SHADA

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (10th impression 2007) defines the noun, cure as "a medicine or medical treatment that makes an illness go away". The example it uses: "There is still no cure for AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)." Yet, in last week's instalment of His Story, Vernon Palmer, a Jamaican-born consultant pharmacist, also known as Apostle Shada Mishe, claims that he has had the 'cure' since 2002.

The email responses flooded my inbox. Help! Surprisingly, the majority of them were positive, a few somewhat sceptical and one from a man who gave an unprintable solution for the scourge. My brief response was: "Well!"

A daughter's faith

One of the responses was from Palmer's daughter, Kerry-Ann. She wrote, "Thank you for publishing my dad's story. You asked me what I think of my dad's claim. I believe it is the real deal. I can't really explain it, but I feel it deep down within, and I've seen it work first-hand." And in response to my request to hear from someone who has tried the 'cure', she sent me the story of the first person to have used AMBUSH.

Desmondis a mechanic from Florida. Nearly 20 years ago, he contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). At that time, when the world was still trying to understand the nature and effects of the virus, he didn't know it was HIV and eventually it developed into AIDS. It was the death of his daughter, Kelly, that brought him face to face with the disease, literally. Here is Desmond's story in his own words:

"Kelly was the most beautiful daughter that I helped to produce. She would have been 21 years old by now, but at the age of six she fell ill to pneumonia and by the age of seven she died. Shortly after, her mother died of a brain tumour. I did not know that my daughter and her mother had AIDS until after their death.

Deteriorating

"A friend of mine came to me and told me that before Kelly's mother became pregnant, she had been messing around with another guy while she was with me, and he had AIDS ... I never became sick, so I didn't know I had the disease.

"It wasn't until this year (2003) that I became sick. It was around August when I started to deteriorate. I was tired all the time and I had no appetite, so I had lost a lot of weight. I would go to work and could not do anything, but lie down in the back seat of the car when I should have been working and sleep all day. This went on until I couldn't work anymore, and I was practically bedridden. My weight was about 135lb and it dropped to about 85lb.

"Then in early September Vernon Palmer came to me and said, 'Your mother said that I should come and take care of you because you are sick.' After he said that, he could see that I was really sick and took me to the hospital to take an AIDS test. But, Vernon could see that I was close to death and said that we could not wait on the test results and began giving me the medicine/cure that he created. He called the medicine AMBUSH.

"Vernon came by my house every morning with a bowl of cornmeal porridge and the daily dosage of AMBUSH. I took one dosage of AMBUSH three times a day for 21 days. When you are on the verge of death, all you have is faith and there is no room for disbelief. After two days of treatment, I was able to get out of the bed; it felt like I had regained a little bit of my life.

From death to life

"A week later, the test results came back and of course it was positive. The treatment ended in late September, but when I knew that I was cured was when I had a dream one night that I was standing in front of heaven's gate and the gate wouldn't open. Then Vernon came to the gate and took my hand and the gate opened. The next morning when I woke up, I could feel that there had been a transition from death to life.

"By early December I had gained 75lb, and my weight was back up to 160lb. And by late December I went back for another AIDS test. The place where I took the first test would not retest me, so I went to another facility. I was scheduled to get the results back on January 5 (2004), but I went in on the sixth and the nurse told me that the results were not yet back.

According to Desmond, he still has HIV, but he no longer has AIDS. He continued: "AMBUSH is still the best medicine created for this disease. It brought me back to life."

But, as I said in my response to readers, I am simply the storyteller. I am neither promoting AMBUSH as the cure for AIDS, nor am I endorsing or rejecting Palmer's claim. Yet, it is a very interesting one, which many readers believe deserves some attention. For, there are endless possibilities out there to be studied and tried. If AMBUSH is the 'real deal', time will tell.