Background
He also fell out with his father and lived independently from his mid-teens.
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Cass Mann
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Career
Raised in India he moved to London during his mid-teens. He found the change of both schools and country very disorienting and unsettling. Through this experience he developed a tenacity that was evident throughout his life.
He formed, which was the only charity for Human Immunodeficiency Virus positive gay mentor
He also campaigned against the use of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome drug AZT, sometimes known as Retrovir, due to the toxicity at high doses. He used himself as an example of someone who can live a healthy life after testing positive and argued that the fact that he could live over twenty years without taking any drugs favoured a healthy lifestyle over medicine.
, founded by Cass Mann, was an organisation that provided advocacy for gay men infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. favoured a holistic approach encouraging a healthy lifestyle, vegetarian diet and nutritional supplements over medicine. His article, ": The Necrophiliacs of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome", was a chapter in the book edited by John Lauritsen and Ian Young: The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Cult: Essays on the gay health crisis (1997).
He wrote:
I declare that the greatest danger to people living with "Human Immunodeficiency Virus" and "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" is the wholesale pollution of "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" counselling by the death-promoting and life-negating philosophy of such counsellors as Kübler-Ross, whose disciples have been placed in practically all the major United Kingdom "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" counselling agencies, with tragic consequences.
When people come to them for advice, the Kübler-Ross counsellors tell them to prepare for their own imminent death, which, they unscientifically claim, inevitably follows a diagnosis of being Human Immunodeficiency Virus-antibody positive. …"Don"t accept that having Human Immunodeficiency Virus or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is a death sentence". "Question the medical knowledge and scientific accuracy of all Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome data you have been presented with".
"Find out what people living healthily with Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome are doing with their lives".
"Only have in your life that which supports and celebrates your aims and purposes, and detach immediately from everything that doesn"t." He concluded the essay by saying, "for all those who have condemned us to die, the following message: LIVING Instruction Section THE BEST REVENGE!"
A year before his death Cass was commissioned by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Videos to make a number of short films encapsulating "s message. The videos went live on YouTube in March 2008.
Following his Human Immunodeficiency Virus diagnosis in 1985, he lived a full and active life until his health began to decline 23 years later, reportedly from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. As his health deteriorated he become increasingly private and isolated himself from everyone other than his closest friends.
