HIV treatment may already be in your medicine cabinet, suggests Howard Armistead
Positive Living Newsletter - September 1995
Aspirin is not the cure for AIDS, but according to Howard Armistead, the medication sometimes described as “the miracle drug” can do wonders for people with HIV.
Armistead, a West Hollywood resident who believes he has been HIV-positive since at least 1982, first started taking aspirin daily in 1990 after reading an article in AIDS Treatment News about the effect of the drug on HIV. The article stated that aspirin increases two immune factors that could be used against HIV in the body: interleukin-2 and alpha interferon.
“I started taking one aspirin a day,” said Armistead, “which I knew was safe -and at any rate would be effective against heart attacks- and within about 2 1/2 to 3 months, my T-4 cell count doubled from a previous average of 550 to a high of 1,080. I had already been on AZT and acyclovir for 20 months and had established a 20-month control period, so the doubling with aspirin was over and above what I had already established.”
When Armistead told his doctor about his reaction to the aspirin therapy, he was stunned by the response.
“He said, ‘we know that aspirin is an immune booster because it reduces prostaglinadin E2′,” recalled Armistead. “I was shocked that my physician knew that aspirin was an immune booster and hadn’t told me. I felt like he had been withholding information from me.”
Brought findings to Amsterdam
Armistead felt compelled to find out more.
“I dove into the USC medical school library, “Armistead said, “and spent four months of intense scientific research covering the topics of the effects of aspirin and other non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs on the immune system, how the immune system operates and communicates among itself, and how HIV replicates, and how HIV disease and other immune diseases such as cancers work in the body,” Armistead said.
As a result of his research, Armistead presented a peer-reviewed abstract at the viii International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam in 1992. He claims that he became “the first person in the world to briefly explain that aspirin reduces HIV growth by reducing the activity of the hormone-like substance and cytosine, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and nuclear factor binding (NFkB).”
Since the Amsterdam conference, Armistead has addressed the California Ryan White Committee on AIDS and distributed nearly 1,500 copies of his paper on aspirin’s effect on HIV reproduction at the AIDS conference in Yokohama, Japan last year.
Some express caution
Others who are familiar with aspirin research are cautious about its role as a treatment for HIV.
The American Foundation for AIDS Research Treatment Directory warns that aspirin can cause stomach ulcers, especially in high doses. “Aspirin also intereferes with platelet function, resulting in increased bleeding times,” the directory states.
A study sponsored by the Community Research Initiative on AIDS (CRIA) closed in January when several patients developed toxicity. (Calls to CRIA to discuss the findings of the study were not returned.)
Spencer Cox, formerly of CRIA, said that the underlying rationale of the study is “still pretty good,” but added that any plan to use aspirin as a treatment for HIV should address patient-management issues to ensure safety. “We should move forward to try to find other related chemicals that may be less toxic,” Cox said. “The area of research [in aspirin therapy] is very promising.”
Not to be used alone
Armistead, who has never received an AIDS diagnosis and currently has a T-4 count of 350, now takes about seven aspirin per day, but he doesn’t recommend taking aspirin alone.
“I’ve now been on low-dose AZT and acyclovir for six and a half years,” Armistead said. “I’ve been on aspirin just under five years, and about three months ago I added ddC. Low-dose combination therapy is the key to slowing HIV disease, and I recommend aspirin therapy at least down to the level of 100 T-4 count. No one should be on monotherapy today.”
A Virginia native who has traveled extensively, Armistead stressed that he is disappointed that more articles about aspirin and HIV haven’t appeared in the U.S. press.
“It hasn’t been proven, so they don’t want to put any wrong information out,” Armistead said. “But I would think that the gay press would at least want to raise this as a question.”
Armistead is executive director of the Project for Aspirin Research and Education (PARE), and is seeking funding for pare’s activities. He also would like to see some clinical trials conducted on the effect on HIV by aspirin and other non-steroid, anti-inflammatory drugs to provide more evidence to skeptics.
“There’s a certain number of people who, when given the material about aspirin,” Armistead said, “refuse to read the material and refuse to believe that it’s effective. But almost anybody that reads my material understands that aspirin is at least possibly effective and not just a joke.”
The Project for Aspirin Research and Education: (310) 659-6965.
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