About the Book
Most books about HIV are either highly academic, too mumbo-jumbo/alternative theory, or dry as dust. How to Survive HIV outlines more than thirty practical ways to live longer and healthier with HIV. These lessons are explicitly listed, but are also told through the story of the author who has lived positively for over thirty-one years with HIV. Since April 1984 Mr Armistead has been a participant in the Multi-Centered Aids Cohort Study (MACS), the largest study in the world about how HIV is transmitted from one person to another and how it progresses in the body. In that time he has never been sick with this disease except in October 1983 when he was first infected. Confronted with the crisis of finding out he was infected when there was still not a single drug to treat HIV, Howard Armistead became an Aids researcher in order to save his own life. Later he traveled the world to share his discoveries, knowledge and insights into this complex disease with the people who need it most, the 35 million people in Africa and other developing countries who are HIV positive.
This epic story tells how Howard became the leading autodidactic Aids researcher in the world; what discoveries he made, the research his work inspired, and how that has led to improved ways to treat HIV.
One key question the book addresses is exactly how HIV causes the decline in CD4 count that leads to Aids. Most people working in the field of Aids still think that HIV causes Aids by infecting and killing CD4 cells. However top scientists like Dr. David Ho who developed protease inhibitors say this is impossible since HIV only infects one percent of those cells. Understanding how HIV actually causes Aids provides new insights in how we can improve HIV treatment and the health of people living with this disease.
Mr Armistead published his first scientific abstract on NF-kappaB inhibitors at the Amsterdam Aids Conference in 1992. Between 1994 and 2004 he attended over twenty international Aids conferences on five continents and conversed with most of the top names in the history of Aids research: Michael Gottlieb, Luc Montagnier, Robert Gallo, Jay Cohen, Tony Fauci and David Ho. He attended an equal number of conferences in the United States including numerous Aids Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) conferences of the scientists who developed the drugs we use today to treat HIV. He has read over one thousand medical journal articles on the subjects of virology, immunology, and HIV treatments; and has read approximately one hundred books on those and related subjects like cancer, aging, and the history of medicine.
In 2003 Mr Armistead moved from Los Angeles, California to Lusaka, Zambia, and in 2008 to Johannesburg, South Africa. Today he is the leading expert in the world on how NF-kappaB inhibitors affect HIV disease and the leading expert in Africa on how selenium affects HIV. How to Survive HIV discusses the science of HIV, but explains it simply enough so anyone can understand.
How to Survive HIV follows Mr Armistead on his journey of discovery from Los Angeles to Hawaii to Washington DC, New York and Bangkok and across Africa in his quest to better understand and explain this disease. Anyone who thinks they know or have learned everything about HIV and Aids will think differently after reading this inspiring, enlightening book.
For anyone infected with HIV this book provides exactly what the title suggests, practical lessons on how to survive this disease. Those lessons are wrapped in a storyline that takes you from the epicenter of it first discovery in Los Angeles to the epicenter of Aids science, to the epicenter of the current pandemic in Southern Africa. It's going to be a bumpy ride but well worth the adventure and knowledge gained. After reading this book, you WILL live longer and healthier with HIV - guaranteed.
Biography
Howard Armistead is an internationally known HIV and Ebola researcher. Infected in 1983, since 1984 Mr Armistead has participated in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored Multi-centered Aids Cohort Study (MACS) study, the largest study in the world about how HIV is transmitted and progresses in the body.
Starting as an Aids research activist, Mr. Armistead eventually became an Aids researcher in order to help save his own life. Today he may be the leading autodidactic Aids researcher in the world.
Armistead's first discovery was that as an NF-kappaB inhibitor, aspirin has a significant effect in increasing CD4 count. This increase above baseline only lasts about a year - but that is better than AZT can do. Continuing his search for improved, effective, affordable, complementary therapies for use in the developing world, he came to the scientifically supported conclusion that besides ARVs, selenium supplements are the strongest thing to treat HIV disease. He has been bold enough to suggest that A-I-D-S is actually, "acquired immune deficiency of selenium."
Mr Armistead has attended over twenty international Aids conferences on five continents and visited over thirty countries in his campaign for affordable, effective therapy for HIV. He has discussed research issues with most of the famous names in Aids research; Tony Fauci, David Ho, Luc Montagnier, Jay Levy, Robert Gallo, Michael Gottlieb and hundreds more. As an autodidact he has read over one hundred books on science and medicine and over one thousand scientific papers on viruses and immunity and attended hundreds of presentations. In 2014 at the request of the Liberian Ministry of Health he took selenium to treat Ebola patients. The informal study showed that 1.2 mg of selenium reduced the Ebola mortality rate by 44.4%. This was the first single therapy to show such a significant effect against Ebola.
Armistead has designed controlled clinical trials that demonstrate aspirin's and selenium's effects against HIV. He has taken ARV drugs since 1989 - (eight years on AZT!) - and selenium since 1999. His CD4/CD8 ratio is currently at the same level it was thirty years ago before it started to descend to the level where he was Aids diagnosed - but not sick - in 1995. In over thirty years he has never been sick from HIV except when he seroconverted towards the end of 1983.
Originally from Virginia and residing in Los Angeles for many years, in 2002 he moved to Lusaka, Zambia and in 2006 served as a consultant to the Zambian Ministry of Health. Currently residing in Johannesburg, South Africa, he owns SAM Nutritional Products. Armistead is most likely the leading expert in Africa on how selenium affects HIV disease, and may be the leading expert in the world on how NF-kappaB inhibitors affect HIV disease.
He graduated from high school in Honolulu, Hawaii and has a master's degree in international relations from the University of Virginia. For many years in Los Angeles he worked for the Department of Defense Logistics Agency and for several major aerospace contractors.
SRI welcomes your support for this forthcoming book, How to Survive HIV. All donations go to the SRI.
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© Howard Steel Armistead HSA - 25 October 2014