Adequate levels of essential minerals, vitamins and other substances are essential to good health. Scurvy occurs, for instance, when the body is deprived of vitamin C. Diabetes occurs when blood cells are deprived of glucose due to inadequate insulin levels. Dr Harold D. Foster* believes that AIDS may occur when the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) depletes the body of the antiviral enzyme glutathione peridoxidase and its four basic components: the trace mineral selenium and the amino acids cysteine, glutamine and tryptophan.

To test his hypothesis, Harold devised a dietary regime rich in these four nutrients, which is described in his FREE book, What Really Causes AIDS, downloadable from his website: www.hdfoster.com (click on 'Publications'). He has many letters from individuals who improved their health markedly after adopting the regime.

Harold has also developed a food supplement containing the right balance of these nutrients, which is currently being tried out in several countries in Africa. Although it is too early to draw firm conclusions, the many anecdotal reports of recovery and people returning to active life are very encouraging. With funding from a charity, Harold has recently managed to set up a formal one year trial involving 30 AIDS patients. We shall report the results as soon as we have them.

Getting things like this going is fraught with difficulties. When pharmaceutical companies can charge $3000+ a month to treat HIV/AIDS patients in more industrially developed countries, they do not want evidence of an effective $9 monthly treatment in Africa or anywhere else.

Why Africa?

• The need is greatest but the patients the poorest. Also, Harold has found a strong correlation between low soil selenium levels and high AIDS rates throughout the continent. Perhaps low soil selenium and malnutrition are major factors in its spread there.

• In America and Canada only licensed therapies for given diseases may be used and food supplementation has not been licensed for AIDS. Unlicensed practices are classed as criminal activities which can result in the invasion of offices and laboratories to gain evidence, then fines, bans and even prison. A few brave US doctors have tried Harold's dietary recommendations on HIV+/AIDS patients with good results, but maintain their anonymity fiercely

* a faculty member in the Department of Geography, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Nonoxynol-9 (N9) has been used as a spermicide on diaphragms and condoms for many years. When test-tube studies suggested it could kill the AIDS virus a study involving 999 prostitutes in South Africa, Benin, Thailand and the Ivory Coast was undertaken. The researchers were shocked by the results. The more the women used N9 products, the greater their risk of contracting AIDS seemed to become. The researchers suggest that it may damage the skin inside the vagina, making it easier for the AIDS virus to enter. The researchers also hoped that N9 might protect against gonorrhea and chlamydia. It did not.

The study's director, Dr. Lut van Damme of Antwerp's Institute of Tropical Medicine, commented that "this may be the end of nonoxynol-9 as a potential microbe killer" and called for messages including its use as part of a safe sex programme to be considered.

A commonly held view of the AIDS plague in Africa attributes it to promiscuity and risky sexual practices. Not so, according to a review from David Gisselquist and John Potterat published in the March 2003 edition of the International Journal of Sexually-transmitted Diseases. They conclude that two thirds of AIDS cases are caused by dirty syringes, the majority used by the medical profession, and call on the international community to urgently review the exclusive emphasis on safe sex of current anti-AIDS programmes. Their findings include:

• medical injections are used in Africa to deliver antibiotics and medicines as well as vaccinations. Most of the injections are unnecessary
• many studies report children with HIV whose mothers are not infected, showing that infection in pregnancy is only one (and perhaps a small) factor. One study found this situation in 40% of cases
• African countries with the most thorough health care programmes (and thus the highest use of syringes) like South Africa and Zimbabwe, have some of the highest rates of HIV, and their rates are rising in line with increased efforts to bring medical care to rural populations
• while most sexually-transmitted diseases are associated with poverty and poor education (leading to low use of condoms), the African AIDS epidemic is predominantly an educated, relatively well off, urban phenomenon
• children with HIV had had, on average 44 injections since birth, compared to an average 23 injections in children without the infection
• Africans are no more promiscuous or sexually risk-taking than Americans or Europeans
• a comprehensive 'safe injection' programme would cost around $300-900 million