I recently unboxed some of the early media accounts of my life as an openly gay AIDS activist in Kansas City.  The very first words in the very first article ever written about me as an activist proclaim:  "Jon D. Barnett is an angry young man."

That anger served me well as the fuel for many years of social activism, though it ultimately took a toll in burnout and poor health.

Nearly ten years later, when I was diagnosed as HIV-positive, my world tail-spinned and I withdrew socially for nearly a decade.  The anger that once drove me was now directed internally against an invisible—and supposedly invincible—enemy.

It was only after the life-changing experience of quitting all pharmaceutical drugs in 2007 that I began to work my way out of my drug induced, self-imposed exile.

While questioning the wisdom of committing to a lifetime of AIDS drugs may be controversial, it is not crazy and there is definitely no malicious intent in telling my story.  I simply cannot have the life experiences I have had and keep them to myself.

One would think from some of the reactions I've gotten from readers, viewers and even personal friends lately that I am trying to hurt people, though nothing could be further from the truth.

A couple of weeks ago, as I sat across the table from a friend I've known for decades, I felt his hurt and his anger as he challenged me for suggesting that it may not be necessary for everyone to take ARVs for life to survive a positive HIV diagnosis. There is more to his story. His partner had just been brought back from the brink of death a few months ago after starting HAART.  He was a real-life example of the "Lazarus" effect.

Never mind that it takes HIV ten years or more to cause symptoms, ARVs are credited with restoring health in just a few months! I did not have adequate answers for all of my friends' questions, nor did I feel that was my job.  What was important was that we discovered that we shared many of the same questions, though getting there took quite a bit of effort to overcome the misdirected anger and hurt first.

On my youtube page I have posted a video about the LOTTI study, which found that many positive people can successfully quit their drugs for long periods of time, and possibly even permanently. (I also blogged about the LOTTI study here). The video has received comments from some people involved in "AIDS education", including a poz man from Portland, Oregon.

In a comment he has since deleted, youtuber gbfowler was apparently frightened enough by the notion of some people choosing to try a drug-free alternative to recover their health that he felt compelled to counter the message of hope I had presented, warning others who might stumble upon the video that my views are "extreme" and that "99 percent of HIV docs and researchers disagree with [me]."  Of course, he is right on both accounts, but the question begs:  why did he feel it was so important to warn others of the obvious?

Yes, it made me angry that someone who makes their living pushing drugs onto other gay men would express only fear about any scientific information that offers hope to tens of thousands of gay men—many of them otherwise healthy—who are facing, or have already embraced a lifetime of chemotherapy.

Talk about extreme and dangerous ideas!

The gay community has developed...

(read the rest of this post on my blog here)