WELLNESS STARTS WITH AWARENESS - CD8 T cells - The Body

Photos by Ron Baker
Spotlight on Houston Buyers Club
Club founder Fred
Walters, Jr. talks about
the history of HBC
and the importance
of nutritional
supplements
Interview by Jeff Berry
Jeff Berry: Could you tell me a little
bit about yourself and how the
buyers club came to be about?
Fred Walters, Jr.: I come from a very
conservative Catholic background. I was
studying at the University of St. Mary of
the Lake Seminary in Mundelein [Illinois]
where I began pursuing my lifelong
dream of becoming a priest. In my second
or third year, I started realizing I had feelings
for other men and did not know how
to deal with it, much less reconcile those
beliefs with the church’s beliefs. When I
decided to start dealing with those issues,
along with those issues came a lot of fear,
because there were still seminarians who
were literally disappearing in the middle
of the night. In other words, they got
caught being active in their lifestyle and
then they disappeared.
In order to deal with my newfound gayness,
I decided to move to Houston, and
figure this out away from home, which
is Tennessee—I’m from Memphis—so I
wouldn’t embarrass my faith community
or my family. A short while after I was here
I was trying to figure out what I wanted to
do with my life. I still hadn’t discovered
I was positive yet and got involved in an
AIDS organization, the People with AIDS
Coalition, as a warehouse organizer. We
PA • September / October 2008 • tpan.com • positivelyaware.com
Positively Aware
go around and pick up donations much
like the Salvation Army does, and distribute
them to people who had been kicked
out of their homes because their families
found out they were HIV-positive.
I was in charge of that program, and
then I became the case management assistant.
While I was in that position a
fax came across and it was on a wellness
workshop that was going to be given by
Nelson Vergel. I hung it up on the bulletin
board and I was reading it and it said,
“Learn how to survive until there’s a cure
by incorporating exercise and nutrition
into your life.” At some point during that
time I realized that I was positive, before
the workshop happened. I did all the crazy
things. Contemplate suicide. Get ready to
bequeath my belongings. Realize I’d never
have a good relationship. All kinds of crap
goes through your head, feeling betrayed
by God. That time in my life was very embarrassing,
but I went through it. Plus my
whole support system was in Tennessee. I
really didn’t have any friends here except
for one. So I went to this workshop given
by Nelson and he had a list of supplements
that he put on the screen that indicated
that you would have a really good
chance of living through HIV until a cure
was found. And except for the basics of
vitamin E, vitamin B, vitamin C, etc., I’ve
never heard of any of these supplements—
Coenzyme Q10, alpha lipoic acid, NAC
(N-Acetyl Cysteine), Chinese herbs I’ve
never heard of and still can’t pronounce.
JB: [Laughs.]
FW: A friend of mine and I went out to
a local health food store and we got some
help trying to navigate our way through
the confusing maze of supplements, and
we got to the counter and the clerk said
that would be two hundred and fortynine
dollars. And I looked up because I
knew she wasn’t talking to me and it was
like six bottles in front of me, but I wrote
the check. I thought, I guess I’m going to
have to ask my best friend to help cover
this check, and I left that store fuming
mad, my face was hot from the heat. I remember
that distinctly. I got back to the
office and I called Nelson Vergel and I
said, what did you say about a buyers club?
Did you say there was a place in New York
[New York Buyers Club, still in existence]
where we could get these supplements
cheaply? He said yeah, why don’t we talk
about that? So Nelson Vergel, Allen Huff,
Joel Martinez, who is now deceased, and
James Alexander—a huge body builder—
we all met for coffee at a local coffeehouse
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