Christine Maggiore was in prime form, engaging and articulate, when she
explained to a Phoenix radio host in late March why she didn't believe HIV
caused AIDS.
The HIV-positive mother of two laid out matter-of-factly why, even while
pregnant, she hadn't taken HIV medications, and why she had never tested her
children for the virus.
"Our children have excellent records of health," Maggiore said on the
Air America program when asked about 7-year-old Charlie and 3-year-old Eliza
Jane Scovill. "They've never had respiratory problems, flus, intractable
colds, ear infections, nothing. So, our choices, however radical they may
seem, are extremely well-founded."
Seven weeks later, Eliza Jane was dead.
The cause, according to a Sept. 15 report by the Los Angeles County coroner,
was AIDS-related pneumonia.
These days, given advances in HIV care, it's highly unusual for any young
child to die of AIDS. What makes Eliza Jane's death even more striking is that
her mother is a high-profile, charismatic leader in a movement that challenges
the basic medical understanding and treatment of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome.
Even now, Maggiore, a 49-year-old former clothing executive from Van Nuys,
stands by the views she has espoused on "The Ricki Lake Show" and ABC's
"20/20," and in Newsweek and Mothering magazines. She and her husband, Robin
Scovill, said they have concerns about the coroner's findings and are sending
the report to an outside reviewer.
"I have been brought to my emotional knees, but not in regard to the science
of this topic," said Maggiore, author of an iconoclastic book about AIDS that
has sold 50,000 copies. "I am a devastated, broken, grieving mother, but I am
not second-guessing or questioning my understanding of the issue."
One doctor involved with Eliza Jane's care told The Times he has been
second-guessing himself since the day he learned of the little girl's death.
Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica pediatrician who had treated Eliza Jane since
she was a year old, said he should have demanded that she be tested for human
immunodeficiency virus when, 11 days before she died, Maggiore brought her in
with an apparent ear infection.
"It's possible that the whole situation could have been changed if one of the
doctors involved — one of the three doctors involved — had intervened," said
Gordon, who himself acknowledges that HIV causes AIDS. "It's hindsight,
Monday-morning quarterbacking, whatever you want to call it. Do I think I'm
blameless in this? No, I'm not blameless."
Mainstream AIDS organizations, medical experts and ethicists, long confounded
and distressed by this small but outspoken dissident movement, say Eliza
Jane's death crystallizes their fears. The dissenters' message, they say, is
not just wrong, it's deadly.
"This was a preventable death," said Dr. James Oleske, a New Jersey physician
who never examined Eliza Jane but has treated hundreds of HIV-positive
children. "I can tell you without any doubt that, at the outset of her
illness, if she was appropriately evaluated, she would have been appropriately
treated. She would not have died.
"You can't write a more sad and tragic story," Oleske said.
It is a story not just about Maggiore and her family but about failures among
child welfare officials and well-known Los Angeles County doctors.
Among the physicians involved in Eliza Jane's care was Dr. Paul Fleiss, a
popular if sometimes unconventional Los Feliz pediatrician who gained some
publicity in the 1990s as the father of the notorious Hollywood madam Heidi
Fleiss. He was sentenced to three years' probation for conspiring to shield
the profits from his daughter's call-girl ring from the IRS, among other
things.
"I don't understand it," Fleiss said of Eliza Jane's death, "because I've
never seen her sick or with anything resembling what she supposedly died of….
I don't believe I could have done anything to change this outcome."
Fleiss, who said he could be "convinced either way" on whether HIV causes
AIDS, has known the family since before Eliza Jane was born. In 2000, the
county Department of Children and Family Services investigated Maggiore and
Scovill after a tipster complained that Charlie was in danger because he
hadn't been tested for HIV and was breast-fed.
The department found no evidence of neglect, based partly on reassurances from
Fleiss, according to an official report reviewed by The Times.
Now, with the death of Eliza Jane, authorities say they are poised to act.
Los
Angeles police are investigating the couple for possible child endangerment,
said Lt. Dennis Shirey, the officer in charge of the child protection section.
DCFS officials say they have opened an investigation to determine whether the
parents should be forced to test Charlie, now 8.
Maggiore said that she has spoken with police and expects to meet with the child
welfare agency early next week. Scovill would not comment in detail.
Before Eliza Jane's death, Maggiore said she had tested neither of her children.
Since then, in anticipation of the visit by child welfare officials, she has had
Charlie tested three times, and he was negative each time, she said.
"Would I redo anything based on what happened?" she asked rhetorically during an
interview this week. "I don't think I would. I think I acted with the best
information and the best of intentions with all my heart."
'Doing a Good Thing'
Maggiore said she once bought the standard line.
HIV would evolve into AIDS. And AIDS, she firmly believed, would kill her.
For months after her condition was diagnosed in 1992, she was depressed and
reclusive. Then she plunged into AIDS volunteer work: at AIDS Project Los
Angeles, L.A. Shanti and Women at Risk.
Her background commanded attention. A well-spoken, middle-class woman, she owned
her own clothing company, with annual revenue of $15 million. Soon she was being
asked to speak about the risks of HIV at local schools and health fairs. "At the
time," said Maggiore, a slight woman who looks years younger than her age, "I
felt like I was doing a good thing."
All that changed two years later, she said, when she spoke to UC Berkeley
biology professor Peter Duesberg, whose well-publicized views on AIDS —
including that its symptoms can be caused by recreational drug use and
malnutrition — place him well outside the scientific mainstream.
Intrigued, Maggiore began scouring the literature about the underlying science
of HIV. She does not know how she became HIV-positive, but she came to believe
that flu shots, pregnancy and common viral infections could lead to a positive
test result. She later detailed those claims in her book, "What If Everything
You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?"
Maggiore started Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, a nonprofit that challenges
"common assumptions" about AIDS. Her group's website and toll-free hotline cater
to expectant HIV-positive mothers who shun AIDS medications, want to breast-feed
their children and seek to meet others of like mind. One of her tips: Mothers
should share their wishes only with trusted family members and doctors who will
support their decision to avoid HIV/AIDS drugs and interventions.
She has stayed healthy, she said, despite a cervical condition three years ago
that would qualify her for an AIDS diagnosis. In a 2002 article for Awareness
magazine, she facetiously refers to it as "my bout of so-called AIDS," saying it
coincided "perfectly with the orthodox axiom that we get a decade of normal
health before our AIDS kicks in."
During a March interview in her orderly, well-lighted home, Maggiore seemed, if
anything, an exceptionally devoted mother. She served homegrown vegetables and
fresh pasta to Eliza Jane, listening attentively as the healthy-looking little
girl chattered happily about her two imaginary friends. At one point, when Eliza
Jane wanted to swipe away a spider, her mother urged respect for the tiny
creature. "He is part of our family," she said.
What set Maggiore apart became clear only when she talked about her views on
medicine.
She didn't vaccinate either child, believing the shots did more harm than good.
She rejected AZT and other anti-AIDS medications as toxic. "I see no evidence
that compels me that I should have exposed a developing fetus to drugs that
would harm them," she said.
Maggiore hired a midwife and gave birth to her children at home; Charlie was
born in an inflatable pool on her living room floor. She wanted to avoid being
tested for HIV or pressured to use AZT in a hospital, although technically
neither is required by California law.
She breast-fed both children, although research indicates that it
increases the risk of transmission by up to 15%.
Scovill apparently shares her beliefs. Last year, he produced and directed a
contrarian documentary, "The Other Side of AIDS," which won a special jury prize
at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival.
Maggiore estimates that 50 HIV-positive women have come around to her point of
view. The Times interviewed nine who said she helped them plot medical and legal
strategies to avoid being forced to have their children tested.
Lori Crawford, a child welfare worker in Tempe, Ariz., said Maggiore helped her
avoid an HIV test in North Carolina when she was pregnant with her daughter
three years ago. Crawford said Maggiore informed her that North Carolina didn't
have mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women and suggested she decline the test
if health authorities in that state recommended it.
"Christine and her book saved my life," said Crawford.
A Big Victory
In the 25-year history of AIDS, there have been many advances but few
victories. Prevention of infections and deaths among young children is one.
"This is one of the biggest public health and medical successes in the United
States," said Margaret Lampe, a health education specialist with the division of
HIV/AIDS prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of children found to have AIDS continues to plummet, even as the
overall number of new AIDS cases in the United States remains stuck at more than
40,000 per year.
In 2003, only 59 children under age 13 nationally were found to have AIDS,
according to the CDC. That's down from 952 cases in 1992, officials said.
Health officials attribute the decline to regular testing of pregnant women and
the use of antiretroviral drugs, such as AZT, during pregnancy and childbirth.
A 1994 study found that one quarter of pregnant HIV-positive women
passed the virus to their babies when they did not take AZT. Subsequent studies
found that the risk could be lowered to less than 2% when mothers received
prenatal care, took a combination of antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy and
labor, and allowed their infants to be given AZT in their first six weeks.
Federal health officials and AIDS experts say that HIV unquestionably causes
AIDS, although it can take more than a decade to develop. HIV tests detect
antibodies to the virus and are accurate predictors of who is infected, they
say.
Dr. Peter Havens, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the Medical
College of Wisconsin, said that contrarian HIV theories promoted on about 400
websites are "bogus baloney."
"It's all pseudoscience," he said. "They choose one paper and deny the existence
of 100 others."
Crumpled Like a Doll
The first hint that Eliza Jane was ill came at the end of April, when she
developed a runny nose with yellow mucus, Maggiore told a coroner's
investigator.
On April 30, Maggiore took her daughter to a pediatrician covering for Fleiss.
That doctor found the girl had clear lungs, no fever and adequate oxygen levels,
the coroner's report said.
Five days later, Maggiore sought a second opinion from Gordon. In an interview,
Gordon said he suspected an ear infection but believed it could be resolved
without antibiotics. In a follow-up call, he said, Eliza Jane's parents told him
she was getting better.
Maggiore then asked Denver physician Philip Incao, who was visiting Los Angeles
for a lecture, to examine her, the mother told the coroner's investigator. He
found fluid in Eliza Jane's right eardrum.
On May 14, Incao examined her again and prescribed amoxicillin, Maggiore told
the coroner.
Incao is not licensed to practice medicine in California.
The next day, Eliza Jane vomited several times and her mother noticed she was
pale. While Maggiore was on the phone with Incao, the little girl stopped
breathing and "crumpled like a paper doll," the mother told the coroner. She
died early the next morning, at a Van Nuys hospital.
Fleiss, Gordon and Incao all are known for their unconventional approaches to
medicine. Gordon and Incao are staunch opponents of mandatory vaccination of
children; Fleiss is a vocal critic of male circumcision. Incao did not return
repeated phone calls this week.
Alerted to the case by The Times, several medical experts said that doctors who
knew Maggiore's circumstances — that she was HIV-positive, hadn't been treated
during pregnancy and had breast-fed her children — should have pushed for the
child to be tested.
If she refused, they should have referred the matter to authorities.
According to interviews and records, Gordon and Fleiss have long known
Maggiore's HIV status and that she breast-fed her children.
Experts also said that when the girl became ill, any doctor who saw her should
have treated her as if she were HIV-positive. That would have meant giving her a
stronger antibiotic, such as Bactrim, instead of the relatively low-powered
amoxicillin.
"If you look away from something you're supposed to be looking for, that's
called willful blindness," said Michael Shapiro, an ethicist and law professor
at USC, "and willful blindness is one aspect of determining the negligence."
In an interview this week, Fleiss said it would have been wrong to force
Maggiore to test her daughter. "This is a democracy," said Fleiss, who has
treated the daughter of pop star Madonna.
Gordon said he wishes he had tested Eliza Jane when she was ill in early May,
but he doesn't believe he had sufficient reason to test her earlier.
"When it comes to HIV testing, I think that it's still legally a gray area," he
said, depending on whether one believes the child's life is in danger. In Eliza
Jane's case, he said, he did not.
David Thornton, executive director of the Medical Board of California, said his
agency probably would investigate to determine whether the doctors erred, for
example, in failing to report potential child neglect.
"If I would punish anybody," said Nancy Dubler, bioethics director at Montefiore
Medical Center in New York, who learned of the case from The Times, "I would
punish the pediatricians."
The Focus Turns
Now that authorities have settled on the cause of Eliza Jane's death, the
focus has turned to the parents and their remaining child, Charlie.
Even when a child dies because he or she did not receive adequate medical
treatment, the law is not at all clear about who, if anyone, should be held
responsible. There are few precedents, and courts traditionally give parents and
doctors wide discretion.
In two U.S. cases involving HIV-positive mothers who refused testing and
treatment — neither of which involved a child who died — the courts appear to
have issued conflicting opinions.
"There's no easy answer," said Dubler.
What is clear is that child welfare authorities had been told that Maggiore was
HIV-positive in 2000 and that her son was at risk for the virus, according to
agency records.
An investigator from the Department of Children and Family Services visited the
home, according to a copy of the case report reviewed by The Times, but she did
not have Charlie tested for HIV or talk to outside experts. She instead relied
on her own observations and the assurances of Fleiss.
"Parents appear appropriate and extremely focused on child's well-being in every
aspect," caseworker Rebecca McCauley wrote in February 2000.
Dr. Charles Sophy, medical director for the DCFS, acknowledged that his
department may have erred.
He said the caseworker tried to do her job but relied entirely on Fleiss because
the department, at the time, did not have its own medical experts to consult.
But even with Eliza Jane's death, Sophy said, it's not entirely clear that
Charlie is being neglected.
Legal experts said the problem lies in the official definition of neglect.
"DCFS is used to your prototypical neglect case where the house is filthy and
the mother doesn't care," said Thomas Lyon, a USC law professor and expert in
child abuse litigation. "They're just not accustomed to the kind of neglect
where you have an otherwise healthy, good parent."
Word Is Getting Out
Since Eliza Jane's death, Maggiore and her husband have kept a relatively
low profile, her friends said. But word is slowly reaching HIV dissidents around
the country.
Though shaken, most of them say they continue to support Maggiore and her
contention that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
For her part, Maggiore said that her daughter's death has taken a toll on her
health; she's had trouble eating, sleeping and, this past summer, simply
breathing. She's treated her symptoms with Chinese herbs, walked five miles a
day and practiced yoga, and is now feeling better, she said.
She went to a sympathetic doctor, she said. "If I had gone to a regular AIDS
doctor and told them I was HIV-positive, I have no doubt they would have blamed
it on that."
In the weeks after Eliza Jane's death, her parents created a website,
http://www.ejlovetour.com , in her
memory. Maggiore wrote lovingly of her daughter, wavering between despair at her
loss and acceptance that Eliza Jane had simply chosen, as Maggiore put it, to
"go home."
She struggled most with the whys.
"Why our child — so appreciated, so held, so carefully nurtured — and not one
ignored, abused or abandoned?" she wrote. "How come what we offered was not
enough to keep her here when children with far less — impatient distracted
parents, a small apartment on a busy street, extended day care, Oscar Mayer
Lunchables — will happily stay?"
People we have to read something like this, sit back and think hard using COMMON SENSE. What the majority of people will do is read this and as their reading it make up their mind again to the establishment line. Almost everyone who thinks they've brushed off establishment indoctrination haven't really. Their waiting inside for the counter-measure to come in the form of denial and fear. They read those words and think right I had my doubts and go back to what the establishment want them to think. You have to completely switch off from the mental indoctrinations and use COMMON SENSE which hardly anyone does these days due to very powerful conditioning from birth by these organisations. Notice how the fear/panic may have grabbed your back into old thinking on this subject? Fear is the ultimate control and believe me its used daily! Three things which keep control of the populations and they are Fear, Money and Religion!
Right look into the article and you will see the Child never had an HIV test and still was not classed as HIV even now. Therefore they cannot claim this child died of AIDS-Pneumonia. They bark on the official line as usual in favour of the HIV testing when its proven to be flawed and a fraud and without a standard to it also which is disgusting. Remember no medical journal even states hiv causes AIDS.
People die all the time around the world with Pneumonia and have done since the human creation. My aunty hasn't got AIDS but she almost died from Pneumonia. Now remember this, the aerosol operations aka chemtrails above everyone right now create illnesses like Pneumonia and thats why a couple of years ago a little and during the christmas period many in the U.S and U.K suffered from pleurisy and Pneumonia systems which were confusing the doctors. This article doesn't prove anything! Also the talk of her having an ear infection, come on has everyone gone paranoid. Children suffer many ailments throughout their advancing life and ear infections are nothing serious, new and nothing to do with AIDS or HIV they happen naturally. You see the establishment has made people so paranoid these days that they couple even a swollen lymph node with hiv. It swells so they rush to the doc for an HIV test. The HIV test is proven a fraud and flawed with no standard and most times flags positive. That person then starts on the drugs because he knows no better. What he didn't know is that people get swollen lymphs a lot in this world through infections from all sorts of things but it doesn't mean your hiv and getting aids. Just think about all those in the past history who had the same and didn't have hiv haha, its a complete joke.
Now Christine Maggiore will have deeply hurt the establishment if shes been appearing on TV etc. If she just wrote a book and talked at H.E.A.L shows it would not be so bad. You must realise that the establishment will take first opportunity to attack her big time and this is what they've done. Her child dies of a natural cause so they quickly jump on it to discredit her and the truth behind AIDS. Do you think these people like people like her and me? NO they detest us because we show up their lies, profiting and depopulation agendas. In Africa everything they've suffered naturally in the past is now labeled as AIDS which helps the establishment keep the lie going and making toxic drugs to wipe the world out whoever has them. Maggiore has a battle now because they will try to force the other child on the DNA killing drugs and thats another one that will die and they will profit from.
Club of Rome, Rockefellas and the medical establishment want shooting for their crimes on the purposely dumbed down populance. Remember you dumb the populance down and now to a point where people dont use common sense or know of it. Then you can force feed lies and frauds all day long. Its all about CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!!
2TUFF http://s13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MIND/
This is not to suggest that if you have any of the above-mentioned
conditions you will test HIV positive. What it is meant to show is that
the test is greatly flawed and can cross react with many other
conditions.
References:
1. Johnson, Christine. Continuum Magazine Vol. 4 No. 3 Sept. 1996
2. Duesberg, Peter, PhD. Inventing the AIDS Virus. Regnery Publishing, 1993.
3. McKenna, Joan, TBM Associates, Berkeley, USA, "AIDS: A Different View," conference, Amsterdam, May 1992.
http://www.alivemagazine.com/home/index.php?page_type=article&t...
Jane Doe of Montreal refuses
to give toxic, lifelong medication to her two healthy sons. She loses
custody of them as a consequence. Another woman in Montreal hears this
and decides to have an abortion.
A woman in Maine has a daughter die on the same medication and
finds that the debilitating symptoms she and her son were also
experiencing rapidly disappear after they stop taking the drug. The
state takes her to court to force her to give medicine to her son--but
she wins her case.
A couple in Oregon is less fortunate. They are "legally" forced to
medicate their newborn infant and the mother is forbidden to nurse him!
A woman in British Columbia is harassed by social workers who threaten
to force her to medicate her two children and stop nursing her baby, so
she hastily leaves the province.
A couple in London refuses to test their new baby and flee from
England after losing their case, fearing that forced medication will
follow forced testing.
All these people have one thing in common--both they and their
children are HIV-positive. They all reject the need for medication
intervention for their condition and for that of their HIV-positive
children. In fact, they question whether the HIV test indicates an
illness at all.
The AIDS Epidemic
To most Canadians, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is
something that happens to other people--largely gay men and drug
addicts. Most people believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS, that new
drugs indicate miraculous advances in medicine and that the tests for
HIV are accurate--unless they themselves test positive, of course.
Just like a diagnosis of terminal cancer, people are completely
unprepared for this shattering moment. They rely on their doctors for
advice, which is almost always to immediately start a program of drugs
to try to stop the virus from its deadly advance. They usually do not
question the myth that they will die a painful and early death, but
hope that the drugs can buy time.
Canada’s top AIDS scientist, Dr Mark Wainberg, believes that HIV
always leads to AIDS. In his opinion, those people who question the
accuracy of HIV tests, or whether immunosuppressive drugs are wise for
a disease characterized by immunosuppression, are a threat to public
health and should be thrown in jail!
Considering the fatal nature of the current HIV diagnosis (if death
is really the outcome), perhaps parents are within their rights to let
their child die a natural death, as opposed to gaining a longer, but
lower quality of life with medication. Few people would consider Jane
Doe to be behaving more sanely than her doctors, yet her do-nothing
approach to HIV has worked. Fourteen years after being found
HIV-positive, she is still extremely healthy and has never taken
medication.
AIDS and AZT
The oldest and still most widely prescribed AIDS medications are
nucleoside analogs. If DNA is likened to a chain of beads, a nucleoside
analog is a broken bead that can attach at one end, but not at the
other. These drugs are supposed to stop retroviruses from being
incorporated into DNA, but their inevitable incorporation into a
growing chain of DNA will cause replication to halt.
One of these nucleoside analogs (AZT) is prescribed to pregnant
women to prevent transmission of HIV to their fetuses. It’s also
prescribed to HIV-positive children. Side effects of nucleoside analogs
are similar to chemotherapy: anemia so serious that transfusions are
required. These drugs cause bone marrow destruction, peripheral nerve
damage, failure of the pancreas and many other side effects. They can
cross the placenta and cause cancer, birth defects and mutations.
The Price Of Health
There are several reasons why AIDS doctors and researchers may be
so adamant that not taking anti-HIV drugs is irresponsible--money,
money and money. Dr Mark Wainberg, for example, has acknowledged being
a shareholder in the Montreal company Biochem Pharma, the manufacturer
of 3TC, an HIV drug. While the income from one patient is probably not
significant, the impression that every rational person supports taking
drugs is worth millions to doctors, researchers, hospitals and
manufacturers.
If it becomes legitimate to question whether HIV tests are
accurate, whether HIV always leads to AIDS, whether AIDS is always
fatal without medication and whether anti-HIV drugs are useful, the
entire infrastructure will collapse. While that would be the end of the
career of men like Dr Mark Wainberg, for Jane Doe this would be the end
of her nightmare.
References available on request.
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