TRIBUTE TO MOHAMMED AHMED (ALIAS MO AZIZ)

Mo’s sudden death has been a terrible shock to all who knew him. He died in Charing Cross Hospital of a brain aneurism on Tuesday 19th March 2019.

You could say Mo just turned up on my doorstep. He came one day to interview me for his book on Vitamin D called “Prescribing Sunshine”. He maintained that vitamin D deficiency could lead to an immune suppression similar to that described in people with AIDS.

Here was this young man, brought up in Ladbroke Grove, near where I live, who seems to have been an AIDS dissident for a long time. He told me he had gone into the Lighthouse Project in his neighbourhood, an AIDS hospice which has now closed, and confronted them. He dared them to read the leaflets he took along with him which described the AIDS diagnosis as flawed an called the HIV test meaningless.

Mo became an invaluable helper and assistant. He was a meticulous researcher and contributed to the production of some of our film projects. He edited and produced the 16th Anniversary Edition of my book “Positively False – Exposing the myths around HIV and AIDS”. He also came to the Vers Pont du Gard meeting in France in June 2018 organised by Martin Barnes. Mo had never given a power point presentation before. He rehearsed his speech over and over again in order to get the timing right and then gave a brilliant exposition on Vitamin D to rounds of applause.

Mo was the full-time carer for his autistic brother who could not speak. His mother Samina Ahmed always sent me kind messages and would bring back little gifts for me when she travelled to Pakistan. My heart goes out to her as it does to Mo’s girlfriend Laura. They had known each other since they were 19.

Mo was quite reserved. His best friend from school days David Power says so. The two of them loved ‘heavy metal’ and they used to meet regularly to jam – Mo on drums, Dave on guitar.

Mo was a dedicated campaigner on the issues he believed in. He was strong and principled, a loyal friend who never ceased to be supportive. Once, when I told him I was feeling depressed and anxious he wrote,

“It’s best to limit worrying where you can. Life beats us up all the way until death but there’s good in-between.”

— Joan Shenton, April 2019