I'm beginning a study on AIDS (my work partner JUST told me he was diagnosed with it)

Many people confuse testing HIV+ and being diagnosed with AIDS.  These are not the same thing.

and read some of your posts here. I have newbie questions though:

What really causes AIDS?

To understand the answer it is important to understand what AIDS is.  Frequently it is erroneously referred to as a disease.  But AIDS IS NOT a disease, it is a syndrome.  In fact, AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  Syndromes are not diseases, but rather a group of symptoms.  So anything creating these symptoms can lead to an AIDS diagnosis.  This is why they now generally use the term "HIV disease" instead of AIDS, but even this is somewhat erroneous.  This is because under the original definition of AIDS the HIV could not cause AIDS.  One of the top scientists for the CDC, Robert Gallo, lied when he claimed HIV was the cause of AIDS for financial reasons.   Gallo, who had already been busted previously for scientific fraud held the patent rights on the HIV test.  So he lied because the testing for HIV using his test would make a fortune even though HIV did not cause AIDS and the test was extremely inaccurate.  The government knew Gallo had lied again though, and when this would be exposed he would be a major embarrassment for the US government again.  So they had to find a way to cover up Gallo's lie that HIV caused AIDS.  To do this the definition of AIDS was changed in the early 80s to fit the HIV virus.  

Originally the definition of AIDS by the CDC was the development of opportunistic infections in gay or homosexual men under the age of 40.  Yes, under the original definition the CDC actually claimed that a person could not have AIDS if they were over the age of 40.  But that has more to do with the introduction of AIDS associated viruses in experimental hepatitis vaccines in the late 70s and early 80s.  All participants had to be gay or bisexual and under the age of 40.  All of the original outbreaks of AIDS were in cities performing these vaccines and in the individuals participating in these vaccine trials.  The whole how the AIDS viruses were developed and introduced is a whole other story that I have already covered and that can be verified by government and medical journal documents.

Anyway, the definition of AIDS was changed to include the drop in CD4 counts since this is the only thing that the HIV could do.  And HIV was not able to collapse the immune system to induce the opportunistic infections that were required for an AIDS diagnosis.

The only known virus that could induce the opportunistic infections on its own to create an AIDS diagnosis under the original definition is human herpes virus type 6 variant A (HHV6-A).  The difference is that HIV can only take out CD4 cells, but not other key immune cells that support the immune system in the absence of CD4s.  HHV6-A on the other hand not only takes out CD4 cells, but also the other immune cells that would have supported the immune system if HHV6-A only took out CD4 cells like HIV does.  Therefore, under the original definition only HHV6-A could cause AIDS.  Under the expanded definition designed to cover Gallo's lie, both HIV and HHV6-A can both be considered causes of AIDS.

Taking this further, these are not the only viruses are not the only microbes capable of causing AIDS.  Again we have to keep in mind that AIDS is not a disease, it is a syndrome.  So it is not like how an influenza virus causes a disease called the flu.  Instead AIDS is defined by the development of symptoms.  These symptoms include opportunistic infections such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis (viral), Kaposi's sarcoma (viral and bacterial forms) and pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (bacterial).  All of these are caused by various pathogens, which still create the symptoms that define AIDS and thus can technically be considered causes of AIDS.

And still there is a non-pathogen cause of AIDS.  The drug AZT, also known as zidovudine, and its tweaked versions are a major cause of AIDS.  To understand though how a drug used to "treat" AIDS can cause AIDS there is more that must be explained.

As mentioned previously the diagnosis of AIDS is made based on the presence of symptoms.  It got to the point though that the line between HIV+ and actual AIDS became blurred and people started being told and believing that being HIV+ meant that they had AIDS.  This is not the case though.  Still doctors started giving healthy people testing HIV+ with very dangerous drugs.  These included AZT, which was a chemotherapy drug developed in 1962 and that was originally banned for human use since it had such deadly side effects.  Next came the drug DDI, which was the first drug fast track approved by the FDA in a record 18 months instead of the normal 12+ years.  This despite the fact that DDI killed over 160 participants in the clinical trials from DDI induced pancreatitis.

The biggest problem with this, other than the fact that all these drugs were proven to be highly lethal, was the fact that HIV+ does not mean infected with the HIV virus, which cannot collapse the immune system in the first place.  Thus what the doctors were doing could really be considered criminal acts, although not with their full knowledge being that they have been duped over the whole AIDS scenario also.  They hear over and over the AIDS "experts" calling AIDS a disease and that HIV is the only cause of this syndrome.  In addition they are told that drugs like AZT are the treatment for virus they cannot even prove is present to begin with, and for which has been shown to shorted the lives of patients.  They are not told this though, so unless they look at the studies most doctors are unaware of how deadly AZT really is.  And of course the sales reps for these deadly drugs are not going to say "by the way, this drug has been shown to actually kill more people than it can potentially help".  This is exactly what the studies show though.  The largest study ever conducted on AZT, the Concorde Study, determined that the AZT actually shortened the lives of AIDS patients instead of lengthening their lives.  The only reason this drug was removed from the banned for human use list was to recoup financial losses from when the drug was banned for human use.  In other words they figured that they had a syndrome for which they had no cure so why not use a drug on them that would still kill the patients but at least would make a big profit for the pharmaceutical companies in the process.

These drugs were being given to people though that were healthy to begin with, but that either tested HIV+ or as a preventative for medical personnel exposed to certain body fluids of patients.  The problem is that AZT collapses the immune system, the same thing that the medical community has falsely claimed that HIV does. As pointed out earlier though HIV cannot collapse the immune system since it only leads to the destruction of CD4 cells.  CD4 cells though do not govern all of the other immune cells, only some.  When the CD4 cells are destroyed other immune cells can still maintain an active immune system preventing the opportunistic infections that are a hallmark of AIDS.  Again, this is why they had to change the definition of AIDS to fit the HIV virus since HIV could not cause AIDS under the original definition.

So what does HIV+ mean?  Absolutely NOTHING!!!  These HIV tests are antibody tests, which are notoriously inaccurate.  Thee biggest problem with these antibody tests is the extremely high rate of false positives, in particular from a process known as serological cross reactivity.  Basically this means that antibodies of like structure can cross react on the antigen targets of antibody tests yielding false positives.  I posted evidence on the problem of serological cross reactivity for a poster who was denying that cross reactivity even exists not to long ago on a thread about Lyme disease:

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1850083#i

And here are some old posts on the problem as far as HIV testing goes:

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1663113#i

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1553865#i

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1549321#i

Another problem with these tests is that exposure to a pathogen without chronic infection can also yield false positives due to the antibody response triggered in the process to exposure.  As I said in a previous post if I have the flu one day and then I get over the flu I can still test positive for influenza antibodies since the exposure to the virus stimulates antibody production.  Even though the immune system successfully fights off the virus the antibodies remain.  

And again, other pathogens can also trigger off antibody responses that will yield false positive HIV tests including hepatitis viruses, influenza viruses, polio virus, malaria protozoa, etc.  Various vaccines have also been shown to create false positives on HIV tests through serological cross reactivity.  So a positive antibody test does not mean the pathogen is present.

What virus does a PCR count if HIV is a complete hoax?

It is not that HIV is a complete hoax.  It is a virus and it can affect the body.  It just can't collapse the immune system, which is why they changed the definition of AIDS to fit the HIV virus.

PCR (polymerase chain reaction), also known as "viral load", like antibody testing though cannot determine the presence of any particular microbe.  And despite its other name, viral load, the PCR test does not determine levels of a virus nor its activity.  This is true of all viruses they try to use PCR to detect including HIV and hepatitis viruses.  Here are some old posts explaining why:

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1549328#i

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1549335#i

Other than product carry over and replication cycles another big problem with PCR is that they only look at a portion of the genetic material being tested.  The problem with this is that these segments of genetic material contain sequences that can be shared by other microbes making it impossible to tell what they are looking at.  To make this easier to understand let' say that we took only a segment of your DNA and amplified it to detectable levels.  You share genetic sequences with all your direct relatives including distant relatives.  Because you share these genetic sequences with these other people does this mean that you are the same person as these other people?  Of course not.  In order to distinguish between them and you we cannot simply look at only a small segment of the genetic material.  Instead we would have to match your entire genetic sequence with another sample of your entire genetic sequence.  Otherwise, since so many other people share your same segment of genetics we cannot differentiate between you or your relatives.  This is what happens with PCR of viruses as well.  Since they only look at a small segment of genetic material instead of the entire genetic sequence of the microbe being tested there is no way for them to determine if they are looking at the particular microbe they suspect or a microbe sharing the same sequence of genetic material in the tested segment.   In one study of PCR doctors were unable to agree with what virus they were looking at over 30% of the time.  The reason again is that they are not looking at the whole viral sequence so they can only assume that are looking at a particular virus being tested for.

This brings us back to how AZT and similar drugs can cause AIDS.  The whole premise of having HIV infection is based on highly inaccurate tests that frequently yield false positives.  If a person tests HIV+ it is assumed that they are infected with HIV even though there is no real evidence of this.  So the person is put on anti-retroviral drugs such as AZT assuming they have the virus.  AZT though has a nasty effect on the body though of destroying the bone marrow, which leads to a complete collapse of the immune system.  Even if the person is perfectly healthy continued use of AZT will destroy the bone marrow leading to a collapse of the immune system. This is because all of our immune cells start out as undifferentiated cells, known as stem cells, in the bone marrow.  Therefore, when the bone marrow is destroyed by the AZT this prevents the formation of stem cells and thus immune cells.  Once CD4 cell counts drops below 200, due to the destruction of the bone marrow, an AIDS diagnosis can be given.  Or once opportunistic infections develop as a result of the bone marrow destruction an AIDS diagnosis can be given.  AZT and similar drugs therefore are a major cause of AIDS.

What cures it?

Depends on:

1.  Is the person actually infected with HIV or other AIDS viruses, or did they simply test HIV+, which does not mean infected.

2.  If they do have AIDS symptoms then what is causing the symptoms?  Medications?  Other causes of immune suppression such as antirejection drugs that suppress the immune system or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that also damage the bone marrow?

If there is an actual infection by HIV leading to symptoms then pau d' arco and andrographis are especially effective against leukemia/lymphoma viruses like HIV.  Adding chaparral will enhance the antiviral effects of the pau d' arco.

If there is bone marrow damage then I recommend also adding suma.

If the person is on anti-retroviral drugs like AZT then people can recover from their AIDS by simply getting off the medication and rebuilding the bone marrow.  Such cases have been reported, but instead of admitting that these individuals tested false positive and that the drugs induced their AIDS the cases instead are simply referred to as "spontaneous remissions".

Could you direct me to some good Pubmed articles or others that would be worth reading to get a good overall knowledge about it?

You are not going to find a whole lot on this on PubMed.  Ever since Gallo mislead the world about HIV and AIDS they have been trying to cover their tracks to cover up the massive holes in this and other claims in the whole AIDS story.  For example, redefining AIDS to fit the HIV virus, downplaying the false positive rates of testing, then trying to cover up the whole AZT causes AIDS fact and finally changing the term from "gay related immune disease" to human T-cell leukemia/lymphoma virus type 3, to AIDS then finally HIV disease.  To really get the most information on this requires going to the medical library and looking in the medical journals from early on.  Especially the journals that are not heavily censored like the US medical journals.  Good sources in the British Medical Journal and the Lancet.  The articles that you want to look at though are not going to be indexed on PubMed.  I have already looked for a number of them that I had found in the medical library and they are not on PubMed.  AIDS is a very political subject and we all know how politics get manipulated.  If you have something specific you are trying to find out though I may be able to help you find the information.