Church Tells HIV Patients To Stop Treatment

[Beckys_Mom]

So can we bash religion? No we cannot and it is just pathetic.

No one is bashing religion here... People are giving their honest views on how wrong it is to tell someone to stop taking meds that could help them.... No one has that right... This is not about the religion, it is about people taking it upon themselves to act like they know faith is the only way... With the amount of stories you read on faith prayers allowing people to suffer without no medication and later to suffer and die as a result, is too tragic

If faith prayers did seriously work, there would be no need for doctors at all.. but see that is not the case. So please stop trying to make this out as if people are bashing religion, they are not... Remove the religion and you have a bunch of people still trying to do what they have no right to do

[Rlyeh]

Normally I believe that doctors need to be able to do their job. Doctors exist for a reason, and so we should try to get all the help we can and not get in their way.

However, I am not sure what I believe in this situation. There is no cure, or at least something that is well studied and affordable, for HIV. So all the patients would have got is more time and that time would be spent lying in a hospital in pain depending on others for everything and without clear sight. It is pretty much waiting in bed to watch your body fail and being degraded at the same time in many different ways. They are just waiting for their slow painful and inevitable death in almost all cases.

I have seen people die painfully that way and I have decided for myself that I rather die early than degrade myself and endure all the pain for a few extra months. I would go for alternative ways that would let me die in a peaceful manner, even if it means taking a few months off my life. If that means depending on religion for some people, then that is what we should respect.

Treatment of HIV has greatly improved over the years, and life expectancy is considerably higher.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18657708

[sandcat]

Its all about the money for churches like this, it should be a crime to treat people in this way

[Imaginarynumber1]

Its all about the money for churches like this, it should be a crime to treat people in this way

It is. It's called Culpable Homicide in the UK, i believe.

Maybe it's Gross Negligent Homicide. Either way it's disgusting.

[ShadowSot]

I would be interested in finding out if any placebo experiments have cured aids.

Placebo doesn't cure anything. Placebo is limited to the subjective experience of the patient,so it can work ok in releaving pain or whatever discomfort comes with disease,but doesnothing to actually cure the disease.

Objectively they're still ill, and will suffer the physical effects of the disease.

Blue Lizard

Normally I believe that doctors need to be able to do their job. Doctors exist for a reason, and so we should try to get all the help we can and not get in their way.

HIV treatments have enabled people infected with the disease to a nearly normal life expectancy, while taking medication.

This church is telingthem to stop takingtheir medication and they're dieing due to it.

[Lava_Lady]

Those people are full of poop. They know they aren't curing anyone. And this is the worst kind of betrayal, preying on the desperate, using their faith against them. And in this case, is a danger to everyone. Like the one guy who said he believed he was cured of HIV and now thinks he passed it on to his bf. If that is so, the "pastor" needs to answer for this. She definitely needs to answer for the ones who died after being "cured" by her. I hope the authorities in the UK don't let her get away with this.

[Mr Right Wing]

Placebo doesn't cure anything. Placebo is limited to the subjective experience of the patient,so it can work ok in releaving pain or whatever discomfort comes with disease,but does nothing to actually cure the disease.

Objectively they're still ill, and will suffer the physical effects of the disease.

The placebo effect doesn't work on HIV. You can't will your CD4 counts back up and without your CD4 cells you fight a loosing battle against any infection that requires T-mediated immunity.

Hi guys, a quick 20 second search reveals a paper on human testing which you guessed it indicates placebo effects in HIV -

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102197010.html

The effects wore off over the long term but effects were noted.

[Beckys_Mom]

Placebo doesn't cure anything. Placebo is limited to the subjective experience of the patient,so it can work ok in releaving pain or whatever discomfort comes with disease,but doesnothing to actually cure the disease.

Objectively they're still ill, and will suffer the physical effects of the disease.

Exactly... Also to add ....Doctors give out placebo to the hypochondriacs who THINK they have an illness and really don't

[jbondo]

A good Christian church would never tell anyone to stop treatment. This is like challenging God to prove Himself and He doesn't like that.

Doctors are here for a reason, use them.

Yes, God can heal but not like this.

[Beckys_Mom]

A good Christian church would never tell anyone to stop treatment. This is like challenging God to prove Himself and He doesn't like that.

Doctors are here for a reason, use them.

Yes, God can heal but not like this.

Which is why God invented doctors ...they are here for a reason...

[ShadowSot]

Hi guys, a quick 20 second search reveals a paper on human testing which you guessed it indicates placebo effects in HIV -

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102197010.html

The effects wore off over the long term but effects were noted.

They tested this vaccine and indicated that the results may have been due to vaccine. Without a control, there's no idea of what caused the effects. It could have been regular change, like from getting direct observation and care from doctors, or from the patients while being observed taking better care of themselves.

I also don't have access to the paper, and I wish I did. I want to know what the statistical change in the lesions were, there was a supposed statistically significant change in a placebo based cold cure, which amounted to just shy of an hour.

Also, it seems got had no problem healing people d irectly before, either through prayer or by touching people o r being touched. Now he only acts through people who receive years of medical training based off of centuries of scientifically developed methods?

Are there to many people now?

Edited November 26, 2011 by ShadowSot

[Orcseeker]

Another reason why the legal system should have more control over religion.

[xYlvax]

That's messed up.

[reggie2011]

people need to stop thinking such stupid make belive things like "god is real" i know ur afraid of death most of us are ,but u dont have to make things up to make urself feel better the church is just another stupid thing humans have done, wake up and move forward like the rest of us

[FurthurBB]

Normally I believe that doctors need to be able to do their job. Doctors exist for a reason, and so we should try to get all the help we can and not get in their way.

However, I am not sure what I believe in this situation. There is no cure, or at least something that is well studied and affordable, for HIV. So all the patients would have got is more time and that time would be spent lying in a hospital in pain depending on others for everything and without clear sight. It is pretty much waiting in bed to watch your body fail and being degraded at the same time in many different ways. They are just waiting for their slow painful and inevitable death in almost all cases.

I have seen people die painfully that way and I have decided for myself that I rather die early than degrade myself and endure all the pain for a few extra months. I would go for alternative ways that would let me die in a peaceful manner, even if it means taking a few months off my life. If that means depending on religion for some people, then that is what we should respect.

In short, if we could help them then that would be a different case. However, we can only put them in bed for some more time and they will be in pain that entire time.

So can we bash religion? No we cannot and it is just pathetic. It is their lives and we need to respect their choices especially when we don't have a cure they could use and our method is painful. So stop finding reasons to bash religion.

I know someone who has been HIV positive for 20 years and is still doing fine. We have great treatments to keep full blown AIDS at bay.

[__Kratos__]

HIV is real, your god is not. Stop being so bloody daft!

This happens in Africa all the time from the catholic church making up stories about HIV and protection... Christians have murdered millions of African men, women and children on their lies. So this isn't just a few radical churches going on about HIV, but entire sects of the mythology claiming things about sicknesses that simply aren't true.

[ND-DAVE]

if this was a case of euthanasia, then it'd fall on the six who died. depending on what the laws are in britain, which I think is illegal there. if they chose to let it all go, that's their choice. but still shouldn't be condoned by the church. suicide is suicide and as far as I know isn't condoned by the overall christian doctrine.

but this isn't. this is about these churches claiming to have a cure and these people believing them. the fact that these ministers are claiming they can falsely cure hiv is in my opinion, and I'm sure in the eyes of the law illegal.

I think there's a darker side to this story being kept behind the church doors. many evangelist factions publicly state their detest and disgust of hiv and aids carriers, as well as their similar feelings towards homosexuality.

this is pure speculation on my end, but perhaps this story has less to do with divine healing and more to do with divine homicide?

[a vampire wears my boxers]

seems like less of an opportunity to heal sickness than it is to add to the flock. it's like churches try and collect people like pokemon. its like an infomercial that always runs. convert a Jew! look! a homosexual! no more AIDS! aint god just great y'all? it just comes across as some christians wanting to get in good with the lawd-ah than actually caring about any of these folks.

[lilmcnessy]

its so easy to tell bull in today's world

[Damian Bâthory]

These guy's should be tried and jailed, this is pure murder..

When will religious peoples stop putting others in danger over their obsolete religious beleif...sometimes i think religions should be banned due to the number of death they cause every years.

I beleive in God and i beleive Jesus was, but i dont beleive in religions, i dont need a religion to know how i should live my spiritual life or my life as a human being, i helped others through my carrier as a peacekeeper and a UN observer, but i never needed a religion or a bible to tell me how to do it, humans should wake up and start living as they know they should not as a religion or a book written thousands years ago tells them, for God and their own sake.....

[Beckys_Mom]

I wonder if it is just HIV... Would they or do they do the same with Cancer patients also?

I find it just morally wrong...I could never dream of telling anyone to come off their meds and use faith to act alone.. These people should face the courts for this

Edited November 27, 2011 by Beckys_Mom

[Leonardo]

Hi guys, a quick 20 second search reveals a paper on human testing which you guessed it indicates placebo effects in HIV -

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102197010.html

The effects wore off over the long term but effects were noted.

The information provided in that link is outdated. It wasn't until 1994 that the virus causing Kaposi's Sarcoma (HHV-8) was identified and found to be different to the virus causing HIV.

Thus, the reduction in Kaposi lesions observed was irrelevant to the progression of AIDS in the subjects, and more likely to be a general, but slight, improvement in the immunosuppresive system of the subjects brought about by "a subjective sense of improvement in the severity of illness".

So, the results indicate a possible placebo effect on Kaposi's Sarcoma, but not for AIDS (apart from the subjective "sense of improvement".)

[Copasetic]

Hi guys, a quick 20 second search reveals a paper on human testing which you guessed it indicates placebo effects in HIV -

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102197010.html

The effects wore off over the long term but effects were noted.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, was traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday. Leo is spot on though. So let me reiterate something;

Placebo effects really work best on the subjective experience of a disease and it is hit and miss at that (which is why it is unethical to use it medically, its not a dependable treatment).

Consider pain, placebo opioids do work in some patients experience of pain. They will say "well yes, this medicine is making my pain hurt less"--Even though you are only giving them something like saline and not actually giving them hydromorphone.

What the placebo effect doesn't do is treat a terminal illness. You can't placebo away infectious HIV particles replicating in your CD4 T cells. Or you can't placebo away a glioblastoma multiforme.

[Copasetic]

Normally I believe that doctors need to be able to do their job. Doctors exist for a reason, and so we should try to get all the help we can and not get in their way.

However, I am not sure what I believe in this situation. There is no cure, or at least something that is well studied and affordable, for HIV. So all the patients would have got is more time and that time would be spent lying in a hospital in pain depending on others for everything and without clear sight. It is pretty much waiting in bed to watch your body fail and being degraded at the same time in many different ways. They are just waiting for their slow painful and inevitable death in almost all cases.

I have seen people die painfully that way and I have decided for myself that I rather die early than degrade myself and endure all the pain for a few extra months. I would go for alternative ways that would let me die in a peaceful manner, even if it means taking a few months off my life. If that means depending on religion for some people, then that is what we should respect.

In short, if we could help them then that would be a different case. However, we can only put them in bed for some more time and they will be in pain that entire time.

So can we bash religion? No we cannot and it is just pathetic. It is their lives and we need to respect their choices especially when we don't have a cure they could use and our method is painful. So stop finding reasons to bash religion.

Like others pointed out to you, HIV isn't the "death sentence" it once was. This is because the advent of much more sophisticated anti-virals. I see patients all the time in the free clinic who have been HIV positive for 10+ years and have practically normal CD4 counts and very low viral loads. So claiming all the patients would have got was "more time laying in a hospital bed", "in pain" is uninformed on your part.

[The Unseen]

This is just my opinion and I don't mean to disrespect anyone here but I think those churches that promise something like that should be responsable and if found guilty of false teachings should be burnt to the ground for endangering the lives of their congragation.Just my opinion no offence ment to anyone.

Edited November 28, 2011 by The Unseen