STATEMENT From a Mother in Montreal

8 Feb. 2000

Below is the public statement that the mother has released for her press conference on Feb. 8.

I am here before you and you can not see my face because there is a law preventing me from divulging my identity to protect my children. I will therefore be referred to as Jane Doe and my children as Child A and child B. I tested HIV positive more then 14 years ago and have repeatedly tested positive but I have remained healthy by living a simple healthy lifestyle and taking no drugs whatsoever. Both of my children are also HIV positive and have been healthy since birth until the HIV specialist started treating them.

Since the birth of my first child, I have been harassed by the medical establishment through the Director of Youth Protection. I almost had my baby taken away at birth because I wanted to breast-feed him. I repeatedly refused to treat my children with HIV drugs and questioned the validity of the treatment. DYP intervened in 1993, when AZT in monotherapy was in use. I asked to choose my own doctor, and found one with a degree in medicine and homeopathy. DYP closed their file after a month. In 1994, I exiled myself from Canada for two years with child A after I was threatened by my homeopathic doctor that if I do not consult doctor X, he would call DYP. The medical establishment was investigating all his files accusing him of using the Medicare card to provide homeopathic treatment to its patients. He wanted to get rid of me.

In 97, I was forced by DYP to see doctor X for the first time. I questioned the validity of the treatment he was proposing which is why doctor X had the Director of Youth Protection involved in Mai of 99 when my father brought child A in the hospital for an ear infection.

When DYP intervened, I told them that I did not trust doctor X and did not want to consult him. I thought I had the right to choose a doctor I trust for my children. DYP responded that since my children are HIV positive, I have to see an HIV specialist. So I asked DYP to change hospitals to another at five minutes walking distance from my home. That right was also denied by DYP on the grounds that DYP deals with this hospital. I asked DYP, when would they close my case? They responded that they would not close it after at least a year or more. So I had to visit that hospital once a month to have my children examined by doctor X and each time I went, I was pressured into giving those drugs to my kids. Doctor X repeatedly told me that my children and I would die, if we do not go on the treatment. In fact he put me on my deathbed in July of 1999 based on two tests. I am still alive and well today despite the tremendous stress I had to endure.

In July of 99, my children were taken away from me as I attempted to leave Canada to get them away from DYP's intervention. I was appointed a legal aid lawyer to defend me and consulted him ten minutes before the trial. In a twenty-minute court proceeding, my parental rights were terminated temporarily until another court date where the decision would be definite. My children were placed with my parents who right away were given a prescription for a combination of three powerful and toxic antiviral drugs, known as HAART. My parents refused to give the treatment to my children but agreed to give only Septra (a powerful antibiotic used as a prophilaxis, to be given daily for life to HIV positive people). My parents also questioned its efficacy and safety.

After these events, I was determined to find a lawyer interested in my case to defend me. I asked the AIDS legal defense fund but they did not want to take my case, they are probably funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Then I found by accident the virusmyth.com web site. I was overwhelmed with joy to find out I was not alone, within the medical community there are dissenting views and I emailed the International Coalition for Medical Justice who right away accepted to pay for my legal expenses and provide me with expert witnesses.

I contacted DYP right away to inform them that I would bring experts in court to prove that I am justified in refusing the treatment. I warned them about its toxicity and the dissenting view about AIDS in the medical community. I asked to have at least 4 days in court to present these experts. Unfortunately, they did not take me seriously and DYP was planning in expediting me in half a day in court. They were asking the judge that my children be placed in a foster home for two years in order for them to start treatment.

In October of 99, my new lawyer asked for a new trial date to permit me to present my experts. The judge granted our request but it is with horror and dismay that we then heard doctor X testify in court that it was urgent that the treatment starts on my children. That the treatment had been delayed since 1997, exposing my children to opportunistic infections and since my parents are old and ambivalent about the treatment, it is better for my children to be placed in a foster home so they can proceed in treating them freely. The judge agreed.

DYP then signed the authorization to start treatment despite the repeated warnings of my parents and myself. They did not have the decency to wait to hear what my experts had to say. So my children were placed in a foster home, child A had to change school and missed two weeks. My children have been subjected to a traumatizing experience by the very agency that is supposed to protect them.

ICMJ has spent more than $50,000 to defend me. We brought experts from Germany, New York and California who testified that the FDA has approved the treatment but there have been no placebo trials to prove its benefits or safety. For HAART, the placebo trial consisted in comparing patients on HAART and patients on AZT. Since there has been an admission by the HIV establishment that AZT in monotherapy is not good, that there have been a lot of deaths related to the use of AZT, this trial cannot be considered viable.

One of my experts also testified that the HIV tests are highly inaccurate, that the test was intended to screen the blood supply to detect HIV not to test humans. He also presented the judge with the pamphlets found in HIV test kits where it is written that this test is not intended to detect the presence or absence of HIV-1 or HIV-2 in human blood. He also testified that there is more than 60 documented factors other then HIV that can make an HIV test react positive. As far as I am concerned, I consider my children and I to be false positive. This test should be out-lawed.

Furthermore, there are increasing warnings about HAART in medical journals stating that the treatment is failing and is too toxic. So why is doctor X insisting that my children go on these obsolete drugs to the point of having them taken away by DYP from my home and my parent's home? According to the HIV establishment's theory, the patient has to take the doses religiously otherwise the virus will become resistant to the drugs; therefore opening an excuse for the doctors when the treatment fails, blaming the patient. Due to that theory, my children have to take 10 doses a day of highly toxic drugs, seven days a week for the rest of their little lives and if they vomit a dose; they have to take another dose right away. This is torture, not health care.

My lawyers and I spent 4 more days in court trying to convince a judge to stop this treatment. The judge decided to put my children back with my parents on the condition that they continue the treatment, and obey any directives that doctor X gives them. But he has provided us with an opening to review his judgement if necessary. The opportunity happened last week when child A complained of pain in the kidneys and was admitted again in the hospital with an inflamed kidney, yet they have continued to give him HAART and are blaming his inflamed kidney on a viral infection. Medical literature makes it clear that at least two of the drugs my children are taking are known to crystallize in the kidneys and cause kidney stones. My expert witnesses predicted this side effect of the drugs.

My parents are complying with the court order for fear of having their grandchildren taken away again. What happened to me can happen to any parent in Canada. A single doctor has the power of ruining the life of an entire family by imposing a treatment he juges to be indispensable through the aid of the government. The government has at its disposition all the money available versus the parent who will be ruined by legal expenses to defend his child. This is medical fascism within a democratic society. Parents who use alternative medicines, beware!

I think it is the parent's decision to give or not a treatment. The parent is in the best position to make such a decision, not an overworked social worker or a doctor that profits by selling drugs to its patients. Medicine is behaving as a religion and imposes its dictature to the population through massive propaganda and the law.

The scenario I predict will happen, if the treatment continues, is that my children are going to be cancerised by those toxic drugs to the point of no return. Doctor X will than write AIDS as the cause of death and blame me for killing my children because I delayed the treatment.

If DYP had not violated: My civil rights to choose a doctor I trust for my children, and my civil right not to be harassed for a handicap, I would not be here today before you today.

Who is paying for all this unwanted medical treatment? The Canadian taxpayer.

This law preventing me from divulging my identity is protecting DYP not the children. They can do whatever they want without the public knowing. In fact, DYP has protected the interests of the pharmaceutical companies not the interests of my children. Are they also on the pharmaceutical company's payroll?

I am hoping that by telling my story, people will realize the absurdity and cruelty of my situation and reach out to help me. I also know that there are many other HIV positive mothers who do not want to take drugs, I do not want them to have to go through the agony, horror and heartbreak that I have suffered.

The following arrived shortly after the above by email:

Hello everybody.

Tonight I called my parent's place and I got my father. He was screaming in the phone that Ismael is pissing him off because he does not want to take his medication. I begged my father to skip a doze, the treatment is making him sick. He said that Ismael is as hard headed as me and he hang up. I started to cry profusely. It is my son's birthday today...