Science Guardian/New Science Review/New Technology Review/HIV Truth/Damned Heretics » 2005

Duesberg invited to the NIHâ€”high alert for the AIDS gang

July 8th, 2005

A couple of weeks ago a remarkable event in science took place, which may well bode the beginning of the end for those who maintain AIDS science in a state of exemption from any reexamination from within science or without.

Peter Duesberg was invited to speak at the NIH on his new work on cancer, which promises to replace what many scientists view as an entirely sterile dead end after twenty five years of lavish spending on the theory of oncogenes.

Political manoevring to head off the threat that Duesberg’s star may be rising into the heavens again can be expected by those with a stake in both current cancer theory and in current AIDS theory.

For the speaking invitation marks a breakthrough in re-acceptance for Duesberg, a scientist who not only trashed the whole reasoning and evidence behind the HIV-AIDS theory as early as 1987, but who had earlier renounced the theory of oncogenes, ie individual genes for individual cancers, a field of study he had himself inadvertently turned into a fasionable pork barrel for scientists by making the first discovery of an actual oncogene himself.

On his way to a Nobel for that discovery as the field burgeoned into one of the best funded fields of research in the eighties and nineties, Duesberg showed his mettle, his public spirit and his integrity by deciding that his discovery was to some extent a lab artefact and the theory that the individual mutation of particular genes found in every cell in the body was responsible for particular cancers â€”breast, prostate etc â€”in particular parts of the body didn’t make any sense, and saying so publicly, to the dismay, chagrin, alarm and enmity of the passengers in the bandwagon already rolling past any possibility of recall, just like HIV and AIDS.

Result: No oncogene Nobel, which went to others with feebler brains, spirits and achievements. Now, having identified and demonstrated a far more promising route to explaining and curing cancer in aneuploidy (the huge multiplication of chromosomesâ€”up to double the normal numberâ€”in all precancerous cells) , Duesberg is suddenly in his sixties the golden boy all over again, finally being invited inside the thick walls of the scientific research castle of the NIH from whose creaking doors he was expelled many years ago and from whose parapets he has had manure catapulted at him ever since, though mostly from the tower labeled AIDS.

This sudden restoration to a high place in science with a theory widely admired by the heavies in all major institutions from the Karolinska to the NIH, some of whom are already trying to steal the credit and erase Duesberg’s watershed contribution in leading down this avenue of research, opens up a possibility that has the AIDS -HIV gang (if such a deprecating word can be fairly used about scientists occupying leading roles in the field equivalent to beribboned generals of the war against HIV) quaking in its military boots.

For a scientist of Duesberg’s calibre restored to his deserved stature as a pioneer whose own science has never been questioned, and who may now have started a whole field for the third time in his rollercoaster career, is likely to be a man not so easily dismissed as before as a “maverick”. Like a Nobel prize winnerâ€”which it is not impossible that Duesberg may yet be if his research provides the kind of breakthrough against cancer it promisesâ€”his view will be taken very seriously again, and that may mean that HIV=AIDS leaders may not be able to evade as easily as before a serious attempt by outsiders to resolve the twenty year failure of their science to provide a meaningful preventive or cure or even convincing scientific explanation let alone proof of their claim that HIV is causing any problem of any kind at all to human beings anywhere, except as a result of their ill concieved notions.

Posted by newaidsreview | Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Duesberg invited to the NIHÃ¢Â€Â”high alert for the AIDS gang

July 8th, 2005

Political manoevring to head off the threat that Duesberg’s star may be rising into the heavens again can be expected by those with a stake in both current cancer theory and in current AIDS theory.

On his way to a Nobel for that discovery as the field burgeoned into one of the best funded fields of research in the eighties and nineties, Duesberg showed his mettle, his public spirit and his integrity by deciding that his discovery was to some extent a lab artefact and the theory that the individual mutation of particular genes found in every cell in the body was responsible for particular cancers Ã¢Â€Â”breast, prostate etc Ã¢Â€Â”in particular parts of the body didn’t make any sense, and saying so publicly, to the dismay, chagrin, alarm and enmity of the passengers in the bandwagon already rolling past any possibility of recall, just like HIV and AIDS.

Result: No oncogene Nobel, which went to others with feebler brains, spirits and achievements. Now, having identified and demonstrated a far more promising route to explaining and curing cancer in aneuploidy (the huge multiplication of chromosomesÃ¢Â€Â”up to double the normal numberÃ¢Â€Â”in all precancerous cells) , Duesberg is suddenly in his sixties the golden boy all over again, finally being invited inside the thick walls of the scientific research castle of the NIH from whose creaking doors he was expelled many years ago and from whose parapets he has had manure catapulted at him ever since, though mostly from the tower labeled AIDS.

For a scientist of Duesberg’s calibre restored to his deserved stature as a pioneer whose own science has never been questioned, and who may now have started a whole field for the third time in his rollercoaster career, is likely to be a man not so easily dismissed as before as a “maverick”. Like a Nobel prize winnerÃ¢Â€Â”which it is not impossible that Duesberg may yet be if his research provides the kind of breakthrough against cancer it promisesÃ¢Â€Â”his view will be taken very seriously again, and that may mean that HIV=AIDS leaders may not be able to evade as easily as before a serious attempt by outsiders to resolve the twenty year failure of their science to provide a meaningful preventive or cure or even convincing scientific explanation let alone proof of their claim that HIV is causing any problem of any kind at all to human beings anywhere, except as a result of their ill concieved notions.

Posted by scienceguardian | Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The pressing need to spend $22 billion on global AIDS

July 7th, 2005

For twenty one years, there has been one consistent theme sung and trumpeted by all involved in the burgeoning and now global AIDS ideology, and that is the extreme importance of spending as large amounts of money as possible in combating the dread threat of a virus scientifically established as extremely un- or not at all infectious which lacks any peer-reviewed scientific explanation or proof of its supposed depredations, or indeed any proven significant presence in patients who are supposed to be deteriorating unto certain eventual death under its influence.

Yes, sir, the importance of spending ever larger sums of money defending against this terrifying threat in which a 9 kilobase wisp of RNA that hadn’t been observed by the health system directly or indirectly throughout human history until it popped up seemingly out of nowhere or perhaps from the moon or Mars or some distant star three decades ago is one of the few certainties of HIV AIDS.

Never mind that cancer, stroke, heart attack, TB, malaria and other well understood health threats decimate the populations of nations world wide with far greater totals of annual victims, the vital necessity of raising as much as possible to combat AIDS worldwide is the one sure thing of the field.

Anyone with political ambitions feeding off an image as a human rights advocate can say nothing guaranteed to win more instant approval from all quarters than to suggest that the disproportionate sum already applied to AIDS is still inadequate and must be immediately expanded by yet more billions if the global pandemic is to be prevented from swallowing what might be ultimately the entire population of the planet, given that unlike any other disease agent, there is nobody whose immune defenses can overcome this “insidious” and “cunning” virus.

So today we are not surprised to learn that the UNAIDS agency has upped the ante to $22 billion:

$22 Billion needed in 2008 to Reverse Spread of AIDS, UNAIDS reads a press release forwarded by a pr agency.

Almost US$22 billion will be needed in 2008 to reverse spread of AIDS in the developing world, according to latest estimates. These figures feature in a new report on estimated funding needs produced by the UNAIDS Secretariat, to be released to the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board at the end of June.

(show)

$22 Billion needed in 2008 to Reverse Spread of AIDS, UNAIDS

(I-Newswire) – Building on previous estimates, these figures have been developed using the latest available information and with the invaluable input from a newly established Resource Needs Steering Committee and Technical Working Group which are made up of international economists and AIDS experts from donor and developing countries, civil society, United Nations agencies and other international organizations.

“We have come a long way in mobilizing extra funds for AIDS, moving from millions to billions, but we still fall short of the US$22 billion needed in 2008,” said Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director. “AIDS poses an exceptional threat to humanity and the response needs to be equally exceptional, recognizing the urgency as well as the need for long term planning and financing.”

The revised estimates indicate funding needs of approximately US$15 billion in 2006, US$ 18 billion in 2007 and US$ 22 billion in 2008 for prevention, treatment and care, support for orphans and vulnerable children, as well as programme costs ( such as management of AIDS programmes and building of new hospitals and clinics ) and human resource costs ( includes training and recruitment of new doctors and nurses ).

This is the first time that specific attention is given to resource needs for longer term investments to improve country capacity in the health and social sectors through training of existing staff, recruiting and paying new staff and significant investments for building the necessary infrastructure. These financial requirements for the human resources and programme costs are preliminary, and will be further refined and improved.

Meeting the 2006-2008 resource needs would result in the following achievements:

– Prevention – A comprehensive prevention response by 2010, as is required to turn around the AIDS epidemic, based on the current coverage of services and the most recent evidence on actual rates of scaling up interventions.

– Treatment and care – 75% of people in need globally ( approximately 6.6 million people ) will have access to antiretroviral treatment by 2008, based on current coverage rates and rates of growth as seen in 2004.

– Orphans and vulnerable children – Increase of support from low levels of coverage to full coverage of all orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa, given that AIDS is responsible for more than 2/3 of children who have lost both parents, as well as AIDS orphans in other low and middle-income countries.

– Human resources – Covering the costs of recruiting and training additional doctors, nurses and community health workers in low-income countries, and two middle-income countries ( South Africa and Botswana ) and incentives to retain and attract people to the health sector. Future analyses will calculate costs for other health workers, including nurse practitioners, clinical officers and laboratory technicians.

– Programme costs – The construction of over 1000 new health centres ( to be available by 2010 ), based on the investments made during 2006-2008. An additional 19, 000 health centres and 800 hospitals would be renovated over the next three years to handle the scaling-up of HIV treatment and care.

According to the latest UNAIDS projections, a total of US$8.3 billion is estimated to be available from all sources in 2005, rising to US$ 8.9 billion and US$10 billion in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

As the response to AIDS is scaled up, funding estimates must be constantly revised and updated. UNAIDS will work with international donors and affected countries to refine the costing estimates, focusing particularly on strengthening health infrastructures.

UNAIDS has been producing resource needs estimates since 2001. Since that time there has been increased access to relevant data, a continuous improvement in the methodologies and new thinking about what comprises a comprehensive package of interventions to turn back the epidemic. The latest estimates constitute the best available assessment of global needs for AIDS and a rational basis for further discussion about AIDS funding in the international arena. The coverage levels presented in the analysis should not be considered as agreed targets, but the outcomes that could be expected if these resources were spent.

It appears that there is a funding gap between resources available and those needed of at least US $18 billion from 2005 to 2007. However, this is likely to be a significant underestimate. Determining the gap between resources available and resource needs is not a matter of simple subtraction. The resources available are based on pledges rather than budgets that have been finalized by governments; actual disbursements to countries are generally less than the total commitments; and the resources available are not necessarily being spent on the same sets of interventions that have been included in the resource needs estimations.

For more information, please contact Dominique De Santis, UNAIDS, tel. +41 22 791 4509, email. desantisd@unaids.org or Beth Magne-Watts, UNAIDS, tel. +41 22 791 5074, email. wattsb@unaids.org. For more information on UNAIDS, please visit http://www.unaids.org.

Distributed for UNAIDS by

Peter Robbs Consultants Ltd

News Media and Editorial

Main contacts:

Cathy Bartley

T: +44 20 7635 1593

Peter Robbs

T: +44 1480 465328

F: +44 1480 492724

E: cathy.bartley@ukonline.co.uk

E: peter.robbs@ukonline.co.uk

(hide)

If this expanded activity is based on an entirely spurious medical fantasy, as the most intensely peer reviewed and peer cleared-for-publication-as-without identifiable-fault scientific literature finds it is, and a pack of some 2000 excruciatingly attentive scientists, doctors, journalists and other researchers also maintain in the face of exceptional social disapproval from a vast crowd of supporters none of whom have the same incentive to be sure of what they are talking about before taking a public position, then this is a seriously distorted allocation of aid money.

In fact, it is then a river of spending devoted to killing off the very people that the fundraisers and the people who support them in the assumption they know what they are doing believe they are rescuing.

Given the stink arising from what has been uncovered at the NIH now that the lid has been taken off the AIDS research arm of that gigantic institution (see preceding post ) , it may be time for all those leading and cheerleading the world in greasing the axles of this particular bandwagon to pause for review. Perhaps the staff employed by the President, Bill Clinton, Richard Holbrooke, and Jeffrey Sachs might be assigned to look into this festering issue instead of blithely ignoring it as politically untouchable. Perhaps there might be a sign of life from the appropriate Congressional investigating committee.

Will this happen, though? Cynics, step aside, we think it is just faintly possible. So we are going to call a few people to see what they think, Washington hands who have been around and know the inside of the Beltway like the back of their hands.

Who better to start with than Jonathan Fishbein, who has just been at least somewhat vindicated in his steel-spined whistleblowing as described in the previous post referred to, which exposed the sexually colored shenanigans of the disreputable bureaucrat running AIDS research at the NIH, and called into question the treatment of research studies on drugs there, in which according to Fishbein results were actually reversed, and reports were written up to say that atrociously run studies which were scientifically invalid nonetheless served to vindicate drugs which were widely suspected as being so damaging as to be useless.

We called Jonathan yesterday for a chat. We found him ebullient after the NIH report backing his criticisms, even though it was not yet revealed to have done so on the most important area of his criticism, the studies. The AP piece was based on a report by the NIH to the Senate Finance Committee which has not yet been made public, except by whatever public spirited bureaucrat got a copy to the AP reporter. Fishbein, who apparently has a lot of quiet support inside the agency he has been kicked out of, says he does not know the full contents yet.

The NIH report did at least make it quite clear that his allegations of gross misbehavior were valid. This is important since the misbehavior – sexually colored comments and the like – was aimed at members of his staff apparently in an attempt to scare them off in their investigations of procedural corruption.

So, given that a serious lack of integrity is what he found at DAIDS, the first thing we asked Fishbein was, had it made him doubt the whole story of AIDS, or at least give the naysayers a little more credit than he had before?

The answer to this was yes, it had somewhat, helped by an introduction he had received to Peter Duesberg, with whom he had had dinner in Washington two weeks ago when Duesberg was invited to the NIH to give an account of his new route to the cure for cancer, aneuploidy.

(If you don’t realize what that invitation means in regard to Duesberg, read the next post.)

On the other hand, he was hardly going to take any public position on it, given that his chief purpose now is to make sure that hearings on the NIH and his allegations is mounted on Capitol Hill, which is the only way he will achieve professional vindication and avoid the scarlet letter W for whistleblower emblazoned on his forehead forever.

What Fishbein told us we will post tomorrow.

Posted by scienceguardian | Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Is aid killing Africa? James Shikwati, African economist, objects.

July 7th, 2005

A Kenya economist, James Shikwati, 35, tells Der Spiegel in an interview published July 4th that in many ways aid has ruined Africa (by for example burying local tailors in donated clothes with which they cannot compete) and that it most just inflates huge bureaucracies, feeds corruption and weakens African countries’ ability to fend for themselves.

AIDS he sees as an exaggerated threat which has turned into the biggest Aid spigot.

“Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It’s not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it’s only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.
SPIEGEL: And why’s that?
Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa’s biggest business. There’s nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.
”

Thanks to Dean Esmay (http:www.deanesmay.com/) for pointing this out on his blog today, July 7.

PS Thu Dec 15 Later note:

Today (Dec 15 Thu) Paul Therous says the same thing in a Times Op Ed, so we attach it to this post for the record.

(At bottom, click the final “Show”)

It does not occur to anyone to encourage Africans themselves to volunteer in the same way that foreigners have done for decades. There are plenty of educated and capable young adults in Africa who would make a much greater difference than Peace Corps workers.
Africa is a lovely place – much lovelier, more peaceful and more resilient and, if not prosperous, innately more self-sufficient than it is usually portrayed. But because Africa seems unfinished and so different from the rest of the world, a landscape on which a person can sketch a new personality, it attracts mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth. Such people come in all forms and they loom large. White celebrities busy-bodying in Africa loom especially large. Watching Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie recently in Ethiopia, cuddling African children and lecturing the world on charity, the image that immediately sprang to my mind was Tarzan and Jane.

Here is the Der Spiegel piece:

See

DER SPIEGEL 27/2005 – July 4, 2005 – “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!” – Interview with African Economics Expert James Shikwati, 35

(show)

“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Economist James Shikwati: “Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.”

Horst Friedrichs

Economist James Shikwati: “Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.”

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…

Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …

SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …

Ruandan President Kagame has over a million deaths on his conscience, says Shikwati.

AFP

Ruandan President Kagame has over a million deaths on his conscience, says Shikwati.

Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.

SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn’t do anything, the people would starve.

Shikwati: I don’t think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders — drawn by the Europeans by the way — more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.

SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?

Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there’s a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn’t do all that poorly either.

SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn’t exist at that time.

NEWSLETTER>

Sign up for Spiegel Online’s daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel’s and Spiegel Online’s international coverage in your In-Box everyday.

Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It’s not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it’s only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why’s that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa’s biggest business. There’s nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.

Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans’ devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected — a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois — the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.

SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.

Shikwati: That doesn’t change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: “The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it.”

Former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bedel Bokassa: “We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it.”

DPA

Former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bedel Bokassa: “We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it.”

SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags …

Shikwati: … and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany — for three times the price. That’s insanity …

SPIEGEL: … and hopefully an exception.

Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They’re in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria’s textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

INTERACTIVE MAP

SPIEGEL ONLINE

* Click here to load our interactive African development aid map.

SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn’t that qualify as successful development aid?

Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost …

Congolese line up for a United Nations food delivery in 2002.

AFP

Congolese line up for a United Nations food delivery in 2002.

Shikwati: … jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it’s unacceptable that the aid worker’s chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently — and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That’s just crazy!

SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.

Shikwati: And what’s the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience — people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Interview conducted by Thilo Thielke

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

Ã‚Â© DER SPIEGEL 27/2005

Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH

More about this issue:

An AIDS patient builds a cathedral, but to what?

July 5th, 2005

Interesting email from David Crowe, President of the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society.

“Aloysius Vollart of the Netherlands has built a cathedral out of his empty AIDS drug packages since he began on AIDS drugs in 1997.”

An impressive and resonant work. Whatever the patient/artist thinks he is up to, we hope we are permitted to view this rather beautiful construction as a revealing incarnation (go to AIDS cathedral to see it) of one AIDS patient’s attitude towards the authority which has him under its sway.

Having finished it, we hope that he will now apply a little of the time and effort spent on this artwork to research on the background to what he apparently views as a biblical text.

Meanwhile, the monument reminds us that the intake of AIDS drugs permitted by patients is very large, and we would like to know the condition of this patient. AIDS dissidents would presumably expect him to be on his last legs.

If not, why not?

Perhaps someone who speaks German can throw further light on this point, and also on the intention of the artist. For all we know it may be a critique and not a celebration of authority in AIDS.

Posted by scienceguardian | Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Jonathan Fishbein vindicated by NIH report

July 4th, 2005

An AP story this morning (Mon Jul 4) gives those who believe that the behavior of officials and scientists in AIDS and AIDS drugs has been deplorable reason for confidence. An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) review confirms some of these suspicions, though not the most serious ones.

According to AP reporter John Solomon, the report judges the AIDS research agency DAIDS (the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID)’s Division of AIDS) as rife with intramural feuding and turf wars, not to mention sexually explicit pranks and expletive-laced emails sent to subordinates.

On the other hand, the AP story makes no mention of the most important allegation of Jonathan Fishbein, the whistleblower who first brought scrutiny to what the NIH now admits is a “troubled” agency. This is the claim that NIH officials actually rewrote a Ugandan study on the effects of nevirapine, a drug aimed at preventing mothers-to-be from infecting their embryos with HIV.

According to this story, the drug was condemned by the study as too dangerous to use, but by the time the report emerged from the office of a certain NIAIDS official, the conclusion was reversed and nevirapine was cleared for administering to whatever unfortunate pregnant Africans are discovered to be “HIV positive”.

The positive spin was forwarded just in time for President Bush’s appearance in Uganda to proclaim that nevirapine would be funded with some of the promised $15 billion in African AIDS aid.

Meanwhile, the way in which the African study was carried out was not, it seems, good enough for the US. So in effect, the drug was forcibly OK’d for Africa but not for the US. To put this plainly, we have a risky drug which is fine to give to pregnant Africans, but not good enough for American mothers, thank you.

This is the story reflected by the full list of allegations at the website that Fishbein and his brother have set up, The Fishbein Brothers’ Honest Doctor site. The list of allegations on that Web site are enough to give any observer pause before accepting the statements of any official of the agency. Apparently, they are not all dealt with in the NIH report, which may well be an attempt at a whitewash, a bluff carried out by admitting and condemning milder pranks.

Meanwhile, the NIH report takes a laughably backhanded crack at Fishbein as well, saying that he should have proceeded with more caution before rushing to find fault with an organization he had barely joined. He should have taken more “time to adapt to the “culture” of the AIDS division before making sweeping changes to improve the agency’s reseearch safety”, according to supervisors.

The NIH report is very specific about the nub of the problem. Fishbein, an “acomplished privaate sector safety expert”, was hired by the NIH in 2003 to improve the safety of its AIDS research.

He soon ran afoul of the deputy director, Dr. Jonathan Kagan, by making a formal complaint about his sexually explicit language and pranks perpetrated on subordinates. He also raised concerns about several studies, including the African one.

The response of the homeboys indicates that sheer stupidity may be the root cause of the troubles at the “troubled” agency. Fishbein was then forced to report to Kagan!

Kagan, who like the division’s director Dr. Edmund Tramont later had to acknowledge that he (Kagan) is given to using “sexually explicit aand colorful language” but (bhoth) protested that no one till Fishbein had ever complained, immediately began efforts to fire the annoying non-teamplayer.

That these efforts were obviously in reprisal was privately noted in a memo from a special adviser to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni last August, according to AP’s Solomon, who seems to be rather good at obtaining inside material on the hapless Kagan, who certainly sounds like a real bully.

As if to advertise just how out-of-hand their behavior has become, the agency officials continued with Fishbein’s firing even after two senators wrote to them last week warning them that firing whistleblowers was illegal.

Friday was Fishbein’ last day at the NIH.

Once again, one has to conclude that the NIH officials concerned must have a very strong motive to risk the public attention and embarrassment and escalation of charges this move seems likely to excite.

It reminds us of the Institute of Medicine report recently vindicating the said African report on nevirapine. The accumulation of charges on that issue over more than a year surely indicates something is seriously wrong.

So why risk an attempt at a complete whitewash? Surely because there is an even greater sin to hide.

AIDS science has managed to sweep a mountain of charges on the falsity of its paradigm under the rug for twenty years. Could it be that the NIH officials who have been the ones most responsible for the success of this strategy of evading full inspection are now the ones who will trigger a widening enquiry?

If so, it will demonstrate the truth that it is always the character of wrongdoers which finally emerges to defeat them, and not the efforts of their opponents.

Here is the full AP story, “NIH Review Substantiaates Fired Expert’s Concenrs”:

(hide)

NIH Review Substantiates Fired Expert’s Concerns

- By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

Monday, July 4, 2005; Page A02

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government’s AIDS research agency “is a troubled organization” and its managers have engaged in unnecessary feuding, sexually explicit language and other inappropriate conduct that hampers its global fight against the disease, an internal review found.

The review for the National Institutes of Health director’s office, obtained by The Associated Press, substantiates many of the concerns that whistle-blower Dr. Jonathan Fishbein raised about the agency’s AIDS research division and its senior managers.

The division suffers from “turf battles and rivalries between physicians and Ph.D scientists” and the situation has been “rife for too long,” the report concluded.

Nonetheless, the NIH formally fired Fishbein on Friday, over the objections of several members of Congress. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee are protesting, saying the firing was an example of whistle-blower punishment.

“Retaliation against an employee for reporting misconduct or voicing concerns is unacceptable, illegal and violates the Whistleblower Protection Act,” Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., wrote the NIH late last week.

“Moreover, it would have a chilling effect on other NIH employees who might makes truthful but critical comments about the NIH,” the senators said.

Citing personnel privacy, NIH officials declined to address the senators’ letter or Fishbein’s termination, except to say that his last day was Friday. In the past, NIH officials have said they were terminating Fishbein for poor performance.

Fishbein, an accomplished private sector safety expert, was hired by the NIH in 2003 to improve the safety of its AIDS research.

He alleges that he was let go because he raised concerns about several studies and filed a formal complaint against one of the division’s managers alleging sexual harassment and hostile workplace.

In a series of recent stories, the AP has reported:

–One of NIH’s AIDS study in Africa violated federal safety regulations.

–Senior NIH managers engaged in sexually explicit pranks and sent expletive-laced e-mails to subordinates.

–NIH-funded researchers used foster children to test AIDS drugs since the late 1980s.

An internal report, written on Aug. 9, 2004, by a special adviser to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni but never made public, raised concerns that the NIH’s efforts to fire Fishbein at the very least gave the “appearance of reprisal.”

The report says no documentation was ever provided to Fishbein suggesting poor performance until after he complained about the safety in one sensitive AIDS study and filed a formal complaint alleging that the division’s deputy director was acting unprofessionally with subordinates.

The report said after formally complaining about conduct of the deputy director, Dr. Jonathan Kagan, Fishbein was inexplicably forced to begin reporting to Kagan, who then went ahead with efforts to fire Fishbein.

The report said Kagan and the division’s director, Dr. Edmund Tramont, acknowledged that Kagan “uses sexually explicit and colorful language, saying that no one ever complained until” Fishbein did.

The report broadly condemns the NIH’s Division of AIDS.

“It is clear that DAIDS is a troubled organization,” the report concluded, saying the Fishbein case “is clearly a sketch of a deeper issue.”

“To have the senior management … behave in this manner, spend incredible amounts of time feuding, and writing numerous long e-mails while seemingly unaware of the need for appropriate behavior decorum and enforcement of good management practices and the rules of supervision and concerns about appearance of reprisal clearly indicate a serious problem,” the report said.

Fishbein’s lawyer, Stephen M. Kohn, said Friday he had not seen the report obtained by the AP, but he hailed its conclusions.

“NIH’s internal admissions are unprecedented and damning. Dr. Fishbein was right. NIH must fix its troubled management and stop harassing the whistle-blowers,” Kohn said.

The report, however, also criticized Fishbein, citing some of his supervisors’ statements that he did not take enough time to adapt to the “culture” of the AIDS division before making sweeping changes to improve the agency’s research safety.

“It seems apparent that both sides behaved badly, that a new senior employee did not orient himself about the division and that the most senior people engaged in inappropriate behavior,” the report said.

The report urged the NIH to require sensitivity training for its senior managers and provide instruction about “inappropriate personnel procedures.”

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/03/AR2005070300914.html

– 30 –

(show)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Rand H. Fishbein, Ph.D., Executive Director; P.O. Box 59701, Potomac, Maryland 20859, USA

Tel: (301) 767-1691; Internet: www.HonestDoctor.org; E-Mail: HonestDoctor@comcast.net

______________________________________________________________________________________

HonestDoctor.org is a confidential network of concerned medical and scientific professionals dedicated to assuring that clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are conducted in full compliance with all applicable statutes and regulations. Government sponsored clinical research must preserve the rights, safety, and well-being of human test subjects consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and with the aim of producing clinical data with the highest degree of scientific integrity. HonestDoctor.org is working in full cooperation with the National Whistleblower Center.

Posted by scienceguardian | Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Letters on Autism defend parents’ intuition

July 2nd, 2005

Despite the front page meta-story in the Times last Saturday the jury remains out on vaccines and autism, it seems clear. Some letters in the Times yesterday and today include one from Robert Kennedy who suggests that scientific studies which exonerate thimerosal may not have been done well.

Another letter proposes that parental intuition may be a factor strong enough for scientists to take into account.

(show)

The New York Times

July 2, 2005

Studies on Autism

To the Editor:

Re “On Autism’s Cause, It’s Parents vs. Research” (front page, June 25):

The thimerosal debate does not pit parents against science but against public health authorities who rely not on science but on the reputations of their agencies to exonerate thimerosal – a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines – despite scientific proof that it causes brain disorders.

The four European studies that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute of Medicine principally rely upon (cited in your accompanying graphic) to defend thimerosal were written principally by vaccine industry consultants and employees without revealing the bias of their authors. They are all flawed.

Most glaringly, before banning thimerosal, Denmark registered only autistics who were hospitalized, one-fifth of the afflicted.

After the withdrawal of thimerosal, the Danish government began counting outpatient autistics. The spike in raw numbers made it appear that autism rates increased after the withdrawal of thimerosal.

Clever use of this deceptive data by the study authors allowed the Institute of Medicine to make the case that thimerosal was not linked to autism.

Furthermore, the European studies involved children exposed to a fraction of the thimerosal concentrations used in America.

The institute selectively ignored the hundreds of biological, toxicological and epidemiological studies linking thimerosal to the wide range of neurological disorders, including autism.

This flawed science is the slender reed upon which the entire defense of thimerosal rests.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

White Plains, June 27, 2005

The New York Times

July 1, 2005

Is Autism Research Flawed, or Sound? (5 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re “On Autism’s Cause, It’s Parents vs. Research” (front page, June 25):

Not every parent of an autistic child who believes that the relationship between autism and thimerosal is worth investigating is hysterical and ready to do harm to well-meaning scientists. At least, I don’t think that describes me.

We simply believe that this issue warrants a more open investigation.

If the people cited in your article are so concerned about the virulence of these parents, they could let the steam out of this issue by doing one simple thing: Open the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database to independent analysis.

The C.D.C. has refused to do so, citing privacy issues. The privacy of these records is indeed critical but could be protected and is certainly no more pressing than addressing the roots of a condition that affects more than 500,000 children in the United States alone.

Martin Bounds

Charlotte, N.C., June 26, 2005

Ã¢Â€Â¢

To the Editor:

As the mother of two children who received an autism diagnosis at 2, I have seen fads, cures and theories about causation come and go.

In the 1950’s and 60’s, parents were blamed for causing autism. The backlash has created a climate in which many parents trust only their own convictions. They are encouraged by unscrupulous promoters of various fad treatments, litigators and politicians who want to “protect the little guy.”

As a founder of the Association for Science in Autism Treatment, a parent-professional collaboration, I urge my fellow parents to seek the science behind any purported treatment for autism and, most important, to educate ourselves on the distinction between science and pseudoscience.

Catherine Maurice

East Hampton, N.Y., June 25, 2005

Ã¢Â€Â¢

To the Editor:

The American Academy of Pediatrics concurs with the conclusions of the Institute of Medicine and others that there is no link between exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.

Vaccines are one of the greatest health innovations; we worry that as more parents hear negative stories about vaccines and refuse to immunize, vulnerable children will suffer to an even greater degree.

The member doctors of the academy deal with children and families with autism every day. We’re working hard to help our members detect autism early and to treat it in the most responsible, effective manner.

We are concerned that the attention being paid to unsubstantiated adverse effects of thimerosal will result in distraction from legitimate efforts to identify the cause of autism and will lead to ineffective and unsafe attempts at therapy.

Carol D. Berkowitz, M.D.

President

American Academy of Pediatrics

Elk Grove Village, Ill.

June 29, 2005

Ã¢Â€Â¢

To the Editor:

What concerns me most is not whether or not thimerosal causes autism. It is that the “experts” feel they have the authority to label parents of autistic children as lacking credibility just because there is no scientific evidence, they say, of the harmfulness of thimerosal in vaccines.

These children are the evidence, and their parents are the experts. Pretending that a problem doesn’t exist because it hasn’t reached some statistically significant number is disturbing.

How about asking the scientific community for evidence of the complete safety and efficacy of these and all drugs? Without such evidence, most parents will just have to rely on gut feelings. We can’t wait for the science to catch up.

Belinda Aggarwal

Hartsdale, N.Y., June 25, 2005

Ã¢Â€Â¢

To the Editor:

Your dismissive tone toward parents and alternative therapies is disappointing.

Some years ago, we tried sauna and vitamin therapy for our autistic son. The improvement was dramatic, and I am grateful to his doctors. The alternatives – special schooling, poor quality of life and Ritalin – were far more expensive.

All parents care about is that their child gets well. Our son got well.

Rebecca Madsen

New York, June 25, 2005

(hide)

As the last letter suggests, parental intuition may yet be valid in some way not yet understood by science. The longer we live the more we realize that establishment science has to be careful in dismissing possibilities which have not yet been reduced to cut and dried studies.

Of course, we realize that tolerance may simply be the influence of aging which notoriously weakens the resistance of the scientifically minded to the possibility of the supernatural in the inexplicable. Certainly it seems that many scientists, even great ones, grow more sympathetic to religion as they grow older.

And we have to admit that the segment last night broadcast on ABC’s 20/20 concerning the two year old boy who seemed to have acquired the aviation expertise of a dead pilot from the Second World War had us baffled, even though the grand old man of skepticism, Paul Kurtz, seemed to think that it was all easily explained by the child listening to his parents and TV.

Whatever the explanation of autism’s boom in the US turns out to be, for the moment the absolute conviction of parents that we have met that the vaccinations preceded very closely the onset of the symptoms in their child is as impressive to us as the massive studies that deny it.

And as long as the cause of autism is unknown, it seems to us that the anecdotal evidence must be taken into account.

Meanwhile, it is impossible to assess the state of play on this issue without a copy of Evidence of Harm, which is a remarkable achievement in its own right. Even handed and temperate in tone, readable yet thoroughly researched, its searching account notes every claim and counter-claim, every charge and counter-charge, and the ins and outs of every study in this still unsolved question.

What it makes clear is why the situation remains unclear. Kirby shows just how many reasons there are for questioning studies, and how they are defended. He shows the way in which the solution to what seems a simple problemÃ¢Â€Â”does autism correlate significantly with the use of thimerosal in vaccines or not?Ã¢Â€Â”can get thoroughly lost in the professional bureaucracy and politics of modern research, and why there is distrust of its practitioners when their results conflict with personal experience.

Tutored in these complexities, and shown how much lies beneath the surface of modern science, readers are unlikely to be as sure again of the kind of clear cut conclusion they are handed in newspaper reports, even those as well done as last Saturday’s autism piece in the Times.

Posted by scienceguardian | Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments »