Malaria therapy for AIDS

Dr. Henry Heimlich, of Cinncinnati, OH, US, creator of the Heimlich Maneuver to prevent choking, announced at a 1996 conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada progress on a Malaria therapy for AIDS. According to this early work, patients with both malaria and HIV had a normal T-cell count, even elevated levels. Experiments giving patients a curable form of malaria for 3-4 weeks were successful at restoring T-cell counts for many months or years. Heimlich says after-effects of the malaria were tolerable or non-existent, and far more survivable than opportunistic infections characteristic of AIDS.

Heimlich says the World Health Organization in Atlanta first supported this work, then abandoned it for drug therapies promoted by major pharmaceutical corporations. Heimlich was forced to continue research on malaria therapy in China, where it has passed some clinical trials. As of 2003 he plans to go to Africa next. But the method is still banned in the US and Canada, and no clinical trials have been conducted in those countries, ensuring that the therapy will not be available for some more years.

Heimlich's research is controversial within the AIDS advocacy community. Mark Harrington of Treatment Action Group, an AIDS research advocacy organization, says that "malaria has never worked for anything. ... If Heimlich is really doing this, he should be put in jail."

Source: live interview on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio with Dr. Heimlich, April 14, 2003