There's Something Happening Here - Duesberg CD
Dean
So, you think the scientists who question the prevailing wisdom on HIV ignore and/or distort data, eh? Well here's an answer to that scurrilous accusation.--Dean
---
Tools for Finding the Truth about HIV and AIDS
Of all the accusations that have been leveled against my friend, Peter Duesberg, over the many years he has been challenging conventional wisdom in cancer genetics and 'deadly'- disease etiology, the one that is most frequently heard in scientific circles, and one that is impossible to counter except by extended debate, either at a scientific forum or in the journals (something that for some reason has never occurred) is that "Peter abuses the literature". Either he cites so many papers that no one can read them all, or, and much worse, he misquotes and draws inferences that are not appropriate from the data in the papers he cites. The latter, as I said, has been a damning accusation, impossible to refute — until now.
In 1992, Duesberg published an extensive and updated review in Pharmacology & Therapeutics (55: 201-277) of the state of HIV/AIDS research. The article is typical of his reasoning and contains the usual number of abundant citations.
Between 1994 and 1996, thanks to the generous financial support of Seth Ian Goldberg, MD, I was able to compile a CD that contains the complete text of this monograph, with hyperlinks to approximately 85% of the hundreds of references.
I would now like to make it widely available to all serious scientists as the ultimate tool for deciding, for themselves, the questions of what the literature actually says, and what proper inferences may be drawn from the data in the scientific papers.
Also available here is the NIH/NIAID Official website from 1995 that represents the orthodox, scientific community's position on HIV/AIDS that is contemporaneous with the Duesberg monograph on the CD.
Whether the HIV/AIDS hypothesis rests on ever-changing quicksand or solid scientific bases is another contentious issue that has been bandied back and forth but never resolved. I think that a careful comparison between this document and the one currently available is useful in the resolution of this conundrum as well.
Harvey Bialy
bialy@ibt.unam.mx
The CD is being offered under the auspices of The Virtual Library of Biotechnology for the Americas. To obtain a copy click the button below.
Note from Dean: This is an amazing CD. Students of the biological sciences will find it an incredible learning tool. In addition, they will find a copy of Duesberg, Koehnlein, and Rasnick's 2003 The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition. It is a completely up-to-date review article including all significant issues in AIDS science since the 1992 monograph. Also on the CD is a sample chapter of Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, & AIDS which addresses such questions as the PCR tests for HIV and the important historical question, "how did Duesberg's HIV heresy start?" Be sure not to miss the appendix, which includes the uncensored version of the famous Nature "debate" that John Maddox did so much to censor.
I believe that anyone reviewing this material will conclude that these issues deserve much greater public exposure. The CD, unaltered, may be redistributed free of charge, and I'll make it available freely via BitTorrent if anyone is interested.--Dean
Related Posts (on one page):
- What Is Bittorrent?
- Duesberg/Bialy Torrent
- There's Something Happening Here - Duesberg CD
As it happens, from later this morning until the afternoon hours, I will be travelling between Cuernavaca and Mexico City to finalize the documentation for the release of the Spanish language translation of Oncogenes, Aneuploidy and AIDS in time for the holidays.
I will therefore be unavailable to answer questions, or respond to comments during most of the day. I will, however, endeavor to address any such once I return.
But really, the CD is, as I am fond of saying, a res ipsa loquitur . It speaks quite sufficiently for itself.
I'm interested in checking out the CD and if you put that torrent up I'll download it and leave it seeded for anyone else that wants a copy. :)
Also, as an aside, I was in Berkeley recently on some unrelated matters, and noted that the undergrad library there, Moffitt (I think) has a "Duesberg" collection of all his papers, notebooks, journals -- to wit, an abundance of source materials from this wacky genius.
Man, I bet those are gonna be valuable some day!
Barnes
So, you think the scientists who question the prevailing wisdom on HIV ignore and/or distort data, eh? Well here's an answer to that scurrilous accusation.--Dean
It may be a scurrilous accusion but it's still true. I'd post some examples but I believe such examples were posted previously in the original thread linking to Duesberg's 2003 paper.
Dale
But we have 'em now. And it should be easy to pick off Duesberg if he's lying and his referees and peers didn't do their jobs.
I'd be genuinely interested in your take on this material, Dale. Honestly. We can knock the price down to $5 if $10 will break you, or, wait for the torrent, which should be up shortly....
If there's something on this CD other than the two Duesberg papers and the linked references to the 1992 one; some data I haven't seen that might alter my opinion of what I've already read, I'd certainly consider reading this CD. If it's all just same old same old I prefer to save my money and time for other things.
Dale
It may be a scurrilous accusion but it's still true.
Scurrilous but true, is that anything like fake but accurate? And are you related in anyway to Dan Rather?
channelingthat there is a carnie atmosphere about the approach that HIV doesn't cause AIDS as expounded by Professor Harvey Bialy and others.Duesberg's hypotheses suggest its all in the chemicals. Those are his theories.
On the other hand, a question might be asked, even if one titrates all the archival literature, has the
HIV causes AIDS been genuinely falsified.
The answer seems to be the dilemma which has yet to be overcome. So himself answers the above question in the negative.
Uh huh.
It does say quite clearly above that this is a tool by which all serious scientists can come to their own conclusions about what the data say and what inferences may be drawn from them.
But leave it to Daf (or whoever is now writing for him) to come up with argument of this sort against something that has not even been argued, and with such nonsense as data in 1991 is obsolete in principle because there are 40,000 more papers in the "scientific" literature, and with such outright lies as the full texts of these papers are available to him online. Balderdash. It would cost you a fortune, and many of these papers are not even in Pub Med as full text. I could go on, but the utter inanities of what you pretend to argue speak volumes enough.
So thanks again guys, especially Daf et al. for contributing your always enlightening inputs.
BTW Daf did you click on the sample and notice that Duesberg actually read those papers...something you cannot, and your friends in Bethesda never did.
And Catch, as per usual you have left me mystified but charmed.
Misquoting me as usual I see. I didn't say the references were all available on line; I said most of them were available; some on line and some in hard copy. You must remember those old fashioned journals we all used to run to after doing our weekly Current Contents or Index Medicus searches? Some of us still reference them.
But are you suggesting that Dr. Duesberg more accurately quotes the online articles that those aren't? Cause all I'm saying is that having checked some of his references from the 2003 paper (both online and at least one available to me anyway only in hard copy), I have found that he is very selective in his presentation of the data.
Dale
Now:
According to Duesberg in the monograph AZT is toxic to human cells at concentrations in the 1-8 micromolar range (see Sample).
Is this true according to the papers he cites?
Do they appear to be reliable papers in reputable journals?
And if it is true, how does that compare to the concentrations in the blood of patients taking 500 to 1000 mg a day of this potent 'anti-viral'?
"You" do not have to answer. I point them out only as examples of the sorts of questions that will be asked and answered by a thoughtful user of the tool for themselves.
Write a grammatically correct, critique of the sample chapter of my book that is linked above in which you demonstrate precisely how I distort and otherwise misrepresent historical and scientific events.
Please. We are all on the edge of our seats waiting to fall over laughing at what you write.
I also am 100% serious about challenging you to produce some documentation to back up the inuendos about your background and professional status and accomplishments. I am really eager to find out you are a Harvard PhD from Wally Gilbert's lab in 1973. Then I could call and ask him if he remembers you, and what happened that they let you in, let alone out?
I apologize for the use of the word "we" because you're right, I have no idea how you accessed the scientific literature before the Internet.
Dale
Dale
If you read 3 above, if you can read, you might learn something. Even poorly educated people such as yourself have managed to find a few crumbs.
You also appear not to know how the process of peer review works. If you did, you wouldn't make these casual assertions about how data is being ignored or quoted out of context, because you'd know: papers that undergo peer review rarely get away with that, because the reviewers and referees would call the scientist out on that before it was published, and even if it did slip through somehow, other scientists would have the opportunity to publish responses pointing out just exactly when and where the researcher acted in bad faith (and how the peer review team had failed to do their job).
A question: instead of making cheap, unaccountable accusations about something you haven't even read, why don't you explain why the data being discussed has been misinterpreted? Or write to the peer reviewed publications it's appeared in to say the same? Giving specific examples where you felt the literature was being quoted out of context or otherwise distorted?
My suggestion is that you don't do this because you know you can't. So you content yourself to the cowardly anonymous role, and to prejudicing others against things that neither they nor you have even examined yet.
We've produced here the proof that data is not being quoted out of context, is not being distorted, is being entirely honestly cited--and before even seeing it, you attack it.
Harvey seems to think I should throw you out as trolls and slander artists. Me? I think a far more useful exercise is to ask him to shut up, and to let you spout off instead, giving you all the rope you need to hang yourselves.
A simple question: is this the best the critics can offer? Snide ad hominem attacks and cowardly attempts to change the subject, made anonymously, and never with direct responses to what's published?
Without even looking at what's here, you've already declared it invalid. What's that say about you?
How about yours Dale? Where's yours? And for that matter, where's yours, McKiernan?
You have both declared invalid in advance any data you don't like. Data you haven't even seen. So will you publish your full names and credentials so the rest of the world can make you accountable for your assertions?
What we have here is fully peer-reviewed data, meticulously sourced, and quoted in full, with the full proof that none of it's being distorted or quoted out of context.
I invite anyone reading to pay the trivial $10 to get a copy of the CD to see it, or to download it for free via bittorrent. Look at the data and draw your own conclusions, and ask why the detractors have nothing but character assassination in response.
I have given two examples in a post above of why I think relevant data was ignored or misrepresented. Data that I've seen; namely, the 2003 paper. If I spent some more time with it, I could outline more. An argument is an argument, no matter who it comes from. If I were saying "this is crap" I could understand why you would want to see credentials but I'm telling you exactly why I think it's misleading. I have no interest in posting my CV because I remember what happened to Nick Bennett when he posted his and because it's not really relevant to any of the arguments I'm making; I'm just reading and interpreting the literature like anyone else. If someone wants to argue my interpretation is incorrect, present your argument and I'll consider it and respond. If the point is that no one with less than a Ph.D. in a relevant field of biology has any right to comment then I suspect that most everyone on this blog should withdraw from the HIV discussion.
And Harvey, I'm sorry, really, that I pissed you off. No sarcasm intended. To spend the time to go through a paper and generate pdf links to every reference is a tedious and likely expensive undertaking and it was never my intention to disparage your efforts. I'm just trying to ask if there is anything scientifically new in this CD. I understand that the links would be useful to someone who doesn't have access to the scientific journals and might even speed things up for someone who only has access to some of them in hard copy but I've already gone to some of the referenced articles and read them, so would this CD really be useful to me? That's all I'm asking.
Dale
I'm planning to look at the citations for this paper when I get a chance (BitTorrent working as I write), but after this discussion I wanted to establish some ground rules for what would be a valid criticism of a cite. According to y'all, the claim that some part of a paper is selectively quoted while other relevant sections of the paper are ignored is not a valid criticism, the claim that the paper is old/preliminary and more recent research is being ignored is not a valid criticism, and the claim that a paper produced results contrary to the rest of the research (and this has not been noted) is not a valid criticism. Those all seem like valid critical remarks to me, if true, so I'm not sure why they've been so roundly mocked.
The CV you posted is slightly dated and should include of course:
Author of the magnificently reviewed and beginning to be widely, read one-day scientific classic, Oncogenes, Aneuploidy and AIDS: A Scientific Life &Times of Peter H. Duesberg
Institgator of the most informative and outlandish internet discussions on HIV/AIDS ever (for example).
Compiler (way ahead of its time) of the 21st C. learning tool for molecular biologists intersted in scholarship of the old-fashioned type.
Custodion of the internet's most exciting interactive, multimedia cultural museum.
(& to which i now return, having contributed as much as i can to this discussion (which is basically nada, since all i did was behave badly to pobrecito daf even though he deserved it, and is of unknown ploidy.
Besides, the torrent is so way beyond anything I ever imagined possible in terms of distribution of this material back more than 10 years ago when Seth and I discussed over dinner the problem with scientists not immediately involved in a field attempting to asssess the reliability of review articles like Duesberg's, and what could be done to correct that, I am blown away.
It took several years and more than 10k dollars to organize, have scanned and hire a programmer to actually put the master cd together. It was not particularly tedious, however, since I paid Peter (with Seth's money) to hire undergrads to scan the papers from his files one by one (at app. 2 mins a page in those days as I recall), but it was time consuming and expensive. Over the years, probably two dozen scientists (on both sides of the argument) have received copies and been grateful. That of course is the normal reaction, as exemplifed by all the comments in this thread with the exception of the two clowns, who so clearly embody the old caution about pearls and swine.
Get the CD via mail or torrent. Use it, and spend your time profitably arguing with yourself instead of to no point at all with faceless intenet phantasms, even if they have impressive CV's.
BS from Clemson in Biochemistry in 2003. Research under Dr. Weiguo Cao.
Currently matriculating at MUSC in Charleston to graduate in 2007 with an MD.
Paper of note (i.e. only paper): Biochemistry. 2004 Oct 5;43(39):12648-59. Avaliable here.
Isn't this fun?
JP you are young enough to read the writing on the wall, and if you put some neuronic effort into it clearly of sufficient IQ to read my book. Aneuploidy is the coming thing son, even among the students of Bishop and Weinberg and Vogelstein...especially among Vogelstein's. Get out before you are as unfundable as a cat leukemia virus biochemist.
I don't recall anybody asking for your 'resume' - CV is too fancy a designation for what you have.
Are you assuming that people reading this thread remember you from your previous brilliant contributions to Dean's World discussions I have orchestrated?
Since the CD leaves no room at all for any argument whatsoever (EXCEPT AS I KEEP POINTING OUT WITH YOURSELF)it was pretty apparent that once the few people who wanted to say thanks said so, the automatic, robotic nay sayers would find it irresistible to begin repeating their usual nonsense, and this thread would quickly turn into a show.
But, as I wrote above, I have a much better time playing with my site (being essentially emeritus at my institute and an old fart who never heard about 'torrents' until last night).
Today, por ejemplo, is my daughter's birthday and I put some special music for her on the homepage with a birthday greeting. (Beautiful photographs of her are also in the main gallery down near the bottom of the page, along with more special music in the comments thread).
And as long as I am writng. Elizabeth: It was completely obvious that you had no advanced degree in biology when I offered to have you read a copy of my book in exchange for a DW review. That was the whole point of my offer: to have an intelligent, lay person who could write English properly give the DW readers her impression of my obra, especially since she was clearly on the fine line between nervous about the hypothesis to outright skeptical.
“…a question might be asked, even if one titrates all the archival literature, has the HIV causes AIDS been genuinely falsified. The answer seems to be the dilemma which has yet to be overcome So himself answers the above question in the negative.”
And yes, I shall read the torrent when I figure out how to download it in its entirety.
catch, i am so glad you have fessed up to your previously incarnated DW moniker, the now WORLD famous "Catch-22" of the Free HIV Book
and as usual your remarks live up to your favorite book's title, and as always, i have gained pleasure and insight from reading your remarks.
Just remember what Sir Charles Babbage commented, long ago, on scientific fraud ("Reflections on the Decline of Science in England", 1830), which can be boiled down to three major forms of lying:
Trimming, which consists in the smoothing of irregularities to make the data look extremely accurate and precise.
Cooking, which refers to the practice of retaining only those results that fit the theory and discarding others that may weaken/limit its range of application (generalizability).
Forging, which means inventing some or all of the research data what are reported, and even reporting experiments to obtain those data that were never performed.
You decide, folks,
Samba
This is probably irrelevant at this point but upon reading your response to it, I think I can see how my comment about how you accessed the literature before the Internet might have been misconstrued. I wasn't implying that there was any doubt that you READ the literature, only that I couldn't know whether you used the same sources I did i.e. CC and Index Medicus to find the articles you wanted to read. Perhaps your institution had some other index or perhaps you used undergraduates to track down relevant literature or perhaps you just browsed the major journals. That is all I meant.
Dale
Of course it was idiotic but what did you expect when you got all huffy about my use of the word "we"?
What would data about me possibly prove? I'm not claiming any special knowledge of HIV or immunology other than that available in the published medical and research literature. The points I make about why I find Dr. Duesberg's arguments misleading either stand on their own merits or they don't. You make sweeping generalizations that cast aspersions on my intelligence and my species (how I interpreted the ploidy comment), that my arguments are so laughable as to not be worth considering. If they are so easily dismissed, why won't you spell out what's wrong with them in a way that even an "idiot" like myself can understand?
Dale
1. find some proper medicinal supplements such as described by gordon wasson or claudio najano
2. visit htt:://bialystocker.net with the room darkened and in front of an excellent monitor and click on 'the alternate' theme music'
3. after returning from your 'healing journey, read ch. 3 of my book.
you might have some chance if you do all this. might.
claudio naranjo
http:// ... but that typo even you would have caught
Dr. Duesberg writes that HIV transmission frequencies from mother to child are 25-50%, citing 1984 literature. I didn't check all of his references but the ones I did check and others not cited by him suggest this is an accurate reflection of transmission frequencies in 1984 (i.e. prior to the introduction of various treatments to prevent transmission).
Dr. Duesberg also writes that in Europe and the USA, pediatric AIDS cases are <1% of total AIDS cases,citing 2001 figures from the CDC and WHO. Again, based on a quick check of the CDC figures for that year, I have no reason to doubt his figures.
Dr. Duesberg then writes "and therefore HIV must be a harmless passenger virus" This is where I have the problem. How does this conclusion follow from these numbers?
I look at it this way. The frequency of women amongst AIDS patients has been increasing with time but according to CDC figures for 2001 was still only about 20%. So that means in a population of 1000 AIDS patients only 200 of them could possibly have transmitted HIV to their children. Assuming each of those women had 2 kids who were both still alive as of 2001 that would be 400 kids. Assuming that no more than 10% of those kids would have been born hiv positive (not 25 -50% because those numbers were only good prior to the mid 90s prior to the reductions in transmission achieved by ARVs, etc.) that would leave 40 kids to contribute to the pediatric AIDS population. 40 kids in a total population of 1040 people is 4%. But only some of those HIV+ kids will have AIDS because according to the data HAART has lengthened the time between infection and progression to AIDS. And that's assuming those 200 HIV+ women had at least 400 kids since becoming HIV+. Where is 4% all that different from ~1%?
Dale
/just sayin
it is 'your' best attempt yet at cogency but it doesn't fly as a rebutal to the text in the monograph it is related to, and which you conveniently neglect to quote.
but guys this is NOT another endless and useless 'discussion' abt changing someone's mind.
all the data is there for anyone with a mind to change it or not after following samba's excellent rx.
admittedly my own was off the wall. but you are a wall and balls rebound as the first inhabitants of the terrain i now inhabit discovered when they invented basketball before gallo and fauci's ancestors could read or write or other europeans so-called brought them real deadly sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis.
and btw daf i was not 'casting aspersions' on the human species...only on your membership in it.
and you seriously expect ANYONE to think that comment and the one immediately above were written by the same person?
rx2
go listen to my daughter's birthday music from the land that samba loves so much
but clearly you did not get the point i made in my email
Aneuploidy is the coming thing son, even among the students of Bishop and Weinberg and Vogelstein...especially among Vogelstein's. Get out before you are as unfundable as a cat leukemia virus biochemist.
go check the recent literature on aneuploidy and cancer...you did see up to the 2004 cites in my book of course, and from which laboratoies they came? of course you did son of course you did
just sayin
boy am i glad there is nothing to do today except play ...
I paraphrased Dr. Duesberg because I have no way other than retyping to quote from a pdf file. So I ask:
Did I misunderstand Dr. Duesberg's point in Table 4? Did I misstate his argument for suggesting that HIV must be a harmless passenger virus? Like I said please feel free to correct me on specific points of disagreement at any time, but neither I nor anyone else learn anything from you stating something is not a valid argument without providing any reasoning to back your statement up.
Dale
how many times do i have to write i have no further interest in attempting to have a scientific discussion with you as long as you remain anon. and (b) that is NOT what this thread is about.
if you don't want to have your mind blown by wild art and out of this universe music, go fly the proverbial kite
I understand that you don't want to have a scientific discussion with me. Or with anyone else at DW. But how can you say that is not what this thread is about when Dean himself called the suggestion that scientists such as Dr. Duesberg ignore and or distort data a "scurrilous accusation"?
Also, in a later post on this thread Dean wrote:A question: instead of making cheap, unaccountable accusations about something you haven't even read, why don't you explain why the data being discussed has been misinterpreted?
Explaining why I believe the data being discussed has been misinterpreted is exactly what I have been doing.
Dale
You must be at least 9 people to be so dense.
This thread is all about a CD that contains all the data necessary to make any and all discussions of the representations of HIV/AIDS scientific issues through anybody's filters 100% unnecessary.
Do "you" get it now? / rhetorical question...i know..sigh...but today has been a pretty entertaining day and i am still in thralls over dean's torrent. NB dafs handlers at the nih...there are 2 stealth wmds that are in the pre-launch phase.
Furthermore, what marginally made sense in 1992, based on evidence gathered in the 1980's has been overtaken by the web and new discoveries many times since. Still, it has some historical interest.
Finally, and most importantly, the scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS developed in the last 15 years, has taken a likely case, known best to specialists, and made it simply overwhelming and understandable to most high school graduates.
In particular, to me, the most valuable reference turns out to be any version of
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
which is so convincing both in its details and in the numerous alternative ways the hypothesis is confirmed that the issue appears well settled.
To this evidence there is now also equally convincing evidence as to pathogenesis developed since 1990, i.e. as to how HIV infection actually causes disease. The genetic evidence alone, of e.g. resistance to clinical disease and infection in people who have cells resistant to HIV infection due to altered cell surface receptors (in at least two different ways) makes by itself an incontrovertible and convincing case. The multiple ways that the stories cross check, gives the central hypothesis a durable ring of truth.
In fact, to me, the most important positive consequence of publishing the CD was the effect it may have had in leading to the more balanced and reliable response posted at niaid, referenced above.
See also
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hivaids/all.htm
Seth Goldberg
And as I asked previously ... Is there any new data on this CD or is it , as Dean's original description suggests, the 1992 review with linked references, the J.Biosci review and chapter 3 from your book? Yes or no. If there is new data that someone like myself could critically evaluate then I will download it. If there isn't, then I won't. So is there more to it than I have extracted from Dean's description? Is there new data? Please. Yes or No.
Dale
My goodness...It has been so long since I have read anything from you. I am both pleasantly surprised and shocked.
You have become much more hardcore in your assessments of the value of the literature pertaining to HIV/AIDS then you were when we saw each other on a regular basis so many years ago. This of course is your considered, and well considered I would suppose, opinion as a physician and scientist. Fine. But it came from your own evaluation of the literature as it came along. It was not derived from somebody else's discussion third hand of the science. I know that.
And that is precisely what the CD we put together is all about empowering any scientist to do for themselves without leaving their office.
Whether there is new data that you think makes the comprehesive and rigorous analysis in the 92 monograph 'obsolete' is also your professional opinion. But, the pedagogical value of the CD in doing the only thing I ever stated it would do, namely, allow anyone to decide the question of whether they could rely on Duesberg's citations to back his reasoning, is as valid today as it was then.
Saludos,
Harvey
I take it from your previous post that your answer is no. There is nothing new but the CD makes it easier for those wishing to question Duesberg's conclusions to link directly to the original references.
Why couldn't you just say that in response to my first post asking about it?
Dale
But here it is again in quoted in bold from the piece I wrote to introduce the CD in the very first instance, and which even Seth appears to have missed.
"Peter abuses the literature". Either he cites so many papers that no one can read them all, or, and much worse, he misquotes and draws inferences that are not appropriate from the data in the papers he cites. The latter, as I said, has been a damning accusation, impossible to refute — until now.
Once a scientist has decided for herself that Peter is an honest and reasonable guy, or at least was in 1992, then they can read the most up-to-date review in J. Biosci that deals with all the newer developments that have so impressed Seth, knowing (or at least bascially trusting) that his citations in 2003 agree as impecably drawn as were his cites in 1992.
This is an empowerment.
knowing (or at least bascially trusting) that his citations in 2003 agree as impecably drawn as were his cites in 1992.knowing (or at least basically trusting) that his citations in 2003 are as impecably drawn as were his cites in 1992.
Sorry, Harvey but I can't buy that. The basic when-you get-down-to-it question is whether the available data supports a causal relationship between HIV and AIDS. I think Peter Duesberg raised a number of valid questions in some of his earlier work in the eighties. But they've been answered, at least to my satisfaction. Suggesting that the question should be reexamined from a historical and out of date perspective would be like suggesting we reexamine the question of whether the earth really moves around the sun using only the astronomical observations available to Copernicus in the early 1500's. It might be a fine academic exercise but wouldn't get at the truth.
Dale
Since you have put your foot in this. Let me take the opportunity to let you know that the analysis presented to begin the HIV/AIDS discussions here in January was vetted by Dan. Not the tiniest loophole could he find. In fact, he found it a 'slam dunk refutation´and after years and years of fence sitting, came down hard on the Duesberg side of the fence.
--------------------------------------
weblog type disclaimer: This is not an invitation to anybody reopen that discussion. It is only a point of information that I think will be appreciated by Seth, and that I am taking the opportunity to let him know because he is a very busy man, and I am never sure if he sees my infrequent emails because he never replies to them (unless they concern my health, as they did 3 years ago which was the last time we communicated as I can recall, in which case he telephones. He is a real friend, not an internet 'friend')
Gee "you" guys are persistent and impossible, but I think others are enjoying watching you squirm and try to get out of confronting the current, and completely destructive anlaysis of the hypothesis that appears in J. Biosci.
So now you are arguing that it is irrelevant to deciding whether Peter accurately cites in 2003 to know whether he did so in 1992 when he was accused of exactly that, as he is now?
You flabbergast me...more than Catch who is always amusing at least. "You" on the other hand are unfuriating. But as I said...your continued self-revelation of the orthodox positions that "you" so plainly represent is very instructive.
gee squared / sorry
So now you are arguing that it is irrelevant to deciding whether Peter accurately cites in 2003 to know whether he did so in 1992 when he was accused of exactly that, as he is now?now you got me writing like daf
So now you are arguing that it is irrelevant to deciding whether Peter accurately cites in 2003 to know whether he did so in 1992, when he was accused of 'abuse of the literature' exactly, as he is now?
back in the molecular biology and virus laboratory at berkeley in the 60s, i was often to hear it from rich calendar (my thesis advisor), or mike chamberlain or john clark (my teachers) or martin pato, and even peter sometimes (my friends)
"how come there is always time to do it over, and never enough to do it right?"
Outta curiousity, do you know the author of that NIH paper you cited? Or the journal that published it? I have noted a few mistakes. Actually, I've noted more than 35 mistakes. I'm still counting.
Frankly, it is a piece of dreck. Which is why it is anonymous. Which is why it could never be published in any scientific journal of any repute without the publisher, editor being fired for incompetence.
Go see Dr. Matt Irwin's decimation of this paper ASAP my friend.
Monsieur Hank Le Barnes
it is amazing how many times one can look at a mistyped word and not notice the mistyping
anlaysis for analysis is anexample. i suppoose that was why spell-checkers were invented.
dean..how come chris the master of powerblogging does not put a spell checker in this otherwise very spiffy comment program?
or was.
I'm not certain I follow that but what I'm saying is that based on my reading of his 1993 paper, I don't buy Duesberg's arguments because I believe that they misrepresent the data in the literature (I've posted several examples). I'm saying that having come to this conclusion based on a later paper I see no reason to read the earlier paper. Had it been the earlier paper that I disagreed with I might well have decided to read the latter paper to see if the arguments had improved.
Dale
good so now we are clear. you don't buy duesberg's arguments. fine. now shut up and let other people make up their own minds based on what is so eaasily available to them
i will, if you will. promise.
Por ejemplo:
Seth,
You write "In fact, to me, the most important positive consequence of publishing the CD was the effect it may have had in leading to the more balanced and reliable response posted at niaid, referenced above."
But my friend, I was not aware that "we" ever published it at all. I had a copy, Peter had one and you had one back in 96 or so when the job finally got completed enough to say stop...85% because the 10K ran out. I have given it to a few dozen people over the years and maybe you gave it to one or two. How it could possibly have led to the "more balanced" propaganda published by the nih.gov would involve some relativistic time warp that you might actually understand.
I also continue to be startled that Daf9, who keeps posting anonymously, refuses to either reveal his full name or credentials, or explain why if he's got proof of Duesberg misrepresenting data he has not put a criticism together for peer review and had it published in a reputable journal. "Why bother?" isn't a serious answer. It is abundantly clear from the 1992 paper that Duesberg distorts nothing. So if suddenly he's starting to do that, compelling proof would certainly be publishable in a rebuttal in J. Biosci or some other journal, to demonstrate once and for all that Duesberg cannot be trusted and is no longer a reputable scientist. Possibly writing to the National Academy of Sciences would also be in order, to see if his membership status should be challenged for gross scientific misconduct?
If we put together an identical CD on Duesberg's 2003 paper, would it change any minds?
Why bother? is not a sentiment ever expressed by me.
As I posted to you in the other thread, either everyone can read Dr. Duesberg's paper and draw the same clear conclusions about his conclusions or they can't. If I need a CV with appropriately documented scientific credentials to find flaws in the paper then presumably those at this blog who believe Dr. Duesberg's conclusions need similar credentials. Otherwise you are asking everyone to do what you accuse those who support the HIV/AIDS link of doing; believing what they're "told to". The only difference is you're saying don't believe what the majority tell you, believe what the minority are saying.
If it is so abundantly clear to you that Dr. Duesberg distorts nothing in his recent papers then please, show me the error in my thinking that leads me to believe he does. And I won't buy the argument that it can't be true because it passed peer review.
Dale
In the 2003 (not 1993) paper you find so full of faults as exemplified in your various attempts to present them here, how is it that you missed thie following?
This maniac Duesberg states the following apparent absurdity:
AZT also increased the mortality of US hemophiliacs 2.7 times and their AIDS risk 4.5 times compared to untreated controls (Goedert et al 1994; Duesberg 1995c).
The second paper is a citation to himself, so OK we don't take that one seriously. But what about the other reference? It turns out to be to:
Goedert J J, Cohen A R, Kessler C M, Eichinger S, Seremetis S V, Rabkin C S, Yellin F J, Rosenberg P S and Aledort L M 1994 Risks of immunodeficiency, AIDS, and death related to purity of factor VIII concentrate; Lancet 344 791–792.
What wool is he trying to pull now?
So here's the deal guys. You read that reference and tell me if Duesberg is guilty of misrepresenting, distorting or making up the data he says back up his outrageous sounding remarks.
Should be easy for skilled scholars of the field like yourselves.
If you cannot do this, I strongly urge you not to say another word in this seminar in how to read and evaluate the "scientific" literature on HIV/AIDS.
This time I am being as in your face as possible. It is a single sentence with a single reference. Is Duesberg correct in what I quote above or not?
A simple Yes or No will do
P.S. Is it a trap? Of course. And when you fall into it you will be shocked, and the authors and editors and reviewers will all be very, very, very red in the faces.
yesterday i was playful because it was my magnificent daughter's birthday and the torrent (of truth) wmd had been launched
today, however, i have a surgery in two hours to remove (for the second time) a nasty basal cell carcinoma that has been growing as an alien (v. alien...i guess 70+ chromosomes from the wild morphology of the biopsied cells, but no karyotype of course so who knows exactly what 'planet' it may call home. anyway,cancers
are notoriously genetically unstable so one planet never remains home for too long), end of long scientific aside --- above my left eye for some months (anyone interested in a morphic transformation of this can visit http://bialystocker.net/posts/1113434644.shtml and look at a piece i call 'the malignant eye of the equinox')
Having such a thoroughly unpleasant experience to which to forward look, I have turned a 'ting'-worth to a nastier mood, hence my really put up or shut forever up post above.
If, as expected, there is neither a hoped for "No." (bait taken) nor the even more hoped for "Yes. You know I may have been mistaken about Peter. As you say, this is very instructive and shows just how carefully one must read papers about this subject. Maybe I will read this 2003 paper again with a little less prejudice" -- then I will give away the punchline early in the afternoon when the anesthetic has worn away and I can barely see out of one eye, and am feeling miserable as hell because despite what you read in the papers (even the NY Times) getting decent narcotics in this country is next to fing impossible. Dolac, senor, na es possible codeine)
I doubt that even the shameless daf9/Dale will find much to say after that. So again guys, this exam has a time limit. Let's say 3 EST.
NB daf9/Dale, i have friends and espias everywere, even fubalo.
gracias but are you suffering from relativistic time warps too?
i have not yet been stabbed with ultra sharp needles in sensitive areas and skillfully had mms of epidermal and basal and other cells that seth knows the names of cut away. soon, tho',
saludos tambien
h.
p.s. aren't you just dying to find out the answer?
I don't have the CD info saved to this laptop (nor time to head to the med school library) and don't put a lot of importance on 'deadlines' imposed by those who aren't paying or grading me in any case, so I will still be in a state of Zen ignorance when you get back. I await breathlessly.
now i really gotta run...really but the exam is NOT for you. it is for prof. daf.
they know that.
chow
h.
Best of luck with your surgery.
As of last night you asked me to "shut up" about what I perceive as the flaws in Dr. Duesberg's 2003 paper. Am I to take your most recent post as rescinding that request?
If so then I think it only fair that you jump through my hoop before I jump through yours. After all, I proposed my hoop first.
Yesterday, I described three examples in Duesberg's 2003 paper specifically pertaining to Table 4 that I feel are either ignoring or quoting sources in a manner that deliberately leaves a mistaken impression of what the data show. My question to you was that if my reasoning in the examples I described was so flawed, please explain to me why.
While I'm waiting I will say the following. At no time did I claim that Duesberg draws unjustified conclusions from every paper he cites, just that he did from a significant proportion of the ones I checked. Nor did I say that Duesberg misquoted the literature, just that he described the research and then quoted the data in such a way as to mislead an audience as to what it really says. He says person X says A when what person X really said was A, B, C and D. It is not in stating A that he misleads but in failing to mention B, C and D.
So there is no one word answer to your question about Goedert's paper that wouldn't be equally misleading.
Dale
My surgery went splendid and i will shortly place an asiderial transform in "bialy/s" of what my forehead looks like. (yes i am a bona fide lunatic)
no way jose,
your hoop is a hoop as you say. it is a semantic boondoggle with all sorts of treacheries, AND it has been responded to ad nauseum in the Free Book,and the full discussions threads from which it was condensed.
My question on the other hand is a real one that I assured you has enormous importance in deciding the questions of THIS seminar, which is not whether Duesberg is right or wrong, but as i keep writing to no avail to you, about HOW to evaluate the scientific literature FROM which Duesberg draws his arguments!
I presented a particular strong statement and a citation that apparently does not match the claim.
WHENEVER I READ A DUESBERG PAPER, AND I SEE SUCH CLAIMS I AM ALWAYS EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL AND GO TO THE PAPER TO CHECK WHAT HE SAYS. AND I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN YOU THE CORERCT ANSWER...IT IS YES. NOW YOU NEED TO AGREE WITH ME WITH NO EXPLANATION FROM ME FORTHCOMING - TO SAVE THE AUTHORS, EDITORS AND REVIEWERS EGG ON THE FACE - OR A NO, IN WHICH EVENTUALITY YOU WILL SEE WHY THE CORRECT ANSWER IS YES.
LOOK DAF/DALE, YOU ARE PRETENDING TO BE SOME KIND OF UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC. WITH UNLIMITED ACCESS ALMOST TO THE PRIMARY LITERATURE. SO THIS SHOULD BE A SNAP.
WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?
ONCE MORE. YOU ARE BOASTING ALL OVER THE BLOGOSPHERE THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF READING DUESBERG'S MONOGRAPHS AND MAKING CONCLUSIONS FROM YOUR READING THAT ARE SO DEVASTATING THAT YOU CAN DISMISS HIS ENTIRE CRITIQUE AND WHAT IS MORE RECOMMEND THAT EVERYONE ELSE DO AS WELL.
WHAT I HAVE PROPOSED IS A VERY SIMPLE TEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO READ THE LITERATURE YOU CLAIM TO BE SO PROFICIENT AT EVALUATING.
YOUR CONTINUED ATTEMPTS AT EVASION ARE BECOMING PATHETIC. JUST LIKE NICK BENNETT.
IF YOU CANNOT ANSWER A SIMPLE YES OR NO TO WHETHER THE QUOTE ABOVE IS ACCURATE, THEN WHAT CAN YOU DO?
AND THAT, AS THEY SAY, IS A PURELY RHETORICAL QUESTION. (I AM NOT REALLY CONVERSANT WITH NETCHATTER PROTOCOLS AND THE CAPS DO NOT MEAN I AM SHOUTING AT YOU. THEY ARE PURELY FOR EMPHASIS).
NO MAS FANDAGOS DAF. NO MAS. AND YES YOU DO NEED A STINKIN BADGE.
but i warn you, think of the consequences of admitting that this illustrious group of authors (only a fraction of whom are listed in the ref since it is a multicohort, very large study) found that azt increases 4.5 fold their risk of getting aids. doesn't this sound like a score one for the duesberg drug hypothesis?
perdon..the faux gramatico
but i warn you, think of the consequences of admitting that this illustrious group of authors (only a fraction of whom are listed in the ref since it is a multicohort, very large study) found that azt increases 4.5 fold their patient's risk of getting aids. doesn't this sound like a score one for the duesberg drug hypothesis?
the other few examples of verbs not matching their subjects are trivial and do not alter meaning...this one unfortunately could, and result in a cheap shot too.
I didn't really expect you to answer my question. You say it's a semantic boondoggle with all kinds of treacheries but I didn't ask you for a yes or no answer; I asked for an explanation. You tell me time and again that my reasoning is faulty and I ask time and again for an explanation. I mention my scientific training only to simplify things for you. You needn't provide a lot of background.
I'm happy to answer your question regarding that particular reference but it won't be a yes or no answer.
It's like the old "Have you stopped beating your wife" Yes or No, Harvey?
Some questions do not have simple answers that aren't misleading.
Dale
i will not engage your questions because as i said they have been engaged many times in the various discussion threads in which we have both (i.e. "you" and I/i/eccles) particpated since january, and two because exactly as you write i would need to first dissect very carefully your reasoning in the various posts in which you have put these 'questions' and then write a semantically complicated reply...to which you would find a google at least of ways to run off on a tangent...as everybody reading these threads knows by now, that is one of your favorite tactics.
ok. no more on this point.
regarding the other, which is why i say we are making progress
I PROMISE YOU THAT THE ANSWER IS YES. AND IT IS AN EXACT ANSWER THAT MATCHES PERFECTLY WHAT WAS AN EXACT QUANTITATIVE STATEMENT OF FACT NOT A CONCLUSION DERIVED FROM A TRAIN OF ARGUMENT THAT IS FULLY DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT / THE TABLE IS BUT A BRIEFEST CONDENSATION /
HAVEN'T YOU EVER COMPOSED EXAMS LIKE THIS? GIVE THE STUDENTS A PAPER AND ASK THEM IF SOME QUANTITATIVE STATEMENT ABOUT THE DATA IN THE PAPER IS T OR F?
NO DIF PROF DAF. NO DIF.
I MIGHT SUGGEST, HOWEVER, THAT YOU READ THE PAPER BEFORE YOU DO YOUR FAVORITE THING OF DECIDING WHAT IS AND IS NOT POSSIBLE TO SAY ABOUT IT
OR MAYBE YOU CAN'T GET YOUR HANDS ON IT IN A FEW MINUTES OR EVEN MAYBE DAYS..OR MAYBE YOU HAVE TO GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET IT TO THE LIBRARY AT FUBALO AND GOD FORBID TAKE A BOUND JOURNAL AND XEROX THE PAPER, AND THEN EVEN WORSE HAVE TO READ IT CAREFULLY BECAUSE AN UNKNOWN NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARE WATCHING YOU EVEN THOUGH YOU CONTINUE TO HIDE BEHIND A MONIKER. THE PURPOSE BTW OF ELICITING YOUR NAME, ETC WAS NEVER TO JUDGE YOUR QUALIFICATIONS AS A SCIENTIST, BUT MERELY TO SEE WHETHER ANYTHING YOU WROTE ABOUT YOURSELF WAS CREDIBLE.
NOW DO YOU BEGIN TO SEE WHY TO MOST PEOPLE THE VALUE OF THE CD IS OBVIOSO? (even though it refers to a 92 paper...btw...how many of the refs are repeated in 2003 j. biosci paper?i bet you anything you never checked. there are many...and therefore having the cd is having a large portion of the serious scientific literature on hiv/aids complete in one place and even annotated for you by an expert. pretty neat i always thought, and torrented too! wow. makes me forget about the pain over my left eye. anybody got a cyberscopic way to torrent a tylenol 3?
i will put the best face on this and say that you have the paper on order from pub. med at 35 bucks or so, or you have asked the fubaloans to get you a copy...which as how i don't guess you are too high in the pecking order, they will not do for you in minutes or even hours ... and are waiting for the document to arrive. padre as we say.
of course your buddies in bethesda will be able to get their hands on it much quicker and i might surmise (although this is pure post- surgical pain induced fantasy) that they have been pouring over it trying to find you a passable answer. (btw again..neither dean nor i ever accused you of having multiple web persona (like i do) but of physically being more than one person. different things jack...very)
Three points.
1. If you can't follow my reasoning in the examples of misleading citations I posted yesterday, how can you be so certain that my reasoning is faulty or that what I consider to be the misleading aspects of Duesberg's conclusions have already been adequately addressed previously here on DW? You're the one avoiding a challenge here.
2. But avoid my challenge all you like. I'm still prepared to answer yours. Having read the Goedert paper and several others addressing the issue of AZT and AIDS I have to disagree with you that the answer is an unqualified yes but neither is the answer an unqualified no. Because although the number itself is pulled directly from Goedert's paper, the conclusion Duesberg draws from that number and that study is flawed.
3. As far as whether I have ever written an exam requiring True-false answers; no I haven't. I've certainly taken a number of them though and in my experience, the more you know about a subject the harder it is to answer true false questions because the more you know the more you realize that most questions don't have true false answers.
Do you want to read my explanation or not? Bearing in mind that the most likely conclusion that anyone will draw from a refusal on your part is that you are afraid that my explanation will make sense.
Dean
That last word should of course be Dale not Dean.
Dale
but before you send it may i ask if it addresses the following major point
now that you admit that duesberg's quoting it as saying in unequivocal terms that the risk of aids is 4.5 elevated in hiv ab+ hemophiliacs as compared to untreated controlsis 100% correct (you wrote:... the number itself is pulled directly from Goedert's paper....)
my quotation did not contain ANY conclusions peter drew might have from that fact
although the OBVIOUS CONCLUSION IS THAT WHAT THEN IS THE RATIONALE OF GIVING AZT TO AB+ HEMOPHILIACS !!! ????
this is not rhetoric or semantic. this is the REAL world of HIV/AIDS scientific medicine and the very best in which presumably the very best research is reported
THIS PAPER IS SUPPOSED TO BE AND IS ALL ABOUT THE VALUE OF GIVING PURIFIED FACTOR VIII TO AB+ HEMOPHILIACS...WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH AZT?
AND WHAT DO THE AUTHORS OF THE PAPER HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS VERY PECULIAR FINDING OF THEIR OWN? WHICH THEY APPARENTLY DO NOT THINK SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO INCLUDE IN THE ABSTRACT
And for the record I don't believe that YOU really believe I am more than one person. You would just like to give people that impression on the off chance I manage to argue rings around you, so you have an excuse.
Dale
oppps
sorry, really
now that you admit that duesberg's quoting it as saying in unequivocal terms that the risk of aids is 4.5 elevated in hiv ab+ hemophiliacs TREATED WITH AZT as compared to untreated controls is 100% correct
Now that I'm $30 poorer:
I think this is a stellar example of a misleading citation, so thanks for bringing it up as an example.
To cite this paper as a reference for "AZT also increased the mortality of US hemophiliacs 2.7 times and their AIDS risk 4.5 times compared to untreated controls" is inappropriate. It assumes a cause-effect relationship between AZT use and death, but uses data from a study which does not seek to eliminate the most obvious confound, the possibility that patients were not receiving medication at random but that clinicians were selecting those whom they felt were most likely to become sick for medication - a confound that the authors themselves mention. The "controls" are not true controls unless they were sorted into treatment/no treatment categories randomly, which they were not.
It's like using a study which shows that those who use the most asthma medication are most likely to die from asthma, and using it as a citation for a statement that asthma medication is killing people without noting the other equally, if not more highly, plausible conclusion that those with the worst asthma are likely to use the most medication and also the most likely to die.
This is your prize example of a good cite?
In fact the best face one could put on that would be to say that advanced aids patients benefit less from azt than healthier ones, and therefore as soon as person gets sick after beginning azt therapy, it should be terminated...at least for hemophiliacs.
I ask you the same thing I asked daf. What do the authors have to say about this finding?
After you answer, I will post the pdf I prepared a little while ago.
Great answer though...great. Much better than daf/Dale and you make no claim to be a professional biologist. I'm impressed to the nth.
"the risk of aids is 4.5 elevated in hiv ab+ hemophiliacs TREATED WITH AZT as compared to untreated controls"
as you said just now to Dale, or did he say:
"AZT also increased the mortality of US hemophiliacs 2.7 times and their AIDS risk 4.5 times compared to untreated controls"
as you quoted earlier?
The first statement is a better representation of what can be drawn from the Goedert paper, although I still object to the use of "controls" as it implies a randomly selected control group - matched comparison group would be more accurate. However, the first statement correctly notes that AZT is associated with increased risk; the original quote asserts that AZT causes increased risk, apparently baselessly.
Personally, I stipulate that the Goedert paper is a good cite for AZT being associated with increased risk; it is an inadequate cite for AZT causing increased risk.
Yes, Peter made the much more succint statement in HIS presentation. He did NOT conclude that this was a damning proof that AZT caused AIDS. He gave it as part of a much longer thread of argument as a pure piece of data.
I singled it out for the reasons that I wrote Daf/Dale above. Namely, it struck me as a very odd finding to be presented in a paper about hemophilia, and when I discovered that in fact AZT was the most significant variable in the model, and yet they failed to mention it at all, I was shocked.
That is the reason I posed it this morning. I have a slide of the table on the linked pdf that is here, and I photographed it to make the file. I have used it in seminars all over the world at the conclusion of talks on the scientific bases of the hiv/aids hypothesis and it ALWAYS gets a gasp.
I don't think 'confounding factors' is a handwave in the least. Note the 2002 kerfluffle over HRT. Early studies, in which the patients were self- or clinician-selected, seemed to indicate that HRT was a preventative against heart disease. When a study was finally done in which the participants were randomly assigned to the treatment/no-treatment groups, it was shown to raise the risk of heart disease, not lower it. Selection bias is a big deal.
At least in the paper itself, what the authors had to say about the finding was that the increased risk occurred "probably because zidovudine was administered first to those whom clinicians considered to be at highest risk". I don't know what they've said since 1994, though.
Thank you for the correction. My comment in the pdf above was based on the pre-AD condition of my memory. You must be correct, (I no longer have a copy of the paper and my memory was that there was no mention of AZT anywhere. Obviously there was one 'handwave' yes ('probably' is a handwave word in research papers), but this is a very minor point. clearly they did mention it using the trade name designation somewhere.
Where tell me? In the M&M in small print I wager.
The point I made in my slide is still valid, however. This is an important finding, and it is disguised.
I completely retract my exaggerated explanation of how this happened, although there are other scenarios that are close to that I could imagine.
But all these specifics are beside the point of the excercise.
I gave an example of an apparently outrageous cite for a factual claim in a review article. On careful insepction of the data in the paper I discovered that Peter was exactly correct, and quite surprisingly also discovered that the authors did not think to make much of it at all, even though the medical implications are clear.
I will now correct the pdf...so anybody looking at it post this comment will discover that the mea culpa above does not apply to the current version.
I knew this would turn out interesting when I had the flash to see if I could find the slide this morning.
Elizabeth has already noted one of the problems with that particular citation; namely that patients on AZT may have been on AZT because they were sicker.
Here's another. The untreated controls in this case were HIV+ individuals. To conclude that AZT causes AIDS, you need to know what happens with HIV- hemophiliacs. They were not included in the study you pointed out but they were mentioned in another study by Goedert that Duesberg does not cite. (Goedert 1995, Lancet). In that study (which probably includes many of the same hemophiliacs as Goedert, 1994 although I didn't check that for certain), HIV+ hemophiliacs died at something like 12 x the rate of HIV-negative hemophiliacs. If AZT monotherapy were actually making them 4-5 more likely to die (as opposed to the ones on AZT being more likely to die because they were already the sickest before taking AZT and had been on AZT the longest), then all of the excess deaths among HIV+ individuals should be accounted for by AZT. In which case HIV+ hemophiliacs should be at most 4-5 times more likely to die than HIV-. I say at most because not all of the HIV+ individuals will be taking AZT and none of the HIV- ones will. But in fact HIV+ individuals die at much more than 4-5 x the rate of HIV- individuals. This does not support Duesberg's hypothesis that AZT causes AIDS in hemophiliacs.
Now of course, you or Dr. Duesberg could argue that the HIV+ patients were more likely to be using illicit drugs. But there is no evidence for that either in Goedert 1994 or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else in the medical literature. There is a literature that says if you are HIV+ and using drugs you are likely to progress to AIDS faster and to die than if you are HIV+ and not using drugs. But if you are HIV+ and using drugs you are still many times more likely to develop an AIDS defining illness than if you are HIV- and using drugs or if you are HIV+ and not using drugs you are more likely to develop AIDS than if you are HIV- and not using drugs. The only way you make the data fit Dr. Duesberg's hypothesis is to postulate that only HIV+ individuals lie about their illegal drug use. If Dr. Duesberg has evidence that is the case he should publish it.
In any case, by 2003 when the J.Biosci. paper came out, AZT hadn't been used in those high doses for over five years. AZT monotherapy was replaced by HAART because studies showed that HAART was more effective than AZT alone. So isn't it misleading of Duesberg to mention in a 2003 paper the results of AZT monotherapy studies without mentioning more recent studies comparing illness and death in HAART treated versus non treated patients?
Just so it's clear what I'm saying here. I don't think Duesberg is a quack or a liar or an idiot. I have no doubt he's a lot smarter and certainly a lot more scientifically productive than I've been or ever will be. He has made seminal contributions to retrovirology, he asked a lot of very relevant questions about HIV and AIDS back in the 80s, he deserves to be a National Academy member and he's doing some very interesting work right now with aneuploidy and cancer. But that doesn't change the fact that I think his 2003 J. Biosci. paper includes a lot of sloppy scientific reasoning.
Dale
Dale
I do believe we have come to a proper conclusion to a very proper scientific discussion. I thank you both sincerely, as I am sure do all the people who have been reading this most interesting string. I am sorry that it became rancorous and unpleast at times, but I honestly feel that the end result was worth every moment of agony and insult.
We are all now maintaining, as far as I can determine, perfectly reasonable positions as scientists and informed lay people (actually, very informed lay persons).
At the risk of promoting more argument when I think we have come to a lovely closure, let me make an attempt at constructing a conclusion I hope we can all agree upon.
Peter Duesberg's critique of HIV/AIDS is based on his careful reading of a large portion of a vast and often contradictory and confusing literature. While his logic and reasoning may not always be obvious (or even correct), it is always thought-provoking and the citations he uses to support his texts are almost certainly from papers he has read carefully, and he is does not appear guilty of the general sins of literature abuse with which he has been pilloried in journals like Nature and Science, and in the popular media.
He is a reasonable man, who while not always right, is deserving of more serious considerration by the'scientific community' and the media than he has received.
Not to be overly argumentative here but the parts of his work that deserve more serious consideration by the scientific community (namely his non HIV retrovirology and his cancer research) are ALREADY being given serious consideration.
Dale
Elizabeth I would like to draw your attention to the post I made to Harvey. If you take another look at the paper you will see that everyone in that study was HIV positive so AZT was only associated with an increased risk of AIDS and/or death in hemophiliacs who were already HIV positive. I think you will agree it affects the interpretation of the result.
Dale
Why I ask you now to read it is that it makes pretty clear that the recognition has thus far not resulted in a single grant application on his cancer/aneuploidy work being funded by the NIH. Last I remember hearing it was 17 consecutive rejections. This is of a scientist who went for 25 years without a single rejection and even had a 7 year Outstanding Investigaor Award until the early 90s.
It takes a lot to change, even a little, the prejudice against my good and honest friend. I wrote my book for the sole reason of making sure he was not left out of the talks in Stockholm when aneuploidy-based explantions of cancer get the Prize.
I never expected this discussion to resolve any questions at all. As far as I was concerned when I initiated the launch of the CD, all I wanted to do was let people know there was a v. neat, newly available tool that could be used by people who were seriously interested in making up their own minds about just how reasonable a scientist Peter was when it came to his longstanding HIV/AIDS critique.
That has certainly been accomplished, and more, given the Torrential mode in which it is now circulating the globe.
The discussions with Elizabeth, and all things considered, with you have ben bonuses that I never counted on, and I am very glad that I have spent so many hours the past two days in front of the computer typing words instead of moving the mouse around to make images.
I do hope that I can return to the latter this evening. Por favor?
Gracias y saludos
Harvey
"We are all now maintaining, as far as I can determine, perfectly reasonable positions as scientists and informed lay people."
Bravo
I will grant you that Peter Duesberg would probably be taken more seriously by the scientific community had he not adopted the position he has vis a vie HIV/AIDS.
But that isn't too surprising to my mind because if a group of scientists find glaring scientific flaws in one theory presented by an individual and if that individual persists in sticking to that theory even in the face of a growing body of evidence against it; well the scientists are going to be more suspicious of any subsequent theories advanced by the same individual. So I would say that Peter Duesberg's cancer theories are being treated with caution.
Dale
I must decline the offer of your book only because I couldn't possibly commit to writing a review. I sucked at book reports in high school and I have no reason to believe my talents in that area have improved since then.
But I did read the chapter linked in the original post. For what it's worth, I think you have a writing style that makes your prose an enjoyable read.
Dale
I'm not completely sure I understand your point, but thanks for amplifiying the paper Harvey cited with another with more data from the same data review. I don't think being 'associated with increased risk' is necessarily sinister, because there is more than one potential explanation for that association. Sometimes it's sinister, sometimes it's not.
Thanks for the, coming from you, high praise indeed.
As they say in Yiddish. You turned into a real mensch in my book, and I thank you very much for your implicit permission to take my attentions away from AIDS blogging and return once more to my (ahem) artistic pursuits.
If you are ever in the vicinity of Cuernavaca, I invite you to our casa for as many hours of conversation as you can stand, over Cuban rum, and or coffee, and the finest cigars in the world.
I hope you take me up on the invitation.
Saludos,
Harvey
I'm glad you found the conversation worthwhile. I was hoping that you could find the time to explain what's wrong with Dale's reasoning, because it looks very much as though this discussion of one concrete example has ended up supporting rather than refuting the assertion that Duesberg's use of the literature is misleading. I mean no character slur by that, and I second Dale in saying that Duesberg's much smarter than I am, but if there's another way of interpreting his use of the 1994 paper which supports his case while ignoring the related 1995 paper which undermines it, I'd love to hear it.
As I think I've said before, I'm personally quite agnostic on the worth of AZT, and it wouldn't come as an earth-shaking suprise to find that it does more harm than good, at least at some dosages. It's hardly the first time that medical treatment for a condition is more harmful than helpful.
Por favor...these discussions go on and on, and since nobody is being insistent on saying that any of the inferences being drawn from the Goedert et al. study are off the wall or completely wrong, or that there is one and only one clear and acceptable interpretation of the one line of data and one line of discussion in the original paper, and I have pointed out, Peter does not use it as a lynchpin piece of data in the conclusion being reached in that section of the monograph, but only as one of many pieces of data, there is very little to be gained by hashing it out any further here.
You are certainly free to conclude that the answer to the question I posed early this morning is 'well, not exactly', and if you have the stamina to do this exercise for each point in the 1992 monograph CD that you feel is questionable on its face, you will be richly rewarded, and will be in a position to discuss HIV/AIDS science with anybody and offer informed and intelligent comments.
I hope you do not feel slighted, or think I am being deliberately evasive. I have attempted today to be as straightforward as possible. I would really like to return to my other life without the concern that either you or Dale, to whom I am now mas o menos obligated to reply, have written me something that will consume 30 or 40 or more minutes and possibly invite someone else to join...etc.
Everybody, especially Dale, who has been with me through the entire HIV/AIDS discussions knows that when I am involved in one of these online seminars, I take everyone's participation very seriously, and always regret the point where I am compelled to say ...basta.
Basta, por favor?
P.S. When you post your mini-review of Ch.3, I will be delighted to return to DW and write you my appreciation as a public comment. It will actually be another web first. An online, realtime conversation between a critic and the author. Could be mucho fun.
Saludos tambi