By the way, the David Rasnick in the first story is this guy. He designs protease inhibitors for the drug companies. If you search in Medline for a list of papers he's authored or coauthored, you'll find him by a search on RASNICK D.
Dean, I have stayed out of the HIV discussions so far. Not for lack of interest, but I have very little knowledge on the subject and would only open my mouth and make a fool of myself anyway. However I did read the previous posts and comments carefully.
I wouldn't comment on this post either (not that I am not interested), except that I am so angered fucking pissed after reading the links in this post that I have to speak. Just the hell the children were going through caused me to stop a couple of times, and at one point I made a cocktail myself; one with brandy. (You owe me a few kleenex)
It doesn't take a great intellect or PhD to see that in the respected world of science and medicine, that some are at best incompetent, and at at worst (my choice) lying through their teeth. It doesn't matter if they stick to old theories because they need the pharmaceutical research money, or that they are just biased to their own opinions. Either way It is wrong. It is killing people. And it is a discrace. I think the author in the last link called it "a climate of increasing medical fascism."
Well, there's the thing: no one disputes that the cocktails often have terrible side effects. Furthermore, many are still making it standing recommendation to get on a cocktail as soon as you're found HIV+. This despite the fact that we know many people are HIV+ and symptom-free.
Are those calling for a re-examination really all that out of line?
Dean, much like Sandi I have stayed out of the discussion because of a lack of knowledge. I was taught as a child AIDS was contagious, HIV caused AIDS, that kissing could cause AIDS but using the same swing/toilet/water fountain could not. I have NEVER, and I mean NEVER, been told that the drugs used to "treat" this illness may in fact CAUSE this illness. I myself have been sceptical of the "HIV does not cause AIDS" cause. You have changed that. Thank you for going through the trouble and for withstanding the name-calling and scepticism.
Well look: HIV might cause AIDS. I have a suspicion it doesn't but that doesn't mean my suspicions are correct.
And no, I am not backpedaling--go back to my very first posting on this and I said the same thing.
What I do think is that more people should be aware that there are serious points of dissent by people who are not morons, are not ill-informed snake-oil salesmen, and deserve to be heard.
I further think that it's very clear that if you are diagnosed HIV+ this may well not be a death sentence--the oldest case of an HIV+ person we have on record is a man who's been HIV+ for twenty-three years, and he has never taken any medication or medical treatment for AIDS. (This was confirmed by a frozen blood sample in this guy's case.)
We also know that in many, many cases, people have been put on anti-AIDS medications solely due to their HIV+ status, with no other symptoms at all. In some cases this has been true of children who show no signs of ill health whatsoever before being put on AIDS drugs.
Are these reports anecdotal? YES! Does that mean we should all accept that HIV does not cause AIDS? NO!
But do I think that patients should be fully informed that many AIDS drugs carry a very strong mortality risk? I do. AZT in particular is particularly destructive and is documented to be a very potent carcinogen. Yet people, including children, have been given AZT without having any symptoms of AIDS what-so-ever except an HIV+ diagnosis. No other symptoms, no nothing. The same for other people who've been put on other anti-AIDS cocktail medication.
Should patients be told all this, and be allowed to choose what course of action they will take? How can you justify not telling them?
If my t-cell counts were dropping dramatically over a sustained period I would almost certainly seek medication. But I would be careful about what I chose--and from what I've seen, many patients simply are not told enough to make informed decisions before taking medications that could well kill them.
I also wish to make clear that I do not believe that the average physician who treats AIDS patients should be pilloried for any of this. Indeed, one of the fears I have in all this is that some poor doctor who was following what she believed were the best practices in the field is going to wind up sued into oblivion by somebody with a vendetta. Doctors are not researchers (well, not most of them, although sometimes they contribute to research) and can only go by the conventional wisdom. It's the rare doctor who's willing to go outside of conventional wisdom and there's a reason: he can be destroyed if he flubs it. And let me tell you: treating AIDS patients is rarely a high-paid practice. You see a whole lot of suffering, you damn well do your best for them, and a huge number of them die anyway.
While I often remark that I think doctors are not Gods, sometimes people mistake that for a cheap shot at doctors. Actually it's quite the opposite. Doctors aren't Gods, they are incredibly smart, incredibly-well-educated, dedicated human beings who want to be healers. But they are fallible, and I think it's attrocious that our society so often demands that they be infallible and all-knowing.
We often treat them like they're all-knowing, and when it turns out that they aren't, too often we try to rip them to shreds.
In the vast majority of cases, whether we're talking about AIDS practitioners or practically any practitioner, even the plastic surgeons, they very much want to help people. Some of them make damned good livings but a lot of them make just okay livings, and put themselves through absolute Hell in med school and in internships and residencies just for the privilege of trying to save lives and alleviate suffering.
One of my most fervent wishes, which I guess I've never said, is that more people who go to doctors stop looking up at doctors, and instead start looking AT doctors as fellow human beings. Really, really, really smart human beings. Incredible resources, experts who know more than you ever will about a lot of things. Experts that you would be a fool not to consult if you've got health issues.
But they are experts you consult, people who offer services you may want or need. Ultimately responsibility is on your shoulders for your life and your health.
Doctors have saved my life at least once. They've saved my wife's life at least twice if not three times since I met her.
But still: there's no justification in my mind from hiding information about alternative views from patients. Not in a moral sense, anyway.
Thanks so much for all the information on AZT and AIDS. You make a lot of sense.
I am particularly distressed that the courts in some places uphold the child welfare agencies' right to insist that a parent dose a child with drugs like AZT. Well, actually, child welfare agencies all over the country are totally screwed up in most things they do.
Not much to add, except that this debate hasn't changed in 10-15 years. Absolutely everything Dean is bringing up was covered by some magazine (Spin?) back in the early 90s, when the epidemic and the activism were at it's strongest, and the results were exactly the same. I find it fascinating that Deusenberg is still in the middle of the whirlwind, and that apparently zero, or very little, consideration has been paid to his theories or hypothesis or whatever they're called, by the establishment. Remembering back, Dr. Deusenberg made absolutely the most sense to this layman at the time. The attacks on Dr. Deusenberg don't appear to have diminished at all, which makes me think (again, 15 years later) that he's probably still right.
Thanks for revisiting all of this...it's creepily funny how the landscape hasn't changed one iota.
The most poignant part to me is that all these legal decisions were made about breastfeeding when know one even knows for sure if HIV can be passed through breastfeeding!
It's pretty much a given now that kissing cannot transmit HIV, so how could breastfeeding? Not to mention that the current main standard for testing for HIV is still testing for the antibodies...antibodies which could remain in your body for the rest of your life after the virus is no longer even present, right?
Sure, the follow on test, Immuno-PCR testing, is now being used as the sole test in some situations... ...is there a reason no one has used it to test the presence or absence of the virus in the breast milk?
...and since all the test does is test for the presence of a specific protein, I haven't seen enough to know that test method's rate of false positives and false negatives...does that specific protein not occur in any other protein chain at all?
Mrs. du Toit makes some good points in one of the previous threads about how much of medicine is trial and error, but it seems like the errors in AIDS testing is putting people through horrible trials with little confidence of success.
1. There's no excuse for subjecting kids to *any* drug therapies without the knowledge and consent of their guardians. Of course, I feel the same way about birth control and abortion situations, unless a showing can be made that the child would face abuse if parental knowledge and/or consent was sought.
2. Given that alternative therapies to AZT exist for HIV/AIDS, there's certainly no justification for taking the right of parents to decide that they don't want their kids to be subjected to it.
3. That being said, I think a case can be made that doing *nothing* in the face of an HIV diagnosis is something that might be considered endangerment of a child. People have been known to recover spontaneously from any number of uniformly fatal prognoses--IIRC even a few patients suffering from rabies in its late stages (generally considered 100% fatal) have recovered successfully. That doesn't mean that betting on a particular person being a lucky one is a particularly great idea.
Regarding the BBC article, some more blabbering, with the hope coming in the form of blogs and Capitalism, free thought and the desire and incentive to solve problems, rather than the desire to entrench oneself in a position of spurious reward and power.
The BBC is running into credibility problems, not only intrinsically, but in its desire to discredit the U.S.and Tony Blair. The BBC is a veritable monopoly and shows it. Its chief editor, Gilligan had to resign over his own sexing up of a report, meant to disparage Tony Blair, involving the suicide of the informant, who Gilligan falsely claimed said the Blair government had itself "sexed up" an intelligence report on wmd's. BBC news can no longer be assumed to relate much to reality.
The Main Stream Media here is also running into credibility problems because of what its idea of news is, its [waning] dominance, and the fact that its jounalists tend to be scientifically and logically challenged, or "other" directed. [Even NPR started eliminating in depth reports on real news items in about 1974, searching for more "popular" items and money instead. NPR cannot even respond to immediate news events.]
Likewise, the AP is really getting worked over re: its Iraq reporting, by blogs, especially the Belmont Club.
Blogs are starting to make inroads, so maybe the aids-hiv-azt-recreational drugs, etc., questions will be more extensively and rationally analyzed by blogs, which are starting to take over the discussion of many issues. We, being somewhat capable, and concerned need a lot of freely criticized info if we are to have a real handle on issues we become concerned with, if only so as not to despair from confusion.
Anyone dealing with Social Services, particularly in regard to child custody and foster homes gets the idea that it is out of its mind, if it even has any. Government power, especially exemplified by Socialism/Communism, can be extremely destructive, because governments don't inherently know much about anything, and their power is often effected through a lot of ignoramuses who need to control things and "save" people, actually more for the good of the ignoramuses, as in the case of some Religions, historically. Doubters are selected against.
Rollye James, a long term talk show host and follower of foster homes and child custody, thinks foster homes have been proven an evil.
It sounds like the drug cocktails are being used upon children in a viciously experimental way, but having been also spurred on by our noble "activists". But we don't really know simply from the BBC's article.
Is the BBC even following up on the disaster it itself suggests? Probably not! Why not? This is typical of the MSM's modus operandi. Bad news is good news and the esteemed reporters generally don't know squat, or even care that they don't know squat.They have even been taught that they don't need know anything and have probably long since been weeded out from any scientific, mathematical, logical, and actually seeking-the-truth capabilities. There are exceptions, such as Claudia Douthet [?] who dogged the U.N. oil-for-food corruption, but she was whistling dixie for months, except to some evil talk-show hosts, and perhaps some blogs. Finally she surfaced, possibly from her own determination to follow a story, seeing its worth and relevance to important situations.
The MSM needs to fund responsible, capable, dedicated to truth reporters, but probably won't.
The hope I see are blogs, where issues can be dealt with seriously for free, because there are a bunch of people who do care and are knowledgeable, who have had no access to these issues. Blogs are probably going to "roll" the MSM, the entrenched dogmatic intellectuals of Academia and Science, and stagnant, counterproductive Government agencies and programs, given too that Capitalism also allows alternative action to Government's and other not rationally based entrenchments which have betrayed their missions in favor of something else. I hope.
Scott: No one knows how likely someone who is HIV+ is to develop AIDS. If you can point me to data to the contrary let me know. As for the so-called "safe" AIDS treatments, most of them bypass all the normal FDA testing requirements, and all have substantial side effects.
No one disputes that protease inhibitors (i.e. the "safe" AIDS drugs) were all rushed to market bypassing the normal testing requirements of the FDA. Still, I guess we can take some comfort that at least AZT is falling steadily out of favor.
Monomer: I agree with your hope for blogs, and I agree with you on the BBC's credibility problems on political issues. On the other hand, the MSM has done followup on a number of people like this in the past. I don't know if the BBC will follow up on this; I suppose we'll see.
I have some hopes myself that blogs will finally bring to the fore the huge logical holes in the HIV theory. For it looks to me like no one who defends the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has any clear idea why they believe what they do.
A Declaration by (5000) Scientists and Physicians Affirming HIV is the Cause of AIDS:
"Seventeen years after the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), thousands of people from around the world are gathered in Durban, South Africa to attend the XIII International AIDS Conference.
At the turn of the millennium, an estimated 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV or AIDS, 24 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa (1). Last year alone, 2.6 million people died of AIDS, the highest rate since the start of the epidemic. If current trends continue, Southern and South-East Asia, South America and regions of the former Soviet Union will also bear a heavy burden.
“The evidence that AIDS is caused by HIV-1 or HIV-2 is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous.
This evidence meets the highest standards of science (3-7). The data fulfill exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases, such as poliomyelitis, measles and smallpox”.
I think that Dean has made a compelling case that maybe HIV doesn't not cause AIDS. My understanding of the hard science behind this is limited but have to admit that discussion has been a good educational experience. I do appreciate the information on AZT. I had no idea what AZT was/is or how it worked (or doesn't work).
It has been my observation that the AIDS conferences are more political than scientific. The conveniers use the conferences more as platforms to lobby for more money and rail against those who disagree, than for rigorious debate of the merits. Simply because they claim "...is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambigious." does not make it so as is evidenced from the articles supporting Mr. Esmays Thesis.
The political/pharmaceutical/academic juggernaut is churning and I do not envy a scientist that dares raise his hand in opposition. Take courage. Galileo, Newton, and Archimedes eventually prevailed, or more accurately, their science.
Good. At least you have a clear and unmuddied reason for your belief, Catch: scientific consensus. That consensus was made up of 181 MDs and researchers, including a number of researchers who have made themselves quite wealthy selling anti-HIV medications. They then circulated it to a wide group wherein pretty much anybody with a PhD associated with a major university could sign and they didn't even necessarily limit it to them.
The response to the Durban declaration, published by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the AIDS-HIV Hypothesis was also printed in the pages of <i>Nature</i>:
---
<b>THE DURBAN DECLARATION IS NOT ACCEPTED BY ALL</b>
<b>Nature September 2000</b>
Sir - In response to recent action by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and in advance of the International Conference on HIV/AIDS held in Durban on 9-14 July, the Durban Declaration (1) was prepared by a committee representing a consensus of "181 scientists and front line physicians". Before publication in Nature, it was circulated: "To get as many names of scientists and doctors to sign on. Names of signatories will appear on the Nature website. If you would like to sign on, we would be delighted. Send me an e-mail confirming this. To economize space on the website, we have to name people in a single line. Many of you will say that HIV/AIDS is not your area. However, over the years you have heard enough of the arguments to understand the association. Furthermore, many of you know well infectious diseases and understand Koch's postulates. If you have colleagues in the laboratory or in the clinic who you feel would like to sign, please ask them. The more the better. However, please note that in order to be authoritative we feel it necessary to restrict the list to those with major university qualifications." This is an extract from the circular distributed on behalf of the organizing committee which included Luc Montagnier, Catherine Wilfert, David Baltimore, Sir Aaron Klug (as President of the UK Royal Society), and many other well-known names and organizations from developing countries as well as from the West.
Briefly, the authors of the declaration state that AIDS/HIV is spreading as a pandemic now affecting 34 million people, of whom 24 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. They say the disease began there as a viral infection of chimpanzees and monkeys conveyed somehow to humans, and is now spreading worldwide by heterosexual and mother-to-infant transmission. The authors consider that their evidence supporting this hypothesis is "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous"; that most people with these infections will develop AIDS within 5-10 years unless treated; and that "there is no end in sight" until research based on their hypothesis leads to a vaccine to supplement safe sex, health education and other, simpler approaches to avoidance and prevention.
With no end in sight after 17 or more years of intensive research, priorities and incentives, one might think that this consensus would be open to alternative approaches, but the authors of the declaration are emphatic that this is not needed because the evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS has met or exceeded the "highest standards of science". By implication, any other evidence is therefore a deception, even less likely to lead to a successful vaccine, curative drug or hypothesis.
Our objection to the Durban Declaration is factual and verifiable from data published in the early 1980s (refs 2-4 ). We believe that World Health Organization (WHO) figures produced since then (5) can be interpreted to say that AIDS first appeared and spread, not in Africa but in US urban clusters of mainly white, affluent, promiscuous homosexual men and drug addicts, and then spread, on a lesser scale, in Europe and Australasia but hardly at all in Asia. Disastrous epidemics due to heterosexual transmission of HIV were confidently predicted in general populations of developed countries (6) but they never happened. AIDS has diminished in incidence and severity though it is continuing in female partners of bisexual men and some other communities engaging in or subjected to behaviours which carry high risks of infections, various assaults and misuse of drugs.
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS was reported later (7, 8), with an alarming frequency in mothers and infants not seen in the United States or Europe. Sentinel surveillance by the WHO shows correlation between this frequency and the seroprevalence of HIV, but there are unmeasured overlaps with other major diseases and deprivations which, together with anomalies in classification, distribution, transmission and country- specific pathogenesis, and especially cross-reactions in serological tests (6-9), raise questions about the accuracy of diagnosis and approaches to control.
In the absence of satisfactory, or of any, answers from the consensus to his specific questions on this matter, President Mbeki invited us to join other experts with differing viewpoints in a panel to explore the way forward to control AIDS in Africa. Unlike the signatories to the Durban Declaration, we claim no exhaustive and unambiguous unanimity. There are differences between ourselves and with other panellists, and we are happy to acknowledge possible convergence with certain priorities favoured by the declaration's authors. But we reject as outrageous their attempt to outlaw open discussion of alternative viewpoints, because this reveals an intolerance which has no place in any branch of science. Our viewpoints could also explain the failure to prevent the spread of AIDS in high-risk populations in the West, amounting, in the United States now, to almost 700,000 registrations - an unbeaten score in the global tally of this disease.
Other signatories to this letter; full addresses available from G.T.S.
* Sam Mhlongo, MB, BS Professor of Medicine, MEDUNSA, Johannesburg, South Africa
* Etienne de Harven, MD Emeritus Professor of Pathology, University of Toronto, Canada
* Christian Fiala, MD Obstetrician, Vienna, Austria
* Claus Kohnlein, MD Physician, Stadisches Krankenhaus, Kiel, Germany
* Andrew Herxheimer, MD Pharmacologist, London, UK
* Peter Duesberg, PhD Professor of Molecular Biology, University of California at Berkeley, USA
* David Rasnick, PhD Research Fellow, Dept of Molecular Biology, University of California at Berkeley, USA
* Roberto Giraldo, MD Physician, New York City
* Manu Kothari, MD Pathologist, Seth GS Medical College, Bombay, India
* Harvey Bialy, PhD Research Scholar, National University, Mexico City, Mexico
* Charles Geshekter Professor of African Studies, California State University, Chico, California
* Gordon T. Stewart MD 3 Lexden Terrace, Tenby, Pembrokeshire SA70 7BJ, UK (Emeritus Professor of Public Health, University of Glasgow)
By the way, Harvey Bialy (a molecular biologist) tells me that the NIH has rejected every single application to study any of the alternative hypotheses to AIDS. They've also, to the best of my knowledge, made NO effort at do any study or followup on people who refuse chemotherapy for HIV, although there are a large and growing number of people doing just that, but which Duesberg and others, with limited funding, have been struggling to keep up with.
Do a Google search on "health education aids liaison," a group which now has chapters in many major cities and conducts outreach and education efforts to encourage people who are HIV+ to either avoid the chemotherapy or to get themselves off of it.
I've already written repeatedly that Duesberg is and has been seeking private sources of funding, and has received some. Looks like it's all going to have to be private funding for now though; the drug companies have a vested interest in the status quo, as does everybody who's received government money for their studies. And despite Connie's outburst, most of these are not people who work in AIDS hospices, but rather people who hold patents on protease inhibitors, researchers with multimillion$$ government grants to study HIV, and government bureaucrats who've made their entire careers out of supporting the HIV hypothesis (i.e. not evil people, but people with conflicts of interest).
Now, now, Dean, seems you are over-editorializing to the point of unfounded glee. I try to make careful statements to prevfent others from assuming too much.
My comment responded to:
"For it looks to me like no one who defends the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has any clear idea why they believe what they do." (Dean)
Now if you look at all of the comment everything except this sentence of mine is someone else's quotation. The sentence was:
"With nearly 50 million HIV + people worldwide in 2004, I'll risk returning to square one of this discussion and present the following:..."
Then I quoted the Durban Declaration afterwhich I concluded with:
"That is what the Durban Declaration says."
Fair enough. I thought I presented an adequate response to your statement.
Now,
I find it amazing that after all the discussion you have presented clearly what should have been your first statement rather than the last.
You have done well in presenting Duesberg et al in counter-response.
Can you tell us what this statement of Duesberg means with respect to prevention ?
“Our viewpoints could also explain the failure to prevent the spread of AIDS in high-risk populations in the West, amounting, in the United States now, to almost 700,000 registrations - an unbeaten score in the global tally of this disease.”
Another question: What positive benefits have resulted from Duesbergs published works in prevention of HIV transmission ?
And, I also agree with your statement: “Well look: HIV might cause AIDS”.
PIP: Scientist Peter Duesberg's dismissal of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and insistence that AIDS is a noninfectious disease has made him a focus of controversy in both the medical profession and homosexual community. Duesberg attributes the AIDS epidemic to heavy use of amphetamines and "poppers," which devastate the immune system and have been linked to the development of certain cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma. He is concerned about the widespread, inappropriate use of AZT, which not only lacks proven efficacy but also destroys the immune system. Duesberg has termed AZT "AIDS by prescription," and considers it another cause rather than a cure of AIDS. There is no confirmation, he maintains, that the majority of AIDS patients have HIV. He further notes the radically different epidemiologic, immunologic, and clinical profile of African and American AIDS and suggests that these are two distinct disease process (the former caused by malnutrition, poor sanitation, and parasites and the latter by drugs) erroneously grouped under the same rubric. To perpetuate itself, the AIDS industry has developed a second line of defense in the argument that AIDS is multifactorial, with HIV plus a cofactor responsible for disease. Again, there is no empirical evidence to support this politically motivated theory. Of concern is the emphasis on promoting safe sex rather than urging an end of recreational drugs and AZT.
This is an abstract from 1994
Note: I am not the message just the messenger. This stuff has been going on for ten years. Its not new.
There are two issues here, I think, and the conflation of the two is a source of confusion.
First, there's the question of the cause of and cure for AIDS. This may or may not be controversial. I don't have the tools to say one way or the other. In the long run, this will all likely work itself out; in the short run, Dean's advice regarding doctors is good advice.
The second, and IMHO more important, point:
Without due process, medical decisions regarding children are best made by the children's parents, not by some flack (government or corporate).
I don't care if the evidence for AZT as an AIDS cure is as strong as the evidence for antibiotics. In the vast majority of cases, the parents are the best guardians of children, and should not be interfered with. And even in those situations with bad parents, we should acknowledge that we are perpetrating the lesser of two evils by interfering in the family, and we should have the humility that goes with this recognition.
With a wife in the child care business, I have seen firsthand the stupidity that sometimes accompanies government family services, as well as the awesome power they have. This is just one more example.
Ah. I suppose I should clarify: when I said "no one," I meant no one here on Dean's World. Because to date, the only exception is you, Catch, and your only reason given is that you find the Durban declaration convincing.
Monomer has been an incoherent mess who's made several statements which are false to fact and which display his own profound ignorance. You've done little (until today) but call people names and point to some literature that doesn't make your case. Connie called me "full of shit" and anybody who questions whether the chemotherapies have been efficacious "morons" and uses as her entire defense that she saw some AIDS patients show improvements in t-cell counts. That's good personal experience but it's hard to evaluate without more data, and I'm frankly at this point not inclined to ask her for more if she's not going to drop the personal attacks. She also seems to think that everybody who disagrees with me is entirely familiar with the dissenters' work, but that is clearly false because almost everybody who's criticized the dissenters has revealed that they clearly are NOT familiar with their work.
If you find the Durban declaration convincing, that's fine. It was put together mostly by people with a strong financial and career interest in the status quo, and they allowed anybody attached to a major university or with an MD to sign it. That doesn't make it irrelevant but it hardly means the dissenters are morons.
As for the attacks on Duesberg: I am very familiar with them. Indeed, have I not made it clear that I've seen more apoplectic attacks on him than any working scientist in my life? Most of them (including the one you quote) invoke a good deal of Ad Hominem reasoning. So you've managed to confirm what I've already said: A lot of people hate Duesberg. We know that. And...?
By the way, an interesting thing there: up until at least the mid-1990s (around the time of that NIH attack piece you posted), it was considered heresy in a lot of circles to consider the possibility that there were ANY cofactors associated with AIDS. Root-Bernstein (who people like Dani and Caltechgirl have disparaged) was the first researcher to suggest that while he believed HIV was a cause of AIDS, he believed there also had to be cofactors and that HIV alone could not explain it, and he credited Duesberg for being the originator of the questions that led him to that conclusion. He and Duesberg disagree on this point since Duesberg believes HIV is utterly harmless, but Root-Bernstein was once hated as much as Duesberg. NOW, finally, people are allowed to speak Root-Bernstein's half-heresy and not be considered morons, flakes, and loose cannons--and if you're an HIV researcher you're no longer in danger of losing your job just for saying that (which you would have been in the 1980s or early 1990s).
So yes, you've brought forward the unremarkable fact that people don't like Duesberg. Anybody who's read much about Duesberg knows this perfectly well; indeed, if you'd read even half the material I've linked you'd know that. The man is hated with a steaming passion. This means... what exactly? There are others who consider him a hero, including a number of front-line AIDS physicians who refuse to use the AIDS cocktails (I can point you to some) and a significant number of professional researchers. They are in the minority, yes, but this means they are wrong because....?
By the way: the claim that there is "no empirical evidence" that HIV may not be the cause of AIDS or may involve cofactors is simply false. Empirical evidence does exist. It's usually dismissed by critics as anecdotal and unworthy of study. I say more study is needed, and almost none of it is being done. AIDS researchers are mostly dependent upon government funding and relatively few have managed to find private funding--but they've made headway there. It's hard when we have an entire establishment devoted to telling people there is only one answer and bellowing that anybody who questions them is a threat to public health and/or homophobic.
All the same nettlesome questions I've raised, and more, remain largely ignored.
I am very familiar with the arguments against Duesberg and the dissenters. Despite Mrs. du Toit's insinuations, I've read a whole lot of literature which supports the HIV hypothesis. Unlike her, I do not consider the dissenters "morons," and I find it compelling that a scientific establishment which is supposed to support dissent as part of the peer review process instead turns to vicious personal attacks on researchers who question the reigning orthodoxy. As you've demonstrated so well here, ad hominem is one of the primary vehicles of attack toward the dissenters, despite their qualifications.
You ask one question: "What positive benefits have resulted from Duesbergs published works in prevention of HIV transmission?"
Isn't that just a little disingenuous? I mean, honestly now?
Duesberg believes people should avoid intravenous drugs and, while I haven't asked him I presume he believes in safe sex practices since anybody who's not a moron knows that unsafe sex has a host of dangers whether you believe HIV is one of them or not. (BTW, Root-Bernstein believes that unprotected anal sex with multiple partners has an immuno-suppressive effects and is one of the cofactors). In that sense Duesberg has been influential in getting people to finally admit that it may not be JUST HIV that's the problem, and that other lifestyle factors are important too.
If you read Duesberg's work you know he's been highly influential in getting people to question the use of AZT in children--children who were put on AZT solely because they were HIV+ and not otherwise sick at all. Some of those kids are alive now more than 10 years later, although Duesberg has not been able to get funding even to do followup study on them (last I looked, I plan to ask him if he's gotten any lately).
May I suggest you do more to familiarize yourself with the dissenters' arguments instead of calling them names? Just a thought there.
By the way, you didn't answer my question on global warming.
Oh by the way: Because of the widespread fiction that the current AIDS cocktails are "safe," (they aren't—they cause strokes, heart attacks, spinal deformity, and a number of other problems) the current AIDS establishment has arguably contributed to the spread of HIV because since the widespread (false) announcements that these cocktails are safe a lot of young gay men in major urban centers have gone back to having regular unprotected sex with multiple anonymous partners, under the (false) notion that if they contract HIV they'll be fine, they can just go on the "safe" cocktails.
And of course the current AIDS establishment does nothing at all to discourage intravenous drug use. If they were listening to Duesberg they'd say the drugs themselves are a danger instead of just telling people to make sure to use clean needles. If they were listening to Duesberg they'd point out that regular use of these drugs is itself a risk factor for AIDS and not just dirty needles.
And if they were listening to people like Root-Bernstein, they'd be avoiding all that unprotected anal sex with multiple anonymous partners because they'd believe that the behavior itself is dangerous and not just a virus they can get rid of with those "safe" cocktails.
Instead we've told people that it's all a virus and if you can just kill the virus you'll be fine. And we've allowed a host of drugs (mostly protease inhibitors) to be released with almost NONE of the studies normally required by the FDA.
That is 100% totally unacceptable. Take a survey in SF if you want to know the truth. 45 million people are HIV + .
Global Warming:
No opinion. Does it occur ? Yes. Is it cyclical ? Probably. Does it impact some areas ? Yes.
AZT: cocktails: Patient beware. All that stuff is very dangerous. Chemotherapy progresses via human experimentation (sadly). We can only hope the science is correct.
AIDS: There is no cure. There is treatment, education, behavior modification,
compassionate therapists, nurses, Doctors, ministers.
This is growing wearisome. Like most people in this conversation, you are simply not bothering to read the literature before spouting off.
Duesberg's already presented substantial evidence of HIV positives who've been HIV+ for 10, 15, and even 20+ years who are perfectly healthy and receive no chemotherapy. He's documented many cases, in fact. He's not the only one to do so. None of them, NONE OF THEM have gotten AIDS to date.
There's your empirical proof. Do you want more? Then STOP CALLING THE SKEPTICS IDIOTS AND START DEMANDING FUNDING TO STUDY ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES.
And do me a favor and actually READ some of the dissenters' literature before shooting these elementary questions at me.
The South African Department of Health Study
Sept 2004---South Africa HIV/AIDS Statistics:
Since 1999 to 2003 the National Percentage of Sexually active women in South Africa who are HIV positive has risen from 22.4 % to 28.9 %.
“In the report released in September 2004, it was estimated that in South Africa at the end of 2003, 4.7 million people are living with HIV, of whom 189,000 are babies. Based on extrapolation of the results of this 2003 antenatal survey, the Department of Health estimated that 5.6 million South Africans were HIV positive by the end of 2003. It is estimated that 96,228 babies were infected with HIV during 2003 (250 a day) by mother-to-child transmission, which, with provision of the correct drugs, is almost completely preventable.
These high prevalence rates show what a significant problem HIV/AIDS is in South Africa with enormous social economic and development implications. The rates also indicate the future burden of HIV associated disease and the difficulties faced by the health system in coping with the provision of adequate care and support.”
Conclusion:
UNAIDS estimates that at the end of 2003 there was a prevalence of 21.5%, giving an estimated 5.3 million people living with HIV in South Africa.
This is a country where one in four pregnant women are HIV+. In spite of the difference between the various figures, what is clear is that there is an exceptionally high HIV prevalence in South Africa, and that there are tremendous challenges remaining in the fields of HIV education, prevention and care.
So you haven't even bothered to look at the literature from the skeptics that shows why those figures you're citing are questionable. You just figure you can point to those and that's enough.
You really are not very serious-minded about this.
First, becuase the topic is "Forcing AIDS Medication on HIV+ Children." Second, because we're discussing the dissenters here and you're presenting information which shows that you clearly have not bothered to look at the dissenters' literature before spouting off about it.
How does providing links to the rate of HIV infection prove that HIV is dangerous? How does the fact that there are ESTIMATES about the number of HIV infections demonstrate that prophylactic use of chemotherapy is justified? Or justify putting kids on AZT without their parents' consent?
Answer: it doesn't.
You want to talk about Africa? Fine. President Mbeki is one of the dissenters. A number of American, South African, and international groups support him in his right to demand more rigorous study before subjecting millions of South Africans to experimental treatments. You can learn about that petition right here.
You want to know more about why they're skeptical in South Africa? Read this and this and this just for starters. More is available.
Spend some time here and at least demonstrate that you have a rudimentary understanding of where these people stand on their issues. Then if you have a question you think you'd like me to ask Duesberg.
But if all you're going to do is spout the party line on AIDS, you're wasting everybody's time. We all know the standard party line: HIV is a virus. It causes AIDS. It's spread sexually. If you have HIV you'll get AIDS and you need chemotherapy to save your life. Millions of people are dying because of HIV and they urgently need education on safe sex, clean needles, and if HIV+ they need chemotherapy.
We all understand this. We're not morons. What we're discussing is why the dissenters question all this. Do you have data that relates directly to that?
By the way, I've talked to Bialy. He's still a dissenter because none of the questions he's asked have been answered, and because most of the dissenters' concerns have remained unaddressed to this day.
Well, my questions weren't answered either except one for Duesberg on another post in which you went into an AZT dialogue to which another commenter adequately said, you really missed the point.
I have nothing more to add on these topics except that I doubt that Professer Duesberg will need to be practicing a Nobel acceptance speech in swedish for a while. On the other hand, I could just possibly be wrong.
Every single one of your questions has been answered in the literature. Every single one of them. It is a cheap rhetorical trick with a complicated subject to just sit around saying, "Oh yeah, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? What about this?" over and over and over again without showing that you've bothered to understand the issues.
Ten minutes of research right here will produce the answer to almost every obvious question. If you have deeper questions ask them.
Here's a style tip: assume the other side is working in good faith and isn't a bunch of morons. Assume the other side understands all the basic issues themselves. It saves a lot of time and is a hell of a lot less insulting.
My questions are not cheap rhetorical tricks. If you accept them as such or presume moronic attributes to the 'other' side, or find them insulting then I have mis-communicated or others have missed the point.
AIDS is deadly serious. If someone tells me the HIV virus is harmless they are going to get challenged. If someone informs the general readership that the HIV virus is nothing to worry about, there's a problem area that needs attention. If someone presents data that shows 8 % of HIV positives never get full AIDS, I do not take that as empirical proof to present to anyone with a positive HIV test that there are no health problems in their life about which to be concerned.
In my world, simple, dumb questions are acceptable because just maybe a reader or a viewer or a listener or someone else will learn something in the question or the exchange. I presume that's why this comment box is advailable to your readers.
If someone presents data that shows 8 % of HIV positives never get full AIDS, I do not take that as empirical proof to present to anyone with a positive HIV test that there are no health problems in their life about which to be concerned.
Yeah, well, no one's bothered to do any in-depth study as to what percentage of HIV positives who refuse chemotherapy and never develop full-blown AIDS. It is now, and has been, standing medical practice to put people (especially children) on chemotherapy as soon as it is discovered thaty they are HIV+--and being HIV+ and having any of a list of dozens of medical condition is now automatically considered an AIDS diagnosis.
I ask how anybody thinks that's justified, despite the fact that no one has ever done any long-term studies on it--although we know there are hundreds if not thousands of such people.
We presume they are flukes. Why? Based on what? That 100% of gay men in the early '80s diagnosed with AIDS all died? This is flimsy at best.
Aside from Duesberg and a few others, all of whom have not even 1% of the funding of those making AIDS cocktail drugs, there is simply NO research being done to look at HIV+ status and determine what the real odds of developing AIDS are. I repeat again: we have thousands of people right now who are HIV+ and are refusing chemotherapy for it. We have some people who've been HIV+ for over 20 yeras who are still alive and still refusing the chemotherapy. NO ONE is studying them but the HIV dissidents, and they lack adequate funding for more than the most basic science. Do you really think that's prudent?
There is also case after case of individuals who were diagnosed HIV+, were put on chemotherapy, and then unilaterally refused to continue the treatment because it was making them sick--who have lived more than 10 or even 20 years without it.
Cheap assumption: all these thousands of people make up a statistical anomoly. They "must be immune" or the virus must have a "long incubation period" with them. Do you see any other possibilities?
Back in the early '90s parents of a little girl who was in excruciating pain from AIDS chemotherapy unilaterally decided to take her off of them. They were actually taken to court over it, and got their way. Almost 10 years later, that little girl is getting ready for High School, is HIV+, and is as healthy as a horse. Her story is not the only story like it. Is that anecdotal? Yes, and it'll stay anecdotal until someone starts to look at the question of such people seriously.
He says studies showing at least 50% (This is on his site - response to responses to his article in Policy review) of guys with HIV developing AIDS were not done properly and did not rule out drug use as a cause of AIDS. Quite plausible. But it is still easier to believe that HIV causes AIDS rather than believe with very little evidence that:
1)Guys with HIV are extremely likely to take a lot of drugs
AND
2)Drugs cause AIDS at very high rates.
Doesn't the government spend a lot of money trying to prove how bad drugs are? And they somehow missed this?
"it was considered heresy in a lot of circles to consider the possibility that there were ANY cofactors associated with AIDS."
Got any examples of people being fired for this?
(If so it's inexcusable. Saying that there is more than one factor is one of the most common things in biology.)
"Cheap assumption: all these thousands of people make up a statistical anomoly."
No, it's not a STATISTICAL anomaly. It's simply the fact that no disease is 100% fatal, and most aren't even close. If HIV infection were 40% fatal, it would still be one of the most dangerous viruses in existence.
Maor: In the 1980s, no one tested all those gay men dying of AIDS to see if they were HIV+. And some of them tested HIV- but died anyway.
We thus have a huge whole in our knowledge here. The thinking is viciously circular: If you have all the classic AIDS symptoms you're assumed HIV+ and that testing you is a waste of money. If you are HIV+ you are assumed to be someone who's going to develop AIDS so you're put on medication for it.
This requires no conspiracy. Front-line AIDS doctors in the hospices were too busy trying to save lives to dealve deeply into the literature and look for holes. Everyone was saying it was HIV so they accepted it. Why wouldn't they? It seemed plausible enough, and these people were dropping like flies.
Yet to this day, NO ONE in the AIDS treatment community can tell you how likely you are to develop AIDS if you are HIV+. Standing policy in many places (see the BBC article for example) is to put ANYONE who is HIV+ onto chemotherapy under the ASSUMPTION that they will develop AIDS. This despite the fact that we have healthy HIV+ people now who've gone more than 20 years without it.
Nobody can tell you with any certainty how likely HIV+ status is to lead to AIDS if you refuse chemotherapy. Yet the chemotherapies themselves are acknowledged to be toxic. Isn't that just a little disturbing?
No conspiracies required. Just a lot of well-meaning assumptions by doctors and a lot of sloppy research among the paid researchers, some of whom have strong conflicts of interest.
"In the 1980s, no one tested all those gay men dying of AIDS to see if they were HIV+. And some of them tested HIV- but died anyway."
So what? You test a sizable sample, and they show HIV, and you assume that the rest have HIV with roughly the same percentage. That's normal. Scientists never test everybody. Imagine if scientists had to test every single cancer patient in the world before they could say for example, that p53 is important.
I notice you say "some" tested HIV-. I take it that you don't have havidence that most were HIV- (or even a large minority).
"If you have all the classic AIDS symptoms you're assumed HIV+ and that testing you is a waste of money."
You previously said that AIDS is by definition someone who tests HIV+ (among other things). Now you're saying HIV tests aren't being done?
"Front-line AIDS doctors in the hospices were too busy trying to save lives to dealve deeply into the literature and look for holes."
No need to be very familiar with the literature. I assume front-line doctors often do HIV tests. If any of them see a large number of HIV- patients with AIDS-like symptoms, they could write an important paper based on little more than that knowledge.
"Nobody can tell you with any certainty how likely HIV+ status is to lead to AIDS if you refuse chemotherapy. Yet the chemotherapies themselves are acknowledged to be toxic. Isn't that just a little disturbing?"
I agree that the treatments are not obviously at all beneficial, which clearly raises serious ethical questions. I haven't argued with that point.
So what? You test a sizable sample, and they show HIV, and you assume that the rest have HIV with roughly the same percentage. That's normal.
It's also not what was done. Read either Randy Shilts' book or Duesberg's book.
Don't belive me? Point me to the study.
I notice you say "some" tested HIV-. I take it that you don't have havidence that most were HIV- (or even a large minority).
There's no evidence one way or the other. Again, start looking at the literature.
No need to be very familiar with the literature. I assume front-line doctors often do HIV tests. If any of them see a large number of HIV- patients with AIDS-like symptoms, they could write an important paper based on little more than that knowledge.
That is unfortunately a very weak assumption. For several reasons the dissidents have gone to great lengths to document.
Besides, did you even read some of our earlier discussions? Doctors are now routinely taught that if you see AIDS-like symptoms and a person is HIV-, by definition it is not AIDS. But if you see any of dozens of conditions that the patient is HIV+, the patient should be assumed to have AIDS. That's it!
Read some of the literature, man. I can't give it all to you. But if you just read Duesberg's paper he lays the case out very well.
Skepticism is a healthy thing. But skepticism needs to cut in all directions or it's nothing but arguing for the sake of arguing.
What seems logical to me from what I've read in the discussions so far is that 1) HIV is not a guarantee that you will develop AIDS, 2) AZT is damned dangerous, 3) HIV does have a high correlation with AIDS, so it probably has something to do with it.
Correlation is not causation, and since it's not a guarantee, I suspect it's more of a catalyst: HIV+ people run into... something else, possibly something usually considered harmless, and bang! AIDS.
Do we know if those men who were found to be HIV-negative were definately killed by AIDS?
If so, maybe it's a byproduct of something else that's a catalyst?
Do we know if those men who were found to be HIV-negative were definately killed by AIDS?
Heh. By current definitions they did not have AIDS. They were gay men who'd had multiple anonymous sex partners who indulged in the popular drugs of the day who developed Kaposi's sarcoma, dropped t-cells, wasting, and all the other classic symptoms.
Even after the tests became available, most who were already exhibiting the KS and the dropped t-cells weren't tested. They were simply assumed to have it.
Yes the research was that sloppy—and now the definition of AIDS has become so broad that all you need is to be HIV+ and have cervical cancer or tuberculosis. And the explanation for that is that the disease is complex and ever-evolving.
There exists today no rigorous standards that I've ever been able to find to justify an AIDS diagnosis besides "patient is HIV+ and has any one of dozens of symptoms."
Meanwhile, we have subjects who've been HIV+ for 5, 10, 15, 20, and even 23 years now (oldest known case was tested positive in a blood sample he'd had frozen in the 1970s for completely unrelated reasons). We also have caes of people who were diagnosed HIV+, put on cocktails, got sick, then abandoned the cocktails—and are both HIV+ and healthy more than ten years later.
Would you agree with me that this screams for the need for study? Can you explain why no one who applies to study it gets funded?
I have looked over only a small fraction of the literature and come up with these examples. They may or may not be flawed (I wouldn't know) but it's quite a stretch to say they don't exist.
These are just studies by Gallo. Note that he published actual evidence (more than once and contrary to what you implied previously) that HIV is responsible.
JAMA. 1985 Jan 11;253(2):221-5.
Screening test for HTLV-III (AIDS agent) antibodies. Specificity, sensitivity, and applications.
The third member of the human T-cell leukemia (lymphotropic) retrovirus family (HTLV-III) is a newly discovered retrovirus that has been closely associated with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In our application of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for HTLV-III antibodies, 72 (82%) of 88 patients with AIDS were positive, 14 (16%) were borderline, and two (2%) were negative. In contrast, only 1% of 297 volunteer blood donors were positive, 6% were borderline, and 93% were negative, demonstrating that this ELISA for HTLV-III antibodies is highly specific and sensitive for AIDS (excluding borderline results, 98.6% and 97.3%, respectively). Among persons at high risk for AIDS, 8% had borderline results, with positive and negative results readily distinguished as bimodal distributions that paralleled the temporal and geographic trends in AIDS. None of the 188 laboratory and health care employees working with patients with AIDS or their specimens were positive for HTLV-III antibodies, indicating that current precautions for health care workers appear adequate. This ELISA for HTLV-III antibodies will be a useful screening test among blood donors and populations at risk for AIDS, will aid in the diagnosis of suspected AIDS, and will help in defining the spectrum of diseases that are etiologically related to HTLV-III.
Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):500-3.
Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk for AIDS.
Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, Shearer GM, Kaplan M, Haynes BF, Palker TJ, Redfield R, Oleske J, Safai B, et al.
Peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or with signs or symptoms that frequently precede AIDS (pre-AIDS) were grown in vitro with added T-cell growth factor and assayed for the expression and release of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV). Retroviruses belonging to the HTLV family and collectively designated HTLV-III were isolated from a total of 48 subjects including 18 of 21 patients wih pre-AIDS, three of four clinically normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects. No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual subjects. The number of HTLV-III isolates reported here underestimates the true prevalence of the virus since many specimens were received in unsatisfactory condition. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. That these new isolates are members of the HTLV family but differ from the previous isolates known as HTLV-I and HTLV-II is indicated by their morphological, biological, and immunological characteristics. These results and those reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the primary cause of AIDS.
Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):506-8.
Antibodies reactive with human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) in the serum of patients with AIDS.
Sarngadharan MG, Popovic M, Bruch L, Schupbach J, Gallo RC.
In cats, infection with T-lymphotropic retroviruses can cause T-cell proliferation and leukemia or T-cell depletion and immunosuppression. In humans, some highly T4 tropic retroviruses called HTLV-I can cause T-cell proliferation and leukemia. The subgroup HTLV-II also induces T-cell proliferation in vitro, but its role in disease is unclear. Viruses of a third subgroup of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses, collectively designated HTLV-III, have been isolated from cultured cells of 48 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The biological properties of HTLV-III and immunological analyses of its proteins show that this virus is a member of the HTLV family, and that it is more closely related to HTLV-II than to HTLV-I. Serum samples from 88 percent of patients with AIDS and from 79 percent of homosexual men with signs and symptoms that frequently precede AIDS, but from less than 1 percent of heterosexual subjects, have antibodies reactive against antigens of HTLV-III. The major immune reactivity appears to be directed against p41, the presumed envelope antigen of the virus.
Lancet. 1984 Jun 30;1(8392):1438-40.
Seroepidemiological studies of human T-lymphotropic retrovirus type III in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
Safai B, Sarngadharan MG, Groopman JE, Arnett K, Popovic M, Sliski A, Schupbach J, Gallo RC.
In a double-blind study, sera of 34 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 19 patients with lymphadenopathy syndrome, and 14 homosexual men with an increased risk of AIDS were screened for antibodies to proteins of the novel human T-lymphotropic retrovirus (leukaemia virus), HTLV-III, recently isolated from cultured T cells of AIDS patients. On a combination of a convenient and rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and a more sensitive electroblot (Western) assay, 100% of the AIDS sera were scored positive. Similarly, 84% of the lymphadenopathy patients were found to have serum antibodies to HTLV-III. A lower, but significant, proportion (21%) of healthy homosexual men with an increased risk of AIDS were also positive. No heterosexual controls, including those with heterophile antibodies during the course of infectious mononucleosis and patients with T-cell or B-cell lymphoma, had antibodies to HTLV-III. The results strongly indicate that the antibodies to HTLV-III are diagnostic of AIDS or indicate significant risk of the disease, and suggest that HTLV-III is the primary cause of human AIDS.
I understand that you doubt that doctors frequently do HIV tests.
"Doctors are now routinely taught that if you see AIDS-like symptoms and a person is HIV-, by definition it is not AIDS."
But they can't know whether patients are HIV- unless they do tests regularly!
So do they test or not?
Now, a doctor is not going to say "Well, these guys are dying because their immune system has shut down, but at least they don't have AIDS!".
It is precisely because it is not AIDS that doctors will ask questions. Mainly "What the heck is it?" and "Is this contagious?" and "How many people are going to die?". And of course the media love the "We're all gonna die!" angle. I mean, that's one reason they love AIDS so much. Unless it's rare. If it's rare then few people will ask questions.
I didn't know there was a question about HIV = AIDS until last week when I read stuff on your site about it, so I read almost everything you've linked to. I have one question, which may be stupid and which may have been answered in the literature, but if it was, I didn't readily see it.
Here goes: Take the case of the tennis player Arthur Ashe, who contracted HIV through a transfusion. I'm assuming, since in the interviews I saw of him he emphatically stated he did not engage in sex with men or take needle drugs, that he did not engage in the risky behaviors and is not lying about it. If the assumption is that HIV is NOT a cause of AIDS, but AIDS is instead caused by high-risk lifestyles, how did Ashe end up dying from AIDS?
As I said, I did read most of what you linked to, but I'm not seeing a clear answer. This is not to say that I disagree with you. In fact, I DO agree with you on this topic, as I have had the very question in my mind well before I came across this topic on your site. But this is one situation that I can't find an explanation for.
And then again, upon further reading, I see that it's possible he was taking AZT, and if the status quo dissenters are right, it was the AZT that killed him. Right?
By the mid-1980s (1986 or so), any finding of HIV+ status got you immediately diagnosed as having AIDS. You didn't have to have any other symptoms. Before 1996 or so, you usually got immediately put on AZT.
Arthur Ashe was perfectly healthy until he got his HIV diagnosis. He was put on AZT immediately.
It remains today that if you come down HIV+ you are highly likely to be put on the cocktails even if you have no other symptoms whatsoever.
By the way: Arthur Ashe even wrote a column about the AZT controversy.
He sprinkled it onto his breakfast cereal every morning, noting only that it was the only drug for treating HIV and he seemed to tolerate it better than some people.
Maor: The 1984 studies you cite are among the originals, all of them called under question for not being properly double-blinded, and using testing methodologies that are now considered completely unreliable and no longer used.
See Duesberg's latest paper (or if you're tired of Duesberg, I'll give you citations from three or four other researchers).
However, even if you take those studies seriously, note that they all have AIDS patients in the mix who are HIV-. The HIV theorists will tell you it's because those early tests were unreliable. Back then they labeled them as having ICL4 and promptly wrote them off.
Since then, if you're HIV- and you hae AIDS symptoms, you're assumed to be suffering from pneumonia, tuberculosis, leukemia, candidiasis, toxoplasmosis, whatever--just not AIDS. If you're HIV positive, you're assumed to have AIDS.
Yes, it really is that simple.
I understand that you doubt that doctors frequently do HIV tests.
I BELIEVE NO SUCH THING!
Now, a doctor is not going to say "Well, these guys are dying because their immune system has shut down, but at least they don't have AIDS!".
You need to educate yourself on this. Indeed, as soon as you said this I grunted loudly in exasperation.
There is no such diagnosis as "your immune system is shutting down." You could have t-cells over 700 but if you're HIV+ and have pneumonia they'll diagnose you with AIDS and urge you onto the cocktails.
HIV is the a priori, axiomatic assumption for AIDS. If you are HIV+ and have almost any other condition you get a diagnosis of AIDS.
The questioning you describe simply has no reason to occur to most doctors. They're not in the business of questioning these things. They're too busy trying to help their patients.
"By the way: Arthur Ashe even wrote a column about the AZT controversy. He sprinkled it onto his breakfast cereal every morning, noting only that it was the only drug for treating HIV and he seemed to tolerate it better than some people.
He was dead within three years. He wasn't sick before he was diagnosed HIV+."
Wrong:
More information: Arthur Ashe: Medical History:
* Quadruple bypass surgery following heart attack 1979
* Corrective double bypass surgery in 1983
-additional 2 units of blood received here sometime after surgery to speed up very slow recovery, suspected HIV contamination here although highly speculative
* Brain tissue biopsy of abscess reveals Toxoplasmositic parasite 1988
- entered hospital for tests because of loss of motor control in right hand
- possible pre-stroke condition, brain tumor or cancer originally suspected; however, battery of tests reveals HIV seropositivity
- Brain abscess discovered during exam, Brain tissue biopsy of abscess reveals Toxoplasmositic parasite. Toxoplasmosis plus HIV positive means he was diagnosed as having "full-blown" AIDS from the outset, SEPT 1988
Note: He was diagnosed as having "full-blown" AIDS from the outset, i.e. before he started AZT.
* Before beginning AIDs therapy, Ashe had some serious post operative problems from the brain surgery. Being allergic to penicillin, he was treated with sulfa-based drugs. It is claimed
that these drugs produced a painful bout with kidney stones. In addition, an allergic reaction to the sulfa drugs resulted in a severe bout with Stevens-Johnson syndrome in which Ashe described
his body as "feeling like it was ready for the burn unit". The postoperative problems took about a month or so to clear up.
So, it is evident that Arthur Ashe had full blown AIDS before AZT therapy and he was most definitely sick before he was diagnosed with HIV +.
I stand corrected. As with so many of these things, I'm having to work from memory as I get pelted with statements and questions from people who aren't bothering to do their own reading.
I misremembered the case of Ashe.
However, look at the poor bastard's case. He was diagnosed as having AIDS solely because he was HIV+ and toxoplasmosis? That sounds pretty typical for what was going on by 1990 or so. Then he was put on AZT, and died within short order.
Which is consistent with the claim that by the late '80s or early '90s, most so-called "AIDS" patients were really dying of AZT poisoning.
Or is there evidence that Ashe had any AIDS symptoms besides toxoplasmosis? Since you're the Ashe expert I mean?
"There is no such diagnosis as "your immune system is shutting down." You could have t-cells over 700 but if you're HIV+ and have pneumonia they'll diagnose you with AIDS and urge you onto the cocktails."
I'm wasn't talking about HIV+ patients with normal T-cell levels. I'm talking about HIV- people with extremely low T-cell levels who are dying from an infection. The doctors will say that the infection is because his immune system isn't working (They may be wrong, but that is what they'll say.) And they'll wonder why his immune system isn't working if he's HIV-. Maybe they'll think of a reason, maybe they won't. But they will definitely wonder about it, and try to do something about it.
And if a lot of HIV- patients are like this, a big deal will be made of it, and the role of HIV will be questioned by many. It doesn't matter if nobody asks questions about HIV+ patients. If there are very few HIV- patients, then this fact suggests that HIV really IS the cause.
I wouldn't comment on this post either (not that I am not interested), except that I am so
angeredfucking pissed after reading the links in this post that I have to speak. Just the hell the children were going through caused me to stop a couple of times, and at one point I made a cocktail myself; one with brandy. (You owe me a few kleenex)It doesn't take a great intellect or PhD to see that in the respected world of science and medicine, that some are at best incompetent, and at at worst (my choice) lying through their teeth. It doesn't matter if they stick to old theories because they need the pharmaceutical research money, or that they are just biased to their own opinions. Either way It is wrong. It is killing people. And it is a discrace. I think the author in the last link called it "a climate of increasing medical fascism."
Are those calling for a re-examination really all that out of line?
And no, I am not backpedaling--go back to my very first posting on this and I said the same thing.
What I do think is that more people should be aware that there are serious points of dissent by people who are not morons, are not ill-informed snake-oil salesmen, and deserve to be heard.
I further think that it's very clear that if you are diagnosed HIV+ this may well not be a death sentence--the oldest case of an HIV+ person we have on record is a man who's been HIV+ for twenty-three years, and he has never taken any medication or medical treatment for AIDS. (This was confirmed by a frozen blood sample in this guy's case.)
We also know that in many, many cases, people have been put on anti-AIDS medications solely due to their HIV+ status, with no other symptoms at all. In some cases this has been true of children who show no signs of ill health whatsoever before being put on AIDS drugs.
Are these reports anecdotal? YES! Does that mean we should all accept that HIV does not cause AIDS? NO!
But do I think that patients should be fully informed that many AIDS drugs carry a very strong mortality risk? I do. AZT in particular is particularly destructive and is documented to be a very potent carcinogen. Yet people, including children, have been given AZT without having any symptoms of AIDS what-so-ever except an HIV+ diagnosis. No other symptoms, no nothing. The same for other people who've been put on other anti-AIDS cocktail medication.
Should patients be told all this, and be allowed to choose what course of action they will take? How can you justify not telling them?
If my t-cell counts were dropping dramatically over a sustained period I would almost certainly seek medication. But I would be careful about what I chose--and from what I've seen, many patients simply are not told enough to make informed decisions before taking medications that could well kill them.
I also wish to make clear that I do not believe that the average physician who treats AIDS patients should be pilloried for any of this. Indeed, one of the fears I have in all this is that some poor doctor who was following what she believed were the best practices in the field is going to wind up sued into oblivion by somebody with a vendetta. Doctors are not researchers (well, not most of them, although sometimes they contribute to research) and can only go by the conventional wisdom. It's the rare doctor who's willing to go outside of conventional wisdom and there's a reason: he can be destroyed if he flubs it. And let me tell you: treating AIDS patients is rarely a high-paid practice. You see a whole lot of suffering, you damn well do your best for them, and a huge number of them die anyway.
While I often remark that I think doctors are not Gods, sometimes people mistake that for a cheap shot at doctors. Actually it's quite the opposite. Doctors aren't Gods, they are incredibly smart, incredibly-well-educated, dedicated human beings who want to be healers. But they are fallible, and I think it's attrocious that our society so often demands that they be infallible and all-knowing.
We often treat them like they're all-knowing, and when it turns out that they aren't, too often we try to rip them to shreds.
In the vast majority of cases, whether we're talking about AIDS practitioners or practically any practitioner, even the plastic surgeons, they very much want to help people. Some of them make damned good livings but a lot of them make just okay livings, and put themselves through absolute Hell in med school and in internships and residencies just for the privilege of trying to save lives and alleviate suffering.
One of my most fervent wishes, which I guess I've never said, is that more people who go to doctors stop looking up at doctors, and instead start looking AT doctors as fellow human beings. Really, really, really smart human beings. Incredible resources, experts who know more than you ever will about a lot of things. Experts that you would be a fool not to consult if you've got health issues.
But they are experts you consult, people who offer services you may want or need. Ultimately responsibility is on your shoulders for your life and your health.
Doctors have saved my life at least once. They've saved my wife's life at least twice if not three times since I met her.
But still: there's no justification in my mind from hiding information about alternative views from patients. Not in a moral sense, anyway.
Thanks so much for all the information on AZT and AIDS. You make a lot of sense.
I am particularly distressed that the courts in some places uphold the child welfare agencies' right to insist that a parent dose a child with drugs like AZT. Well, actually, child welfare agencies all over the country are totally screwed up in most things they do.
Thanks for revisiting all of this...it's creepily funny how the landscape hasn't changed one iota.
It's pretty much a given now that kissing cannot transmit HIV, so how could breastfeeding? Not to mention that the current main standard for testing for HIV is still testing for the antibodies...antibodies which could remain in your body for the rest of your life after the virus is no longer even present, right?
Sure, the follow on test, Immuno-PCR testing, is now being used as the sole test in some situations... ...is there a reason no one has used it to test the presence or absence of the virus in the breast milk?
...and since all the test does is test for the presence of a specific protein, I haven't seen enough to know that test method's rate of false positives and false negatives...does that specific protein not occur in any other protein chain at all?
Mrs. du Toit makes some good points in one of the previous threads about how much of medicine is trial and error, but it seems like the errors in AIDS testing is putting people through horrible trials with little confidence of success.
2. Given that alternative therapies to AZT exist for HIV/AIDS, there's certainly no justification for taking the right of parents to decide that they don't want their kids to be subjected to it.
3. That being said, I think a case can be made that doing *nothing* in the face of an HIV diagnosis is something that might be considered endangerment of a child. People have been known to recover spontaneously from any number of uniformly fatal prognoses--IIRC even a few patients suffering from rabies in its late stages (generally considered 100% fatal) have recovered successfully. That doesn't mean that betting on a particular person being a lucky one is a particularly great idea.
The BBC is running into credibility problems, not only intrinsically, but in its desire to discredit the U.S.and Tony Blair. The BBC is a veritable monopoly and shows it. Its chief editor, Gilligan had to resign over his own sexing up of a report, meant to disparage Tony Blair, involving the suicide of the informant, who Gilligan falsely claimed said the Blair government had itself "sexed up" an intelligence report on wmd's. BBC news can no longer be assumed to relate much to reality.
The Main Stream Media here is also running into credibility problems because of what its idea of news is, its [waning] dominance, and the fact that its jounalists tend to be scientifically and logically challenged, or "other" directed. [Even NPR started eliminating in depth reports on real news items in about 1974, searching for more "popular" items and money instead. NPR cannot even respond to immediate news events.]
Likewise, the AP is really getting worked over re: its Iraq reporting, by blogs, especially the Belmont Club.
Blogs are starting to make inroads, so maybe the aids-hiv-azt-recreational drugs, etc., questions will be more extensively and rationally analyzed by blogs, which are starting to take over the discussion of many issues. We, being somewhat capable, and concerned need a lot of freely criticized info if we are to have a real handle on issues we become concerned with, if only so as not to despair from confusion.
Anyone dealing with Social Services, particularly in regard to child custody and foster homes gets the idea that it is out of its mind, if it even has any. Government power, especially exemplified by Socialism/Communism, can be extremely destructive, because governments don't inherently know much about anything, and their power is often effected through a lot of ignoramuses who need to control things and "save" people, actually more for the good of the ignoramuses, as in the case of some Religions, historically. Doubters are selected against.
Rollye James, a long term talk show host and follower of foster homes and child custody, thinks foster homes have been proven an evil.
It sounds like the drug cocktails are being used upon children in a viciously experimental way, but having been also spurred on by our noble "activists". But we don't really know simply from the BBC's article.
Is the BBC even following up on the disaster it itself suggests? Probably not! Why not? This is typical of the MSM's modus operandi. Bad news is good news and the esteemed reporters generally don't know squat, or even care that they don't know squat.They have even been taught that they don't need know anything and have probably long since been weeded out from any scientific, mathematical, logical, and actually seeking-the-truth capabilities. There are exceptions, such as Claudia Douthet [?] who dogged the U.N. oil-for-food corruption, but she was whistling dixie for months, except to some evil talk-show hosts, and perhaps some blogs. Finally she surfaced, possibly from her own determination to follow a story, seeing its worth and relevance to important situations.
The MSM needs to fund responsible, capable, dedicated to truth reporters, but probably won't.
The hope I see are blogs, where issues can be dealt with seriously for free, because there are a bunch of people who do care and are knowledgeable, who have had no access to these issues. Blogs are probably going to "roll" the MSM, the entrenched dogmatic intellectuals of Academia and Science, and stagnant, counterproductive Government agencies and programs, given too that Capitalism also allows alternative action to Government's and other not rationally based entrenchments which have betrayed their missions in favor of something else. I hope.
No one disputes that protease inhibitors (i.e. the "safe" AIDS drugs) were all rushed to market bypassing the normal testing requirements of the FDA. Still, I guess we can take some comfort that at least AZT is falling steadily out of favor.
Monomer: I agree with your hope for blogs, and I agree with you on the BBC's credibility problems on political issues. On the other hand, the MSM has done followup on a number of people like this in the past. I don't know if the BBC will follow up on this; I suppose we'll see.
I have some hopes myself that blogs will finally bring to the fore the huge logical holes in the HIV theory. For it looks to me like no one who defends the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has any clear idea why they believe what they do.
With nearly 50 million HIV + people worldwide in 2004, I'll risk returning to square one of this discussion and present the following:
From the XIII International AIDS Conference July 2000:
The Durban Declaration
A Declaration by (5000) Scientists and Physicians Affirming HIV is the Cause of AIDS:
"Seventeen years after the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), thousands of people from around the world are gathered in Durban, South Africa to attend the XIII International AIDS Conference.
At the turn of the millennium, an estimated 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV or AIDS, 24 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa (1). Last year alone, 2.6 million people died of AIDS, the highest rate since the start of the epidemic. If current trends continue, Southern and South-East Asia, South America and regions of the former Soviet Union will also bear a heavy burden.
“The evidence that AIDS is caused by HIV-1 or HIV-2 is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous.
This evidence meets the highest standards of science (3-7). The data fulfill exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases, such as poliomyelitis, measles and smallpox”.
That is what the Durban Declaration says.
It has been my observation that the AIDS conferences are more political than scientific. The conveniers use the conferences more as platforms to lobby for more money and rail against those who disagree, than for rigorious debate of the merits. Simply because they claim "...is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambigious." does not make it so as is evidenced from the articles supporting Mr. Esmays Thesis.
The political/pharmaceutical/academic juggernaut is churning and I do not envy a scientist that dares raise his hand in opposition. Take courage. Galileo, Newton, and Archimedes eventually prevailed, or more accurately, their science.
The response to the Durban declaration, published by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the AIDS-HIV Hypothesis was also printed in the pages of <i>Nature</i>:
---
<b>THE DURBAN DECLARATION IS NOT ACCEPTED BY ALL</b>
<b>Nature September 2000</b>
Sir - In response to recent action by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and in advance of the International Conference on HIV/AIDS held in Durban on 9-14 July, the Durban Declaration (1) was prepared by a committee representing a consensus of "181 scientists and front line physicians". Before publication in Nature, it was circulated: "To get as many names of scientists and doctors to sign on. Names of signatories will appear on the Nature website. If you would like to sign on, we would be delighted. Send me an e-mail confirming this. To economize space on the website, we have to name people in a single line. Many of you will say that HIV/AIDS is not your area. However, over the years you have heard enough of the arguments to understand the association. Furthermore, many of you know well infectious diseases and understand Koch's postulates. If you have colleagues in the laboratory or in the clinic who you feel would like to sign, please ask them. The more the better. However, please note that in order to be authoritative we feel it necessary to restrict the list to those with major university qualifications." This is an extract from the circular distributed on behalf of the organizing committee which included Luc Montagnier, Catherine Wilfert, David Baltimore, Sir Aaron Klug (as President of the UK Royal Society), and many other well-known names and organizations from developing countries as well as from the West.
Briefly, the authors of the declaration state that AIDS/HIV is spreading as a pandemic now affecting 34 million people, of whom 24 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. They say the disease began there as a viral infection of chimpanzees and monkeys conveyed somehow to humans, and is now spreading worldwide by heterosexual and mother-to-infant transmission. The authors consider that their evidence supporting this hypothesis is "clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous"; that most people with these infections will develop AIDS within 5-10 years unless treated; and that "there is no end in sight" until research based on their hypothesis leads to a vaccine to supplement safe sex, health education and other, simpler approaches to avoidance and prevention.
With no end in sight after 17 or more years of intensive research, priorities and incentives, one might think that this consensus would be open to alternative approaches, but the authors of the declaration are emphatic that this is not needed because the evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS has met or exceeded the "highest standards of science". By implication, any other evidence is therefore a deception, even less likely to lead to a successful vaccine, curative drug or hypothesis.
Our objection to the Durban Declaration is factual and verifiable from data published in the early 1980s (refs 2-4 ). We believe that World Health Organization (WHO) figures produced since then (5) can be interpreted to say that AIDS first appeared and spread, not in Africa but in US urban clusters of mainly white, affluent, promiscuous homosexual men and drug addicts, and then spread, on a lesser scale, in Europe and Australasia but hardly at all in Asia. Disastrous epidemics due to heterosexual transmission of HIV were confidently predicted in general populations of developed countries (6) but they never happened. AIDS has diminished in incidence and severity though it is continuing in female partners of bisexual men and some other communities engaging in or subjected to behaviours which carry high risks of infections, various assaults and misuse of drugs.
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS was reported later (7, 8), with an alarming frequency in mothers and infants not seen in the United States or Europe. Sentinel surveillance by the WHO shows correlation between this frequency and the seroprevalence of HIV, but there are unmeasured overlaps with other major diseases and deprivations which, together with anomalies in classification, distribution, transmission and country- specific pathogenesis, and especially cross-reactions in serological tests (6-9), raise questions about the accuracy of diagnosis and approaches to control.
In the absence of satisfactory, or of any, answers from the consensus to his specific questions on this matter, President Mbeki invited us to join other experts with differing viewpoints in a panel to explore the way forward to control AIDS in Africa. Unlike the signatories to the Durban Declaration, we claim no exhaustive and unambiguous unanimity. There are differences between ourselves and with other panellists, and we are happy to acknowledge possible convergence with certain priorities favoured by the declaration's authors. But we reject as outrageous their attempt to outlaw open discussion of alternative viewpoints, because this reveals an intolerance which has no place in any branch of science. Our viewpoints could also explain the failure to prevent the spread of AIDS in high-risk populations in the West, amounting, in the United States now, to almost 700,000 registrations - an unbeaten score in the global tally of this disease.
Other signatories to this letter; full addresses available from G.T.S.
* Sam Mhlongo, MB, BS Professor of Medicine, MEDUNSA, Johannesburg, South Africa
* Etienne de Harven, MD Emeritus Professor of Pathology, University of Toronto, Canada
* Christian Fiala, MD Obstetrician, Vienna, Austria
* Claus Kohnlein, MD Physician, Stadisches Krankenhaus, Kiel, Germany
* Andrew Herxheimer, MD Pharmacologist, London, UK
* Peter Duesberg, PhD Professor of Molecular Biology, University of California at Berkeley, USA
* David Rasnick, PhD Research Fellow, Dept of Molecular Biology, University of California at Berkeley, USA
* Roberto Giraldo, MD Physician, New York City
* Manu Kothari, MD Pathologist, Seth GS Medical College, Bombay, India
* Harvey Bialy, PhD Research Scholar, National University, Mexico City, Mexico
* Charles Geshekter Professor of African Studies, California State University, Chico, California
* Gordon T. Stewart MD 3 Lexden Terrace, Tenby, Pembrokeshire SA70 7BJ, UK (Emeritus Professor of Public Health, University of Glasgow)
References
1. Durban Declaration, Nature 406, 15-16 (2000). Links
2. Morbidity Mortality Weekly Reports 30, 250 (US CDC, Atlanta, 1981).
3. Morbidity Mortality Weekly Reports: Update on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), USA 31, 507-514 (1981).
4. Gottlieb, M. S. et al. N. Eng. Med. J. 305, 1425-31 (1982).
5. Weekly Epidemiological Records (WHO, Geneva, 1981-2000).
6. Cox, D., Anderson, R. M., Hillier, H. C. (eds) Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 325, 37-187 (1989).
7. International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (WHO, Geneva, 1992).
8. Root-Bernstein, R. Rethinking AIDS (MacMillan, New York, 1993).
9. Kashala, O., et al. J. Inf. Dis. 109, 296-304 (1994).
Source: Nature 407, 286 (2000)
---
But kudos to you Catch: you've actually given a rational reason. "Because all these doctors said so."
I assume you believe in catastrophic global warming caused by humans for the exact same reasons, yes?
Do a Google search on "health education aids liaison," a group which now has chapters in many major cities and conducts outreach and education efforts to encourage people who are HIV+ to either avoid the chemotherapy or to get themselves off of it.
I've already written repeatedly that Duesberg is and has been seeking private sources of funding, and has received some. Looks like it's all going to have to be private funding for now though; the drug companies have a vested interest in the status quo, as does everybody who's received government money for their studies. And despite Connie's outburst, most of these are not people who work in AIDS hospices, but rather people who hold patents on protease inhibitors, researchers with multimillion$$ government grants to study HIV, and government bureaucrats who've made their entire careers out of supporting the HIV hypothesis (i.e. not evil people, but people with conflicts of interest).
My comment responded to:
"For it looks to me like no one who defends the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has any clear idea why they believe what they do." (Dean)
Now if you look at all of the comment everything except this sentence of mine is someone else's quotation. The sentence was:
"With nearly 50 million HIV + people worldwide in 2004, I'll risk returning to square one of this discussion and present the following:..."
Then I quoted the Durban Declaration afterwhich I concluded with:
"That is what the Durban Declaration says."
Fair enough. I thought I presented an adequate response to your statement.
Now,
I find it amazing that after all the discussion you have presented clearly what should have been your first statement rather than the last.
You have done well in presenting Duesberg et al in counter-response.
Can you tell us what this statement of Duesberg means with respect to prevention ?
“Our viewpoints could also explain the failure to prevent the spread of AIDS in high-risk populations in the West, amounting, in the United States now, to almost 700,000 registrations - an unbeaten score in the global tally of this disease.”
Another question: What positive benefits have resulted from Duesbergs published works in prevention of HIV transmission ?
And, I also agree with your statement: “Well look: HIV might cause AIDS”.
PIP: Scientist Peter Duesberg's dismissal of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and insistence that AIDS is a noninfectious disease has made him a focus of controversy in both the medical profession and homosexual community. Duesberg attributes the AIDS epidemic to heavy use of amphetamines and "poppers," which devastate the immune system and have been linked to the development of certain cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma. He is concerned about the widespread, inappropriate use of AZT, which not only lacks proven efficacy but also destroys the immune system. Duesberg has termed AZT "AIDS by prescription," and considers it another cause rather than a cure of AIDS. There is no confirmation, he maintains, that the majority of AIDS patients have HIV. He further notes the radically different epidemiologic, immunologic, and clinical profile of African and American AIDS and suggests that these are two distinct disease process (the former caused by malnutrition, poor sanitation, and parasites and the latter by drugs) erroneously grouped under the same rubric. To perpetuate itself, the AIDS industry has developed a second line of defense in the argument that AIDS is multifactorial, with HIV plus a cofactor responsible for disease. Again, there is no empirical evidence to support this politically motivated theory. Of concern is the emphasis on promoting safe sex rather than urging an end of recreational drugs and AZT.
This is an abstract from 1994
Note: I am not the message just the messenger. This stuff has been going on for ten years. Its not new.
First, there's the question of the cause of and cure for AIDS. This may or may not be controversial. I don't have the tools to say one way or the other. In the long run, this will all likely work itself out; in the short run, Dean's advice regarding doctors is good advice.
The second, and IMHO more important, point:
Without due process, medical decisions regarding children are best made by the children's parents, not by some flack (government or corporate).
I don't care if the evidence for AZT as an AIDS cure is as strong as the evidence for antibiotics. In the vast majority of cases, the parents are the best guardians of children, and should not be interfered with. And even in those situations with bad parents, we should acknowledge that we are perpetrating the lesser of two evils by interfering in the family, and we should have the humility that goes with this recognition.
With a wife in the child care business, I have seen firsthand the stupidity that sometimes accompanies government family services, as well as the awesome power they have. This is just one more example.
Monomer has been an incoherent mess who's made several statements which are false to fact and which display his own profound ignorance. You've done little (until today) but call people names and point to some literature that doesn't make your case. Connie called me "full of shit" and anybody who questions whether the chemotherapies have been efficacious "morons" and uses as her entire defense that she saw some AIDS patients show improvements in t-cell counts. That's good personal experience but it's hard to evaluate without more data, and I'm frankly at this point not inclined to ask her for more if she's not going to drop the personal attacks. She also seems to think that everybody who disagrees with me is entirely familiar with the dissenters' work, but that is clearly false because almost everybody who's criticized the dissenters has revealed that they clearly are NOT familiar with their work.
If you find the Durban declaration convincing, that's fine. It was put together mostly by people with a strong financial and career interest in the status quo, and they allowed anybody attached to a major university or with an MD to sign it. That doesn't make it irrelevant but it hardly means the dissenters are morons.
As for the attacks on Duesberg: I am very familiar with them. Indeed, have I not made it clear that I've seen more apoplectic attacks on him than any working scientist in my life? Most of them (including the one you quote) invoke a good deal of Ad Hominem reasoning. So you've managed to confirm what I've already said: A lot of people hate Duesberg. We know that. And...?
By the way, an interesting thing there: up until at least the mid-1990s (around the time of that NIH attack piece you posted), it was considered heresy in a lot of circles to consider the possibility that there were ANY cofactors associated with AIDS. Root-Bernstein (who people like Dani and Caltechgirl have disparaged) was the first researcher to suggest that while he believed HIV was a cause of AIDS, he believed there also had to be cofactors and that HIV alone could not explain it, and he credited Duesberg for being the originator of the questions that led him to that conclusion. He and Duesberg disagree on this point since Duesberg believes HIV is utterly harmless, but Root-Bernstein was once hated as much as Duesberg. NOW, finally, people are allowed to speak Root-Bernstein's half-heresy and not be considered morons, flakes, and loose cannons--and if you're an HIV researcher you're no longer in danger of losing your job just for saying that (which you would have been in the 1980s or early 1990s).
So yes, you've brought forward the unremarkable fact that people don't like Duesberg. Anybody who's read much about Duesberg knows this perfectly well; indeed, if you'd read even half the material I've linked you'd know that. The man is hated with a steaming passion. This means... what exactly? There are others who consider him a hero, including a number of front-line AIDS physicians who refuse to use the AIDS cocktails (I can point you to some) and a significant number of professional researchers. They are in the minority, yes, but this means they are wrong because....?
By the way: the claim that there is "no empirical evidence" that HIV may not be the cause of AIDS or may involve cofactors is simply false. Empirical evidence does exist. It's usually dismissed by critics as anecdotal and unworthy of study. I say more study is needed, and almost none of it is being done. AIDS researchers are mostly dependent upon government funding and relatively few have managed to find private funding--but they've made headway there. It's hard when we have an entire establishment devoted to telling people there is only one answer and bellowing that anybody who questions them is a threat to public health and/or homophobic.
All the same nettlesome questions I've raised, and more, remain largely ignored.
I am very familiar with the arguments against Duesberg and the dissenters. Despite Mrs. du Toit's insinuations, I've read a whole lot of literature which supports the HIV hypothesis. Unlike her, I do not consider the dissenters "morons," and I find it compelling that a scientific establishment which is supposed to support dissent as part of the peer review process instead turns to vicious personal attacks on researchers who question the reigning orthodoxy. As you've demonstrated so well here, ad hominem is one of the primary vehicles of attack toward the dissenters, despite their qualifications.
You ask one question: "What positive benefits have resulted from Duesbergs published works in prevention of HIV transmission?"
Isn't that just a little disingenuous? I mean, honestly now?
Duesberg believes people should avoid intravenous drugs and, while I haven't asked him I presume he believes in safe sex practices since anybody who's not a moron knows that unsafe sex has a host of dangers whether you believe HIV is one of them or not. (BTW, Root-Bernstein believes that unprotected anal sex with multiple partners has an immuno-suppressive effects and is one of the cofactors). In that sense Duesberg has been influential in getting people to finally admit that it may not be JUST HIV that's the problem, and that other lifestyle factors are important too.
If you read Duesberg's work you know he's been highly influential in getting people to question the use of AZT in children--children who were put on AZT solely because they were HIV+ and not otherwise sick at all. Some of those kids are alive now more than 10 years later, although Duesberg has not been able to get funding even to do followup study on them (last I looked, I plan to ask him if he's gotten any lately).
May I suggest you do more to familiarize yourself with the dissenters' arguments instead of calling them names? Just a thought there.
By the way, you didn't answer my question on global warming.
And of course the current AIDS establishment does nothing at all to discourage intravenous drug use. If they were listening to Duesberg they'd say the drugs themselves are a danger instead of just telling people to make sure to use clean needles. If they were listening to Duesberg they'd point out that regular use of these drugs is itself a risk factor for AIDS and not just dirty needles.
And if they were listening to people like Root-Bernstein, they'd be avoiding all that unprotected anal sex with multiple anonymous partners because they'd believe that the behavior itself is dangerous and not just a virus they can get rid of with those "safe" cocktails.
Instead we've told people that it's all a virus and if you can just kill the virus you'll be fine. And we've allowed a host of drugs (mostly protease inhibitors) to be released with almost NONE of the studies normally required by the FDA.
Do you find all that acceptable, Catch? I don't.
That is 100% totally unacceptable. Take a survey in SF if you want to know the truth. 45 million people are HIV + .
Global Warming:
No opinion. Does it occur ? Yes. Is it cyclical ? Probably. Does it impact some areas ? Yes.
AZT: cocktails: Patient beware. All that stuff is very dangerous. Chemotherapy progresses via human experimentation (sadly). We can only hope the science is correct.
AIDS: There is no cure. There is treatment, education, behavior modification,
compassionate therapists, nurses, Doctors, ministers.
Empirical evidence HIV is harmless:
Ask Duesberg to give you the documented evidence.
Duesberg's already presented substantial evidence of HIV positives who've been HIV+ for 10, 15, and even 20+ years who are perfectly healthy and receive no chemotherapy. He's documented many cases, in fact. He's not the only one to do so. None of them, NONE OF THEM have gotten AIDS to date.
There's your empirical proof. Do you want more? Then STOP CALLING THE SKEPTICS IDIOTS AND START DEMANDING FUNDING TO STUDY ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES.
And do me a favor and actually READ some of the dissenters' literature before shooting these elementary questions at me.
The South African Department of Health Study
Sept 2004---South Africa HIV/AIDS Statistics:
Since 1999 to 2003 the National Percentage of Sexually active women in South Africa who are HIV positive has risen from 22.4 % to 28.9 %.
“In the report released in September 2004, it was estimated that in South Africa at the end of 2003, 4.7 million people are living with HIV, of whom 189,000 are babies. Based on extrapolation of the results of this 2003 antenatal survey, the Department of Health estimated that 5.6 million South Africans were HIV positive by the end of 2003. It is estimated that 96,228 babies were infected with HIV during 2003 (250 a day) by mother-to-child transmission, which, with provision of the correct drugs, is almost completely preventable.
These high prevalence rates show what a significant problem HIV/AIDS is in South Africa with enormous social economic and development implications. The rates also indicate the future burden of HIV associated disease and the difficulties faced by the health system in coping with the provision of adequate care and support.”
Conclusion:
UNAIDS estimates that at the end of 2003 there was a prevalence of 21.5%, giving an estimated 5.3 million people living with HIV in South Africa.
This is a country where one in four pregnant women are HIV+. In spite of the difference between the various figures, what is clear is that there is an exceptionally high HIV prevalence in South Africa, and that there are tremendous challenges remaining in the fields of HIV education, prevention and care.
So you haven't even bothered to look at the literature from the skeptics that shows why those figures you're citing are questionable. You just figure you can point to those and that's enough.
You really are not very serious-minded about this.
http://www.avert.org/safricastats.htm
Harvey Bialy is as you may know a member of South Africa’s Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel.
I would have hoped this topic would have ended in 2004. Sometimes facts are important.
How does providing links to the rate of HIV infection prove that HIV is dangerous? How does the fact that there are ESTIMATES about the number of HIV infections demonstrate that prophylactic use of chemotherapy is justified? Or justify putting kids on AZT without their parents' consent?
Answer: it doesn't.
You want to talk about Africa? Fine. President Mbeki is one of the dissenters. A number of American, South African, and international groups support him in his right to demand more rigorous study before subjecting millions of South Africans to experimental treatments. You can learn about that petition right here.
You want to know more about why they're skeptical in South Africa? Read this and this and this just for starters. More is available.
Spend some time here and at least demonstrate that you have a rudimentary understanding of where these people stand on their issues. Then if you have a question you think you'd like me to ask Duesberg.
But if all you're going to do is spout the party line on AIDS, you're wasting everybody's time. We all know the standard party line: HIV is a virus. It causes AIDS. It's spread sexually. If you have HIV you'll get AIDS and you need chemotherapy to save your life. Millions of people are dying because of HIV and they urgently need education on safe sex, clean needles, and if HIV+ they need chemotherapy.
We all understand this. We're not morons. What we're discussing is why the dissenters question all this. Do you have data that relates directly to that?
I have nothing more to add on these topics except that I doubt that Professer Duesberg will need to be practicing a Nobel acceptance speech in swedish for a while. On the other hand, I could just possibly be wrong.
Ten minutes of research right here will produce the answer to almost every obvious question. If you have deeper questions ask them.
Here's a style tip: assume the other side is working in good faith and isn't a bunch of morons. Assume the other side understands all the basic issues themselves. It saves a lot of time and is a hell of a lot less insulting.
AIDS is deadly serious. If someone tells me the HIV virus is harmless they are going to get challenged. If someone informs the general readership that the HIV virus is nothing to worry about, there's a problem area that needs attention. If someone presents data that shows 8 % of HIV positives never get full AIDS, I do not take that as empirical proof to present to anyone with a positive HIV test that there are no health problems in their life about which to be concerned.
In my world, simple, dumb questions are acceptable because just maybe a reader or a viewer or a listener or someone else will learn something in the question or the exchange. I presume that's why this comment box is advailable to your readers.
Yeah, well, no one's bothered to do any in-depth study as to what percentage of HIV positives who refuse chemotherapy and never develop full-blown AIDS. It is now, and has been, standing medical practice to put people (especially children) on chemotherapy as soon as it is discovered thaty they are HIV+--and being HIV+ and having any of a list of dozens of medical condition is now automatically considered an AIDS diagnosis.
I ask how anybody thinks that's justified, despite the fact that no one has ever done any long-term studies on it--although we know there are hundreds if not thousands of such people.
We presume they are flukes. Why? Based on what? That 100% of gay men in the early '80s diagnosed with AIDS all died? This is flimsy at best.
Aside from Duesberg and a few others, all of whom have not even 1% of the funding of those making AIDS cocktail drugs, there is simply NO research being done to look at HIV+ status and determine what the real odds of developing AIDS are. I repeat again: we have thousands of people right now who are HIV+ and are refusing chemotherapy for it. We have some people who've been HIV+ for over 20 yeras who are still alive and still refusing the chemotherapy. NO ONE is studying them but the HIV dissidents, and they lack adequate funding for more than the most basic science. Do you really think that's prudent?
There is also case after case of individuals who were diagnosed HIV+, were put on chemotherapy, and then unilaterally refused to continue the treatment because it was making them sick--who have lived more than 10 or even 20 years without it.
Cheap assumption: all these thousands of people make up a statistical anomoly. They "must be immune" or the virus must have a "long incubation period" with them. Do you see any other possibilities?
Back in the early '90s parents of a little girl who was in excruciating pain from AIDS chemotherapy unilaterally decided to take her off of them. They were actually taken to court over it, and got their way. Almost 10 years later, that little girl is getting ready for High School, is HIV+, and is as healthy as a horse. Her story is not the only story like it. Is that anecdotal? Yes, and it'll stay anecdotal until someone starts to look at the question of such people seriously.
He says studies showing at least 50% (This is on his site - response to responses to his article in Policy review) of guys with HIV developing AIDS were not done properly and did not rule out drug use as a cause of AIDS. Quite plausible. But it is still easier to believe that HIV causes AIDS rather than believe with very little evidence that:
1)Guys with HIV are extremely likely to take a lot of drugs
AND
2)Drugs cause AIDS at very high rates.
Doesn't the government spend a lot of money trying to prove how bad drugs are? And they somehow missed this?
"it was considered heresy in a lot of circles to consider the possibility that there were ANY cofactors associated with AIDS."
Got any examples of people being fired for this?
(If so it's inexcusable. Saying that there is more than one factor is one of the most common things in biology.)
"Cheap assumption: all these thousands of people make up a statistical anomoly."
No, it's not a STATISTICAL anomaly. It's simply the fact that no disease is 100% fatal, and most aren't even close. If HIV infection were 40% fatal, it would still be one of the most dangerous viruses in existence.
We thus have a huge whole in our knowledge here. The thinking is viciously circular: If you have all the classic AIDS symptoms you're assumed HIV+ and that testing you is a waste of money. If you are HIV+ you are assumed to be someone who's going to develop AIDS so you're put on medication for it.
This requires no conspiracy. Front-line AIDS doctors in the hospices were too busy trying to save lives to dealve deeply into the literature and look for holes. Everyone was saying it was HIV so they accepted it. Why wouldn't they? It seemed plausible enough, and these people were dropping like flies.
Yet to this day, NO ONE in the AIDS treatment community can tell you how likely you are to develop AIDS if you are HIV+. Standing policy in many places (see the BBC article for example) is to put ANYONE who is HIV+ onto chemotherapy under the ASSUMPTION that they will develop AIDS. This despite the fact that we have healthy HIV+ people now who've gone more than 20 years without it.
Nobody can tell you with any certainty how likely HIV+ status is to lead to AIDS if you refuse chemotherapy. Yet the chemotherapies themselves are acknowledged to be toxic. Isn't that just a little disturbing?
No conspiracies required. Just a lot of well-meaning assumptions by doctors and a lot of sloppy research among the paid researchers, some of whom have strong conflicts of interest.
So what? You test a sizable sample, and they show HIV, and you assume that the rest have HIV with roughly the same percentage. That's normal. Scientists never test everybody. Imagine if scientists had to test every single cancer patient in the world before they could say for example, that p53 is important.
I notice you say "some" tested HIV-. I take it that you don't have havidence that most were HIV- (or even a large minority).
"If you have all the classic AIDS symptoms you're assumed HIV+ and that testing you is a waste of money."
You previously said that AIDS is by definition someone who tests HIV+ (among other things). Now you're saying HIV tests aren't being done?
"Front-line AIDS doctors in the hospices were too busy trying to save lives to dealve deeply into the literature and look for holes."
No need to be very familiar with the literature. I assume front-line doctors often do HIV tests. If any of them see a large number of HIV- patients with AIDS-like symptoms, they could write an important paper based on little more than that knowledge.
"Nobody can tell you with any certainty how likely HIV+ status is to lead to AIDS if you refuse chemotherapy. Yet the chemotherapies themselves are acknowledged to be toxic. Isn't that just a little disturbing?"
I agree that the treatments are not obviously at all beneficial, which clearly raises serious ethical questions. I haven't argued with that point.
It's also not what was done. Read either Randy Shilts' book or Duesberg's book.
Don't belive me? Point me to the study.
I notice you say "some" tested HIV-. I take it that you don't have havidence that most were HIV- (or even a large minority).
There's no evidence one way or the other. Again, start looking at the literature.
No need to be very familiar with the literature. I assume front-line doctors often do HIV tests. If any of them see a large number of HIV- patients with AIDS-like symptoms, they could write an important paper based on little more than that knowledge.
That is unfortunately a very weak assumption. For several reasons the dissidents have gone to great lengths to document.
Besides, did you even read some of our earlier discussions? Doctors are now routinely taught that if you see AIDS-like symptoms and a person is HIV-, by definition it is not AIDS. But if you see any of dozens of conditions that the patient is HIV+, the patient should be assumed to have AIDS. That's it!
Read some of the literature, man. I can't give it all to you. But if you just read Duesberg's paper he lays the case out very well.
Skepticism is a healthy thing. But skepticism needs to cut in all directions or it's nothing but arguing for the sake of arguing.
Correlation is not causation, and since it's not a guarantee, I suspect it's more of a catalyst: HIV+ people run into... something else, possibly something usually considered harmless, and bang! AIDS.
Do we know if those men who were found to be HIV-negative were definately killed by AIDS?
If so, maybe it's a byproduct of something else that's a catalyst?
Heh. By current definitions they did not have AIDS. They were gay men who'd had multiple anonymous sex partners who indulged in the popular drugs of the day who developed Kaposi's sarcoma, dropped t-cells, wasting, and all the other classic symptoms.
Even after the tests became available, most who were already exhibiting the KS and the dropped t-cells weren't tested. They were simply assumed to have it.
Yes the research was that sloppy—and now the definition of AIDS has become so broad that all you need is to be HIV+ and have cervical cancer or tuberculosis. And the explanation for that is that the disease is complex and ever-evolving.
There exists today no rigorous standards that I've ever been able to find to justify an AIDS diagnosis besides "patient is HIV+ and has any one of dozens of symptoms."
Meanwhile, we have subjects who've been HIV+ for 5, 10, 15, 20, and even 23 years now (oldest known case was tested positive in a blood sample he'd had frozen in the 1970s for completely unrelated reasons). We also have caes of people who were diagnosed HIV+, put on cocktails, got sick, then abandoned the cocktails—and are both HIV+ and healthy more than ten years later.
Would you agree with me that this screams for the need for study? Can you explain why no one who applies to study it gets funded?
I have looked over only a small fraction of the literature and come up with these examples. They may or may not be flawed (I wouldn't know) but it's quite a stretch to say they don't exist.
These are just studies by Gallo. Note that he published actual evidence (more than once and contrary to what you implied previously) that HIV is responsible.
JAMA. 1985 Jan 11;253(2):221-5.
Screening test for HTLV-III (AIDS agent) antibodies. Specificity, sensitivity, and applications.
Weiss SH, Goedert JJ, Sarngadharan MG, Bodner AJ, Gallo RC, Blattner WA.
The third member of the human T-cell leukemia (lymphotropic) retrovirus family (HTLV-III) is a newly discovered retrovirus that has been closely associated with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In our application of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for HTLV-III antibodies, 72 (82%) of 88 patients with AIDS were positive, 14 (16%) were borderline, and two (2%) were negative. In contrast, only 1% of 297 volunteer blood donors were positive, 6% were borderline, and 93% were negative, demonstrating that this ELISA for HTLV-III antibodies is highly specific and sensitive for AIDS (excluding borderline results, 98.6% and 97.3%, respectively). Among persons at high risk for AIDS, 8% had borderline results, with positive and negative results readily distinguished as bimodal distributions that paralleled the temporal and geographic trends in AIDS. None of the 188 laboratory and health care employees working with patients with AIDS or their specimens were positive for HTLV-III antibodies, indicating that current precautions for health care workers appear adequate. This ELISA for HTLV-III antibodies will be a useful screening test among blood donors and populations at risk for AIDS, will aid in the diagnosis of suspected AIDS, and will help in defining the spectrum of diseases that are etiologically related to HTLV-III.
Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):500-3.
Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk for AIDS.
Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, Shearer GM, Kaplan M, Haynes BF, Palker TJ, Redfield R, Oleske J, Safai B, et al.
Peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or with signs or symptoms that frequently precede AIDS (pre-AIDS) were grown in vitro with added T-cell growth factor and assayed for the expression and release of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV). Retroviruses belonging to the HTLV family and collectively designated HTLV-III were isolated from a total of 48 subjects including 18 of 21 patients wih pre-AIDS, three of four clinically normal mothers of juveniles with AIDS, 26 of 72 adult and juvenile patients with AIDS, and from one of 22 normal male homosexual subjects. No HTLV-III was detected in or isolated from 115 normal heterosexual subjects. The number of HTLV-III isolates reported here underestimates the true prevalence of the virus since many specimens were received in unsatisfactory condition. Other data show that serum samples from a high proportion of AIDS patients contain antibodies to HTLV-III. That these new isolates are members of the HTLV family but differ from the previous isolates known as HTLV-I and HTLV-II is indicated by their morphological, biological, and immunological characteristics. These results and those reported elsewhere in this issue suggest that HTLV-III may be the primary cause of AIDS.
Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):506-8.
Antibodies reactive with human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) in the serum of patients with AIDS.
Sarngadharan MG, Popovic M, Bruch L, Schupbach J, Gallo RC.
In cats, infection with T-lymphotropic retroviruses can cause T-cell proliferation and leukemia or T-cell depletion and immunosuppression. In humans, some highly T4 tropic retroviruses called HTLV-I can cause T-cell proliferation and leukemia. The subgroup HTLV-II also induces T-cell proliferation in vitro, but its role in disease is unclear. Viruses of a third subgroup of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses, collectively designated HTLV-III, have been isolated from cultured cells of 48 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The biological properties of HTLV-III and immunological analyses of its proteins show that this virus is a member of the HTLV family, and that it is more closely related to HTLV-II than to HTLV-I. Serum samples from 88 percent of patients with AIDS and from 79 percent of homosexual men with signs and symptoms that frequently precede AIDS, but from less than 1 percent of heterosexual subjects, have antibodies reactive against antigens of HTLV-III. The major immune reactivity appears to be directed against p41, the presumed envelope antigen of the virus.
Lancet. 1984 Jun 30;1(8392):1438-40.
Seroepidemiological studies of human T-lymphotropic retrovirus type III in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
Safai B, Sarngadharan MG, Groopman JE, Arnett K, Popovic M, Sliski A, Schupbach J, Gallo RC.
In a double-blind study, sera of 34 patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 19 patients with lymphadenopathy syndrome, and 14 homosexual men with an increased risk of AIDS were screened for antibodies to proteins of the novel human T-lymphotropic retrovirus (leukaemia virus), HTLV-III, recently isolated from cultured T cells of AIDS patients. On a combination of a convenient and rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and a more sensitive electroblot (Western) assay, 100% of the AIDS sera were scored positive. Similarly, 84% of the lymphadenopathy patients were found to have serum antibodies to HTLV-III. A lower, but significant, proportion (21%) of healthy homosexual men with an increased risk of AIDS were also positive. No heterosexual controls, including those with heterophile antibodies during the course of infectious mononucleosis and patients with T-cell or B-cell lymphoma, had antibodies to HTLV-III. The results strongly indicate that the antibodies to HTLV-III are diagnostic of AIDS or indicate significant risk of the disease, and suggest that HTLV-III is the primary cause of human AIDS.
I understand that you doubt that doctors frequently do HIV tests.
"Doctors are now routinely taught that if you see AIDS-like symptoms and a person is HIV-, by definition it is not AIDS."
But they can't know whether patients are HIV- unless they do tests regularly!
So do they test or not?
Now, a doctor is not going to say "Well, these guys are dying because their immune system has shut down, but at least they don't have AIDS!".
It is precisely because it is not AIDS that doctors will ask questions. Mainly "What the heck is it?" and "Is this contagious?" and "How many people are going to die?". And of course the media love the "We're all gonna die!" angle. I mean, that's one reason they love AIDS so much. Unless it's rare. If it's rare then few people will ask questions.
I didn't know there was a question about HIV = AIDS until last week when I read stuff on your site about it, so I read almost everything you've linked to. I have one question, which may be stupid and which may have been answered in the literature, but if it was, I didn't readily see it.
Here goes: Take the case of the tennis player Arthur Ashe, who contracted HIV through a transfusion. I'm assuming, since in the interviews I saw of him he emphatically stated he did not engage in sex with men or take needle drugs, that he did not engage in the risky behaviors and is not lying about it. If the assumption is that HIV is NOT a cause of AIDS, but AIDS is instead caused by high-risk lifestyles, how did Ashe end up dying from AIDS?
As I said, I did read most of what you linked to, but I'm not seeing a clear answer. This is not to say that I disagree with you. In fact, I DO agree with you on this topic, as I have had the very question in my mind well before I came across this topic on your site. But this is one situation that I can't find an explanation for.
By the mid-1980s (1986 or so), any finding of HIV+ status got you immediately diagnosed as having AIDS. You didn't have to have any other symptoms. Before 1996 or so, you usually got immediately put on AZT.
Arthur Ashe was perfectly healthy until he got his HIV diagnosis. He was put on AZT immediately.
It remains today that if you come down HIV+ you are highly likely to be put on the cocktails even if you have no other symptoms whatsoever.
He sprinkled it onto his breakfast cereal every morning, noting only that it was the only drug for treating HIV and he seemed to tolerate it better than some people.
He was dead within three years.
He wasn't sick before he was diagnosed HIV+.
See Duesberg's latest paper (or if you're tired of Duesberg, I'll give you citations from three or four other researchers).
However, even if you take those studies seriously, note that they all have AIDS patients in the mix who are HIV-. The HIV theorists will tell you it's because those early tests were unreliable. Back then they labeled them as having ICL4 and promptly wrote them off.
Since then, if you're HIV- and you hae AIDS symptoms, you're assumed to be suffering from pneumonia, tuberculosis, leukemia, candidiasis, toxoplasmosis, whatever--just not AIDS. If you're HIV positive, you're assumed to have AIDS.
Yes, it really is that simple.
I understand that you doubt that doctors frequently do HIV tests.
I BELIEVE NO SUCH THING!
Now, a doctor is not going to say "Well, these guys are dying because their immune system has shut down, but at least they don't have AIDS!".
You need to educate yourself on this. Indeed, as soon as you said this I grunted loudly in exasperation.
There is no such diagnosis as "your immune system is shutting down." You could have t-cells over 700 but if you're HIV+ and have pneumonia they'll diagnose you with AIDS and urge you onto the cocktails.
HIV is the a priori, axiomatic assumption for AIDS. If you are HIV+ and have almost any other condition you get a diagnosis of AIDS.
The questioning you describe simply has no reason to occur to most doctors. They're not in the business of questioning these things. They're too busy trying to help their patients.
He was dead within three years. He wasn't sick before he was diagnosed HIV+."
Wrong:
More information: Arthur Ashe: Medical History:
* Quadruple bypass surgery following heart attack 1979
* Corrective double bypass surgery in 1983
-additional 2 units of blood received here sometime after surgery to speed up very slow recovery, suspected HIV contamination here although highly speculative
* Brain tissue biopsy of abscess reveals Toxoplasmositic parasite 1988
- entered hospital for tests because of loss of motor control in right hand
- possible pre-stroke condition, brain tumor or cancer originally suspected; however, battery of tests reveals HIV seropositivity
- Brain abscess discovered during exam, Brain tissue biopsy of abscess reveals Toxoplasmositic parasite. Toxoplasmosis plus HIV positive means he was diagnosed as having "full-blown" AIDS from the outset, SEPT 1988
Note: He was diagnosed as having "full-blown" AIDS from the outset, i.e. before he started AZT.
-Died FEB 1993 of AIDS-related pneumonia
* Before beginning AIDs therapy, Ashe had some serious post operative problems from the brain surgery. Being allergic to penicillin, he was treated with sulfa-based drugs. It is claimed
that these drugs produced a painful bout with kidney stones. In addition, an allergic reaction to the sulfa drugs resulted in a severe bout with Stevens-Johnson syndrome in which Ashe described
his body as "feeling like it was ready for the burn unit". The postoperative problems took about a month or so to clear up.
So, it is evident that Arthur Ashe had full blown AIDS before AZT therapy and he was most definitely sick before he was diagnosed with HIV +.
I misremembered the case of Ashe.
However, look at the poor bastard's case. He was diagnosed as having AIDS solely because he was HIV+ and toxoplasmosis? That sounds pretty typical for what was going on by 1990 or so. Then he was put on AZT, and died within short order.
Which is consistent with the claim that by the late '80s or early '90s, most so-called "AIDS" patients were really dying of AZT poisoning.
Or is there evidence that Ashe had any AIDS symptoms besides toxoplasmosis? Since you're the Ashe expert I mean?
I'm wasn't talking about HIV+ patients with normal T-cell levels. I'm talking about HIV- people with extremely low T-cell levels who are dying from an infection. The doctors will say that the infection is because his immune system isn't working (They may be wrong, but that is what they'll say.) And they'll wonder why his immune system isn't working if he's HIV-. Maybe they'll think of a reason, maybe they won't. But they will definitely wonder about it, and try to do something about it.
And if a lot of HIV- patients are like this, a big deal will be made of it, and the role of HIV will be questioned by many. It doesn't matter if nobody asks questions about HIV+ patients. If there are very few HIV- patients, then this fact suggests that HIV really IS the cause.