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This was originally published here, in French (link).
We provide this translation for your convenience. Practical aspects may differ where you live.



Leibowitch on television

In an ancient post JCM declares (whom I thank, by the way):

The video 'Leibowitch chez Drucker (Vivement Dimanche)' has disappeared from YouTube (like almost everything that remains of Leibowitch as a testimony Video). I am working on archiving copies. I have the video, but I don't know where I found it. There is an audio track (which is more than enough), which you can listen to from the Valas website, here. I keep a copy, so let me know if the link disappears.

Michel Drucker:
We are going to welcome a great researcher who teaches at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches, an AIDS specialist... He was one of the pioneers of the discovery of the virus, I ask you to welcome Doctor Jacques Leibowitch...
You wanted him to be there because the way to treat yourself has changed...

Josiane Balasko: I have a friend who simply told me that Jacques was doing a test protocol on a hundred patients:
Instead of taking a lot of medication every day, people with HIV are taking much less, making their lives easier and more comfortable.

Michel Drucker: You invented triple therapy in the mid-1990s, and for the past 10 years you have been leading a project called Icare. Intermittent, short-cycle antiretrovirals remain effective, which means that you are in the process of demonstrating that it is possible to lighten the treatment while maintaining its effectiveness...

J. Leibowitch: It is possible to go a certain number of days without medication without the virus returning, i.e. after an effective attack treatment, conditions are such in the patient's body that the virus has difficulty in rebounding, a viral eclipse aka viral latency time that allows us to space out the antiretroviral bombardments.

Michel Drucker: So far, triple therapy is a lot of pills 7 days a week...

J. Leibowitch: The established rule, which I have a hard time getting the invention to work against, is that it's 7 days a week, otherwise you're going to hell.

Michel Drucker: Now it's between 4 times and 1 time a week...

J. Leibowitch: Some treatments can be stopped for up to 6 days a week without the virus having had time to rebound.

Josiane Balasko: What needs to be done to make this a widespread thing?

J. Leibowitch: The rule has to be changed. It's a question of psychology, of physiology, that's a lot less chemical medication...

Michel Drucker: However, we should not think that we can do this in a wild way...

J. Leibowitch: Self-prescribing is forbidden, it has to be driven by a doctor, and until now, doctors don't do it because the rule has not been changed, that's why I'm happy to be here to present the Iccarre project and the good news, which is the reduction from 40% to 85% of the drugs for those who have to take them for life.

Josiane Balasko: I will read an excerpt from a letter from one of his patients: I am 49 years old, I am HIV positive, today I testify to be heard. There are a few hundred of us patients who take triple therapy between 1 and 3 times a week instead of the 7 days a week recommended by the medical profession: for my part, I am at 3 days a week and everything is fine.
In addition, it is time to say that HIV-positive people on treatment do not infect their partners, i.e. they can have unprotected sex without transmitting the virus.
AIDS DOES NOT PASS THROUGH YOU BECAUSE I AM TREATED ...

Michel Drucker: This means that with these simplified procedures, HIV-positive patients under care are no longer transmitting the virus... Do you have trouble convincing your colleagues?

J. Leibowitch: Yes, because it was established the hard way, over the last 15 years where the marks were taken under difficult conditions - it was more the virus that was winning; so a rule was set up defensively, and to change it, the HIV-positive people have to demand it.
The rights of the HIV positive patient to be properly treated, the right to the right dosage, it will not just come to you, you have to ask for it, and I had a lot of trouble to get to you, and I thank the host and this patient.

Michel Drucker: So, it is a question of adjusting the antiviral doses to the strict minimum necessary and sufficient...

J. Leibowitch: Yes, this is the deontological medical rule, it is to adjust the treatments to what is necessary.

Josiane Balasko: You think that consuming less medication will piss off the laboratories?

J. Leibowitch: Let's not attack the laboratories, for the moment, it is the barons of the pulpit who manage the situation and they have a lot of trouble accepting that this pacifying and liberating revolution comes from them.
The good news is that we will be able to reduce from 40 to 85% when we change the rule, the bad news is that I am the only one doing it, it would be nice if others did it.

Michel Drucker: That's why you're here today. Thank you, Doctor. Goodbye, thank you.