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HISTORY OF AIDS PROJECTS OF COMPASSION RESPONSE NETWORK
Registration of Compassion Response Network as a Charitable Organisation
The four guiding objectives of the work of Compassion Response Network with HIV/AIDS are;
The major charitable line of service of Compassion Response Network since registration has been to facilitate AIDS treatment and testing projects using the most scientific of medical diagnostic tests, with the goal of attracting the interest and commitment of major aid and charitable groups.
All results of assessment projects are being openly published on the Compassion Response Network website, and so will be publicly available for comparative studies. Such comparative studies have not previously been available anywhere in the world that we are aware of. Such a comparative study will reveal to all thinking persons which treatments are better for eliminating HIV viruses, which for increasing CD4 immunity levels, which for providing nutritional needs, which for reversing anemia, which for providing vibrant health.
On 23/December/2002, Compassion Response Network was officially registered in Australia as a public company with charitable objectives and limited by guarantee, with official Australian Company Number = 103 240 071.
Compassion Response Network is an international non-profit charitable organisation, required by law to spend money exclusively for its charitable purposes. All projects are being organised on a goodwill, voluntary basis. All six present directors serve on a voluntary basis, attracting no financial reward. Every year the accounts, including receipts, expenditure, minutes and full yearly financial statements are audited by a registered chartered accountant, conforming to optimum Australian accounting standards. No expenditure will go towards advertising. Promotion will be exclusively on a goodwill, word of mouth basis.
On 11th/April 2003, Compassion Response Network launched its public appeal through a release of an email flyer to 200 email addresses over Internet. These were special addresses, networking contacts from all over the world who have in recent years expressed interest in the compassion work that we are engaged in. Among this list, about 50 are networks in their own right, along many lines, goodwill, economic reform, compassion, New Age, alternative health, healing, general networking. The flyer carried with it an invitation to copy and send to friends.
The 2003 Harare and Kinshasa Projects Appeal
In the six months leading up to the global public appeal in April 2003, the Inner Planning Circle of Compassion Response Network had planned in fine detail alternative treatment projects for HIV/AIDS in Harare, Zimbabwe and Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At each of these locations a project had been planned extending over 6 months. In all, 34 advanced AIDS patients would be provided with daily treatment for six months. Each would receive one of nine alternative treatments that had been chosen because they were cheap, simple, safe, and reputedly effective in the treatment of AIDS. Alternative treatments that were selected were;
Zapper + colloidal silver + ozonated water,
Dr Bob Beck treatment,
Tetrasil/Imusil,
Essiac formula,
Flor Essence,
Aurea Cento Spice Oils,
Glyco-nutritional supplements,
Absolutely pure colloidal silver + Oxyrich,
Sutherlandia herb.
( details of each of these treatments)
Compassion Response Network remains detached from claims regarding effectiveness of treatments. Our task is simply to facilitate the treatment over 6 months for each of the patients. We will not be using antibody tests which are unreliable and do not indicate the present HIV levels in the blood. Every two months, at pre-treatment, and 2-months, 4-months and 6-months stages of treatments, we will be providing state of the art medical scientific diagnostic tests --- bDNA viral load blood count, immunity CD4 blood count, and full blood count for red corpuscles, white corpuscles and platelets. Besides we will be providing pre- and post- treatment tests for creatinine, urea, ferritin, liver function and liver enzymes. We will be providing iron and folic acid supplementation to balance anemia which is the cause of death in many advanced AIDS patients. The patients will be receiving fortnightly medical checks by experienced and dedicated doctors, who will provide regular quality of life assessments. The HIV/AIDS patients will be classified into the 5 etiological (cause of disease) groupings for easy comparative studies.
Because of the extreme poverty in the Congo and the impending famine in Zimbabwe, all patients would daily be provided with one highly nutritious meal. All treatments would be provided for free to the patients. Various expenses would be incurred, apart from the cost of laboratory tests. Various medical items would need to be purchased. Treatment houses in Kinshasa and Harare would need to be rented and set up, wages provided over the treatment period for trained carers, cooks and in Harare a secretary and office assistant. There would be costs for food, transport and miscellaneous expenses.
Forward estimate of expected expenditure for the Harare and Kinshasa projects came to US$90,000. We would need to raise US$45,000 (half the amount for the total appeal) before the treatments could commence. This sum would be necessary to pay for lease and setting up of the treatment centres, payment of the pre-treatment blood tests and rental, wages, food, travel and miscellaneous costs for the first two months of treatment. Running costs to continue the treatment would require the raising of an additional US$9,000 a month.
After the first three months of the appeal, donations were received amounting to about AUD$1,900, or US$1,300. If donations were to continue at this rate, it would take 20 years to raise the US$90,000 required to complete the projects. Though grateful for those who so generously contributed, Compassion Response Network could not proceed with the nine alternative treatments project for Harare and Kinshasa, and so we have developed more modest projects of trialling one treatment at a time. The first of these was the Imusil project in Kinshasa in 2004.
The budget estimates for the proposed Harare-Kinshasa nine-treatment project remains however on our records, to be taken up again should Compassion Response Network in future receive major sponsorship.
Kinshasa Imusil Project 2004
Originally, when Compassion Response Network in April 2003 launched its global public appeal to raise funds for the Kinshasa and Harare projects, we had developed a plan with cost estimates for treating seven HIV/AIDS patients in Kinshasa, with three of these patients receiving Imusil treatment, two patients receiving zapper, colloidal silver and ozonated water treatment and the other two patients receiving Dr Bob Beck treatment. The treatment would continue over 6 months and there would be regular blood testing every two months. The overall cost estimates for this former Kinshasa project amounted to US$24,690.
Because we were unsuccessful in raising this required money, Compassion Response Network now focussed upon implementing a more modest project in Kinshasa, with three advanced HIV/AIDS patients each receiving just the one treatment (Imusil)
The details and costings for the Kinshasa-Imusil trials were still in line with that original 2003 costing arrangement, with this one alteration, that we focussed on just the one treatment (Imusil).
The actual cost for the completed Imusil project came to US$6,351 + AUD$1,940 = about US$7,700, or less than a third of the costing of the original 7-patient project. Cost cutting was possible because daily treatment for the Imusil patients was required for only four days instead of 6 months as with the other treatments. Thus there was no need for costings for premises, wages for a cook and treatment provider, and the costs of food were drastically slashed.
The main cost remained blood testing. Every two months, (pre-treatment and at the 2-months, 4-months and 6-months stages of the treatment) we sent blood samples to the Toga Laboratories in South Africa to have bDNA (viral load), CD4 (immunity test) and Full Blood Count (red corpuscles, white corpuscles, platelets). There were no facilities in Kinshasa to do these tests until April 2004 when this service opened in Kinshasa. From then onwards these blood tests were all conducted in Kinshasa. Not much money was saved for these blood tests because we had made advance bookings for courier delivery of blood samples to South Africa, but the arrangement after April 2004 was much more convenient.
Also pre-treatment and at the 6-months post treatment stage, there was blood testing in the Kinshasa laboratories for creatinine, ferritin, urea, liver function and liver enzymes tests. All patients underwent a monthly medical checkup by an experienced and dedicated doctor. All these results now are published in the CRN website.
The three patients required proper nursing care for the day of admission to the clinic and three days of the Imusil treatment, and a daily nutritious meal and transport costs was provided for the four days of clinic attendance and each monthly medical checkup. There were also costs for medical items such as syringes, EDTA tubes, needles etc. Printing, phone and photos costs are essential. To ensure quality records, we hired a nurse administrator to assist in preparing case report forms.
Various other costs included ferrous sulphate and folic acid (nutrition), financial support (for two doctors and the nurse who offered much time on a goodwill basis and are on appallingly low wages, and so a token financial support seemed appropriate). A contingency reserve (unplanned expenses) was included in the original budget estimate.
The trial commenced when the first pre-treatment blood tests were taken on 7th/January/2004. In May 2004 two patients received their Imusil injections, and the trial concluded when the post-treatment blood tests were taken on 17/November /2004.
We had difficulties including a third HIV/AIDS patient in the trials. One HIV/AIDS patient who for many months been eager to participate, chose at the last minute to withdraw from the project. Another patient had a severe relapse into a coma just before he was due to receive the Imusil injection and later died on 2/July/2004 without receiving the injection. Another patient who had seemed HIV positive to the Eliza (antibody ) test, was confirmed through bDNA (viral load) and CD4 (immunity system) tests that he was not in fact HIV infected. The Eliza antibody test we regard as most unreliable for diagnostic purposes. Eventually, it was too late to include a third patient in the project. We have a third sample of Imusil still held by the doctors in Kinshasa, to be used when our funds permit sponsoring the full cost of including a third patient in the Imusil trials.
The overall project as conducted by Compassion Response Network was successful, in that it demonstrated that Compassion Response Network could independently conduct a highly technical scientific medical survey that provides a good indicator as to the healing effectiveness of a given alternative treatment for HIV/AIDS. Such indicators are valuable in assessing the nature and value of possible follow up trials involving many more patients, and also in comparing one alternative treatment for HIV/AIDS with another.
From the perspective of the health response of the patients, the results were mixed. On the one hand, the provision of the Imusil treatment seemed not over the next six months to alter the trend observed in both patients, for the HIV viral load to double about every two months, nor to elevate the CD4 immunity count which for both patients remained seriously low at below 200. Four months after the injections were given, both patients experienced fevers, and the health risk to both was considered by their doctors as serious. One of these two patients died ten months after receiving the Imusil injection. The other patient will be accepted for our next trial in Kinshasa, involving another alternative treatment. In this regard, the tests suggested no alteration from the trend that might be expected if no treatment had been given at all.
On the other hand the medical checkup of both patients indicated a positive restoration towards health in the first four months after receiving the treatment, a renewal of physical vitality and joy in living, a clearing of candidiasis and skin illnesses and other AIDS symptoms. These AIDS symptoms seemed to return after four months, suggesting that perhaps the healing effect of the Imusil may have been of a temporary duration. Perhaps the healing may have been stronger had more Imusil injections been given. And consideration must be given that the doctors chose to give the 18 year old boy just 60% of the adult injection dose, for concern he had insufficient body weight to receive the full dose.
The doctors in Kinshasa still hold one more Imusil injection, to be used when the funds of Compassion Response Network permit the completion of our trial for a third patient.
Kinshasa Imusil Project Full Results
Kinshasa Imusil Project Financial Statement