DAAIR is a evolving, not-for-profit buyer's club and information provider with over 10,000 members worldwide. DAAIR was founded in 1991 by a person living with HIV, with the goal of discovering and evaluating sustainable, transformative methods of self-empowered healing while living with HIV disease and/or other chronic illnesses. DAAIR helps to guide these dynamic processes, which embrace the whole self, in distinctive and integrated ways:

• As an information resource, supplying extensive, scientifically researched literature on complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM) through our 2,000-page web site, widely distributed free print materials, and lectures and presentations throughout the world. Members have access to the database AltHealthWatch [link?], a substantial compendium of full text articles and complete publications on the full spectrum of complementary, holistic and integrative medicine;
• As a membership-based "buyer's club," which distributes and also manufactures its own line of complementary/alternative treatments, and provides them to members at the lowest prices in North America. DAAIR continues to create the greatest access possible to high quality nutrients, botanicals and other natural treatments, as well as promising experimental pharmaceutical drugs, most of which are not covered by insurance;
• as a facilitator of the importation of promising, sometimes experimental pharmaceutical drugs currently unavailable in the United States, by utilizing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) personal use importation guidelines. DAAIR acts as agent for the individual with a chronic illness, requiring their physician's supervision and prescriptions and FDA-defined release forms, where needed;
• As a leader, embarking on the process of establishing working groups from within its membership, in order to develop a cutting-edge pilot project to foster self-transcendence. Self-transcendence is a developmental characteristic that expands the boundaries of the self to embrace broader life perspectives, activities, and purposes, helping one to illuminate and make meaning of life. Self-transcendence can be initiated by a life challenge such as HIV, cancer, chronic fatigue, viral hepatitis and other chronic illnesses. By aiding in the definition and development of the processes of self-transcendence from the individual's unique perspective and experiences, DAAIR hopes to create an environment that will foster the integration of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and community dynamics, thereby maximizing sustainable health, sense of meaning and purpose, well-being, self esteem, and connectedness with self and others.

Complementary/Alternative Treatment Information and Literature
DAAIR's literature is rooted in a concept of healing that goes beyond the physical and embraces the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of living with chronic disease. Some of the literature focuses on the physical aspects of surviving and thriving with HIV and AIDS, and some on holistic and complementary therapies and wellness that can apply to anyone. Each document contains from a few dozen to hundreds of citations from the relevant clinical literature.

What earlier members knew as DAAIR's Treatment Information Pack (TIP) has been superceded by the 125-page Self-Care Guide, which has two sections. The first is called Comprehensive Goals for Managing HIV Infection, and contains detailed information on such mechanisms of HIV infection as inflammation, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial toxicity, and on the strategic importance of antioxidant and other nutrient supplementation in slowing disease progression. The second section includes a comprehensive discussion of nutrition, food preparation, and food safety, an introduction to a wide range of complementary and mind-body-spirit therapies, and other information to make it easier for people to increase their well-being and quality of life. The modalities discussed include botanically-based complete medicinal systems such as Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and homeopathy, body work and energetic therapies such as massage and Reiki, forms of exercise such as yoga, t'ai chi, aerobics and resistance training, and mind-body healing and stress management methods and techniques such as meditation, progressive relaxation, and flower essence therapy.

DAAIR's 250-page Managing HIV Symptoms and Drug Side Effects offers detailed information on how to deal with troublesome symptoms and side effects, organized by symptom. The information is specifically designed to help people understand the benefits, limitations and potential risks of various treatment interventions. An introductory discussion of antiretroviral drugs and their common side effects and of mitochondrial toxicity, inflammation and oxidative stress is followed by information about detoxification. Then there is an alphabetical listing and recommendations for common symptoms such as anemia, appetite loss, blood sugar problems, body distortions, cardiac concerns, depression, anxiety and sleep problems, diarrhea, nausea and other digestive problems, fatigue, pain, pancreatitis, and sexual difficulties. This guide also contains easy-to-read charts for recommended nutrient and botanical protocols that are helpful in dealing with each symptom and side effect.

DAAIR's 125-page Treatment Catalog and Guide contains detailed product descriptions and research summaries on the more than 400 nutritional supplements, botanicals, and other therapies DAAIR carries. These therapies are from a wide range of sources and traditions and may be appropriate for individuals with a variety of chronic medical conditions.

This web site includes over 2,000 pages of content available to all, including DAAIR's catalog and all other educational literature and fact sheets, and links to many other useful sites on nutrition, herbs and botanicals, complementary medicine and health activism.

Visitors can also access extensive CAM treatment information using Healthnotes (Alternative Wellness Information), a complete web-based self-care resource for consumers and health practitioners that includes information and articles on health concerns, nutritional supplements, herbs, homeopathy, integrative therapies, and practical information on food and nutrition. It also has a section on drug-herb-vitamin-food interactions and nutrient depletions caused by drugs: more than 18,200 fully referenced interactions and depletions, including the top 400 prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs indexed by brand and generic names. Among other things, visitors can get answers to the question, "Can I take this vitamin or herb with my medication?"

In addition, members have exclusive access to the database AltHealthWatch, ordinarily available only by subscription. AltHealthWatch contains a substantial compendium of full text articles and complete publications on the full spectrum of complementary, holistic and integrative medicine, often archived back to the early 1990s.

Under the category of HIV Treatment Information, other DAAIR documents further explore living with HIV/AIDS, including information on the replication cycle of HIV, an Immunology Primer, Methodology (discussing the basics for understanding clinical studies), and How To Monitor Your Blood Work. Navigating treatment choices is not easy, so Evaluating Therapies discusses issues relating to selecting and evaluating treatments, including how to determine if a regimen is working, and ways of discerning whether claims being made are credible or not. Certain supplements such as glutathione are featured separately in various Treatment Information Sheets.

Buyer's Club
DAAIR offers for sale to its members around the world over 400 nutrients and botanical therapies in wide use by people living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. DAAIR also manufactures its own line of the most useful nutrients: single and unique combination formulas, as well as a number of comprehensive prepackaged nutrient protocols that address the particular needs of people with HIV and other inflammatory conditions. We maintain quality control while being the least expensive source in North America. We can do this because we are able to obtain substantial discounts from a select group of respected companies, most of which sell only to health care professionals. DAAIR also regularly tests many of the supplements we sell, while requiring manufacturers' assays to assure continued quality, potency and purity. We keep Certificates of Analysis on file for the products we carry.

Importation Facilitator
Soon after the closing of the New York-based PWA Health Group in April 2000, DAAIR assumed responsibility for the personal-use importation of 17 of the unavailable pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical-grade over-the-counter treatments that the Health Group supplied to the U.S. HIV community. These include:

• Memantine (Axura) for treating neuropathy and Alzheimer's disease;
• Tinidazole (Fasigyn) as a less-toxic yet effective treatment for parasitic diseases such as amoebiasis and Giardia lamblia;
• NTZ/Nitazoxanide as a key part of a regimen for treating cryptosporidiosis (for which there is no other effective therapy);
• Peptide T to treat HIV-related dementia and neuropathy.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a branch of the U. S. National Institutes of Health, was quoted at the International Conference on AIDS in Durban, South Africa in 2000 as saying that it is impossible for individuals to live long-term on harsh and powerful antiretroviral therapy. Since that time, this has become even more evident. The need for novel approaches to managing both HIV disease and the toxicities arising from ARV makes the use of complementary therapies and practices critically important. It is our hope at DAAIR that individuals may be able to improve the outcomes of both carefully monitored, intermittent breaks in treatment and perhaps the length of time off the drugs. To our knowledge, no other HIV/AIDS service organization in the United States is currently exploring this approach.

Self-Transcendence Pilot Project
As mentioned above, another area of the holistic approach that is becoming an integral part of the DAAIR mission is the study of self-transcendent dynamics (independent of any specific religious affiliation and respecting the rights of people of faith, agnostics and atheists). The concept of self-transcendence has its historical roots in an earlier holocaust and has been elaborated by a number of survivors, most notably Victor Frankl. In 1969 Frankl described the self-transcendent characteristic of humans to reach beyond themselves to discover or make meaning of their lives. He believed self-transcendence to be an inherent characteristic of being human, and that people transcend in three ways:

• by giving to the world creatively (through family and occupation and creative works);
• by experiencing the world through receptiveness to others and to the environment; and
• by adopting an attitude of acceptance when confronting a serious predicament, such as an unchangeable situation.

Even when deprived of both the creative and experiential ways to find meaning, a person retains the opportunity to choose the manner in which he or she faces adversity. The denial of freedom, health and life itself in concentration camps is paralleled by the challenge of dealing with chronic, potentially fatal, illness(es). DAAIR believes that it is possible to be healed from dis-ease while not being "cured." While an individual's choices in such a situation are of course limited — for example, you can't turn back the clock on the infection — it is nonetheless possible to develop an approach to life that continually chooses life and sustains growth and the creation of a more profound sense of being human. This process of viewing health challenges as an opportunity for integrative expansion can result in a sense of interconnectedness, purpose, meaning, well-being and unity. In the coming year, we hope to design and refined a pilot project to explore ways of supporting and guiding this transformative process.