The story began to unfold in Nairobi (Kenya) in the mid-90s when Canadian scientist Dr. Frank Plummer, principal researcher at a clinic in Majengo, Nairobi, was conducting research on STD's[1]. Living in an environment of desperate poverty, many of the women in Majengo turn to prostitution to support their families, and come to the clinic there. When Dr. Plummer learned that about two-thirds of these women tested HIV-positive, he shifted the focus of his research to AIDS. That's when they discovered that a small number of the women had apparently developed an immunity to the HIV virus.

The research team, according to an article in the CNN archives,[2] were ''astounded'' by the number of women who had become AIDS-free. Still, they refused to use the word immunity to describe what was happening. According to an Associated Press story quoted in Life magazine, Dr. Plummer said:

''We are calling it resistant -- we are not calling it immune -- but we have a lot of evidence that their immune systems are able to recognize and kill HIV. We think there's something fundamentally different about their immune systems that is mediated by genetics, and we're trying hard to track it down.''[3]

Most of the immune women were related to each other by blood, and this is what gave the scientists the clue that the immunity might be explained by the women's genetic makeup. ''But it could be a combination of several factors,'' another researcher commented. And he added, ''They could be immune to a combination of things, and HIV is just one of them.''

According to the CNN story, the running theory on HIV immunity is that certain proteins -- human leukocyte group A antigens -- trigger a more powerful immune response to the HIV virus, and scientists believe that by studying natural AIDS immunity they may be able to develop a vaccine that will do the same thing.

More recently, however, at the January 30-February 2 Conference on Retroviruses in San Francisco, Plummer's group had distressing news: a couple of the ''HIV-resistant'' women they were studying became HIV-positive between 1996 and 1999.[4] The startling fact, however, was that the ones who became infected, unlike the 90% who were still HIV-free, had actually started using protection, so that they were no longer exposing themselves to the virus!

Because the medical paradigm does not take account of the influence of mind and spirit upon our bodies, the scientists were forced to invent some new theory of resistance in order to explain what had happened to these women. Dr. Kevin de Cock, HIV specialist at the National Centers for Disease Control, sums up the official position, concluding that ''HIV antigen stimulation is required for the maintenance of resistance.'' (Meaning no disrespect, this conclusion seems to this writer to boil down to the advice that the best way to prevent AIDS is to have unprotected sex every day with at least one diseased partner.)

But the women who became infected with HIV had one thing in common besides the lack of exposure, and that was fear. Even though they had, with total impunity, been exposed to HIV daily for the past eight to thirteen years, they were still afraid. As the Spirit of Ma'at showed in our August issue, it is the combination of emotion, thought, and action that enables us to shapeshift our environment. In this case the emotion was fear, the thought was that they would contract AIDS, and the action was to take protection. If mind can change our DNA in a forward-looking direction, it can also change it back.

''It has been so difficult for me,'' says Hawa Chelangat's cousin Hadija, most of whose friends have been infected by HIV, ''because you see people around you go down with HIV and AIDS, and it's a natural fear that one day my blood will turn positive and I will die.''

But if the conclusions in this issue of the Spirit of Ma'at are correct, even if Hadija's own fear creates a negative outcome for her, what is also likely to happen is that more and more of the women in the ''world's oldest profession'' -- not only in Nairobi, but worldwide -- will develop immunity to AIDS. And as Drunvalo and Gregg Braden and many others believe, the deep spirituality of the Nairobi women may offer a clue to the selection process.

As Hawa Chelangat says, ''I feel because my blood has remained good, it is a blessing from God.''

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