientists.(9) Is HIV causing the neurologic disease, and its recent increase, seen in "AIDS" patients? Even Lawrence K. Altman of the New York Times notes that, while HIV is ***umed to be the culprit, there really aren't any hard data confirming the virus's pivotal role: "HIV can also directly attack the brain and central nervous system, although scientists do not know precisely how the AIDS virus produces such damage," Altman reported in November 1's New York Times. "Finding the answer is a top research goal because scientists consider such knowledge a crucial first step to development of more effective therapies."(10) Altman also points out that the new NIAID study "comes amid a scientific debate over whether there has been a decline in the incidence of AIDS dementia." A Dutch research group earlier "suggested that introduction of the drug AZT led to a significant decline in dementia," Altman reports. Other researchers, however, have suggested that "AIDS" dementia only seems to be occurring less often because it is "fatal so quickly."(11) McArthur told Altman that "our data suggest that dementia is not disappearing." The NIAID-Johns Hopkins group ***ert that "dementia alone" affects about 20 percent of "AIDS" patients.
McArthur also pointed out that the diagnosis of dementia has become more specific, "in part because of wider use of magnetic resonance imaging and other technologies that help earlier detection of brain infections and other damage to the nervous system," according to Altman.(12) Altman returns to the still-unanswered question, "What causes AIDS dementia?" He then reports other studies that fail to explain how, or even whether, HIV causes "AIDS dementia": A study comparing strains of HIV isolated from demented and non-demented AIDS patients reported in the July issue of the Journal of Virology suggested that certain strains [of HIV] appeared to be more virulent than others. The differences in strains appeared to be due to mutations producing small changes in a section known as the V3 loop of the outer covering of the AIDS virus....
Autopsy examinations in earlier studies have shown brain damage in up to 90 percent of those dying from AIDS. But a puzzling ...

jscut ...@panix.com (James Scutero)

Did you see the word "temporarily"? As they temporarily suppress symptoms they are causing other problems. He also suggested that they don't work that well.
Please name a study that shows that people live LONGER on antiretroviral therapy. Concorde proved that people do not live longer on AZT. The retrospective analysis of ACTG 019 proved that people do not live longer on AZT.
People do not live longer on antiretrovirals.
There is no cause and effect relationship in the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. It is built on a correlation.
You only see a correlation of HIV with neuropathy while there is no cause and effect for it and , at the same time, you ignore the correlation AND cause and effect found between most antivirals used in AIDS and neuropathy.
Then, you go off topic and start talking about unrelated OI's. This is speculation. Altman (an ex-CDC man) writes in the NYT that they DON'T know how HIV infects the brain and causes damage.
AZT is still one of the first drugs prescribed! It is required in most clinical trials and is the one drug found most in drug combinations. ddI causes neuropathy and so does d4T.
Read that section again and you tell me. HHV-6 DIRECTLY infects these cells and damages them. Most nucleoside analogs ("antiretrovirals") cause neuropathy. Still, you blame HIV for these problems even when HIV researchers don't know how HIV causes these problems.
-James M. Scutero

jscut ...@panix.com (James Scutero)

"Otherwise destined to die"? Based on what prognosticative criteria?
Five years ago when my T cells were 336, I was told that I would be "destined to die" if I did not take AZT. I didn't take it and I am still here, alive and well.
Wasn't that "measurable" figure two weeks?
That is an understatement.
-James M. Scutero

lovec ...@infinet.com (Ed Michalski)

: > Five years ago when my T cells were 336, I was told that I would be : > "destined to die" if I did not take AZT. I didn't take it and I am still : > here, alive and well.
: > I have been hearing alot of bad things about AZT. There is growing support in the medical community that AZT can cause all the problems which lead a HIV positive person to take AZT to begin with.
If it works for you great, but I would beware.
-Ed

g ...@panix.com (Greg Parkinson)

Dear god. "medical community"? I don't think so. All the problems?
Lies.
As part of the "it's not HIV, it's.... poppers! or too much sex!
or.... drugs!" weirdness the desire to create a conspiracy was just too much to resist. What better to target than a drug used against HIV?
AZT is not a miracle drug and often not effective, sometimes causing side effects. It does work for some people, and many people take it without any problems.
--
---------------------------------------------------------
Greg Parkinson "Isn't this a disgusting spectacle!" g...@panix.com Betty, on _I Love Lucy_

carl ...@gopher.ccbr.umn.edu (Carlton Hogan)

__________________________________________________________________________ | | | Carlton Hogan (carl...@gopher.ccbr.umn.edu) | | Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS Statistical Center | | Coordinating Center for Biometric Research | | Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health | | University of Minnesota | | 2221 University Ave SE, Suite 200 Voice: (612) 626 8899 | | Minneapolis MN 55414 FAX: (612) 626 8892 | |________________________________________________________________________|

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