AIDS is not a conspiracy. Physicians are treating immune suppressed patients in the best way they know how. They use the tools that they are trained to rely upon: drugs, radiation and surgery. They prescribe the drugs they are told work, and they do so without malicious intent. They irradiate and cut out lesions, and they do their best to poison the bugs they believe to be causing the disease. Physicians do not get their information about how to treat disease through some secret cabal, they do not believe they are treating the wrong cause, and they genuinely regret the toxic "side effects" of the medications they deliver. They do not get their information on which drugs are effective against AIDS from reading scientific studies. They primarily get information about the drugs they prescribe from the promotional literature handed to them by pharmaceutical representatives, even though they don't believe this information to be "instructiona l packets" along with complimentary office supplies, textbooks, baby formula, dinners, note pads, pill samples and other loyalty-building gimicks. Physicians partake of these even though a large percentage of their clients disapprove and clearly recognize the conflict of interest. Physicians learn about new treatments at seminars sponsored by those same pharmaceutical companies, led by pharmaceutical representatives or other physicians paid as consultants or otherwise funded byby those same companies. They also read the same headlines that the rest of us read, where praises are sung about the latest chemical that shows some promise. People with HIV and AIDS are generally well-informed about new drugs, they demand them of their physician, and they get them. When physicians do read read the studies on drugs, what exactly are they reading? They are reading the findings of the drug makers, who conduct the studies on the drugs they market. This does not mean that all such studies are fraudulent and their published data are skewed, though that is sometimes the case. But the primary care profession is built upon the cornerstone of pharmaceutical therapy for disease, and those providers obviously trust in the integrity of the products they are dispensing. The medical researchers that steal the headlines in AIDS are the drug researchers and testers. New findings about HIV pathogenesis are significant in that they offer "n ew possibilities for treatment" or open up new "treatment strategies," those strategies universally refer to drug or genetic (biotech) intervention in some process HIV is going through on its supposed path to immune destruction. The drug industry certainly isn't going to spend millions or even thousands studying the long term immunological consequences of nutritional deficiency, or the benefits of micronutrient supplementation in increa sing survival. It is not going to fund research into acupuncture, herbs, vitamins or meditation. The NIH throws a paltry $12 million, or .09% of the overall NIH budget at those types of therapies, but the findings make the back pages at best, and never into the "major" medical journals such as JAMA, Science or Nature. Primary care physicians virtually never hear about them, much less incorporate them into their treatment plans (except to "compensate" for their possible dange rs), regardless of any demonstrated efficacy. Those therapies don't sell, and the drug industry pursues profit, not health. That isn't conspiracy, that is simply capitalism. Drug makers test drugs. Vitamin and herb dispensers and nutritionists could not begin to come up with the millions of dollars it takes to study a therapy to meet FDA standards. Thus, therapies remain focused on those that generate the capital required to approve them. The most conspiratorial aspect of AIDS research is the fact that the publicly funded research institutions such as the NIH do not spend an enormous amount of their resources investigating non-patentable treatments such as those mentioned above. Unfortunately for the dying, the close collaboration between government and industry in AIDS research leaves the NIH vying for patent dollars right along with the drug makers, and it leaving cheap, accessible, less toxic treatments for immune deficiency in the margins. The focus on pharmaceutical and genetic therapies not only keeps treatment options focused, it keeps causation research focused. In that research is driven by capital (both public and private, which are both wedded to drug/biotech research), it serves all interests to focus on causes of immune deficiency and dysregulation that are treatable via drugs or genes. The winners in the scheme are the corporate players in the medical industry. The losers are the dead and dying. Politicians will continue to push for more money to publicly fund biotech research and development, as that puts "free money" into the pockets of the industries that fund their campaigns. AIDS is no conspiracy, AIDS is big business.