But Google “new yorker michael specter aids denialism” and you will get a New Republic blogger cheer, one James Kirchink in The Plank being rude about Harpers and Celia as well, in a Google list headed by New AIDS Review.

The smug certitude of the reflex responses to the despised “AIDS denialists” is nowhere better illustrated than Randall J. Scalise, Ph.D.’s AIDS “denialism” page, complete with cuckoo clock (he posts his affiliation and address unabashedly as Office: +1(214)768-2504 Department of Physics Dept: +1(214)768-2495 102 Fondren Science Building FAX: +1(214)768-4095 3215 Daniel Avenue Email: scalise@smu.edu Southern Methodist University http://www.phys.psu.edu/~scalise Dallas, TX 75275-0175).

Scalise is the fellow who spurned Harvey Bialy’s offer of a free copy of his book “Aneuploidy, Oncogenes and AIDS: A Scientific Life and Times of Peter H. Duesberg”, saying that it was “worth every penny!”. For that he got trounced on YBYL. Scalise is delighted with the Specter piece, since he believes that “Duesberg alone has caused the deaths of millions in Africa by years ago influencing Thabo Mbeki’s policies”, even though he was originally unaware (”Show me an article in a peer-reviewed medical journal or SHUT UP!”) that Duesberg’s critique was first and foremost published in Cancer Research and the Proceedings of the National Academy, and in Biosciences most lately three years ago (”There is only one paper published this millennium! And even that one is from way back in 2003 and it does not appear in a tier-one medical journal.”

One day we should post on how in this and every other debate there tend to be mirror images of each point brought forth by either side, in the replies from the other side. There is an endless hall of mirrors of point-counter point. Always another way of looking at it. Here, for example, the fact that there is nothing new for Duesberg to deal with over the years is reinterpreted by Dr Scalise as evidence Duesberg is out of date!

Perhaps this points up the fundamental importance of attitude in weighing any argument. In the human mind, there is no such thing as objective data. It is all framed as it comes in. Dr Scalise is framing each data point coming into his mind with the preconception that the paradigm critique is “denialist”, ie they are framing the data in the wrong way.

How can Dr Scalise escape from this dilemma, of not being able to assess the data because he is convinced that it is the framing of the denialists that is biased, and not his own? How about his looking at both sides of the question, and dispensing with the politics of bias, reducing everything to data stripped of framework, other than a purely scientific and factual framework? Is that so difficult for a physicist? One would think not.

The first step would be to remove the framing assumption that the paradigm reassessment must be “denialists” and thus wrong. Even the AIDS Wiki on Denialism now politely calls it “AIDS reassessment”, we notice.

Of course, that would demand removing his cuckoo clock from the page, unless it is interpreted as irony. Not half as entertaining and righteous.

I read the New Yorker several times, passed it on to several friends and colleagues for their thoughts.

My conclusion: That’s it? That’s the great debunking of the Harpers piece? Boy, color me unimpressed.

Specter is a bush-league, junior varsity reporter who couldn’t get his hands around a huge story. He reminds me of a Freshman pledge trying to suck up to the “cool” kids in a frat house.

Fact 1: The number of yearly deaths in South Africa is about 9,000 (Pop. 44 million). (Source). Sorry, this ain’t no epidemic.

Fact 2: Anti-retrovirals are highly toxic and cause enormous damage:

a. In Reisler , the authors did a 5 year review (1996-2001) of about 3000 HIV/AIDS patients who took anti-virals. Here’s what they found.

b. 332 patients suffered an “AIDS” event meaning some manifestation of the underlying disease.

c. However, 675 patients suffered a “Grade 4″ “event, meaning a life-threatening illness, attributed to the medicine, not the virus. The most common of these side-effects were

1. Liver damage

2. Neutropenia (white blood cell loss)

3. Anemia (red blood cell loss)

4. Cardiovascular, including heart attacks

5. Pancreatitus

6. Psychiatric

7. Kidney problems

8. Thrombocytopenia

9. Hemorrhage

How is it possible that Specter and his crack team of fact checkers at the New Yorker missed this paper?!?!

Heck —” at least beetroot, garlic, herbs and spices don’t cause all these problems:)