Pseudoscientific Rubbish from the L.A. County Coroner--and Bloggers
Dean
I recently emailed my friend Christine Maggiore, and told her that I could not begin to imagine her pain after losing her little girl. Christine responded in email as follows:
This whole thing is painful. And the pain never ends.
Today the police showed up in our neighborhood to interrogate people that live near us and went to the kid's school to question teachers and parents.
From what one neighbor told me, they asked her so many questions about HIV tests and AIDS medications she thought they mistook her for a doctor or scientist. She said it was like the officers were from HIVPD instead of LAPD.
She said they tried to get her to respond to hypothetical scenarios such as "If you were an HIV positive mother, wouldn't you test your children?" and "If you were HIV positive, wouldn't you give your kids AIDS medications?" They also asked "Is Charlie healthy?" as if living next door qualifies her to give a medical opinion on our son. Other probing questions included if she'd ever had dinner at our house.
If you would like to read the pathologist's report on poor Eliza Jane's death, you can read it here. But in short, as anybody who really looked at this story expected all along, the L.A. County coroner and the Los Angeles Times were and are guilty of a political diagnosis in order to grandstand. There was absolutely no evidence that she died of any form of pneumonia, "AIDS related" or otherwise. The closest they could (apparently) come to demonstrating that the girl was sick at all from HIV was a finding of "HIV core proteins" in her brain, and such tests have been demonstrated repeatedly to show false-positives. Based on this alone they rendered a diagnosis of "AIDS-related pneumonia" in a girl who obviously died of an allergic reaction to penicillin.
Question for Richard Bennett, the man who dances on little girls's graves: How does it feel to know that you libeled an innocent family? It's pretty much a given that you'll find some way to rationalize your despicable behavior, I just wonder how you'll do it this time. I'm guessing it will probably be something involving how "HIV core proteins" can jump from a brain, invade a girl's lungs, give her pneumonia, then erase all pneumonia symptoms after she dies. It's the virus that can do anything after all, and pseudoscientist Richard will suck down any codswollop he's fed on this subject and spew it back out on command.
I wonder if the Suicide Girls or Orac Knows will show any class, decency or honesty on the subject now that we know the truth? Or will they keep to their lynch-mob prejudices?
They told us it was an equal-opportunity infector: It wasn't, and it still isn't. They told us it was possibly growing more lethal, but maybe not. They told us that millions of Africans were dying of it, but they apparently they weren't and still aren't. But they keep diagnosing most Africans as having AIDS without even testing for HIV anyway.
Hey, if it can kill Africans with a symptom list that looks just like malaria and malnutration, even without being detected in their blood, this amazing virus must be able to kill perfectly healthy little girls by giving them an earache and throwing them into anaphylactic shock, without being detectable in her blood either. Why not?
How much pseudoscience do they have to peddle before we ask if it's all pseudoscience?
So sgt. pepper took you by
surprise
you better see right through that
mother's eyes
those freaks was right when they
said you was you was dead
the one mistake you made was
in your head
how do you sleep?
The world wants to know.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Pseudoscientific Rubbish from the L.A. County Coroner--and Bloggers
- On The Radio...
- From the Mailbag: What Really Happened to Eliza Jane?
- On Eliza Jane
- Other AIDS News
- AIDS News
Is it any wonder that his conclusions might be tailored to his prior convictions ?
Just saying.
Well, as a wife of a man deathly allergic to Pennacylin, and the mother of 1 child that has had a serious reaction to it...No. They have to 'try' the drug before they can determine reaction to it. Hubby's throat swells, he can't breath and must be rushed to a hospital (blessidly the USAF has stopped trying to make him take the crap).
The oldest child got a terrible case of hives that didn't go away for over a week after the medicine was quit (only 2 doses at that). I FORCE the USAF to assume the other two kiddos are just, if not more so, allergic to it. I am not, though.
I've never heard of a 'test' for such an allergy in my life. They apparently can only learn from 'error' and with that kind of thing, 'error' is deadly!
The post to date is at best confusing
Dr. Mohammed Al-Bayati we learn isn't a medical doctor at all but a PHD theorist
Yet, he suggests that one can die from anaphylactic shock due to allergy in a patient:
with no known penicillin allergy
no hives
no urticaria
no edema of lips or eyes
no bronchospasms
has hiv core proteins which are false positives
in a hiv negative patient, which co-incidentally doesn't exist
and, except patient does have profuse pulmonary edema but no pneumonia and apparently no
inflammatory response
in addition, four doses of amoxicillin in 24 hours produces severe anemia and atrophy of bone marrow in addition to atrophy of thymus and spleen
It really doesn’t all add up
Next we are led to believe that the LA Coroners Office and the Aids in Africa stuff are conjoined in ill-begotten twinships of negating Hiv/Aids.
My only judgement at this time is the LA Coroner was correct in the OJ case and correct in the
Robert Blake case or maybe I got that all backwards
Might it not be possible that Dr Mohammed Al-Bayati just might have it incorrect
No one is "conjoining" AIDS in Africa except to note, once again, that we have every reason to question the prevailing wisdom on this disease. The establishment regularly says people who don't even test positive for HIV have AIDS--see the vast majority of cases in Africa--and they appear to have done the same thing here again.
"No known penicillin allergy" -- cute. And how do you get a "known penicillin allergy" in a 3 year old who's never taken it before? There are no tests for that.
Anyone who looks at the exact symptoms the girl had knows she had a classic anaphylactic shock reaction: vomiting, BP drop, sudden respiratory seizure less than 24 hours after being exposed to penicillin. "Hives or urticaria" are not a required symptom. And there were no symptoms of pneumonia either in the original report (what we have of it) or in Al-Bayati's review of their report.
But now you're now suggesting that HIV causes anemia and bone marrow atrophy? Is there anything this virus can't do? Can it launch nuclear weapons? Maybe it's what hid Saddam Hussein's stockpile of WMDs? My guess would be that it's more likely the child was anemic because of her recent cold, exacerbated because she was fed a vegetarian diet, since that's common for people on such diets (which is why it's not responsible to feed kids that way--but that's a completely different subject).
Her daughter got a fever and the sniffles and was in a doctor's care for it. Two other doctors also had a look at her. She had clear lungs and symptoms of nothing but a childhood cold. She developed an earache and at that point they recommended an antibiotic--amoxicillin. The girl began vomiting, the next day was apparently lightheaded, suddenly developed breathing problems, and collapsed dead.
Those of us who knew assumed it was shock. So aparently did the LA coroner's office, until they learned of Christine's views on HIV. Then suddenly they decided "AIDS-related pneumonia," absent any diagnosis of AIDS and any symptoms consistent with pneumonia or any real evidence shown so far of HIV infection. Despite all this, pseudoscientific nitwits like Richard Bennett, "Orac Knows," and others, immediately ganged up on Christine and her friends, suggesting this was an AIDS death indirectly and sometimes even directly calling Christine a murderer and people like me accessories because we were her friends.
An independent (and fully qualified) pathologist looked at the case and reported what most of us who bothered to learn the facts expected: anaphylactic shock, a known possible reaction to amoxicillin in children. But the attacks on her, her friends, and any scientist or physician who questions the orthodox view of AIDS continue unabated. I wish I could say this is uncommon, but it's sadly typical in this subject area.
As a society, we need to start asking tough questions about the economic subculture that kills thousands per year with adverse drug reactions, medical errors, "heroic" oncology and the like. We need to realize that psychotic breaks among the practitioners are more commonplace, and more corrosive to the overall product of the system than commonly realized. The system is sick. Killing is normalized. Lying is normalized. Sloth is normalized. Falsification of records is normalized. Falsification of research is normalized. Fraud is normalized. Credentials are thoughtlessly elevated over competency. Orthodoxy is worshiped. The system is best understood when viewed for what it truly has become: a cult. We see clear evidence of such meanspirited cultish singlemindedness in the HIV-causes-AIDS crowd. Sadly, it is not the only example.
What is the value of empiricism and knowledge if not approached in good faith? The factual history of medicine is full of historical examples of abuse, violence and conspiracy against those offering findings which challenged orthodoxy; findings which later turned out to be absolutely correct and are received today as generally accepted common knowledge.
Medicine is not Science. Medicine uses Science, and it abuses Science. Medicine saves lives, and it destroys lives. That is Medicine's history; as true today as it was yesterday.
What is the difference between treating patients and using patients as a means to bill insurance companies? Therein lies the one of the great ethical issues confronting our society in the coming years.
Correction--No history of prior penicillin allergic response.
Dean, Actually, I agree with the report and I suspect the LA coroners report is faulty. The LA Times article was awful. Now if Dr. Henry Lee---says Dr. Al-Bayati is 100% correct that would settle it in my limited mind. But you are correct, Al-Bayati backs up every claim with skillful medical references.
We have seen medical expert witnesses in criminal trials on either side contradict each other with
equal and opposite expert opinion. That isn't surprising especially in LA County. So one can have doubts without carrying the burden of being an ad hominem detractor.
This indeed is a sad case.
Maybe one day we'll have a better understanding of all these issues, and it won't have to be so hostile.
So what happens now? Have Maggiore and her husband been charged with anything?
The path report by Al-Bayati indicates that Dr. Verity noted the presence of brain lesions were examined for the <i>presence of HIV core protein p24:
"Verity called the non-specific microscopic lesions (he)found in the brain HIV encephalitis. He based his assumption on finding non-specific lesions in the brain (microglial nodules and multinucleate giant cells) and the detection of HIV core protein p24 in the brain tissue using immunohistochemical reactions."
Al-Bayati calls this diagnosis by Verity a false HIV positive---then he cites examples where there were other such findings in the literature. Of course in some of the cited examples one can undoubtedly find that some of the positives were actually not false.
In my view Al-Bayati is strongest on the amoxicillin anaphylaxis findings and less so on the HIV findings. Of course I don't know much and I do not have 2 PHD's much less 1 and am not qualified to dare ask one of those fellows a question.
Seriously, one of the expert readership here might examine Dr. Al-Bayati's report solely on his assertion of falsifying Dr. Verity's claims re: HIV.
The police have been regularly sniffing around them and their neighbors and family for months now. Meanwhile, both her husband of 9 years and their 8 year old son Charlie remain HIV-, and Christine remains stressed but healthy.
You would think the witch hunt would end soon, but apparently not.
If there's more than that, I don't know about it and neither did Dr. Al-Bayati.
I thinks it's extremely unlikely that the proteins were found in the absence of HIV. More likely that stuff besides the proteins sometimes generate a positive result. False positives happen for all tests. The question is how often.
Dale
No Orac didn't cite subsequent studies. Nor did Al-Bayati. But given how so much else about hiv testing has changed in the past decade, I think it unlikely that p24 staining hasn't. I have no idea what the frequency of false positives is with p24 testing because it isn't possible to tell from the report. I just find it odd that Dean would consider the coroner's report to be automatically flawed while a dissident doctor's report must be automatically true without any independent evidence to support either position.
Dale
What were the causes of these "false positives"?
What individual diagnostic procedure does Dr. Al-Bayati use to decide that Eliza Jane's brain lesions specifically were false positives ? The answer is guess work.
All he did was read reports then find answers suitable to MS Maggiore, a decision he made in accepting Ms Maggiore's request to examine the
coroners report viz a viz suitable to findings an AIDS denialist would find advantageous. Neither one believes HIV causes AIDS.
How can one not come to that conclusion ?
Unfortunately - no one had produced either the childs medical records or test reports or the coroners report. What I find terribly difficult to wrap my admittedly ingorant brain around is that concept that either side of this debate can clain to know all the answers based on such a paucity of data. Neither Deans nor Orac's little diatribe begin to answer my questions.
Was the little girl HIV antibody positive or not? Was she truly "immunocompromised" or not? How often does "PCP pneumonia" result in sudden cardiovascular collapse with no previous symptoms of respiratory distress? If HIV infects lymphoid tissues and is said to be harbored in T cells - where in this pathology report is there studies of the child's T cells? What was her CD4 count? Isn't that the hallmark of HIV related immunosuppression? Where is her viral load results? Isn't that how we track the severity of infection? I can even buy the idea that this girl had "PCP pneumonia" what I still have a very hard time with is how it explains her sudden and total CV collapse. It doesn't. Too much is missing from this picture.
I think it was Holmes who became suspicious by the dog that didn't bark.
HIV testing requires patient or parental consent. We can assume that neither parent consented. Ms Maggiore, an activist in the anti-AIDS circles admittedly did not permit her children even common vaccinations.
Next, state laws require confidentiality both to AIDS or HIV testing and to patient records. That info isn't advailable to the public. We are not going to see EJ's records, autopsy, coroners report etc...We are not going to know CD4 count.
We can also presume, Ms Maggiore consented to have her daughters significant medical records to being examined by only by Dr. Al-Bayati. We can only assume his pathology analysis was unbiased and objective except we know Dr. Al Bayati is on record and on the internet as denying HIV causes AIDS. Any objective analysis by Dr. Al-Bayati is nullified.
With regard to EJ:
Brain tissue examination found lesions assayable for HIV core protein p24. (positive)
Staining tests indicate plenty of Pneumocystis
carinii.
Child had no edema of lips, eyes, no urticaria but does have profuse edema of lungs, pleura, and increased organ weight on autopsy 184%, 131%, 121%, and 146%. Thymus and spleen showed atrophy and abnormality in bone marrow,and liver plus anemia.
So prior healthy child goes to outpatient medical clinic on April 30 with respiratory infection and on May 18 has cardiac arrest following at home ingestion of four doses of amoxicillin over 2 days. In two days all these findings were caused by amoxicillin.
It doesn't add up, if one accepts Dr. Al-Bayati's report as conclusive. He says she died from amoxicillin anaphylaxis only. That is not consistent with the medical findings which he of necessity must discount to maintain his and MS. Maggiore's anti-AIDS positions. She makes money promoting he books agasint AIDS.
Then Al-Bayati goes a step further and attempts to
nullify the findings that Dr. Verity made regarding HIV/AIDS. In this area his objectiveness devolves to subjective insurgency argument.
Need I say more.
In my view none of this "adds up" because only selected data is being revealed on both sides. Or so it seems.
You are heading definitively in an appropriate analysis direction.
I'll stand by my words. You are not going to get the patient's records or coroners report.
And Dr. Al-Bayati is not a neutral objective observer.
Question:
If you do not believe that HIV causes AIDS, and you tested HIV positive and affirmed your conviction by not taking any AIDS prescribed medications, why would you disallow one of your children be given the HIV test even if they tested positive and you had the option to deny them any AIDS medications ?