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New York Observer March 13 2006
The City The Daily Transom
Celia Farber: Has the Dissenter Become the… Dissentee?

Published: March 13, 2006

The March 2006 Harper’s carries a piece by Celia Farber, who has written about AIDS—and HIV denialists such as Peter Duesberg—for 20 years. Says today’s New York Times:

Ms. Farber says that neither she nor Harper’s endorse Dr. Duesberg’s position, but that she is simply reporting on an unpopular view. “People can’t distinguish, it seems, between describing dissent and being dissent,” she said.

What could possibly have confused people about the difference between description and outright dissent?

The one thing we do know, “categorically,” is that the myths that have sprung up from Africa about AIDS are “positively absurd,” [Farber] exploded, citing theories that HIV is rampantly spreading AIDS throughout Africa. “this really lifts off into science fiction.” [...] “I suspect “they” got to him [Nelson Mandela]–Jimmy Carter and all those believing AIDS is pandemic in Africa, Black Africans know that to be loved by the West, you talk their line all the way–especially on AIDS.”

—Interview with Celia Farber, Dec 1, 2005, The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients.

“Everybody who was wrong got journalism awards. Everybody who was right got all but driven from the profession,” Farber said.

Farber exposed the conspiracy between profit-hungry drug companies, researchers who wanted more funding, homosexuals who didn’t want the disease to be known as “the gay plague,” and conservatives who wanted to turn back the sexual revolution.

—March 19, 2004, New York Post, “Straight AIDS Myth Shattered.”

“Suffice to say, AIDS professionals will be aghast,” Farber declares. “Unless, of course, they’ve decided to take their cash and their ribbons and helicopter off to their chalets where they can hope to live out their days in anonymity.” [Rian] Milan’s findings debunk myths that the scientific community has been spreading for 20 years.

—Nov 4, 2001, New York Post, on the publication of Rian Milan’s “AIDS in Africa: In Search of the Truth” in Rolling Stone.

I fell silent, realizing from years of reporting on this issue how futile it is to argue when the big club of HIV has been pulled out. Like the child’s game of rock, paper, scissors, HIV is always the rock and the scissors.

—Celia Farber, 1998, Mothering, “AZT Roulette.”

* 9 comments

Comments
Kate (not verified) says:

Celia Farber’s claims of objectivity and commitment to journalism – that her job is to “ask questions” – is about as sincere as Pat Robertson claiming the same of the homosexual lifestyle. At least Robertson wears his bias proudly on his chest.

Farber is a crank, a sad excuse for a journalist and unfortunately for the Harper’s fact-checkers, a patent liar – always has been on the HIV/AIDS topic. There are purveyors of misleading information – she is not one of them. Farber just outright lies. She treats scientific facts surrounding HIV/AIDS with the same care a termite does a piece of wood – she hacks it up, leaving nothing but a pile of unrecognizable shavings.

Many people have lost their lives by her words. She’s pathetic.
March 14, 2006 12:55 AM

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Martin Delaney (not verified) says:

It is ludicrous for Farber to suddenly proclaim in 2006 that she is only the messenger. She has written on and argued for the denialist position for at least a decade and half. She wrote about nothing else in SPIN Magazine for years. There was never any question that she was espousing her own views. No one should be surprised by this new claim of being the messenger though. Her writing has been blatantly dishonest and misleading from day one. Like her apparent mentor Peter Duesberg, she simply ignores the principles of science, hiding all evidence contrary to her views while spotlighting the few specks of data that seem, at least to the untrained eye, to bolster her case. I have come to believe that HIV denialism, like Holocaust denialism, is a mental illness deeply rooted in problems accepting authority and an inability to admit error. Though sometimes harmless, in matters as grave as AIDS it has become criminal behavior resulting in the loss of thousands of lives.
March 14, 2006 11:41 PM

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Anonymous says:

what I loved was Harper’s editor Rodger Hodge telling the Times about the great personal cost to Farber of her “brave” reporting….really, Rodger? A greater personal toll than, say, losing both parents to AIDS, as more than 10 million African children have? Rodger Hodge, Rick MacArthur, and Harper’s should be ashamed of themselves.
March 15, 2006 2:34 PM

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Robert Houston (not verified) says:

Celia Farber is an extraordinarily gifted journalist who has had the temerity to report on an amazing scientific controversy that the national media and HIV/AIDS agencies would prefer to ignore or dismiss. This is the fact that some highly qualified scientists, including retrovirologists and Nobel laureates, believe that evidence is lacking that HIV causes AIDS. In reporting on the other side as well in the AIDS debate, Ms. Farber has acted as a truly objective journalist should and performed an outstanding public service. Her writings have helped to compensate for the extremely onesided party-line reporting that has typified the AIDS issue. Her article in Harper’s is a masterpiece that exposes the corruption in AIDS research and should merit the author a Pulitzer prize.
March 15, 2006 6:29 PM

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Diogenes (not verified) says:

What is the point of the Transom piece? Is it that sympathy for one side disqualifies one from writing about an issue? Then there would be no qualified journalists on anything, and HIV believers likewise should be silenced. Or was the point that journalists or editors who have a personal opinion on a scientific issue should issue conclusive scientific endorsements? This would be equally absurd.

The first three commentators engaged in scurrilous smear-tactics typical of HIV activist groups, which have become little more than goon squads for the government and the drug companies which finance them. One of the commentators leads a group – is it Project Misinform? – that is heavily bankrolled by the makers of HIV drugs. He speaks of “the loss of thousands of lives” from “denialism” when the nearly universal feature of longterm AIDS survivors has been refusal to take the drugs. In Lederer’s article in the current POZ (April), Joseph Sonnabend, M.D., founder of AMFAR, charges that “1200 mg a day of AZT (the first approved dose in the ’80s) killed thousands, as did so-called early intervention.” It was not Peter Duesberg but Robert Gallo who ignored the principles of science by announcing in 1984 that HIV was the cause of AIDS though it was absent in 64% of the AIDS patients he tested.
March 18, 2006 7:10 PM

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Researcher (not verified) says:

That last comment about the absence of HIV in most AIDS patients was a bit startling so I checked it out. The discovery paper for HIV (then called HTLV-III) states in the abstract: “Retroviruses… designated HTLV-III were isolated from…26 of 72 adult and juvenile patients with AIDS” (R.C. Gallo et al. Science 224:500, May 4, 1984). That’s only 36%, meaning that HIV could not be found in 64% of AIDS patients. To claim it the cause of AIDS on such a flimsy basis is a violation of Koch’s first postulate, which requires that the putative pathogen be found in all cases of the disease. This means that the “denialists” are correct: HIV failed the basic scientific principle for establishing causation.

This was one of the many striking points raised by Prof. Peter Duesberg in his critiques of the HIV theory. I have read several of his papers on AIDS and found them to be thoughtful, comprehensive, and meticulous in reviewing the data. Rather than “hiding all evidence,” as Mr. Delaney falsely claims, Duesberg examines it with respect to established scientific principles. His June 2003 paper (J. Biosci.) showss in Table 4 how the 17 claims of the HIV theory have each been disproven. In checking his references, I found they always accurately supported his statements. Ms. Farber’s quoted statements also ring true and are a refreshing change from the standard “group-think.”
March 19, 2006 7:17 PM

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Karen Lynne Lambert (not verified) says:

Can’t you see that we have it all backwards? HIV+ individuals are not even sick (assuming they are not on any meds). AIDS patients are just more “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” (CFS) patients, who only by coincidence, have a questionably harmless virus, HIV. So, the question remains, since we know it’s not HIV: what is the cause of CFS (and it’s most progressive stage, HIV-Negative AIDS-idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia)?
March 19, 2006 8:05 PM

The following Comment was posted by Mark Biernbaum and disappeared mysteriously after a few days and could not be reposted, no explanation forthcoming. – NAR:

Mark’s Comment:

It is terribly misinformed to attack Ms. Farber’s journalism or the integrity of Harper’s magazine. As one commentator above has written, Robert Gallo’s original work on HIV=AIDS was unable to conclude that the relationship was evident in every AIDS patient — it wasn’t, and this should alarm all of us. Gallo’s work, and its inadequacies, are established scientific fact. Although there is evidence that HIV might be related to AIDS, this evidence is far from unequivocal. Additionally, suggesting that merely reporting on the huge gaps in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis makes Celia Farber responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans is patently absurd and makes anyone who argues such a point sound ridiculous. Opinions do not kill people, and everyone, especially those who have taken 20 years to educate themselves about the science in this area, has a right to express them. Opinions do not kill, but policies based on weak scientific evidence certainly do. Before we shower Africa with HIV meds, wouldn’t it be more prudent to put money into infrastructure that could provide clean drinking water and proper sanitation systems? Given the fact that most Africans don’t have access to clean drinking water or proper sanitation systems, what exactly do we hope these medications will accomplish? Given the current state of infrastructure in Africa, they cannot accomplish anything at all, but perhaps make sick people sicker. People must investigate the claims of the AIDS establishment for themselves. People like Celia Farber encourage us to make sure that the science about HIV and AIDS is conducted properly and provides the appropriate evidence — which currently, and very sadly for those who have been duped by the establishment, it does not.

Posted by: Mark A. Biernbaum, PhD | March 20, 2006 09:01 AM

New York Observer July 2 2006:
AIDS Anarchist Farber Hops Back in Whirlwind
by Sheelah Kolhatkar

On the night of Saturday, June 10, the controversial journalist Celia Farber was holding court at a quiet cocktail party in a roped-off section of the Roosevelt Hotel bar in midtown Manhattan. “What does an animal do when they know they’re going to be killed?” she asked, her voice taut, as a handful of people looked on. “They play dead.”

Ms. Farber was in the midst of an anecdote about one of her preferred subjects, her persecution at the hands of a vast network of enemies, and its effect on her writing career. “I’ve been there,” she continued. “You lose interest in doing well; you stop caring about being successful.”

Most of the 15 or so at the party were members of Rethinking AIDS, a group of scientists, writers and others who propagate the radical idea that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS. One of Ms. Farber’s beliefs, for example, is that the scientific explanations for the AIDS epidemic are corrupted by drug companies that seek to show that AIDS is amenable to drug therapies—profitable ones.

Their esoteric ideas have far-reaching implications, to say the least. If H.I.V. doesn’t cause AIDS, then “safe sex,” drug “cocktails”—in short, everything that the medical establishment says about prevention and treatment—is wrong.

Not unsurprisingly, the group is small, marginalized and the object of intense criticism in public-health circles. (They view themselves as AIDS “dissenters,” while their critics refer to them as “denialists.”)

Ms. Farber is a central figure among the AIDS “dissenters.” She isn’t a scientist herself; instead, she champions the scientific work of Peter Duesberg, a cancer researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. Ms. Farber sees herself as some sort of modern-day Clarence Darrow to Mr. Duesberg’s Scopes—an advocate whose lonely battle will be vindicated through the prisms of history and science.

Her two-decade career has been dominated by her efforts to keep debate about the dissenting AIDS theory alive, and nearly every piece she publishes on the subject triggers a seismic backlash. An Op-Ed piece in The New York Times on June 4 accused her camp of “Deadly Quackery”: “The truth is that H.I.V. does exist, that it causes AIDS and that antiretroviral drugs can prevent H.I.V. transmission and death from AIDS,” it read. “To deny these facts is not just wrong—it’s deadly.”

One could argue that Ms. Farber gave her life for her obsession with the cause. A few months ago, she and her ragtag band of colleagues might have been considered, by some, to be one step away from the conspiracy theorist’s asylum, next in line behind the 9/11-was-an-inside-job crowd. But they’ve been feeling emboldened by two recent successes: the publication of Ms. Farber’s first book, Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS, by the independent press Melville House; and, perhaps more significantly, the appearance of a 15-page article by Ms. Farber in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine.

Indeed, as one party attendee pointed out, not everyone in the media world regards Celia Farber as a petrified animal. “There are so many people who admire her,” said Thor Halvorssen, a personal friend of Ms. Farber, who was there solely to lend her moral support. He paused. “[Former Harper’s editor] Lewis Lapham, for one.”

UP CLOSE, MS. FARBER, 40, HAS A DAMAGED, fragile air. She is tall and exceedingly thin, with limbs that look as if they might snap to the touch. Her facial features are dramatically chiseled, with large brown eyes topped off with carefully tousled blond hair. “After all these years, the spotlight is on me,” Ms. Farber said, sipping a glass of white wine. “It’s come at the same moment when I’ve ceased to care any more. There comes a point where I don’t crave respectability, I don’t expect to get it from the outside.”

Ms. Farber sees AIDS through the lens of totalitarianism (American society in general, American science specifically and the National Institutes of Health all earned the label). To engage with her is to enter a surreal plane where her intensity threatens to overwhelm. Dozens of e-mails arrive in the night filled with angry rantings, impassioned pleas, links to articles and letters to the editor—all offering a glimpse into the emotional seesaw that is her existence. She seems riven by anxious energy, and her long fingers tend to flutter around her temples like butterflies as she speaks.

At the Roosevelt, she was seated on a couch next to her friend Mr. Halvorssen, a preppy libertarian with a cowlick, whose preoccupations that night included the evils of communism, political correctness, environmentalists and the charges against the Duke lacrosse team.

“I’m an unusual subject in that for years it’s been written that I’m in denial of reality, a mass murderer …,” Ms. Farber said.

At that moment, Barry Farber—Ms. Farber’s father, the anti-communist and conservative radio host who ran for Mayor of New York in 1977—ambled over with a big grin, his tie askew.

“We’re talking about your daughter!” Mr. Halvorssen said to him.

“Ah, my favorite subject!” Mr. Farber said in his Southern drawl. He collapsed on the couch and started punching at his cell phone.

“If you are deprived of respectability over time,” Ms. Farber continued, “what happens is, it’s wounding—but eventually you get freed of the addiction to respectability. I think a lot of media people crave respectability.”

Her friend wasn’t buying it; he thinks she is too timid and insecure. “How often in the past two years have you pitched a story?” said Mr. Halvorssen in a scolding tone.

“Um … ,” Ms. Farber said, “I have pitched stories, probably …. ”

“She just does not do it!” Mr. Halvorssen said. “She could get $20,000 a story, she’s so good. But she just. Does. Not. Do. It. She’s still bleeding. If we could just cover these wounds …. ”

“I said this to Lewis Lapham, actually,” Ms. Farber said: “‘You are interfering with my persecution complex!’”

“You see this?” Mr. Halvorssen said. “She has a Joan of Arc complex!”

“A persecution complex does not develop out of nothing,” Ms. Farber said.

AIDS “HAS HAD ME IN ITS JAWS FOR 20 YEARS, and I’ve occasionally tried to get away from it. And I have found that there’s not nearly as much free will as you’d think,” said Ms. Farber. “I am not obsessed with it. I probably seem to be obsessed with it—people probably think, Can’t she shut up about AIDS? But in actual fact, I’ve been trying to, for a long time. But some portion of the culture keeps coming to me and asking me to please address it again.” Ms. Farber, however, is unable to “shut up about” AIDS for very long.

Celia Farber is a New Yorker by birth (she now lives on the Upper West Side). Her mother was a Swedish Pan Am stewardess and a nurse; her father is of Russian Jewish ancestry and grew up in North Carolina. She lived from age 11 to 18 in Sweden, which she described as an oppressive, overly socialist, weird place. She joined the alternative-rock scene, and when she returned to New York she enrolled at N.Y.U. and drummed in bands.

She began writing her infamous AIDS column, called “Words from the Front,” at Spin in 1987.

It was in the midst of the so-called “AIDS war,” when public fear (Ms. Farber likes to call it “mass hysteria”) about the disease was at its peak and there was a scientific space race underway to understand it. But: “I didn’t come in and say, ‘I wanna write about AIDS!’” Ms. Farber said. “I wanted to find something out, ideally something that really needed to be found out and nobody else had found out. That was my thing.”

Her pieces, many of which are collected in her book, raised questions about whether H.I.V. was the sole cause of AIDS, about the side effects of the AIDS drug AZT and about the severity of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Her second installment was an interview with Mr. Duesberg, who is also known for his hypothesis that AIDS is caused by heavy recreational and anti-H.I.V. drug use rather than H.I.V. itself. Mr. Duesberg was shunned by the scientific community after publishing his theory that H.I.V. cannot cause AIDS; Ms. Farber has been aligned with him ever since.

Needless to say, many in the medical establishment, as well as gay and AIDS activists—and Ms. Farber’s own colleagues at Spin—found her columns destructive. Spin’s publisher, Bob Guccione Jr., personally shepherded her pieces into the magazine. “There was always a sense of violence and sabotage,” Ms. Farber said, adopting the cadences of a grizzled war reporter. “There were times when Bob and I had to actually walk the boards to the printer—there were people, copy editors and fact-checkers, who hated the column so much they would cut things out.”

There was also another matter: Ms. Farber was romantically involved with Mr. Guccione, which created resentment in the office. This culminated in 1994 when an employee named Staci Bonner filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against the magazine and Mr. Guccione.

Ms. Farber had by then gone freelance, gotten married to someone else and given birth to a son just that year. In a time line she provided in an e-mail, she wrote: “The years 1994-1997 were consumed with fighting the charges which culminated in Federal Court, 1997. Hospitalized briefly for suicidal urges. Lost 25 pounds. Lost will to live. Betrayed by best friend at Spin (plaintiff).” She said the trial “absolutely leveled me—it was the darkest, scariest, most traumatic, merciless, brutal thing I’ve ever seen or imagined; it took me 10 years to even begin to want to live again.”

Shortly after that, she went to Los Angeles and spent three months shadowing O.J. Simpson for Esquire, which resulted in a sensational cover story in 1998. She wrote for Mr. Guccione at his new magazine, Gear, and had an AIDS column on the Web site Ironminds. She separated from her husband. She organized a concert called “Rock the Boat,” which was intended to raise awareness about alternative AIDS theories; the concert fell apart, and Ms. Farber said that “financial decimation” followed. She worked at a series of odd jobs—in hotels, trade shows, making candles, catering, dishwashing.

Around 2001, Tina Brown commissioned her to write a story about gene therapy for Talk. The piece was killed. She said that she has been broke, and has given up on journalism, ever since.

(There was one bright spot: Ms. Farber said in an e-mail that after she wrote a piece for the New York Press about Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment case in 2004, the founder of American Apparel, Dov Charney, called her up “yelling about the whole fake feminism ordeal.” Mr. Charney had been dealing with his own harassment accusations, and he hired her as a “consultant and writer.” Ms. Farber referred to Mr. Charney as her “secret benefactor.”)

She speaks of her Harper’s article as if it was a divine accident, but in reality Mr. Lapham was the puppet master. After meeting him at a party several years ago, Ms. Farber said he urged her to pitch him stories. “He said, ‘I really need someone to write about science for me,’” Ms. Farber recalled. “He said, ‘I really have a sense that it’s kind of … ,’ and then he paused, and I said, ‘Diabolical?’”

She eventually proposed a piece about the same H.I.V.-does-not-cause-AIDS virologist she’s been championing since Spin. “I had no intention whatsoever of writing about AIDS in Harper’s,” Ms. Farber said, somewhat implausibly. “The original story was about Peter Duesberg’s cancer theory. And I remember saying to Lewis Lapham: ‘The AIDS question—we’ll just fly right over that, right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, we’ll fly right over that.’” (Mr. Lapham declined to speak to The Observer.)

Ms. Farber turned in that piece, which appears as the first chapter in her book. Mr. Lapham handed the text over to an editor, Roger Hodge, to edit. While it was being worked on, news of a problematic AIDS drug trial appeared in the press. Ms. Farber brought it to her editor’s attention and said that she was urged to look into that story: “I felt like, ‘Oh, God, what a pain in the ass. I don’t wanna go into that extraordinarily difficult, impossible, explosive, life-destroying stuff!’” Ms. Farber said. “But you don’t say that to your editors.”

The piece that ultimately ran was an awkward marriage of the two stories. Predictably, it triggered a considerable level of anger directed at Harper’s. Letters were published both in support of the article and taking issue with some of Ms. Farber’s contentions. The AIDS researcher Robert Gallo and doctors from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, among others, wrote in protest.

Ms. Farber said that she’d tried to warn Messrs. Lapham and Hodge of her reputation and biases. “In this discredited little cadre of scientists, I’m their champion,” she said she told them. In an e-mail, Mr. Hodge, who is now Harper’s’ top editor, wrote: “Yes, we knew what we were getting into.” He also wrote: “Celia is an excellent reporter and I hope she brings us more good stories in the future.”

It’s not entirely surprising that a figure such as Ms. Farber would appeal to a particular brand of right-thinking liberalism, the type embodied by Mr. Lapham’s former magazine. By focusing her outrage on her opposition’s desire to silence dissent rather than on the actual scientific arguments, Ms. Farber finds protection under the idea that no subject or theory, regardless of its implications, should be taken off the table; continuing to ask the questions can be more important than answering them.

When asked how the endless contrarianism might have impacted Ms. Farber professionally, Mr. Guccione, another believer in the “fostering debate” approach to publishing, said: “I think she has paid a terrific price.” He continued: “You know, the flip side of that is, I think she spent too much time dwelling on the AIDS beat. It’s been a holy quest for her.”

In any case, Ms. Farber would be lost without her battles. She said that she’s always been fascinated by Stalinism, Communism, the Holocaust, witch hunts; she visits “as many dictatorships as I can.” She described herself alternately as a lapsed hard leftist, a proto-anarchist, a libertarian sympathizer and a “bit punk.” When asked if she somehow took pleasure in the turmoil triggered by her journalism, she said: “I would vastly prefer a quiet life, without roiling bands of furious AIDS activists—I mean treatment activists—smearing my name all over the world. I mean, I don’t like it. I don’t take it lightly.”

Then she thought for a moment. “I think I was built to take it,” Ms. Farber said. “I just had a very, very unsparing childhood. And I was never any ‘the world is my oyster’ kind of person. Things were always tough, and I developed kind of an identity, I guess, where maybe I relished something about the dynamic of being attacked. It’s a really good question …. It traumatizes me very much. Less now than it used to. I find it boring now. Very, very boring.” -30-

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The Least Known War In Science: Does HIV Cause AIDS?, a piece blogged by Hank Campbell on Scienceblogging on August 27 2007, including an interview with Tara C. Smith of Aetiology:

The Least Known War In Science: Does HIV Cause AIDS?
Submitted by Hank on 27 August 2007 – 5:00am. Public Health
26
peers

There’s a war happening in science but you may not know about it, and it’s stranger than most because it is pitting some people with HIV and their loved ones against the scientists and medical community trying to cure it. In other words, it’s a war that makes even less sense than most wars.

Did you know there was even a debate about whether or not HIV causes AIDS? I didn’t. You might as well have walked up and told me puppies and free money don’t cause happiness – I was that shocked – but a debate there is and I learned about it when I read an editorial in PLoS ( Public Library of Science) Medicine titled HIV Denial in the Internet Era. The authors, Tara C. Smith and Steven P. Novella, pull no punches at all. They don’t hesitate to lump in HIV/AIDS skeptics with deniers of evolution and the Holocaust. It’s powerful stuff and they clearly feel like this issue is too important to remain out of the mainstream cultural debate.

Dr. Tara Smith and Dr. Steven Novella

I was intrigued by the editorial because it’s rare that scientists invoke the Holocaust and even more rare that you have an important cause where two sides vehemently disagree yet, to an outsider, there doesn’t seem to be a villain. In the global warming debate, for example, you can look to Exxon or Environmental Defense as the villain depending on where you stand because there’s money involved in both camps.

In the world of HIV research, it’s not so clear cut. Doctors and scientists who want to save people with HIV/AIDS can’t be the villains. Likewise, people who have HIV/AIDS and are convinced the drugs do more harm than the disease can’t be the villains. Drug companies? Perhaps it is possible on a limited scale but most scientists work for little money by choice so greed isn’t a big motivator.

Medicine is occasionally art as much as science because there aren’t always clear-cut reasons why things happen the way they happen at the cellular level yet society expects decisions today based on data that may be incomplete – lives are quite literally at stake. Understanding that, I set out to discuss the science behind this. I wrote to Dr. Smith and a few of the groups and people mentioned in the editorial and left a general comment on a site critical of the editorial asking for expert input. I did not get a response from Dr. Peter Duesberg, a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and oft-cited source. Nor did I get an answer from Act Up San Francisco or Alive & Well but I did get a response from Dr. Henry H. Bauer, author of The Origin, Persistence And Failings Of HIV/AIDS Theory, who wrote:

Re: the Smith-Novella article in PLoS Medicine, please note that it does not deal with HIV/AIDS science, it deals with issues of dissent from a mainstream consensus, and does so in a sadly misguided and ignorant fashion: the authors are not familiar with standard knowledge in history, philosophy, and sociology of science, in particular as to the role of anomalies and heterodoxy in the progress of science, which happens to be my own academic specialty

Fair enough, but that charge can be levelled against every editorial ever written, especially if you happen not to like it. They are by definition primarily opinion pieces. Yet you don’t often get to be a professor of epidemiology or a neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine without knowing what you are talking about, so even opinion pieces by experts carry real weight. Dr. Bauer is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University and also Editor In Chief of Journal of Scientific Exploration, which deals with, among other things, ufology, cryptozoology, and parapsychology, so he’s also no stranger to criticism that his writing is sometimes not mainstream hard science.

Criticism of the editorial nature of the PLoS article aside, it makes sense to tackle the subject on its merits. Smith and Novella rightly understand that policy decisions are often based on perception as much as fact, and we agree as well, so it’s important that non-experts get a ground-level understanding of the science issues at stake.

In that interest I interviewed Dr. Smith to go beyond the editorial and to try and figure out why there is any debate at all and why they decided to speak out.

Scientific Blogging: The HIV/AIDS denial movement has been around for a while. What made this important enough to address now?

Tara Smith: Like most scientists, I hadn’t even realized there was an active denial movement until recently, beginning with the story of Eliza Jane Scovill. As a parent myself, I can only imagine how horrible it must be to lose a child, but it angered me that Maggiore didn’t learn anything from her daughter’s death–and indeed, continues to actively promote her denialist ideas to other mothers. To someone in public health, that behavior is beyond appalling, and I do think attention needs to be called to this movement, and to science denial more broadly.

Scientific Blogging: Are you concerned that your status in the scientific community legitimizes these denial groups scientifically by addressing them?

Tara Smith: No. Prior to becoming interested in HIV denial, I’d worked for quite awhile battling against evolution deniers in Ohio and Iowa. I’m not inviting anyone to debate me on equal footing; I don’t disguise my views on these matters or hide my opinions. I won’t legitimize them by inviting them to my university to give a talk or debate in the interest of “fairness.” I use my blog site to address these groups because their information is already out there, frequently unchallenged, on the internet.

Scientific Blogging: Disease testing can be confusing to the general population. Critics state that HIV tests are not accurate and they introduce concepts like surrogate markers which will be unknown to most people. Can you provide a short description of how HIV tests are done and their accuracy level?

Tara Smith: Sure. There are two steps to an HIV test. The first will be a screening test, typically an enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA). This test looks for antibodies made by the patient that are specific to HIV. I’m skipping a few steps here, but when antibodies are present, the test will change color, and the amount of color change is measured by a machine. Those that are above the cut-off point for the ELISA will then be tested by a second test called a Western blot. In this test, the patient’s serum is applied to, essentially, a piece of paper-like membrane with HIV proteins stuck to it. If there are antibodies in the patient’s serum, they’ll stick to the proteins on the membrane, which will again change color in subsequent steps. It’s only when this is positive that an individual is called HIV+. The combination of the two tests has undergone through testing, and are very accurate. (For instance, a 1998 JAMA analysis showed a false positive rate of ~1 in 250,000, or 0.0004%.)

Scientific Blogging: It seems like the debate should be over after answering one question: are there any instances of AIDS without the presence of HIV?

Tara Smith: Well, even that one isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. AIDS is now defined in part by the presence of HIV (or antibodies to HIV), so the answer to your question, technically, is that no, there is no AIDS without HIV. However, there are rare cases of T cell depletion in the absence of HIV, from an unknown cause (”idiopathic T cell lymphocytopenia”), which those who deny HIV causation of AIDS try to pass off as “AIDS without HIV.”

Scientific Blogging: New laboratory assays can’t be created overnight, yet the lack of complete understanding about which part of the T-cell replacement mechanism is wearing out and what is responsible for wiping out the T-cells that disappear seems to be an argument these critics use against the science community. Can you compare the danger of current treatments with the danger of waiting until science is certain what causes T-cell stores to dwindle?

Tara Smith: Well, those studies have been done. We don’t need to know all of the details to see if a new treatment is better than doing nothing at all. Immunology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past 2 decades, and with it our understanding of the biology of HIV, but imagine if we’d sat back for 2 decades and done nothing, waiting for a clearer picture of HIV pathogenesis? Antibiotics were used long before their mechanism was known; mechanisms of aspirin are still being investigated. Knowing more about HIV will hopefully allow us to design better drugs, but in the meantime, we know via clinical trials and epidemiological studies that antiretroviral drugs save lives.

Scientific Blogging: On the ACTUP San Francisco site they paint the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a perceptual one based on a combination of flawed science, alarmist media and anti-sex/anti-gay sentiment. That’s brilliant spin on their part because it says if you believe HIV causes AIDS, you either don’t know what you are talking about or you dislike gay people. So which are you, uninformed or anti-gay??

Tara Smith: Yes, they’ve certainly studied their framing, haven’t they? Again, you can see how they’re setting up something those of us in the mainstream just can’t win. What’s interesting is that they get all their own information from scientists who study HIV and obviously can’t really be uninformed, yet they support the idea that HIV causes AIDS–so they must be anti-gay? Yet they’re spending their careers studying a syndrome that disproportionately affects homosexuals in this country, so how does being anti-gay make any sense? That’s when they bring out the “greed” issues, suggesting that HIV research is so lucrative and scientists are out for the quick buck. I received one comment that suggested HIV researchers routinely make in the 7 figures.

Scientific Blogging: Critics note that there is no single scientific paper that proves HIV causes AIDS. How is that an issue?

Tara Smith: This is a red herring. There is no “single scientific paper” that “proves” anything. Scientific evidence is gathered over a period of years or decades, experiments are repeated by multiple groups, knowledge is built upon in many dozens or hundreds of papers, until a “cause” is established beyond a reasonable doubt. So by asking for a “single paper,” deniers are rigging the game from the start, knowing they can pick holes in that single paper (holes that likely have been filled by subsequent studies) and say, “aha! That paper is the best you can give me, and it didn’t prove anything! Your whole paradigm is incorrect.” It’s just a stunt, essentially.

Scientific Blogging: You used the terms “denier” and “consensus” in your article and those two words have become associated with political fights more than scientific ones. Is there a science debate remaining or is this now more of a political issue?

Tara Smith: There certainly remains much that’s unknown about the science of HIV, and there are valid debates in the scientific literature. But no, issue about whether HIV causes AIDS has been settled long ago. It is, in many ways, akin to a political fight, though deniers run the political spectrum. HIV deniers don’t have the clout or money behind them that evolution deniers do, but they do have a small core of loud supporters, along with Hollywood director-types who have been cranking out documentaries promoting AIDS misinformation, and “natural health”/vitamin gurus who profit from denial. Maybe “cultural issue” would be a better term than “political” one.

Scientific Blogging: I only found one critique of your article and it didn’t address the specifics of what you wrote but instead invoked the scientific ‘we should consider all options until eliminated’ position. Is that a legitimate defense in this case?

Tara Smith: Well, of course the old adage is to be open-minded, but not so much that your brains fall out. Of course, we should consider all options, but that was already done in the early years of AIDS. The “alternative” theories suggested by many deniers (such as drugs, too much sex, not enough nutrition) were tested exhaustively, and they were not alone found to be sufficient to cause AIDS. HIV presence was, and has been repeatedly in thousands of published studies. As much as we can be sure about anything in science, we know that HIV causes AIDS.

Scientific Blogging: Usually there is a driving motivation in any cause. Some care about the environment, for example, while others see a way to make money or get elected with environmental causes. I can’t figure out a motivation for HIV/AIDS deniers. Based on your research, what do they gain by clouding the issue?

Tara Smith: I don’t think you can assign one motivation to all of them. Some of them, especially those who are themselves HIV+, simply seem to not want to believe that they’ve acquired a pathogen that could, potentially, kill them eventually. Others are highly distrustful of the government, scientists, and anyone in authority in general. Certainly some do have religious motivations–they still believe that AIDS is a punishment for “sinning,” acts such as sex (and particularly homosexual sex) and drug use. I’m sure there are probably dozens more reasons, but I’ve not come across any overarching theme. Creationists are much easier to group together than HIV deniers, who seem to run the religious and political spectrum.

Scientific Blogging: It’s obvious there are fringe individuals and groups that want to leverage the confusion about the disease to advance their ideology but most are, like advocates for any HIV awareness group, legitimate victims of the disease who genuinely care and feel like we are being duped by drug companies or groups stigmatizing sex. I can’t help but feel you’re all on the same side – you want people to stop dying. What would be enough to convince everyone? A new generation of assays? Is it reasonable to expect to find a cellular treasure chest that answers all questions?

Tara Smith: Yes, I do think that’s unreasonable. Sometimes research does move forward in a giant leap like that–finding some “treasure chest” that moves a problem far ahead. Usually, it moves forward in much smaller increments. I don’t think there will anything that’s enough to convince everyone. There are still people out there who deny that germs cause disease, period–despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. All the science in the world won’t convince people who don’t respect the scientific method, or the scientists who carry out the research, and that’s really the bottom line in all of this.

Scientific Blogging: We greatly appreciate you taking some time to discuss this. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Tara Smith: I think it’s important for scientists (and laymen interested in science) to be aware that this kind of science denial still exists, and is still being actively promoted by some groups. Obviously evolution denial has gotten the most attention (and is arguably the most organized and well-financed), but other forms of science denial exist as well, and have been propagated by the internet. And while many other forms of science denial are distressing to scientists, and have numerous political implications, HIV denial has the potential to be deadly.
* * *

I spent about a week researching this and came away more confused than ever. Not about the science, because one thing is certain in science and logic: not fully understanding how X causes Y is not proof that it doesn’t happen. I don’t think the HIV/AIDS link is a myth propagated by drug companies and at some level we have to either trust pathologists and epidemiologists or become them and prove them wrong.

Uninformed political leaders or bizarre cultural perceptions will always be on the fringes of these kinds of issues but at its core, data has to be data. I asked Dr. Smith some pointed questions and got straight answers, including acknowledgements when the answers were incomplete. In looking over the data from the skeptic side I saw far too many out-of-context bits of fact and basically-accurate-but-incomplete statements that then lead to misleading conclusions.

According to Avert.org 2.6 million people died from AIDS in 2006. At some level it doesn’t matter what caused it, it’s still an epidemic that needs to be fixed.

I am okay if the medical community can’t give me a complete explanation for what caused AIDS, as long as they fix it. Heck, in physics I can’t give anyone a comprehensive definition of what a magnetic field is.* Does that make me a fraud or a dupe for the semiconductor industry that does $120 billion annually without knowing the answer? No, we’ll figure it out some day. Likewise in the field of AIDS research, the nuances of what caused it can be found over time but medicine needs to go about the business of saving people right now.

* A magnetic field is a region in space where a magnetic force can be detected. That’s the best answer you’re going to get.

Notes:

Dr. Tara Smith is Assistant Professor, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Her most recent book is Group B Streptococcus and she has a blog at http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology.

Dr. Steven Novella is an academic neurologist on full-time faculty at Yale University School of Medicine and he has a blog at http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/.

Dr. Henry H. Bauer is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University and author of The Origin, Persistence And Failings Of HIV/AIDS Theory. His website is http://www.failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/
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Not sure what to comment on
Submitted by Torchwood on 27 August 2007 – 6:53am.
2
peers

Not sure what to comment on here.
There are so many causes of death.
And I’m not going to enter into the creationist – versus- evolutionist debate with Tara, been there done that. A belief in a creation or a universe of particles that follow a predetermined path or phase changes is not a denial of evolution of species. Dog breeding is proof of evolution. Selective breeding and GM modified crops are ‘proof’ of evolution. Mutations of viruses is proof of ‘evolution’. Cities, air transport, mobile phones and the internet are proof of human ‘evolution’.

Anyone who disagrees with Tara on anything will always be categorised a denialist. My question would be, there is ultimately one truth which none of us can escape ‘death’ whether violent death in war (or other violent death) whether from cancer, aids or a thousand other diseases, and death from malnutrition, starvation or famine. Naturally different people place different important or emphasis on each case according to their predilections, belief or self-interest and research interests. Some prople will strongly argue that climate change may become the greater killer or epidemic.

Anyway Hank I came to provide the first of my suggestions
Rotating headlines as in Live Science
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I enjoyed doing the
Submitted by Hank on 27 August 2007 – 9:16am.
3
peers

I enjoyed doing the interview. She certainly knows her stuff. I asked specifically about the ‘denier’ terminology because it’s just rare in the field of science. Al Gore says it, but that’s politics.

So you had already gone to her blog too? I am, it seems, the only person who had to be told she has a column on scienceblogs.com. A lot of people seem to know and read her, so she must be doing something right, yes?

P.S. Do we have enough headlines to rotate them?
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It’s about quality of
Submitted by Torchwood on 27 August 2007 – 7:22am.
1
peers

It’s about quality of life:
We haven’t yet learnt how to save or replace teeth, we condemn people to live with ‘dentures’
We seem to move on to the next thing thinking we’ve cured something yet sometimes it feels we’ve cured nothing at all, we are just creating a society dependant on more and motre cocktails of more drugs … is that really the aim or purpose of medical research.

More focus should be placed on what can be ‘cured’
Treatment or treating a condition is such an inexact science, and saving life the alleged ‘dictum’ of medical science such a relative term – saving life to live what kind of life exactly – with some major mental or physical impediment. The reality is that to the patient the saved life is often more like a life ’sentence’ – often a sentence without parole or reprieve – doctors, surgeons and researchers should take that on board.

Torchwood.
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Hi Hank, not only do you
Submitted by Torchwood on 27 August 2007 – 2:55pm.
2
peers

Hi Hank, not only do you have enough headlines
sometimes thee are multiple posts added, and one has to scroll thru the page …
I would suggest at least 4 rotating or revolving headlines
that is at least four headlines/news subgroups: Space/Astronomy/Astrophysics, Environment/Earth/Climate, Biology/Humans/Animal, and a fourth …

PS – I’m sure Tara is delightful, and clearly passionate about her subject. Just got a little too much denialist angst (at least for my taste).
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The downside to giving all
Submitted by Hank on 27 August 2007 – 3:11pm.
3
peers

The downside to giving all of the money ( well, almost – we cover the cost of the servers ) to the writers or charity is that everyone works for free, so we have realistic limits on what we can tackle at any given time.

I have a wonderful layout of what I would like for 2.0 and the programming is not even all that substantial, since the engine works without a hitch for 500,000 people a month. However, should you happen to know php ( and css ) people who like working for free and helping to build the best science community around, invite them to join!
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Hi Hank, apologies to Tara
Submitted by Torchwood on 27 August 2007 – 5:43pm.
1
peers

Hi Hank, apologies to Tara for following up our debate on her interview.
But I’m not suggesting adding more workload
Simply channeling the posts that are up loaded to their own subgroups. Of course anyone who knows the site, can just click on the tag or writer’s name to go to that writer’s posts.

PS – I’m surprised Sabine hasn’t added a copy here of her http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/magics-observation-of-gamma-ray-bursts.html post. Very topical.
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Now you have me confused.
Submitted by Hank on 27 August 2007 – 6:19pm.
3
peers

Now you have me confused. The buttons in the header and the text in the upper left sidebar all go to the various science subgroups – each has its own newsfeed as well, so we have some people who only want to get our geology articles, for example, and they do.

On the right, featured writers get their own block, so do news pieces and independent columnists that sign up.

When we have a million readers a month, we’ll do a redesign that makes it all more elegant. For starters, we just wanted a strong engine that could handle the traffic volume, easy article creation and a reasonable interface. We’re not the pretty prom queen of web 2.0 but we’re smarter and more fun than most!
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lol Hank say no more, We’re
Submitted by Torchwood on 28 August 2007 – 2:56am.
1
peers

lol Hank say no more,
We’re not the pretty prom queen of web 2.0 but we’re smarter and more fun than most!
The buttons are fine, no additions needed.
Simply that (in the future) replacing the buttons with rotating imagines and headlines would give an ‘eyecatching’ overview of the latest 5 articles in each subgroup. But as you say for now those who come to look for something know where to go.
Wasn’t ‘criticising’ the front page or home page which I like, just expressing my preference for my icons & images.
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hello Mister Hank, Tara
Submitted by yello on 31 August 2007 – 4:51am.
1
peers

hello Mister Hank,

Tara “may” have been interested in HIV/AIDS science since the death of Christine Maggiore’s daughter by an allergic reaction to amoxillin; but this thread at Hank Barnes’s “You Bet your Life” suggest a longer period of thought on this subject.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/03/index.html

Oh, btw, why do I say Ms. Maggiore’s daughter died of a reaction to amoxillin?Well, her son and husband both test negative to HIV.Her dead daughter’s HIV test has never been revealed, except for a bullshit p24 test which means nothing, as this protein is found in loads of HIV- people ranging from folks infected with bacteria to Multiple Sclerosis sufferers.

Why do I post this?Because Ms. Maggoire used to be excoriated as an HIV NEGATIVE individual who used her “mistaken” false HIV+ test to reap a benefit of money or whatever from gullible real HIV+ peoples.Ms. Maggoire admitted to testing positive,negative,indeterminate,negative and positive if I recall correctly.It was determined by a multitude of her detractors that she was a lying bitch who wasn’t REALLY positive for HIV but pretending to be so.That fufilled their vagued indeterminate reasoning for her supposed power trip over “real” HIV positives.

As this simple text in the Barnes and Noble’s review of her book shows….

“Martha Howard, MD, A reviewer, 09/08/2005
Christine Maggiore is HIV NEGATIVE
I can’t believe I am the first to point this out. Hasn’t anyone wondered why Christine Maggiore refuses to submit to the National Institutes of Health or the Center for Disease Conrol for HIV testing (using ELISA, Western Blot, PCR)? She was the victim of false positive ELISA testing over a decade ago (not that unusual) and, worse, a physician who disclosed her test results without the mandatory Western Blot confirmation. Subsequently learning of her HIV NEGATIVE status, Christine has taken the conspiracy theory ball and run, run, run away with it. Believe me friends, Maggiore is HIV NEGATIVE – which explains consistent claims that she and her children are ‘ridiculously healthy’ – most young HIV negative women are ridiculously healthy too. She is a charlatan who has desperately harmed the lives of HIV positive people by outright lies. They believed in her – by example. If she were healthy after so many years of HIV infection, then HIV=AIDS was a lie (a wonderful fantasy, I know). No lie folks. If left untreated, HIV is lethal. For an HIV NEGATIVE woman such as Christine Maggiore to claim that HIV is harmless certainly lacks conviction!”

Here is the link(and no, this cunt was _NOT_ the first to “point this out”)

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780967415307&itm=6

There used to be multitudes of similiar reviews among the more than +70 Amazon.com had that included beliefs in Ms. Maggoire’s negative status until shortly after her daughter’s death to amoxillin toxicity.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Where are they now?!?!?!?
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Hi yello, Like I mentioned,
Submitted by Hank on 31 August 2007 – 11:16am.
1
peers

Hi yello,

Like I mentioned, I had quite literally no idea this was even an issue before I saw the editorial and I appreciate that Dr. Smith was gracious enough to take some time and answer questions about the science aspects of this.

The other things you mention are cultural – HIV ‘denial’ is controversial and all controversial opinions have a tough time getting mainstream traction – because of flawed science or tyranny of the majority I am not qualified to say.

I can’t think of a single instance where science truth did not win in the end. Data is data and nothing drives scientists crazier than being deceived. If data comes out that proves HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, or even that the cures are worse than the virus, I am pretty sure a compassionate person like Smith will be first in line taking up the new position.

The most prominent scientist I could find on the skeptic side was Dr. Duesberg and I’d love to interview him also and get the other side. We have two of our professors – and it’s Stanford v Berkeley, which has lots and lots of cultural sub-currents! – debating on opposite sides of an issue today and a good discussion is always healthy for science.
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Hank, go over to
Submitted by yello on 31 August 2007 – 9:53pm.
1
peers

Hank, go over to Newaidsreview and check out the comments section of “Denialists Deplored”.

You had two fairly high level folks ready to be interviewed, both with qualifications in excess of Dr. Smith.
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Hi Yello, I tried to get
Submitted by Hank on 1 September 2007 – 11:04am.
1
peers

Hi Yello,

I tried to get someone from a few of the organizations and Dr. Duesberg, because they are on the front lines of this in the same way Smith is. I did receive an answer from Dr. Bauer ( and put a link to his book, his website and I used the quote he told me to use ) but his field isn’t epidemiology or pathology and we’re a science site and no experts came forth then.

If this article is being examined by experts I am surprised they aren’t talking about it here, given our prominence and their access to a much larger audience. 10,000 people read this article and more do every day.
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Amazon Reviews of Christine Maggiore’s Book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong? Sept 27 2007

What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?: The Book That Will Change Your View of HIV and AIDS . . . and Possibly Change Your Life

What if everything you thought you knew about AIDS was wrong? (Paperback)
by Christine Maggiore (Author)

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46 Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
She is right about ‘AIDS’. It is a scam, October 15, 2006
By Paul King – See all my reviews
Every epidemic disease is now renamed ‘AIDS’ under the Bangui Definition.

Mortalities (non natural) in S.A. remain at the same 2.2% P.A. that they were BEFORE AIDS. Either every other disease in the region vanished overnight or ‘AIDS’ is simply the old diseases with a new name. You decide.

————-

In Africa, the continent supposedly being decimated by
HIV, HIV tests are rarely ever done, so there the idea
that all patients with AIDS are infected with HIV is
based entirely on supposition.

At a WHO conference in the Central African Republic in 1985, U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) introduced the “Bangui Definition” of AIDS in Africa.

The CDC officials later explained, “The definition was reached by consensus, based mostly on the delegates’ experience in treating AIDS patients. It has proven a useful tool in determining the extent of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, especially in areas where no testing is available.

It’s major components were prolonged fevers (for a month or more), weight loss of 10% or greater, and prolonged diarrhea…”(McCormick, 1996). Where AIDS is diagnosed clinically, large numbers of AIDS patients test negative for HIV. As no HIV testing is required in Africa we have no idea how many AIDS cases there are HIV positive (De ####, 1991; Gilks, 1991; Widy-Wirski, 1988).

_______

Other conditions common in underprivileged and
impoverished communities that are known to cause false
positive results are tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis and leprosy (Burke, 1993; Challakeree, 1993; Johnson, 1998; Kashala, 1994; MacKenzie,1992; Meyer, 1987). In fact, these are the primary health threats in Africa; several million cases of tuberculosis and malaria are reported in Africa each year – more than all the AIDS cases reported in Africa since 1982 (WHO, 1998)*.
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7 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Everyone’s entitled to there opinion, but…., February 13, 2006
By Ryan A. Stevenson “RAS” (Bloomington, IN) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
While Maggiore is entitled to her opinion, she should display it as such, an opinion. There are millions of people who think HIV isn’t a big problem in itself. The problem is that this opinion, and spreading it as ’scientific’ has the potential to undercut teachings of safer sex. HIV causes AIDS, and AIDS kills people. Are there drugs out there that are dangerous, of course. Are some AIDS drugs dangerous, possibly. But is HIV/AIDS itself deadly, definently. So while anyone can give there opinion, it is irresponsible for this author to pass her’s off as ’scientific’. Feel free to read the book (get it from your library instead of paying for it though), but take it with a grain of salt, and then look into the facts for yourself.
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28 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
I take a somewhat contrary view to Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Morgan, December 8, 2005
By Kenneth Murray – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
In reading Anthony Sanchez and Mike Morgan’s reviews of this book, an educated person must ask themselves if they are still living in America. Mr. Sanchez (who states he works for the government in one of his other reviews of a book on Sobuko puzzles and holds himself out as a child protection worker) lashes out at Christine Maggiore as only a government lacky can … by following the dogma of yet another goverment lacky despite the myopic lunacy of the findings. In referring people to the flatly biased and poorly researched LA Times article entitled “A Mother’s Denial A Child’s Death,” Mr. Sanchez would have people blindly place their fate in the hands of the government on issues such as child health care rather than the 3 pediatricians that Christine had consulted in the cough-turned-ear infection that afflicted her little girl. By Mr. Sanchez standards, he would ensure that any pregnant woman who tests positive for HIV subject their newborns to a dangerous and toxic regimine of failed cancer chemotherapy drugs as a ‘protective measure.’

Mr. Sanchez blasts Christine Maggiore for not changing her views on HIV despite the death of her daughter, and for continuing to claim that Eliza Jane did not, in fact, die of AIDS. This is probably because there is not a shred of scientific evidence (unless you take the now-full-of-holes coroner’s report as scientific evidence) that EJ died of AIDS. No positive HIV test, no actual signs of the pneumonia that she allegedly died from, a high T cell count … it goes on and on. The only ‘evidence’ that EJ died of AIDS is that over a month into the investigation into her death, somebody leaked to the coroner’s office that Christine Maggiore was the leading authority on the dissident side of the HIV/AIDS debate. Boom. EJ is now an AIDS victim. How convenient. Thank you Dr. Ribe, you hack.

For those of you who are not yet aware of it, the HIV test does not reliably predict the presence of HIV. Don’t believe me, though … read the label of the HIV test. Further, there are over 70 different conditions that would cause a positive on an HIV test … this would be of little consequence to the likes of Mr. Sanchez. Off to the forced chemical induction camps, you HIV-ridden aberations!

I actually feel sorry for Mr. Sanchez. I was of the same mind as Mr. Sanchez a scant 2 years ago. Someone close to me tested positive for HIV, and I took the opportunity to read such enlightening books as “Inventing the AIDS Virus” (Dr. Peter Duesberg, Nobel nominated cancer researcher) and Christine Maggiore’s thoughtful book “What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong.” Unlike the vitriolic and scientifically baseless positions staked out by the likes of flat earthers such as Sanchez and Morgan, the books by Duesberg and Maggiore provide a fair and balanced, scientifically based look at the AIDS/HIV hypothesis, and the authors ask only that the rules of science apply to the study of HIV and it’s connection to AIDS. Readers of these books will be shocked to learn that the normally unbiased scientific mainstream community has turned a blind eye to the very science they purport to practice. Believe it or not – again, don’t trust me on this, just try to find the document anywhere in scientific papers to prove me wrong – there is NO instance in the literature where the ‘deadly HIV virus’ can actually be found in the fluids of those who ‘test positive’ for HIV. And yet this little devil – HIV – is off ravaging the world. Folks, there’s way more to this topic than meets the eye, and Christine Maggiore has selflessly devoted the past ten years of her life – a HEALTHY life I might add – to helping others to discover the other side of the HIV/AIDS issue. She does this out of a small, poorly funded non-profit organization known as Alive and Well AIDS Alternatives. Yes, she promotes wellness. That evil witch. How dare she live a healthy life despite her affliction. And how dare she have two healthy children – well, healthy until her delightful toddler died from what is now being determined to be an allergic reaction to amoxicillin antibiotics, NOT HIV induced pneumonia – and a husband with whom she has normal relations. The coroner, a controversial rube by the name of Ribe, has been at the center of a plethora of controversy as a result of issuing death certificates of convenience in which he will often change a ‘conclusive’ finding based on whatever new convenient cause of death seems appropriate in order to wrap up an otherwise inconvenient case. After weeks and weeks of no finding of cause of death in the Eliza Jane case, Ribe conveniently concluded EJ’s death was caused by AIDS induced pneumonia. Several independant pathology reviews have proven this finding baseless, and in time, hopefully, Ribe will be banished to the land of misfits where he can do no further harm.

This book is an essential read for anyone who has a mind of their own. Sanchez and Morgan should be ashamed of themselves for grandstanding on the grave of an innocent child. I consider myself fortunate to not be subject to the purview of any agency to which Mr. Sanchez is attached. And as for the continuing saga of attempting to set the record straight on the death of Eliza Jane, feel free to take a peek at www.justiceforej.com. The contents will fascinate you. Meanwhile, alarmists such as Sanchez and Morgan are likely beyond salvation. Go back to your puzzles, Mr. Sanchez. Every moment you spend using your pen to solve puzzles at tax payer expense is one moment closer to you leaving government service, and one moment less you are spent persecuting good folks such as Christine Maggiore.
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18 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
Deadly Wrong, December 4, 2005
By Mike Morgan – See all my reviews
The LA County Coroner reported the writer’s daughter died of AIDS-related pneumonia a few months ago. This book details the ignorant, dogmatic conspiratorial fallacy that HIV is harmless.

In death, the writer’s daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, has probably written the best critique of this book: deadly wrong.
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13 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Great Book!, December 3, 2005
By Henry “Henry” (Tokyo) – See all my reviews
This book should be taught in every school in America so children can see what a mess America’s medical and scientific communities are, so they can help change things for their futures.

It is simply horrible what happen to this woman’s daughter, but out of a bad situation something beautiful usually happens. I’m predicting that the house of cards that Big Pharm, the FDA, American Medical Association, and all others connected to the deaths of millions of people each year is going to come crashing down.

The American way of life of listening to junk science, taking pills, and eating processed crap needs to be shut down and this little girl’s death could be the spear that slays the dragon!

The America people need to wake up and realize that their health is being put in jeopardy so a select few can make millions of dollars in profits.

READ THIS BOOK!
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15 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
There are Two Sides To Every Story, November 29, 2005
By Paul Alexander – See all my reviews
First, let me express my shock at Anthony Sanchez’s review earlier.
To attack Christine and her family with absolutely no knowledge of the facts aside from a shotgun article by the LA Times was inhumane and goes a long way in showing what can happen when people get spoon-fed their information with no sense of wonder or scientific criticism. I say jump, you jump Anthony. I imagine you were one of the panic-stricken when Orson Wells announced the Martians had landed. Fool.

Christine may not have all the answers to disprove the HIV-AIDS link. But neither does the establishment have the facts to prove it. There are two sides to every story and to blindly believe in only one…well…ignorance truly is bliss. And Christine’s account, backed by hundreds of educated doctors and scientists, certainly has enough merit to warrant reading.

There is a ot of arguing about the death of Christine’s daughter being HIV-AIDS related. I have followed this story from the start on numerous sites. so I can say I’m somewhat informed on what’s going on. At least, a hell of a lot more than Anthony Sanchez is.

According to the facts, it seems very likely her daughter’s death had nothing to do with AIDS at all, but more likely an allergic reaction to Amoxycillin. The pattern of death just doesn’t fit with AIDS death as described by the mainstream medical establishment – and does seem to coincide quite tragically with the side effects of allergy to antibiotic. Regardless, to hatefully attack the family in a time of such tragedy (imagine you lost your daughter!) with ignorant assumptions and accusations is nothing short of evil.

As for the book, it is a very good read. It is extremely intersting and eye-opening. It may seem like a reach (like calling the Earth round was a reach in its time), but if it’s true, it may be the spark that rights one of the most devastating wrongs in modern history.
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11 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Science Fiction, November 10, 2005
By Katy “Katy” (Cambridge, MA) – See all my reviews
While reading this book I was immediately taken back by all of the misrepresentations of cited material. So I decided to highlight them and now I have a bright yellow book cover to cover and two less highlighters in my drawer.

The writer demonstrates a complete lack of scientific understanding. For starters, when research is performed, it must include all the data, not carefully select pieces. Scientists may enter into research with suspicion of outcome but are successful despite the outcome, as evidence established by scientific methods is the victory in and of itself. The writer’s HIV+ status and decade’s long insistence that HIV is benign creates profound bias fueled by conflicts of interest.

The writer cherry-picked pieces of data from the reference material to compile this pamphlet of fiction. She carefully extracted slivers of sympathetic information from large, carefully monitored studies to suggest something quite foregin to what they do state. As I read, I started to think she’d created her own study by borrowing snipets of data from different places to create a study that supports her beliefs.

Peer-reviewed studies that are published in reputable medical journals are reviewed to ensure painstaking efforts were taken to eliminate tester bias (double-blind testing, etc.) and whose data was carefully monitored. Grossly put, this book is an abortion of those studies.

If you buy this book, commit yourself to fact checking by reading the studies referenced. Better yet, pick from any one of a thousand excellent sci-fi novels instead.
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13 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
What’s More Dangerous Than Uninformed Opinions?, October 30, 2005
By Christine Maggiore (Los Angeles, CA USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Rather than present a cogent challenge to the referenced data in my book, Mr Sanchez calls the contents “dangerous” based on his uninformed conclusions about my daughter’s death. Apparently believing the Los Angeles Times provides all the facts necessary to render judgment on the matter, Sanchez offers his expert opinion on a child he’s never met, whose medical records he’s never seen and without having examined any evidence pursuant to the case. Dear Mr Sanchez, before jumping to conclusions about what you think you know, please consider the inconvenient facts the LA Times left out of their articles posted in the News and Updates section of www.aliveandwell.org

You may also wish to learn what the independent pathology report on the autopsy reveals before making further public statements about me and my family. In the meantime, let’s reserve the book review page at Amazon for comments on the actual publications rather than your take on an author’s personal tragedy.
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11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
This powerful book frames the issue like no other. It is a MUST read for EVERYONE, HIV pos and neg alike., October 17, 2005
By S. A. Sarnoff “S.A. Sarnoff” (San Roque, CA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? by Christine Maggiore IS A WINNER!
I have a reading list the size of Texas, which means I prefer to read books that are to the point, and not a dawn out excuse of an ego trip for an author intent on a study in verbosity.
Ms. Maggiore gets to the point with new information and does not waste any time doing it. This writer omits the usual mantra of un-scientific assumptions and the sci-fi dooms-day predictions, focusing instead on the history and evidence of HIV as the cause of AIDS, and she bothers to reference her work (unlike some books I’ve read lately). I appreciate that Nobel prize winners and other top scientists have come out in support of her work, her ideas and her right to question. Those who read this powerful albeit small volume with an open mind will be rewarded with insightful information that the CDC and the FDA have ignored for decades. As long as Pharma and the medical industry is imbedded with these mega-agencies they will continue to lack neutrality and integrity many of us know are the basis for true science.

If you think you know about HIV/AIDS and have not read this book, then you are in for a fast paced ride that separates fact from fiction and a book that respects the reader enough to trust him/her to make up their own minds even if it means mentioning that the emperor is naked. Any reader worth his/her salt will welcome out-of- the box writing, and this book has it in spades. This book messes with the dominant theology of pharma funded science, and the author does it with peer reviewed, published literature. Science is built upon NEW ideas, and not by systematic rubberstamping of unsupported theories.
If you are currently on HIV drugs this book is essential. If you are worried about you or a family member getting HIV…READ THIS BOOK and decide for yourself if the facts between the covers warrant a new view of HIV.

Ps I noticed some of the reviews are mean spirited personal attacks against the author, TIME-OUT. This Amazon space is for readers to post book reviews (read the guidelines) it is no place to assault a writer grieving the loss of a child.
It is outrageous, disgusting and completely out of line to post personal accusations about Ms. Maggiore, who’s young daughter died shortly after antibiotics were begun for an ear infection. Since the author’s daughter did not have an AIDS diagnosis prior to death nor a history of compromised health prior to the ear infection, this baseless attack ignores one important fact, healthy people don’t drop dead from AIDS within weeks of a ear infection. Read this book! I also really liked “Get All The Facts: HIV does not cause AIDS” (Mass Market Paperback)
by Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati
(11 customer reviews)
Available on Amazon.Com
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16 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
This book is “dangerous”…to sloppy thinking, October 4, 2005
By John Fowler (Durango, CO) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Christine Maggiore’s book is an important element in the ongoing debate about AIDS, its causes, its medications, and its consequences. While not the deepest or most carefully-argued contribution to the canon of AIDS dissident literature, this book provides a very readable introduction to the subject, with more than enough peer-reviewed citations and quotations to satisfy any skeptical reader. But more important, I think, is the fact that Christine has put her money where her mouth is, so to speak. Unlike the more academic books from Peter Duesberg and Robert Root-Bernstein, Christine’s book is her life. She dinged the bell on an HIV antibody test, and by all accounts should have been dead ages ago, especially given her steadfast refusal to poison herself with AIDS meds. If she were unique, the book might be an interesting read as a mere curiosity, an anomaly in the vast tapestry of stories of HIV antibody test results that inexorably work their way to death.

But Christine is not unique, as the book’s extended appendix suggests. She lists dozens of testimonies from people whose stories are a lot like hers. And this is the book’s greatest strength. If you think it’s impossible for people to survive 15 or 20 years with a positive result on an HIV antibody test without touching AIDS meds, this litany of reports from regular folks will quickly disabuse you of that notion.

How, then, to reconcile this with the numerous negative reviews of this book that precede mine? Well, it helps to realize that the reviews listed below share several things in common with other Amazon reviews of AIDS-questioning literature:

1. The reviewers haven’t even read the book in question. I can’t figure out why on earth anyone would vote as “helpful” a review from someone who hadn’t even bothered to read a book before reviewing it.

2. The reviewers have no idea what they’re talking about. Christine’s good health over a decade after a positive antibody test is by no means unique, and yet you should watch the logical backflips that abound when her critics try to explain it. The most common explanation is the patently circular “She was never sick–her test was a false positive.” This non-argument, taken below by Martha Howard (and virtually every other critic of Christine), is especially telling in light of the recent death of Christine’s daughter. It’s telling because it seems everyone who insisted she was a false positive is now demanding that she be strung up for allowing her child to die of AIDS. How an HIV-negative mom would have infected her daughter, I have no idea. Talk about ad hoc. And what of her child’s apparent death from “AIDS-related pneumonia”? As it turns out, there is no evidence that she died of any pneumonia, much less anything associated with AIDS:

–Every healthcare and social services professional who observed her and treated her over her three years agreed that she was the picture of health. Not quite what you’d expect for a child supposedly dying of debilitating immune dysfunction.

–The doctors who examined her for her ear infection in the days before her death all agreed that her lungs were clear and cited no evidence of respiratory illness. This was even the case just one day before she died.

–When she collapsed before being rushed to the ER, she didn’t have the blue lips or fingertips that are evidence of life-threatening pneumonia.

–In the ER, she measured normal on an oxygen test.

–Her ER doctors took chest X-rays shortly before her death and reported no suspicion of pneumonia.

–The coroner autopsied Eliza Jane in May, examining her lungs in the process, and found no evidence of any particular cause of death. The coroner’s office even went so far as to suggest that AIDS symptoms are “obvious”, implying that Eliza’s death was clearly not AIDS. They would not draw their “AIDS-related pneumonia” conclusion until 3 months later, and only then after learning of Christine’s book. They drew this conclusion despite the ME’s report citing the lack of inflammatory response in the child’s lungs.

–Several independent reviews of the coroner’s report (by medical faculty from around the country) have likewise found no evidence that would lead to an AIDS diagnosis.

Given the lack of any evidence of pneumonia (or AIDS), and given the proximity of Eliza’s death to her first-ever treatment with Amoxycillin, Ockham’s razor–heck, even just simple logic–strongly suggests a severe reaction to the antibiotic, possibly leading to anaphylaxis. This is a known, albeit rare, complication of giving Amoxycillin to kids.

3. The reviewers have abysmally low standards of evidence. The unquestioning willingness of all these recent reviewers–and those who vote their reviews as “helpful”–to accept a single line from an LA Times article as definitive proof of anything medical, well there’s not much I can say about that. Richard Francis, as part of his review/argument, even goes so far as to cite a doctor who examined neither Eliza Jane nor the coroner’s report in question. Sloppy thinking like that only makes books like Christine’s even more important.

And finally, if you needed any further motivation to read this book, consider how many reviewers have warned that the book is “dangerous”. Good grief; it’s just words on a page. Any book that instills this sort of fear in so many people probably has something of merit to offer. Read it and decide for yourself.
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14 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
The Author’s 3 Year Old Daughter Died of Aids-Related Pneumonia, October 1, 2005
By Hanna Greene – See all my reviews
The only “science” in this book is what I call pick-and-choose-science. You present a meaningless bunch of theories that don’t withstand scientific testing or even the mildest level of scrutiny.

Christine Maggiore should be criminally charged for negligent homicide in the death of her daughter – a 3 year old toddler who needed her mother’s love to rate higher than her mother’s denial. Even in death, Eliza Jane’s mother remains steadfastly convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS – yet the child was HIV positive and died from AIDS-related pneumonia. Thankfully, Ms. Maggiore has reached the age where she cannot produce more human beings whose only purpose will be to die horrible deaths over their mother’s ignorance.

Christine Maggiore is incapable of acknowledging that this book is a farce – even after the death of her own daughter. How many more innocent children have to die at the hands of obstinate parents too full of pride to save them?
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7 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Don’t Judge a Book by the LA Times coverage, September 30, 2005
By C. Schwartz “a skeptic” (San Antonio, TX) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
It is interesting that some reviewers would have readers judge this book by the coverage of an article appearing in the LA Times. This book can be judged on the merit of its content. The logic and data that Christine Maggiore uses in her book will appeal to critical thinkers such as David Rasnick, PhD, designer of protease inhibitors and other respected scientists and thinkers who have recommended her work and who don’t base their conclusions about this subject on the basis of an inconclusive LA Times article.
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24 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Warning, This is a very dangerous book., September 26, 2005
By Richard Francis (Washington DC) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This is a very dangerous book. Denying that the HIV virus causes AIDS is just a primitive escape mechanism, similar to that of a two year old holding their fingers in their ears chanting “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you”.

It’s also sad to note that the authors own daughter, 3-year-old Eliza Jane Scovill is dead. The cause, according to a Sept. 15 report by the Los Angeles County coroner, was AIDS-related pneumonia.

“This was a preventable death,” said Dr. James Oleske, a New Jersey physician who never examined Eliza Jane but has treated hundreds of HIV-positive children. “I can tell you without any doubt that, at the outset of her illness, if she was appropriately evaluated, she would have been appropriately treated. She would not have died.

She died because her mother refused to accept the possibility of her having aids, a disease she might well have not caught if her mother took the appropriative measures during pregnancy.

EDIT (10/12/05)

sloppy thinking? It always amazes me that people (as John above) can take such pseudo-scientific thinking as this book as anything less than a load of rubbish.

We must remember that Christine Maggiore, an influential HIV-positive activist believes that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, isn’t infectious, shouldn’t be treated with “toxic” anti-retroviral drugs like AZT and certainly needn’t prevent HIV-positive mothers like herself from breastfeeding.

This is certainly dangerous thinking.

(…)
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49 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
Epilogue: Her child is DEAD from Aids, September 24, 2005
By Anthony Sanchez (Fredericksburg, va United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
How dangerous is this book and the author? Her three year old daughter is now dead from Aids. Read about it in the L.A. Times 24 September 2005. All because the author’s (and her husband’s) anti-science ideas of HIV as espoused in this book.

Has their daughter’s death changed their attitudes on HIV testing? No, the author wouldn’t want to take any responsibility, so she set up a web cite dedicated to how much she “loves” (sorry, make that “loved”) her daughter. However, she still claims that her daughter did not die of Aids!

I work as a child abuse/neglect specialist. The doctors involved (one of whom served three years criminal probation) are fully responsible. The Los Angeles child protective services are also responsible for failing to act correctly on an earlier medical neglect complaint (the parents’ failure to test the child for Aids/HIV). Those of you who supported this author by buying her book of half-brained ideas and thereby also endangering other children are too responsible. But, most responsible for this little girl’s death are the father and mother. For the glory of publicity and book sales, they sacrificed the child.
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7 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Christine Maggiore is HIV NEGATIVE, July 15, 2005
By Martha Howard, MD “Martha Howard, MD” (Cambridge, MA) – See all my reviews
I can’t believe I am the first to point this out. Hasn’t anyone wondered why Christine Maggiore refuses to submit to the National Institutes of Health or the Center for Disease Conrol for HIV testing (using ELISA, Western Blot, PCR)?

She was the victim of false positive ELISA testing over a decade ago (not that unusual) and, worse, a physician who disclosed her test results without the mandatory Western Blot confirmation. Subsequently learning of her HIV NEGATIVE status, Christine has taken the conspiracy theory ball and run, run, run away with it.

Believe me friends, Maggiore is HIV NEGATIVE – which explains consistent claims that she and her children are “ridiculously healthy” – most young HIV negative women are ridiculously healthy too.

She is a charlatan who has desperately harmed the lives of HIV positive people by outright lies. They believed in her – by example. If she were healthy after so many years of HIV infection, then HIV=AIDS was a lie (a wonderful fantasy, I know).

No lie folks. If left untreated, HIV is lethal.

For an HIV NEGATIVE woman such as Christine Maggiore to claim that HIV is harmless certainly lacks conviction!
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26 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
Be very cautious…, June 13, 2005
By DJ, MD (USA) – See all my reviews
Being an MD, I would caution readers to be careful in forming some of the opinions posted in reviews. You might want to visit http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hivaids/hivaids.htm for reference. I can say I personally am not influenced or swayed by drug companies or money, etc that was mentioned in a review. I also do not base a diagnosis on “prejudices”. It’s hard to not interpret a positive HIV screen, followed by a positive Western blot, along with a low CD-4 and high viral load as anything but what it is. As for the deaths only resulting from the medications in one review…why did all those AIDS patients die in early years BEFORE we had any treatments??? If no modern medical treatments are needed, why do these patients bother going to the doctor when all else fails? One last piece of advice….the 11th hour is not the time to suddenly find faith in the evil healthcare system and expect a miraculous outcome.
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5 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
CHRISTINE MAGGIORE Deserves a Million Stars!, March 25, 2005
By Thomas E. Brewster Jr. “TOMAS_HIV_DISSIDENT” (CLEARWATER FLORIDA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Christine Will go down in History as a “LIFE SAVING TREATMENT” for HIV and AIDS. By Reaching someone with TRUTH that so-called HIV/AIDS Treatments DO NOT “SAVE or PROLONG” someone’s Life is simply in the Palm of their hand.

People Must be AWARE of the FINE PRINT,The DISCLAIMERS of everyday Life…Like checking a Price Tag at a Grocery store… People Don’t READ a price tag…THEY ASSUME.

THE AIDS EMPIRE and their little IMPS ~~ The Pharmeceutical Industry & The Condom Industry are NOT The ANSWER to KILLING Innocent Human Beings.

DISSIDENTS are NOT Denialists. “Dissidents are Dissidents” which RIGHTFULLY QUESTION a RELIGIOUS Sect and their Reasoning for Misleading and Killing innocent people… people like Powertx wish AMAZON.com Not UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTIONAL Right of FREEDOM OF SPEECH and the RIGHT To QUESTION exactly what CHRISTINE MAGGIORE HAS QUESTIONED.

Everything ABOUT HIV AND AIDS.

TOMAS BREWSTER
Clearwater Florida
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12 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Rip away the assumptions…, July 19, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
Christine does a wonderful job asking the tough questions and wrestling with the answers. Though no single book or piece of literature should make up your entire argument, Christine makes a fairly strong case for a revisal of the HIV/AIDS death connection. A highly important read!
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34 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
I finally read this book, May 17, 2004
By Alexander E. Paulsen “AlexP” (Jacksonville, Fl United States) – See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
I’ve been debating reading this book for a while now. I have read Duesburg’s “Inventing the Aids Virus” and I found his case convincing. I also found the negative reviews of his book likewise interesting and informative. Mainly informative in the area of demonstrating the danger of mixing politics and science. The science half is always overshadowed by the politics – and money.

I enjoyed this book and regretted waiting so long to read it. She presents her case in a well thought out manner. I have read many scientific and medical papers that were nowhere near this concise and well presented.

This book did prompt me read further in medical literature about AIDS and HIV. I saw several negative reviews here that contend that Cristine doesn’t know what she’s talking about and that HIV is the “proven” cause of AIDS.

I went looking for that proof. I have been unable to find any published scientic or medical paper that demostrated or proved that HIV causes AIDS. There aee scads of papers showing a “link”. Those links however are all circular: they define AIDS as disease X in the presence of HIV antibodies. Disease X w/o those antobodies is just plain old disease X.

I looked, there is not a single paper that demonstrates that HIV causes AIDS. No paper that describes the mechanism by which the HIV virus causes to 40 or diseases. If any of the folks here who contend that HIV is the proven cause of AIDS please write down the reference. I can’t find it.

Oddly I stumbled upon a paper that un-links Kaposi’s Sarcomi as being an AIDS disease! KC has been THE definitive AIDS disease since AIDS becaase widely known.

I don’t think Christine or anyone else is denying that people are dying, but if we wish to save their lives we had better find out whats really killing them.

After 20 years and untold billions of dollars, the important questions still have not been answered. Not only that but the AIDS establishment won’t even debate the reasons for their failure to save a single life of an AIDS patient. What are they afraid of? They could shut up Duesburg, Maggiore and Mullis with a single debate but the AIDS industry won’t do it.

It seems the only ones who survive an HIV infection are the people who don’t treat it. They live. The patients who take AZT die. The AIDS industry won’t even discuss the issue.

Silence and censorship always makes me suspicous.

This is good book. Not a great one, but a good one. I liked the personal aspects of it. Iwish she would have presented a little more of the other side of the issue if only to give us readers a few more talking points on the subject.

Somewhere, sometime the truth will eventually escape. Truth always escapes sooner or later.
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12 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
A life-saving book, May 14, 2004
By Mark Griffiths (Pierrelatte, France) – See all my reviews
This book has been responsible for awakening African politicians to the AIDS fraud. Its message has probably saved millions of innocent victims from legal poisoning by toxic, experimental, expensive and unproven medication and prevented third world countries from spending millions of dollars on worthless “AID$ testing” and creating toxic death. The price of this book should be increased in price by at least 200% (some to be directed to the author and her non-profit organisation : “Alive & Well”), and Amazon should initiate a special promotional offer.
Mark Griffiths “HIV positive” since 1986 WITHOUT legal poison.
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11 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Accurate, Referenced, Precise, Intelligent…, April 9, 2004
By Todd Phillips, MCP (San Francisco, CA) – See all my reviews
Christine did a great job putting this book together, it has everything in it that the people who have been basically deceiving you “in your own best interest” for the last twenty years do not want you to know about HIV and “AIDS”.

The information in this little book is accurate, which of course, is what makes it so infuriating for some people. Observe the reactions to this book, which contains all factual information, and decide for yourself who is afraid and acting out of fear and ignorance, and who is not.

If you’ve ever been targeted for HIV and “AIDS” this book will change your life. If you love someone that is targeted for HIV and “AIDS”, this book could save their life.

Everything in this book is factual and provocative. People need to know all the facts about HIV antibody tests BEFORE submitting to them. Many people would forgo the tests altogether if they only knew that their is no standard for determining weather or not there is HIV in human blood, and that test results are *interpreted* by clinicians based on prejudicial factors.

Save your life, and the lives of those you care about. Get this book today.
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17 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
This book should be consored, April 2, 2004
By Nelson R. Vergel “powertx” (Houston, Texas USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This book is responsible for politicians in Africa withholding life saving treatment to people in need. This whole AIDS denialist movement will be remembered in the future as the people who fueled ignorance and promoted death in millions. Amazon should remove it from its sales list as a responsible company.
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7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Not a drop of smugness, January 17, 2004
By Tomasjpn “Tomasjpn” (Tokyo, Japan) – See all my reviews
This book gives a balanced, scientifically verifiable assessment of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis/debate. NOWHERE in this book does Ms. Maggiore come across as smug or arrogant, or ‘ha ha, I’m alive, you’re dead’ as one reviewer so idiotically put it. Her writing is concise, to the point, and devoid of mere opinions. The people who have written scathing criticisms of this book either did not read the entire book, or perhaps have reading comprehension difficulties. An excellent short summary, and a good lead-in to Peter Duesberg’s seminal work “Inventing the AIDS Virus.” Read it with your brain turned on. The AIDS issue in the U.S., as Ms. Maggiore put it so well, is a clear case of the victory of Politics over Science, Religion over Reason. Science is not about ’silencing’ other theories and hypotheses that one doesn’t agree with. Leave that sort of facism to tele-evangelists. If it were so, we would still be using leaches to cure disease.
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13 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
Stop the Myth, this is Killing People, January 10, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
Please visit the AIDS question and answer section of the Johns Hopkins website.
Please realize that it is human nature to deny what we do not want to accept.
PLease realize that HIV can be treated and one’s life greatly extended, and that the meds get better all the time.
Please know that the earth is not flat, and that HIV causes AIDS is not now, nor ever will be, a question, an opinion or anything else other than fact. Silence=death. We’ve come so far, let us never go back.
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19 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
christine is fabulous, May 25, 2003
By “scareefarie666″ (Los Angeles, CA United States) – See all my reviews
well I’m convinced. Christine Maggiore came and taught an alternative AIDS class at my high school and it was one of the most interesting experiences in a class I’ve ever had. We didn’t just talk about AIDS but about how the pharmaceutical companies are running our country and how your doctors get corrupted by the money. I know it sounds crazy but it seriously makes a lot of sense when you learn all about it. Christine is really smart and this book is very well written. I highly recommended if you have an open mind and are interested in learning a different point of view then the norm. An excellent book.
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14 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
Unbelieveable, March 12, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
I think this book is some of the most unbelieveable garbage I have ever feasted my eyes upon. I think it’s homophobic and largely racist. I think it is conspiracy minded, taking statistics and twisting them to fit a predetermined narrative. It is very bizarre to think that pharmeceutical companies are responsible for the AIDS epidemic and “fooling” America into thinking that HIV leads to AIDS. People have died and are continuing to die. I am very glad that Ms. Maggiore was able to have a healthy baby despite testing positive for HIV. But that doesn’t mean that the disease doesn’t very negatively affect millions of other people in a very fatal way.
The fact that AIDS drugs have nasty side effects does not mean they are altogether worthless. Any patient with HIV/AIDS can use them and other more holistic methods in a balanced way to fight the disease.
Also, the discounting of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is very strange. Just because malaria is killing more people in Africa than AIDS, does that mean it should cease to be a concern? Advances in the African health care system that could help those with HIV/AIDS could also benefit those with malaria. The infrastructure problems in Africa that are leading to such high mortality rates are very basic (lack of clean water, food). Providing those two things to start with (which we are a long way from doing) could only help Africans in the most crucial ways.
The bottom line is, I think this book is insensitive and horrifying. If you must read it, please spend an equal amount of time reading some opposing literature about HIV/AIDS.
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22 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
I’m suspicious of paranoia, January 28, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
Having worked in medical publishing for years, I get red flags anytime I see someone hysterically pointing fingers at doctors “in the pay of big pharmaceutical companies” as the cause of a “systematized campaign of misinformation designed to…” yada yada yada. Maybe Christine Maggiore has a valid point to make about the nature of how medicine is conducted in this country, and I won’t argue that the system is seriously flawed. However, although I’ve met MDs and researchers who are arrogant, egotistical, self-aggrandizing, and obnoxious, I’ve yet to meet one who would deliberately falsify results in order to gain notoriety. I’ve certainly never met one that would openly push a tenuous or unsupportable hypothesis just so he or she could get pharmco money. We have peer review for a reason, and the medical profession is cut-throat enough that it’s HIGHLY unlikely that such unethical chicanery would go unnoticed and unpunished–look what happened to DAvid Baltimore! So this portrait of Dr. Gallo as a guy out to make a name and/or a buck by “creating” a new disease that he could then “discover” treatments for just doesn’t ring true. That’s not to say it’s impossible for such unethical people to slip through the cracks… but having worked with Dr. Gallo on one of his publications, I can attest that he’s not such a man. So it disturbs me to see him presented in that light in the excerpts published here. It disturbs me more to see a variety of assertions about the nature of AIDS that omit some key information or use faulty logic and assume much that is not demonstrated (or even demonstrable)in order to strongly imply, without directly asserting it, that the Government is Making It All Up in order to benefit Big Business. Case in point: the statement that, because the definitions of AIDS in Canada and the United States differ, people who would be considered to have AIDS in the US would “not have AIDS” if they lived in Canada. Uh, hello, no, that’s not what it means—it means only that the government of Canada wouldn’t count them among Canada’s AIDS patients, not that they don’t have an illness. There’s more than one way to lie with statistics, and there’s more than one way to fudge the truth. Nothing I’ve seen in Ms Maggiore’s writing suggests a truly balanced and disinterested approach… so I’m every bit as suspicious of her conclusions as she wants me to be of the medical establishment’s assertions.
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7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
A MUST READ!, December 20, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
Extremely interesting, extremely intelligent and uncommonly sane . A priceless book which you won’t regret reading. Also a real treat – a radio interview with Christine Maggoire is available to be heard on the Virusmyth website – if you check it out you’ll definitely want to read her book. I also recommend Peter Duesberg , John Lauritson , Joan Shenton, Meditel, Hiram Caton. Very inspiring stuff !
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6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
A MUST READ!, December 20, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
Extremely interesting, extremely intelligent and uncommonly sane . A priceless book which you won’t regret reading. Also a real treat – a radio interview with Christine Maggoire is available to be heard on the Virusmyth website – if you check it out you’ll definitely want to read her book. I also recommend Peter Duesberg , John Lauritson , Joan Shenton, Meditel, Hiram Caton. Very inspiring stuff !
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16 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Critical thinking that challenges the received wisdom, December 11, 2002
By Fiona Mc Namara “fibri” – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
It is hard to believe that the thousands or millions of “experts” who sustain the HIV=AIDS theory might be wrong. But that doesn’t make it impossible. The fact is that today’s “knowledge” about AIDS is built on a foundation of evidence that is itself highly questionable. Remove the underlying building blocks and the whole edifice crumbles.

If you are interested in critical, independent thinking, read this book.

Christine is not — as some reviewers here seem to believe — a lone, crazy voice. She does not claim to be a medical expert: what she does is painstakingly collect, and document, evidence from the many, many experts who challenge the opinion that HIV=AIDS, and the death sentence that usually implies.

Those who support her do not do so on the evidence of this one introductory book, but on the masses of evidence she has continued to collect and disseminate.

Unfortunately, the odds are not in her favor: a (relatively) few voluntary dissidents supported only by the meager income from their publications and private donations, pitted against the combined forces of the pharmaceutical lobby, government bodies, political forces, and established AIDS and other health and charity organizations (in a movie, of course, it would all be over in 90 minutes…).

The wider implications of what Christine has to say are deeply disturbing: disturbing for those of us who have lost a loved-one to “AIDS” as well as to the institutions that depend on it. No wonder many people’s automatic reaction is to dismiss her as a lunatic.

She has taken on a herculean task, but is starting to be heard in the press and in AIDS circles throughout the world. President Mbeki was among the first to publicly resist the AIDS lobby and insist on at least listening to alternative views, and now there is increased dissent in India. (And no, President Mbeki is not simply trying to “save his money” and committing genocide by refusing to buy drugs for his people that the pharmaceutical companies are so generously offering cheap…)

This book is slight in size, but a good introduction to the dissidents’ views. For more up-to-date information you should visit her website and join her mailing list.

I profoundly believe that some day Christine and the other AIDS dissidents will be vindicated. If ordinary people will only have the courage to listen to the debate and make up their own minds.
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19 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
How To Get “HIV Is Not Dangerous!” Lethally Brainwashed, November 15, 2002
By Gregg Nelson (Sausalito, CA) – See all my reviews
After reading this book cover-to-cover it is quite clear that Christine Maggiore has a very strong personal agenda — which she only can support with direct scientific lies, dangerous misinformation and half truths.

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki seems convinced that HIV is not the cause of AIDS; and that current treatments cause rather than effectively treat AIDS.

President Mbeki refuses to provide the anti-AIDS drug AZT to HIV-positive pregnant women. President Mbeki in fact declared the drug too dangerous to use, even though it has been proven that AZT drastically cuts the chances of newborns contracting the HIV virus.

At a recent conference in Pretoria, Mbeki invited U.S.-based researcher Peter Duesberg, a scientific outcast for his theory that AIDS is caused not by the human immunodeficiency virus but by illegal drugs and AZT. A fervent belief also promoted by Ms. Maggiore, in her book.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know extremely expensive AZT and costly illegal street drugs — were that popular in traditionally promiscious, horrific poverty ravaged sub-Saharan Africa.

Two more rationality ‘knee-cappers’ from Christine’s book in which she (also) declares “there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS” (these “facts” are not expressed as mere alternative postulates or mere personal opinion):

1) “If HIV were contagious, it would have to be multiplying exponentially, which it is not.”

This — completely ignores the physically limited sexual manner of transmission — this is not T.B.

Jesus.

2) “Bottom line? No one knows what causes AIDS. We know it cannot be the virus called HIV. We know it isn’t contagious.”

We?

This is MEASURABLY LETHAL — destructive pseudoscience authority abuse.

Look.

Take Art Bell for example. He is constantly presenting pseudoscientific unsolvable doom “experts” to a — now worldwide audience.

He then, very publicly chastises his audience for “..not being thinking adults — it is just information folks!” – when unscreened on-air callers angrily raise the -unchallenged- unsolvable doom-”expert” question.

A classic mindless guilt-spraying dogma bully control tactic.

“Credible” authoritative-sounding speech has very real impact — on busy adults without extra free time for complete research.

Especially -already frightened- adult human beings with potentially positive HIV test results.

At the official Center For Disease Control And Prevention website …

“Why do some people make statements that HIV does not cause AIDS?”

For further credible reading before deciding to “fashionably reject” modern, medically-sane personal sexual boundaries why not first visit:

The National Library Of Medicine on this topic (use google search)

And believe it or not Mother Jones Magazine’s recent article about dangerous HIV deniers (use google search).

An exerpt:

From Mother Jones Magazine

Foo Fighters, HIV Deniers

A platinum-selling alt-rock group may be endangering their fans by promoting a dangerous myth.

by Silja J.A. Talvi

Feb. 25, 2000

Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl wants you to forget what you think you know about AIDS.

Some rock stars want to free Tibet. Others want to save Mumia. The Foo Fighters, on the other hand, want their fans to ignore accepted medical wisdom about AIDS. …

…HIV experts are alarmed by the possible impact of the Foo Fighters’ embrace of Maggiore’s theories on their potentially gullible yoexcerptns….

And — this exerpt from a San Francisco Bay Guardian article:

Bad science

They once thought HIV was harmless. Now, they say, AIDS has forced them to reconsider.

By Bruce Mirken

Jan. 26, 2000

FOR YEARS SAN Franciscans have heard from a small but vocal group of activists who claim that HIV is harmless. AIDS, these dissenters say, is caused not by a virus but by “lifestyle factors” chiefly recreational and medical drug use. The medical establishment, they say, is either misguided or murderous for advocating the use of toxic anti-HIV drugs.

The “AIDS dissident” movement has been around for well over a decade. For the most part, it has remained on the fringe, wearing the disdain of mainstream scientists and AIDS activists as a badge of pride.

But in the last year, the movement has been challenged from within – by former believers who, in keeping with dissident orthodoxy, had scorned and avoided recently developed AIDS therapies.

Now some of them have themselves gotten sick with AIDS. They say their belief that HIV couldn’t hurt them put their lives and the lives of their lovers at risk. One even goes so far as tocompare his former movement to a cult…
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15 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
A Waste of Time, October 16, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
It is easy to write a book with a host of references at the end supporting this claim. I was not so interested in the style of the book such as the content and a~~ I can say is that while there are some HIV and Aids Myths (such as the origination of HIV), I found this book bordered on the Libe~~ious and I wonder what Ms Maggiore’s intention was. To make a mi~~ion? Certainly a catchy title. I think books like this should be put in the trash can where they belong. There is so little evidence to support what they say other than a few references here and there of a possible few people who are alive and we~~ with HIV and AIDS. It is a we~~ known fact that many people are at present “alive and we~~” with the virus. But time has shown they wi~~ get sick. Why is it that people with HIV get sick? Psycholigical? As an HIV infected individual with many friends with HIV, it cannot be mere co-incidence. I wouldn’t bother with this book other than to know what the Aids Dissidents are saying. I would like anyone who disputes the reality of the HIV virus to be infected with HIV infected blood. Put your money where your mouth is. Then we’~~ see the strength of your convictions. David Hempster
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46 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
Thought provoking, but be careful, May 8, 2002
By Bufford D. Moore (Baytown, Texas USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I want this book to be right. I want no one else ever to die of AIDS. I can see how anyone who is HIV positive would be greatly relieved by the postulates, and I don’t want to upset anyone. I was an ER nurse up to the early 80’s, and we were on the forefront of presentations of AIDS patients. I don’t profess to know what causes AIDS, as the author does, nor can I swap reference citations. What I can do is assure you that her thesis that AIDS is simply a name applied to pre-existing disease is a very questionable one. Even at the level of “street level” ER nurses, we recognized that something was different; there was something new out there. I think that the book should be read, but carefully and with a very large grain of salt. My biggest fear is that years of educating high-risk groups, which I feel has helped, could be very easily undone by the implication that AIDS is really caused by those terrible drugs the terrible doctors give. The patients that we saw pre-dated those agents, and you may believe me or not, but those young men were incredibly ill and died with startling speed. They were often gone before much “toxic” anti-biotic could be given.

11/10/06 Addendum:

In a very sad turn of events, the author’s three year old daughter died suddenly. The ME has ruled that she died of AIDS related pneumonia. Her pediatrician has been investigated for poor care in not testing her for HIV. Who knows what’s right? Looks real bad for the author’s theory
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5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
An overdue easy-to-digest explanation, April 25, 2002
By Brian Martinez “texasbrian” (KINGWOOD, TX United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This is a vital book for anyone involved with any aspect of HIV. Without going to the question of whether she is right or wrong (and I think she is right), I will say that the book is good in that it is easily approachable. HIV books are often, necessarily, mired in dense medical and biological terms (”non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors”). This book shines in its ability to explain those terms simply and effectively.

My only complaint here is that nearly half the book is either references or appendices — ancilliary material. While that’s certainly helpful and appreciated, it leaves the reader with little more than a big pamphlet.

Still, it’s a great book to read, especially at a low price.
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7 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
It’s worth while, February 19, 2002
By Kevin Casper (Belmont, WI USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Christine’s book is an introduction into another point of view. This is the point of view that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. It is an easy book to read with every detail referenced for those who would like to learn more. It is purely another view on a very touchy subject.

Let me respond to the bad reviews for a moment. I have seen a couple of rediculas arguments from the few bad reviews. Christine Maggoire is trying to spread a view that includes the use of condoms as condoms and other protection is still part of a solution from even her point of view. Christine herself is what she was when she was a part of AIDS organizations: an activist. She wrote this book based on the advice and papers written by Nobel prize winners, PHDs, doctors, and experiences she and others have had. I’m sure their are similarly qualified activists who believe HIV causes AIDS that have wrote their own books based on similar circumstances. So, since she is not a scientist is not a reason why this book can’t be trusted.
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4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Before you throw away the condoms……, February 4, 2002
By Ken C (USA) – See all my reviews
I do not know how much of this book is true, false, incomplete or misleading, but even if everything Maggiore says is true, we are not out of the woods yet. We still need condoms because o syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis b and c and chlamidia and the other STDs out there.
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7 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Sanity prevails in this book…aids is dead…Hail Christine, November 23, 2001
By Carl W Cate (Knoxville, TN) – See all my reviews
This book is the best book thus far written on the farce that is HIV=AIDS. It is very short,very pointed,and very concise.
Ms. Maggiore takes apart the argument for the virus causing the disease piece by piece until you are left with only one conclusion,the virus doesn’t cause anything(if it even exists which is a whole other argument).
I highly recommend people also read “AIDS INC” by Jon Rappoport,and “Inventing the AIDS Virus” by Peter Duesberg both available on Amazon.com.
When you get through with these books,check the references,and verify to your satisfaction the truth in the information they possess, you will have only two questions left,”What do I do about my fear(s)?” How do I get rid of “AIDS fear consciousness”?
I can’t offer a book reference for you to overcome the questions in this last paragraph(except possibly RISKING by David Viscott,it would help with constructing a logic chain to overcome fear),but will leave you with a starting point to overcome them. AIDS consciousness should be thought of as a Frankenstein monster(I mean this almost literally!!).THOUGHTS ARE THINGS. The lies that make up its body were conceived in a mad scientist lab. GIVEN ENERGY BY OUR THOUGHTS and FEAR (Figuratively the LIGHTNING if you will) With Robert Gallo then screaming,”IT’s ALIVE!” at the press conference in 1984.
I personally have overcome my fears about HIV and no longer pay it any mind.I no longer get tested (among other things!!) I did this by taking the ENERGY from my fears, and killing the thoughtform in my mind. Simply,I am FREE,and no longer make decisions based on HIV or listen to those who do.
Please understand, I have lost quite a few friends to supposedly AIDS, when on further inspection they were killed by their own vices,their doctors or both.
Thanks Christine for helping set me free.
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14 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
Can’t believe this !, October 23, 2001
By Marc (BRUSSELS, – Belgium) – See all my reviews
How can this be possible ! She is just a danger to humanity. I nearly lost my best friend 6 years ago, he was nearly dying in hospital with a close to zero immunity and thanks to new PI which were given he was back on his feet in 3 months and fully back to normal in 6 !! I wonder how somebody like her can write such stupid things and……… how people can buy it and believe what she says. Of course it may be years before something bad happens, but the day it does and you see everything going wrong, just go and knock at her door ! Only one place for this: wastebasket !
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12 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
This woman is insane, September 25, 2001
Reviewer: A reader
How gullible are you people? You actually believe this woman. She has no qualifications to prove this. When there are people out there with several PH.D’s who can prove to you that HIV causes AIDS. So who are you going to trust. The woman with barely any education or the Ivy league university graduates with several PH.Ds and almost 20 years of research under their belts. She makes me think of those people who still think the world is flat even or the Holocaust didn’t happen. She’ll learn her lesson soon when her husband gets HIV or her kids do. I’ll tell you why people believe this insane woman. You want closure because you’ve just been given a natural death sentence. So you believe anyone, even this insane woman.
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7 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
What an eye-opening book!!, August 28, 2001
By bfllowers7893@yahoo.com (Columbus, Ohio) – See all my reviews
As an HIV-positive, bi-sexual, sexually active male of many, many years I was absolutely thrilled to discover that HIV and AIDS are not related. For years, I have been practicing so-called “safe” sex with an endless parade of co-ed partners. I can’t believe I’ve wasted so much money on condoms!
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22 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
Sure to make a skeptic of you., August 25, 2001
By Derrick Jensen (Crescent City, CA United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Before I read this book I hadn’t given much thought as to whether HIV causes AIDS. Of course it does. Isn’t that what everybody says? But I guarantee this book will make a skeptic of you. One by one, in straightforward, easy-to-understand language and with excellent scholarship, Maggiore demolishes the assumptions that underlie the whole AIDS industry. Her prose is very reasonable, even understated, yet her case is extraordinarily strong. If your mind is even the slightest bit open, this book will change the way you think.
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11 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
A book of ignorance., August 25, 2001
By “i_luv_gay_doggiez” (CA) – See all my reviews
I don’t get how anyone could beleive the tripe that fills this book. How could anyone take this woman seriously? She has no medical degree, and no previous experiance that would make her even the slightest bit qualafied to make these statements. It’s people like this that are going to make it unsafe for all of the people that are buying in to her ideas.
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23 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
Your Life Could Depend On This Book, June 25, 2001
By Kimberly Murphy-Smith (Laurel, MD USA) – See all my reviews
Christine Maggiore, thank you.

This may be the single best book I’ve ever read about the AIDS “crisis”. Especially in light of the propaganda being put forth upon the 20th anniversary of the “discovery” of AIDS, this book is a must read. You will never look at AIDS statistics the same way again. You will never believe stories of AIDS being a plague to wipe out mankind again. You will never believe stories of wonder drugs again.

Pop quiz: What is the number one disease sweeping through the population on the African continent? If you said “AIDS”, you’re wrong. This book details that there have been 10 times as many malaria cases as AIDS cases, that the number of deaths from basic diseases of poverty and unsanitary conditions outnumber AIDS deaths by a staggering margin, that AIDS is often diagnosed in Africa without the benefit of a blood test from symptoms identical to severe malaria or dysentary, two EXTREMELY common diseases in Africa. The AIDS epidemic in Africa is thoroughly debunked in this book, and its use of real statistics and analysis will shock even the most casual readers.

Pop quiz: Which sexually transmitted disease had the most reported cases from 1981 to 1996? If you said “AIDS”, you’re wrong. The book presents in bold graphics the surge of gonorrhea over this time frame. In fact, according to the book, EVERY sexually transmitted disease outnumbered AIDS cases, by substantial margins. Such details as this are laid out in remarkable detail with extensive citations of studies that back them up.

Pop quiz: Which disease was AZT developed to treat? If you said “AIDS”, you’re wrong again. AZT was developed as a cancer treatment in the 1960s and was thoroughly rejected because it was so toxic it killed more lab mice than the cancer itself. The book shows a warning label from AZT with graphic details of the drug’s carcenogenic, mutagenic, and tetragenic potential and catalogs the horrific side effects of the drug…a drug being prescribed in massive doses to AIDS patients, including children.

The author of this book is a survivor of an HIV-positive diagnosis who challenged the conventional wisdom about a death sentence based on a notoriously inaccurate blood test, found the dissident AIDS movement and found her life again, and went on to a give birth to a perfectly normal HIV-negative child. Her story starts the book; others like hers end the book, describing the survival that they found only after they threw away their AIDS drugs. Many had to go into hiding (the story of the mother who was threatened with arrest for child endangerment because she refused to take the poisonous AZT while she was pregnant will shock you); others have had their stories dismissed by doctors as “slow progressors”. A shocking book, but a must read.
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20 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
Great overview, January 18, 2000
Reviewer: A reader
This book is very easy to read and gives a great overview of the dissident ideas. It also lists many other sources of alternative AIDS information. Readers of this book should also look at:

Get All The Facts: HIV Does Not Cause AIDS

written by Dr. Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati, a pathologist and toxicologist who provides plenty of medical evidence to demonstrate connections between drug use, corticosteroid use, starvation, and AIDS.
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17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
Exposing the “AIDS” myth with facts!, March 5, 1999
Reviewer: A reader
Finally a book that gives you the facts about “AIDS” and HIV. Even if you don’t believe a word of what Christine presents in the book, you must admit that, it is very odd that, none of this information is being discussed on Primetime T.V., Radio and “News” papers.

Christine presents the truth and it might hurt and perhaps even anger some people, but nevertheless, it is still the truth as many people see and experience every day. Christine shows in her book that, HIV has never been proven to cause “AIDS” or any other disease, but the public is being told over and over again that it is. Christine lays the facts on the table with extensive research and documentation to back up her claims. When you read, you might feel a sense of betrayel by the medical industry and media. That is what I felt, first time reading this book. Christine tells it like it is. The statistics that “AIDS” is not the epidemic compared to other diseases and accidents. That “AIDS” is not a disease, but a diagnose of being tested positive for HIV antibodies and having one or more of 28 old illnesses. Christine shows that, contrary to popular belief, the HIV test is NOT for the virus, but for antibodies, which they claim are specific to HIV, but is not.

The only critisism I have of the book is, I wish Christine would have spent a little more time on explaing the early cases of “AIDS” and the correlation between drug use and “AIDS”. Nevertheless, the book brings the pure facts to the public in lay terms and in only 64 pages, that there isnt any excuse not to read it.

Go out and get a copy, and learn from Christine that, “AIDS” is not a death sentence, but a wake up call from a degenative lifestyle caused by recreational, prescription drugs, poor nutrition, stress and other environmental contaminations.
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15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
Concise, succinct treatise on the mythic HIV-paradigm, August 13, 1998
Reviewer: A reader
Having been a social worker in the AIDS field for six years, I first picked up this little book hoping to find some answers and solutions to help my work. What I found, instead, was a series of questions I had never before considered–why are AIDS deaths counted cumulatively instead of annually like other diseases? why is the definition of AIDS and the interpretation of the HIV antibody test different in different countries? why hasn’t AIDS effected men and women equally like all other infectious diseases?–questions that Christine poses without fear of the political-correctness patrol and with the mind of a true critical thinker. Though answers to these questions are offered, the reader is left with more questions than answers, and this little book’s purpose is to encourage critical thinking, introspection and further research. Christine does not pretend to have all the answers, but she realizes that the answers we have been given are severely inconsistent and suspect. Thanks to this book and others, I have stopped my involvement with the AIDS industry and hope to contribute to the exposing of the myth of HIV. Also of interest: The AIDS Cult (John Lauritsen & Ian Young, eds), The Stonewall Experiment (Ian Young) and Inventing the AIDS Virus (Peter Duesberg).
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Rip away the assumptions…, Jul 19 2004
Reviewer: A customer
Christine does a wonderful job asking the tough questions and wrestling with the answers. Though no single book or piece of literature should make up your entire argument, Christine makes a fairly strong case for a revisal of the HIV/AIDS death connection. A highly important read!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
I finally read this book, May 17 2004
By Alexander E. Paulsen “AlexP” (Jacksonville, Fl United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I’ve been debating reading this book for a while now. I have read Duesburg’s “Inventing the Aids Virus” and I found his case convincing. I also found the negative reviews of his book likewise interesting and informative. Mainly informative in the area of demonstrating the danger of mixing politics and science. The science half is always overshadowed by the politics – and money.

I enjoyed this book and regretted waiting so long to read it. She presents her case in a well thought out manner. I have read many scientific and medical papers that were nowhere near this concise and well presented.

This book did prompt me read further in medical literature about AIDS and HIV. I saw several negative reviews here that contend that Cristine doesn’t know what she’s talking about and that HIV is the “proven” cause of AIDS.

I went looking for that proof. I have been unable to find any published scientic or medical paper that demostrated or proved that HIV causes AIDS. There aee scads of papers showing a “link”. Those links however are all circular: they define AIDS as disease X in the presence of HIV antibodies. Disease X w/o those antobodies is just plain old disease X.

I looked, there is not a single paper that demonstrates that HIV causes AIDS. No paper that describes the mechanism by which the HIV virus causes to 40 or diseases. If any of the folks here who contend that HIV is the proven cause of AIDS please write down the reference. I can’t find it.

Oddly I stumbled upon a paper that un-links Kaposi’s Sarcomi as being an AIDS disease! KC has been THE definitive AIDS disease since AIDS becaase widely known.

I don’t think Christine or anyone else is denying that people are dying, but if we wish to save their lives we had better find out whats really killing them.

After 20 years and untold billions of dollars, the important questions still have not been answered. Not only that but the AIDS establishment won’t even debate the reasons for their failure to save a single life of an AIDS patient. What are they afraid of? They could shut up Duesburg, Maggiore and Mullis with a single debate but the AIDS industry won’t do it.

It seems the only ones who survive an HIV infection are the people who don’t treat it. They live. The patients who take AZT die. The AIDS industry won’t even discuss the issue.

Silence and censorship always makes me suspicous.

This is good book. Not a great one, but a good one. I liked the personal aspects of it. Iwish she would have presented a little more of the other side of the issue if only to give us readers a few more talking points on the subject.

Somewhere, sometime the truth will eventually escape. Truth always escapes sooner or later.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A life-saving book, May 14 2004
By Mark Griffiths (Pierrelatte, France) – See all my reviews
This book has been responsible for awakening African politicians to the AIDS fraud. Its message has probably saved millions of innocent victims from legal poisoning by toxic, experimental, expensive and unproven medication and prevented third world countries from spending millions of dollars on worthless “AID$ testing” and creating toxic death. The price of this book should be increased in price by at least 200% (some to be directed to the author and her non-profit organisation : “Alive & Well”), and Amazon should initiate a special promotional offer.
Mark Griffiths “HIV positive” since 1986 WITHOUT legal poison.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Accurate, Referenced, Precise, Intelligent…, April 9 2004
By Todd Phillips, MCP (San Francisco, CA) – See all my reviews
Christine did a great job putting this book together, it has everything in it that the people who have been basically deceiving you “in your own best interest” for the last twenty years do not want you to know about HIV and “AIDS”.

The information in this little book is accurate, which of course, is what makes it so infuriating for some people. Observe the reactions to this book, which contains all factual information, and decide for yourself who is afraid and acting out of fear and ignorance, and who is not.

If you’ve ever been targeted for HIV and “AIDS” this book will change your life. If you love someone that is targeted for HIV and “AIDS”, this book could save their life.

Everything in this book is factual and provocative. People need to know all the facts about HIV antibody tests BEFORE submitting to them. Many people would forgo the tests altogether if they only knew that their is no standard for determining weather or not there is HIV in human blood, and that test results are *interpreted* by clinicians based on prejudicial factors.

Save your life, and the lives of those you care about. Get this book today.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
This book should be consored, April 2 2004
By Nelson R. Vergel “powertx” (Houston, Texas USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This book is responsible for politicians in Africa withholding life saving treatment to people in need. This whole AIDS denialist movement will be remembered in the future as the people who fueled ignorance and promoted death in millions. Amazon should remove it from its sales list as a responsible company.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Not a drop of smugness, Jan 17 2004
By Tomasjpn “Tomasjpn” (Tokyo, Japan) – See all my reviews
This book gives a balanced, scientifically verifiable assessment of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis/debate. NOWHERE in this book does Ms. Maggiore come across as smug or arrogant, or ‘ha ha, I’m alive, you’re dead’ as one reviewer so idiotically put it. Her writing is concise, to the point, and devoid of mere opinions. The people who have written scathing criticisms of this book either did not read the entire book, or perhaps have reading comprehension difficulties. An excellent short summary, and a good lead-in to Peter Duesberg’s seminal work “Inventing the AIDS Virus.” Read it with your brain turned on. The AIDS issue in the U.S., as Ms. Maggiore put it so well, is a clear case of the victory of Politics over Science, Religion over Reason. Science is not about ’silencing’ other theories and hypotheses that one doesn’t agree with. Leave that sort of facism to tele-evangelists. If it were so, we would still be using leaches to cure disease.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Stop the Myth, this is Killing People, Jan 10 2004
Reviewer: A customer
Please visit the AIDS question and answer section of the Johns Hopkins website.
Please realize that it is human nature to deny what we do not want to accept.
PLease realize that HIV can be treated and one’s life greatly extended, and that the meds get better all the time.
Please know that the earth is not flat, and that HIV causes AIDS is not now, nor ever will be, a question, an opinion or anything else other than fact. Silence=death. We’ve come so far, let us never go back.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Changed my Review Three Times, Dec 22 2003
By chantelle (faraway) – See all my reviews
Prescription drug abuse and even herbal treatments if used longterm can cause immune system damage.I have come to the conclusion that hiv or any mycoplasma can’t kill without some other force behind it.I suffer from hemolytic anemia( the kind dogs and cats get) because of an overusage of raw garlic.It doesn’t go away.I don’t think the book is well written but at least it addresses the fact that these medications are a deathtrap.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
christine is fabulous, May 25 2003
By “scareefarie666″ (Los Angeles, CA United States) – See all my reviews
well I’m convinced. Christine Maggiore came and taught an alternative AIDS class at my high school and it was one of the most interesting experiences in a class I’ve ever had. We didn’t just talk about AIDS but about how the pharmaceutical companies are running our country and how your doctors get corrupted by the money. I know it sounds crazy but it seriously makes a lot of sense when you learn all about it. Christine is really smart and this book is very well written. I highly recommended if you have an open mind and are interested in learning a different point of view then the norm. An excellent book.

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Take this book with a few grains of salt, April 19 2003
Reviewer: A customer
There is some rigidity in conventional medicine to alternative ideas and treatments. However, this book should not be taken with the same kind of weight as years of peer-reviewed research. Some of the assertions in this book could be dangerous, take this book with a heavy dose of salt.

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1-10 of 19 | nex

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Unbelieveable, Mar 12 2003
Reviewer: A customer
I think this book is some of the most unbelieveable garbage I have ever feasted my eyes upon. I think it’s homophobic and largely racist. I think it is conspiracy minded, taking statistics and twisting them to fit a predetermined narrative. It is very bizarre to think that pharmeceutical companies are responsible for the AIDS epidemic and “fooling” America into thinking that HIV leads to AIDS. People have died and are continuing to die. I am very glad that Ms. Maggiore was able to have a healthy baby despite testing positive for HIV. But that doesn’t mean that the disease doesn’t very negatively affect millions of other people in a very fatal way.
The fact that AIDS drugs have nasty side effects does not mean they are altogether worthless. Any patient with HIV/AIDS can use them and other more holistic methods in a balanced way to fight the disease.
Also, the discounting of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is very strange. Just because malaria is killing more people in Africa than AIDS, does that mean it should cease to be a concern? Advances in the African health care system that could help those with HIV/AIDS could also benefit those with malaria. The infrastructure problems in Africa that are leading to such high mortality rates are very basic (lack of clean water, food). Providing those two things to start with (which we are a long way from doing) could only help Africans in the most crucial ways.
The bottom line is, I think this book is insensitive and horrifying. If you must read it, please spend an equal amount of time reading some opposing literature about HIV/AIDS.

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I’m suspicious of paranoia, Jan 28 2003
Reviewer: A customer
Having worked in medical publishing for years, I get red flags anytime I see someone hysterically pointing fingers at doctors “in the pay of big pharmaceutical companies” as the cause of a “systematized campaign of misinformation designed to…” yada yada yada. Maybe Christine Maggiore has a valid point to make about the nature of how medicine is conducted in this country, and I won’t argue that the system is seriously flawed. However, although I’ve met MDs and researchers who are arrogant, egotistical, self-aggrandizing, and obnoxious, I’ve yet to meet one who would deliberately falsify results in order to gain notoriety. I’ve certainly never met one that would openly push a tenuous or unsupportable hypothesis just so he or she could get pharmco money. We have peer review for a reason, and the medical profession is cut-throat enough that it’s HIGHLY unlikely that such unethical chicanery would go unnoticed and unpunished–look what happened to DAvid Baltimore! So this portrait of Dr. Gallo as a guy out to make a name and/or a buck by “creating” a new disease that he could then “discover” treatments for just doesn’t ring true. That’s not to say it’s impossible for such unethical people to slip through the cracks… but having worked with Dr. Gallo on one of his publications, I can attest that he’s not such a man. So it disturbs me to see him presented in that light in the excerpts published here. It disturbs me more to see a variety of assertions about the nature of AIDS that omit some key information or use faulty logic and assume much that is not demonstrated (or even demonstrable)in order to strongly imply, without directly asserting it, that the Government is Making It All Up in order to benefit Big Business. Case in point: the statement that, because the definitions of AIDS in Canada and the United States differ, people who would be considered to have AIDS in the US would “not have AIDS” if they lived in Canada. Uh, hello, no, that’s not what it means—it means only that the government of Canada wouldn’t count them among Canada’s AIDS patients, not that they don’t have an illness. There’s more than one way to lie with statistics, and there’s more than one way to fudge the truth. Nothing I’ve seen in Ms Maggiore’s writing suggests a truly balanced and disinterested approach… so I’m every bit as suspicious of her conclusions as she wants me to be of the medical establishment’s assertions.

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A MUST READ!, Dec 20 2002
Reviewer: A customer
Extremely interesting, extremely intelligent and uncommonly sane . A priceless book which you won’t regret reading. Also a real treat – a radio interview with Christine Maggoire is available to be heard on the Virusmyth website – if you check it out you’ll definitely want to read her book. I also recommend Peter Duesberg , John Lauritson , Joan Shenton, Meditel, Hiram Caton. Very inspiring stuff !

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A MUST READ!, Dec 20 2002
Reviewer: A customer
Extremely interesting, extremely intelligent and uncommonly sane . A priceless book which you won’t regret reading. Also a real treat – a radio interview with Christine Maggoire is available to be heard on the Virusmyth website – if you check it out you’ll definitely want to read her book. I also recommend Peter Duesberg , John Lauritson , Joan Shenton, Meditel, Hiram Caton. Very inspiring stuff !

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Critical thinking that challenges the received wisdom, Dec 11 2002
By Fiona Mc Namara “fibri” – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
It is hard to believe that the thousands or millions of “experts” who sustain the HIV=AIDS theory might be wrong. But that doesn’t make it impossible. The fact is that today’s “knowledge” about AIDS is built on a foundation of evidence that is itself highly questionable. Remove the underlying building blocks and the whole edifice crumbles.

If you are interested in critical, independent thinking, read this book.

Christine is not — as some reviewers here seem to believe — a lone, crazy voice. She does not claim to be a medical expert: what she does is painstakingly collect, and document, evidence from the many, many experts who challenge the opinion that HIV=AIDS, and the death sentence that usually implies.

Those who support her do not do so on the evidence of this one introductory book, but on the masses of evidence she has continued to collect and disseminate.

Unfortunately, the odds are not in her favor: a (relatively) few voluntary dissidents supported only by the meager income from their publications and private donations, pitted against the combined forces of the pharmaceutical lobby, government bodies, political forces, and established AIDS and other health and charity organizations (in a movie, of course, it would all be over in 90 minutes…).

The wider implications of what Christine has to say are deeply disturbing: disturbing for those of us who have lost a loved-one to “AIDS” as well as to the institutions that depend on it. No wonder many people’s automatic reaction is to dismiss her as a lunatic.

She has taken on a herculean task, but is starting to be heard in the press and in AIDS circles throughout the world. President Mbeki was among the first to publicly resist the AIDS lobby and insist on at least listening to alternative views, and now there is increased dissent in India. (And no, President Mbeki is not simply trying to “save his money” and committing genocide by refusing to buy drugs for his people that the pharmaceutical companies are so generously offering cheap…)

This book is slight in size, but a good introduction to the dissidents’ views. For more up-to-date information you should visit her website and join her mailing list.

I profoundly believe that some day Christine and the other AIDS dissidents will be vindicated. If ordinary people will only have the courage to listen to the debate and make up their own minds.

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How To Get “HIV Is Not Dangerous!” Lethally Brainwashed, Nov 15 2002
By Gregg Nelson (Sausalito, CA) – See all my reviews
After reading this book cover-to-cover it is quite clear that Christine Maggiore has a very strong personal agenda — which she only can support with direct scientific lies, dangerous misinformation and half truths.

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki seems convinced that HIV is not the cause of AIDS; and that current treatments cause rather than effectively treat AIDS.

President Mbeki refuses to provide the anti-AIDS drug AZT to HIV-positive pregnant women. President Mbeki in fact declared the drug too dangerous to use, even though it has been proven that AZT drastically cuts the chances of newborns contracting the HIV virus.

At a recent conference in Pretoria, Mbeki invited U.S.-based researcher Peter Duesberg, a scientific outcast for his theory that AIDS is caused not by the human immunodeficiency virus but by illegal drugs and AZT. A fervent belief also promoted by Ms. Maggiore, in her book.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know extremely expensive AZT and costly illegal street drugs — were that popular in traditionally promiscious, horrific poverty ravaged sub-Saharan Africa.

Two more rationality ‘knee-cappers’ from Christine’s book in which she (also) declares “there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS” (these “facts” are not expressed as mere alternative postulates or mere personal opinion):

1) “If HIV were contagious, it would have to be multiplying exponentially, which it is not.”

This — completely ignores the physically limited sexual manner of transmission — this is not T.B.

Jesus.

2) “Bottom line? No one knows what causes AIDS. We know it cannot be the virus called HIV. We know it isn’t contagious.”

We?

This is MEASURABLY LETHAL — destructive pseudoscience authority abuse.

Look.

Take Art Bell for example. He is constantly presenting pseudoscientific unsolvable doom “experts” to a — now worldwide audience.

He then, very publicly chastises his audience for “..not being thinking adults — it is just information folks!” – when unscreened on-air callers angrily raise the -unchallenged- unsolvable doom-”expert” question.

A classic mindless guilt-spraying dogma bully control tactic.

“Credible” authoritative-sounding speech has very real impact — on busy adults without extra free time for complete research.

Especially -already frightened- adult human beings with potentially positive HIV test results.

At the official Center For Disease Control And Prevention website …

“Why do some people make statements that HIV does not cause AIDS?”

For further credible reading before deciding to “fashionably reject” modern, medically-sane personal sexual boundaries why not first visit:

The National Library Of Medicine on this topic (use google search)

And believe it or not Mother Jones Magazine’s recent article about dangerous HIV deniers (use google search).

An exerpt:

From Mother Jones Magazine

Foo Fighters, HIV Deniers

A platinum-selling alt-rock group may be endangering their fans by promoting a dangerous myth.

by Silja J.A. Talvi

Feb. 25, 2000

Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl wants you to forget what you think you know about AIDS.

Some rock stars want to free Tibet. Others want to save Mumia. The Foo Fighters, on the other hand, want their fans to ignore accepted medical wisdom about AIDS. …

…HIV experts are alarmed by the possible impact of the Foo Fighters’ embrace of Maggiore’s theories on their potentially gullible yoexcerptns….

And — this exerpt from a San Francisco Bay Guardian article:

Bad science

They once thought HIV was harmless. Now, they say, AIDS has forced them to reconsider.

By Bruce Mirken

Jan. 26, 2000

FOR YEARS SAN Franciscans have heard from a small but vocal group of activists who claim that HIV is harmless. AIDS, these dissenters say, is caused not by a virus but by “lifestyle factors” chiefly recreational and medical drug use. The medical establishment, they say, is either misguided or murderous for advocating the use of toxic anti-HIV drugs.

The “AIDS dissident” movement has been around for well over a decade. For the most part, it has remained on the fringe, wearing the disdain of mainstream scientists and AIDS activists as a badge of pride.

But in the last year, the movement has been challenged from within – by former believers who, in keeping with dissident orthodoxy, had scorned and avoided recently developed AIDS therapies.

Now some of them have themselves gotten sick with AIDS. They say their belief that HIV couldn’t hurt them put their lives and the lives of their lovers at risk. One even goes so far as tocompare his former movement to a cult…

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A Waste of Time, Oct 16 2002
Reviewer: A customer
It is easy to write a book with a host of references at the end supporting this claim. I was not so interested in the style of the book such as the content and a~~ I can say is that while there are some HIV and Aids Myths (such as the origination of HIV), I found this book bordered on the Libe~~ious and I wonder what Ms Maggiore’s intention was. To make a mi~~ion? Certainly a catchy title. I think books like this should be put in the trash can where they belong. There is so little evidence to support what they say other than a few references here and there of a possible few people who are alive and we~~ with HIV and AIDS. It is a we~~ known fact that many people are at present “alive and we~~” with the virus. But time has shown they wi~~ get sick. Why is it that people with HIV get sick? Psycholigical? As an HIV infected individual with many friends with HIV, it cannot be mere co-incidence. I wouldn’t bother with this book other than to know what the Aids Dissidents are saying. I would like anyone who disputes the reality of the HIV virus to be infected with HIV infected blood. Put your money where your mouth is. Then we’~~ see the strength of your convictions. David Hempster

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Thought provoking, but be careful, May 8 2002
By Bufford D. Moore (Baytown, Texas USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I want this book to be right. I want no one else ever to die of AIDS. I can see how anyone who is HIV positive would be greatly relieved by the postulates, and I don’t want to upset anyone. I was an ER nurse up to the early 80’s, and we were on the forefront of presentations of AIDS patients. I don’t profess to know what causes AIDS, as the author does, nor can I swap reference citations. What I can do is assure you that her thesis that AIDS is simply a name applied to pre-existing disease is a very questionable one. Even at the level of “street level” ER nurses, we recognized that something was different; there was something new out there. I think that the book should be read, but carefully and with a very large grain of salt. My biggest fear is that years of educating high-risk groups, which I feel has helped, could be very easily undone by the implication that AIDS is really caused by those terrible drugs the terrible doctors give. The patients that we saw pre-dated those agents, and you may believe me or not, but those young men were incredibly ill and died with startling speed. They were often gone before much “toxic” anti-biotic could be given.

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An overdue easy-to-digest explanation, April 25 2002
By Brian Martinez “texasbrian” (KINGWOOD, TX United States) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This is a vital book for anyone involved with any aspect of HIV. Without going to the question of whether she is right or wrong (and I think she is right), I will say that the book is good in that it is easily approachable. HIV books are often, necessarily, mired in dense medical and biological terms (”non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors”). This book shines in its ability to explain those terms simply and effectively.

My only complaint here is that nearly half the book is either references or appendices — ancilliary material. While that’s certainly helpful and appreciated, it leaves the reader with little more than a big pamphlet.

Still, it’s a great book to read, especially at a low price.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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previous | 11-19 of 19\

Tara Smith Aetiology Blog –
Loneliness causes AIDS, claims HIV “dissident” Michael Geiger thread Sep 27 2007

Loneliness causes AIDS, claims HIV “dissident” Michael Geiger

Category: AIDS/HIV • wtf?
Posted on: September 19, 2007 8:00 AM, by Tara C. Smith

Yes, you heard it here, folks.

Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?

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Comments

That is truly amazing.

Why are these people like this? What is wrong with their brains?

Posted by: Jeb, FCD | September 19, 2007 8:26 AM

Once again, I wonder how long it will take the HIV/AIDS denialists to hijack this thread.

Posted by: SLC | September 19, 2007 8:29 AM

Wow, that just seems… over the top. Is it fear of the disease itself that causes that kind of denialist, angry reaction?

Posted by: Jim | September 19, 2007 9:17 AM

Really, Tara,

Michael’s latest comments were worth starting a thread over?

Are you desperate? What’s up?

Posted by: Dan | September 19, 2007 9:20 AM

This just in, being a moron causes AIDS!

Posted by: apyy | September 19, 2007 10:03 AM

Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?

Nope, no wonder at all. Especially when the comment in question starts:

Hello Tara and all of you HIV promoting Terrorists,

That had me spluttering in rage before the first full stop (period to the USAians). “HIV promoting”? “Terrorist”? I sure as hell don’t wish HIV, or AIDS, or any disease on anyone. I godsdamn ain’t a terrorist or other criminal. But I am now enraged.

Posted by: blf | September 19, 2007 10:19 AM

No, you idiots! Loneliness doesnt cause AIDS.. It’s a factor to an early death. Death by prescriptiona and indocrination into the death and dying club simply for nothing other than a measurement of non-specific antibodies.

Posted by: Carter | September 19, 2007 10:26 AM

[Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?]

No it isn’t, Tara. I’m not even a researcher and I’m outraged by this clown. I’m outraged because, at the present time, people like this Michael are able to get the ear of public officials.

In that sense, HIV/AIDS denialists are becoming inimical to public health. Witness the public disaster that has become South Africa because Mbecki believes what these morons have to say.

ER

Posted by: Guitar Eddie | September 19, 2007 11:13 AM

Hello Tara and all of you HIV promoting Terrorists

Let’s do the math…

Are gay men and Africans terrorized by HIV/AIDS? Yes.

Do Tara and her goon squad promote and support the HIV/AIDS belief system? Yes.

Looks like Michael’s on the mark with this one.

Posted by: Dan | September 19, 2007 11:17 AM

Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?

Of course it is no wonder at all. HIV researchers know very well that loneliness cannot possibly be a source of disease, on the contrary: lonely people are never ill. Diseases are caused exclusively by physical things like a virus, tobacco, asbestos etc. and can exclusively be healed by other physical things like for instance life saving killer drugs.
HIV researches know this because they search and then research and research and research over and over again which is why they know everthing about life and death and that’s why they behave like they behave when they read what Michael Geiger wrote what he wrote.

I am not a HIV researcher and I personally think that what Michael wrote makes a lot of sense, but that makes no sense because I’m not a HIV researcher and thus do not know everything for sure.

Posted by: jspreen | September 19, 2007 11:30 AM

test

Posted by: Manu | September 19, 2007 12:32 PM

hello

Posted by: M | September 19, 2007 12:38 PM

Strangely, folks, I’m going to have to defend Michael Geiger on this one.

Well, maybe not “defend,” but at least point out that the studies he cites are not complete nonsense like most of what he says.

It is entirely plausible that stress, including stress caused by “loneliness,” involves physiological factors that include transcriptional changes, as Cole and colleagues suggest. Depending on what these changes are, they could theoretically lead to increased susceptibility to viral infection and disease progression.

Of course, Michael Geiger goes too far (as usual). In the absence of HIV, “loneliness” can’t cause AIDS. Loneliness also will not have a “molecular signature” of HIV (i.e. lonely people won’t test false positive for the infection).

It is an interesting study he brings up, though, and I’ll try to remind myself that “rethinkers” aren’t always completely wrong…just upwards of 99% of the time.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 19, 2007 12:52 PM

…they could theoretically lead to increased susceptibility to viral infection and disease progression.

But no one is doubting that. I’ve pointed that out to Michael several times myself, as have others here. However, “increased susceptibility” by itself =/= AIDS, despite Michael’s outlandish claim, and loneliness alone (or “fear”, or any of the other things Michael typically claim) does not cause AIDS.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 19, 2007 12:56 PM

It only took 2 hours and 26 minutes for whackjob Carter to show up.

Posted by: SLC | September 19, 2007 1:12 PM

SLC,
WTF? Your opinion of me is none of my business!

I watch these posts almost 24/7 so I can be reminded how completely and utterly insane the HIV/AIDS camp is and here complete with Tara, et al protecting their failed and bogus theories. It would be down right laughable if it weren’t for the mainstream establishment causing deaths from liver failure and drug testing, let alone the voodoo hex one receives by opting to take a bogus test.

Posted by: Carter | September 19, 2007 2:31 PM

they could theoretically lead to increased susceptibility to viral infection and disease progression.

I thought germ theory was a lie pushed by big pharma to sell more drugs?

Read up on Bechamp, will blow your mind!

Posted by: apy | September 19, 2007 2:49 PM

Re Carter

“I watch these posts almost 24/7 so I can be reminded how completely and utterly insane the HIV/AIDS camp is and here complete with Tara, et al protecting their failed and bogus theories.”

I guess that Mr. Carter is either retired or independently wealthy and has too much time on his hands. Mr. Carter, you should get a life.

Posted by: SLC | September 19, 2007 2:50 PM

I watch these posts almost 24/7 so I can be reminded how completely and utterly insane the HIV/AIDS camp is

Well at least we now know why your research has come so far and you’ve published so many papers on the true nature of HIV/AIDS.

Posted by: apy | September 19, 2007 2:52 PM

Wait, wait, wait. So there are really people out there who truly believe that AIDS is caused by loneliness and that researchers are all just “collaborating their lies to fool the public”? Because, well, from what I’ve heard the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead. And that’s just TWO people…

The denialism just blows my mind. I hope awe doesn’t cause AIDS next, or we’re all screwed.

Posted by: Heather | September 19, 2007 3:10 PM

This is a straw man argument Dr. Smith. I think what micheal was referring to is catastrosphic long term stress that accompanies an hiv positive test, nevertheless this “lonliness” argument does not represent the rethinker movement.

The main reason many credible scientists doubt hiv is
1) the lack of a relaible animal model, tons of chimps/mice were injected and they dont die of aids even after 20 years.
2) The lack of a carefully controlled study that would be designed to see if if hiv positive people with no other possible risk factors get AIDS, risk factors that include the cell killing chemotherapy drug AZT, coinfections w/ mycoplasma incognitus, catastrophic stress, intense drug abuse etc.

all the studies so far assume hiv is the cause of Aids, so they didnt do much to test gallo’s claim, if you want to prove me wrong please provide me with a study done by honest scientists that dont view dissidents as nazis that clearly states in the study aims ” a study to follow hiv positive people with no other risk factors to see if Gallo’s hypothesis is correct.”

3) the low amount of blood tcell infection, which is around 1/1000 t cells

4) The very low rates of transmission, the Padian study followed serodiscordant couples for years and who had all kinds of unprotected sex and there were 0 seroconversions!

Many more reasons. Lurkers should do a google search and see a film called hiv fact or fraud that explains the positions well, its free.

scientists that have doubted the hiv hypothesis at one time or another

Peter duesberg phd retroviral expert, California scientist of the year.

kary mullis phd Nobel prize winner, inventor of the PCR

Shyh ching lo md phd cheif of the infectious unit of the armed forces of pathology

Richard Strohman ucb mcb professor

Harry rubin ucb mcb professor

Walter gilbert nobel prize winner Harvard mcb professor

Lynn Margulis phd national academy of sciences member

many more………..

I would suggest people read a book called Project Day Lily, this microbe called mycoplasma incognitus killed every animal injected (Dr. Lo injected mice primates and they all died) a riveting book by garth and nancy nicolson phds found out how it was part of the biowarfare program, found in some AIDs cases and in CFS etc, google it and read a chapter for free.

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 3:16 PM

nevertheless this “lonliness” argument does not represent the rethinker movement.

What argument does? None of the ‘rethinker movements’ arguments have any coherence between them. Perth say HIV does not exist, but if it did it would cause AIDS. Duesberg says that HIV does exist but is benign. So which one does represent rethinker movement?

Posted by: apy | September 19, 2007 3:24 PM

Also most viruses cause the most havok before antibodies, thats why we get vaccines, if there ever was an hiv vaccine wed all test positive……..sound strange!?

yes i know there are exceptions but exceptions are not the rules, this is just one of the many strange anomolies that needs to be further investigated about the hiv hypothesis.

see hiv fact or fraud.
http://www.archive.org/details/aids_scam
Read project day lily.
http://www.projectdaylily.com/

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 3:27 PM

nevertheless this “lonliness” argument does not represent the rethinker movement.

Hmm, a fellow denier states that there is no denial movement and chatises me for using the term. Funny when y’all who are involved in the [non-existent] movement can’t even get your stories straight yet again…

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 19, 2007 3:27 PM

The Rethinker movement is simple, we dont know whether or not hiv is the cause of AIDS or not, it could be other things, more studies are needed by honest scientists.

Just because it was announced at a press conference, a barely detectable no animal model microbe by gallo before the publishing of any evidence and the disbarring of dissent from that day on does not make the hypothesis true.

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 3:36 PM

Funny when y’all who are involved in the [non-existent] movement can’t even get your stories straight yet again.

It’s Cuz there ain’t no movement and no unified front, get it now Mrs. smartypants? (-;

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 4:05 PM

It’s Cuz there ain’t no movement
says ELISA

right after Ron Paul boy said
The Rethinker movement is simple

Try again guys?

Posted by: Adele | September 19, 2007 4:48 PM

No you try again Leda. I know language is slippery, but you can try. We’ll leave out the thing about denialist movement, just come up with your definition of “movement”. C’mon, give it your best shot cowgirl.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 4:58 PM

Adele, aka kathy bates from the movie misery,
Ron Paul voted against the patriot act and the Iraq war, unlike your fairy godmother hillary.

the movement does not need to be defined to an exact stance…..do all people who support Obama or for gun control have to have the same views exactly? and if they don’t that nullifies evertything they say?……..some of you people need to take to critical thinking classes

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 5:03 PM

or are for gun control

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 5:06 PM

cooler you do know you have to be 18 to vote for Ron Paul don’t you.

ELISA I just remembered you havn’et been around last few weeks so maybe you’ll be the ONE person whose got a answer about those Duesberg flaws from the other thread.

So much talk from you people about how we’re all scared of Duesberg and we can’t find anything wrong with his crap.

Then so many examples from us of where Duesberg lied or messed around with the truth.

Then so much silence from your not existing movement!!

Maybe you got some answers well read LISA from your nice greek mythology. Why did Duesberg lie? Is it ok he lied? Since like most of your not existing movement just copies off Duesberg isn’t that not a problem its lies??

If you give us a good answer maybe i’ll even call you a rethinker.

Posted by: Adele | September 19, 2007 5:13 PM

Adso girl, what’s the matter, was defining “movement” too hard for you?

I don’t know what you are talking about re Duesberg and lying, but if it’s the anonymous or by proxy smear campaigns on AIDStruthorgy, I must confess I lost interest after Mr. Delaney’s learned inquiry into whether it cleared Duesberg of the suspicion of homophobia that he “was hanging around with leather-clad gay men”.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 5:29 PM

. . . Although I would have to admit there are pretty convincing refutations of Duesberg’s scientific arguments posted on ADIStruthy. This one from Stephen Martin, Ph.D. Immunology, University of California, Berkeley is a real haymaker, which I have never seen countered satisfactorily:

When the lights dimmed and the projector was turned on, Peter always moved close to the projector light beam so he could make hand puppets that projected on the screen. The students laughed, but the lecturers and most faculty members hated him.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 5:43 PM

No i’m talking about the introduction thread. Examples where Duesberg made up stuff to prove his theory. Doncha think that’s odd? Maybe makes your not existing movement look bad?

Oh but it’s way more fun to make fun of people who criticise Duesberg then deal with the facts isn’t it ELISA?

Posted by: Adele | September 19, 2007 5:51 PM

Oh now I understand what you are referring to. It’s these words by Tara in her latest variation over her one note

One way to brush off novel evidence is to attempt to discredit the scientists carrying out the studies

http://aidstruth.org/fanaticism.php

I liked this one too:

Scientists must engage more with the public or the HIV/Aids deniers will gain credibility (…) It is up to us to explain the science to the public

When will it go up next to this one?

We will not engage in any public or private debate with AIDS denialists or respond to requests from journalists who overtly support AIDS denialist causes

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 5:59 PM

So no you won’t talk about the real stuff here ELISA. Duesberg lied and people died. Laugh all you want, doesn’t change it.

Posted by: Adele | September 19, 2007 6:03 PM

Adso, you may think this is a laughing matter to me, but do you remember what the very serious secret was that the Benedictines were ready to kill for to keep from the public?
http://www.ruinedendings.com/film3979plot

By the Way, have you read the latest article by one famous epidemiologist revealing more denialist immorality? Here’s the headline and a relevant part of it:

Dr. Smearah Tit exposes the Deadly Denial Virus.

(…)

Dr. Tit first realized something was afoot when she heard from fellow science fictionist Beanne A. Jergman that Christine Maggiore was not HIV positive.

“I was outraged! Up until then we knew that denialism could be a co-factor in the development of AIDS. Prominent studies by Prof. J.P. Macaque and his Virus Veritas team had revealed multiple correlations between denialism and risk of premature death, or at least loss of job and funding. But with Maggiore our assumptions were clearly challenged by a case of HIV free slander. I was still outraged at this woman’s cheek, testing positive then negative just to make science look bad, but I was also intrigued: Was this a unique case of shameless dissembling or were there more people like Christine Maggiore out there? The more I thought about it the more evident it became that our firmly established HIV/AIDS hypothesis was in need of another ad hoc addition. Then, while I was reading an unusually inspiring scientific article about Maggiore’s despicable denialism, it struck me: Denialism itself must be caused by a transmissible virus, a Deadly Denial Virus”

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 6:32 PM

For all the denialists on this thread, I would like to know when Prof Deusberg is going to take the injection of HIV positive blood which he promised to do? After all, if HIV is just a benign retrovirus as he claims, the injection shouldn’t have any negative affects. Unfortunately, all we get are excuses and alibis. It would appear that Prof. Deusberg has some chicken feathers where his competitive spirit should be.

Posted by: SLC | September 19, 2007 7:10 PM

Adso you mule, the answer to the culture question was a comedy by Aristophanes. Now why were the Bendictines so afraid of Aristophanes?

As for the interview, I’ll have you know that, unlike so many others, Dr. Tit not only talks about talking about the science; she really explains it. See this snippet for instance:

“Like HIV, Deadly Denial Virus (DDV) can kill independently although they are most effective together”, Dr Tit explains. “But in that case it’s mostly remote controlled suicide in ethnically challenged bystanders via unexplained transduction of hypothetical signals traversing mysterious biochemical byways yet to be discovered by science. As is readily apparent, we have made enormous progress in understanding the fanaticism behind this disease although it may all seem a bit diffuse to the layperson. This is why I feel it’s my duty to stoop and explain the science on my blog, faeciology.com, and other fine outlets. But as with most cutting edge science, it can really only be expressed via mathematical modelling. The by far most popular one with retrovirologists is the “tap and drain” model of DDV funding, essentially similar to the one used with HIV”.

http://www.scientificblogging.com/hank/the_least_known_war_in_science_does_hiv_cause_aids

http://aidstruth.org/fanaticism.php

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 7:17 PM

And here I was thinking the HIV/AIDS denialists had already sunk to their lowest level.

I have just realized – there is no lowest level.

I would have barred them by now. They contribute nothing useful. Carter in particular, “watching these posts nearly 24/7″, should probably be dealt with under stalking provisions.

Posted by: Justin Moretti | September 19, 2007 7:18 PM

Bar them! you must want to abolish the first amendment like your hero mark wainberg…….

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 7:32 PM

Adso tsk, tsk. Aristophanes was indeed close, but in fact the supposed author of that dreaded book was Aristotle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose

Anyway, as consolation I’ll quote some more words of wisdom at you:

Since the final proof of the existenceof the fanatic Deadly Denialism Virus, Dr. Tit has been devoting the most flattering photos of herself to fighting this menace to mankind.

“It’s a disease marked by the most vicious fanaticism”, she warns. “As is often seen in mental illness, there seems to be a strong unconscious resistance against being cured -in severe cases leading to a complete refusal to discuss scientific points with anyone who is not also infected. The mode of transmission is, like everything else about DDV, not known, but early childhood trauma seems to predispose for later infection. When myself and the dazzlingly smart neuropathologist, Steamy Novel, teamed up to expose the psychological root causes of the well known denial cases of Christine Maggiore and Mathematician Rebecca Culshaw, we found that both had been encouraged by their parents to think for themselves. This is obviously a very dangerous trend which can only be fought via total censorship of the media and the school system.’

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 19, 2007 7:33 PM

cooler confuses Tara Smith’s Aetiology blog with the United States government…but similar mistakes are common amongst supporters of conspiracy theorist Rupaul.

As a refresher for those, like cooler, who have forgotten their junior high school civics class, the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the federal legislature (”Congress”) from, among other things, passing laws abridging the freedom of speech.

Perhaps cooler would like to tell us how Tara Smith’s decisions about who and what to permit on her own private blog have anything to do with the Congress. (To make it easier, look up “Pruneyard”…but you’re still going to need to explain the connection of the several states to the Congress and address the relationship of the internet and “public property.”)

In any case, Tara has permitted dissenting views on this blog far in excess of anything I have ever witnessed on “rethinker” sites, including Liversidge’s site, the rethinker message boards (which censor everything), and especially the jackbooted bozo Bialy’s boring blog.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 19, 2007 7:54 PM

no wainberg was talking about abolishing the first amendment and I have not heard any aids apologists condemn his statement.

Elk, since you hate ron paul so much, why dont you go fight the war in Iraq, he voted against it, one of the very few people back in 2003, unlike your probable heroes hillary or ghouliani

Because you think hes nuts bc of his “crazy” views of non intervensionism, go to Iraq and stop being a hypocrite, practice what you preach if you hate a persons beleifs than back it up with action by enlisting, sanctimonious hypocrite.

Posted by: cooler | September 19, 2007 8:09 PM

WTF does Ron Paul’s laudable stance on Iraq and the Patriot act have to do with the validity or otherwise of his stance on HIV? A person can be right on one issue and wrong on another.

Posted by: Obdulantist | September 20, 2007 1:25 AM

Ron paul has never said hiv does not cause Aids, hes never even mentioned it………….the nazi trolls here dont like him bc he tells it like it is, that hes anti CFR globalists/nafta/federal reserve/ no new wars every 5 years/follow the constitution/non intervention stance irks the obsequious sycophants who just want flip flopping hillary who now wants a war with Iran, then hillary will say in 10 years oops, if I knew what i knew now with Iran I wouldnt have started a new war………………….shes such an idiot.

Posted by: cooler | September 20, 2007 1:36 AM

cooler -

Show me the statement, I will happily condemn it. I have absolutely no tolerance for anyone who argues against free speech, regardless of other agreed upon positions.

All that said, if this were my blog, ELISA would have been banned a long time ago. Actually, one of the reasons that I do very little posting on this topic, is that I have no tolerance for woo that kills, such as yours. Your own comments would likely be deleted out of hand. This is not because I have a problem with dissenting views, I have guest posts that I disagree with on my front page. It’s just that yours are so vile and repugnant, that I have absolutely no interest in giving them any platform from which to be voiced.

I would still, without question, fight with everything in me, with everything that I am, for your right to say what you believe. Anyone who suggests that it should be a crime to say nearly anything, is just plain wrong. Honestly, I find the suggestion of legal restrictions on speech, outside of extremely narrow parameters to be almost as repugnant as the bile you so regularly spew.

Posted by: DuWayne | September 20, 2007 1:54 AM

Tara said: “Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?”

Yes indeed Tara. Just awful, isn’t it?

Guess I’d be outraged too, if I was a fatheaded foolish HIV researcher, that failed to take the extreme stress and extreme emotions and feelings of loneliness, guilt, shame, helplessness, hopelessness, panic and fear and belief of inevitable slow and tortured death into any due consideration when considering the aetiology of a disease such as AIDS that ONLY hits those who are suffering the most from these extremely toxic emotions.

Duhhh!

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 1:59 AM

If ELISA can pull herself out of the gutter for a few minutes she can respond to this post.

Does drug use cause AIDS

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 20, 2007 3:01 AM

DuWayne. As an indication of how far from scientific debate HIV researchers John P Moore and Mark Wainberg’s antisocial and medically irresponsible mentality is, their call for censorship is worth quoting in full, if you can stomach it.

You can find Moore and Wainbergs latest attempt to silence and ban free speech, and to have even had it THE AUDACITY to have it published on American Independence Day, the very 4th of July of this very year, enshrined for posterity at the following:

http://www.scienceguardian.com/blog/globe-and-mail-stink-bomb.htm

GLOBE AND MAIL
EXCLUSIVE COMMENT
AIDS and the dangers of denial
MARK WAINBERG AND JOHN MOORE
Special to Globe and Mail Update
July 4, 2007 at 12:46 AM EDT

In Moore and Wainberg’s screed, you will even find the following:

“We have long accepted that free societies do have an obligation to impose restrictions on freedom of speech in the interest of public safety.” AND “Our lawmakers need to enact legislation to put appropriate limits on such irresponsible expression and to counter the ongoing damage perpetrated by denialists.”

I don’t know about you DuWayne, or anyone else here, but I find this pure trash and cry for censorship by British import John P Moore and Canadian Mark Wainberg especially repulsive, repugnant and utterly disgusting. And these two are the biggest mouths of the anti-dissident movement. Both are founders of the very AIDSTRUTH website. And I just don’t understand why.

Could it be because Wainberg has patents and royalties on AIDS drugs as a conflict of interest, or because Moore has his many years of US taxpayer funding and grants, and even a $500,000 unrestricted grant from pharma companies to protect.

Speaking for myself, and especially as one of my very own direct Ancestors, a Colonel Henry Geiger, who served directly under George Washington as a colonel in the 1776 War for American Independence, that was fought against the Brit Twits of the 18th century for the same freedoms of speech, and life, and liberty that we enjoy today, to be under threat by these pieces of conflicted crap who live off of our own tax dollars is really a bit much! Moore should be deported as a security threat. Wainberg should go to Nuremburg for all of the cases of Crix Belly, Neuropathy, and liver failure and death that his own AIDS drugs have caused.

And I will tell you what else DuWayne. We beat the snot out of the Brits in the 1700’s, beat them right back across the ocean and right up into Canada, and I myself will be glad to do it again if any of them dare to threaten our very inalienable rights that my own ancestor gave up his own life for, so that future generations, including you and your children and their children, could all live free.

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 3:12 AM

“Dr. Smearah Tit,” ELISA?

Funny how those supporting HIV causation of AIDS discuss actual scientific research, while the deniers post nothing but insults and really, really bad parodies.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 20, 2007 3:13 AM

Hello DuWayne. One more piece of video proof, right out of Wainbergs mouth, demanding the US Constitution be changed, can be found at the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpkQ5OvRNbI

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 3:34 AM

Wow. Just… wow.

Denialists are nuts. They’re all nuts. Seriously, are there any sane ones?

Why do you even bother to argue with them? I’ve got a better chance of convincing my neighbour that passing cars are NOT using lasers to mess up his tv reception.

Posted by: SmellyTerror | September 20, 2007 3:45 AM

Funny how those supporting HIV causation of AIDS discuss actual scientific research, while the deniers post nothing but insults and really, really bad parodies.

Funny, I must have missed the scientific discussion in your latest articles Dr. Smith. Would you mind cutting and pasting, so we can have look see here? Until then, fact remains Dr. Tit discusses more “actual scientific research” than you do. And she doesn’t crib her articles from AIDStruthy eiher.

When are we gonna see you out in the real world debating Christine Maggiore, you know the case that got your bleeding heart involved with this thing in the first place. Funny again cuz it was alos what got Dr. Tit involved. Here’s how she aproached the science on that one:

Dr. Smearah Tit has made a special study of DDV prevention strategies:

“It’s important to avoid all human contact, especially if you suspect you’re dealing with a denialist, as we call those infected. When first I examined Christine Maggiore’s case, for instance I made sure never to discuss any of it with her in person. Even to this day I can hardly get any of the facts straight. I think that’s what’s kept me sane and successful in dealing with the horrors of DDV. Another thing I’d strongly advice against is sex under any circumstances. If, for reasons thankfully beyond me, you must have sex, there’s a simple test you can apply. Make sure your prospective mate has had a few glasses of wine, dim the lights, put him in a relaxed, romantic mood so you can catch him off guard. Then suddenly spring the question: Why does he think the hull of a ship disappears out of sight in the horizon before the sails? If he says it’s because the fossil records in the 4 known corners of the world cannot always explain the miraculous biological properties of retroviruses, you know you’re in bed with an advanced stage 100% infectious denialist.”

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 20, 2007 5:03 AM

Dr. Smith, a study should be performed on HIV+’s and AIDS person who do not take the meds and are healthy. However, some would not like the outcome. We would be proof enough that the current hypothesis is flawed and for the most part, this is just hype and a money-maker.

Posted by: noreen | September 20, 2007 7:06 AM

Michael seems to be just as confused as cooler about the United States Constitution and its Amendments, despite his claim to have an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War. (What does that make the rest of us, Michael? Second-class citizens, just barely better than the despised “foreigners”?)

Since the Revolutionary War ended well before the Constitution and the Bill of Rights existed, it is unlikely that Geiger’s ancestor was fighting for the First Amendment. The “inalienable rights” Geiger mentions….well, that phrase and the concepts behind it are derived from the work of (who else?) British thinkers. This all makes Geiger’s new-found patriotic bluster seem a bit clownish.

In truth, Michael, if you construe Mark Wainberg’s comments about imprisonment for Peter Duesberg as an attack on the Constitution, you are in for a shock: the Constitution has not only been attacked for the last 200 years and more, many of these attacks have been successful! In fact, criticism of the Constitution and proposed alterations to it are quite firmly protected under the free speech you so noisily claim to defend (at least when you’re not urging the deportation of Moore and the trial of Wainberg).

Which of these successful “attacks” on the Constitution of your noble and storied ancestors do you object to, Geiger?

The 13th Amendment (1865), which abolished slavery. What a dreadful affront to the Founders, Michael, who fought the British and held them off later in the War of 1812, fighting to preserve that “inalienable right” to hold fellow human beings in slavery in defiance of the British abolitionism! Had the Brits won in 1812, slavery would have been abolished in the States at the latest in 1834. What an insult to your ancestors that would have been, no, Michael?

The 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to former slaves and prohibited discrimination at the polls based on race. What a disgrace to this government of the whites, by the whites, and for the whites…like your ancestors, Michael.

The 19th Amendment which, (horrors!) granted the vote to women. My goodness, Michael, what would the blue-blood Founders have thought about all of those uppity women letting their voices be heard in the political process? Scandalous!

Or the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) repealed by the 21st. Such a terrible defacing of Michael’s precious Constitution has never been seen! As if the document were nothing but a wall for scrawling graffitti!

The 22nd Amendment, term limits for Presidents: a restriction on free speech, political speech, itself.

There are now 27 Amendments to the Constitution. Many more have been proposed.

I am glad that Mark Wainberg raised the issue about whether the Constitution should be changed to stop medical endangerment. I may have minor disagreements with him on this one issue, but I completely support his right to raise these important questions. While Duesberg does not present a “clear and imminent” danger or whatever the legal phrase is (see Schenck), he is still a danger to the health of people who make medical decisions based on his lies and distortions. We need to have a conversation about such behavior and what can be done about it.

A conversation, Michael, not a war:

We beat the snot out of the Brits in the 1700’s, beat them right back across the ocean and right up into Canada, and I myself will be glad to do it again if any of them dare to threaten our very inalienable rights that my own ancestor gave up his own life for,

It must be frustrating to be so wrong about as many things as you are, Michael, but I suggest that violence is not the answer. Rather, education and an open mind will help you to overcome your rage and maybe some of your prejudices, too.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 20, 2007 9:24 AM

noreen said:

Dr. Smith, a study should be performed on HIV+’s and AIDS person who do not take the meds and are healthy. However, some would not like the outcome. We would be proof enough that the current hypothesis is flawed and for the most part, this is just hype and a money-maker.

Uhh, like the ones that already are being performed?

http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/aids/hiv_elite_controllers.asp

Do you actually look up anything on your own?

Posted by: apy | September 20, 2007 10:03 AM

Apy, I am aware that a few studies may be underway but I have yet to see any published results from these. It will be interesting to see these results and their conclusions!

Posted by: noreen | September 20, 2007 11:23 AM

You mean like…ohh I don’t know..the first hit on pubmed?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17720999&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Again, do you actually look up anything on your own?

Posted by: apy | September 20, 2007 12:03 PM

ElkMountainMan -

I am all about the notion that the constitution can be changed, that is one of the things that make it so great. However, I have to say that the statements made by Wainberg, in regards to free speech are absolutely repugnant. I am truly horrified by the notion of placing legal restrictions on dissenting speech, no matter how vile. That someone who has so much to offer in the fight against denialism, would say things like that, only undermines the fight against such deadly ignorance.

The way to quell dissent is not by legally restricting the dissenter’s right to speak about it. The way to fight it, is to respond to it. Don’t let it drop, don’t assume that everyone else is smart enough to know bullshit for bullshit. All that legal restrictions do, is to make martyrs and make others wonder why it was necessary to pass laws against that type of speech. It makes people wonder about the potential validity of such speech.

I am repulsed by what Wainberg had to say about this. I am also repulsed by the fact that it forces me to stand in solid agreement with the denialists here. While I am sure that there are probably many things that I would agree with these folks about, unrelated to their deadly woo, it is exceedingly distasteful to have to support anything they have to say in a thread such as this one.

Posted by: DuWayne | September 20, 2007 12:16 PM

Elisa,
calling people names like Dr tit etc kind of makes us look bad, duesberg, shyh ching lo scientists that have questioned the hiv hypothesis would never talk like that.

Wouldnt be suprised if aids inc is so desperate that they are hiring disinfo agents to make the “dissidents” look bad……..

Posted by: cooler | September 20, 2007 1:45 PM

Wouldnt be suprised if aids inc is so desperate that they are hiring disinfo agents to make the “dissidents” look bad……..

Ha! No cooler, y’all do that well enough on your own.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 20, 2007 2:03 PM

DuWayne,

I agree with you on the Constitution, but I also have a difficult time finding Wainberg “repugnant.” I suspect that he has looked at all of the restrictions of speech in the United States (many of them involving comparatively trivial infractions) and wondered why denialism that results in deaths is not also restricted.

Consider all of the many, many ways in which the freedom of speech has been abridged in the United States. Consider, too, the many times when such restrictions have been upheld by the courts.

If I defame you, DuWayne, and you can prove harm, I will be forced to pay. That is a very real restriction of my free speech. Yet, what harm has been done? I have hurt your feelings, perhaps, and if you are in business and I’ve dissuaded clients from dealing with you, I’ve also damaged your business. But no one is dead.

Obscenity, too, is not fatal. Child pornography is usually not fatal. When anti-choice activists try to picket a doctor’s private residence, they are not usually engaging in violence. Yet the law has ruled against all of these forms of speech.

A government employee who makes controversial statements about, say, religion, can be silenced constitutionally. The place and time of protected speech can be restricted constitutionally. But, again, no one would die or be harmed in any bodily way if these restrictions were not applied.

Commercial speech is highly regulated: false advertising is prohibited. Advertising cigarettes within a certain distance of schools is prohibited. The airwaves are under strict control.

If all of these restrictions were lifted tomorrow, I doubt that many people would die. Sadly, speech that has killed people–non-MDs giving medical advice to AIDS patients, amateur “experts” giving false information about a virus they know nothing about–is fully protected. If I walk down the street screaming obscenities, creating nothing more than a nuisance, I will be arrested. But Duesberg convinces a mother that all retroviruses are harmless, she surrounds herself with doctors who refuse to ask questions, and her child dies…and no one suffers a serious consequence.

That is what irked Wainberg. Truth be told, even if I disagree with his conclusion (involving the Constitution), it irks me, too.

DuWayne, why should obscenity be banned but my “right” to dupe my neighbor into stopping his meds and dying be protected?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 20, 2007 2:20 PM

Elite Controller studies are being performed under the auspices of the Mainstream AIDS medical research and AIDS societies.
“Participation also involves documentation of current and past viral load and CD4 counts, patient demographics and HIV history.”

Don’t expect them to have any outcome other than to say, “We don’t quite know the mechanisms for which people live longer without anti-HIV intervention, more studies are needed”. After all if one looks most of the mainstream studies end in this typical fashion.

Little do these bums of science know that the “Elite Controllers” are the ones who don’t believe in HIV to cause them harm nor do they give into pressures of medical interventions to begin with. All these studies are just throwing good money at bad science, like most of it.

“HIV is like a boat, and a boat is just a hole in the water to throw money in…………”

Posted by: Carter | September 20, 2007 2:59 PM

nope, tara you guys cant even provide us with the first scientific paper that hiv causes AIDS. In 1983 only a small group of idiotic scientists thought hiv might caused by a retrovirus (Gallo, essex, levy) , coming off thier failed retrovirus causes cancer program (how dumb can these people be, cancer isnt contagious!) they now told us their cancer virus was now the AIDS virus!

In 1985 everybody in the world thought hiv was the cause of AIDS.

Can you please provide me with this scientific paper printed in between these years that proved hiv caused AIDS, or was this ubiquitious consensus caused by politics and not science……………………?

Please dont tell of the 20 years of confirmatory evidence that confirmed Gallo’s partial correlation, barely detectable, 1/1000 blood tcells no animal model hypothesis, they all assumed hiv was the cause of aids, you cant confirm things you already beleive to be true, and design studies with that mindset, studies that would have been truly designed to test for verifying gallo’s claim would have been designed totally differently (control for confounding factors)

Instead they kept extending the window period when no one got sick, made hiv species specific when mice/primates didnt get aids when inoculated……….talk about extending the goalposts to save a hypothesis!

See hiv fact or fraud. google it.

Read Project day lily. google it.
mycoplasma biowarfare program/ this microbe found in some aids cases/CFS kills every animal injected, most amazing book ever by two phd’s scientists who uncovered a massive coverup.

Posted by: cooler | September 20, 2007 3:45 PM

Don’t expect them to have any outcome other than to say, “We don’t quite know the mechanisms for which people live longer without anti-HIV intervention, more studies are needed”. After all if one looks most of the mainstream studies end in this typical fashion.

If you mean they might come out and say that elite controllers seem to produce T-cells that lack a protien on the outside that makes it difficult for HIV to attach to then you might be right. It’s true, most of the main stream studies end in us learning something new that all the HIV dissident bitching in the world never thought of or suggested through their wide spread research. How do dissident studies typically end? Oh yes you don’t do any studies, how could I forget.

Posted by: apy | September 20, 2007 4:23 PM

Dear ElkMountainMan

Are you really sharing Wainberg idea ?

What about people living outside the US, would you also consider that they should not be allowed to propagate/ read/discuss “denialist” ** ideas ?

I was thinking not only the EU/Australia/Canada etc…but about people in China/India and mainly about Africa, where the majority of HIV+ people are presently living.

What about people who don’t want to use ARV’s for cultural reasons, for example many Chinese that I have spoken with, think that chronic diseases (not only AIDS) are better treated using traditional Chinese medicine than occidental medicine. They therefore would not accept such prohibition…

I also know that in Africa many persons go first to so-called traditional doctors. . This is likely to continue, and this may be the most important reason of the lack of use of ARV’s in Africa, not, as some may be thinking, due to the existence of internet based “denialists” movements in the US/EU.

Both Chinese Traditional Medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and African traditional doctors use mainly herbal drugs, and it may be possible that some herbal drugs would have similar effect than LDN that Noreen reported, and may at least also prolong AIDS sufferers life as ARV’s does, without ARV’s secondary effects that Noreen reported.

It is unlikely that any internet prohibition in the US would have any major effect in these populations.

So dear ElkMountainMan do you think that people that living in the US/Canada should be allowed to have less information, and therefore less opportunities to solve their problems than the non-Americans/ non-Canadians?

As you look quite articulate in explaining your ideas, I am curious to read what you have to say.

———————————-

** I understand that part of the so called “denialist” ideology is proposing non-ARV’s treatments for AIDS sufferers.

Posted by: Braganza | September 20, 2007 4:25 PM

Cooler caling people names? what are you talking about? Making us look bad, who are you talking about? Anyway how could it be worse? Jehova, Jehova….

Wanna see a real plant you paranoid bastard, watch out for the slimy, boooring prose and the truly laughable impersonation – I give you Carter and Mundt.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=read-response&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 20, 2007 6:26 PM

Dear Braganza,

I appreciate your questions, and I would like to say that this is a very difficult legal question, one that I can’t claim to address well for the United States, much less for the rest of the world. I’ll do my best to give you my thoughts, though.

I do not share Mark Wainberg’s idea, but I sympathize with his frustration. A large group of relatively harmless types of speech are banned in the United States–and their banning has been upheld by the courts, the arbiters of the Constitution–while medical lies that have led to deaths are protected free speech.

In my view, this is inconsistent. If libertarians in the United States wish to criticize Mark Wainberg’s (free) speech on this, they act inconsistently with their principles unless they also oppose other restrictions of speech, such as laws against obscenity, child pornography, defamation, commercial speech, and…well, I gave a list in my previous comment. Many libertarians do oppose such restrictions. While I disagree with them, I cannot call them hypocrites.

In my view, Wainberg has the right to comment on the apparent hypocrisy under the law, and, in my view, this is an important issue, worth a serious conversation about whether enhanced legal protections are needed for vulnerable individuals. I, frankly, do not know the answer, but I do not think the Constitution needs to be changed. I think that the legal system can deal with medical lies on its own, and it usually does.

It’s important to define what I mean by “medical lies,” and I suspect “lies” is too narrow a term for what I mean. I would not classify the examples you give, Braganza–of traditional healers and herbal remedies–as being “medical lies” in the places where they predominate. But what about a traditional healer operating in an immigrant community in North Carolina? I’ll throw up my hands on that one. I don’t know; this is why we have courts…to decide difficult cases. To me, a medical lie is when an unqualified person poses as a health professional and gives out advice, or when a qualified doctor knowingly lies or does not adhere to a standard of treatment. Cases like these can be found in the courts every day, and that’s why I don’t favor changing the Constitution.

I don’t speak for Mark Wainberg, but I get the impression that the behavior he opposes is restricted to just a few individuals in the “denialist” community: people such as Peter Duesberg who have the training and should have the common sense to understand what they are doing is wrong.

If a given individual has dispensed medical advice to AIDS patients who have followed that advice and died, that person could be sued. I don’t know how successful such a case would be. I have corresponded with one person who was persuaded to stop HAART by a “dissident” with no medical training. There are many others. The success of a lawsuit in any case would depend partly on the fake “doctor’s” knowledge.

Many “dissidents” are surprisingly uneducated about the topic they build their lives around, and so can hardly be accused of “lying.” They believe what they say. But some dissidents are so well-versed in the literature, yet insist so strongly on lying about it knowingly, that their deception would be obvious in court.

I’m probably wrong on some of this, and it could well be that laws (not the Constitution) would need some changing before any hope of a successful lawsuit against the more malicious, knowing “denialists.”

To conclude, I hope that some of you can agree with me on the following example:

Cigarette companies have been prohibited from advertising over the airwaves in the United States. In some countries, all tobacco advertisement is banned. The purpose is to protect public health. I’m not opposed to this, but it’s worth noting that it is a restriction on “free speech,” and much more widespread than what Mark Wainberg has proposed.

Which is closer to a “clear and present danger”–cigarette ads or AIDS denialism?
Cigarette ads encourage behavior that may kill in decades.
AIDS denialism encourages behavior that may kill in months or years, depending on the patient.

Which is more deceptive–cigarette ads or AIDS denialism?
At least in the last few decades of their runs, cigarette ads could not imply health benefits from smoking.
AIDS denialism, in contrast, not only states that going off ARVs is healthy, it says that ARVs are the cause of AIDS, and does so by knowingly ignoring the many studies showing the benefits of ARVs, in some cases actually distorting and lying about those studies.

Which has a more captive audience?
Cigarette ads were targeted broadly.
AIDS denialism is targeted at affected individuals, often people who are sick and understandably desperate for answers, vulnerable.

Which can be restricted under the current commercial speech laws in the USA?
Cigarette ads, obviously.
AIDS denialism–in many cases, in my opinion should be. “Rethinkers” make money from the vulnerable people they exploit; their propaganda could be, but often is not, restricted under commercial speech regulations.

I think there is room for improvement in protecting vulnerable patients in the United States from the predatory practices of the AIDS denialists, but I think this can be done within the existing system.

There’s a legal doctrine, I can’t remember the name of it right now, about imposing the least harmful way to achieve the desired effect. Better education of the public (or individuals) by science educators is certainly less harmful than lawsuits. If legal action ever happens, and I doubt it will, it should focus on the knowing lies of the denialists, not on restricting free speech.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 20, 2007 6:59 PM

While I’m sure, considering the number of comments Dr. Smith receives on every posting regarding the “shoddy science” behind HIV/AIDS and retroviruses, that this has been covered before, it bears mentioning.

Retroviruses are obviously not functionally the same. Some retroviruses cause immunodeficiency syndromes–i.e., Feline Immunodeficiency Virus; some cause cancer–the first discovered to cause cancer, the Rous Sarcoma Virus, and others like Bovine Leukemia Virus.

The Family of Retroviridae is comprised of viruses with similar characteristics, and one of those defining characteristics is their ability to insert their own RNA into the host cells’ DNA and cause a huge array of problems.

Just a point of pride among veterinarians, as Dr. Rous was the first to discover a viral cause of cancer, something for which he was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966.

Posted by: Meredith M. CLancy | September 20, 2007 7:00 PM

Funny, I must have missed the scientific discussion in your latest articles Dr. Smith.

I’m still waiting for any rational response to my earlier post.

Does drug use cause AIDS

In all the whingeing and whining about censorship you seem to forget that the collective response from the “dissidents” has been “Everyone knows that Ascher was Tony Fauci’s well paid buttboy and pet lapdog…”

Nobody is censoring you here and yet the best you can come up with is calling people names like “Dr. Smearah Tit”.

Accompanying every right is a responsibility.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 20, 2007 8:03 PM

This free speech issue is crazy, its about personal responsibility. If Duesberg or any other scientist advocated drinking gasoline and an adult did it, the person dumb enough to follow that advice is to most to blame.

Another more subtle example, say someone followed the atkins diet and because of it he had a heart attack bc many docs dont agree with it, ? Is it Atkins fault?, no its the persons fault it’s his responsibility to look at all the data pro and con and then make a choice based on informed consent,his body, his choice, his life.

All these calls for censorship are just plain fear……….the “rethinkers” have superior arguments and the moore/gallo/wainberg mob know this so they resort to calling for the abolishment of the 1st amendment and the firing of professors who dont agree with them.

This is not the way people react to an absurd argument, an absurd argument doesnt scare experts, If a group of people started a movement called the “moon is made of green cheese” can you imagine a group of astrophysicists starting a group that said the “moontruth, the moon is not made of cheese” and getting all upset about it, no of course not they would just ignore it because its absurd and laughable, the moore mob does not act like they should if the rethinkers arguments were not valid, bc they know they have no arguments to back up their positions, and need to rely on censorship and the stifling of academic freedom.

Posted by: cooler | September 20, 2007 8:34 PM

This free speech issue is crazy, its about personal responsibility. If Duesberg or any other scientist advocated drinking gasoline and an adult did it, the person dumb enough to follow that advice is to most to blame.

Of course the person drinking the gasoline has reposibility for his own actions but if Duesberg tells people that drinking gasoline is not only safe but beneficial then he is also partly responsible.

Duesberg told Raphael Lombardo that if he didn’t take recreational drugs or antiretrovirals that he wouldn’t get AIDS. Raphael didn’t take recreational drugs and he didn’t take antiretrovirals and yet he still got AIDS. To make matters worse Duesberg accused Raphael of lying after he was already dead and not able to defend himself. Duesberg is personally responsible for the eventual outcomes of his actions.

Professional Responsibilities of biomedical scientists in public discourse

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 20, 2007 8:54 PM

No as long as raphael heard both sides of the hiv debate its all on him, his body his life, and im sure many docs told him about the hiv myth over and over. Who knows what killed him, Ill have to look into it, was it HIV, mycoplasma incognitus, AZT, catastrophic stress?.

One solid epidemiological study designed to test the hiv hypothesis could easily resolve the thousands of people that are starting to doubt the hiv hypothesis, too bad AIDS inc will never allow a study that would test Gallo’s dubious partial correlation/ no animal model/ 1/1000 blood tcell hypothesis.

They are plenty of people who were killed by AZT that could have been LTNP’ers, so aids inc is responsible for their deaths, the big difference is that Rapheal was exposed to both sides of the argument, while people who were told to take monster doses of AZT were not, they were not even informed that they were being put under long term chemotherapy. Its about informed consent and doing what you want with your own body. Yes I do agree if you are hiv positive you should inform all prospective partners………..other than that Its your choice based upon what makes sense to you.

Posted by: cooler | September 20, 2007 9:53 PM

ElkMountainMan -

Actually, it is very, very hard to actually sue for defamation, thanks in large part to Larry Flynt. As for obscenity laws, they are being struck down left and right, something that I strongly support. The right to protest, has unfortunately suffered in very large ways over the last few decades, something that I find horribly disturbing.

Child porn is a whole different ball of wax. There is real harm being perpetrated in the production and to an extent with the dissemination of such materials. While it usually isn’t fatal, it is nothing short of rape, something that is definitely illegal and bloody well should be. It is not speech, it’s an act of violence, rape and degradation.

I should be clear, that I am not saying that Wainberg is himself repugnant, I have not heard enough of his views to really judge that. But what he says about speech most certainly is. Just because there are unacceptable laws restricting speech in the U.S., does not justify more restrictions.

Posted by: DuWayne | September 20, 2007 10:15 PM

Hey Chris. You are totally full of SHIT about Ralph Lombardo’s death being on Peter Duesberg in any way shape or form.

Lombardo had refused AZT even before he ever heard of Dr. Duesberg.

The following are extracts from Ralph Lombardo’s VERY OWN WORDS from a letter of his to Dr. Duesberg, and the full letter can be found at:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:wvgAw4w3zwYJ:www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/pdazt.htm+%22Raphael+Lombardo%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
————————————————–
To: Dr. Peter Duesberg

From: Raphael Sabato Lombardo

Date: May 30, 1995

Subject: Life without AZT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Dr. Duesberg,

My name is Raphael Sabato Lombardo, 33 years old and from Cape Coral, FL. I am writing in regards to the enclosed magazine article from this month’s issue of Men’s Style. I was thrilled to read that there was someone in the medical profession who shared the same views I’ve had for so many years…….

I am an HIV positive individual. I learned of my HIV status while in boot camp in the U.S. Navy back in 1985 (I could have very possibly been HIV positive 7 years before that)……
Remember, this was 1985, a time when HIV was called the HTLV III virus and anything and everyone associated with it meant complete and utter doom (physically, spiritually, societally, politically, etc….

Although met with discrimination and much verbal and physical abuse as well, I did go home and received my bachelor’s in business from the University of South Florida ­Ft. Myers…..
Myself and the other recruits (those who are left) still remain a closeknit group. The bond will forever exist. Several have died of AIDS and several have AIDS. As for myself I’ve remained completely asymptomatic thank God! To be honest, in regards to HIV, I haven,t seen a doctor since the day I was discharged. While in the Navy, we were subjected to incompetent Navy doctors who often gave us inaccurate medical results. As a result, I came to trust no one in the medical profession. I decided to take things into my own hands….. I spent countless hours in the medical library at the Bethesda Naval Hospital which is where we were being held and did research on one’s immune system and all AIDS information available up to that point in time. Since no drugs had yet been approved by the FDA, there were no forms of treatment available. I came up with my own form of natural healthcare…..
Shortly after discharge, AZT was approved by the FDA. My family and friends wanted me to jump on the bandwagon immediately! I can’t explain why, but I outright refused. There was this inner voice that kept telling me, and continues to tell me, to just stay away from medication. Even back then I had a feeling that taking this medication and going on drug experimental trials would do nothing more than provoke the onset of the disease. Again, this feeling was based not on medical data or research, just an inner gut feeling….. I guess you could say my spirit guides or guardian angels have been working overtime. By not going on medication, my family and friends felt I was exhibiting the same “ignorance” and “foolishness” that got me into this mess in the first place. We had countless heated argument over this, but I told them my mind was made up and that was that-period. We Italian men can often times be quite stubborn! Actually, my dad is the only one who agrees with me…. That is reflective in our conversations which last no longer than a couple of seconds.

During those years of experimenting, exploring and even rejoicing in my God given sexuality, I did the bathhouse scene, the “Saint” parties, the S&M sex clubs, the backroom bar scenes, the group sex, etc. I guess you could say that sexually, I did it all. I was curious, knew exactly what I wanted to do and experience, and did just that. Something I’m proud of? No! It’s just the way it happened. Again, this was all society felt, and still feels, gays are worthy of. While I was part of the “gay scene” in this respect, I always felt I wasn’t at all in other respects.

At about the same time as my Navy situation, I began hearing more and more of guys I had dated in N.Y.C. who had died or were dying of AIDS. I speak of approximately 2 dozen friends (that I am aware of, there’s probably more) who have died of AIDS from 1985 to 1995. They are all gay men (except for 1 woman). These men were also very much into recreational drugs (steroids, poppers, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, etc.). They ranged in age from mid twenties to mid forties. I don’t know at what point they started using the drugs such as AZT, ddI etc. I found out my HIV status while I was in the Navy and didn’t even know I was being tested and had not experienced any signs or symptoms of the disease. I don’t know if these other friends of mine had already progressed to ARC and full­blown AIDS before finally deciding to get tested and go on medication or they took it upon themselves early on to have the test done before experiencing any symptoms and then progressed from simply testing HIV positive and then progressing to ARC, full­blown AIDS and eventually death. My personal suspicion is that these individuals were not aware of their HIV status until they started experiencing physical complications. My friends who were sick and died since the late eighties were taking mega doses of AZT (approximately 12 pills a day). I hear that dosage has been greatly reduced. My friends today take several pills of AZT daily. I’m not sure what the dosage is for any other drugs that they’re on.

In regards to the woman I mentioned, she was a heterosexual, and in her late twenties. I am not certain how she contracted the disease. She was married with a set of twins that were merely a few years old at the time of her death last year. I believe she suffered approximately 3 years and was on AZT and several other drugs for most of that time. An unfortunate tragedy! Her husband and children test negative.

With regards to HIV, I’ve always sensed that drugs, or lack of them, has played a big part in keeping me going while so many others have been less fortunate. Another thing I’d like to add is that as a workout enthusiast, I’ve never experimented with steroids, which unfortunately runs so very, very rampant amongst gays and in my opinion is ravaging the gay community. Amongst other things, it severely compromises one’s immune system. To me, there’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned, honest hard work.

According to the article I’ve read, it sounds as though you’ve had a pretty rough time of things in trying to gain support in the medical community and gay community as well. I just wanted to let you know that I share the same views and sentiments as you…..
This year, 1995, marks the 10 year anniversary of my Navy situation, a milestone in many, many ways.

Respectfully,
Raphael Sabato Lombardo

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 10:30 PM

Chris, you piece of shit liar, you act as if Duesberg had somehow led this guy around by the nose. Lombardo had decided NOT to take AIDS drugs 10 YEARS before he ever heard of Duesberg. Lombardo HIMSELF chose not to accept standard treatment. Lombardo HIMSELF witnessed the deaths of those he knew who took AZT.

And as for his death, Chris, please take note of all of the emotional pain and INTENSE STRESS AND LONELINESS that Ralph endured.

For being gay. (shamed and guilted)
For being gay in the military. (shamed and guilted)
For being diagnosed as HIV poz.(stressed, panicked, rejected, shamed and guilted)
For NOT taking meds.(stressed, with projections of death put on him regularly)
For losing those close to him.(major grief)
For not having a lover.(loneliness)

And a thousand other reasons that you, Chris, know nothing about. You do not know what he went through, and you do not know what he suffered emotionally.

Ralph was another gay man, who had an intensely stressed and intensely emotional difficult life.

And YOU CHRIS NOBLE, are nothing but a simple minded ass-wipe know-it-all who knows nothing about anything!

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 10:43 PM

THE SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL COMMUNITY IS GUILTY OF PROMOTING AND PROJECTING THE THEN INEVITABLE SELF FULFILLING PROPHESIES OF SICKNESS AND DEATH OF GAY MEN.

All of you HIV promoters fail to ever acknowledge what we gay men have endured over the last 25 years and what we continue to endure from you. You FAIL to own up to YOUR OWN part in it. You fail to own up to continually and nonstop project upon us our sickness and our deaths. You refuse to own up to, and admit that the very source of Gay Mens ills has been completely due to your own projections at us. Projections that we are not good enough, that we are defective. That we will die or sicken of disease. You project these things on my gay brethren, and then my gay brethren accept, believe, and self create the now self fulfilling projections that you yourselves have heaped upon them.

The Scientific, Medical, and Heterosexual society has failed to own up to their own part in:

THE SOCIETAL AND FAMILY REJECTION WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE HARASSMENT WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE SHAMING and GUILTING WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE CONSTANT PANIC AND FEAR FROM YOUR PROJECTIONS OF OUR INEVITABLE DEATH FROM HIV/AIDS THAT WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE POISONING BY TOXIC PHARMA DRUGS WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE GRIEF WE HAVE ENDURED AS THOSE WE LOVE DIED FROM THE ABOVE

THE LONELINESS WE HAVE ENDURED AS OUR RELATIONSHIPS HAVE BEEN REJECTED OR SHAMED OR DIED FROM BATTLING THE NEGATIVITY AND BELIEFS IN DEATH THAT HAVE BEEN HEAPED UPON THEM.

THE DEATH WISHES THAT ARE DUE TO THE STRESS THAT WE HAVE ENDURED.

THE EXPECTATIONS OF SICKNESS AND DEATH THAT WE ENDURE.

And EACH and EVERY ONE OF YOU, that continues to project death by HIV or AIDS upon us is guilty of CONTINUING the creating of such by further stressing us with your nonstop and stress causing debilitating projections at us, until we do succumb to sickness, disease, and death.

You heap upon us your prophesies and projections of inevitable doom and sickness and death until we ourselves are so sickened by it that we fulfill these prophesies.

What you have done and continue to do is WRONG.

YOU CAN ALL SHOVE YOUR PROJECTIONS OF INEVITABLE HIV AIDS DEATH, THAT YOU HAVE HEAPED ON GAYS FOR THE LAST 25 YEARS, STRAIGHT UP WHERE THE SUN DOES NOT SHINE.

YOU CAN KEEP YOUR VOODOO AND YOUR BLACKMAGIC AND YOUR PROJECTIONS OF SICKNESS AND DEATH TO YOUR OWN SELVES.

You HIV=DEATH believers and promoters ARE THE CAUSE OF AIDS BY YOUR OWN PROJECTIONS OF DEATH BY HIV AIDS AT US GAYS!

AND YOU CAN ALL GO SHOVE YOUR HIV/AIDS “SCIENCE” STRAIGHT UP YOUR OWN ASS!

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 11:25 PM

In the words of Ralph Lombardo himself: “Remember, this was 1985, a time when HIV was called the HTLV III virus and anything and everyone associated with it meant complete and utter doom (physically, spiritually, societally, politically, etc….”

Yes Ralph, that was 1985, and ten years later nothing had changed, and even now 20 years later little has changed as the world continues to heap upon us death, and disease, both physical, spiritual, societal, and political.

I dedicate my own efforts in this very thread, to wake the world up from its own self perpetuating and self creating disasters, to the late Raphael Lombardo, who succumbed nearly 10 years ago of the stress and pain that was heaped upon him as a gay man, and as someone diagnosed as HIV positive, who was simply struggling to live and to love and to serve and to be free in a world that projected nothing upon him but rejection, shame, guilt, grief, fear, sickness and projections of inevitable death.

Posted by: Michael | September 20, 2007 11:38 PM

Any of you remember Kimberly Bergalis, who supposedly died of AIDS that she supposedly got from her dentist in Florida in 1987? AIDS Incorporated used her case as the big proof that HIV is contagious.

Unbeknownst to any of you, the reality is that she died from AZT poisoning:

Bergalis meanwhile sought medical care at the University of Miami, where she was treated with an unidentified “experimental” method. Certainly this was the appropriate place for such therapies. Margaret Fischl, the head of the Phase II AZT trial, worked at that medical center, which had served as one of the twelve facilities sponsored by Burroughs Wellcome for the study. So Bergalis was prescribed AZT.

Suddenly she started a precipitous decline in health. In an angry letter, she herself acknowledged her symptoms resulted from the toxic drug:

“I have lived through the torturous ache that infested my face and neck, brought on by AZT. I have endured trips twice a week to Miami for three months only to receive painful IV injections. I’ve had blood transfusions. I’ve had a bone marrow biopsy. I cried my heart out from the pain.”

First, she was stressed to poor physical health to begin with, then further stressed by the panic and fear of being given a diagnosis of HIV. Then, she was finally poisoned to death by AZT. The aches and pains, and poisoned blood marrow and blood transfusions are ALL well established effects of AZT.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 12:14 AM

Those last four comments were awesome. And by awesome I mean drop-dead hilarious. Thanks for the entertainment, Michael.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | September 21, 2007 12:25 AM

Glad you liked them Tyler, and your very welcome. Yes, emotional pain and iatrogenic illness and societal projections of sickness and death are quite humorous, now aren’t they?

Your own post was very enlightening as well. You are obvioulsy so well spoken and such a brilliant intellectual.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 12:34 AM

Unbeknownst to any of you, the reality is that she died from AZT poisoning:

Of course it is unknown to me because it is not true.

Bergalis meanwhile sought medical care at the University of Miami, where she was treated with an unidentified “experimental” method. Certainly this was the appropriate place for such therapies. Margaret Fischl, the head of the Phase II AZT trial, worked at that medical center, which had served as one of the twelve facilities sponsored by Burroughs Wellcome for the study. So Bergalis was prescribed AZT.

Suddenly she started a precipitous decline in health. …

I’ve already been through this several times.

Bergalis had systemic candidiasis, severe weight loss, PCP and a CD4+ count of less than 50 before she was diagnosed with HIV infection let alone prescribed AZT.

Bergalis perfectly healthy before AZT?

You’ve fallen for another one of Duesberg’s lies.

How does AZT travel backwards in time to cause AIDS before it was taken? Bergalis would probably never have been tested for HIV infection if she hadn’t been extremely ill in the first place. So the diagnosis cannot have been the cause of the illness.

Raphael Lombardo’s letter says the same thing:

My personal suspicion is that these individuals were not aware of their HIV status until they started experiencing physical complications.

The same thing is still true today. A large proportion of people are only diagnosed with HIV infection when they turn up in hospital with AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 21, 2007 12:44 AM

Here’s a question for Michael.

What does Duesberg tell HIV people to do?

As far as I can tell he says a) HIV is harmless b) AIDS is caused by recreational drugs and antiretrovirals c) if you are HIV+ and don’t take recreational drugs or antiretrovirals you won’t get AIDS.

Raphael didn’t take recreational drugs or antiretrovirals and he still progressed to AIDS. Did Duesberg reappraise or rethink his ideas? No. He accused Raphael of lying.

At some stage you have to give up on the hero worship.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 21, 2007 1:02 AM

From the virusmyth webpage that Michael cited.

In London HIV­ positive male homosexuals ar risk for AIDS formed a survivor group called “Continuum.” In August 1993 there was no mortality during 1.25 years in all 918 members of that group who had “avoided the experimental medications on offer” and chose to “abstain from or significantly reduce their use of recreational drugs, including alcohol.” (105) Assuming an average ten­year latent period from HIV to AIDS, the virus ­AIDS hypothesis would have predicted at least 58 (half of 918/10 x 1.25) AIDS cases among 918 HIV­ positives over 1.25 years. Indeed, the absence of mortality in this group over 1.25 years corresponds to a minimal latent period from HIV to AIDS of more than 1,148 (918 x 1.25) years. As of July 1, 1994, there was still not one single AIDS case in this group of 918 HIV ­positive homosexuals. (106)

Apart from the shocking maths (where’s Darin Brown when you need a mathematician?) something else should stand out. What happened to the editorial staff of Continuum? They all died of AIDS! Huw Christie. Jodie Wells. Is Duesberg going to rethink his position? No they all must have been liars.

Why do you guys worship Duesberg? You should realise by now that if you are HIV+ and you follow his advice and don’t take antiretrovirals or recreational drugs and yet still progress to AIDS and die then Duesberg is going to lie about you when you’re dead.

The man deserves nothing less than contempt.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 21, 2007 1:12 AM

Hey Chris. You PIECE OF SHIT LIAR! Right in the New York Times Interview, Bergalis overtly states and even overdramatizes a few mostly very minor complaints and a simple case of common thrush. She herself said:

Within a month of the 1987 tooth extraction, Miss Bergalis said, bumps broke out on her face, and she began to suffer from a sore throat. (A month later she had a sore throat? Bumps on her face? Since when are sore throats a sign of HIV infection only one month after the supposed infection by HIV occurred? Since when are bumps on a face linked to 30 days of HIV infection? Totally obvious that this is pure and complete hyped up bullshit Chris! No such thing happens to anyone else 30 days after people are supposedly infected!)

….Then these symptoms disappeared until late in the spring of 1989, as she was about to graduate from the University of Florida. Then came a parade of infections, big and little — sore throats, weakness, coughing, white patches in her mouth. (She was obviously VERY Stressed out by finals and by graduation and by who knows what else and then came down with what looks like symptoms of any common cold and flu along with a more or less common case of simple oral thrush that lots of run down or emotionally/physically stressed HIV negative people get quite often.)

….But she had a hectic schedule. “I thought I was just stressed out,” she recalled (TOTALLY ADMITTED TO BEING STRESSED OUT). A Doctor Was Puzzled (Must be because he was a complete idiot like Chris Noble)….

When she saw a doctor for the infection in her mouth, he said it was peculiar; it looked like thrush. (What the fuck? A doctor who never saw a common case of thrush? Was this imbecile just a month out of med school or what?)

“Are you a diabetic?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Are you on antibiotics?”

“No.”

“That’s funny. Usually, you only get thrush when you’re a newborn, a diabetic, on antibiotics. Or if you have AIDS.”
———————————————————–
Chris, who are you trying to bullshit besides yourself?
Once Again, we find a doctor paralyzing a stressed out minorly ill patient’s immune system even further, with the devastating panic and fear of death by telling her she most likely had AIDS, when all she had was a not uncommon oral thrush infection!

And Chris, you lying piece of shit. You lie and said before she was HIV diagnosed that she had wasting, PCP, systemic candidiasis, Low CD4 counts (when nobody EVER took her count before being diagnosed as HIV!)

Quite obvious again, Chris, that you do nothing but lie, exagerate, and bullshit! Shove it up your ass Chris. Bergalis simply got caught up in the wave of mass hysteria in 1987 to 89 that swept the country. Another more than obvious case of iatrogenic death combined with the patients own self creating prophesy due to stress, fear, panic, brainwashing, and more of your voodoo blackmagic bullshit.

Hey Chris. One more time. This ones just for YOU. GO Shove your voodoo and blackmagic BULLSHIT STRAIGHT UP YOUR OWN ASS CHRIS.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 1:27 AM

“The man deserves nothing less than contempt.”

The only one that deserves contempt here, Chris, is YOU!

The only things you have EVER PRESENTED to us in the last few years, Chris, are rants, screeds, easily picked apart and easily exposed as lacking any substance, very circumstantial, very flimsy, very third hand, very he said-she said, very conflict of interest filled and are also full of nothing but your own projections of your own hatred, homophobia, rascism, germaphobia, paranoia of aids and the projection at others of your own hypochondriacal illness.

Go fuck yourself.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 1:42 AM

Michael. You are correct. Bergalis’ CD4 cells were probably not measured before the diagnosis of HIV infection.

They were measured before she was prescribed AZT.

Happy now?

She was extremely ill before ever getting near AZT.

Duesberg’s claim that she was perfectly healthy before taking AZT is a complete lie.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 21, 2007 1:47 AM

“Yes, emotional pain and iatrogenic illness and societal projections of sickness and death are quite humorous, now aren’t they?”

When I can numb the empathy enough, hell yeah!

But on the other hand, no, that’s not what I intended. I was thinking more along the lines of hysterical cranks tossing around borderline accusations of murder to an online community.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | September 21, 2007 1:48 AM

You are welcome to take it any way you want Tyler. Hysterical? Or direct? Crank? or striking nerves because it is a bit too much reality? Borderline accusations of murder? Or pointing out another quite valid perspective?

I am open to suggestions if you think there is perhaps some other way to wake people up to the iatrogenic and societal aspects of the discussed situation. Seems you yourself did not take it too well, though you also did not take it as badly as some do. Especially as you yourself admit to the need to “numb the empathy”. Can’t say I blame you, Ty. Not your fault that you perhaps find it difficult to stomach some of the quite possible or even probable, if not even “absolute” “realities” that I have presented here.

You know it has oft been said that “the truth hurts”. Sometimes the truth hurts so much that people, or at least their egos, go right into escapism, denial, anger, humor, and a lot of other interesting but quite human egoic responses as I quite knowingly probe and poke at this festering sore on the ass of all of mankind in hopes of cleaning the would by exposing it to the light of truth. I do understand. I have seen most all of the responses possible in reacting to what I have pointed out quite clearly. I have yet to hear any admit to what I have said. To do so is far too painful. And I certainly do not expect an apology from anyone’s ego. Certainly not one online or in public. Would be nice, wouldn’t make up for or change any of the losses, and it is certainly not necessary, as al must take its course, but from my own ego’s viewpoint, it most surely it would be nice. However, I certainly do not expect or demand one from anyone.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 2:08 AM

“Duesberg’s claim that she was perfectly healthy before taking AZT is a complete lie.”

Strange Chris, but I have never seen where Duesberg claimed she was “perfectly healthy” before taking AZT. Perhaps you will show us the quote, and where exactly it is to be found, other than in the dark recesses of your own imagination.

On the other hand, the now verified “truth” is, that Chris Nobles’s claim that Kim Bergalis had a low CD4 count of 50 before being diagnosed as HIV positive, is absolutely, as you yourself even just admitted, was a complete lie.

Hmmmm. Who should I believe more, Chris or Dr. Duesberg? Hmmmm…..

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 2:28 AM

“Not your fault that you perhaps find it difficult to stomach some of the quite possible or even probable, if not even “absolute” “realities” that I have presented here.”

This is really funny. What you’ve presented here is a series of long winded rants that consist of cut and pasted articles that demonstrate nothing regarding the various claims you’ve made (hint: someone claiming that they experienced stress does not necessitate to notion that they died of the stress). And to top it off, they’re complete with RANDOM CAPITALIZATION, unnecessary boldface and baseless accusations of “lying” to people like Chris. “Crank” is almost too generous for this tripe.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | September 21, 2007 2:42 AM

And Chris, you lying piece of shit. You lie and said before she was HIV diagnosed that she had wasting, PCP, systemic candidiasis, Low CD4 counts (when nobody EVER took her count before being diagnosed as HIV!)

Have you read the article? She had candidiasis, weight loss, hair loss and PCP before she was diagnosed with AIDS or tested for HIV.
The pneumonia wasn’t just any pneumonia it was PCP. Duesberg lies about Bergalis in “Inventing the AIDS virus”. Duesberg claims she was perfectly healthy before taking AZT. All of the symptoms that Duesberg ascribes to “AZT posioning” occurred before she took the drug.

Only when the crisis passed and tests revealed that she had pneumocystis pneumonia, typical of AIDS patients, did the doctors treating her suggest she be tested for HIV infection.

If you are going to accuse me of lying then try to get your facts straight.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 21, 2007 2:53 AM

Just a point of pride among veterinarians, as Dr. Rous was the first to discover a viral cause of cancer, something for which he was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966.

Yeah! Discovered in 1966. Then, from 1973 to 1981 or so the whole world has been tracking down the viral cause of cancer. ZERO result. So the budget went low. Came smart Gallo&Co with HIV=Aids. All virologists moved over from cancer research to Aids research and the budget went rocking sky high again. They seem to have learned from the cancer distaster and now their research money may well last forever. HIV, west-nile, marburg, ebola, HxNx, corona. I tell you, it’s a gold mine. And the lie may be stupid and deadly, but also she’s so big, only few seem to be able to imagine it’s a lie.
Right on Michael, Dan, cooler, carter, Noreen and whoever else I didn’t notice.

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 3:57 AM

Actually, the virus theory of cancer goes farther back to Royal Rife and a collegue of his, Virginia Livingston, who publicly acknowledged the first cancer virus. I think that Gallo and others may have been on the right track but with their closed minds in other areas such as pleomorphism were not able to duplicate results that had already been proven.

Yes, no one wants to give up the gravy train so they all play the game and assume that HIV causes AIDS. If AIDS went away so would their funding. They may be unethical but not stupid. In the interim, the patient suffers from the grade four events, side effects from the long-term use of the meds. Thank you Tara as you are helping the world to see the truth!

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 6:07 AM

Bergalis said in that article, “Here I was, 21 years old,” she says. “Faced with a diagnosis of AIDS. It’s a fatal illness. It’s hard enough to deal with the stress of having a terminal illness.”

Chris, do you think that the mere suggestion implanted into Kim’s psyche that she had several years to live could manifest itself into several illnesses such those ones she complained about? Take any of those illnesses one by one and without the death sentence can be fought off easily by western and/or natural remedies. Oh, but no, no, no, wait just a minute! It must be HIV! Even if AZT or it’s water down version, still being prescribed today has side effects somewhat indistinguishable from AIDS itself, Kim’s ATZ monotherapy is without a doubt is the icing on the cake. No amount of your psycho babel is going to change that hard core reality.

Bergalis is all but just one example. AZT singularly was pushed so readily then you cannot ever call into question that it was not the final means of slow and excruciating painful death when a person is handed the dreaded “So sorry for you but you have just so many years to live.”

You Chris are distorting that we say and making it seem like we’re saying AZT causes HIV, obviously because the public is taught the notion HIV/AIDS, “HIV disease” and all the like. AZT causes several of the AIDS defining illnesses and you cant dispute that.

Posted by: carter | September 21, 2007 8:07 AM

Chris, do you think that the mere suggestion implanted into Kim’s psyche that she had several years to live could manifest itself into several illnesses such those ones she complained about?

Your timeline seems a bit skewed here carter. Are you suggesting that stress can travel back in time and make someone sick (with fairly classic AIDS diseases) which then causes the diagnosis of stress that caused the diseases which then goes back in time and make someone sick …?

Are you saying that she was not sick prior to being diagnosed as HIV+ and with AIDS?

If you went into a hospital with a runny nose, cough, and phlegm and were diagnosed with a cold, would you then conclude that the diagnosis of a cold was the reason you originally felt sick?

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 9:34 AM

Michael,

For someone whose lover was diagnosed with HIV infection six years ago and who claims to know so much about HIV/AIDS, every time you post you reveal a profound ignorance of the medical and scientific literature.

You say Kimberly Bergalis “overdramatizes a few mostly very minor complaints”:

Within a month of the 1987 tooth extraction, Miss Bergalis said, bumps broke out on her face, and she began to suffer from a sore throat. (A month later she had a sore throat? Bumps on her face? Since when are sore throats a sign of HIV infection only one month after the supposed infection by HIV occurred? Since when are bumps on a face linked to 30 days of HIV infection? Totally obvious that this is pure and complete hyped up bullshit Chris! No such thing happens to anyone else 30 days after people are supposedly infected!) [Michael's Emphasis]

Since when? Well, these symptoms have been identified within 30 days of HIV infection since at least 1985:

Cooper DA, Gold J, Maclean P, Donovan B, Finlayson R, Barnes TG, Michelmore HM, Brooke P, Penny R. (1985). Acute AIDS retrovirus infection. Definition of a clinical illness associated with seroconversion. Lancet Mar 9;1(8428):537-40.

Abstract: In the course of a prospective immunoepidemiological study of homosexual men in Sydney, seroconversion to the AIDS-associated retrovirus (ARV) was observed in 12 subjects. Review of the clinical files defined an acute infectious-mononucleosis-like illness in 11 subjects. The illness was of sudden onset, lasted from 3 to 14 days, and was associated with fevers, sweats, malaise, lethargy, anorexia, nausea, myalgia, arthralgia, headaches, sore throat, diarrhoea, generalised lymphadenopathy, a macular erythematous truncal eruption, and thrombocytopenia. In 1 subject an incubation period of 6 days after presumed exposure to ARV was determined and in 3 subjects seroconversion took place 19, 32, and 56 days after onset. Comparison of T-cell subsets before and after the acute illness showed inversion of T4:T8 ratio in 8 subjects, due to increased numbers of circulating T8+ cells. These findings support the notion of an acute clinical, immunological, and serological response to infection with ARV which should be considered in the differential diagnosis of mononucleosis-like syndromes in groups at high risk for the development of AIDS.

Later, you suggest that Tyler may find “it difficult to stomach some of the quite possible or even probable, if not even “absolute” “realities” that I have presented here.”

Michael, you have told us several times how you believe that by denying the role of HIV in AIDS you will save your lover’s life. Every one of your posts is an exercise in the denial of the terrifying reality that has invaded your life.

As you, yourself said:

Sometimes the truth hurts so much that people, or at least their egos, go right into escapism, denial, anger, humor, and a lot of other interesting but quite human egoic responses

There is no better description of your response to the very real and frightening personal crisis you face.

Posted by: franklin | September 21, 2007 9:58 AM

If you went into a hospital with a runny nose, cough, and phlegm and were diagnosed with a cold, would you then conclude that the diagnosis of a cold was the reason you originally felt sick?

No, stupid. Now, have a strong coffee, wake up and think. If one goes into a hospital with a running nose, is diagnosed with AIDS and falls severly ill, after the shock of the diagnosis and the life-saving killer-drugs, then one may reasonably presume that something else than “The initial running nose caused a severe disease”.

But I guess you’ll never understand that because you simply don’t want things to be like that. Thus it’s not stupidity but something else that keeps you looking away from where you should look. Sorry for the No, stupid. It makes no sense. Sorry.

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 10:20 AM

Carter suggests that AZT

has side effects somewhat indistinguishable from AIDS itself.

This is another noxious nugget from Duesberg…and wrong.

Duesberg’s “Drug Diseases” review from 1998 (page 118) lists two AIDS-defining conditions out of the 25 or so CDC clinical diagnostic criteria that are also side effects of AZT…according to Duesberg, of course.

One of them is muscle wasting. It’s true that AZT can cause myopathy. But muscle weakness on its own is not AIDS-defining. AIDS-defining wasting involves

profound involuntary weight loss of greater than 10% of baseline body weight plus either chronic diarrhea (at least two loose stools per day for greater than or equal to 30 days), or chronic weakness and documented fever (for greater than or equal to 30 days, intermittent or constant) in the absence of a concurrent illness or condition other than HIV infection that could explain the findings (e.g., cancer, tuberculosis, cryptosporidiosis, or other specific enteritis). (From the CDC 1993 definition)

In other words, an AIDS diagnosis based on wasting requires profound weight loss AND chronic weakness in the presence of fever. This type of wasting can be caused by numerous conditions, including several AIDS-defining conditions; that’s why the CDC insists that other possible causes be ruled out.

Duesberg’s evidence is a report of “four out of five” patients who recover from myopathy after going off AZT (as reported in 1990). Duesberg doesn’t bother to confirm for his readers that the myopathy experienced by these patients is in fact related to AIDS-defining wasting. He backs up his assertions by mentioning that Rudolf Nureyev and Kimberley Bergalis both had muscle wasting.

Duesberg either confuses myopathy with AIDS-defining wasting or fully understands the difference but neglects to enlighten (i.e. misleads) his readers.

The other condition mentioned by Duesberg is HIV-associated dementia. AZT causes dementia, says Duesberg, and he refers to one article from 1991. His thought process is: AZT is said to inhibit mitochondrial DNA synthesis, neurons have mitochondria, therefore AZT causes AIDS-defining dementia.

Since Duesberg doesn’t study AIDS or work with clinicians who treat it, I suppose he doesn’t realize that many patients who show up in the clinic with HIV-associated dementia have never taken anti-HIV drugs. Many of these patients experience marked cognitive improvements on HAART. Treated HIV dementia patients also survive about seven or eight times longer than untreated patients.

To reference his assertion, Duesberg cites a report from a cohort study (Bacellar et al, 1994). The authors note an increase in HIV-associated dementia among men who reported antiviral use. The sample size was small, and there was no statistical significance. Duesberg, obviously unfamiliar with this concept, comments, “The result is interpreted by its authors with little concern for percentages.” “Percentages,” Professor Duesberg? In any case, the authors also note that the men who began taking antiretrovirals did so because they were less healthy than the men who did not. This simplest explanation is discarded by Duesberg in favor of his own relatively unsupported theory.

(What about drugs of abuse and HIV-associated dementia? Drug use is a confounding factor, and it is considered at diagnosis. For a diagnosis of HIV dementia, no known confounding factors should be present. See the CDC’s definitions.)

No, Carter, AZT’s side effects are not indistinguishable from AIDS. That’s just another Duesberg distortion.

Carter, I encourage you not to rely on non-experts, quacks, and ideological partisans to address your health concerns. Please be sure to consult a qualified doctor. Denialism has killed too many people already.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 10:24 AM

No, stupid. Now, have a strong coffee, wake up and think. If one goes into a hospital with a running nose, is diagnosed with AIDS and falls severly ill, after the shock of the diagnosis and the life-saving killer-drugs, then one may reasonably presume that something else than “The initial running nose caused a severe disease”.

This goes a whole lot faster if you actually pay attention to the thread jspreen. The use of a runny nose was what people in the English speaking world refer to as an “analogy”. The claim is not that someone came in with a runny nose and was diagnosed with AIDS and then all the AIDS symptoms came up magically after that diagnosis. No, it is that they came in with symptoms that suggest AIDS (such as PCP), and was then tested and determined to have low CD4+ count and HIV+ with high viral load. This means that the AIDS like symptoms came before the diagnosis of AIDS, which makes them rather difficult to attribute to the diagnosis.

The question is if this is the timeline that actually happened, which there appears to be some dispute about but as usual AIDS rethinkers try to push the conversation in a new direction without answering questions.

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 10:29 AM

The claim is not that someone came in with a runny nose and was diagnosed with AIDS

Yes, in a certain way it’s exactly that. But if you wish you can replace runny nose with anything you want, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s absolutely no way you can tell who has AIDS and who has not. HIV tests are worthless because you don’t know what exactly HIV is and have never found exactly what you think it is in a persons blood or elsewhere. Low CD4+ counts are worthless, so many people’s count are low. Starving people, people on chemo, etc etc.
Telling a person has Aids is just arbitrary. But it won’t make him or her fell better. On the contrary. It will make him or her feel terribly bad. Deny that, if you dare.

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 10:51 AM

Yes, in a certain way it’s exactly that. But if you wish you can replace runny nose with anything you want, it doesn’t matter.

No, it’s completely different. One is saying someone comes in with an illness, gets diagnosed with another illness and comes down with the symptoms of the other illness. The other is saying someone comes in with the symptoms of an illness, and is diagnosed with it.

Telling a person has Aids is just arbitrary.

No, it is based on a series of tests that give specific results and these results are then used to determine if someone has a particular disease. You can disagree with the tests if you desire, but the diagnosis is based off these tests, not arbitrary.

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 10:56 AM

No, it is based on a series of tests that give specific results

Specific results, certainly, but specific for what, you can’t tell.

Diseases have not changed, what you call “AIDS symptoms” is nothing new but before nobody called them “AIDS symptoms”. In the olden days people where ill, more or less severely. But today self-proclaimed experts, who know nothing about the answer to the question “What is life”, dare tell people “You have one month/ten years” to live. They act as if they were God but they don’t know shit about how many hours/weeks/monts/years a man has yet to go.

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 11:21 AM

Diseases have not changed, what you call “AIDS symptoms” is nothing new but before nobody called them “AIDS symptoms”.

So it is your belief that all diseases have come to their final resting point in terms of what they do and how?

Is it fair to come to the conclusion that you do not believe in evolution as well?

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 11:27 AM

apy,

Spreen doesn’t know the first thing about HIV or infectious disease, and he refuses to learn. Your logic falls on deaf ears. He doesn’t understand that it was precisely the massive increase in PCP cases that alerted the medical community to the presence of a new problem almost 30 years ago.

Bergalis displayed typical acute phase symptoms in 1987 and then became sick again in early 1989. She had candidiasis. For months, she was constantly sick, weak, and losing weight until she finally was forced to enter the hospital. She was treated for pneumonia and the doctors discovered that it was PCP. Only at this point did anyone propose a test for HIV. The test was positive.

Here’s how Duesberg describes Bergalis’ health on page 349 of “Inventing the AIDS Virus”:

“…a brief pneumonia that December sent her to the hospital, where the doctor decided out of the blue to test her for HIV. As chance would have it, she had antibodies against the virus.”

Distorting further, Duesberg continues

“Up to this point, none of her occasional diseases differed from the common health problems many HIV-negative people encounter.”

A “life-threatening bout” of PCP (to quote the New York Times of 9 Feb 1991) becomes a “brief pneumonia” and a “common health problem” in Duesberg’s hands. Faced with an AIDS-defining illness in a patient with no apparent risk factors, any competent doctor would test for HIV…to Duesberg, this is “out of the blue.” Only by “chance” did Bergalis have “antibodies” to HIV…and Duesberg ignores Bergalis’ positive PCR results.

Duesberg’s version of the Bergalis case, like most of what he has written on HIV, is an embarassment to UC Berkeley and to science in general.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 11:27 AM

So it is your belief that all diseases have come to their final resting point in terms of what they do and how?

Of course. But if you introduce new elements in the system you may have the impression that something has changed. Like car accidents were quite rare in the middle ages. But the broken bones are the same, whether you were hit by a horse, an axe or a car. Today people see things they never saw before, with a electronic microscope for instance. But what they see is not new.
Isn’t it remarkable, the virus-shit hitting the fan just now we can have a closer look to microbes? Millions of years have past by but HIV waited for modern techiques and chose 1981. Of course. Like no TV stars before the 2Oth century.

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 11:40 AM

Well you put me in my place!

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 1:17 PM

I guess it is of no use whatsoever to point out to the denialist crowd a nice review article that came out recently in Immunity, about HIV Controllers, and mechanisms of durable virus control in the absence of antiretroviral therapy (Immunity, Volume 27, Issue 3, 21 September 2007, Pages 406-416 by Steven G. Deeks and Bruce D. Walker). The denialists and crazy conspiracy theorists won’t be convinced by any rational argument anyway, but long-term survivors like Noreen may understand better that they happen to belong to a small, but extremely fortunate, subset of HIV infected people, in whom in vivo attenuation of the virus, host genetics and innate immunity – singly or in combination – may provide the benefit of long-term survival, even without anti-retrovirals. It is a pity that Noreen has decided to join the throng of the denialists, but in reality, studying people like her – the so-called HIV controllers – offers an excellent and exciting opportunity to understand the nuances of the physiological defences and therapeutic options against HIV infection and AIDS.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 1:24 PM

ElkmountainMan,

You’re a fucking idiot and a poseur. You entirely ignore the FACT that Kimberly Bergalis was treated with AZT, and complained about it. Here’s her testimony to Congress

“I have lived through the torturous acne that infested my face and neck, brought on by AZT. I have endured trips twice a week to Miami for three months only to receive painful IV injections. I’ve had blood transfusions. I’ve had a bone marrow biopsy. I cried my heart out from the pain.” (Lauritsen, AIDS War, Page 324.)

The toxic cancer chemo, AZT, that Duesberg was right to decry, was used to kill the first generation of AIDS patients, most of which were young gay men. Little Kimberly — the only person in the world to allegedly get HIV from a dentist(!) was a nice, little casualty that helped scare small-town America (everyone is at risk!) and grease the wheels of government funding.

Posted by: Ben Gorman | September 21, 2007 2:02 PM

Ben,

Nobody is ignoring Kimberly Bergalis’s treatment with AZT. The only ones ignoring the facts are the Denialists, who continue to ignore that Bergalis had a severe immune deficiency with Pneumocystis pneumonia prior to being diagnosed with AIDS and prior to being treated with AZT.

You are so lacking in compassion and ignorant of the facts that as you mock her you claim Bergalis’s case was unique:

Little Kimberly — the only person in the world to allegedly get HIV from a dentist(!) was a nice, little casualty that helped scare small-town America (everyone is at risk!) and grease the wheels of government funding.

To you AIDS victims are objects of scorn simply because their deaths are the inconvenient reality that you are so desperately trying to deny. The facts mean nothing to you:

The Associated Press, Sat, 17 Dec 94

Dentist AIDS Victim Dies

STUART, Fla. (AP) — The fourth of six people infected with the AIDS virus by a dentist died Saturday. Barbara Webb, 68, slipped into a semi-coma earlier in the week, according to Hospice of Martin. She died on her 45th wedding anniversary to her husband, Robert. “She was never bitter about her death,” said hospice counselor Pam Jett. “She didn’t dwell on the future, she lived in the present.” Two years ago, a federal study concluded that six of Dr. David Acer’s patients contracted HIV from him. Scientists are baffled as to precisely how Acer transmitted the virus. Acer, of Jensen Beach, Fla., died in 1990. He is the only health professional ever known to have transmitted HIV to his patients. Among those infected was Kimberly Bergalis, who waged a crusade for mandatory testing of health care workers before she died in December 1991. Webb, a former high school English teacher and grandmother of eight, gave dozens of speeches nationwide about living with AIDS. She was the teacher of the year in 1986-87 at Martin County High School. Webb is survived by her husband and three grown children.




Posted by: Franklin | September 21, 2007 2:56 PM

Ben,

Do you deny that Kimberly Bergalis had experienced profound weight loss, a life-threatening bout with PCP, and candidiasis, in addition to many other health problems, all before being tested for HIV? And that her CD4+ T-cell count was depressed before she took AZT?

These are all matters of public record. As are the problems with AZT monotherapy, problems that I don’t deny.

AZT can cause anemia, and it can cause myopathy. It can also cause depletion of neutrophils. None of these is on its own an AIDS-defining condition.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 3:18 PM

Franklin, please do EXPLAIN to us, just how a dentist transferred his own strain of your beloved HIV to six of his patients.

Two years ago, a federal study concluded that six of Dr. David Acer’s patients contracted HIV from him. Scientists are baffled as to precisely how Acer transmitted the virus.

Baffled? BAFFLED???? STILL FREAKING BAFFLED?????? Only the simplest of minds could yet be baffled by this.

What is so baffling about scaring six people plus the dentist into taking and dying of high dosage AZT monotherapy iatrogenic poisoning in the late 80s?

Poor baffled and conflict of interest laden Franklin, please unbaffle us so we can rejoin you and the rest of the the faithful believers in HIV.

Franklin, you must explain this great mystery of life to us.

Now tell us. How did the naughty disgusting HIV infected bad ole boogeyman dentist transfer HIS OWN STRAIN OF HIV to his patients?

Did he have anal sex with his patients including the grandma?

Did he have his dental instruments up his ass just before cleaning their teeth?

Did he drool blood into their mouths?

Did he fail to sterilize his bloody instruments that he must have just used on himself to have transmitted his own supposed virus to the patients?

Until you explain how Acer transmitted the virus to 6 of his patients over a vast period of time, you are to be considered nothing but a cornflake swirling through the clouds of a still mass hysteria driven false belief system.

The indisputable fact is that HIV fails every scientific test to be called the cause of AIDS, including Koch’s Postulates, Farr’s Law, the first epidemiological law of viral and microbial diseases, cluster formations, and
even the definition of the word ‘infectious’ itself – tried and true criteria that have been in use in medical research for decades, but are now discarded to support the theory that HIV=AIDS.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 3:20 PM

but long-term survivors like Noreen may understand better that they happen to belong to a small, but extremely fortunate, subset of HIV infected people,

Ha! Ha! Ha! The guy just realized that a person like Noreen is one of the pillars of the Aids rethinkers movement so now he smears honey all around to attract her over into his camp.

. . . Extremely fortunate . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! In a certain way you’re right but it has a lot more to do with being intelligent than with being fortunate. OK, you’re right. Noreen is fortunate to be intelligent. But I bet that that was not what you meant to say.
Anyway, all HIV-deniers are intelligent. Being intelligent is the most important criterium to become a denialist. Being a HIV-denier means you’re part of the few against herds of nerds. Didn’t you know?

Posted by: jspreen | September 21, 2007 3:22 PM

Franklin, please do EXPLAIN to us, just how a dentist transferred his own strain of your beloved HIV to six of his patients.

Two years ago, a federal study concluded that six of Dr. David Acer’s patients contracted HIV from him. Scientists are baffled as to precisely how Acer transmitted the virus.

Baffled? BAFFLED???? STILL FREAKING BAFFLED?????? Only the simplest of minds could yet be baffled by this.

What is so baffling about scaring six people plus the dentist into taking and dying of high dosage AZT monotherapy iatrogenic poisoning in the late 80s?

Poor baffled and conflict of interest laden Franklin, please unbaffle us so we can rejoin you and the rest of the the faithful believers in HIV.

Franklin, you must explain this great mystery of life to us.

Now tell us. How did the naughty disgusting HIV infected bad ole boogeyman dentist transfer HIS OWN STRAIN OF HIV to his patients?

Did he have anal sex with his patients including the grandma?

Did he have his dental instruments up his ass just before cleaning their teeth?

Did he drool blood into their mouths?

Did he fail to sterilize his bloody instruments that he must have just used on himself to have transmitted his own supposed virus to the patients?

Until you explain how Acer transmitted the virus to 6 of his patients over a vast period of time, you are to be considered nothing but a cornflake swirling through the clouds of a still mass hysteria driven false belief system.

The indisputable fact is that HIV fails every scientific test to be called the cause of AIDS, including Koch’s Postulates, Farr’s Law, the first epidemiological law of viral and microbial diseases, cluster formations, and
even the definition of the word ‘infectious’ itself – tried and true criteria that have been in use in medical research for decades, but are now discarded to support the theory that HIV=AIDS.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 3:26 PM

“You know it has oft been said that “the truth hurts”. Sometimes the truth hurts so much that people, or at least their egos, go right into escapism, denial, anger, humor, and a lot of other interesting but quite human egoic responses”

Oh the irony in that statement is just beautiful. Thanks Michael, I needed a good laugh.

Posted by: Jim | September 21, 2007 3:50 PM

Hey Elk. Same question to you as well?

How did the evil dentist transfer his own strain of HIV to 6 patients?

It is obvious to all but the deluded, upon looking at this very case, that only a hysteric and panicked mind could rationalize itself into believing or making anything sensible out of this.

Hey Elk, ever consider that in believing such nonsense yourself, that your overactive imagination is simply trapped by its own living nightmares that upon anyt rational inspection are obviously composed of completely irrational nonsense?

If you were deluded, how would you even know?

Certainly looks to be the case to me.

Until you figure it out, please do explain, along with Franklin, just how the doctor, over quite a period of time, gave six of his patients, including the Grandma Franklin presented above, his very own genetic strain of HIV?

Personally, I think the buttf**k option is the most intriguing and rational choice to me! But then again, I am gay!

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 3:53 PM

Franklin and Elk,

after you finish explaining to us how the dentist gave six people his own strain of HIV, that was supposedly verified genetically by the wonder team at Los Alamos, then explain how HIV caused the Grandma: “Barbara Webb, 68, slipped into a semi-coma earlier in the week, according to Hospice of Martin”.

Do you guys, especially you, Dr. Franklin, the world renowned HIV researcher, get some kind of perverse cheap thrill, that the rest of us have not clued in on, in scaring lots of people, including little old grandma school teachers, to death?

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 4:16 PM

Michael,

Let’s start with what we know about Bergalis. We know that Kimberly Bergalis was infected with HIV and died of AIDS.

How did Bergalis contract HIV? That, we don’t know. I don’t know, and neither do you. The CDC report found similarities between the virus recovered from Bergalis and other infected dental patients and HIV from the dentist, David Acer. These similarities were not found in other HIV+ persons in the surrounding community. Later reports disputed these findings. Acer’s insurance company and the referring insurance company both found the evidence for transmission convincing and settled suits with Bergalis.

But that’s not proof. I’m not sure if we will ever know how Acer’s patients were infected. Some have alleged that Bergalis herself was not a virgin, that she may have been infected during sex but refused to admit it for religious and family reasons. Maybe they’re right.

A motive for intentional infection by the dentist has also been suggested. James Dawes reports in Narrating Disease: AIDS, Consent, and the Ethics of Representation (Social Text, 43, 27-44) the concerns of Acer’s friend Edward Parsons. According to Parsons, Acer was frustrated with the public perception of AIDS as a “gay disease” and the resulting inaction on the part of the government. Acer once said something would only be done “when it starts affecting grandmothers and younger people.” Grandmothers like Ms. Webb, who died at 68? Younger people like Bergalis, who was allegedly infected at 19? If Acer indeed transmitted HIV to his patients, it was no accident.

I’ll agree with you on that, Michael. There’s no conceivable way for a dentist following proper procedures to infect a patient…other than injecting her with infected blood (or having sex with her, which the investigators ruled out…but who knows?). The motive appears to be present: Acer wanted to force a more effective government response to the spreading AIDS pandemic. But of course that doesn’t mean he really did it.

However Bergalis got infected, it’s a matter of public record that she developed several AIDS-defining illnesses before being tested, and that she died despite (not because of) subsequent medical treatment.

Here’s something you might be able to help me with, Michael: did Dr. Acer commit suicide? Media reports state that he died of AIDS, but word on the rethinker street (especially in the Chicago area) is that he killed himself, hounded by the media and government. Is this true? Are there any records? Thanks.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 4:18 PM

Franklin, When did slipping into a coma become an AIDS defining illness due to HIV?

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 4:20 PM

Michael,

You continue to heap scorn on the dead who are unable to defend themselves.

How that makes you feel better about the gravity of your situation is beyond me.

But as you said:

You know it has oft been said that “the truth hurts”. Sometimes the truth hurts so much that people, or at least their egos, go right into escapism, denial, anger, humor, and a lot of other interesting but quite human egoic responses

“Interesting” wouldn’t be my first choice to describe your “egoic response,” but then again psychopathology has never been a primary interest of mine. You are just a sad case.

Here is a serious discussion of the case of the Forida dentist, for any who are ineterested.

Posted by: franklin | September 21, 2007 4:26 PM

Ha! Ha! Ha! The guy just realized that a person like Noreen is one of the pillars of the Aids rethinkers movement so now he smears honey all around to attract her over into his camp.

Judging from the long stream of posts to noreen to have her explain how she comes up with her information and being either ignored or given some more copy&pasted website junk I would be hesitant to say noreen has done any thinking, much less rethinking.

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 4:34 PM

Elk. You said:

“Let’s start with what we know about Bergalis.”

Good idea. That means we empty our minds of all preconceived beliefs and start back at the beginning, and ADMIT, that in reality, we KNOW NOTHING FOR SURE.

Then you said:

“We know that Kimberly Bergalis was infected with HIV and died of AIDS.”

No Elk, you are jumping the gun here. You are putting the cart before the horse. In reality we DON”T KNOW such. You only “believe” such, and “presume” such to be true.

But your ego fails to allow you to view anything from such a perspective. See Elk, I really do understand you and how your mind operates.

Further down you even ADMIT that you do not know.

Then you go on to suspect the victim had sex with someone who just so happened to have HIV. Yet heterosexual sex is quite verified by Nancy Padian to result in HIV transference in less than 1 out of a thousand episodes. And for all we know, it is 0 out of a thousand, cause Padian noted zero transfer in sero-opposite heteros.

Then you want to jump, like a Mexican jumping bean, to accusing the dentist of intentionally giving people HIV. No proof, just your bit about someone said that someone said that Acer had motive to intentionally infect someone.

Yet, the simplest explanation, and by far the most rational, is that you sir, unbeknownst even to your own self, are seemingly quite delusional.

And if Acer did commit suicide, certainly it would be no surprise that he was driven to such, by those such as even your very own self, and others such as Franklin, and all those who pursue their “witch hunt” of unverified, unsubstantiated, unproven, and irrational accusations.

So which was it, Elk, was Kim a hooker, a drug addict, a slut,

or was she simply an emotionally overwrought stressed young women, as she herself admitted, who was already susceptible to illness, and perhaps even further susceptible to suggestion of death, and sickened by her own negative focus on what she believed was to be an inevitable death by AIDS.

Was the dentist really an evil heartless killer, or was he too falsely accused and driven to sickness or death, or even to suicide by being caught up in the frenzy of the witchhunt and frenzy of mass public hysteria at that time?

Now Elk, be sure to also carefully explain to us how HIV caused grandma to slip into a coma. Cause I swear, that the HIV retrovirus is so cunning, it can undoubtably jump through flaming hoola hoops while dancing, singing, and drinking a martini and all the while being actively involved in the cell by cell cellular destruction taking place in ones mind.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 4:50 PM

Franklin, ease up on the babbling, and simply explain the baffling.

Until you do, your very own words, “You are just a sad case” are gonna keep on commin’ right back atcha!

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 4:56 PM

Apy, are you HIV+ or have you had AIDS? I would not be so fast to throw stones at others. I had AIDS so therefore I do have some experience in the matter. You believe studies yet some of you will not listen to those of us who have the disease. I have lived almost two years without the antiretrovirals and haven’t had one opportunistic infection. Therefore, I don’t need either side to convince me of anything as I am living proof that it can be done. So both sides can argue this until hell freezes over and I will not change sometime that is working quite well for me!

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 5:01 PM

Michael,

You are misrepresenting what I wrote, just as Duesberg misrepresents the literature on AZT. I understand that what you’re going through must be very painful and stressful, so I don’t hold it against you. I would certainly rather see you vent your frustration on a weblog than act out the violence you’ve fantasized about in the past.

Please understand, though, that I won’t argue with an irrational person. I’m sorry.

Take care of yourself, Michael, and good luck to you.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 5:23 PM

Elkmountainman,

You write:

Let’s start with what we know about Bergalis. We know that Kimberly Bergalis was infected with HIV and died of AIDS.

You are so fucking stupid it boggles the mind! Do you understand what the word “know” means? You don’t “know” either of those 2 things, for chrissake!

Here’s what “we” (I hate to lump myself in with you) know:

1. Kimberly Bergalis tested postive for antibodies, which are claimed to be uniquely associated with HIV;

2. Kimberly Bergalis developed some clinical symptons that are not unique to HIV

3. Kimberly Bergalis took toxic AZT, which required blood tranfusions.

4. Kimberly Bergalis died.

That’s what we know, Einstein. Now, you can begin your analysis.

I swear, Elkmountainman and Franklin have to be 2 of the dumbest bastards on planet earth.

Posted by: Ben Gorman | September 21, 2007 5:29 PM

Some of you don’t have a concept to what it is to be HIV+ or have full-blown AIDS. And adding gay onto the matter can only complicate the issue. I believe that Michael is on the right track about how the mind can affect one’s health. Being told that one is HIV+ or that one has AIDS is certainly devasting to most. Add the fact that one is labeled with a sexually-transmitted disease, an incurable illness and the worse part is that the doctor drills into one that if one misses one dose of medicine, one will die. One must be really strong to cope with all of these issues. Most aren’t and take the meds out of fear.

Even researching the matter, it took me awhile to be strong enough to stop them. It is not a decision that is taken lightly. I had to go with my inner feelings to who I believed was more right in the matter. One’s frame of mind is key to survival, whether one takes the meds or not. If one accepts AIDS as a death sentence, one’s chances of survival are not so good. I have done well because I do not believe that most diseases are incurable. I would have tackled cancer the same way, positive attitude, supplements, and good clean living.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 5:38 PM

jspreen:

The guy just realized that a person like Noreen is one of the pillars of the Aids rethinkers movement so now he smears honey all around to attract her over into his camp.

“This guy” is willing to give Noreen the benefit of doubt. She has been HIV+, is a long-term survivor not on retrovirals (as she has indicated), and “this guy” would like to hope that she understands the rarity of her situation and studies in greater detail about the possible mechanisms that lead to her good fortune (which is why “this guy” offered the link to the review article). In trying to be a “pillar” of the denialist crowd, she is eschewing that opportunity, which is a pity.

Most other denialists here are hopeless. Elkmountainman, you are wasting your breath. None of them understand the concept of AIDS defining illnesses; an example is Ben Gorman’s illogical post. All he had to do is put his (2) before (1), which would have represented the actual course of events. But no, that would upset his apple-cart, wouldn’t it?

I have worked with scores of patients of PCP, cryptococcosis, cryptosporidial diarrhoea, MA complex, recurrent salmonella septicemia, among others (all of which have come under WHO’s AIDS defining illnesses), and as a matter of routine, testing for HIV was recommended. Almost all of them turned out to be HIV+. Initiation of anti-retroviral therapy, along with supplemental anti-microbial therapy as necessary, saved the lives of many, many of these patients. HAART has changed the spectrum of our fight against AIDS across developed and developing nations, helping millions of people to live their lives despite HIV infection.

And I am expected to believe the ill-informed, misguided (often fraught with outright lies) denialist bullsh*t from a few crazy crackpots? They can live in their corner and wallow in their conspiracy theories for all I care. But that does not change the reality, the benefits of proper anti-retroviral therapy that can truly make a difference in people’s lives.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 6:17 PM

“Please understand, though, that I won’t argue with an irrational person. I’m sorry.”

Elk, dear boy, your ego is simply projecting again.

Are you really so sure that I am the one who is irrational here. Naturally, your ego would not allow you to consider for even a moment that you might be the irrational one. I do understand.

However, I am not the one who believes that the dentist mysteriously somehow either gassed his patients and had anal sex with them while cleaning their teeth, or that he had somehow intentionally murdered them. You are.

I am not the one who believes in a mysterious retrovirus as somehow causing 30 diseases while being found in one of 10,000 t cells and in only a few of the most severe of AIDS patients. You are.

I am not the one who believes that those who disagree with me and my beliefs should have constitutional amendments enacted to shut them up. You are.

Are you really so sure that I am the irrational one here?

Okay, whatever you say, cause if Elk says it, it must be true.

However, the case could very well be that You are the one who completely and unquestioningly believes in an irrational fantasy. Not I sir.

And now you are irrationally dreaming that I am in some way violent?

Well perhaps someday I will upturn the tables of the changemakers at the NIH’s temple of HIV/AIDS beliefs, but not yet at least. I usually wait until passover to do such things.

With Love and kisses, and good dreams to you and your ego,

Michael

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 6:25 PM

Noreen, no one (particularly the much-maligned HIV researchers) has denied the effect of psychological status on health. The paper that Michael Geiger cited with great flourish simply says that certain psychological conditions, including depression, can suppress the overall immunity of the body. Studies like these have been around for quite some time, ever since the interface between psychology and sociology began to be explored better. Positive attitude and good, clean living (though I am not sure exactly what you mean by ‘good, clean’ living) are attributes which predispose one towards good health. But if you have an infection, just like any other infection, it needs to be treated – particularly an infection like HIV, which shanghaies body’s own defence mechanism.

By your own admission, you are a long-term survivor not on meds. Rather than using crackpot ideas to bolster an illogical hypothesis built on foundations of lies, wouldn’t you rather try to find out more about how exactly your body managed to ward off the virus? Doesn’t that prospect excite you at all?

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 6:26 PM

Damn! Not psychology and sociology, I meant, psychology and physiology…
Must remember, preview is my friend…

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 6:29 PM

Antiretrovirals can help when one is being attacked by many diseases as I had many of the AIDS defining diseases. I have been on both sides of the fence. The problem that I have with them is the long-term use or for the rest of one’s life use of them. Ideally, they would be used when the patient has symptoms, which may not respond to traditional treatments, then stopped when the patient has managed to restore health thus eliminating all the nasty side effects of these drugs.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 6:30 PM

God, this stuff is sickening, and the level of self-deception is amazing to me.

We had a family friend, a nurse, who was one of the first needle-stick AIDS victims in the country. She died with PCP, KS, and AIDS-related dementia. She was infected while nursing dying GRID and then AIDS patients in the days before AZT arrived. AZT was not killing those early patients she was treating – it was not yet being used.

I have an acquaintance who was at ground zero in SF in the early days of the plague years. He buried all his friends. All of them. Every one. More than 50. At least half of them died of GRID /AIDS before HIV was even identified, much less AZT was available. He himself nearly died before AZT arrived – AZT saved his life, then started failing, and he nearly died a second time before next-generation therapies arrived and saved his life a second time. AZT did not kill these people. For many of them, it hauled them back from the edge of death and gave them beck several years of life. For my friend, it is the first of several reasons he is still alive today – he was within a week or two of death before AZT pulled him back.

The ignorance of history is astounding. People were dying terrible deaths, with no known cause or treatment. Labs went looking for an infectious agent, which turned out to be HIV, because people were dying terrible deaths. When early AZT trials were successful, people were clamoring for the drug, and dying while waiting for it.

AZT monotherapy is a hard road. It is not a good drug to take. People who took it often found they could not tolerate it, or they recoiled from the side effects and bought into the woo and relied on crystals and cleansing diets and such – and when they discontinued AZT, they mostly then died of AIDS. HIV evolved resistance, and patients then died despite AZT. But the drug added years of life for a lot of people, and it kept some few of them alive long enough for the next generation drugs to extend their lives yet further.

To see the denialism, the self-delusion, the willful ignorance of history here, all of which denies the stark truth of these people’s stories… well, as I said, it sickens me. It is the reason I do not often comment on these denial threads. But this – for this I could not remain silent.

Posted by: Lee | September 21, 2007 6:34 PM

Ben,

Are you a solipsist? That would explain how we don’t really “know” anything. Truthfully, I never met Kimberly Bergalis, so I don’t really “know” she existed. I never met David Acer, so I don’t “know” that he existed. I have never observed the solar system from somewhere in the Kuiper Belt, so I don’t really “know” that the earth goes around the sun. I have never been to Alaska, so I don’t “know” that Alaska is real.

But back to reality…you claim that,

1. Kimberly Bergalis tested postive for antibodies, which are claimed to be uniquely associated with HIV;

Actually, Kimberly Bergalis tested positive for both nucleic acid sequences that are unique to HIV AND for antibodies to HIV-specific proteins. As you may or may not know, HIV proteins are encoded by those HIV-specific sequences, which are found only in HIV-infected people.

2. Kimberly Bergalis developed some clinical symptons that are not unique to HIV

Actually, Kimberly Bergalis developed several conditions that, taken together, are only found in severely immunocompromised individuals. Before being diagnosed with HIV, she almost died of PCP, a condition that was almost unheard-of outside of chemically immunosuppressed patients before the AIDS era. The challenge to you, Mr. Gorman, is to find a single person who is not a drug addict, a cancer patient, or a transplant recipient, but who displays all of Bergalis’ symptoms in the absence of HIV. Perhaps someone could even put up a $50,000 prize as an incentive for you!

3. Kimberly Bergalis took toxic AZT, which required blood tranfusions.

Your wording is vague, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at. AZT can cause anemia, depletion of neutrophils, and myopathy. These are not, by themselves, AIDS-defining conditions.

4. Kimberly Bergalis died.

Right. More specifically, she died of AIDS. Or are you perhaps a qualified pathologist who has reviewed her autopsy report and wishes to issue a “differential diagnosis?”

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 6:35 PM

I am not a non-progressor as I had full-blown AIDS. I don’t think that there is a label for persons such as myself who had full-blown AIDS, took the meds, came off of the meds and now I am healthy as ever. Doesn’t this strike you odd that someone who has a high viral load, CD4’s of 83 and is extremely healthy? How do you reconcile this according to the mainstream’s theories. This in itself goes a long way to prvoe that something is drastically wrong with this equation. Many are in the same boat as me and have stopped the meds and are fine.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 6:36 PM

No Noreen, you are slightly mistaken here. The symptoms that you mention (for example, the ones you had) are often related largely to the underlying super-infection. People have mentioned PCP and candidosis here. But there are many others. When HIV infection undermines the body’s immunity, it basically becomes a petriplate for diverse organisms (some which are normally avirulent) to grow and cause disease. Which is why it is also important to treat HIV infection at source, and currently anti-retrovirals (ART) are the best options we have for that purpose.

But I also agree with you that many individuals react adversely to ART, if not immediately, over a period of time. Not only ART, all pharmacological substances that one takes are processed by the liver, and pass through kidney. Therefore, these are the major organs that are always involved in drug metabolism. So, patients on ART need to be monitored from time to time for dysfunctions occurring in any of the major organs. Think about what happens in chemotherapy or radiotherapy; it also has certain side-effects, but they are mostly reversible.

However, the risk-benefit ratio analysis shows that since secondary symptoms of physical discomfort can be treated separately, it is much better to start an HIV+ person on ART than not. The point that you raise is a valid one, that researchers need to find out about further modifications (newer generations) of ARTs that may be more targeted, or interact less non-specifically, thereby causing less side-effects. But till scientific research (yes, the same research that is the bane of denialists’ existence) finds out a better alternative, the current therapies are our best available option.

The tapering off of dosages etc, that you mention are routinely done for many medications, including ARTs.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 6:45 PM

Noreen, if you can, please read the article whose link I provided in the beginning. Your idea of ‘mainstream theories’ may be a bit on the shallow side. Your condition, while rare, is not unknown. You did take the medications to begin with, right? So even if you are off them now, it may have had an initial effect. In vivo viral attenuation is known to happen in HIV, particularly in certain subgroups or clades of the virus. Don’t think that CD4+ T-cells are the only components of immune system that are affected by HIV or are involved in anti-retroviral defence. However, if you have persistently low CD4 (as you say), you do run the risk of getting secondary (and potentially fatal) infections. If by making certain lifestyle choices you can ward those off, well and good, and good-luck to you.

But that does not discount the utility of anti-retroviral therapy to millions of HIV+ individuals across the world.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 6:54 PM

My own doctors do not “taper” off of medicines as you put it but it would seem to make more sense. I would disagree that radiation side effects are reversible as I have had that too. Think about this, we would never give radiation
and chemotherapy long term, yet we give chemotherapy to HIV persons this long term. This is what I have heartburn with, especially since there are better options out there such as, Low dose naltrexone. Don’t hold your breath on the drug companies pushing this harmless and effective drug though because the patent has long expired and much more money is made selling antiretroviral medication.

Lastly, I don’t believe that HIV is capable of all that it is given credit for especially since too few can be found in the patient in the first place.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 6:57 PM

Kausik Datta, I for one, am well aware of your work in India. What you fail to look at Kausik, is the co-factors of poor nutrition, poverty, hygiene, and emotions of helplessness, hopelessness, fear, guilt, shame, and other intense stress filled lives of those who you have treated or whose sera you have observed. You simply blame all of the problems on HIV, which if anything, is simply a co-factor, not a cause, in all of this.

Your eye is glued so intently to your microscope, even though it has never seen HIV, that you fail to see the greater picture of hopelessness, malnutrition, beliefs, and all else that first and foremost lies behind the susceptibility to PCP, cryptococcosis, cryptosporidial diarrhoea, MA complex, recurrent salmonella septicemia, among others.

Certainly it is wonderful that you have assisted in reaching out and treating these people. Certainly it is wonderful that you have successfully treated some of their infections with antibiotics, antifungals, etc.

It is unfortunate that they must come to you half dead, before you and they will see that serious changes are necessary in their lives and thinking to maintain life and health. Usually coming for treatment also means for most that they will be attended to with a better diet and better self care.

Certainly it is wonderful that for many people their belief in a magic haart pills to be taken forever to ward off death by HIV/AIDS assists them in being lifted out of their immune system destroying states of panic and fear and belief in imminent death.

However, this does not mean the HAART drugs are of any real or proven benefit.

Haart quite often works placebo-like, simply by removing their fear and by giving them hope…. At least until the toxicities of the haart drugs overwhelm them or destroy their livers or kidneys or hearts, or cause lipodystrophy or neuropathy or a multitude of other effects.

You fail to see that only by solving the greater issues of patients being scared to death, or by solving the effects of the list that I partially stated above of extreme emotional pain and poverty, will the origination of the entire problem be solved.

Posted by: Michael | September 21, 2007 7:00 PM

The reason that I am extremely healthy is that I eat right, exercise, normal weight, positive attitude, take supplements and LDN, which is the secret to warding off the horrible opportunistic diseases, which causes harm to AIDS persons. Stopping or curing AIDS is no great secret. Anyone can do it with a little work on their part.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 7:02 PM

Noreen, it is human nature that oftentimes, when situations tend to get the better of us, and there is no way to channel that frustration, we tend to let off steam by blaming something or the other. Very natural. Drug companies are often the targets of the ires of patients frustrated with an inefficient, careless, medical care system. I state clearly that I do not support the underhanded, sales-oriented, unethical practices engaged in by some pharmaceutical companies in the US (as have come to light in recent years); but it is also not all dark and evil skulduggery on that side. Pharmaceutical research is a very time-consuming tenuous task; each drug that you see on the market usually takes 12-15 years from bench to drugstore. These pharmaceutical companies have also given us some wonderful life-saving medicines – I hope you don’t forget that or discount that off-hand.

I don’t know of course why your doctor did not choose to keep you in the loop as far as the prescriptions are concerned. I can say, my own doctor always discusses my medications with me, talking about possible side-effects etc and how to deal with them. If there is some inadvertent side-effects, he is not averse to changing my medications accordingly. For any medication, there is always a possibility that it will act for you differently than it will for the next person, because human beings are similar, not identical – as you can understand. Usually, good physicians will interact with patients for all around therapeutic benefit.

But if you talk about beliefs – like not believing “hat HIV is capable of all that it is given credit for especially since too few can be found in the patient” – that is your prerogative, of course. However, is that your informed opinion? Are you aware that HIV has been isolated from almost all tissue types present in the body? Are you willing to discount the AIDS ravaged nations of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, where millions of people died of AIDS and AIDS-associated infections before ART in any form reached them? And that use of ART has drastically reduced the incidence of AIDS-associated infections?

Belief is well and good, Noreen. But do open your eyes and look around the world. If you need a belief system, let it be based on sound logic and rationality.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 7:17 PM

I have yet to have HIV isolated from my body. Having antibodies is not the same as having an active virus. Those of you who believe in HIV, surely you should look into low dose naltrexone, which has been successfully used to treat AIDS persons. Even if it has been isolated from the body that in itself does not prove that it causes AIDS.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 7:26 PM

Noreen, it saddens me to find you would rather stick to your irrational belief system than listen to reason. Ask Michael; if he has indeed gone through my work (as he says), he will be able to back me up on this one, at least. OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTIONS, once present, will not go away simply by positive attitude, supplements, and low dose Naltrexone. You would need to treat the infections with anti-microbials. A case in point: Vitamin C (espoused by the great Linus Pauling) is known to boost body’s immunity and is considered to possess antiviral properties. But if you are infected with a particularly virulent strain of the influenza virus (say, of the type that severely affects elderly people, or people with chronic diseases), you’d need to treat it to prevent lasting damage; just chugging vitamin C supplements will not help you. An infection, any infection, particularly in the setting of diminished immunity, needs to be treated. What is so difficult in understanding that?

And Michael… I am curious… How exactly do you know about my work? Are you relying on a simple PubMed search? Let me answer your points in the next post.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 7:30 PM

So I am irrational because of my beliefs and because I am healthy. You folks are irrational and cannot get beyond HIV and antiretrovirals. Duhh, LDN works to PREVENT the infections, of course if one has them then they would need to be addressed. There again, practice what you preach and do some reading about LDN before you condemn it.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 7:34 PM

Noreen, AIDS is a syndrome, a culmination of many detrimental situations that occur in the body as a result of a severely diminished immune system, and HIV is certainly a virus that attacks and affects the immune system in this way. That is why it is called ‘Acquired Immunodeficiency’. There are some genetic defects that can cause similarly severe immunodeficiency in individuals, but those are not considered AIDS because they are not ‘accquired’ in the same way.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 7:35 PM

So, it the same old argument, HIV causes AIDS, HIV cause AIDS, HIV causes AIDS. What if it doesn’t then what are you folks going to say? Did you know that Merck dropped its vaccination program for AIDS. Why hasn’t one been effective? Could it be that AIDS is basically a life-style, cumulative medical issues, environmental issues, etc.? It’s very possible and probable. That’s why more and more are dropping the meds and are living normal lives. If HIV was so deadly, then we could not do this.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 7:42 PM

Michael:

However, this does not mean the HAART drugs are of any real or proven benefit.

No, Michael, that statement is simply untrue. Work amongst AIDS patients in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (in both pre- and post-HAART era) has provided ample evidence for that. Please go through the relevant literature and look at the evidence yourself (not through hearsay, no matter who is telling you what) before you make these wild assertions.

Once again, Michael, none of the HIV researchers here have argued against psychological conditions that you mentioned having a profound effect on a patient’s physiology. But we are dealing with an infection (or multitude of infections) here, Michael. Wishing it all on psychological conditions is terribly naïve, as is thinking that the so-called booster of immunity, low-dose Naltrexone, will be an effective barrier against opportunistic infection in the setting of severe immunosuppression caused by HIV.

You seem to be intelligent, Michael (I am not condescending, just that I don’t know you beyond your blog handle), at least more cogent that most of the raving denialists here. Give a bit of thought to what I said about the infection scenario.

I cannot post any more tonight, since I have a prior engagement, but I shall check back this thread later.

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 7:48 PM

No, Noreen, one major problem in failure of vaccination programs is HIV’s ability to mutate rapidly, and thereby change the target against which vaccination is going to work. If it had been a larger organism, say a fungus, bacteria or parasite, it would have been easier since there would be a number of targets to look for; if one did not work, possibly another would. But that is not the same with a relatively structurally simple (yet profoundly functionally complex) organism such as HIV.

What of Merck… Did you know that vaccines effective against HIV strains prevalent in the United States did not work as effectively against HIV strains prevalent in some parts of Southeast Asia? The virus’s functional complexity is amazing, and therefore, vaccination efforts are not going to be so easy to direct against HIV.

But wait, aren’t there people of your ilk who say vaccination of any sort is injurious to health?

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 21, 2007 7:55 PM

If one checks out lowdosnaltrexone.org, there is information about the use of ldn to treat AIDS patients with it only and with a combination of drugs. This is not naive and it works. Many of us are using it without incident, contrary to what Kausik Datta believes. Also, a study is currently being conducted in Africa using only LDN to treat AIDS patients.

This wonder drug is being used to treat many diseases, which effect the immune system such as, cancer, chron’s disease, alzheimer’s disease, MS, autism, and so many more. It has been around for 25 years and is the best kept secret. However, more and more patients and doctors are learning about this drug and the great hope that it offers patients, especially those with incurable and chronic diseases.

Posted by: noreen | September 21, 2007 8:02 PM

Are you a solipsist? That would explain how we don’t really “know” anything.

No. I didn’t claim “we don’t really ‘know’ anything.” I claimed that YOU didn’t know the 2 things you asserted.

1. Kimberly Bergalis tested postive for antibodies, which are claimed to be uniquely associated with HIV;

Actually, Kimberly Bergalis tested positive for both nucleic acid sequences that are unique to HIV AND for antibodies to HIV-specific proteins.

She died in 1991. PCR was not widely used until Ho’s paper in 1993. So, I doubt they did PCR analysis before she died. HIV has only 9,000 base pairs. The human cell as 3 billion base pairs, about 8% of which is retroviral genes, long dormant.

You’re guessing here. My statement is correct.

2. Kimberly Bergalis developed some clinical symptons that are not unique to HIV

Actually, Kimberly Bergalis developed several conditions that, taken together, are only found in severely immunocompromised individuals.

Do you read English? She had clinical symptoms that are not unique to HIV. That is a fact. I didn’t mention immunocompromised individuals. She may have been immunocompromised. I don’t dispute that. Do you not understand the difference between “effect” and “cause”?

Before being diagnosed with HIV,

Do you not understand the distinction between virus and anti-bodies? Being diagnosed with anti-bodies, doesn’t equate with HIV infection. There’s no evidence they cultured the virus from her. So, you, again, are sloppy and inaccurate.

The challenge to you, Mr. Gorman, is to find a single person who is not a drug addict, a cancer patient, or a transplant recipient, but who displays all of Bergalis’ symptoms in the absence of HIV. Perhaps someone could even put up a $50,000 prize as an incentive for you!

Easy. (NEJM, 1993) Please send the 50K to your Momma.

3. Kimberly Bergalis took toxic AZT, which required blood tranfusions.

Your wording is vague, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at. AZT can cause anemia, depletion of neutrophils, and myopathy. These are not, by themselves, AIDS-defining conditions.

The second clause may be a bit vague, so I’ll just repeat what Kimberly said about AZT.

“I have lived through the torturous acne that infested my face and neck, brought on by AZT. I have endured trips twice a week to Miami for three months only to receive painful IV injections. I’ve had blood transfusions. I’ve had a bone marrow biopsy. I cried my heart out from the pain.” (Lauritsen, AIDS War, Page 324.)

Also, your list of AZT side effects is deliberately under-inclusive, which makes you dishonest. Here’s the current package BLACK BOX WARNING from AZT.

“WARNING: Retrovir (Zidovudine) has been associated with hematologic toxicity including neutropenia and severe anemia particularly in patients with HIV disease. Prolonged use of Retrovir has been associated with symptomatic myopathy. Lactic acidosis and severe Hepatomegaly with steatosis, including fatal cases have been reported with the use of nucleoside analogues, alone or in combination.”

4. Kimberly Bergalis died.
Right. More specifically, she died of AIDS.

Have you heard of “affirming the consequent.” She died. We agree. Idiotic scientists and politicians, however, ignored the terrible, fatal effects of AZT that killed her, and instead blamed her death on AIDS.

Posted by: Ben Gorman | September 21, 2007 8:32 PM

Oh Jesus Jiminy Christmas! – Here we go round the mulberry bush. I SEEN it a coming!

“RARE”

“like to hope that she understands the rarity of her situation”

“Noreen may understand better that they happen to belong to a small,….” “Your condition, while rare, is not unknown..”

BULL SHIT!

How the hell do they know? Truth is they don’t! Can anyone remind these morons of the huge disparity in numbers of whats reported as to how many are supposedly carrying the dreaded almighty virus VS the numbers under anti-HIV treaments?

Posted by: Carter | September 21, 2007 8:51 PM

Antiretrovirals can help when one is being attacked by many diseases as I had many of the AIDS defining diseases.

noreen, could you please explain to us your specific belief system here? Does HIV exist? Does it cause AIDS? Are ARV’s a good treatment?

Also, are you aware of how ARV’s work? You realize that the ARV’s are not attacking the PCP or the Karposi Sarcoma right? They are meant to attack the HIV, which makes your statement somewhat confusing.

Posted by: apy | September 21, 2007 9:31 PM

Right, Ben, HIV is just part of the human genome and nobody did PCR for HIV before 1993. How, then, did the CDC compare sequences from Acer, Bergalis, other patients of Acer, and individuals from the surrounding community who were HIV positive? Silly question, though; I’m sure you have an answer to paste from virusmyth.

Yes, and antibodies have nothing to do with HIV. Antibodies are just non-specific proteins floating around in everyone’s bloodstream.

I’m still waiting for your proof that AZT killed Bergalis…or anyone else, for that matter. Where are the cases of HIV negative AZT deaths?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 21, 2007 10:52 PM

Ben,

Your utter disregard for the truth and for any standards of scholarship lead to the many fallacies sprinkled through your comments.

With respect to Kimberly Bergalis you state:

She died in 1991. PCR was not widely used until Ho’s paper in 1993. So, I doubt they did PCR analysis before she died.

You doubt? You doubt therfore you draw a conclusion?

What is the name for this logical fallacy? Is this the “ostrich fallacy” where the speaker makes up his mind and buries his head in the sand lest he uncover evidence that conflicts with his “doubts”.

Did you ever consider reading the actual papers that describe the evidence?

Ou CY, et al. (1992). Molecular epidemiology of HIV transmission in a dental practice. Science 256:1165-71.

Abstract: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) transmission from infected patients to health-care workers has been well documented, but transmission from an infected health-care worker to a patient has not been reported. After identification of an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) patient who had no known risk factors for HIV infection but who had undergone an invasive procedure performed by a dentist with AIDS, six other patients of this dentist were found to be HIV-infected. Molecular biologic studies were conducted to complement the epidemiologic investigation. Portions of the HIV proviral envelope gene from each of the seven patients, the dentist, and 35 HIV-infected persons from the local geographic area were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced. Three separate comparative genetic analyses–genetic distance measurements, phylogenetic tree analysis, and amino acid signature pattern analysis–showed that the viruses from the dentist and five dental patients were closely related. These data, together with the epidemiologic investigation, indicated that these patients became infected with HIV while receiving care from a dentist with AIDS.

Doubting is not enough. Criticial thinking requires that one also has to examine the evidence. In the future, please provide the evidence for your claims.

Posted by: Franklin | September 21, 2007 11:39 PM

for the newbies not informed of the dissidents views, here is a primer

This is a straw man argument Dr. Smith. I think what micheal was referring to is catastrosphic long term stress that accompanies an hiv positive test, nevertheless this “lonliness” argument does not represent the rethinker movement.

The main reason many credible scientists doubt hiv is
1) the lack of a relaible animal model, tons of chimps/mice were injected and they dont die of aids even after 20 years.
2) The lack of a carefully controlled study that would be designed to see if if hiv positive people with no other possible risk factors get AIDS, risk factors that include the cell killing chemotherapy drug AZT, coinfections w/ mycoplasma incognitus, catastrophic stress, intense drug abuse etc.

all the studies so far assume hiv is the cause of Aids, so they didnt do much to test gallo’s claim, if you want to prove me wrong please provide me with a study done by honest scientists that dont view dissidents as nazis that clearly states in the study aims ” a study to follow hiv positive people with no other risk factors to see if Gallo’s hypothesis is correct.”

3) the low amount of blood tcell infection, which is around 1/1000 t cells

4) The very low rates of transmission, the Padian study followed serodiscordant couples for years and who had all kinds of unprotected sex and there were 0 seroconversions!

5) most viruses cause the most havok before antibodies not ten years later, thats why we get vaccines………..the are some marginal exceptions, but exceptions are not the rules

Many more reasons. Lurkers should do a google search and see a film called hiv fact or fraud that explains the positions well, its free.

scientists that have doubted the hiv hypothesis at one time or another

Peter duesberg phd retroviral expert, California scientist of the year.

kary mullis phd Nobel prize winner, inventor of the PCR

Shyh ching lo md phd cheif of the infectious unit of the armed forces of pathology

Richard Strohman ucb mcb professor

Harry rubin ucb mcb professor

Walter gilbert nobel prize winner Harvard mcb professor

Lynn Margulis phd national academy of sciences member

many more………..

I would suggest people read a book called Project Day Lily, this microbe called mycoplasma incognitus killed every animal injected (Dr. Lo injected mice primates and they all died) a riveting book by garth and nancy nicolson phds found out how it was part of the biowarfare program, found in some AIDs cases and in CFS etc, google it and read a chapter for free.

Posted by: cooler | September 22, 2007 12:10 AM

Carter sayeth:

How the hell do they know? Truth is they don’t! Can anyone remind these morons of the huge disparity in numbers of whats reported as to how many are supposedly carrying the dreaded almighty virus VS the numbers under anti-HIV treaments?

Carter, you are amazing. Every time you open your mouth, is it with the express purpose of putting your foot in it? Truly, no one other than you and your ilk knows anything, is that it? Try a simple test – type in HIV Controller in PubMed and do a search. Can you do that? If you can, do take a moment to check out the articles; your doubts shall be cleared…

Oh, wait! It is all a grand conspiracy, right? Ah, well…

Posted by: Kausik Datta | September 22, 2007 1:40 AM

“Portions of the HIV proviral envelope gene from each of the seven patients, the dentist, and 35 HIV-infected persons from the local geographic area were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced.”

Criticial thinking? The above is science gone wild to the side of science fiction.
_______________________

ELITE Controller, HIV Controller? WTF is that? That’s just another “AIDS” boondoggle. A way to get rid of the LTNP problem, change the language and get support (money) into another dead-end of “AIDS” research.

All these crazy f–ked up contoller studies willfully are not and will not investigate the most obvious factor that separates “controllers” from the rest – they don’t take “AIDS drugs” – science gone wild yet again. Virus hunters all at it again desperately trying to find the gene responcible, which merely amounts to more lunacy.

I tend to think term Elite Controllers, or rather Elitist Conrollers define Tara et all.

Posted by: carter | September 22, 2007 3:18 AM

RARE? So you nit wits think LTNP, controllers, whatever are rare? like I said before thats bull shit!

The CDC estimates that 1.1 million Americans are HIV+, with 40,000 new cases and a little less than 20,000 deaths each year. This accounts for a quite stable figure, and in spite of varying definitions, there have been about 1 million HIV+ Americans for well over ten years now. Yet, only 250,000 take meds and of these it is said that it’s hard to keep them taking the meds. This leaves 750,000 HIV+ Americans who haven’t been taking meds in any given year, yet there is no upsurge in the number of ‘AIDS’ cases, which remains pretty steady at 250,000, and there have been fewer than 200,000 deaths in the past ten years. So we can pretty well accept that the figure is around 75% – yes, 75% – and the other 25% are indeterminate, because they’re on the meds.

Posted by: carter | September 22, 2007 3:23 AM

Apy, once again, I will state my position about AIDS. I do not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS due to many reasons that the rethinkers believe and due to the fact that I have managed to survive nicely for almost two years with a high viral load, low CD4’s and no sicknesses.

My feelings on the antiretrovirals is that they should only be used when the patient has symptoms that are not alleviated by normal treatment options and as a last ditch option. Then, used temporary until the patient has restored one’s health.

I am not the exception to the rule as many HIV+s are waking up to the inconsistencies about HIV and are doing the same thing. Most are only less vocal about it. We realize that it is not necessary to poison our bodies and that AIDS is not a death sentence.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 5:32 AM

Carter Says:

“Portions of the HIV proviral envelope gene from each of the seven patients, the dentist, and 35 HIV-infected persons from the local geographic area were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced.”
Criticial thinking? The above is science gone wild to the side of science fiction.

No actual criticism of the methodology, results, or interpretation. No discussion of the actual evidence. Just a blanket statement that this is “science fiction”.

The ostrich buries her head in the sand.

On the other hand, for the umptheenth time Cooler direct us to “Project Day Lily”:

I would suggest people read a book called Project Day Lily, this microbe called mycoplasma incognitus killed every animal injected (Dr. Lo injected mice primates and they all died) a riveting book by garth and nancy nicolson phds found out how it was part of the biowarfare program, found in some AIDs cases and in CFS etc, google it and read a chapter for free.

Now, “Project Day Lily,” that is science fiction.

What does it say that the denialists prefer to base their arguments on science fiction over actual scientific papers? What do you think, Noreen? Would you like your health care providers to base your treatment plan on a science fiction book?

Perhaps this preference for fictionalization explains why Professor Maniotis’s fictitious “quotes” that he attributes to scientific papers have appeared on Denialist web sites for years–and continue to appear–without any of the regular users complaining about his fraud.

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 9:46 AM

Noreen,

If you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS, why do you advocate treatment with antiretrovirals “when the patient has symptoms that are not alleviated by normal treatment options and as a last ditch option.”

Do you only advocate antiretroviral as a “last ditch option” for AIDS patients–even though you don’t beleive HIV causes AIDS?

Or do you advocate antiretrovirals for all conditions that have not responded to “normal treatment”–say a myocardial infarction or pulmonary embolus?

Do you advocate antiretrovirals “as a last ditch effort” for someone paralyzed from an automobile accident who has not recovered the abilty to walk “despite normal treatment”.

If you don’t advocate antiretrovirals “as a last ditch effort” for these other conditions, what is it about AIDS that makes you think antiretrovirals might be appropriate for this disorder but not other illnesses that fail to respond to treatment.

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 9:56 AM

When one’s immune system is basically non-existant and one is being attached by numerous viruses, such as hepatitis, Epstein Barr, etc. then to me it does make good sense to use these to try and save the patient’s life. We can go on the “first do no harm” premise but if we did then many more would die. Sometimes drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 10:03 AM

noreen:

I do not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS

Antiretrovirals can help when one is being attacked by many diseases as I had many of the AIDS defining diseases.

You’ll have to explain this one to me noreen. If you don’t believe HIV causes AIDS then why do you think ARV’s would be useful in any way?

I had AIDS so therefore I do have some experience in the matter. You believe studies yet some of you will not listen to those of us who have the disease

So far you’ve taken your singular experience with AIDS and applied them to the entire population. Do I believe studies with a lot of people vs one single persons experiences? Yes I do. Especially when that person can’t even keep straight if they have been to Alive & Well website or not and don’t seem to be capable of researching a single concept on their own (really, Gallo pardoned by Bill Clinton? How trivial is that to verify and you couldn’t). You’ve shown yourself to be a completely untrustworthy source of information so I take anything you say with a grain of salt.

Posted by: apy | September 22, 2007 10:29 AM

Apy, all you know is what you read. You did not answer my question if you are HIV+ or have AIDS so why should anyone listen to your two cents? Antriretroviral drugs are not just specific to HIV and have other uses. In fact, I recently read where they may have some benefit for treating cancer. Whether I believe HIV causes AIDS or not is not the point in whether there is any benefit of these drugs. Where you don’t get it is when I state that they, along with other chemotherapy drugs, should not be a long-term fix.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 10:42 AM

Noreen,

So you think that antiretrovirals make sense

when one’s immune system is basically non-existant and one is being attached by numerous viruses, such as hepatitis, Epstein Barr, etc.

Do you advocate antiretrovirals for heart transplant patients who get sypmtomatic EBV infections while taking the immunosuppressive drugs needed to prevent rejection of the donor’s heart?

Do you advocate antiretrovirals for leukemia patients who get opportunistic infections because their bone marrow is unable to produce immune cells due to the leukemia or effects of chemotherapy?

Do you advocate antiretrovirals for viral infections in patients with DiGeorge Syndrome who are born without a thymus and therefore do not produce T-cells?

Do you think antiretroviral therapies would make any sense in these clinical scenarios, given that the patients are not infected by HIV and don’t have AIDS?

They have a “practically nonexistent immune system” and suffer from multiple viral infections–just not from HIV infection.

Do you advocate antiretroviral therapies for these immune deficient patients, or just for AIDS patients?

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 10:44 AM

Some of the examples that you describe, such as heart tranplants patients who need immune-supressive medicines would not be a good canidate. I think that the antiretrovirls should be used to help full-blown AIDS persons, who usually have more than one AIDS-defining diseases, that is why their immune system is so weak to start with. Obviously, for instance, those with thrush would need fungal medications.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 10:59 AM

Noreen,

It sounds like you only advocate antiretrovirals for viral infections in patients with immune deficiency due to AIDS, not for viral infections in patients with other conditions that lead to immune defiiciency–such as DiGeorge Syndrome, leukemia, cancer chemotherapy, etc.

Why do you think antiretrovirals are appropriate for AIDS patients but not for patients with other immunosuppressive disorders?

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 11:20 AM

Mainly because I do not know if they would work for these particular diseases or not. Probably, most would be reluctant to prescribe the meds off-label without good cause.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 1:52 PM

“No actual criticism of the methodology, results, or interpretation. No discussion of the actual evidence. Just a blanket statement that this is “science fiction”.

I’m sure you dont want me to cut and past the multitude of agruments against each and every single point. Why don’t you read Henry Bauer’s book, “The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory” McFarland & Company; 1st edition, June 30, 2007 ?

Posted by: carter | September 22, 2007 2:17 PM

Noreen,

Given that you “do not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS,” what makes you think that there is good cause to prescribe antiretrovirals as a “last ditch” effort for AIDS but not for other conditions that cause severe immune suppression?

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 2:25 PM

Carter,

Instead of just cutting and pasting why don’t you use your vast knowledge of the subject matter to give us a synopsis of the arguemnts against using DNA sequence comparisons to show that one sample of HIV is genetically similar to another. Then provide a link to your sources.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 22, 2007 2:29 PM

Noreen writes about anti-cancer properties of ARV and also states,

Where you don’t get it is when I state that they, along with other chemotherapy drugs, should not be a long-term fix.

I think it would be great if somebody could test Noreen’s no “long-term fix” idea, especially in the context of her anti-cancer statement, by conducting a randomized trial.

How could we set up this trial? We could have a group of HIV-positive people who take ARVs continuously, and a second group who take ARVs only when their CD4+ T-cell counts drop below a certain level. Perhaps this second group would discontinue drugs when CD4+ T-cell counts go above, say, 350, and resume them when counts fall under, say, 250.

What outcomes would we expect if Noreen’s statements are correct?

We would expect that people in the continuous treatment group would be much sicker than people in the interrupted treatment group due to Noreen’s claimed toxic effects of unnecessary ARVs that should only be taken as a last-ditch measure. Both morbidity and mortality should be higher in the group that receives continuous “poison” compared with the group that gets these “toxic” chemicals only when they are very sick, as Noreen urges.

From Noreen’s anti-cancer claim, we would predict a lower rate of cancers in the continuous treatment group than in the “conserved” treatment group.

Does anyone know of such a study? Is anyone willing to perform a study like this? We really need to know these results to evaluate Noreen’s claims.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 2:37 PM

Carter,

I think we may have identified the reason you are having so much trouble understanding the scientific understanding of the AIDS epidemic.

We are discussing the following paper:

Ou CY, et al. (1992). Molecular epidemiology of HIV transmission in a dental practice. Science 256:1165-71.

For some reason, you seem to think that the key to understanding the scientific evidence presented in this paper can be found in “Henry Bauer’s book, “The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory” McFarland & Company; 1st edition, June 30, 2007.”

Here’s a clue, if you want to understand Ou et al. (1992), you have to read Ou et al. (1992).

Study the methodology, examine the results, pay close attention to the logical arguments made by the authors and form your own opinion as to whether their arguments are supported by the data.

You seem to think that you can form an intelligent opinion about the science without ever reading the science–just by reading Denialist diatribes filled with distortions of the science.

Just bury your head in the sand, little ostrich.

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 2:44 PM

A great study would be a group on LDN verses a group on the antiretrovirals. The interesting results would be the comparison of the blood and liver enzymes and which group had the most opportunistic diseases. Actually, there is one study being done in Africa but none in other parts of the world. It is generally assumed that antiretrovirals are the only treatment for AIDS. Now, there are enough people who LDN to perform such a study.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 2:46 PM

Noreen,

To say that your stance on HIV and ARVs puzzles me would be an understatement.

How do you explain your high HIV viral load and low CD4 count prior to HAART, reduction of HIV viral load to 0 and increase in CD4 to 240 while on HAART, then after quitting your medications your HIV viral load shot straight back up to 100,000 and CD4s have been dropping continuously to about 80 (I think you said).

For me it’s simple to explain. HIV was depleting your CD4 cells. HAART prevented HIV replication (hence the drop of HIV viral load to 0 while on medication), blocking HIV from killing more CD4s allowed CD4 cell counts to rise while on HAART. Then, after stopping HAART, HIV was again able to replicate (hence the HIV viral load of 100,000) and CD4 cells began to be depleted by the large amounts of HIV in your bloodstream.

I’m glad you feel well and that you have no Opportunistic Infections. I hope LDN does work. But as long as HIV continues to replicate in your body and your CD4s continue to fall I don’t see how anyone can conclude anything other than that the standard theory of HIV/AIDS is correct and that as your CD4s continue to drop you are putting yourself at risk of new Opportunistic Infections.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 22, 2007 2:46 PM

Wait! I just remembered a paper I just read in the journal “AIDS.” Conveniently, it answers all of the questions in my previous comment.

Silverberg MJ et al, “Risk of cancers during interrupted antiretroviral therapy in the SMART study,” AIDS, Sept 2007; 21(14), 1957-63.

Silverberg et al examine cancer rates in a randomized trial. One arm of the trial involves continuous use of antiretroviral drugs. The other allows CD4+ T-cell counts to direct the use of therapy. When the count rises above 350, therapy is discontinued. When the count falls below 250, therapy is resumed.

For participants on continuous therapy, viral loads are lower and CD4+ T-cell counts are consistently higher than for participants in the interrupted arm. By these measures, the continuous therapy is better for one’s health than interrupted therapy. Our prediction based on Noreen’s “last-ditch” comment is not validated by this study.

What about general health, since Noreen and other rethinkers dispute the validity of viral load and CD4+ T-cell counts? In this cohort, confirming the results of numerous previous studies, opportunistic infections and deaths are higher in the interrupted arm than in the continuous arm. Keep in mind that this is a randomized study. Continuous ARV treatment is therefore a better strategy than discontinuous ARV treatment as advocated by Noreen for minimizing outcomes such as OIs and death.

What about cancer rates? Again, what we predicted based on Noreen’s comments is not seen. The non-AIDS cancer rates are similar between the two arms. The AIDS cancer rates, however, are six times higher in the group that takes ARVs on an interrupted basis–consistent with the drugs’ role in stopping retroviral replication and protecting against immune-system damage and resulting susceptibility to certain types of cancer that are closely influenced by immune system function.

In other words, for the average AIDS patient, going off HAART is much riskier in terms of mortality and morbidity than staying on HAART.

I don’t deny that some HIV-positive people do not need ARVs. The difficulty lies in identifying these people. The literature to date, however, suggests that those who follow Noreen’s advice–advice that issues from a study with an ‘n’ of one–and use ARVs only as a measure of last resort, are more likely to suffer health consequences including death than those who take ARVs continuously.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 2:47 PM

The HAART can wipe out the “viral load” and secondly there isn’t a large amount of HIV in the body, it is a math. formula. Yes, CD4’s do increase with the meds but this does not necessary equal to health. I have had low CD4’s and be dying and have had low CD4’s for two years and I am perfectly healthy. So, overall, CD4’s are a bad measurement of health. Even oplympic athletes have had low CD’4 and are extremely healthy.

The problem with studies that you quote in regards to survival is that they do not take into account other factors such as, diet, health habit, supplements and certainly the positive effects of LDN. It is the combination of all of these that has maintained my health.

Even by most standards, one has to wonder how can she do it? I have found a better way than the HAART to help maintain my immune system and without the side effects.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 2:59 PM

Carter writes,

Why don’t you read Henry Bauer’s book, “The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory” McFarland & Company; 1st edition, June 30, 2007 ?

Why, Carter, do you assume that none of us has read Bauer’s book? Just as you assume none of us has read Duesberg, Maggiore, Hodgkinson, and on and on. To be honest, I haven’t read the whole thing, mainly because there’s a limit to the amount of amateurish ramblings of a non-expert I can stomach in a given month. But I’ve read enough to know that Bauer is just as wrong as Duesberg, if not as well-informed. This does let him off the hook, in a sense, since it means that he may not be trying to deceive his readers intentionally. But there is really no excuse for someone with scant knowledge of biology and statistics who writes a book claiming to bring down the entirety of HIV epidemiology. No, scratch that: HIV/AIDS science! That is the height of presumption. Who is this Bauer person, anyway, and why do you believe him, Carter?

Because you like his conclusions, I suppose, and you are just as scientifically unequipped as Bauer himself, unable to recognize his flaws.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 3:07 PM

“I have had low CD4’s and be dying and have had low CD4’s for two years and I am perfectly healthy. So, overall, CD4’s are a bad measurement of health.”

You’ve also been deathly ill with AIDS defining OI’s while your CD4 cell counts were minimal haven’t you?

Have you ever had AIDS defining OIs with normal CD4 cell counts that you know of?

Anyway, it’s the continuously dropping CD4 cell count that concerns me more than a single static number would.

” Yes, CD4’s do increase with the meds but this does not necessary equal to health.”

Not only do CD4’s increase but the viral load drops from 100,000 to 0. Then after quitting the medications viral load jumps back to 100,000 and CD4’s begin declining.

These phenomena are exactly what the standard explanation of HIV, AIDS, and HAART predict. Aren’t they?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 22, 2007 3:11 PM

Noreen,

Given that you “do not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS,” what makes you think that there is good cause to prescribe antiretrovirals as a “last ditch” effort for AIDS but not for other conditions that cause severe immune suppression?

Posted by: franklin | September 22, 2007 3:26 PM

High viral loads and low CD4’s is the current definition for AIDS but what is alarming is that HIV-Negative persons have had high viral loads. It is difficult to know what an individual’s CD4’s were prior to HIV or AIDS. Many other illnesses can bring them down too.

There may be other conditons that the HAART could possibly help but this has not been studied or generally practiced. I may be one of the few rethinkers who believes that there is a purpose for the use of the HAART under certain conditions. I never stated that it did not help me only that I do not believe that it is wise to take it for the rest of one’s life. I was fortunate to learn about LDN and to have progressive doctors who also felt that it would benefit me.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 4:32 PM

Noreen,

I have not been able to find information about Olympic athletes who have CD4+ T-cell counts as low as yours…or even anywhere close. Would you mind giving me your source for this? I would really appreciate it.

A total of perhaps several hundred cases of CD4+ T-cell counts below 300 have been found in the United States since 1985 in HIV-negative persons who do not have any other obvious reason for immunosuppression. For many of these people, the dip is transient, but for some, it persists. HIV rethinkers suggest that these rare cases prove that low CD4+ T-cell counts are a “normal” phenomenon. They are not. Just because a cause has not been identified does not mean that the low counts are normal or without cause. People with unexplained CD4+ T-cell lymphocytopenia sometimes suffer from OIs that affect AIDS patients.

Low CD4+ T-cell counts are in no way “normal,” and anyone who has such counts, whatever the cause, has elevated risk of OIs and death. Noreen may consider herself an exception, but she should remember that her personal study has n=1, and the studies contradicting her collectively have n’s in the hundreds of thousands.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 5:34 PM

Noreen,

It seems I have much to learn from you, as I can’t find credible information about HIV-negative people with confirmed high viral loads, either. I would appreciate it if you could post your source for HIV-negative individuals with high viral loads (that is, high levels of plasma HIV RNA). Has anyone made such a claim since reliable HIV RNA assays were worked out? Have you heard of any HIV-negative person who consistently has viral loads as high as your own?

Thanks in advance.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 5:53 PM

We all have a lot to learn in regards to HIV. I first stumbled upon the fact that athletes have low CD4’s years ago. Off hand, I do not know what the source was. You see, I had many hundreds of pages about AIDS years ago when I was trying to sort all of this out. However, I questioned my infectious disease doctor about this and he admitted that yes it was so but they did not know why. Bear with me, I am sorting through three-hundred pages to get the info on HIV-Negatives and viral loads.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 7:00 PM

Surfing the net, I found that one study was performed in 1980, cited in a report to the Un Human Rights Commission presented by Project AIDS International showing that atheletes had low CD4’s, although not as low as mine. I also found this quote, “As in other studies, we found that survival was not influenced by demographic characteristics or CD4 lyphocyte count” Narasimham M et al. Intensive Care in Patients with HIV Infection in the Era of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy.

“False positives occur with a RNA assay including the newer generation of viral load test.” Mendoza 1998.
Few labs will run a viral load test unless the patient is HIV-Positive because too many HIV-Negatives were having high viral load results. To rectify this problem, the CDC issued an order for laboratories not to run this test on HIV-Negatives.

You might wonder how can this happen? The probes and primers used in the PCR are not specific or unique to HIV. Most of the copies made by the PCR represent non-infectious viruses. Basically, we do not know what the PCR is measuring. If one tests positive on the HIV antibody test it is assumed that it is HIV on the PCR test. The CDC stated that the specificity and the sensitivity of the PCR has not been determined and is not known. Similarly, all manufactures of the HIV viral load have written disclaimers, not to be used as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection.

Both of these tests are routinely used and the patients health care is based upon them, even though they have their faults.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 7:53 PM

Henry H. Bauer is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Science Studies and Dean Emeritus of Arts and Sciences at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He was born in Austria and educated in Australia. After researching electrochemistry at the Universities of Sydney, Michigan, Southampton, and Kentucky, he turned to general issues relating to scientific activity, in particular how to differentiate science from pseudoscience. He has taught both undergraduate and graduate programs in humanities and science and technology studies. Upon retirement from teaching at the end of 1999, he became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Bauer has challenged the HIV/AIDS hypothesis in several papers, based primarily on the fact that the data on HIV seroprevalence are incompatible with the notion that the HIV antibody tests are detecting a sexually transmissable virus.

You morons are starting to bore me.

Posted by: carter | September 22, 2007 8:28 PM

About the book
“Thanks to enormous funding for educational programs, the whole world ‘knows’ that HIV causes AIDS. But is what we know compatible with the facts? This book challenges the conventional wisdom on this issue. Collating and analyzing, for the first time, the results of more than two decades of HIV testing, it reveals that the common assumptions about HIV and AIDS are incompatible with the published data. Among the many topics explored are the failings of HIV testing, statistical evidence that HIV is neither sexually transmitted nor increasingly prevalent, and problems caused by the differing diagnostic criteria for AIDS around the world… But how could everyone have been so wrong for so long? This vital question, unaddressed in previous works questioning the HIV/AIDS connection, is central to this book. The author considers comparable missteps of modern science, and discusses how funding influences discovery in today’s scientific circles.”

Posted by: Carter | September 22, 2007 8:31 PM

It would be great to have ElkMountain, Tara, Franklin, and the rest of these zealots take some AZT on a daily basis for a month, and report to the group here, what it does to them.

Posted by: Milt | September 22, 2007 9:12 PM

Noreen, you have yet to tell us how you think ART helps in some cases of AIDS/advanced immunodeficiency. You imply that it helps manage infections. This is incorrect. There is some very inconsistent and unimpressive data that protease inhibitors have some in vitro effect against some fungal infections – but this is at concentrations well above what would ever happen in vivo.

Recall that ART is a mixture of drugs specifically designed to inhibit elements of the life cycle of HIV. So drugs have been designed/engineered to inhibit CD4/gp120 binding, inhibit CCR co-receptor binding, to inhibit fusion, to inhibit RT by analogue substitution as well as a specially designed configuration of inhibitor that attaches into the 3 dimensional “palm” of the RT enzyme, to inhibit viral integration into the genome, to inhibit proteases and other processes in virus assembly.

Each and every one of these drugs has shown lab and clinical effects in reducing viral levels and restoring immune function.

Why is this?

Is it possible for you to think the unthinkable, and dare to imagine that these drugs act against a virus, namely HIV?

These drugs should have no effect against other microbiological organisms – well certainly not the bacteria, fungi and parasites that afflict those with advanced HIV. Some of the drugs do have an effect against Hep B and are used to treat it (eg tenofovir, lamivudine, emtricitabine). You see, the researchers have looked into all this, extensively.

How come drugs like AZT (widely ridiculed as a “cause” of AIDS because it supposedly destroys people’s immune systems (according to denialist dogma) form part of successful ART regimens? How does giving a drug that should increase the susceptibility to infection actually reduce it?

Please think this through. Your own experience (n=1) amounts to very little. As others have shown, major studies such as SMART have conclusively demonstrated the greater risks that prevail if people stop therapy. Not only is there an increase in AIDS diagnoses, but an increase in liver disease and malignancy (yes, that’s right! – the drugs that supposedly destroy your liver and cause cancer actually protect HIV patients against these things).

I have no agenda except a desire to see people with HIV do the right thing, yourself included.

Posted by: DT | September 22, 2007 9:12 PM

Carter,

Let me give you a friendly tip: copying text without giving your source doesn’t exactly impress anyone. Did you copy that Bauer bio from Henry Bauer’s website, or from where?

Carter, Henry Bauer is no more qualified than you to write a book about HIV…well, except that Bauer is at least able to give sources for his quotes. Since the 1970s he’s been teaching “science studies,” a bunch of pomo nonsense about how science is dead. For lack of a better term, “science studies,” like most of the rest of what passes for philosophy these days, is mental masturbation. The influence of “science studies” on actual science and actual society is nil. I suppose its existence adds a bit to employment figures, but that’s about it.

A teacher of “science studies” who doesn’t know the first thing about virology is bound to make a fool of himself if he writes a treatise on how everything we know about HIV and AIDS is wrong. Predictably, Bauer makes a fool of himself in a grandiose way. I don’t believe Bauer understands how wrong he is, which is why I find him more amusing or pitiful than despicable, like certain more qualified scientists who know very well that they are trying to deceive people like you, Carter, who believe them in an understandable wish to deny your own health problems.

If you would like specific examples of the sort of head-scratching, eyebrow-furrowing inanity in Bauer’s writing, I will give you a few. But you’ve already wasted my time with Duesberg. Nobody responded to any of the many flaws that I along with Franklin, Chris, DT, apy, adele, and others I’m forgetting gave you from Duesberg’s writings. We gave you quotes, references, page numbers and everything, and it doesn’t seem that any of you even checked them. You certainly didn’t respond.

Carter, you and your friends here are hero-worshiping Bauer just like you hero-worship Duesberg: because what Bauer says soothes your fears and helps you deny reality.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 9:13 PM

Noreen, RE CD4 counts in Olympic athletes:

Also surfing the net, I can find only indirect reference to this. You appear to have got your “evidence” from the Alive and Well site:

One study on Olympic athletes in the early 1980s (cited in a report to the UN Human Rights commission presented by Project AIDS International) showed their T cell counts averaged between 400 and 600.

A few other web references exist, all of them seeming to be extracts from denialist sites (one of which actually says the study was in 1984). Forgive me for being a little cynical, but where is the original paper? Can we read what it says exactly and in context, or do we (and you) have to rely on rethinker reinterpretation of the findings? Can you tell us the precise, specific source of your data on these athletes?

Also I would point out that the athletes have CD4 counts five times as high as yours. I am afrid that a count of 500 is not, as A&W put it, “facing imminent illness and death”. Most labs have 500 as the lower limit of normal. This means that between 2.5% and 5% of normal healthy HIV-uninfected people will have a count below this level.

About 15 years ago I was a volunteer in a lab study looking at CD4 variability through the day and from day to day. My counts ranged from 400 to 700. Hardly evidence HIV does not cause AIDS, I would have thought.

Posted by: DT | September 22, 2007 9:31 PM

Noreen,

Thank you for looking up those references for me. I would give you the same advice I gave Carter: when you get your information from a website, please tell us what that website is.

You wrote,
Surfing the net, I found that one study was performed in 1980, cited in a report to the Un Human Rights Commission presented by Project AIDS International

Noreen, can you tell us honestly which websites you visited to find this report, along with the quote and the Mendez et al study?

Please, Noreen, remember that these websites are giving you only a small portion of the big picture. They are filtering out all of the data that disprove their pre-selected fantasies about HIV and AIDS.

In truth, there are hundreds of studies about the effects of various types of exercise on CD4+ T-cell counts and other immune parameters. Not just one report from the early 1980s that a “rethinker” organization reportedly sent to the UN. Endurance athletes at the Olympic level are in effect torturing their bodies; there are consequences for the immune system. Some do have transient dips in peripheral blood CD4 counts. However, I have not seen any reports of an HIV-negative athlete with a CD4 count below 200. Have you, Noreen?

As for CD4 counts, they of course have a relation to general health! I’m not sure where you got this quote, but please remember that rethinker websites often take quotes out of context. They will only present quotes and data they “agree” with, even if that means a bit of distortion.

Noreen, I don’t have the time right now to address your comments on viral load measurements and “non-specific” primers, other than to say that you are absolutely and completely wrong on this. The primers and probes used in these assays do not bind to anything in the human genome. False positive samples are usually not reproducibly positive, and are the result of laboratory errors. Noreen, I really don’t wish to come across as pompous, but Matt Irwin and others you rely upon for your information are flatly wrong, and I encourage you to consult with a knowledgeable, non-partisan doctor to learn about the viral load assay and how it applies to you.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 22, 2007 10:16 PM

“The probes and primers used in the PCR are not specific or unique to HIV. Most of the copies made by the PCR represent non-infectious viruses. Basically, we do not know what the PCR is measuring. If one tests positive on the HIV antibody test it is assumed that it is HIV on the PCR test.”

I would really love to see a source for this gem. Do you even know how PCR works and how one designs the primers and probes used? In case you didn’t know:

We have the sequence of the human genome:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/5507/1304
and thousands of sequences from HIV isolates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?term=human%20immunodeficiency%20virus&cmd=Search&db=nuccore&QueryKey=1

I’m sure we have the ability to form primers and probes unique to HIV. If you don’t believe me, find an alighnment program (they are available online for free) and take the time to check the available HIV sequences against the human genome if you don’t believe it’s true.

As an undergrad I worked in an HIV lab and regularly performed PCR reactions to detect various forms of the HIV genome in infected cells. And guess what, in uninfected cells I never detected HIV but I always detected HIV in infected cells. Don’t believe me? Go to a lab, infect some cells and perform PCR with HIV specific primers and see for yourself.

Posted by: Jim | September 22, 2007 10:23 PM

Hello, DT welcome back! DT how can you argue with a perfectly healthy human being? If I were not HIV-Positive, we would not be having this conversion. I am not the only HIV+ who is doing the same as many have contacted me. It is you who is stuck with this study and that study, which may have some valid points but does not represent the entire HIV population. I would expect more inquistive questioning from some one who is suppose to be scientifically minded. Instead, from most, I get the same old gloom and doom reports, who try to instill fear back into the equation. Well, at least my doctors are following me in amazement and will have to address the obvious, maybe the patient knows better how to deal with this than the same old routine of antiretrovirals.

Posted by: noreen | September 22, 2007 10:27 PM

The CDC estimates that 1.1 million Americans are HIV+, with 40,000 new cases and a little less than 20,000 deaths each year. This accounts for a quite stable figure, and in spite of varying definitions, there have been about 1 million HIV+ Americans for well over ten years now. Yet, only 250,000 take meds and of these it is said that it’s hard to keep them taking the meds. This leaves 750,000 HIV+ Americans who haven’t been taking meds in any given year, yet there is no upsurge in the number of ‘AIDS’ cases, which remains pretty steady at 250,000, and there have been fewer than 200,000 deaths in the past ten years. So we can pretty well accept that the figure is around 75% – yes, 75% – and the other 25% are indeterminate, because they’re on the meds.

If the median CD4 count at initiation of HAART is about 200 and the median time from infection to AIDS is about 10 years then what percentage of people would be expected to be on HAART?

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 22, 2007 10:38 PM

Are any of the Deniers still denying that Kimberly Bergalis had severe candidiasis, weight loss, hair loss and almost died from PCP before she was tested for HIV and was severely ill before she was ever prescribed AZT?

I’m getting sick of going through the exact same points every few months.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 22, 2007 10:56 PM

“Well, at least my doctors are following me in amazement”

Maybe they’re following you in amazement because you have something to teach us about the complex interactions between a pathogen and its host. You seem to be lucky enough to have factors that make HIV infection different from the norm.

“and will have to address the obvious, maybe the patient knows better how to deal with this than the same old routine of antiretrovirals.”"

You don’t think it’s arrogant as hell to think you know more than someone who’s made it their life’s work to study HIV?

Posted by: Jim | September 22, 2007 11:08 PM

yeah experts hacks like gallo announced a plague to the public without any published evidence, then a week later we found out about his partial barely detectable correlation with no animal model, not one study since designed to confirm his sorry hypothesis, you cant confirm something you already beleive to be true, so where left no evidence at all, besides Gallo’s flimsy paper. His failed cancer virus turned into the AIDS virus overnight.

If im wrong please provide me with a scientific paper that states ” an experiment to test whether or not hiv is the cause of AIDS, to examine Gallo’s claim” Cant find it, bc it does not exist, they all had to assume it to be true.

“Experts” will say anything especially if the government is behind it, If gallo and heckler came out and said “mycoplasma” is the cause of AIDS you guys would be parroting that in Orwellian fashion.

Experts have a tendancy to follow the states propaganda, they did in Stalins Russia, Orwells 1984, Nazi Germany, and the AIDS apologists are doing it now, thank god more and more experts are speaking out like Margulis and Pollock, and this consensus you people gloat about evaporating.

Your consensus is manufactured consent ie, if experts heard both sides of the issue you artificial “consensus” would dissapear, youd be left with only a few crackpot scientists like moore/wainberg drinking the hiv kool aid. If you hear only one side of an issue you tend to believe it.

For lurkers
See hiv fact or fraud google it

Read project day lily to find out about the mycoplasma incognitus biowarfare program, a microbe that shyh ching lo killed every animal he injected with, dr garth nicolson found out it was part of the biowarfare program, a true story slightly fictionilized to stay out of court, rave reviews from several scientists, including a nobel laurete.

Project Day lily google it. read a chapter for free

Posted by: cooler | September 23, 2007 12:48 AM

….you cant confirm something you already beleive to be true…

Huhhh?

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 23, 2007 1:02 AM

“Experts have a tendancy to follow the states propaganda, they did in Stalins Russia, Orwells 1984, Nazi Germany…”

Did you just cite a work of fiction as an example of how real experts tend to follow “the states propaganda”?

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | September 23, 2007 1:03 AM

If the median CD4 count at initiation of HAART is about 200

Ah thank you Dr. Noble, for finally offering us your definition of “advanced stage AIDS”. Trust me I shan’t forget it.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 23, 2007 1:06 AM

If i am already convinced a Black man broke into my house (when it could have been anybody) and all subsequent investigation was based on that essential premise, and failed to investigate any alternative scenarious, it makes the investigation flawed, for not considering alternative hypothesis.

If every study I conduct assumes as its premise a black man broke into my house, its fallacious research. IF YOU ALREADY ASSUME SOMETHING TO BE TRUE YOU CAN NOT CONFIRM ANYTHING, FOR YOU NEVER QUESTIONED THE PREMISE, and assumed it to be true from the get go, and were only looking for evidence to support your hypothesis, and would ignore evidence that didnt support your prexisting beleif that youd never abandon.

Posted by: cooler | September 23, 2007 1:32 AM

Trust me I shan’t forget it

If you are interested in anything other than rhetorical wordgames then you could attempt to answer the question I posed to Carter.

Your complete lack of any rational response to this post is also noted.

Does drug use cause AIDS

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 23, 2007 1:41 AM

IF YOU ALREADY ASSUME SOMETHING TO BE TRUE YOU CAN NOT CONFIRM ANYTHING, FOR YOU NEVER QUESTIONED THE PREMISE, and assumed it to be true from the get go, and were only looking for evidence to support your hypothesis, and would ignore evidence that didnt support your prexisting beleif that youd never abandon.

For the past 100 years every single experiment in aeronautics assumes that heavy-than-air flight is possible. Nevertheless these experiments all confirm this assumption.

Vaccine trials use the SHIV/macaque model. They all assume that HIV causes AIDS and yet they also provide confirmation from the reproducible AIDS produced in these animals. The experiments are not designed to test the theory and yet the results provide evidence that can only be ignored by people that are afraid to face reality.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 23, 2007 1:52 AM

none of those studies were designed to test whether or not hiv causes AIDS, the asher study is a total fraud bc they viewed dissidents as nazis, If duesberg conducted a study and he came to the conclusion that hiv was not the cause of AIDS, everyone would say it’s invalid bc hes partial. Well same rules apply to hacks like winklestein etc

Im not asking for much, a study by honest scientists not tied to either side that would read” “in 1984 Gallo claimed hiv was the cause of AIDS, bc of the lack of a reliable animal model, we are going to conduct a rigorous epidemiological study to see if hiv positive people with no other possible risk factors such as AZT, Drug use, mycoplasma incognitus, catastrophic stress/mental illness develop AIDS at a higher rate compared to matched controls that are hiv negative.

Kind of pathetic you guys dont have one study like that………….just babble about macaque monkeys and siv, while ignoring virtually every other species of animal doesnt get AIDS when inoculated, siv doesnt even occur in the wild………..you guys have nothing, not one properly designed study as shown above, no animal model, thousands of ltnp’ers, no explanation why it takes 10 years, how it kills cells when it only infects 1/1000 blood tcells or so…………we need more investigation, maybe hiv does cause AIDS but its not 100% sure like you guys make it out to be………….more studies are needed, deal with it, start thinking for yourselves.

Posted by: cooler | September 23, 2007 2:14 AM

none of those studies were designed to test whether or not hiv causes AIDS, the asher study is a total fraud bc they viewed dissidents as nazis, If duesberg conducted a study and he came to the conclusion that hiv was not the cause of AIDS, everyone would say it’s invalid bc hes partial. Well same rules apply to hacks like winklestein etc

If none of studies since 1984 have been designed to test whether or not HIV causes AIDS then they can’t possibly be used as evidence that HIV does not cause AIDS according to your logic. This has never stopped Denialists from arguing exactly this. In the absence of any experimental results of their own this is their sole argument. You can’t have it both ways. If these studies can be used to argue against HIV causing AIDS then they can also be used to provide evidence for HIV causing AIDS.

There are labs around the worlds using animal models such as the SHIV/macaque model of the HIV/SCIDhu mice. These results complete destroy Duesberg’s bullshit claim that retroviruses do not cause AIDS. They provide overwhelming evidence that HIV causes AIDS.

I also notice the ad hominem attacks on Ascher and Winkelstein. At least you didn’t call them “Fauci’s buttboy” and “Winkelstinkel”. If you have any factual criticisms then present them. If we use your logic then we should also ignore anything Duesberg says because he obviously isn’t impartial.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 23, 2007 2:46 AM

What is the height of arrogance is doctors who won’t listen to the patient, who don’t believe that supplements, alternative treatments and old drugs such as LDN have any relevance to health and who won’t take the time to learn about these and other treatments. Caring and competent physicians are to few and far between. I requested that my orthopedic doctor run a complete blood count and he stated that he could not read it. I would have been embarrassed to admit this to the patient. Anyone can go on line and learn how to do this. This is basic med shcool material. I have asked my doctors where is the epidemiology study that proves HIV causes AIDS, they state that it is “somewhere” in PUBMED. That’s fine if that is their belief but after being in the field for years, they should do better than that and tell me specifically where or that it has not been done.

Posted by: noreen | September 23, 2007 9:09 AM

Well noreen thats the problem with going to a orthopedist!! just kidding everyone, sort-of!

So your doctor can’t do a blood count, but you believe it when a doctor tells you olympic people have cd4 counts like AIDS patients??!! Why would you believe that? Well gee because you want to think your not just healthy you’re as healthy as an olympian. Therfore low CD4 counts are HEALTHY. Noreen it makes me so sad how you’re twisting things in your head, you’re smarter than that I know it.

I think DT was right you got that info from our make your own positive baby friends at A&W. You got the name of the deniosaur organisation wrong like Christine “The Mom The Legend” Maggiore. ITs not Project AIDS International its Project: AIDS International. Noreen these people don’t care about babies even why do you think their giving you good information.

Posted by: Adele | September 23, 2007 10:28 AM

I will tackle something you make reference to over and over…
Do recreational drugs cause AIDS? PMID: 8876838. My bracketed comments/questions [ ]

“We evaluated the associations [sounds like "oh never mind seeking causation, That's not going to help us with our virus theory, we'll just evaluate associations here'] of specific recreational drugs [which ones?] and alcohol with laboratory [test tube] predictors [Is this another one of those probable math equations?] of AIDS at entry into the San Francisco Men’s Health Study (SFMHS) in 1984 [out of these men, were they the occasional user or the chronic user? How was that determined?] and with the development of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) during 6 years of follow-up. [where's the follow up to nearer today, 17 years later?] Marijuana use was associated with a decreased rate of progression to AIDS in the univariate analysis (RR = 0.7; P = 0.01). Marijuana use was more common among individuals with elevated HIV viral core protein antibody (p24Ab) titer (> 1:16) at baseline (P = 0.03); this finding suggests that marijuana users were healthier at baseline. When the data were adjusted for p24 Ab and other laboratory parameters, no association with progression to AIDS was observed for marijuana, suggesting that the observed univariate result was due to a difference in HIV-related disease at the time of enrollment. [All this talk on marijuana. Marijuana has been around virtually since recorded history, The focus seems to be sided to a rather weak drug in order to mislead] No statistically significant associations were observed for nitrites, methylene dioxyamphetamines, ethyl chloride, downers, cocaine, stimulants, narcotics, or psychedelic drugs. These data suggest no substantial association between use of these drugs and the development of AIDS among HIV-infected men.

“Laboratory predictors” does not mean real world observations. I saw, more than one can imagine, friends that took verbatim their doctors death sentence and partied like there was going to be no tomorrow, whom became ill because of drug use then were prescribed AZT/HAART because that was standard protocol just because they registered HIV+. They’re dead because of the standards the establishment’s fucked in the head thinking imposed upon them.

The refutation abounds here that drugs are not a factor and your subterfuge suggests we all say drugs cause HIV. Both are farthest from the truth. There is no logic what you say, studies are designed to look for a predicted outcome in favor of HIV being the end all be all and more often then not accounting for the mental devastation caused by the prescribed death sentence is not taken into consideration.

Posted by: carter | September 23, 2007 10:34 AM

Adele, the facts speak for themselves, HIV has not been islolated in pure form, there hasn’t been one study that proves HIV causes AIDS, the HIV test is for antibodies and not an actual virus, Grade four events are real for HIV-Positives and so is liver disease, heart attacks, abnormal blood, anemia, buffalo humps, neuropathy, and diarrhea, Viral loads are only 6 to 8% accurate, CD4’s are not the best yardstick for health, Gallo only found 40% of patients with HIV, Gallo was investigated for scientific misconduct, Nancy Padian could not find one couple who the negative partner converted to HIV-Positive and the majority of AIDS cases are still predominately in the male population. These are some of the reasons that I am a rethinker because the mainstream’s math does not add up.

Posted by: noreen | September 23, 2007 10:45 AM

Add the fact that full-blown AIDS persons are living without the antiretroviral medications does seem to challenge what we have been told.

Posted by: noreen | September 23, 2007 10:49 AM

If you are interested in anything other than rhetorical wordgames then you could attempt to answer the question I posed to Carter. Your complete lack of any rational response to this post is also noted.

Dr. Noble, your incessant torture of the word word “rational”, here used as a variant of the “no true scotsman” fallacy, may seem clever to your fellow political dogs in the AIDStruth kennel, but you’ve got to up your game a wee bit if you want me to take the bait.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 23, 2007 11:01 AM

Noreen,

You ask for the “epidemiology study that proves HIV causes AIDS”.

Here is a link to an essay of less than 1000 words that summarizes much of the epidemiologic evidence that HIV infection is the cause of AIDS: Koch’s Postulates Fulfilled. It includes a few dozen references to the primry research literature.

I’ve posted this link before–have you read this essay? If so, do you have any specific criticisms of the scientific evidence summarized in this essay? If not, please stop claiming that no one has directed you to the “epidemiology study that proves HIV causes AIDS”.

Posted by: franklin | September 23, 2007 11:05 AM

Noreen, remember how you said apy “believes everything you read?” Thing is, apy gets information from peer-reviewed stuff. You get all your information from alive and well and virusmyth. Its like getting all you information about evolution from discovery institute.

All that stuff you just said? Its all wrong but how can anyone prove it to you you already decided what to want to believe.

Posted by: Adele | September 23, 2007 11:23 AM

Noreen here’s the epidemiological proof in just a couple of hundred words that anti-HIV drugs cause AIDS. Let me know if you have any specific criticisms of the scientific evidence summarized in this essay(-;

the Palella-study found that the mortality of
initially asymptomatic, HIV-positive people, which are
treated with new anti-HIV drug cocktails, is 8×8% (”8×8
per 100 person-years”) and the Hogg-study found it is 6×7%.
But, in the absence of untreated control groups, the
effects of the new anti-HIV drugs on the morbidity and
mortality of HIV-positive recipients can not be determined
scientifically from the results of these surveys.
However, the average annual AIDS mortality of all HIVpositives on this planet [including the minority that is on anti-HIV drugs (The Durban Declaration 2000)] can be
estimated for 2000, the year that falls in between the two
surveys, based on data provided by the WHO and the
Durban Declaration: The WHO and the Declaration report
in 2000 34×3 million “living with HIV”, and the WHO
reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000 (World Health
Organization 2001b) (obtained by subtracting the WHO’s
cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000, see also table
4). Thus, even if we assume that all AIDS cases were
fatal in 2000, the resulting global mortality rate of HIVpositives would only be 1×4% – and thus 4 to 6 times
lower than the 6×7-8×8% mortality rate of HIV-positives
treated with anti-HIV drugs in the US and Canada.
Therefore, the claims that anti-HIV drugs reduce the
mortality of, and delay progression to AIDS are at odds
with the AIDS facts reported by the Durban Declaration
and the WHO. Contrary to these claims, the controlled
trials and uncontrolled surveys listed above prove that
anti-HIV drugs (possibly in conjunction with recreational
drugs) increase the mortality of HIV positives 4- to 6-
fold. It would appear that anti-HIV drugs are prescriptions
for, rather than treatments of AIDS.

http://duesberg.com/papers/chemical-bases.html

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 23, 2007 11:40 AM

http://www.aidstruth.org/science-sold-out.pdf

“As an aside, the Duesberg review from 2003 [7 - http://duesberg.com/papers/chemical-bases.html] is representative of the denialist literature in its willful manipulation and misrepresentation of more scrupulous scientists’ data. In this 30-page review, the authors complain that earlier versions of their manuscript had previously been rejected (or not accepted) by two journals with wider circulation than the eventual publisher, the Indian Journal of Biosciences. Reading the paper closely raises the question of why this third journal did not also reject it. Take the following sentence fragment as one example.

…the Palella-study found that the mortality of initially asymptomatic (sic), HIV-positive people, which (sic) are treated with new anti-HIV drug cocktails (sic), is 8.8%…and the Hogg-study found it is 6.7% (sic) [7]

Palella and colleagues document a steady decline in death rates from 35.1/100 person-years in early 1994 to 8.8/100 person-years in the second quarter of 1997. These strikingly high death rates are seen because the authors restricted their study to HIV+ individuals with CD4+ T-cell counts below 100 per microliter (ul), meaning that these patients were already severely immunocompromised. Many had CD4 counts below 50/ul. Analysis was not restricted to “initially asymptomatic” individuals. Some patients did not take antiretrovirals at all (the highest mortality rate in the second quarter of 1997–51.6/100 person-years–was in this group), while still others were on monotherapy (i.e., not the “new anti-HIV drug cocktails”).

In the FJ Hogg et al paper, 6.7% is not, as implied by Duesberg et al, an annual mortality rate; the estimated annual mortality rate is 2.9%, as stated in the paper. 1219 HIV+ patients were followed for a median of 28 months. During the study, a total of 82 patients died of AIDS. 73% of the deaths occurred in patients (36% of the total) with CD4 counts below 200/ul. As in the Palella et al study, the patients were not all “initially asymptomatic”: 158 had been diagnosed with AIDS (73% with opportunistic infections, 17% with malignancies, others with neurological symptoms or wasting) prior to enrollment.

These mistakes are grave and indicate, at best, the low standards of scholarship to which Duesberg, Koehnlein, and Rasnick adhere. Even worse is an example of what can only be described as true scholarly misconduct–the following misquote from the Palella article, truncated to leave the impression that all study participants were “initially asymptomatic”:

Patients with a diagnosis of cytomegalovirus retinitis or M. aviarum complex disease before study entry or during the first 30 days of follow-up and patients with active P. carinii pneumonia at the beginning of follow-up were excluded. (Note the period here–KW) [7]

In the original paper, this sentence does not end with a period. Instead, it continues:

…from the analyses of the incidence of that opportunistic infection. [83]

Thus, all patients were included in the overall study, including the mortality calculations, but patients with pre-existing or early-presenting conditions were not counted as having developed those specific conditions during the course of the study. Duesberg, Koehnlein, and Rasnick manipulate the quote to make it say what they want it to say, in effect lying about the patients’ health status and the study’s methods to support their own assertion that most deaths reported here were due to drug toxicity. It is unfortunate that Culshaw looks to this class of scholars for her information and inspiration.”

Posted by: Brad | September 23, 2007 12:41 PM

Duesberg, the liar? His antics remind me of William Dembski all the time.

Posted by: Shalini | September 23, 2007 1:08 PM

thanks you…

Posted by: sohbet | September 23, 2007 1:31 PM

The mortality rate was still much higher on the drugs and much, much higher on early monotherapy in the US than in the 3rd. World countries overwhelmingly making up the global statistics

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 23, 2007 2:21 PM

Im still convinced a black man broke into my house, I refuse to consider another hypothesis, a witness tells me he saw a white man break into my house, i ignore him bc i will never abandon my hypothesis, this is the way AIDS research works.

YOU inject hundereds of chimps/mice with HIV, they were all supposed to die of AIDs none did after 20 years, instead of considering a new hypothesis, I cling on and extend the goalpoasts to save the hypothesis, hiv is now species specific

People were supposed to die within a few years, not 10 years……….when no one did just double the window period, ignore failed predictions and just carry on ………….ignore evidence, just extend the window period.

Hiv was supposed to be directly killing tcells thats what youir lord gallo said………..reserachers find out hiv only infects about 1/1000 blood t cells……….instead of realizing that youve come across evidence that hiv might be harmless, you know say hiv , according to that fool joel gallant, its now a diffuse immune response that kills cells! LOL keep on extending the goal posts to save your idiotic theroy.

Back to my analogy, a witness says hey i saw I white man break in your house, I ignore him and keep coming up with convoluted speculations that it had to be a black man……….this is the AIDS research since Gallo’s orwellian Press conference.

See hiv fact or fraud google it

read Project Day lily………mycoplasma biowarfare program uncovered by the nicolsons, greatest book ever slightly fictionilized to stay out of court google it

Posted by: cooler | September 23, 2007 2:30 PM

Sir John Franklin,
You say, “epidemiology study that proves HIV causes AIDS”, as referenced above.

Wikipedia definition: Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. It is considered a cornerstone methodology of public health research, and is highly regarded in evidence-based medicine for identifying risk factors for disease and determining optimal treatment approaches to clinical practice.

Wikipedia Furthermore states: Epidemiology as causal inference: Although epidemiology is sometimes viewed as a collection of statistical tools used to elucidate the associations of exposures to health outcomes, a deeper understanding of this science is that of discovering causal relationships. It is nearly impossible to say with perfect accuracy how even the most simple physical systems behave beyond the immediate future, much less the complex field of epidemiology, which draws on biology, sociology, mathematics, statistics, anthropology, psychology, and policy; “Correlation does not equal causation,” is a common theme to much of the epidemiologic literature. For the epidemiologist, the key is in the term inference.

Can you not see here the common most and grave error in your logic, and in the logic of your sacred HIV nonsense? Epidemiology is a big word that encompasses a great deal. However, one can certainly see that from the mere definition one cannot just simply allow studies of epidemiology to make a 100% concrete proof of anything. Therefore your crybaby attitude of “BUT you guys don’t look at the studies shit” , is simply bull shit and seen as nothing more than a desperate attempt to hold on to HIV as if it’s something that fits your need to continue selling it.

Why are you not listening and thinking without any basic logic? Stop pissing in the wind John.

Posted by: carter | September 23, 2007 3:42 PM

You will have to better than that to fulfill Koch’s Prostulates. The article stated “most” cases it did not state 100%, which by the way is required. To cover this obvious flaw, a new term was invented for HIV-Negative cases, idiopathic CD4T lymphocytopenia.

The virus must be found freely in the fluids of the patient, it is not in anyone’s saliva, blood or other fluids. In fact PCR in required to even find remnants of anything.

The viurs must be taken out of the patient, be transferred to an animal species and the animal must develop AIDS. This has not happened with HIV, maybe similar viruses but not HIV.

Posted by: noreen | September 23, 2007 5:21 PM

Noreen,

Whether or not you accept CD4 counts as a good predictor of risk of opportunistic infection, how do you explain your personal health history of:

- Illness with AIDS defining OIs, low CD4 counts, high viral load, and HIV+ antibody test before HAART.

- After starting HAART and treating the OI’s your viral load dropped, and CD4s rose.

- Then after stopping HAART your viral load rose to 100,000 and CD4s started falling?

Isn’t this exactly what one would predict based on the current scientific understanding of HIV, AIDS and HAART?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 23, 2007 7:45 PM

DT, You said: About 15 years ago I was a volunteer in a lab study looking at CD4 variability through the day and from day to day. My counts ranged from 400 to 700.

OH MY GOD DT! You had CD4 counts of ONLY 400! Don’t you know that according to the “1993 Revised Classification System for HIV Infection”, http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/MMWRhtml/00018871.htm

By your OWN ADMISSION DT, You yourself had counts of less than 500 CD4 cells.

WITH ONLY 400 CD4 CELLS, YOU, DT, ARE GOING TO DIE OF AIDS AND YOU SHOULD BE TAKING AZT!!! Even the CDC absolutely agrees:

Measures of CD4+ T-lymphocytes are used to guide clinical and therapeutic management of HIV-infected persons (22). Antimicrobial prophylaxis and antiretroviral therapies have been shown to be most effective within certain levels of immune dysfunction (23-28). As a result, antiretroviral therapy should be considered for all persons with CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts of less than 500.

But since you DT, have NOT been taking your AZT for the last 15 years, it is HIGH TIME you get sick with AIDS and get on with your dying! Now take your damned AZT and antiretrovirals, DT, or get off the damned planet!

Posted by: Michael | September 23, 2007 7:52 PM

By the way, DT, I, just like you yourself said, “have no agenda except a desire to see people with ‘Low CD4 Counts’ do the right thing, yourself included.”

Posted by: Michael | September 23, 2007 7:59 PM

Noreen, have you ever imagined such absurdity or stupidity?

DT, who by the way is an HIV/AIDS clinician, has verified that as an HIV negative individual him/herself, DT has had results of only 400 CD4 cell counts which was proclaimed by the CDC as well into the immune deficient range of less than 500.

Further, the CDC itself recommends since 1993 that those individuals with less than 500 take antiretrovirals.

However, DT, as a clinician, does not and would not self prescribe nor take antiretrovirals for DT’s own low CD cell count, but is rather insistent that YOU and OTHERS SHOULD simply because you had a highly flawed HIV antibody test show as positive.

DT, a devout follower and believer in all of the edicts of the CDC, NIAIDS, and big pharma, would further seek to brainwash you into believing that DT’s own low CD counts are somehow meaningless because he/she has not had a positive HIV antibody test, BUT, your low CD counts, Noreen, mean to DT that you will sicken and die without the highly toxic meds that DT has pushed unthinkingly and gleefully onto many others after brainwashing them into believing they would die without them.

DT, what can I say? You are one sick puppy.

I can only imagine it is your own ego’s denial of culpability and your own ego’s guilt in the role you yourself have played in the disfigurement of many who were diagnosed as HIV and who you yourself peddled disfiguring drugs to, that further drives you to continue your ranting against the dissidents.

There is an old saying DT, that “one is only as sick as their secrets”.

So come clean DT. Tell someone, or tell us your dirty little shamefilled secret and clear your soul. How many have you helped to poison or helped to scare to death and disfigurement with your stubborn scared little ego’s own error in believing that HIV was the cause of AIDS?

Come clean DT. Tell someone. Seriously.

Do not agonize yourself into further insanity over it, DT. We all understand that at the time, you were doing the very best you could with what you believed was right.

The truth, as they say, shall set you free.

Posted by: Anonymous | September 23, 2007 8:42 PM

“E-LISA”: did you or did you not read Brad’s quote, above? I’ll repeat the good part for you.

the authors restricted their study to HIV+ individuals with CD4+ T-cell counts below 100 per microliter (ul), meaning that these patients were already severely immunocompromised. Many had CD4 counts below 50/ul.

You claim that despite Duesberg’s outright lies, which are repeatedly referenced by rethinkers as “proof” that healthy people are immediately killed by antiviral drugs, you still believe:

The mortality rate was still much higher on the drugs and much, much higher on early monotherapy in the US than in the 3rd. World countries overwhelmingly making up the global statistics

You can’t compare the Duesberg’s misrepresentation of data to “global statistics.” You have to compare the results of the study with results from cohorts with the same immunologic characteristics: people with CD4+ T-cell counts below 100.

Where’s your data, E-LISA?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 23, 2007 8:53 PM

Roy, going by your synopsis, then I should also have been very sick for the past two years because most of this time, my CD4’s have stayed in the eighties. We will never know what was normal for me prior to getting sick. Perhaps, mine have always been on the low side. This is why, none of this makes much sense according to the mainstream’s standards.

Personally, I was very sick mainly due to undiagnosed and untreatet medical conditions, unhealthy living habits, and past health issues. Due to all of the above, I proceeded to go downhill, which is not impossible to do when one is immune compromised. All of my conditions were around prior to the new classification of AIDS.

Posted by: noreen | September 23, 2007 9:02 PM

E-LISA simply can’t, or won’t read.

Posted by: Shalini | September 23, 2007 9:16 PM

The mortality rate was still much higher on the drugs and much, much higher on early monotherapy in the US than in the 3rd. World countries overwhelmingly making up the global statistics

Duesberg has been caught with his pants down again.
Why does Duesberg deliberately misrepresent these studies?
Why was the manuscript rejected by two high ranking journals?
Why was it finally published in a low impact factor journal where the corresponding editor was a friend?

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 23, 2007 9:47 PM

Noreen,

After reviewing the info on Koch’s Postulates Fulfilled you said:

You will have to better than that to fulfill Koch’s Prostulates. The article stated “most” cases it did not state 100%, which by the way is required. To cover this obvious flaw, a new term was invented for HIV-Negative cases, idiopathic CD4T lymphocytopenia.

I realize the essay is less than 1000 words, but I guess you somehow managed to miss the part that shows that HIV can be detected in 100% of AIDS patients.

The following link will take you to one of the papers that demonstrates this experimental fact:

Jackson JB, et al. (1988). J. Clin. Microbiol. 26:1416-1418.

Abstract: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 142 consecutive patients with antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) were cultured for HIV-1. All 72 patients with symptoms of HIV-1 infection were culture positive, as were 69 of 70 asymptomatic patients. Of the 142 patients, 132 (93%) were culture positive within 10 days after initiation of the culture.

If you read the paper, you will see that while HIV was cultured from 100% of symptomatic patients with antibodies to HIV, the virus was cultured from none of thirty patients who lacked antibodies to HIV.

This finding has been reproduced many times. For example: Jackson JB et al. (1990). Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 detected in all seropositive symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. J. Clin. Microbiol. 28:16-9.

Posted by: franklin | September 23, 2007 11:20 PM

After the numbers she copied-and-pasted from Duesberg were shown to be fudged, Lisa claims:

The mortality rate was still much higher on the drugs and much, much higher on early monotherapy in the US than in the 3rd. World countries overwhelmingly making up the global statistics

Do you have any evidence for this claim, Lisa?

Or is that just what you told yourself as you buried your head in the sand, little ostrich.

Posted by: franklin | September 23, 2007 11:54 PM

While we are on the subject of Duesberg’s deceptive 2003 paper look at this quote.

Even HIV-AIDS researchers have inadvertently confirmed our prediction of no AIDS in drug-free HIV-positives. For example, David Ho, signatory of the Durban Declaration, points out that in a group of “long-term survivors” of HIV studied in his lab, “none had received antiretroviral therapy” (Cao et al 1995). In a parallel publication, Pantaleo et al studying a group of long-term “non-progressors” of HIV have made the same observation (Pantaleo et al 1995).

Duesberg implies that HIV researchers studied LTNPs and found that they all had not taken ARTs. If you actually read the papers the truth is different from the picture Duesberg tries to paint. The selection criteria in these studies includes not having taken ARTs so it is hardly surprising that these people had not taken ARTs.

Cao Y, Quin L, Zhang L, Safrit J and Ho D D 1995 Virologic and Immunologic Characterization of Long-Term Survivors of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection; N. Engl. J. Med. 332 201­208
“Ten HIV-1-seropositive subjects from the New York metropolitan area were referred to us because they met our working definition of long-term survivors of HIV-1 infection: they had no symptoms, normal and stable CD4+ lymphocyte counts, no prolonged use of antiretroviral agents, and at least 12 years of infection.”

Pantaleo G, Menzo S, Vaccarezza M, Graziosi C, Cohen O J, Demarest J F, Montefiori D, Orenstein J M, Fox C, Schrager L K, Margolick J B, Buchbinder S, Giorgi J V and Fauci A S 1995 Studies in subjects with long-term nonprogressive human immunodeficiency virus infection; N. Engl. J. Med. 332 209­216
“The criteria used to define nonprogression included documented HIV infection for more than seven years, stable CD4+ T-cell counts greater than 600 per cubic millimeter, the absence of symptoms, and no antiretroviral therapy.”

It is not possible to conclude, as Duesberg would have his audience do, that they had not progressed to AIDS because they had not taken ARTs.

If Duesberg really has a case then why does he so blatantly misrepresent the literature? He obviously isn’t trying to convince people that are familiar with the literature. Who is he trying to convince?

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 12:43 AM

Brad,

The errors that you reported from Duesberg paper are minor errors, because correcting them would not change the main conclusions of the paper.

And therefore are you writing your post on these errors because you dont have anything to say about the major points that would be suggested by the authors, two of them being a) that standard ARV’s treatment accelerate AIDS, b) there is another way to treat AIDS patients, ?

I believe that these were the questions to answer if you wanted to discredit the authors.

Posted by: Braganza | September 24, 2007 4:55 AM

Elkie and the rest of you guys who poopoo’ed in your pants at the thought of the efficacy of your favorite drugs being questioned, I’ll give you the good part of Duesberg’s so called “misrepresentation”

“The largest and most influential of these surveys was
conducted by Palella et al (1998) who investigated in
1998 1255 anti-HIV drug-treated “patients, each of which
had at least one CD4+ count below 100″ from nine clinics
in the US.”

Doesn’t look to me like he was trying to anything there eh Elkie and “Brad”?

Duesberg then goes on to say all patients were “non-hospitalized”, AIDS free”. The illustrious ghostwriter of the AIDStruth smearjob you’re citing says that’s not true. Unfortunately he doesn’t tell us how far from the truth it is in numbers, hence I cannot do much more than point to the enormous US mortality rates, especially on the early monotherapy, compared to the global stats.

And Frankie the reference for the global stats was the Durban Declaration and the WHO. It’s right there in the piece I cut and pasted. HOW could you have missed it. Are you feeling quite well there buddy? Perhaps you need an Atripla or something to clear your head?

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 5:10 AM

These endless discussions over the question whether or not the equation HIV=Aids=Take_The_Toxic_Drugs is accurate or not really are far out and one day our children… no, too optimistic… our grand-grand-grand-grand-children, will be truly amazed reading them.

- Hey, look at this! It’s insane! Grand-grand-grand-grand-dad really believed that poison would help a starving person get back onto his feet! And he was not alone with his believe. Almost everybody did believe such nonsense. And to top it all, they insulted people who said “Give’em eat instead of drugs” and tried to curse them into jail!!!

Posted by: jspreen | September 24, 2007 5:24 AM

The errors that you reported from Duesberg paper are minor errors, because correcting them would not change the main conclusions of the paper.

Huhh? Misrepresenting the literature is a minor error? Calling it an error is charitable. I call it deliberate deception. If Duesberg has real evidence to support his claims why does he resort to blatant lies?

And therefore are you writing your post on these errors because you dont have anything to say about the major points that would be suggested by the authors, two of them being a) that standard ARV’s treatment accelerate AIDS, b) there is another way to treat AIDS patients, ?

The “evidence” that Duesberg uses in his attempt to demonstrate that ARVs accelerate/cause AIDS consists entirely of misrepresenting “orthodox” studies. The very studies that Duesberg cites actually contradict his assertions.

People are put on ARVs because they either have opportunistic infections or low CD4 counts. It is entirely fallacious to reason as Duesberg does that the ARVs cause the immune suppression. The immune suppression occurs before the ARVs. Unless the drugs have effects that travel back in time they cannot cause the immune suppression.

If you used Duesberg’s ‘logic’ you could argue that insulin injections cause diabetes.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 5:24 AM

Dr. Noble, If you’d care to read Duesberg’s paper he is so unscientific as to consider every AIDS case in the global stats an AIDS death whether the patient died or not. That is he geenrously counts all no-test clinical diagnoses of AIDS, all cases of CD counts below 200, and whatever elso goes into the WHO’s numbers, as an AIDS death. Certainly that’s going to artificially inflate the number of AIDS deaths globally, so how come you or the ghost smearer who critiqued the paper didn’t mention that?

Dr. Noble, I don’t kno why Duesberg’s paper was rejected by two high ranking journals, though I might have a suspicion. Why haven’t any of your own effusions appeared anywhere outside obscure blogs?

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 5:28 AM

Noreen, you cite the following as reasons you are a rethinker:

HIV has not been islolated in pure form

What do you mean by pure? If like other “rethinkers” you keep moving the isolation goalposts whenever someone cites an HIV isolation study, then no-one will ever find HIV in its “pure” form. You could easily do the same for other viruses like hepatitis, or influenza, or herpes. Do these not exist either?
If you think the countless EMs of HIV are not “pure” enough because there may be cellular contaminants in the samples, what is the next logical step? Answer – cloning of the virus. So this is done via bacterial plasmids, rendering the virus entirely free of cellular contaminants. This new HIV clone can productively infect new cells, undergoing further replication cycles producing new virions which under EM have identical ultrastructures to the original virus. The resultant viruses are neutralised by anti-HIV antibodies. Duesberg stated that this production of an infectious molecular clone of HIV was “the most rigorous isolation science has to offer for retroviruses”. This is a statement from the world’s foremost retroviral expert, remember? Still not pure enough for you? Then perhaps you would like to specify what you regard as “pure”, and I will make a prediction – whatever criteria you lay down for “pure” HIV, most other viruses will be rendered non-existent as well if the same standards are applied.

There hasn’t been one study that proves HIV causes AIDS

Many people here have shown you studies where infection directly results in immunodeficiency and AIDS-defining illnesses, more than sufficient to infer causality. These have been prospective clinical studies of exposed individuals (eg transfusion, needle stick), elegant animal studies showing profound immune changes in primates and SCID knockout mice, and laboratory studies showing the progressive immunological changes.
The HIV test is for antibodies and not an actual virus How profound – all serological tests are for antibodies, and not the organism. Your point?

Grade four events are real for HIV-Positives and so is liver disease, heart attacks, abnormal blood, anemia, buffalo humps, neuropathy, and diarrhea.

No-one has tried to deny the sometimes severe side effects of medications (but rethinkers exaggerate these, and often lie about their incidence, causation and severity). Yes, severe side effects can occur. The fact that they do occur says nothing however about the existence of HIV or AIDS, in the same way as chemotherapy side effects do not prove leukemia is a lie, or that insulin hypoglycemia indicates diabetes does not exist. Straw man.

Viral loads are only 6 to 8% accurate

Not sure what this one means – do you have a reference? If you mean false positive PCRs occur, sure, this afflicts all PCR-based technology. But it is a lab “error”, and simply repeating the assay, or using a different recombinant technology like bDNA will eliminate the problem. It does not occur, as you imply, 92%-98% of the time. More like 1%. If you want an analogy – try pregnancy tests. These have a false positive/negative rate. Finding someone is false positive does not mean pregnancy does not exist. Tests are always repeated and false results are rapidly eliminated from the system.

CD4’s are not the best yardstick for health

I agree, but there is a clear correlation between declining CD4 levels and ill health. Even rethinkers think having low CD4s/white blood cells are bad for health. If they didn’t, why would they make such an issue of the fact that some of the ART drugs such as AZT can cause this, thereby “causing” AIDS. Here the Perth Group and Duesberg are in complete agreement Do you disagree with them? CD4s are a surrogate marker for cellular immune deficiency. They are not a perfect or ideal marker, but are a simply measured index. Functional T cell studies would be a better index, but who can afford $300 a pop for these?

Gallo only found 40% of patients with HIV

I am sure Chris Noble has addressed this before, refuting the figures you cite. Recall that lab technology has moved on a bit since 1983. Anyway, virus can be found in all AIDS patients using current techniques.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=269529&blobtype=pdf

Gallo was investigated for scientific misconduct

Is this a variation of your “presidential pardon” fallacy? And was Gallo found guilty? Was it something that was meant to have any direct bearing on the existence of HIV? Was this bit about where he was meant to have “stolen” the virus from Montagnier? If so then you must accept that (a) HIV exists, and (b) HIV was isolated by Montagnier. How do you hold these 2 totally contradictory views in your head at the same time?

Nancy Padian could not find one couple who the negative partner converted to HIV-Positive and the majority of AIDS cases are still predominately in the male population.

Oh no, not again! Padian found no seroconversions over about a 9 month average in a group of serodiscordant couples who had already demonstrated their inability to transmit the virus to their partner in the preceeding years (in other words they were already pre-selected as poor “transmitters” of HIV by sexual contact. They were counselled about safe sex and had a high rate of condom use. Do you recall this virus is not highly infectious usually (as it is in a newly acquired seroconverter) and it only transmits itself on average 1 time in 500? Padian herself has rejected the rethinkers’ misinterpretation of her study. Why would you choose to believe what an unqualified rethinker concludes about a scientific study rather than what the scientific researcher herself says about her work. Is it because you want to disbelieve?
So most AIDS patients are males (at least in the Western World). Is that really so surprising when we know that gay men are a prime risk group? What do you say about other sexually-transmitted infections that predominate in males (syphilis, hepatitis B)? Are they non-existent too? Are you so entrenched in your preconceptions about this matter that you cannot ask yourself for a moment what you would expect to find with infections of this nature?

You say our math does not add up, but every time we patiently show the rethinkers that 2+2=4, you simply alter the question.

Posted by: DT | September 24, 2007 5:33 AM

Dr. Noble if Duesberg’s LTNPs irk you so, you are welcome to provide your own large cohorts of LTNPs consistently on early monotherapy to counter Duesberg’s (almost) drug free examples.

You can start with your friend Mundt here, who came off so convincingly, but then unfortunately clammed up and disappeared just as he was about to become a scientific celebrity.
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=read-response&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256#r1777

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 5:42 AM

Doesn’t look to me like he was trying to anything there eh Elkie and “Brad”?

Do you think that comparing mortality in a cohort of people infected with HIV and CD4 counts less than 100 (50% less than 50) and estimates of people at all stages of HIV infection is valid?

Duesberg blathers on about matched cohorts. Are the cohorts in this comparison matched? The patients in the Pallela study all had severe immune suppression. Duesberg compares this subgroup with all people worldwide with different lengths of HIV infection and different degrees of immune suppression. Honest comparison? Hardly.

The Weekly Epidemiological Report that Duesberg cites actually gives 3 million for the estimate of mortality caused by HIV. Duesberg just can’t be honest about anything.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 5:52 AM

Dr. Noble if Duesberg’s LTNPs irk you so, you are welcome to provide your own large cohorts of LTNPs consistently on early monotherapy to counter Duesberg’s (almost) drug free examples.

What irk’s me is Duesberg’s deceptive presentation of the literature.

LTNPs are not given antiretrovirals because they do not progress. Their CD4 counts do not fall to levels that are consistent with the recommendations for initiating ART. This is the direction of causality.

a) lack of progression -> not given ART

Duesberg abuses logic by arguing the reverse.

b) not given ART -> lack of progession

The same perverted logic could argue that insulin causes diabetes and ambulances cause road accidents.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 6:03 AM

Dr. Noble Duesberg doesn’t claim there’s symmetry between the two “groups”, or that the comparisonis supposed to be taken as scietific proof. In fact he clearly states:

But, in the absence of untreated control groups, the effects of the new anti-HIV drugs on the morbidity and mortality of HIV-positive recipients can not be determined
scientifically from the results of these surveys.

If you claim that Duesberg’s reference. . .

However, the average annual AIDS mortality of all HIVpositives on this planet [including the minority that is on anti-HIV drugs (The Durban Declaration 2000)] can be
estimated for 2000, the year that falls in between the two
surveys, based on data provided by the WHO and the
Durban Declaration: The WHO and the Declaration report
in 2000 34×3 million “living with HIV”, and the WHO
reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000 (World Health
Organization 2001b) (obtained by subtracting the WHO’s
cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000is not correct

…you have to come up with a quote and a reference of your own, didn’t you know? Perhaps it’s time you take your Atripla as well and get out of the house, do some gardening, Dr. Noble, because you are getting foggier by the minute.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 6:08 AM

Ah I see so what you’re saying, Dr. Noble is, forst of all that you camn’t find LTNPs consistently on monotherapy, secondly that none of the drug free LTNPs hav had CD4 counts below the recommended ARV starting point? That’s a bold claim, Dr. Noble, especially since even the first of the two studies you reference imply that some of the subjects indeed had been on ARVs:

“Cao Y, Quin L, Zhang L, Safrit J and Ho D D 1995 Virologic and Immunologic Characterization of Long-Term Survivors of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection; N. Engl. J. Med. 332 201­208

“Ten HIV-1-seropositive subjects from the New York metropolitan area were referred to us because they met our working definition of long-term survivors of HIV-1 infection: they had no symptoms, normal and stable CD4+ lymphocyte counts, no prolonged use of antiretroviral agents, and at least 12 years of infection

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 6:16 AM

Dr. Noble Duesberg doesn’t claim there’s symmetry between the two “groups”, or that the comparisonis supposed to be taken as scietific proof. In fact he clearly states:

Why do you continue to come up with this bullshit? Duesberg argues that this comparison proves that antiretrovirals increase mortality.

Contrary to these claims, the controlled trials and uncontrolled surveys listed above prove that anti-HIV drugs (possibly in conjunction with recreational drugs) increase the mortality of HIV positives 4- to 6fold. It would appear that anti-HIV drugs are prescriptions for, rather than treatments of AIDS.

What does Duesberg mean by prove?

..you have to come up with a quote and a reference of your own, didn’t you know?

(World Health Organization 2001b) “The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to claim a large number of lives, with an estimated 3 million deaths during 2001.”

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 6:29 AM

How do you explain your high HIV viral load and low CD4 count prior to HAART, reduction of HIV viral load to 0 and increase in CD4 to 240 while on HAART, then after quitting your medications your HIV viral load shot straight back up to 100,000 and CD4s have been dropping continuously to about 80 (I think you said).

Oh so simple Roy. During HAART she was taking frequent trips to the hospital. Remember, loneliness causes AIDS? At the hospital gets plenty of human-on-human interaction. Now she’s off HAART, doing her own thing, less interaction, the loneliness is killing her!

IF YOU ALREADY ASSUME SOMETHING TO BE TRUE YOU CAN NOT CONFIRM ANYTHING, FOR YOU NEVER QUESTIONED THE PREMISE, and assumed it to be true from the get go, and were only looking for evidence to support your hypothesis

Umm…Did you not attend middle school science class? You state hypothesis TO TEST them. That is the whole point.

noreen:

… the facts speak for themselves …

You bet they do! Like these facts:
noreen: I read this on Alive & Well
Me: Noreen, do you get all of your info from denialist websites or do you actually verify what they say?
You: I don’t goto denialist websites.
Me: But you just said you do, and if I google what you wrote it comes up on Alive & Well and Virusmyth.
You: I don’t go there, I come to all my conclusions on my own.
Me: Then where did you get reference X? It only shows up on denialist websites.
You:
Me: Well?
You:
Me: 3rd time the charm?
You:
Me: Asking again….
You: HIV doesn’t cause AIDS!

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 10:54 AM

Why do you continue to come up with this bullshit? Duesberg argues that this comparison proves that antiretrovirals increase mortality.

Dr. Noble, didn’t I tell you to get some fresh air? Duesberg does not say THIS specific comparison proves his point. He says, “the controlled trials AND uncontrolled surveys listed above prove. . .” In other words the totality of examples examined, proves, by people like Franklin and Tara’s own conversion calculus for correlation and causation, that the drugs do more harm than good.

“The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to claim a large number of lives, with an estimated 3 million deaths during 2001.”

It’s possible WHO estimates 3 million deaths during 2001, but Duesberg is talking about the actual numbers for 2000
WHO reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000 (World Health Organization 2001b)(obtained by subtracting the WHO’s
cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000

The blue Murchian skies are beckoning Dr. Noble so hurry up, don’t waste any more of your time in front of all those little jitterbugging letters and numbers on the screen.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 11:27 AM

Apy, you just don’t get it. I had many SYMPTOMS, that it the key to this not some unvalidated Antibody Test nor meaningless viral load test either. These tests are the problems with AIDS. If these test were no longer used then many of the AIDS cases would go away but we can’t have that now can we? We must keep them along with adding more diseases to the pot and let’s just add the statistics cumulatively too to make it look worse. Doesn’t it strike all of the supporters of AIDS that persons with high viral loads and low CD4’s are healthy? It would be obvious to a fifth-grader that this is faulty. The reason that many of us are healthy is because both of the above tests are not indicators of health and because we have good, health habits therefore no symptoms. If one cleans up their act, then AIDS will go away as many are proving this to be true in reality.

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 11:49 AM

Well, the nice part about the logic you have given is it makes you completely correct. Unfortunately I’m going to have to respond with the oh-so-witty retort: No noreen, you don’t get it.

I have never argued your medical history, purely your complete lack of rational though and ignoring questions you don’t seem to be able to answer. Every time I post about how you completely contradict yourself and fail to explain your contradictions you only seem able to retort “I was an AIDS patient and I am healthy, therefore given my statistically significant self AIDS does not exist!” or some such equally stupid argument. Maybe instead of looking at who posted a comment, checking to see if is from jspreen, carter, cooler, or Michael and if not just giving the same tired routine you could actually read what people say and respond to that.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 12:11 PM

Apy, I am not goint to get into a pissing contest with you. It’s sounds like you just want to argue every point against the rethinkers. Some points may be valid on both sides of the fence but the bottom line should be who is surviving better, those on the antiretrovirals, those off of them and those on LDN? The proof in all of this is in the health of the patient. Do you wish to argue this too?

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 12:25 PM

Some points may be valid on both sides of the fence but the bottom line should be who is surviving better, those on the antiretrovirals, those off of them and those on LDN? The proof in all of this is in the health of the patient. Do you wish to argue this too?

It depends on what your peer-reviewed studies say. Do you have links showing who is surviving better, those on ARV’s or those on LDN?

It’s sounds like you just want to argue every point against the rethinkers.

Yes, asking you to explain a question you refuse to answer about how you come to your conclusions is so very argumentative.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 12:48 PM

As of now, there is only one study currently being done and some earlier studies have been done by Dr. Bihari if you care to check out lowdosenaltrexone.org. One thing is for sure though, grade four events and other side effects do not occur with LDN and to me it is a no-brainer!

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 1:07 PM

As of now, there is only one study currently being done and some earlier studies have been done by Dr. Bihari if you care to check out lowdosenaltrexone.org.

So what ‘facts’ are you referring to? So far I see one fact: you take LDN. You have no statistical evidence that it is keeping you healthy. Even if it is keeping you healthy you have no idea if it was due to combination with the ARV’s you had taken or if it is specific to a strain of HIV or when in the timeline of an AIDS/HIV sufferer to take it.

My end point here is:
Even on the best case that LDN is an AIDS wunderdrug, or even slightly better than what we currently have, you have no evidence that it does anything or when is the best time to take it or how to effectively use it.

One thing is for sure though, grade four events and other side effects do not occur with LDN and to me it is a no-brainer!

Do you get grade four events on Claritin? You might want to start taking that too. But seriously, that information is only beneficial if you can prove my questions above.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 1:42 PM

Apy, I am alive and breathing, if that isn’t evidence then what is? I was only on the antiretrovirals two months with LDN. For twenty months now, I have only been on LDN. I doubt very seriously that the antiretrovirals are having any effect on my health now. And LDN only has one, minor side effect, when first started it may cause sleeplessness in some. I did not experience this. How can you compare this drug to grade four events. It is one of the all-time safest drugs with a long-proven track record.

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 2:04 PM

elisa says
Duesberg is talking about the actual numbers for 2000

ha ha! or like spreen says hi hi hi.
Duesberg gets nothing right!!

Not new AIDS cases in 2000
Not actual number of new AIDS cases
Not even the right number!!

What Duesberg says, 2003, p. 400
the WHO reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000

No they don’t. This numbers the difference in cum. reported cases in 2000 and cum. reported in 1999. You can’t get total new cases for 2000 unless you know how many in reported cases died.

Second thing is, this number is NOT all new aids cases 2000. IT’s just REPORTED cases of AIDS. If you think every single case of AIDS around world got reported in 2000 or 2001 or 2006 or whenever your very gullable!!

There’s AIDS cases, ok, only
SOME of them get diagnosed, ok, and only
SOME of the diagnosed AIDS cases get reported. In some places maybe over 90%, in some countries its like 10%.

OK, third things is, Duesberg didn’t even get the number right! He’s even worse than Noreen and Carter they can cut and paste even if they can’t admit where they got it!

Duesberg says,
471,451 AIDS cases
but the WHO says
an increase of 471 457
(RELEVE EPIDEMIOLOGIQUE HEBDOMADAIRE, No 49, 7 DÉCEMBRE 2001)

Who cares right I mean its not a big difference but it kinda lets you know how good Duesberg is at what he does. He can’t even copy a six digit number right sheesh!

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 2:22 PM

Noreen, I am alive and breathing too and I take LDO (low dose oatmeal) every morning. Am I to argue LDO is what is keeping me healthy? No! Just because LDN has a scientificy name doesn’t mean it is actually doing anything. You have no actual evidence that your situation is the direct result of the LDN. You have no control and you have no statistical evidence. I’m not sure why this is so difficult to get across but: something happening for you DOES NOT imply any statistical significants, at all. Again, I did not tell you to stop taking it, I did not say that it DOES NOT work, I stated that you have no evidence that it DOES work. There is a difference.

Read what I posted again, I did NOT say that the ARV’s were still having an effect on your health, I stated that you have no proof that the overlap between them did not cause something else to happen that is helping you and you have no evidence that LDN alone is the cause of your health. The very point is that you are giving LDN all this praise but you don’t know if that is what is helping you. You complain and complain that HIV = AIDS is unscientific and pure dogma and has no proof nor a paper proving HIV causes AIDS but you are a complete hypocrite when you tell everyone the wonders of LDN when you don’t have any actual proof that it is doing anything. You don’t believe HIV causes AIDS? You think that because you are healthy on LDN that is the litmus test for its benefits? So what do you say to all those people that say “I am HIV+ and I have AIDS, therefore HIV causes AIDS”. Is your solitary opinion all the more meaningful than theirs?

How can you compare this drug to grade four events. It is one of the all-time safest drugs with a long-proven track record.

Read what I said again, I did not compare this drug to grade four events. I said that LDN not causing grade four events is completely useless bit of news unless LDN is actually proven to be helpful to an AIDS patient.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 2:27 PM

Dear Apy,

Naltrexone inhibit NF-kappaB, which is know to enhance virus expression. Others drugs systems have been proposed to treat AIDS using this pathway (see for example US Patent 6514955).

It looks that are far lower secondary effects on LDNaltrexone than to any ARV’s.

I understand that Noreen wants to say that she can control the likeliness to progress to AIDS by inhibiting NF- kappaB, this sounds logic and there is no need to make fun of her.

Bt the way the US patent 6514955 has been writen by a professor of pharmacology, who wrote the chapter on antiretrovirals in a standard pharmacology university textbook, so you could have a look to the patent to understand the argument better.

Posted by: Braganza | September 24, 2007 2:31 PM

I am not making fun of her. There is a world of difference between “likeliness” of working and “actually” working in a real world biological system. Even if it theoretically should work like a charm, that in no way proves that something in any way is going to actually work. But that is not what noreen is doing. She is saying LDN works, even with no proof that it actually works besides that she feels healthy.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 2:39 PM

Aids questioner “cooler” is a “Ron Paul boy”??!!!

Is it your job to spot out the political contradictions of denialism luv?

Keep up the good work, Adele, I’m beginning to understand now.

If a libertarian and a liberal question Aids, they are both obliged to get their differing political positions aligned before they post here.

Posted by: Mr. Natural | September 24, 2007 2:48 PM

Ah I see Adele, So if there were a cumulative 34 million AIDS cases last year, but 34 million die we’re left with million cumulative AIDS cases, right? So how many cumulative AIDS cases are there in the US stats today?

Posted by: Epidemiology-Lisa | September 24, 2007 3:01 PM

Oops one more time:

So if there were a cumulative 34 million AIDS cases last year, but 34 million die we’re left with ZERO cumulative AIDS cases, right?

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 3:04 PM

“I am glad that Mark Wainberg raised the issue about whether the Constitution should be changed to stop medical endangerment.”

Wow, someone here’s been finally honest enough to just come out and say it.

That’s all it takes for you, hysterical Elkie, the mystical term _medical endangerment_ which of course is a term that has a precise and rigorous definition, right, mister let’s-just-turn-our decisions-about-our-bodies-over-to-the-authorities because, surely as they’re now showing us every day they know best …

Posted by: Mr. Natural | September 24, 2007 3:14 PM

noreen: I read this on Alive & Well
apy: Noreen, do you get all of your info from denialist websites or do you actually verify what they say?
noreen: I don’t goto denialist websites.

Now what kind of bullshit is that, apy ? Where do you get your information from? And then, once you’ve got your information, do you verify that it’s all true?
Yes? OK, then how in the world can you verify that something is definitely true? Do you go to the end of questioning? You do? But there is no end to questioning. Always, long before you can get somewhere near the end of questioning, you stop questioning, because you think you’ve got all the answers. And why do you think that? Because the three billion questions you don’t ask, they don’t occur to you because they are answered by what you already firmly believe in before you started to question.

Really, it’s a mystery to me why you folks try so hard to make Noreen doubt and are so eager to steer her back into the hell of the fear of HIV and Aids. Really, I don’t get it man.

Posted by: jspreen | September 24, 2007 3:19 PM

DR. Mark “Natural” says

If a libertarian and a liberal question Aids, they are both obliged to get their differing political positions aligned before they post here.

of course not “luv”!! Just see these nutso militia black helicopter ron paul guys got their own reasons for questioning AIDS that’re alot different from say a gay man in New York whose got HIV who questions AIDS bc he’s dealing with his health issues a really common way by denying them.

See theres lots of people around the ron pauls and other freaks who don’t like gay men and don’t want them to be healthy and don’t want their precioussss tax $$ used on anything that might include gay people not dying and that’s why they question AIDS.

But I bet you like carters new lord and savior to. Henry Buaer the man who said we should take away free speech for gay people so they don’t spread look it up on aids truth.

I think it’s very difficult to draw a line between free speech about civil rights for gays and the tendency for the life-style to be presented as something that it would be perfectly all right for anyone to choose.

You’re a rethinker for your health? OK, I respect it, like Noreen. You don’t know what your talking about but that’s your choice. So why do you get all luvy with Duesberg and Bauer after all the stuff they’ve said? Would you take a word of that crap from a HIV scientisT?

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 3:30 PM

“‘Rethinkers’ make money from the vulnerable people they exploit; their propaganda could be, but often is not, restricted under commercial speech regulations.’

So now your sounding like a quackbuster eh, Elkie. I’m sure you must be quite proud that natural healers that have cured cancer but violated the “standard medical practice laws” get hard time in prison.

You’re blathering on about this medical endangerment but what about the 100,000 plus every year who die from iatrogenic medicine?

Posted by: Mr. Natural | September 24, 2007 3:35 PM

Apy, so what do you attribute my good fortunate too, luck? I don’t believe so. Common sense would dictate that all the good, positive influences in my life would be the answer, including LDN. Do you not believe Dr. Bahari’s success with treating AIDS patients with LDN or is your mind so closed that you will not accept anything but antiretrovirals?

So my viral load of >100,000, the limit of where mine is tested it could be much higher, has spontaneously mutated to a harmless variety of HIV. Which is it Apy, harmless HIV or other factors are keeping it at bay?

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 3:39 PM

jspreen,
I really cannot follow what you are attempting to say here. If someone states that a paper makes a certain claim, are you suggesting that is no way to verify that the paper actually makes the statement? It may take more work to verify that what the paper claims actually happens repeatably, but reading a paper is not some metaphysical intangible action requires a deep spiritual connection in order to experience. Note, my statement to noreen did not ask if she knew the content of the paper is true, but asked if she verified what the website states it claimed.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 3:44 PM

“No, Carter, AZT’s side effects are not indistinguishable from AIDS. That’s just another Duesberg distortion.”

Elkie darling, perhaps you can clear this up for us on the biochemical level. How Duesberg has distorted the biochemical argument in Inventing the AIDS Virus, and of course, you’re stinging rebuttal.

And Adele, who’s an expert on polymerase enzymes, can explain the technical terms for us.

Posted by: Mr. Natural | September 24, 2007 3:44 PM

thanks tony-lisa, man I deserved it!!

Cumulative is cumulative doesn’t change with death, dumb me.

So Duesberg number was diff in cum. reported 2000 minus cum. reported 1999 and that should be total reported 2000.

It’s still not right this is the “Actual number” of AIDS in 2000 or “Actual number” of new AIDS cases in 2000 its just the ones that got reported a minority.

AND Duesberg still didn’t copy the number right.

Deniosaurs I’ll admit it when I make a mistake and I hope you tell me when I do. Why doesn’t Duesberg?

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 3:47 PM

AIDS denialism–in many cases, in my opinion should be. “Rethinkers” make money from the vulnerable people they exploit; their propaganda could be, but often is not, restricted under commercial speech regulations.

What are you talking about, ElkMountainMan? …Vulnerable people they exploit…
But it’s the other way around, yo dummy. The vulnerable people are those who swallow main stream propaganda hook, line and sinker with their dusty brain on zero activity. Anyone listening to a rethinker, can only do so if he found the use of his own brain again, after having cleaned up the dust.

The I_saw_it_on_TV_so_it’s_true hillbillies, there are your vulnerable people. Don’t worry about rethinkers me boy, they don’t need speech regulations at all, they can sort out the information quite well for themselves.

Posted by: jspreen | September 24, 2007 3:48 PM

Note, my statement to noreen did not ask if she knew the content of the paper is true, but asked if she verified what the website states it claimed.

Ok, I got you wrong. But do you really want to stop that close from the beginning?

Posted by: jspreen | September 24, 2007 3:52 PM

so what do you attribute my good fortunate too, luck?

I’m not foolish enough to contribute your good fortune to anything, I’m clearly stating that we don’t know what it is and it’s important to find out so we can reproduce it.

Do you not believe Dr. Bahari’s success with treating AIDS patients with LDN or is your mind so closed that you will not accept anything but antiretrovirals?

What successes? You said we don’t have any studies completed and you only know of one study in the works. Does Bahari have a control group? Has he submitted his paper to any journals? Gotten it peer reviewed? Gotten any form of review on it? Have you given his work the thorough due-diligence that you give Alive & Well’s claims about Amy Justice? What do you want me to say here noreen? You have proven yourself completely incapable of verifying any fact you report to us. Short memory? Let’s not forget your “Clinton pardoned Gallo” miss and your complete miss on Amy Justice. What am I supposed to think here? Oh noreen made a few minor mistakes in the past but I’ll take her word this time? Not a chance.

So my viral load of >100,000, the limit of where mine is tested it could be much higher, has spontaneously mutated to a harmless variety of HIV. Which is it Apy, harmless HIV or other factors are keeping it at bay?

Again, I don’t know! That is why I’m suggesting some work be done to determine it. But sitting around telling everyone here that questions what you say that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS because there is no paper that proves it and then telling them that LDN helps AIDS patients when there are absolutely no studies on it in regards to AIDS is not consistent or rational.

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 3:55 PM

jspreen

Ok, I got you wrong. But do you really want to stop that close from the beginning?

What is your point? If noreen can’t even verify a fact one degree of separation away how do you expect her to verify an entire story?

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 3:56 PM

apy and noreen,

i just made a mistake too. I didn’t read something right and tony-lisa caught me. He was right on that one but I was right and Duesberg was wrong on the other two. I admitted my mistake.

Noreen admitted she mistook the thing about the Clinton pardon. She read it somewhere on the net didn’t confirm it.

I don’t remember did Noreen say anything ever about Amy Justice? Maybe because she doesn’t know enough about amy justice work to say one way or the other. So she just copies virusmyth or someone what they say about Amy Justice. But you can’t admit your wrong on that one, noreen because its so important to your beliefs. Amy Justice was the one proved protease inhibitors kill most AIDS patients right? WEll she never said that and her work dosen’t support it its just what you WANT to believe. But the good thing about only reading virusmyth is you don’t have to admit your wrong. ever!! As far as you know maybe Amy Justice did say those things!

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 4:04 PM

apy and noreen,

i just made a mistake too. I didn’t read something right and tony-lisa caught me. He was right on that one but I was right and Duesberg was wrong on the other two. I admitted my mistake.

Noreen admitted she mistook the thing about the Clinton pardon. She read it somewhere on the net didn’t confirm it.

I don’t remember did Noreen say anything ever about Amy Justice? Maybe because she doesn’t know enough about amy justice work to say one way or the other. So she just copies virusmyth or someone what they say about Amy Justice. But you can’t admit your wrong on that one, noreen because its so important to your beliefs. Amy Justice was the one proved protease inhibitors kill most AIDS patients right? WEll she never said that and her work dosen’t support it its just what you WANT to believe. But the good thing about only reading virusmyth is you don’t have to admit your wrong. ever!! As far as you know maybe Amy Justice did say those things!

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 4:04 PM

sorry I meant did noreen ever admit she was wrong about Amy Justice?

Posted by: Adele | September 24, 2007 4:06 PM

I believe that the info on Justice was from a university site. Dr. Bahari has results posted on the LDN site if you will go to it. I would suggest that you contact Dr. Zagon, listed on the site, he is the brillant researcher, who discovered the use of LDN for immune-compromised individuals. Currently, Dr. Gluck is the moderator for the site and you can contact him or Dr. Bahari’s assistant as the good doctor Bahari is retired due to an injury. If you really want to learn about LDN, you can go to the conference next month and get some info straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak.

Posted by: noreen | September 24, 2007 4:11 PM

I believe that the info on Justice was from a university site.

Could you find that site again please?

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 4:24 PM

I checked the archive. noreen originally gives:

http://www.whatisaids.com/wwwboard/messages/109.html

as her source of info on Amy Justice. After Adele shows what Dr Justice’s papers really say she retorts with “It was on a university website too, Alive & Well is just the first one I came across”. This response has several holes in it. One being, how do you know it’s on a university site but can’t provide the link, just a vague reference to it? How do you know it’s on a university website but use the Alive & Well one anyways, since many people here obviously take A&W with a grain of salt? And finally, why does it not show up on any university websites when you google it?

Posted by: apy | September 24, 2007 4:33 PM

Adele, Of course I can accept you misread or got confused and leave it at that without questioning your general ability to read and understand. It happens to everybody here all the time (yes even to Chris Noble). The sad thing is precisely that in this atmosphere one has to be afraid of admitting it.
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/09/loneliness_causes_aids_claims.php#comment-577733

Nobody jumped on you for it and nobody will compare that with the barrage fom different(?) people like Brad, ElkMountainMan, Shalini, Noble who all wanted to join in the massacre when they thought they’d caught me/Duesberg above. . . And by the way, Duesberg clearly DID get the Canadian study wrong taking the mortality at 28 months as if it were 12. I have no problems admitting that.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 4:57 PM

Dr. Noble, didn’t I tell you to get some fresh air? Duesberg does not say THIS specific comparison proves his point. He says, “the controlled trials AND uncontrolled surveys listed above prove. . .” In other words the totality of examples examined, proves, by people like Franklin and Tara’s own conversion calculus for correlation and causation, that the drugs do more harm than good.

Stop playing silly wordgames. No matter how much you twist and turn it is not possible to honestly draw the conclusions that Duesberg makes from the data he presents. No matter how you reinterpret the scriptures Duesberg does make the comparison between the mortality of patients with low CD4 counts on HAART and those with higher CD4 counts.

The studies by Margaret Fischl do not support his conclusion. In fact they reefute it. The Concorde trial also demonstrates that AZT does not cause AIDS. The delayed group still progressed to AIDS despite not taking AZT. That leaves the studies by Palella et al and Hogg et al and Duesberg’s fanciful calculation from global estimates.

Nothing in the data that Duesberg presents allows him to draw the conclusion that ARVs cause AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 24, 2007 6:12 PM

The body.com has several article about Amy Justice, which was probably one of the sources where I saw it. I do not frequent most rethinkers sites because if you check them, you will find that there is not much new information on them. I prefer university sites, normal AIDS sites and AIDS support groups, which tend to have a wealth of info.

Posted by: noreen Martin – the rock | September 24, 2007 6:17 PM

Epidemiology-Lisa,

Despite your accusing me and others of a figurative massacre, I do appreciate your comment. On a science blog, everyone will make a mistake some time, as you have correctly observed. We should all be able to admit our own mistakes.

Duesberg doesn’t make mistakes on blogs, he makes mistakes in the scientific literature. But Duesberg’s “mistakes” are sometimes more than mistakes. The one Brad “barraged” you about is one of them.

I’m not sure you fully understand the blatant way Duesberg lied in this example. Going back to the Journal of Biosci 2003 paper, Duesberg wrote this:

The largest and most influential of these surveys was
conducted by Palella et al (1998) who investigated in
1998 1255 anti-HIV drug-treated “patients, each of which
had at least one CD4+ count below 100″ from nine clinics
in the US. However, all of these “patients” were
“nonhospitalized”, AIDS-free subjects. “Patients with a
diagnosis of cytomegalovirus retinitis or M. aviarum
complex disease before study entry or during the first 30
days of follow-up and patients with active P. carinii
pneumonia at the beginning of follow-up were excluded.”

Duesberg’s crystal clear point: the patients weren’t “patients” until they were exposed to ARVs.

Brad showed us via AIDS Truth that this is a lie. Epidemiology-Lisa, please read the Palella, FJ, et al article in the NEJM, 1998. The title is “Declining morbidity and mortality among patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus infection. HIV Outpatient Study Investigators.” When you read the paper, you’ll notice a few things about the 1255 people with AIDS:

They are not all “anti-HIV drug-treated” (Duesberg says they are)
They are not all healthy (Duesberg says they are)
No one was excluded from the study because of having an OI (Duesberg says they are)
And to say every sick person was excluded at the start of the study Duesberg has to doctor the methods section. He alters a sentence from the paper in the time-honored tradition of:

A: “I like to think that Nazis will never get power again.”
B: ‘A’ has shown a clear preference for far-right politics, commenting, “I like…Nazis.”

Epidemiology-Lisa, do you deny Duesberg’s manipulation? Do you think there is any way to explain it other than deception?

Of course, I can understand Duesberg’s urge to vandalize the article. Palella et al was very, very bad news for Duesberg’s drugs=AIDS theory:
The highest mortality rate is for patients who don’t take any ARVs. The next-highest is in monotherapy patients. The more drugs in the combination, the better the patients’ rates. That’s true for morbidity, too. Patients on combinations had lowest OIs.

There’s so much more that’s wrong with Duesberg’s analysis, but I’ll leave some for someone else. E-Lisa, can you recognize what Duesberg did?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 24, 2007 7:01 PM

Wall Street Journal
AIDS Effort Suffers Big Blow
As Merck Vaccine Fails
By MARILYN CHASE and MARK SCHOOFS
September 22, 2007; Page A2

In a major setback, one of the leading experimental AIDS vaccines not only failed to prevent test subjects from becoming infected with HIV, but it didn’t offer any indication it might delay the onset of full-blown AIDS,
which had been a key hope.

The collapse of the trial leaves Merck & Co., which had spent a decade developing the vaccine, with no remaining prospects in the global hunt for an AIDS immunization. The vaccine was tested in a network funded by the National Institutes of Health.

“We’ve been kicked in the teeth,” said Bruce Walker,….

(well you didn’t listen when we dissidents kicked you in the ass, maybe a kick in the teeth will help you pay closer attention)

….a veteran AIDS researcher at Harvard University who wasn’t involved in the study. Lawrence Corey, a leader of the NIH-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network, said he was “mourning.”

(So am I, mourning all of the people you morons already scared and poisoned to death)

The results are particularly disappointing because it is widely agreed that only a vaccine could end the epidemic (of scaring and poisoning people to death. Last year, more than four million people world-wide contracted (no, dummy, they were falsely diagnosed as having contracted) HIV, the virus that (only fools still believe in this slogan) causes AIDS, and nearly three million died, according to United Nations estimates. Almost 40 million people are currently living with (a faulty diagnosis of) HIV.

But researchers cautioned against overreacting. Merck’s vaccine is one of many in or heading into clinical trials, (oh Gawd, here we go again) and different types of vaccines are known to stimulate different kinds of immunity. For example, an experimental immunization now in human trials that was developed by the HIV Vaccine Research Center of the NIH had shown more-promising results in monkey trials than did the Merck vaccine.

“It isn’t the end of the line,” said Mitchell Warren, (as long as taxpayers keep throwing money at these morons) executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, a New York group advocating prevention. Merck’s data “aren’t the answers we wanted, but they will help
improve our other vaccine candidates.”

Tuesday, the trial was stopped early by independent overseers known as the Data & Safety Monitoring Board. Comparing two groups — those who received the vaccine and those who received a placebo — the overseers determined
there was virtually no statistical difference in infection rates between them, indicating the vaccine wasn’t working. Also, the amount of HIV (mistakenly believed to be) in the blood of those who did get infected, a (false) predictor of how fast a person will get full-blown AIDS, was virtually the same in each group.

The ultimate fear among researchers is that the whole theory underlying the Merck vaccine might be flawed, which, if true, could doom an entire class of experimental vaccines.

(No duhhh! Of course the ENTIRE theory underlying HIV and HIV vaccines is flawed. But these fools will need a few more lifetimes to figure that out. Maybe if they had an actual virus that was doing something to Tcells, they might be able to create a real vaccine.)

Most classical vaccines, such as those against smallpox or polio, stimulate the body to produce antibodies that ward off infection. (but of course, that requires there to be a real virus to begin with, instead of just finding biomarkers that are believed to have something to do with the imaginary virus) But stimulating antibodies that neutralize a broad range of HIV strains has been notoriously difficult (because there is no actual virus, just biomarkers), so researchers focused on the other arm of the immune system: killer T-cells, which attack and kill cells that HIV has already infected. Such vaccines have been considered less likely to prevent someone from getting infected; instead, it was hoped they would enable an infected person to suppress the virus and so delay, perhaps for many years, the onset of disease.

“Given that this study was the leading edge” of research on T-cell based HIV vaccines, said Mark Feinberg, vice president for medical affairs and health policy in Merck’s vaccine division, “there was great disappointment.”

“There is nothing on the horizon” at Merck, he said. “We don’t have any other vaccine candidates we’ve identified as promising enough to advance into clinical studies.” Dr. Feinberg added that Merck is “committed to finding ways to share information accumulated over two decades to
facilitate the broader effort” to develop an AIDS vaccine.

The Merck vaccine did stimulate the immune system’s T-cells — a notable development — but not in a way that helped infected test subjects control the virus. Now, researchers will try to figure out why.

(more evidence HIV has nothing AT ALL to do with t cells)

Merck’s shares, reflecting downplayed hopes that such an early vaccine would work, were up 44 cents to $51.82 at 4 p.m. Friday in New York Stock
Exchange composite trading.

Posted by: Michael | September 24, 2007 10:54 PM

Noble and Elkman

Duesberg’s contention is not that ARVs cause AIDS, but that Drugs, ARVs being among them, cause AIDS.

Duesberg didn’t need the Palella study of thenew les toxic drugs; he could simply have sstuck with the ca. 30% mortality given for monotherapy. Even dr. Noble’s new improved 3 million AIDS deaths a year wouldn’t bring us near that figure.

“RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA PARTICULARLY IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED HIV DISEASE (SEE WARNINGS). PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS ALSO BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS.” (Glaxo Wellcome)

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 24, 2007 11:58 PM

Michael,

the “vaccine” folks are pretty desperate at this point it seems.

Think about it. First, they’re dealing with something utterly illogical. They’re trying to get an immune system to produce…what…? ANTIBODIES! Antibodies to….what…? HIV!!

How do we find out if somebody’s (so-called) “HIV positive”? We find…(drum roll, please)…”HIV ANTIBODIES”!

So, the purpose of a vaccine is to help produce…um…oh, yeah…HIV ANTIBODIES. Which, oddly enough, those who’ve been proclaimed “HIV positive” supposedly possess!

Here’s where their desperation kicks in. The AIDS goons (your various and sundry “researchers”), having already set aside the illogic and futility of their undertaking, have gone the extra step in the HIV/AIDS folklore to include the incredible (literally) mutating power of “HIV” into their vaccine equation. It’s a way to sidestep the original illogical premise. Good thing these guys get paid, regardless of what idiots they are.

Posted by: Dan | September 25, 2007 12:08 AM

Duesberg didn’t need the Palella study of thenew les toxic drugs; he could simply have sstuck with the ca. 30% mortality given for monotherapy. Even dr. Noble’s new improved 3 million AIDS deaths a year wouldn’t bring us near that figure.

Are you trying to claim that people were not dying before AZT?

The Fischl studies showed that AZT monotherapy had a pronounced short term benefit. The placebo arm had much higher mortality than anything that Duesberg can come up with. This is what was expected for people once their CD4 counts had fallen below 100 and had gotten opportunistic infections.

“RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA PARTICULARLY IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED HIV DISEASE (SEE WARNINGS). PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS ALSO BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS.” (Glaxo Wellcome)

Which no matter how you spin it does not say that AZT causes AIDS.

Look at the data from the Concorde study. If AZT is as toxic as Duesberg would have us believe then you would expect much higher incidence of AIDS and mortality in the immediate arm that received much more AZT than the delayed arm. In reality there was no statistically significant difference between the immediate arm and the delayed arm.

Duesberg has nothing but spin. He has no evidence to support his claims. He is so desperate that he distorts, misrepresents and lies.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 25, 2007 2:55 AM

Epidemiology-Lisa, I want to thank you for responding to the Duesberg criticism. You are the only person here who has done that. I think you’re wrong, but you get some praise from me for trying. You wrote that,

Duesberg’s contention is not that ARVs cause AIDS, but that Drugs, ARVs being among them, cause AIDS.

No, Duesberg’s contention IS that ARVs cause AIDS, AND that other drugs can also cause AIDS, AND that malnutrition can cause AIDS. For Duesberg AIDS is caused by one or more of the three factors in the title of his 2003 “review”: “The Chemical Bases of the Various AIDS Epidemics: recreational drugs, antiviral chemotherapy and malnutrition”

In that review, Duesberg has some general comments about toxicity of antiretroviral drugs and a few quotes from Jay Levy, de Harven, and the Durban Declaration, but his entire literature-based argument against anti-HIV combination therapy (not AZT monotherapy) is his comments on Palella and Hogg:
“the evidence for ‘declining morbidity and mortality’ is only based on uncontrolled survey studies that investigated how long HIV-positive, clinically healthy subjects, but mostly from AIDS risk groups, survived on various anti-HIV drugs. The largest and most influential of these surveys was conducted by Palella et al (1998).” From page 399 of the 2003 review.

Epidemiology-Lisa, Duesberg says that all study participants in the Palella study were healthy before taking antiviral therapy and that they were selected for their health; by changing a quote from the paper, Duesberg says that study participants with OIs before the start of the study or within 30 days of follow-up “were excluded.”

In other words, Epidemiology, Duesberg takes your concern into account. If AIDS-related health issues were caused by recreational drugs in these patients, they “were excluded” from the study. Duesberg emphasizes this so he can claim that ARVs increase mortality far above what he says is the rate in untreated populations.

His rate in untreated populations is an absurd hypothetical. He gives the impression of being generous by assuming all new AIDS cases for 2000 result in immediate death. But all new AIDS cases for Duesberg are actually all reported newly-diagnosed AIDS cases, a small fraction of total new AIDS cases. Chris didn’t just make up that 3 million figure, Epidemiology-Lisa, it’s all over the WHO report Duesberg uses. Duesberg had to dig through that report to find a much smaller figure to misrepresent, ignoring 3 million the whole time.

The lies (or whatever you like to call them) needed to support Duesberg’s claim:
1)all participants in Palella et al were on anti-HIV drugs (they weren’t, and the highest mortality was in the no-drug population, many times the rate for ARVs per 100 person-years)
2)Palella et al excluded anyone with OIs (they didn’t, they included everyone in the mortality figures)
3)a total mortality rate from Hogg et al was represented as a per hundred person-year rate
4)Duesberg suppressed the WHO estimate of 2000 mortality in favor of using a reported AIDS case figure and a strange hypothetical of his own

Palella et al find mortality of no-ARV patients usually between 40 and 50 per 100 person years. Compare that with your 30% figure for AZT monotherapy. And Epidemiology, please tell me you are not doing math with Chris Noble’s “new and improved” 3 million and the total HIV estimates for 2000. To compare the Palella et al finding (that includes deaths from patients not taking ARVs) with worldwide rates, you would have to consider the group of world wide HIV-positive people alive at the beginning of 2000 who had CD4+ T-cell counts below 100 and find out how many of them died in 2000. Without some good estimates of these numbers, there’s no comparison to make.

Best to stick with what the Palella paper found: a no-ARV mortality 7 or 8 times higher than mortality with combination therapy, and higher than AZT monotherapy.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 25, 2007 5:56 AM

a no-ARV mortality 7 or 8 times higher than mortality with combination therapy, and higher than AZT monotherapy

Elk,

The whole point of comparing with the global figures was that there are no controlled studies of the efficacy of the drugs. Now you tell me Palella is such a controlled study with an AZT group, a combination therapy group and a no-drug group. I must admit that’s some cheek if Duesberg says there are no controlled studies, then in the next sentence introduces one pretending it’s not controlled. Perhaps you can elaborate?

The patients were “clinically healthy”, but most were from “AIDS risk groups”. What I meant by saying drugs, ARVs being among those, cause AIDS is you cannot just pretend that you have squeaky clean, matched group(s) who are then given drugs. They have all had different histories up to then, often involving other drug use, legal and presciption, which places them in the AIDS risk groups.

Which no matter how you spin it does not say that AZT causes AIDS

Dr. Noble, no matter how you spin it, if a patient is HIV positive and starts wasting (myopathy) or develops granulocytopenia, I think you’ll find chances are the good doc is going to call it “AIDS”.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 25, 2007 7:10 AM

John Edwards just promised 50 million to go towards HIV/AIDS worldwide. His plans would include health care, housing, medicare benefits, which is a good idea if elected. Certainly, all other candidates will follow suit and be politically correct. Nevertheless, how much will be handed over to the NIH to go waste on another failed attempt for a vaccine. I would love to be a fly on the wall years from now and listen to all the criticisms of our current, scientific community who won’t challenge the HIV hypothesis. In regards to Duesberg, no one is 100% right all of the time but he is on the right track, which is more important.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 7:39 AM

Dr. Noble, no matter how you spin it, if a patient is HIV positive and starts wasting (myopathy) or develops granulocytopenia, I think you’ll find chances are the good doc is going to call it “AIDS”.

Try again. Spin harder. It doesn’t cause AIDS.

The drug companies are obliged to include all side effects that occur during treatment whether they are caused by the drug or not. Note the word “associated”.

If you read the actual insert you would find that 1.6% of people on placebo reported granulocytopenia compared to 1.8% on AZT.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 25, 2007 8:26 AM

I must admit that’s some cheek if Duesberg says there are no controlled studies, then in the next sentence introduces one pretending it’s not controlled. Perhaps you can elaborate?

Have you read the study yet?

You are showing a high degree of devotion to Duesberg if you are so keen to defend him when you haven’t even read the papers.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 25, 2007 8:41 AM

Duesberg does some very dodgy statistics to come up with his figure of 1.4% mortality in HIV infected people worldwide.

In reality there are many studies that have looked at the natural history of HIV infection.

An HIV-1 natural history cohort and survival times in rural Uganda.

The figure from this study is 159 per 1000 py or about ten times Duesberg’s “estimate”.

You are welcome to search the literature for other studies like this one. Tell us what you find.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 25, 2007 8:47 AM

Some ridicule Michael’s comments on stress etc. leading to AIDS. How about this article title from The Daily Telegraph, “Ancient Snakebit Treatment Has HIV Hopes.” Apparently, a chinese herb used for treating snakebites is showing promising results for AIDS. This research also involved collaboration with the National Cancer Institute and the Division of Pharmacology at Uppsala University in Sweden. Now, if a rethinker had stated this, it would be a front page story here and the rethinker would be attacked.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 9:24 AM

Summary. It was the objective of this study to document and evaluate AZT-induced short-term toxicity in healthy individuals. The study was designed as a longitudinal monocentric side-effect monitoring study with prospective data collection. It was carried out at the Cologne University Hospital. The study population comprised health care workers who were taking AZT prophylaxis after accidental exposure to HIV-infected blood. Fourteen individuals were included into the study; seven of them discontinued treatment prematurely, five due to severe subjective symptoms. In case of one worker AZT had to be stopped due to severe neutropenia (800 cells /l) with signs of upper respiratory tract infection. Four of 11 individuals taking AZT for at least 4 weeks developed neutropenia (2 WHO I, 1 WHO II, 1 WHO III). All other laboratory parameters stayed within normal range. In particular, no anemia was observed. In conclusion: Compared with other studies more neutropenias are observed. Due to side effects 50% of the workers discontinued AZT administration prematurely. The data presented herein show that AZT causes considerable side effects which must be weighed against the potential protective antiviral effect.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/w0621602w1114747/

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 25, 2007 9:51 AM

Now, if a rethinker had stated this, it would be a front page story here and the rethinker would be attacked.

Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention for the last half decade at least? The pharma companies have been prospecting everything from animals to plants to ocean life for new sources of drugs. This is nothing novel. Your statement misses the problem with your ‘rethinker’ attitude. Your quote states “treatment for snakebite shows promise”. But when you talk about LDN you don’t say it shows promise, you say it works and you are the proof, even though you lack any significant evidence. Notice the difference? Make use of it in the future.

Posted by: apy | September 25, 2007 10:10 AM

Actually, Dr. Bahari has had success with LDN or haven’t you bothered to research this. Or have you checked into patent number 518873 from the U.S. Patent office, where Dr. Kaali and Dr. Lyman used electrical current to suppress HIV for the believers.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 10:29 AM

Here is an interesting link if anyone is interested in learning about bioelectric medicine.

mehttp://educate-mehttp://educate- yourself.org/cn/LymanKaalibiocompatibleHIV1996report18nov06shtmldicine

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 10:38 AM

Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention for the last half decade at least? The pharma companies have been prospecting everything from animals to plants to ocean life for new sources of drugs

They are prospecting for profit, that’s why it’s repeatedly being hammered home there is no “natural” herbal or nutritional cure for AIDS, and why they would have to make a headline and a witch hunt of it every time something “alternative” turns up. Here is the essence of the idea taken from the Chinese Viola:

“it may be that we can use the lessons of nature to create synthetic drug designs [wich requires the resources of big pharma and is 100% patentable] to help people with the virus.”

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 25, 2007 10:50 AM

chris said
The figure from this study is 159 per 1000 py or about ten times Duesberg’s “estimate”.

Yeah and that’s all HIV+. What do you think it’d be if it was just AIDS patients CD4 lower than a hundred??

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 10:51 AM

Actually, Dr. Bahari has had success with LDN or haven’t you bothered to research this.

Then it “shows promise”, it is not a treatment. Which is why I said in the previous posts you apparently didn’t read: studies should be done on it so if it is truly useful, and if so, how to use it best should be done. Again, notice the difference and make use of it in the future.

Or have you checked into patent number 518873 from the U.S. Patent office, where Dr. Kaali and Dr. Lyman used electrical current to suppress HIV for the believers.

So what is your point here? The patent office only patents valid medical treatments? If a patent is the best you can come up with then you are on shaky ground. Could you please show me the study, with placebo control? Or any evidence that what you are talking about is valid? I know you have a pretty high standards when it comes to verifying things but for some reason I just feel safer checking myself.

mehttp://educate-mehttp://educate- yourself.org/cn/LymanKaalibiocompatibleHIV1996report18nov06shtmldicine

Could you please paste the actual URL?

Posted by: apy | September 25, 2007 11:08 AM

So two doctors are going to patent some non-traditional approach to treating viruses without doing any research on the matter. They would look like idiots if they did so. Why don’t you open your mind and do some reading about Bob Beck and bioelectric medicine or the MWO but again if it has not been studied and published in standard journals you will pooh-pooh it. How do you think that Indians, and our ancestors treated illnesses, by waiting for it to be published? No, by trail and error. Even today, many progressive doctors,like Dr. Zagon, think outside of the box and use a drug off-label, which works instead of the old I don’t care to learn new tricks attitude and I have treated diseases a certain way for eons and will continue to do so.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 11:16 AM

http://educate-yourself.org/fc/#blood

This site has a wealth of alternative medicine for those who enjoy a different approach and viewpoint to medicine.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 11:22 AM

E-LISA, Ok, so AZT can cause granulocytopenia (and then only in 0.2% more patients than it does in those on placebo).

You do know what granulocytes are, don’t you? They are one of several types of white blood cell. Can you tell us the difference between granulocytes and lymphocytes? Do you know that scientists have discovered there are even several different types of lymphocytes? Fancy that! One of these subtypes is called the “Helper” T lymphocyte. They are usually known as CD4+ lymphocytes. Please, please tell us you have heard of these.

In HIV-induced immunodeficency they can drop down to profoundly low levels, but, wouldn’t you know it, the rest of the white blood cells are hardly affected.

Can you now give us a citation where it states AZT causes isolated CD4+ lymphopenia? The wonderful Professor Duesberg’s literature must be bursting at the seams with references to this phenomenon, since he states categorically that the hematological appearance of AIDS/HIV is the result of treatment with AZT.

As he is not here, perhaps you could do the honours and point us to just one of his references, so we can all bow our heads in shame at our ignorance and go home?

Posted by: DT | September 25, 2007 11:23 AM

Wow noreen your all up in Gallo’s face for “science by press conference” but his four papers already got peer reviewed before his press conference.

Lyman and Kaali weren’t they the ones who did the press conferences before they gave data at a science conference? Also before they published anything? Did they ever have a peer review paper?

Now theres this guy Beck on it look at
medgadget.com/archives/2006/08/pseudoscience_f_5.html

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 11:38 AM

for those who enjoy a different approach and viewpoint to medicine.

Or those who need a good laugh??! I like the one where Dr. Beck is he really a doctor? Where he says 51% of pharmaceutical companies are in “the mob”

Thanks noreen!

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 11:41 AM

So two doctors are going to patent some non-traditional approach to treating viruses without doing any research on the matter. They would look like idiots if they did so.

Cunning argument noreen. Apparently all of big pharma is willing to loot and plunder the entire world to make a few bucks, but people that you agree with would never tell a little lie?

Even today, many progressive doctors,like Dr. Zagon, think outside of the box and use a drug off-label, which works instead of the old I don’t care to learn new tricks attitude and I have treated diseases a certain way for eons and will continue to do so.

And how do you think those drugs that they use off-label even came to exist for ‘on-label’ usage? Humans have known about them since the dawn of time?

Posted by: apy | September 25, 2007 11:50 AM

Beck was an engineer who took old technology and improved on it. Gallo situation was different and you know it. It was stated, “probable” cause of AIDS, This was treated as though it was 100% accurate. Surprisingly, he rushed out to patent his new antibody test for a “probable” causation factor.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 11:51 AM

If Gallo is so right, then please tell me why the discover of supposedly worse plaque of our time was not nominated for a Nobel Prize? Surely, he must qualify! I guess that it looks bad to nominate a person who was convicted of scientific misconduct.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 12:06 PM

Dear all,

Just to let you know that I had a quick look at PUBMED and the guys from the US patent number 518873, Dr. Kaali and Dr. Lyman have published a paper referent to their experiments, but I dont have access to the paper- it is not in my library- so I can not comment.

Lyman WD, Merkatz IR, Kaali SG.
Biocompatible electric current attenuates HIV infectivity.
Surg Technol Int. 1996;5:75-9. No abstract available.
PMID: 15858720 [PubMed]

Noreen, from my experience, (I work in research) any patent can have unreproducible experiments and nobody would really care.

Posted by: Braganza | September 25, 2007 12:08 PM

Apy, you are missing the point. If Dr. Zagon had not done research into other uses of this wonder drug, it would not be used to treat numerous diseases that it is currently being used for, not just AIDS. Studies have been done for Chron’s Disease, MS and AIDS are underway. But in the interim, many doctors do prescribe it off label because it works, with or without studies!

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 12:17 PM

The point, noreen, is that these usages come from studies, not from some internet person saying “It works for me and I have no evidence that it is the direct result of it!” People thought that there might be something to it and they did studies and some of them come out very positive which is great. But I should hope none of those scientists saw one person taking LDN and saw they were in good health and came to the conclusion “It works!”, which is exactly what you are doing. I’m not saying progressive doctors are bad, I’m saying claiming something without empirical evidence is.

Posted by: apy | September 25, 2007 12:35 PM

Lyman and Kaali told newspapers about their experiment first. Then they talked about it in a conference in 1990. Then they published six years later.

They might be right maybe getting zapped is good for you just your real hypocritacle saying Gallo screwed up but these guys you wanna believe.

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 12:45 PM

Dr. Bahari had more than one AIDS patient doing this and now many more now are also doing so, whether you care to believe it works or not. Like the above commentor stated, just being published isn’t proof. Maybe Gallo’s antibody test does work for 40% of the population.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 1:44 PM

Maybe Gallo’s antibody test does work for 40% of the population.

Nope noreen it works for close to 100% so good as other antibody tests.

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 1:59 PM

So Adele, you admit that it is an antibody test. Could you please show me the study that proves antibodies equate to an active infection and that having antibodies to a virus is a death sentence.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 2:04 PM

Noreen what? Yes an antibody-based test is called a antibody test i’m not admitting anything there! The HIV antibody test uses HIV proteins to see if theres antibodies to HIV in the blood. About 100% of the time the antibodies are specific for HIV. That means there’s an infection. What’s an “active infection” noreen what do you mean by that?

Having antibodies to virus is a death sentence?? Who says that noreen? Just deniosaurs who got their brains caught in the past and can’t get out!

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 2:38 PM

Adele, your logic puzzles me. I have numerous antibodies to numerous viruses but do not have an active case at the present. According to your thinking, then I should be on numerous medications for all sorts of viruses. And if a person have antibodies to HIV well, they are told that thet have an incurable disease and must stay on medicines, pretty much for the rest of their life.

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 2:44 PM

Noreen its not logic puzzles you its facts. You’ve got a deficiency of them. That’s coming from getting all your info from alive and well and electro herbal psychic magnetic websites. Like what you say about Amy Justice or Robert GAllo. There’s no “university website” says all those stuff about Justice and what she does. You have to read her papers. Have you ever read a paper from Amy Justice? HAve you ever read Gallo’s papers even?

Noreen you won’t understand the virus you have in your body unless you learn about it. NOT read what somebody said somebody else said about it. HIV is one virus but there’s lots of them can stick around your whole life. Antibodies don’t always say there’s no infection anymore. Hear about varicella? I have antibodies to varicella but I’m still infected. So are you probably. Your like Duesberg saying well my dog is friendly so all dogs are friendly. My retrovirus doesn’t kill anyone so no retrovirus can kill anyone. I have antibodies to polio and I’m not sick, so antibodies to HIV are good not bad! Not the smartest guy noreen but you fell for it.

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 3:00 PM

Yes, having antibodies to HIV is in fact a good thing. Besides, it has been proven that the higher the viral load the better the patient fares because it IS ANTIBODIES, NOT THE REAL MCCOY VIRUS!

Posted by: noreen | September 25, 2007 3:12 PM

Adele, I believe what noreen is saying, and correct me if I’m wrong noreen, is that if an antibody test counts the number of antibodies you have to HIV, then the higher it is the more resistant you should be to it. Antibodies == immunity, thus lots of antibodies == lots of immunity, not more virus.

Wouldn’t a consistent high number of antibodies suggest that the antibodies are not working though? The viral load should decrease over time and the number of antibodies with it.

Also, there are quite a few viruses out there that cause serious complications after a long time even with antibodies. Subacute sclerosing panenciphalitis comes to mind immediately.

Posted by: apy | September 25, 2007 3:48 PM

Antibodies to HIV, bad, mean youre infected.
Antibodies to HIV, also good! They help neutralize the virus. Some better then others.
No antibodies to HIV on one test, maybe good. You could still have infection just not seroconverted yet.
No antibodies on several tests, best. You aren’t infected.

it has been proven that the higher the viral load the better the patient fares because it IS ANTIBODIES, NOT THE REAL MCCOY VIRUS!

My god noreen now I believe you maybe you don’t read aliveandwell anymore. Not oven the aliveandwell liars say stuff that funny. Are you trying to out deny the big deniers? Viral load measures antibodies? More virus, better health? You got a source or are you in standup improv now?

Posted by: Adele | September 25, 2007 4:24 PM

so antibodies to HIV are good not bad!

Adele, if you weren’t so agressive all the time I wouldn’t write it, but because you are I tell you: you’re a very stupid human being.

What do you believe you check with the fu*$#ng HIV test? Antibodies to HIV. What do you tell a person who’s got antibodies to HIV and thus is HIV+? That the antibodies are good? No, you say that you got very bad news for him/her and that he/she infected with HIV. Thereafter, what can one see in the eyes of the person you just talked to? Happiness? No, total distress, the man/woman is lost in an abyss of despair.

And here, what do you dare to write?
HIV antibodies are good!!
Why don’t you stick to your belief all the way, you c*$t. You can’t get away with it, can you? Of course, normally, in main stream medicine thinking antibodies are a good thing, it’s what is said to be produced by vaccination. With HIV you must make people think the other way around. And believe in the nonsense yourself. That- defend two opposite approaches to explain one and the same thing, depending on which theory is needed where to make the house of cards keep standing up – one can only hope to achieve by being stupid or dishonest.

Posted by: jspreen | September 25, 2007 4:29 PM

Noreen, you said:

I have numerous antibodies to numerous viruses but do not have an active case at the present. According to your thinking, then I should be on numerous medications for all sorts of viruses. And if a person have antibodies to HIV well, they are told that thet have an incurable disease and must stay on medicines, pretty much for the rest of their life.

Noreen, we all have several viruses in our bodies – some are relatively latent/dormant, some a bit more active. You see, with certain persisting viral infections we know that infection is essentially lifelong and that antibodies are a marker that the individual has been exposed to the virus (and is therefore infected).

Some examples:
EBV (glandular fever) This can re-emerge to cause things like lymphomas later in life
CMV – can re-emerge if immunosuppression exists such as transplants/HIV
Herpes simplex – antibodies mean exposure, which = infection. This never goes away, but re-emerges from time to time as cold sores/herpes lesions.
VaricellaZoster. Yup, once you’ve had the chickenpox, you have persisting antibody. Again, it’s not protective, and the virus can re-emerge whenever it feels like it.

You don’t need to take treatment constantly for these, but may need to if they relapse.

HIV is not really so different. Duesberg could never grasp the concept that for some infections, having antibody can be a sign of dormant or active infection. He relied on his kindergarden grade medicine to dismiss this, thinking antibody = recovery from infection, and therefore “cure”.

He has had this point corrected countless times, but it is a sign of his deceitfulness that he has never acknnowleged that he was wrong. You can be brave, and say you are wrong. It’s the right thing to do.

HIV infection is not always treated with ART. There is a period of clinical latency when treatment would do no good, so people do not attempt to treat until there have been clinical sequelae or a steady decline in lab markers such as CD4. Many people remain treatment free for many years. Why do you lie by saying we advocate treatment for everyone with the virus?

Posted by: DT | September 25, 2007 7:15 PM

Why don’t you stick to your belief all the way, [edited]. You can’t get away with it, can you? Of course, normally, in main stream medicine thinking antibodies are a good thing, it’s what is said to be produced by vaccination. With HIV you must make people think the other way around.

jspreen, antibodies aren’t always “good” or “bad.” Yes, many times they protect us from reinfection, or initial infection (in the case of vaccines). But they can also result in autoimmune disease–for example, rheumatic heart disease, where antibodies to Streptococcus pyogenes cross-react with tissue in our heart, acting as “friendly fire” and damaging tissue. Additionally, sometimes the antibodies generated aren’t enough to protect us from the pathogens that remain in our bodies, as DT noted above. (You may note that’s also why they tried a different tactic in the HIV vaccine case noted above). Like most things in life, it’s not black and white.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 25, 2007 8:10 PM

Adele,

Actually I don’t find this funny at all:

“it has been proven that the higher the viral load the better the patient fares because it IS ANTIBODIES, NOT THE REAL MCCOY VIRUS!”

(I know you really don’t either.) in fact it’s one of the saddest things about HIV denial for me.

Noreen, despite all her time spent on internet HIV research, has been saying that viral load tests only measure antibodies to HIV for over a year that I know of.

If she can not, or will not, learn what a viral load test is measuring, or what an antibody is, what kind of educated treatment decisions can she be making?

As a side note it’s frankly disgusting that a more scientifically literate denier like Bialy, or someone, won’t explain the matter to her. I suppose any increase in her actual understanding could jeopardize her committment to denying that HIV is a threat to her health.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 25, 2007 9:13 PM

What do viral loads measure? According to nobel prize winning inventor of the PCR, kary mullis, they were never meant to quantify anything, its a multiplication technique.

if you make a 1000 copies of a 1 dollar bill how much money do you have?, thats the trick with the pcr lol, tricking people they are teeming with virus particles when theyre not

see hiv fact or fraud google it

read project day lily to find out about the mycoplasma biowarfare program, most amazing book ever

Posted by: cooler | September 25, 2007 9:36 PM

What do viral loads measure? According to nobel prize winning inventor of the PCR, kary mullis, they were never meant to quantify anything, its a multiplication technique.

Mullis’ book on PCR has a whole chapter on quantitative PCR. The technique is used in thousands of fields. It clearly works for everything else. For some reason known only to himself Mullis seems to think that it doesn’t work for HIV. If you can find out what Mullis’ reasons are then tell me. Ask him about glowing raccoons while you’re at it.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 25, 2007 9:51 PM

Say someone had a viral load of 100,000…………are there any electron microscopic pictures of this massive amount of virus in the patients plasma?

just wondering,
ask AIDS inc about black men in Africa eating/having sex with chimps as the trigger for the AIDS pandemic, thats what I was told in high school by the AIDS establishment

Posted by: cooler | September 25, 2007 11:05 PM

Hey cooler, if I take all my dollar bills and make 30 copies of them, and I end up with 31 dollars, how many dollars did I start with?

If I make 30 copies and I end up with 310 dollars how many dollars did I have to start with?

If I make 30 copies and I end up with 31,000 dollars how many dollars did I have to start with?

If I make 30 copies and I end up with 310,000 dollars how many dollard did I have to start with?

…

Cooler, would you be so kind as to explain to Noreen that no PCR based technique measures any antibodies of any kind and then go on to tell her what sort of nucleic acids would be amplified in a viral load assay?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 25, 2007 11:29 PM

Still waiting for a picture of a patients plasma teeming with virus, not some convoluted mathemtical process that can be easily manipulated by any one with an agenda.

say you have 10 hiv rna per ml, copy it 1000, now you have 10,000 rna per ml to keep the virus hunters happy, even though theyre just copies.

As for the techincal stuff, I would love to see a debate between you and duesberg, mullis etc, dont try and bully me with your techical BS, debate people who understand exactly how the PCR works, I never claimed to be an expert in it, although I would think if people were teeming with 10000000 copies of virus their would be electron microspoic pictures of this from patiets plasma…………call me crazy

What we are really are talking about kochs postulates that can be understood by a 5th grader, this is what charlatans do, take a simple subject, make it overly complex and then denegrate those who dont know the “nucleic acids”

Did koch ever talk like this when he tried to help humanity by discovering new microbes?, no, bc he knew finding out how to discover new microbes was not rocket science, and those that turn the simple into the complex are doing so because their theories fail the simple scientific tests, so make things convoluted and complex to confuse the subject, prolonging their failed hypothesis’s as long as they can.

I ask you this, as a tax paying american with a piddly bachelors degree…………….

In 1983 only a few idiotic scientists thought hiv was caused by a retrovirus (Gallo, levy,essex) coming off their failed retrovirus cancer program (how dumb can these people be cancer isnt contagious?)

in 1985 everybody thought hiv was the cause of AIDS. Please reference the scientific paper printed in between these years that created this ubiquiotus consensus, or was this consensus causes by politics and press conferences and not science?

Posted by: cooler | September 26, 2007 12:06 AM

lots of spelling errors…………im half asleep

Posted by: cooler | September 26, 2007 12:09 AM

ask AIDS inc about black men in Africa eating/having sex with chimps as the trigger for the AIDS pandemic, thats what I was told in high school by the AIDS establishment

Your high school teacher was a member of the AIDS establishment? They’re everywhere now. They’ve even infiltrated the high schools.

The only people I know of that talk about blacks having sex with chimpanzees are HIV denialists. I had never heard of the idea until I heard it from HIV denialists.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 26, 2007 12:56 AM

“dont try and bully me with your techical BS”

Sorry Cooler, I should have realized that division and subtraction were beyond your capabilities.

My sincere apologies.

Really though, anyone with bachelor’s degree in biology ought to be able to explain PCR Cooler. Are you telling me you don’t even have a BA in biology?

Yet you come here and argue with, and insult, a professor of epidemiology, among others?

I’d like to believe this explains your inability to separate a fiction novel from actual scientific research but I’m afraid even an English major would have no trouble distinguishing the two.

So, … what was your major Cooler?

Underwater Basket-weaving?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 26, 2007 2:38 AM

Cooler if you believe that PCR is really that unreliable then how do you reconcile this with your support of Garth Nicolson who bases all of his fanciful claims about mycoplasmas (weaponised with HIV-1 env) solely on PCR detection?

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 26, 2007 3:29 AM

Why don’t you mainstream thinkers concede that many HIV-Positives, who don’t believe in HIV, are surviving quite nicely without antiretrovirals. In fact, I would be so bold to state that AIDS can certainly be cured by the use of drugs temporarily, by taking supplements, herbs and by cleaning up one’s health habits. Now, all of you can have a field day with that comment but it is true. This is precisely how I have managed to do so.

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 6:56 AM

How can the viral load and HIV antibody tests be defended when both come with the following disclaimers: “At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence or the absence of antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 in human blood” and “The Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection”

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 7:49 AM

Why don’t you mainstream thinkers concede that many HIV-Positives, who don’t believe in HIV, are surviving quite nicely without antiretrovirals.

So…I only have to believe in something for it to be a problem? I didn’t realize wish-full thinking was so powerful.

And I’m not sure why you keep on coming back to this noreen. As stated above, by me, and quite a few other people, the elite controller group is recognized. Unfortunately in your warped mind the presence of an elite controller group seems to mean everyone is an elite controller and AIDS doesn’t really exist or something like that.

Considering you accuse everyone who disagrees with you of having a closed mind, perhaps you could show us how open minded you are by telling us where you studied biology and/or medicine? Even if you disagree with it you could atleast put forth the effort of understanding the mainstream claims since your arguments seem to be based on a complete ignorance of it. Do you know how PCR works? Have you ever done a PCR? If you don’t then why are you so critical of a procedure you do not know?

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 9:56 AM

My respect for noreen and her right to make her own health decisions is complete. I do not question her assertion that she is currently healthy. What I take exception with are the thought processes that allow her to extend her personal experience to the situations of other HIV-infected persons.

Imagine having a conversation on smoking and cancer with someone who does not know what sort of organ the lung is, how it connects with the mouth, or what breathing entails. This person has not heard the word “carcinogen,” thinks “Bruce Ames” is what happens when actor Willis points his Glock, and is blissfully unaware of the last century of cancer research. She has never read an article on the risks of smoking established by any number of epidemiological studies. In conversation, she argues that smoking is good for one’s health. The proof? Her great-uncle smoked several packs each day and lived to the age of 96.

Arguing with this person is pointless until she is willing to learn the most basic facts about the human body and the substances we put into it.

Noreen, it seems you don’t know the difference between an antibody and a nucleic acid. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most people know little about them. If you wish to understand your own health, though, you absolutely need a basic version of this information. You need to understand the antibody test and what it does, the viral load assay and what it involves.

You should consult with a physician for how these matters affect your own health. And some of us would be happy to direct you to basic information. We can’t and won’t force-feed it to you, though, and I’m now seeing there is no reason to “debate” you or respond to your points until you know what you are talking about. Most “rethinkers” do not think about the biology of HIV at all, let alone “rethink” their own notions. You can be like them or follow your own path, and I can’t make the decision for you.

Please understand, though, that “I eat fast food three times a day but my friends say I’m slim” is no argument against the health consequences of a high-fat diet, especially when you don’t know how fats differ from carbohydrates or proteins, or what a ‘calorie’ is.

Noreen, your health is too important to base your opinions on the curious notions of non-experts at alive and well and other dissident websites. With respect, I urge you to rethink your position.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 26, 2007 10:49 AM

Why influenza vaccination, as spontaneous influenza, can increase viral load in HIV+ patients?

Posted by: Braganza | September 26, 2007 10:55 AM

So…I only have to believe in something for it to be a problem? I didn’t realize wish-full thinking was so powerful.

Maybe you don’t realize things simply because you stop thinking before you even started.
I’ll put it otherwise:
A thing can only be a problem as long as you believe in it.
Now, think and don’t stop before you’ve seen the light. (Hint: think of evil witches, dragons, ghosts etc. Do you believe in them? Yes? Then they’re a problem for you. No? Then you laugh about them).

Posted by: jspreen | September 26, 2007 11:56 AM

hhaahahahahahahahah hinkley, youre a professor and you cant give me the reference for the first scienific paper that proves hiv causes aids, you cant give me a electron microscopic picture from a patients blood showing these 1,000000000 viral load counts.

Where did you do your graduate work, coco birds online university for dummies?

No wonder youll never debate mullis or duesberg, youll get embarrased.

Noble, nicolson and lo never used the PCR to quantify, they used it to detect microbes. shyh ching lo never used the PCR to quantify, he used the electron microscope and took pictures of animals/people teeming with infectious bacteria(mycoplasma incognitus)to quantify.

Hinkley, you bozo, maybe you should learn from your scientific elder, Dr. LO md phd armed forces of pathology cheif to find out how to really quantify a microbe, with the electron microscope, not the PCR.

Project day lily is not fiction, he had to slightly fictionlize it to stay out of court, but the events are true. rave reviews from several scientists, including a nobel laurete.

Remember, hinkley, do your homework and learn from lo how to really quantify/see a host being damaged with high titers of virus, its with the electron microscope, im sorry you didnt know that, maybe you can ask for a refund for your tuition.

read project day lily google it

see hiv fact or fraud google it

Posted by: cooler | September 26, 2007 12:06 PM

Why influenza vaccination, as spontaneous influenza, can increase viral load in HIV+ patients? Braganza

Heres the conclusion from
“Immunologic and virologic evaluation after influenza vaccination of HIV-1-infected patients” Fowke KR AIDS July 11 1997.

These results indicate that immune stimulation resulting from influenza vaccination did not significantly change the levels of plasma virus, CD4 cell counts, or activation-induced apoptosis in HIV-infected individuals

Where did you see that Braganza if you can give me a reference ill check it out.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 12:11 PM

Sorry Braganza there’s alot more on this. Some people say it does some people say it doesn’t.

So if you vaccinate someone your changing their immune system. So its possible a vaccine activates some cells and gives a virus better places or more places to make copies. If a influenza vax does that in HIV+ then there might be more viral load for awhile. There’s alot of influenze vaccines so maybe some do and some don’t. I’m adding a list I found on cdc.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/00047346.htm

Vaccination of Persons Infected with HIV Chapman L, Hartley M, Khan A, et al. Changes in plasma HIV RNA after immune activation by vaccinations and acute illnessess {Abstract}. In: Program and abstracts of the 2nd national conference: human retroviruses and related infections. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1995. Glesby MJ, Hoover DR, Farzadegan H, Margolick JB, Saah AJ. The effect of influenza vaccination on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 load: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study. J Infect Dis 1996;174:1332-6. Huang KL, Ruben FL, Rinaldo CR Jr, Kingsley L, Lyter DW, Ho M. Antibody responses after influenza and pneumococcal immunization in HIV-infected homosexual men. JAMA 1987; 257:2047-50. Jackson CR, Vavro CL, Penningron KN, et al. Effect of influenza immunization on immunologic and virologic parameters in HIV+ pediatric patients {Abstract}. In: Program and abstracts of the 2nd national conference: human retroviruses and related infections. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1995. Miotti PG, Nelson KE, Dallabetta GA, Farzadegan H, Margolick J, Clements ML. The influence of HIV infection on antibody responses to a two-dose regimen of influenza vaccine. JAMA 1989;262:779-83. Nelson KE, Clements ML, Miotti P, Cohn S, Polk BF. The influence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on antibody responses to influenza vaccines. Ann Intern Med 1988; 109:383-8. O’Brien WA, Grovit-Ferbas K, Namazi A, et al. Human immuodeficiency virus-type 1 replication can be increased in peripheral blood of seropositive patients after influenza vaccination. Blood 1995;86:1082-9. Safrin S, Rush JD, Mills J. Influenza in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection. Chest 1990;98:33-7. Staprans SI, Hamilton BL, Follansbee SE, et al. Activation of virus replication after vaccination of HIV-1-infected individuals. J Exper Med 1995;182:1727-37. Steigbigel RT, Craddock BC, Cate TR. Antibody responses to influenza vaccination in HIV-infected people and effect of HIV load {Abstract}. In: Program and abstracts of the 33rd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1993. Thurn JR, Henry K. Influenza A pneumonitis in a patient infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Chest 1989;95:807-10. Yerly S, Wunderli W, Wyler CA, et al. Influenza immunization of HIV-1-infected individuals does not increase HIV-1 viral load. AIDS 1994; 8:1503-4. Vaccination of Foreign Travelers CDC. Update: influenza activity — worldwide and recommendations for influenza vaccine composition for the 1990-91 influenza season. MMWR 1990;39:293-6. CDC. Acute respiratory illness among cruise-ship passengers — Asia. MMWR 1988; 37:63-6.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 12:26 PM

Maybe you don’t realize things simply because you stop thinking before you even started. I’ll put it otherwise: A thing can only be a problem as long as you believe in it. Now, think and don’t stop before you’ve seen the light.

jspreen, it sounds like you are suggesting that if I don’t believe in a bullet then I have nothing to fear from one being fired at me. Is this correct?

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 12:28 PM

So ElkMountainMan, you think that I should go back on antiretrovirals even though I haven’t any AIDS symptoms? Why would I do this when both tests have not been approved to detect the HIV virus? Besides, now for a change, my blood work is normal including my liver enzymes. I was constantly anemic while on the meds. I am not anti-meds, only against them when they are not necessary.

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 12:41 PM

noreen do you read anyone’s comments? No one’s telling you go back on meds. You have to decide with your doctor. We’re not giving medical advice to you.

Alls elk said was, when you don’t know about antibodies and pcr how can we talk to you about antibodies and pcr.

You go to some website and paste something from a “disclaimer” but which test is it from. What year’s it from? You don’t know. Thats your problem, getting stuff secondhand not reading a real disclaimer or a real paper. Try it some time you might like it.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 1:00 PM

Actually, it is not from rethinkers site. Show me Adele where these test have been validated. If I listened to you folks you know good and well that AIDS doctors would immediately place me on the meds even though I am not sick and dying. Nice try but peddle your gloom and doom elsewhere.

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 1:06 PM

So wheres it from Noreen? Give us a link. You know address on the internet book whatever.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 1:26 PM

Nice try but peddle your gloom and doom elsewhere.

Nobody said you had to go on them, you have the worst selective reading. Most of the criticism against you here, and indeed all of mine as far as i know has not been about your decision not to take ARV’s but your peddling of untested treatments, your complete logical contradictions, your apparent inability to verify anything you read, apparent inability to read and comprehend other posts directed at you, as well as your apparent lack of understanding of the concepts that you so easily badmouth.

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 1:27 PM

Noreen you got those quotes from somewhere or did you memorize them? While I’m waiting here’s the study you asked for. It validated the Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test. Theres alot more than this but this works.

“Evaluation of the Ultrasensitive Roche Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor Assay for Quantitation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 RNA” by Erali and Hillyard Journal of Clinical Microbiology March 1999.

Also here is the new story about FDA approval

www.pslgroup.com/dg/934a.htm

BRANCHBURG, N.J., June 3, 1996 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved for marketing Roche Molecular Systems’ (RMS) AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR(TM) Test, the first test to accurately and precisely measure quantities of HIV-1 RNA in the blood (viral “load”).

The tests work. They were validated. Independent labs test them all the time. The FDA approved them.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 1:52 PM

You post that the FDA approved them for measuring antibodies in the blood, which by the way is no surprise. However, I asked where has the FDA approved them or any other test for measuring the ACTUAL VIRUS? We are waiting!

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 1:54 PM

Noreen

viral load measure copies of RNA

antibody tests measure presence of antibody to HIV proteins

The articles I just gave you are about viral load not antibodies. Did you read them in two minutes? IF not how can you comment about them.

Now where did you get those disclaimers or are you quoting from memory? I want to read them myself. Or are you the only one allowed to ask qustions?

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 2:02 PM

I don’t see any mention of antibodies in Adele’s post, it specifically says ‘viral load’. This is the selective reading thing I alluded to before.

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 2:23 PM

Noreen you asked

Show me Adele where these test have been validated

so I showed you a paper and a news article theres actually alot more. But you didn’t read them. So you mis-rememberd what you asked, you said

However, I asked where has the FDA approved them or any other test for measuring the ACTUAL VIRUS?

Not the only time! Before that I said

You go to some website and paste something from a “disclaimer” but which test is it from.

I didn’t say you got it from a rethinker site but you said

Actually, it is not from rethinkers site.

Noreen do you know what its called when you say one thing and then you give us a different version of it? And when I say something but you say I said something else. Do you know the word for that? I do and so do you! I’m sorry I have to say that because I like you and I think you are smarter then your letting yourself be.

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 2:52 PM

Noreen I’m not asking you anything hard! You just wrote it 7:49 AM this morning so you must know where you got it from.

I just want to know where you got these quotes so I can read them myself. I’ll remind you what you said

How can the viral load and HIV antibody tests be defended when both come with the following disclaimers: “At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence or the absence of antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 in human blood” and “The Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection”

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 3:29 PM

Amplicor:
http://www.fda.gov/cber/PMAltr/P9500053L.htm

“The AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR Test is an in vitro nucleic acid amplification test for the quantitation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) RNA in human plasma. The test is intended for use in conjunction with clinical presentation and other laboratory markers of disease progress for the clinical management of HIV-1 infected patients. The test can be used to assess patient prognosis by measuring the baseline HIV-1 RNA level or to monitor the effect of antiviral therapy by serial measurement of plasma HIV-1 RNA levels during the course of antiviral treatment. Monitoring the effects of antiviral therapy by serial measurement of plasma HIV-1 RNA has been validated for patient swith baseline viral loads ≥25,000 copies/mL.

The AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR Test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection.”

I believe this was all covered in the denial thread somewhere.

Noreen, you keep on switching tack every time someone asks you a question. Why? Have no answers?

Posted by: DT | September 26, 2007 3:42 PM

jspreen, it sounds like you are suggesting that if I don’t believe in a bullet then I have nothing to fear from one being fired at me. Is this correct?

You shouldn’t write down the first thing that pops up into your brain within half a second of reflexion. In my previous message I told you to not stop thinking before you saw the light, remember? Anyway, you may try to not believe in a bullet or to not fear an agressive crook with a gun, but I figure you won’t get far. Which doesn’t totally exclude the eventuality that somewhere on the globe a person exists who mastered that trick and who has no bullet to fear. But a guy who just started a judo course shouldn’t immediately try to floor a black ribbon so let’s do some steps backwards and try to figure out an easier example.

A kid who climbs trees without ever even thinking he might fall, won’t fall. A kid who climbs trees with the fear to fall, will certainly fall out of a tree one day.

Now, one step higher. HIV. The HIV=Aids equation is absolutely nonsense and only dangerous for people who believe in it. How do I know that? Simply because before the eighties HIV was never a problem and only the simplests of minds can believe that HIV popped up in nature, not one million years ago, not in 3425 BC, not in 1546 AC, no, it came to earth exactly when some virologists were badly looking for it. And what came with it? Fear. FEAR. And people who fear do the stupidest things and believe the stupidest stories. For instance, they believe guys who tell the toxic chemicals they make money with is good for one’s health. Or, for instance, they listen to a theory which only approximately sticks together with super glue and is kept standing up by people who’s monthly paycheck depend on that theory.

You want a world without AIDS? Close your eyes, stop listening to bullshitters and you have it. Which doesn’t mean the world would be without people suffering from what is called today immunity deficiency. But the problem wouldn’t be the same anymore. At all. For instance, a phrase like Hey there’s a guy with AIDS, he needs ARV’s! might become something like Hey, there’s a guy who’s starving, he needs bananas!

Posted by: jspreen | September 26, 2007 3:58 PM

Some New Germanic person’s been watching to many kung fu movies!!

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 4:05 PM

You shouldn’t write down the first thing that pops up into your brain within half a second of reflexion. In my previous message I told you to not stop thinking before you saw the light, remember?

What light is there to see? You said that if you don’t believe in something then it cannot harm you so I gave a simple example and asked if that is what you meant. Is your ‘advice’ selective? It only works for bacteria and not for bullets? I don’t want vagueness I want you to be specific and state your meaning not some fortune cookie saying and tell me there is some nonexistent light to seen because you have a warped concept of reality. If your brilliant idea can’t withstand a question as direct as what a 4 year old would ask maybe it’s not that good.

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 4:32 PM

apy,

I wonder if the great New Teutonic yogi can give us some advice does it work both ways?

I mean I see the light now. If I don’t fear a car crash I will never crash my car. If I don’t fear a bullet I am invincible. That’s easy.

What about if I believe I can fly? OK so there I am in a airplane, it blows up and I’m free falling. Duh, if I don’t fear gravity I won’t die everyone knows that. But can I actually fly? If I believe I can fly can I do it?

Then what about if Noreen believes she can tell us where she got those quotes? Does it make her able to tell us?

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 4:48 PM

What light is there to see?

May I suggest you read my previous message to the end before you start hammering on your keyboard?

Posted by: jspreen | September 26, 2007 4:52 PM

Adele,
I spent the first dozen years of my life believing people really can’t be that dumb. And well….I’m not convinced jspreen’s advice works to say the least.

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 4:52 PM

May I suggest you read my previous message to the end before you start hammering on your keyboard?

Your argument falls apart in the first sentence so what is the point? You realize that in order for your high level argument to work it’s foundation needs to work too right?

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 4:54 PM

Adele, it makes no difference where I got the information from, either the tests have been validated or they have not. What’s the problem here, you can’t respond to a simple question that is very significant to HIV causing AIDS? You folks can trust you life on an unproven virus and meaningless tests if you want too but many of us will not!

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 5:32 PM

Umm..didn’t she answer your question already? The one that showed the FDA had passed a viral load test, which is the exact thing you asked for?

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 5:37 PM

Noreen I don’t care where you got your information I just want to read it for myself. I would like to read these quotes for myself, thats it! You just copied them this morning what was your source?

Where did you get them? Its a siomple question, yes.

I answered your question and I gave you a paper and a news account about how viral load assays are confirmed. Why cant you answer my question?

Posted by: Adele | September 26, 2007 5:50 PM

For those too lazy to search wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_load_test

Several different HIV viral load tests have been developed, and three are currently approved for use in the US:

* Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test (Hoffman-La Roche), better known as the PCR test
* NucliSens HIV-1 QT, or NASBA (bioMerieux)
* Versant/Quantiplex HIV-1 RNA, or bDNA (Chiron/Bayer)

These tests have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States for use in monitoring the health of people with HIV, in conjunction with other markers.

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 5:59 PM

I’m not a professor Cooler. Tara is.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | September 26, 2007 6:53 PM

You guys are pathetic beyond belief. You know very well what Noreen means. The PCR tests have been validated for counting small pieces of RNA, but none of them has yet been validated for verisfying on its own that the RNA pieces it counts means you are infected with “HIV” – like so:

The AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR Test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection

Courtesy of DT.

I repeat, you are pathetic beyond belief!

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 26, 2007 6:57 PM

Unlike the viral load tests, the APTIMA test has been approved for the diagnosis of primary HIV-1 infection, as well as for confirming HIV-1 infection when tests for antibodies to HIV-1 are positive.

Pathetic beyond belief!

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 26, 2007 7:31 PM

Have they verified this test against those who test HIV-Negative? Did you catch that it is to be used when the person has HIV-Positive Antibodies? This to me is red flag. Let’s run this test on HIV-Negative persons and then I would consider it to be a valid test.

Posted by: noreen | September 26, 2007 7:37 PM

Have they verified this test against those who test HIV-Negative? Did you catch that it is to be used when the person has HIV-Positive Antibodies? This to me is red flag. Let’s run this test on HIV-Negative persons and then I would consider it to be a valid test.

The experiments used to determine the specificity and sensitivity are described in the label. The manufacturers had to demonstrate that the test worked. The test has been run on HIV antibody negative persons. The specificity was extremely high.

The test can be used to diagnose acute HIV infection. In acute infection people still test negative on antibody tests. Thus, this test can be used by iteself for diagnosis. In addition it can be used to confirm a positive reading on antibody tests.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 26, 2007 7:57 PM

Noble, DT, Adele, Apy, Framklin.

Why are you here? Isn’t this getting a little “old Hat” for you by now?

Carter

Posted by: carter | September 26, 2007 9:58 PM

Am I allowed to ask you that?

Posted by: apy | September 26, 2007 10:30 PM

You know very well what Noreen means. The PCR tests have been validated for counting small pieces of RNA

Epidemiology-Lisa, when you are standing at a bookshelf in the library and a hand appears at the end of the row, apparently suspended about four feet from the ground and pressing buttons on a cell phone, do you assume the hand is disembodied, somehow floating about amongst the collection of books and using a cell phone of its own accord?

Unless you recently partook of some very serious drugs, I should sincerely hope not! Yet this is exactly what you assume of what the various HIV nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) detect. They amplify a nucleic acid sequence that is far too large and complex to appear on its own, by chance mutation of a human sequence (like the hand and its cell phone). They identify a sequence that is unique, not confused with any “relatives” (just as you could tell that the hand you saw was a human hand, not the paw of a dog or even the hand of a chimp). This sequence is unambiguously an integral part of the genome of a virus called HIV.

You are not a scientist, Epidemiology-LISA, but several rethinkers do apparently have scientific credentials. Unlike you and Noreen, carter and cooler, they (should) know what DNA is, what RNA is, how PCR works, and all the rest. They have had many years now to demonstrate the existence of a single nucleic acid sequence present in the human genome or in the genome of a bacterium, fungus, or virus that could be found in a human and would have enough identity with HIV to possibly cause a false positive on these validated NAATs. Today, courtesy of Japan, the EU and the US government, nucleic acid sequence information is available to everyone with internet access. No NIH grants are needed, no well-equipped laboratories; just a computer and an internet port. The silence you hear is the sound of the Big Deniers doing nothing to find that sequence…or reporting the sequences they have found: none.

Chris linked to the PI for the APTIMA test, but I suspect that few rethinkers will read it for fear of having to rethink.

Samples from three low-risk groups (blood or plasma donors) were tested.
First group: 6 out of 2508 tested positive. They were not re-tested, so we can’t conclude whether they were initial false, repeated false, or true positives in the acute phase of infection.
Second group: 0 out of 1007 tested positive.
Third group: 2 out of 1701 tested positive, but on re-testing were negative.

A specificity of 99.9% is remarkable.

For over 1000 known positive samples, sensitivity was 100%.

To sum this up: APTIMA is a diagnostic tool, FDA-approved with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of almost 100%.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 26, 2007 11:05 PM

Michael–knock it off with comments from “Tony Fauci.” I’m not amused. And I don’t know what you’re talking about re: holding your comments; the “Fauci” ones are the only ones from your IP that I have in my junk comment box.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | September 27, 2007 12:12 AM

Unlike the viral load tests, the APTIMA test has been approved for the diagnosis of primary HIV-1 infection, as well as for confirming HIV-1 infection when tests for antibodies to HIV-1 are positive.

Even this test requires back-up when possible. Fact is the have for along tinme used unapproved PCR tests as proof of primary infection. It was ony a matter of time before they were forced to approve one of them. And Dr. Noble get some reading glasses will ya, Noreen was talking about the viral load tests.

Mr. Elk science lecturer. The reason why I assume the hand is not disembodied is because I daily see many instances of real hands attached to real bodies in vivo.

Or to put it differently, how do you know the “known positive” samples are positive in the real world?

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | September 27, 2007 3:16 AM

Some may be curious to know that there is a flaw with the FDA’s approval system of drugs. Per CNN, 2% of drugs, which equates to 65 million drugs do not have FDA approval and are being sold to the consumer. Surprisingly, most doctors do not know this too. The FDA apparently gives these drugs a ten-digit NDC number to track them without approval and they are legally being sold by the pharmacists. Representative Edward Markey wants the FDA to come clean with the non-approved drugs. The FDA does not have one list of these drugs and won’t say how many have been killed or injured by them. The best, at the present, that the consumer can do is to go to FDA.gov and check to see if any drug that one is taking is approved, however, not all approved drugs are may be found here. The report recommended for one to check with their doctor if a particular drug was not on the list.

Posted by: noreen | September 27, 2007 5:40 AM

Even this test requires back-up when possible. Fact is the have for along tinme used unapproved PCR tests as proof of primary infection. It was ony a matter of time before they were forced to approve one of them. And Dr. Noble get some reading glasses will ya, Noreen was talking about the viral load tests.

Noreen was talking about a test that measures actual virus rather than antibodies. All nucleic acid tests detect actual virus. Some are designed primarily for quantitation and some are designed like the Aptima test for diagnosis of HIV infection.

Noreen wrote:

However, I asked where has the FDA approved them or any other test for measuring the ACTUAL VIRUS? We are waiting!

I am overwhelmed by the silence when I gave her such a test. Apparently all the denialist websites haven’t been updated since 2006.

In reality the viral load tests, although unapproved for diagnostic purposes, had high sensitivity and high specificity when good quality control procedures were used. Many labs scored 100% specificity and 100% sensistivity using these tests compared to antibody testing.

I can imagine what would happen if a Denialist fell off a cruise ship. The Denialist can’t swim and starts to drown. Somebody throws him/her an inflatable pool toy that was on the deck. The Denialist manages to reach the inflatable toy. Then they read the label on the toy: “Warning this toy is not intended for use as a flotation device”. The Denialist throws the toy away in disgust. The Denialist drowns.

Posted by: Chris Noble | September 27, 2007 6:18 AM

Dr. Noble, if these tests are so accurate, as you claim, then please tell us how HIV-Negative persons have had high viral loads and why the CDC does not want this test run on HIV-Negative persons?

Posted by: noreen | September 27, 2007 7:03 AM

In reality the viral load tests, although unapproved for diagnostic purposes, had high sensitivity and high specificity when good quality control procedures were used.

Yeah! They’re highly sensitive and specific but that’s kept secret because the manufacturor doesn’t really want people to use hem.
How full of shit are you, Noble? I remember, already back in december 1999 one couldn’t send a HIV=Aids questioning message to an Internet discussion forum without having a named Chris Noble on one’s back within an hour. How do you earn your living, Chris, if all you do is hangin’ around on the Internet to answer a denier post wherever and whenever it pops up? Are you payed per message? If yes, I’m quite jealous of you.
I’ve done some nudge-nudge wink-winking to where the big money is, a year or so ago, but no reaction at all. You can read my latest attempt here. Can you check it out for me and tell me where I missed the boat? Let’s say fifty-fifty, OK?

Posted by: jspreen | September 27, 2007 8:03 AM

Dear Chris,

I was thinking that Mullis main critic to the PCR use was that the technique amplify sequences of the virus and cannot therefore be used to quantify existing/ active viruses.

Without quantification the use of values as viral load look hazardous. (Wrong real viral loads may explain the Rodriguez paper for example).

The patent submitted by GENE-PROBE (the company that manufacture the APTIMA product) show that they also are detecting series of oligonucleotides that they found to be characteristic to HIV-1 and HIV-2,(see US20050153282). There is no major change over pre-existent technology, and therefore no reason for Mullis to change his comment.

I hope that this comment could be useful, as I appreciate that you are very accurate, and well read in your comments.

Posted by: Braganza | September 27, 2007 8:27 AM

please tell us how HIV-Negative persons have had high viral loads and why the CDC does not want this test run on HIV-Negative persons?

“HIV-Negative persons” do not have high viral loads. This is a myth from virusmyth or another rethinker group. The very few cases in which seronegative people test positive by PCR are almost certainly due to laboratory error (which should be rectified by repeat testing) or to actual acute-phase HIV-infection prior to seroconversion.

From the APTIMA literature:
5,200 people presumed negative by donor screening
8 tested positive by APTIMA
2 of the 8 were negative on re-test
the other 6 were not retested

I repeat: the APTIMA HIV-1 RNA test was used to test more than 5,200 people in low-risk donor populations. A total of eight (8) tested positive on the initial test. Two of these were re-tested and were negative. The remaining six were not retested. They could be false-positives due to error, they could be cases of early HIV infection, or they could be true false positives. In any case, this test has an extremely low false-positive rate. For a single test in the groups above, the rate is between 0.1 and 0.2%. Using a repeat testing protocol on the cohorts mentioned above, it would likely be somewhere between 0 and 0.1%.

Noreen’s difficulties with giving her sources make it hard to refute her claims. Where, for example, does the CDC say that the APTIMA test should not be used for HIV-negative persons? (For that matter, why should a known HIV-negative person take the APTIMA test, anyway? I thought that rethinkers oppose testing in general, and especially in low-risk populations.)

In terms of “high” viral loads in HIV-negative people, Noreen has clearly not read the few papers on this subject referenced by denial doctor Matt Irwin and Alive and Well. One of these papers describes one individual who had a single positive viral load test, a test that was subsequently negative. Other labs tested the original sample and found it to be negative. This indicates lab error in the original measurement, not a viral load in a HIV- person.

Performing quantitative PCR assays is not trivial. A typical assay will require the use of several positive controls (purified HIV RNA and inactivated virus from positive serum) and negative controls (known negative serum, zero template copies). Because positive controls are present, contamination is always a possibility. It is a good practice to re-test an initial positive sample.

The reasons for a NAAT initial positive in a low-risk, EIA-negative population, in order of decreasing likelihood, are:

Error (equipment problems, human error including contamination)
Actual infection in the acute phase (very low probability)
True false-positive (may not occur at all in well-validated tests like APTIMA)

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | September 27, 2007 8:53 AM

Noreen,

You asked:

“Dr. Noble, if these tests are so accurate, as you claim, then please tell us how HIV-Negative persons have had high viral loads and why the CDC does not want this test run on HIV-Negative persons?”

I may be wrong, but if the PCR assay for example is calibrated to detect HIV-1 Rev protein, it may also detect a sequence of an endogenous retrovirus, that an HIV negative person may carry.

See details at :

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/23/13404

“(..)The human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) family of endogenous retroviruses consists of 50 proviral copies per haploid human genome. Herein, the HERV-Ks are shown to encode a sequence-specific nuclear RNA export factor, termed K-Rev, that is functionally analogous to the HIV-1 Rev protein.(…)”

So I think everything depends on how SPECIFIC would be the PCR. As far as I understand there is no universal standard.
So some PCR’s assays may detect only HIV characteristic nucleic acids and others no. Only when everything would be sequenced we would have the truth.

Your high viral load may not be a real high viral load of HIV, it all depend of the sequence been measured.

Posted by: Braganza | September 27, 2007 8:57 AM
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Tara Smith Aetiology blog on SEED Scienceblogs, Introduction to HIV and HIV denial, June 2007.
Introduction to HIV and HIV denial

Category: AIDS/HIV
Posted on: June 29, 2007 11:00 AM, by Tara C. Smith

I don’t often provide a lot of background into HIV science or HIV denial, instead referencing previous posts I’ve made or websites such as AIDStruth.org or the NIAID fact sheet. For those of you who may be looking for more background in a nice, concise format, HealthDot has a 20-minute interview with John Moore and Jeanne Bergman (both who help run AIDStruth.org) regarding the issues of HIV science and HIV denial–including a few minutes on what journalists can do.

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Comments

Tara, Thanks for all this. I expect you will be inundated by more denialists. Fifteen years ago I was pretty well informed on the subject because I was designing and synthesizing protease inhibitors. The question I have for all the denialists is: what qualifies you to come to your conclusions?

This is not a social issue that is decided by persuasion; this is a technical issue that is decided on the data, by people qualified to understand the data.

There is an article (warning- PDF) that I find useful, it is about how people who know the least about a subject have the strongest opinions http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf .

Before denialists play the Duesberg card- I have read his early arguments, while doing so I thought “there must be a psychiatric diagnosis for his condition.” Sure, he is an authority on retroviruses; but, on HIV-AIDS he is irrational.

Posted by: Joe | June 29, 2007 11:51 AM

If I remember correctly, some people such as Lynn Margulis appear to not be convinced HIV causes AIDS. Do their ideas have any ground to them? Someone like Dr Margulis have a fairly strong scientific background and don’t appear to just be some crackpot.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 12:31 PM

Lynn Margulis got her views from Peter Duesberg & Harvey Bialy and particularly from Harvey Bialy’s biography of Duesberg. The fact that Margulis recently parroted those views in a blog posting (including canards like all pregnant women testing positive) suggests that whatever her scientific background, it has not served her well on this topic. I do not know enough about her to know if she’s a crackpot, but the people she’s getting her information from certainly are, e.g. here is Harvey Bialy attempting to “debate” Nick Bennett:

http://deanesmay.com/posts/1105628771.shtml

Bialy subsequently admitted that “Eccles the Idiot” was also him.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | June 29, 2007 12:46 PM

Thanks for linking that interview Tara. I’m so jealous of how Jeanne Bergman and John Moore communicate! The analogies were just great.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 12:53 PM

I suppose we can’t be masters of all knowledge. Has she submitted any sort of withdrawal if her statements?

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 1:11 PM

I thought the denialists were nuts until i saw the video Hiv Fact or fraud last summer. Its pretty rude that many reputable scientists have questioned the hiv hypothesis, and have been insulted by many. Here is the video I saw last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064591712431946916

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

People question HIV because there is no reliable animal model (virtually every animal injected does not die of aids) and there is not much virus present, (its only in a small fraction of T cells) Like 1 in a hundred or so.

Many take the middle road, Like Luc montagnier the discoverer of HIV, Who in his book “virus” in 2000 still stresses the need for co factors, specifically shyh ching Lo’s mycoplasma penetrans. This microbe causes disease and death in every animal injected as lo showed. DR. Nicolson has found this microbe via pcr in CFS, ALS, GWI and you can see his research here.

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

Garth Nicolsons new book must be read about mycoplasma and Gulf war Syndrome.

www.projectdaylily.com

Im not saying that HIV does or Does not cause AIDS but there needs to be more study, and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly, not insulted personally.

Posted by: cooler | June 29, 2007 1:28 PM

Oh dear,

Tara’s doing some “damage control”.

Another study comes out (see sidebar) that should get any thinking person to question which way is “up” in “AIDS research”.

I like the way Jeffreys basically states the Lynn Margulis can’t think for herself. Obviously, Duesberg needs to hold her hand, otherwise she wouldn’t question the HIV=AIDS hypothesis. Lame

Anyhoo,
in response to “Joe”, who’s aware that this really isn’t a scientific issue, but a sociolgical one (but states the opposite)…as soon as you science folks lose the gays on this one, it’s a done deal. San Diego’s Gay Lesbian Times recently published an article that gave the dissidents a fair shake. The editor goes on to say that the GLT will continue to keep the debate open. Oh, dear…

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 1:52 PM

I don’t think Dr. Margulis retracted. I don’t know her but from what she says I think she has a very regimented anti establishment world view. Not a surprise I guess since she got alot of flak for her own contirbutions to symbiosis theory back then. Also the main denialists are good friends with Margulis. And she at least when she made those statements had only read denialists not the published science.

The problem is, the establishment isn’t always wrong or always completely wrong or always made up only of capitalist pigs.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 2:03 PM

Well, if saying “you’re all nuts” is offering to keep the debate open. It could have positive effects though, maybe they can get more of them to renounce their past homophobic comments. Do you see Margulis’s statement that all pregnant women test HIV positive as a triumph of independent thinking?

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | June 29, 2007 2:06 PM

Richard,

go back and read the whole statement by the editor.

I’m sure he’s quite well aware of the bold step his paper has taken, so, unfortunately, he’s got to do some token dissident-bashing. He does go on to say that the debate should be kept open…which is a terribly inconvenient thing for those who promote the AIDS paradigm. They don’t want debate. Debate=bad!

If you stood on such firm ground, you would enter debate with open arms and minds. And! If you were the scientists you romanticize yourselves to be, you’d understand that any question or challenge can be revisited, including a complete revision of a paradigm:)

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 2:23 PM

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

Don’t they?

Take Harvey Bialy for an example. He might not have any perceived financial conflicts of interest, but those aren’t the only conflicts of interest worth considering. In fact, a more salient conflict of interest worth considering is Harvey Bialy’s raging and mentally unbalanced hate of homosexuals. In his case, AIDS denialism is either a way of attempting to convince HIV-positive homosexuals the treatment that they need and so contributing to their deaths, or a way of shifting the blame for the disease from an ethically neutral virus to a “lifestyle disease” for which he can blame homosexuals. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. In either case, dispassionate evaluation is not common to HIV-denialists.

Posted by: Nullifidian | June 29, 2007 2:37 PM

The claim that debate=bad for those that “promote the AIDS paradigm” is a bit off point isn’t it? I am not a doctor nor do I have any experience in AIDS research, but from what I’ve been reading neither do the denialists. Debate is certainly useful when the two parties of relatively equal understanding of the concepts. It seems like those who “promote the AIDS paradigm” have been hearing the same arguments over and over and have promptly shown that the research disagrees. At this point, what use is debate?

I apologize if what I have said is off base, I have just been reading up on the AIDSTruth website, so perhaps my understanding of the current situation is poor.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 2:38 PM

Apy,

do you watch “The Simpsons”?

You sound like Ralph Wiggum.

Lisa’s 2nd grade class had just gotten finished watching a film about the evils of vegetarianism where vegetarians were described as “grade A morons”. The children, young and easily susceptible to propagandam, started calling Lisa (a vegetarian) a “grade A moron” for not eating the tripe presented to them.

The fact that you call people “denialists”, shows that you’ve just watched the film (AIDStruth).

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 2:56 PM

Insults based on “The Simpsons”? Really dan. That’s almost as good as cooler/911Truther BillyBipBip’s comment consisting almost completely of the word “woo” and variations on it.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 3:01 PM

I preceded and ended my comment with the fact that I am rather new to this entire discussion. I am certainly willing to educate myself more if you would provide information rather than insults.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 3:17 PM

I was mocking you, you’re the one that said woo first. I propose a new law that anyone over 80 years old can not say “woo” LOL

Posted by: cooler | June 29, 2007 3:26 PM

Apy,

For a site that isn’t high in the google ratings, and presumably gets only 150 hits a day, you seemed to find AIDStruth without a problem.

You’re willing to educate yourself. Are you eager to educate yourself?

If you’re eager, you’ll go out and read everything you can and discern for yourself what’s going on. Or you can just rely on AIDStruth. Your choice.

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 3:27 PM

apy,

If you want to look at “alternative” sources of information, here are some ideas.

Barnesworld dot blogs dot com This was set up by Harvey Bialy who’s views on homosexuality were mentioned up there and a right-wing lawyer whose employers were even embarased by this. Some of the articles on the site talk about HIV and AIDS. Bialy also photoshops alot of monkeyheads onto photos of John Moore and he had one of Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden. Definitely one of your more intellectual denialist pages.

newaidsreiview dot org This one is from a long time denialist “journalist” named Liversedge. There isn’t much science on it but you can see more photos of monkeys and John Moore and read amusing arguments between people like “Forty” and “Pope” a guy named Claus Jensen about if John Moore is a closet denialist.

rethinkingaids dot com Has alot of links to other HIV denialist sites and it doesn’t have such a distracting thing with ridiculing John Moore. The president is Etienne Deharven who is a emeritus scientist. They have a list of people who supposedly think HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. The problem with it, alot of people on there never signed it or they’re dead, of AIDS. Also denialists like to say everyone who’se on the list is a scientist but they’re not.

duesberg dot com From the head honcho of bad science himself. Has all his like three thousand bad reviews linked legally or illegally I don’t know. It all makes sense when you read it until you start looking at the references he uses and there are alot of them, he’s lying about it all or using bad logic. All the time.

alive and well dot org. This one wants HIV positive mothers breastfeed their kids even though breastfeeding is a transmission risk. People on their board are people who make money “treating” these patients with “alternative” medicine. Cooler would call it woo. I call it cynicism and conflict of interest too.

There are more but they’re all linked together. Read them but be critical. I’ve read most of em and I could lose one hand and still have enough fingers to count the facts I saw.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 3:55 PM

Not all of us are microbiologists or virologists, yet we have an important obligaton to question academic HIV research, and demand an accounting, especially when HIV research is suspected to be tainted by academic misconduct, unethical or immoral conduct, or influenced by drug company money sponsorship. The danger of leaving oversight to academics in the ivory tower is the same as placing the fox to guard the chicken house.

A favorite false argument by the AIDS apologists is the one you raised, which is, don’t raise any questions because only the highly trained HIV virologists and HIV immunologists in their ivory towers can actually know anything about HIV, and the rest of us poor souls should thank them while we submit to HIV testing, and deadly anti HIV drugs like nevirapine which had once been banned by the CDC ( January 2001).

When science enters our living room, then that gives us the right and obligation to question mandatory HIV testing with false positives that can send life into upheaval, or even trigger the administration of toxic deadly drugs, or removal of a child by social agencies. This has become an even more serious issue in the past 30 years with a long list of bad drugs approved by the FDA and later withdrawn, and other serious problems with the health care system which have come to light as mentioned in books by Abramson and Angell. It is also imperative for the taxpayer to demand an accounting of all the billions of taxpayer public dollars spent on HIV research with no vaccine, no animal model and no mechanism of disease.

The basic questions that need to be answered are:

1) has medical science proven the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS? If so, where are the medical references? So far, none of the drug company reps or paid political activists has posted these in spite of repeated requests. They have given us a few links from the AIDS truth web site, such as this Gallo NEJM article

Who among you here accepts this article as the one that proves HIV causes AIDS?

2) Where are the placebo controlled studies showing safety and efficacy of nevirapine and the other HIV drugs? There aren’t any. This is a disgrace.

3) Where is the animal model for HIV causing AIDS. There isn’t any. This is a disgrace.

4) Where are the hundreds of healthcare workers who contracted AIDS from occupational exposure to AIDS patients needle sticks? There is a governement CDC report of occupationally acquired AIDS which are problematic, there are no other peer reviewed medical literature reports of interns, residents, surgeons, and nurses catching AIDS from needle sticks from AIDs patients. This experiment injecting human “primates” (ie health care workers) with HIV laden needle sticks has been a colossal failure, same as the colossal failure to cause AIDS in chimps by injecting them with HIV. Chimps don’t get AIDS.

It is a disgrace that deadly toxic drugs are being administered to mothers and babies without scientific proof of the causation between HIV and Aids, and without a placebo controlled drug study showing safety and efficacy of the toxic drugs.

For more info see; reviewingaids DOT com

Posted by: Evion | June 29, 2007 4:05 PM

Adele,

oh my. What a difference it would have made had you simply listed the sites without commentary.

It would have given you some credibility, and in doing so, shown the supposed strength of your position.

I hope Apy’s interest is real, and will embark on a journey of discovery.

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 4:09 PM

“For a site that isn’t high in the google ratings, and presumably gets only 150 hits a day, you seemed to find AIDStruth without a problem.”

It’s linked to twice in the post you are commenting on.

“You’re willing to educate yourself. Are you eager to educate yourself?”

I don’t know what this means. This isn’t some world changing event where I decide to take the blue pill. I’m just reading some websites.

“If you’re eager, you’ll go out and read everything you can and discern for yourself what’s going on. Or you can just rely on AIDStruth. Your choice.”

You seem fairly willing and eager to criticize rather than suggest some reading sources.

Adele,
Thanks for the site listing, I’ll look it over when I can.

“oh my. What a difference it would have made had you simply listed the sites without commentary.”

You are willing to speak fairly negatively about the aidstruth website but criticize someone which speaks negatively about the ‘other side’? Perhaps arguing against specific points might help?

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 4:28 PM

Evion,
Certainly you raise some useful points. The most important being “who to trust”. For many issues, one can look at the arguments themselves and determine which one is more likely to be valid, for instance the sun travels around us or we around the sun. However, something like AIDS has been studied for years upon years by very intelligent people with obviously controversial results, perhaps it will take a bit more than just reading a few webpages to come to a conclusion that one can consider their own. After reading a few web pages I cannot say that I understand the fine details any more than before, I can only regurgitate what various people have stated and present their arguments, none of which are the result of any research I have on the subject.

More importantly, you point out that nobody has given any solid proof that HIV leads to AIDs. From what I have found on the AIDSTruth.org website seems to suggest this is very well known and presents a few links to documents.

The AVERT web site (http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm) states:
The alternative definition of AIDS requires a CD4+ cell count consistently below 200 cells per cubic millimetre of blood, which cannot be explained by any factor other than HIV (such as cancer, malnutrition, radiation or chemotherapy). No HIV test is required.

It turns out that the vast majority of people diagnosed with AIDS fit these criteria. They form a population that barely existed before 1980, but which now numbers hundreds of thousands in the USA and Europe alone. People with such severe immune deficiency are at very high risk of developing serious illnesses and usually die within months (unless they take antiretroviral drugs).10, 11, 12 We can use this simple, unambiguous definition to test the association between HIV and AIDS.

I am not going to say if this is valid or not, I simply don’t know. But given that some people are arguing that HIV does not lead to AIDS, do they have any evidence of an alternative? Do they have an animal model? Certainly lacking these does not mean dissidents are wrong, since the pro HIV to AIDS community does not either, but if both choices are on equally poor footing, what tips the balance in the way of the non-HIV theory? Is there any research which shows an overpowering existence of a counterexample to HIV causing AIDS? This would most definitely sway a number of people wouldn’t it?

Finally, if the statement is HIV does not cause AIDS, and from what I understand even some of the most outspoken dissidents agree that HIV does exist, certainly if they all inject themselves with HIV and don’t get AIDS that would be a pretty strong counter example. It looks win-win for both sides too.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 4:57 PM

Dan,

Is there anything untrue about my “commentary”? Did Harvey Bialy put monkey heads on John Moore or not? Did all the people on deharven’s “list” actually sign it or not? Are there people on there who died of AIDS or not? Does the Alive and Well board include alot of people who make money from giving patients “alternative” treatments or not?

The disgrace here “Evion” is people who can’t come up with one original objection to solid HIV science in the last twenty years. Like asking for the “one” paper that proves this or that. Or insisting that “hundreds” or thousands or whatever of healthcare workers should have got AIDS when the reasons why it’s lower were given again and again and then just this afternoon by people like DT on the other thread. Or saying yet again there aren’t any placebo controlled studies when they know there are or they’re just repeating what some other denialist said.

Every denialist argument is like this at least the ones I’ve seen. They’re old. They were mostly crap even when they first came out with a few exceptions that were answered since then. They require you to ignore the evidence or else lie about it like we’ve seen Andrew Maniotis do here and like Duesberg has done since the eighties.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 5:02 PM

Perhaps arguing against specific points might help?

Is that so Apy? Why don’t you mention some specific points you’d like to discuss then?

Following Adele, do you want to discuss homophobia, right wing lawyers, composite pictures, the definition of ‘long time denialist “journalist”‘, “a lot of people whose problem is they didn’t sign or they’re dead of AIDS”, whtehre Duesberg the “head honcho of bad science” links legally or illegally, or wheteher the above are all – gasp – linked together?

Come on take your pick, show your genuine interest in the science. You look pretty well informed after all

Perhaps your specific points are “what an animal model shows HIV doesn’t cause AIDS” Well tell us what such a model looks like, apart from no animals get AIDS from HIV and we’ll try to accomodate you

Don’t be shy now, you’re among powerful friends, so please go ahead and tell us what the “overpowering existence of a counter example to HIV causes AIDS” would be. We’ll try to find one that satisfies you.

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 5:17 PM

I don’t know, but the specific post you are referencing I made was referring to some sort of model for what dissidents do think causes AIDS. I’m asking for an experiment that can be preformed that is reproducible that causes AIDS. Sorry for the confusion.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 5:26 PM

I’m asking for an experiment that can be preformed that is reproducible that causes AIDS.

Apy, I’m sure you know that such an experiment would take a long time and cost a lot of money. Do you know somebody who’d like to finance and publish it?

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 5:38 PM

Mr Bialy claims to be very rich. Rich people often know rich people, perhaps he could work something out?

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 5:42 PM

apy,

HIV research has SIV models of AIDS. HIV was a zoonosis it came from SIV in primates that infected an injured hunter or someone preparing the meat. So the ideal model of AIDS would be using the same virus or a similar virus in a host that hadn’t seen that virus before. If you infect a primate with a SIV from another species it gets symptoms of AIDS. T-cells go down, it gets OIs actually most of the AIDS symptoms have been seen at one time or another. So there is a model. It’s not perfect but what animal model of disease is? There are alot of questions left but we’re working on them.

On the other side, most denialists have a drug or stress theory of HIV causing AIDS. There’s a large block of research on drugs of abuse and other drugs and animals. The only drugs that cause anything like AIDS are immunosuppressives. Drugs don’t cause AIDS. Stress doesn’t cause AIDS. There’s nothing out there you can link from an animal model to everyone who has AIDS. Except for a lentivirus you can find in every AIDS patient.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 5:47 PM

Ah, Adele, you never answered my question, have chimps always been such an imperfect animal model as in the case of HIV/AIDS?

The only drugs that cause anything like AIDS are immunosuppressives. Drugs don’t cause AIDS

Thank you for that. I’m confident Apy can draw his own conclusions from that piece of logic without comment – if he wants to…

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 5:54 PM

Duesberg knows rich people too. His lab got funded by rich ultraconservatives. Duesberg’s had twenty years to make a contribution to AIDS research. What has he done? Published a bunch of repeated reviews that are an embarassment to the journals who published them. Lies, distortions, childish logic. Why didn’t he do some of these drug studies to prove he was right? He’s supposed to be the modern Galileo, what gives?

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 5:55 PM

“The only drugs that cause anything like AIDS are immunosuppressives. Drugs don’t cause AIDS

Thank you for that. I’m confident Apy can draw his own conclusions from that piece of logic without comment – if he wants to… ”

I can’t draw a conclusion yet, I need another piece of data. It sounds like you are implying AIDS is caused by drugs. So, have a statistically relevant portion of AIDS patients been proven to have taken a drug that is shown to have immunosupressive effects?

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 6:00 PM

When I wrote immunosuppressive I meant drugs used to prevent organ transplant rejection. Some steroid use can do the same thing.

Illegal drugs? Take heroin. There’s been alot of interest in heroin and HIV since alot of people get HIV by injecting drugs together with someone who already has it. So there’s been alot of research on this. The people in these studies with HIV have about half the CD4 T-cells that drug users without HIV have. Jon Cohen did a article about drug use and Duesberg in Science over ten years ago.
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1648a.pdf

Different drugs do different things to the immune system. These all get outweighed by what HIV does. HIV infection ends up depleting a specific population of cells and that leaves you helpless to the fungi and bacteria you normally fight off every day.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 6:13 PM

Adele said

The disgrace here “Evion” is people who can’t come up with one original objection to solid HIV science in the last twenty years. Like asking for the “one” paper that proves this or that. Or insisting that “hundreds” or thousands or whatever of healthcare workers should have got AIDS when the reasons why it’s lower were given again and again and then just this afternoon by people like DT on the other thread. Or saying yet again there aren’t any placebo controlled studies when they know there are or they’re just repeating what some other denialist said. Every denialist argument is like this at least the ones I’ve seen. They’re old. They were mostly crap even when they first came out with a few exceptions that were answered since then. They require you to ignore the evidence or else lie about it like we’ve seen Andrew Maniotis do here and like Duesberg has done since the eighties.

1) Adele, you seem to be in agreement that there is not one paper that proves HIV causes AIDS? Right? And at the same time, you seem to feel that there is no problem with the fact that there is not one paper that proves HIV causes AIDS. We dont need any papers that prove HIV causes AIDS. Do you agree with this Adele? How about two, three four or five papers? How many papers does it take to prove HIV causes AIDS? 100 papers, a thousand, the entire medical literature? Is this what you think Adele, that a collection of thousands of papers collectively prove HIV causes AIDS, but they cannot be listed individually? Correct? Which is it Adele? Will you be evasive and/or lie about this or give it straight this time?

2) Adele, you seem to agree that there are enough occupationally acquired AIDS reported in the medical literature to preserve the hypothesis that HIV acquired by health care workers causes AIDS? What about Brazil?

“Brazil ranks among the countries with the highest numbers of AIDS case reports in the world. By the end of the year 2000, 203,353 cases and 100,494 deaths due to AIDS had been reported by the National System. Although there are 99 documented or possible cases of occupational exposure to HIV in the world literature, no cases had been reported in Brazil up to the present date.”

The first case of AIDS due to occupational exposure in Brazil

Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases vol.6 no.3 Salvador June 2002, , Naila Janilde Seabra Santos et al.

This is the number 200,000 AIDS cases by end of year 2000, and ZERO reported occupationally acquired AIDS, until this ONE case of AIDS? One is a very lonely number. Sorry, Adele, although I would like to be a believer, you are not very convincing. Remember the numbers, 200,000 AIDS cases and ONE nurse gets AIDS from a patient, thats ALL. Something smells fishy in Denmark.

3) Adele, this is what your DT colleague says is a placebo for the placebo controlled nevirapine trial. The drug group received nevirapine and 2 more toxic HIV drugs, the placebo group received a placebo (instead of nevirapine) and two more toxic HIV drugs. Adele, so you really believe that this charade is a placebo controlled trial? The “placebo” is in actuality 2 toxic drugs. What ever happened to the old way, one group receiving the drug and the other group receiving a placebo? (not a placebo and two toxic drugs?) This is very sick twisted logic which is a disgrace to humanity and medical science. Do you agree with this Adele, that 2 toxic drugs can be called a “placebo”? You want to talk about crap? This is crap.

Posted by: Evion | June 29, 2007 6:15 PM

Where’s the one paper that proves evolution? Honestly. You have access to the medical literature so look it up. Although you’re probably a creo.

I’m satisfied with Bob Gallo’s first group of papers plus Jay Levy’s independent isolation. But none of that would’ve worked without the four years of publications by doctors and other people describing AIDS and what it was and how its infectious. If you want those papers and there are hundreds, go get them. They’re not a secret. After 1984 there were still issues to solve. A lot of them were , some not. That’s why we still work on it. But the causation is proven as much as you can prove something.

If you’re interested in stick-infection, go read DT on the other thread.

Your placebo is really pissing me off. When you know a drug can save someone’s life you don’t give them a salt pill. So if you come up with a maybe better drug, you compare the first drug to the second one. It’s called ethics. But there’s not a single paper proving ethics, is there, I admit it.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 6:23 PM

If you want to compare drugs, why not compare those on any antiretrovirals to a group of patients only on LDN. Let’s see which group fares the best and who lives the longest. It would not be unethical to do this because those of us on LDN are on it by choice and it is being prescribed legally. Maybe some are afraid of the results that would be found.

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 29, 2007 6:29 PM

Different drugs do different things to the immune system. These all get outweighed by what HIV does.

Makes you wonder what exactly the HIV test measures doesn’t it?

Apy, You seem to have lost interest in animal models almost as quickly as Adele and have instead started speculating in how rich people are tied together:

Mr (sic) Bialy claims to be very rich. Rich people often know rich people, perhaps he could work something out

Are you suggesting philantropist millionaires should fund alternative medical research with no view to profit? But that would subvert the pharmaceuticals, perhaps our whole enlightened capitalist democracy wouldn’t it?

You’re not a commie are you Apy, or perhaps an islamist?

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 6:29 PM

If you were the scientists you romanticize yourselves to be, you’d understand that any question or challenge can be revisited, including a complete revision of a paradigm:)

Well said, Dan! Exactly the point that I have been making in another thread while addressing the anti-scientific stance of Dr. Aust.

Since Tara added this “damage control” post right after my last post in the other thread, I’m reposting part of my “two questions” post, here. Posters like “Joe” seem to believe that ordinary people have no business assessing the successes and failures of HIV science, even though the failures can easily be identified as outnumbering the successes by a wide margin. He obviously doesn’t realize how dangerous his obsequious attitude is–particularly given the high-levels of corruption in modern medicine. It isn’t Duesberg stance that is irrational, but rather, it is “Joe” and his eagerness to legitmize the “secret” language of HIV that is irrational.

_____________________

Because people fool themselves without knowing they are doing it. — Dr. Aust

Your most recent testimonial proves that you understand a thing or two about fooling yourself. I’ve got two very basic questions for you, Doctor…two questions questions that you do not seem to want to honestly answer, yet they are the best place to begin our evaluation.

Are people still dying from HIV/AIDS?
and
How are they dying?

Before we answer these questions, let’s look at why HIV apologists, such as yourself, try to invalidate my right, and more importantly, the rights of fellow scientists to ask these two very basic questions. This implicit censorship, among professionals, is very telling. After all, the evidence exposing HIV/AIDS as a mistaken explanation is quite apparent; twenty years of shoddy science is not easily defended. I find one example particularly telling; the ridiculous back-peddling often employed by those who “study” HIV is unmistakable, and their scripted recantations are downright Orwellian–such an unbecoming environment for producing good science–yet, Dr. Aust, and others on this blog, prefer to remain oblivious.

Science is not alone in the loss of self-correcting mechanisms. The hollow testimonies of the numerous shills in our society are unavoidable, and they would be almost entertaining, that is, if they weren’t so goddamn disconcerting. Whether its housing, education, or health care, those in control of the funding have proved to be more interested in using that money to increase personal wealth, to obscene levels, in spite of obvious detriments to the integrity of the social institutions they purport to serve. The economy (housing bubble), civic responsibility (cynical citizens who don’t vote) and personal health (profiteering trumps care concerns) are all riddled with damning examples of frequent and blatant abuses of public trust by those in control. Consequently, a culture of accepted corruption–across institutions–has become normalized while legitimate endeavors and concerns suffer from neglect. Such massive corruption has eroded the self-correcting mechanisms that previously assured the integrity of these institutions, and those responsible for the decline should be held accountable. In fact, many of those who now hold professional status should lose it.

Where HIV/AIDS is concerned, a system of rituals and a “secret” language disguised as specialized science has replaced the system that has worked for so long–a system based primarily on independent inquiry, real Science! Scientists and doctors, alike, are complicit in allowing this to happen. The abandonment of “do no harm” is an important component to understanding how this could happen to such a damaging degree. Once again, professional complicity was absolutely required before such specious science could ever become normalized. Don’t you agree, Dr. Aust? Regardless, accountability will be necessary before change can occur.

__________________________

The negative results of endemic corruption are obvious throughout our society, and the pathetic and impotent claims produced by HIV science provide some of the most absurd examples:

“HIV is very enigmatic but always fatal…well, at some point in the future it’s fatal…we just can’t tell you the when or the how, unless you take these pills 12 times a day; then, we can tell you…because we can monitor your “markers” for HIV, as you get sicker from the drugs. Also, we’ll continue to ignore these debilitating and deadly side effects, while also refusing to recognize the irrelevance of HIV markers, in spite of research suggesting otherwise. We also ignore the obvious changes in cause of death and the disparities in disease presentation in different parts of the world. Remember, it’s a very enigmatic virus…just take your pills and the side effects, take those too…they’re part of the deal. You’ll die if you don’t. Did I mention that? We haven’t even gotten to the conflicting mutation theories but boy do they mutate…”

Dr. Aust, you and your colleagues, have had twenty years to come up with an answer, and this is the best that you can do. HIV/AIDS is a money tree for Big Pharma, and it’s inability to explain the realities of this disease condition are becoming ever more apparent. Your posturing has grown tiresome, and it is a danger to public health.
____________________
Finally, let’s answer those two basic questions, shall we?

Are people still dying from HIV/AIDS?

Yes…the number that are dying from “AIDS” is virtually unchanged. While the ranks of healthy HIV positives has grown due to scaremongering and increased testing, the connection between the two appears to be quite dubious. Thus, HIV positivity is a red herring, unless of course you continue to shoot Meth and/or begin a regimen of life-ending retrovirals.

How are they dying?

This is where things get even more interesting…whether apologists will admit it or not, many more “AIDS” patients are dying from the medications. Organ failure, including liver and heart, along with physical deformities have become normalized and synonymous with HIV/AIDS, which is in stark contrast to the defining ailments that characterized the condition early on. Of course, the apologists refuse to acknowledge the significance of this fact and continue to argue that the alternatives are worse, but as Noreen and myself understand, the “real” alternatives can mean the difference between living and dying. This is a human tragedy, and the killing by prescription has to stop.

As for HIV, the only thing that mutates faster than the virus are the laughable theories used to explain-away its numerous explanatory deficiencies.

Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | June 29, 2007 6:32 PM

Dear Adele,

OK I understand you feel that HIV causes AIDs has been proven, and this proof is recorded openly somewhere in the medical literature. Fine. If this is so, then why no occupationally acquired AIDS cases in Brazil after 200,000 AIDS patients were treated in Brazilian hospitals upto the year 2000, at which time a single AIDS case was reportedly acquired from an AIDS patient? Doesn’t this strike you as rather odd, and inconsistent with the “proven” hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS? Only one case?

Posted by: Evion | June 29, 2007 6:37 PM

“You seem to have lost interest in animal models”
What do you mean? I asked if there was an animal model for what dissidents think causes AIDS. Do I have to mention it in every post from then on?

noreen Martin,
What is LDN?

“Are you suggesting philantropist millionaires should fund alternative medical research with no view to profit? ”
I’m just suggesting a possibility to acquire funds to research it. Someone expressed an issue with testing dissident theories due to lack of funds, but if many of the head dissidents are very wealthy perhaps they could fund their own research. If it pays off they could possibly pull a profit out of it, depending on what they find. I’m not sure why you feel the need to accuse me of being a commie or an islamist, I don’t see what that has to do with funding research.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 6:42 PM

LDN or low dose naltrexone is a wonderful drug that is helping many with immune deficiency diseses from cancers to autimsm, MS, AIDS and a lot more in between. It works by a differnt concept, meaning that it does not directly kill anything. Instead, it works by boosting the body’s own endrophin levels in the brain so that the body can ward off diseases. It is taken late at night and not in a time-release form so that all through the next day the body’s levels are normal. It has been found that many people with immune diseases have low levels of endrophins and this helps to correct this problem.

This drug is not new and Dr. Bihari used it in the early 80’s for his AIDS patients. It has done great things for M.S. and some studies have been done on it. As stated earlier, it is cheap, non-addictive, no side effects and it works. I swear by this drug and you can take from that what you may. Having had AIDS and many of the AIDS-defining diseases, this drug has helped to keep me healthy. Since being on it, I haven’t even had the common cold.

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 29, 2007 6:51 PM

So what’s the balance on Harvey Bialy’s bank account, and who else is rich, Ape? How much does it cost to keep theAIDS Inc. research machine running for a year? I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t millions.

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 6:54 PM

I don’t know, but the specific post you are referencing I made was referring to some sort of model for what dissidents do think causes AIDS. — apy

I realize that I am only one example,but I suffered severe immune dysfunction, in the form of AIDS-defining ailments, while consistently testing HIV-negative. I’ve only recovered by my health after existing conventional care and by finding an MD who practiced holistic treatment for immune failure. He also realized that my health was being severely compromised by opportunistic fungal infections, which is also found in virtually all HIV-positive AIDS cases. For example, PCP and candida are both common AIDS-related fungal infections. Regardless, my health has drastically improved over the past two years, using primarily alternative treatments.

I have posted about my experiences numerous times on this blog. If you are truly interested in learning about an alternative interpretation of “AIDS”, you can review my previous posts on the subject:

Here and Here…

In trying to find answers, I’ve found others, both test-positive and test-negative who have similar histories. The positive ones were usually placed on ARVs, which seems to help for a short period, but the negative patients, like me were left with few answers, unless we found them on our own, which I did! As long as conventional medicine prefers to remain in the dark about the realities of this condition, effective treatments for all “AIDS” cases will be a long-time coming, and perhaps, that’s exactly what Big Pharma and modern medicine want…it certainly assures big profits and job security.

In my opinion, there will never be an easy, all-encompassing answer for AIDS, for it obviously has multiple causes. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, HIV doesn’t appear to be one of them. What I do know is that the most effective treatments for restoring immune health will require a holistic understanding by both patient and doctor, and pharmaceuticals will definitely play a smaller role if the goal is long-term immune reconstitution. That’s a fact.

Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | June 29, 2007 7:27 PM

Having had AIDS and many of the AIDS-defining diseases, this drug has helped to keep me healthy. Since being on it, I haven’t even had the common cold.

Noreen, I’ve been trying to get my HMO-doctor to prescribe LDN for me, so that I can add it to my regimen. It’s a new HMO-doctor, so he’s only known me since I’ve recovered my health, though he has access to my entire health history since I had my files sent to him. Even so, he refuses to prescribe it for me. I’m looking for a new doctor but, of course, my experience is that they are all mostly the same. I guess I could drive 400 miles to see the holistic doctor who helped me get well. Perhaps, I’ll just call him, but I was hoping my insurance will cover it.

Is the $22/month, pre or post insurance, Noreen?

Kevin

It so hard to get good care in the country. I highly recommend Sicko to all the blog readers here. It opens nationwide tonight, I believe.

Posted by: Kevin | June 29, 2007 7:38 PM

Jeane Bergman is awesome and speaks like a true concerned human being scientist:

The HIV denialists say that the young children at ICC could not refuse the drugs or fight off the “researchers” who gave them their medications. Should children of two or even 12 years get to decide if they will or will not take their medicine? Of course not, particularly when irregular dosing may result in drug-resistant HIV.”

Because kids don’t know that not taking drugs will make their viruses be drug resistant – so you’ve got to make them understand by force. I get that fine, my father used to hit us with his belt buckle when we didn’t understand that he was thirsty for his brown water. But we learned, and so should everyone.

But, please, one thing I’m still trying to figure out, what’s the standard, for testing I mean, because no one will tell me, except by not answering. And I have a clinic to run, in Australianus, where my Aboriginees are depending on me to figure out who gets to die first on the lifesaving drugs.

Please help! What is the purified, particulate standard for hiv tests, that shows you that the 12-year old in Jeane Bergmans’ article can’t make a decision for himself?

I just keep coming up with no answer, on every test they always say that the other test is the standard, and then that there is no standard, adn I know what this means, because I took an HIV educators seminar, where they said that tests test for a particle that causes BIIIG problems in homosexuals and black peoples, but we had to ask everybody to get tested anyway, but relaly, just the blacks and gays were important. And I said, why? and they said, because they have the particle, and you know that from the tests. And I said – OOOOHHHH – I get it, they have the particle, and you know that beause you hvae it in the Smithsonian.

And they said, well, I guess they didn’t say anything. So, I’m stuck, with all these bad batched old tests adn all these Aboriginees in Australianus, so please, someone tell me, what is the standard? You know, the single, purified, particulate, magic bean that is the reference point on the map for my old tests?

Because I paid a lot of money to set up this clinic, because I knew I could get the welfare checks out of their big, brown hands, if I tried hard enough – so please, don’t let me down!!!

What’s teh standard? What’s the purified particulate standard?

Pleaase!! Tell me!

Posted by: JD | June 29, 2007 9:19 PM

Kevin,
The cost is before insurance, plus shipping because the drug has to be filled by a compounding pharmacy. Some of these are listed on the lowdosenaltrexone.org site. I hope that you can find a holistic, environmental or other open-minded doctor who will fill the prescription. I wouldn’t try AIDS or infectious disease doctors because most will not go there, which is a shame because this drug is usefull and helping so many. What section of the country do you live in?

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 29, 2007 9:28 PM

SPeaking of standards, I found this on the internet (which I know is mostly horsepoop), so is this true, or am I really out of luck with my testing clinic?

“Along the same lines, no one is HIV viral load negative. All samples of human blood, tested by PCR Viral Load, always demonstrate the presence of copies of “HIV RNA.” The standard protocol for HIV Viral Load declares a blood sample negative if less than 400 copies of HIV RNA are found.”

Is that true? Why isn’t anyone negative on the hiv pcr tests?

Similarly, the ultrasensitive protocol for HIV viral load declares a blood sample negative if less than 50 copies of HIV RNA are found (Roche 2003). No single human being is, therefore, entirely free of copies of “HIV RNA” in his/her blood. We all are “HIV Viral Load” positive to some degree. Whether this is due to minimal expression of endogenous retroviruses or to universal exposures to stressor agents remains to be analyzed.

Man, this sucks. I don’t know what to do anymore. Or who to believe! Won’t somebody help? WHy isn’t anyone negative? Are we all going to die????

Oh NO! I just ordered a Wii. Now I’ll never get to use it.

Posted by: JD | June 29, 2007 10:27 PM

His name was Ryan Boelle. Everybody knew him as Angels Boi because he had a huge crush on the actor who played the part. Ryan was a small person, had a weak immune system, and was a homosexual. Ryan had a fight with his lover, they split, and during the split Ryan went to a sex party. There he was among a number of people who fellated an HIV positive man. Ryan had a tooth abcess.

Ryan quickly developed a high virus count, concurrently his T-cell count crashed. He had trouble with the initial cocktail. He had trouble with getting on Medicaid because state bureaucrats had to have everything done right. Because of this is was off his medication for some time.

Finally things got straightened out, he started his drug regime again, and he got better. But damage had already been done. Ryan would spend the last two years of his life swinging between full-blown AIDS and having the virus under control. Each time the virus held sway more damage was done.

He lost energy. He healed more and more slowly. It took more and more medication to suppress the virus. Until, finally, there was nothing that could be done. About three years ago his family had him taken off life-support. He died an hour later.

Ryan was a friend of mine. Never met him in person, only over the Internet, but he was a friend. He was bright, lively, inquisitive, and enthusiastic. He loved life, he loved people, he loved Dungeons & Dragons. He was a constant source of ideas and advice regarding the game. It hurt him when he had to quit the boards where he discussed his hobby. It hurt even more when his health became so bad he could no longer play. Yet through all his troubles he reached out to people to help, to advise, to communicate. For all throughout his ordeal he loved people.

Ryan did abuse drugs when he was younger. He did have some at the party, for the first time in years. His T-cells crashed at the same time as his viral count exploded. With his weak immune system you’d think his previous drug history would’ve led to drug triggered AIDS back when he was a teen. If drug abuse does cause AIDS then why did he get better whenever his viral count went down? If the drugs do nothing, then why did viral count drop when he was on medication, and rise when he wasn’t? Why is this true for people besides Ryan Boelle?

The HIV-AIDS connection has been tested by people who know the scientific method. Nobody has yet shown a more accurate explanation. I don’t think they’re even trying, despite decades of opportunity. HIV denial has become a matter of faith, and that is poisonous to critical thought.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 30, 2007 3:19 AM

“HIV has become a matter of faith” where is the evidence that HIV causes AIDS? We are suppose to take this on faith. And I suppose that AZT never hurt anyone too. If must be great not to pursue other avenues or theories because then the mainstream can never be wrong. Hell, they won’t even debate the issue. So I ask you why should we take all of this on blind faith? Why should we believe what Gallo has to say when he was convicted of scientific misconduct? At least the rethinkers consider both sides of the issue because most started out with the mainstream’s point of view.

If one looks at the 30 AIDS, defining diseases, they are not new and each are treatable. When one hasn’t any symptoms then one is not sick. It’s as simple as that. Not to be cruel but with many diseases, one will get better or not. There is no mystery to this. AIDS, a new classification, was the perfect storm. Events fell into place and many took advantage of this for the almighty dollar.

Mow, much to many’s dismay, many of us have tossed the meds and are healthy. This brings up serious doubts about the situation. We cannot be explained away or sweep under the carpet. We are real and not theories to tear apart. I will leave you’ll on that one and let you argue your “theories” back and forth. Several months from now I will check back in with you and let you know how things are going.

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 30, 2007 5:57 AM

HIV denial has become a matter of faith, and that is poisonous to critical thought. — Alan Kellogg

Bullshit.
Your telling of Ryan’s story is a blatant propaganda piece, and it is AIDS propaganda that is poisonous to critical thought. For another example of the AIDS propaganda machine, one only has to review the literature and choose from the myriad of insanities contained therein. A particular favorite of mine is Immune Reconstitution Syndrome

Rather, than admit that long-term immune reconstitution is impossible for those on HAART, the AIDS propaganda machine has created an entirely new syndrome to absolve the drugs from their obvious responsibility for further compromising the immune systems of patiets. Unbelievable! One might be led to believe by such antics, that long-term immune reconstitution is not the goal of current HIV treatment, and that’s a crime against all of us. A favorite quote from the link:

“After a couple weeks on his HIV regimen, he developed a fever, blurred vision, and swelling around his eye. The odd thing was that his CD4 count had gone up dramatically since starting HIV medications. So what was going on? His immune system was better (oh, really?), yet his eye looked horrible. LZ was seen by his doctor and was diagnosed with immune reconstitution syndrome.”

Brilliant. It’s the drugs, Stupid. As Noreen can affirm, a patient’s well-being is a far better indicator of immune health and a far better template by which to base future care decisions than surrogate markers. For example, if someone has low CD4’s but is not ill, don’t make them ill just so your “surrogate marker theory” looks good. If Ryan would have had doctors who actually cared about his well-being, perhaps, they would not have been so quick to poison him to death, Alan.

______________________

Thank you for the LDN info, Noreen. I’ll try to find a physician who’ll prescribe it. My insurance won’t cover it unless my HMO-doctor prescribes it. I used to have separated drug coverage which allowed me to choose any doctor, but that changed this year, as my HMO tauted a “new and improved” coverage plan. Yeah, right….

22 bucks isn’t so bad but it’s the principle, and it’s further prove of just how rotten health care in this country actually is. Ignorant posters like “Raven” may be satisfied with our 37th ranking, right behind Costa Rica, but I think we can do better.

_______

That’s for funny stuff, JD. You aim is right on target. Injecting a little humor into this mess is always welcome, if done with tact. Thanks.

Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | June 30, 2007 1:18 PM

I thought the denialists were nuts until i saw the video Hiv Fact or fraud last summer. Its pretty rude that many reputable scientists have questioned the hiv hypothesis, and have been insulted by many. Here is the video I saw last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064591712431946916

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

People question HIV because there is no reliable animal model (virtually every animal injected does not die of aids) and there is not much virus present, (its only in a small fraction of T cells) Like 1 in a hundred or so.

Many take the middle road, Like Luc montagnier the discoverer of HIV, Who in his book “virus” in 2000 still stresses the need for co factors, specifically shyh ching Lo’s mycoplasma penetrans. This microbe causes disease and death in every animal injected as lo showed. DR. Nicolson has found this microbe via pcr in CFS, ALS, GWI and you can see his research here.

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

Garth Nicolsons new book must be read about mycoplasma and Gulf war Syndrome.

www.projectdaylily.com

Im not saying that HIV does or Does not cause AIDS but there needs to be more study, and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly, not insulted personally.

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 1:46 PM

and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly,

Just like evolution deniers? The debate has already taken place in the literature, and the deniers’ pet theories haven’t stood the test.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | June 30, 2007 2:31 PM

Just like evolution deniers? The debate has already taken place in the literature, and the deniers’ pet theories haven’t stood the test

Yes just like evolution deniers. What’s wrong with debating evolution in public? Why is it that scientific debate must be hidden from the public’s eye in “the literature”

But ok, maybe Tara could point us to the literature where the debate with Duesberg and others has taken place, and tell us which theories have been tested according to the suggestions made by Duesberg and others.
One notable debate which didn’t take place in “the literature” is Robert Gallo’s promised rebuttal to Duesberg’s PNAS article Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation But Not Causation http://duesberg.com/papers/ch3.html

Posted by: Pope | June 30, 2007 2:51 PM

I’m talking about a public jury of millions, not a group of scientists who have many conflicts of interest, and many others that are afraid to speak out. A public jury usually gets the verdict right in a criminal case, and experts because of conflicts of interest get it wrong in our judicial system.

The real reason there is no public debate is because of fear, ie millions of people would start asking tough questions, so the hiv orthodoxy, much like a prosecutor with a bad case, does everything from letting the public hear another side of the argument. A good prosecutor would not care about the public hearing another side of an issue, thats why John Moore is spending so much time trying to prevent people from hearing an argument, he’s insecure.

John Moore is like a corrupt prosecutor who tells a jury “you cant hear another side of an argument because you might beleive it” Any responsible juror would demand to hear both sides of an issue to get to the truth.

If you have read Orwells’s 1984, bad science/ideas can advance in many countries that don’t allow the public to hear both sides of an issue. For example, in Mao’s China or Stalin’s Russia if you were an economist and you wanted to publish an academic paper saying their economic policies were fraudulent, would the academic establishment have ever allowed it?

Of course not, because in many societies the academic establishment is heavily influenced by government/orthodox propaganda that exerts it’s influnece in several ways such as financial influence, and other more subtle ways, as Orwell spoke about via “Thought control”

Again here is a list of many scientists that have questioned HIV at one time or another.

Luc montagnier
Shyh Ching Lo Cheif Of the infectious unit of the AFIP
Walter Gilbert nobel prize winner
Kary Mullis nobel prize winner
Peter Duesberg Retroviral expert
Richard strohman UCB

Many more

Millions of Americans have a right to hear the other arguments and make up our own mind.

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 3:01 PM

I’m talking about a public jury of millions, not a group of scientists who have many conflicts of interest, and many others that are afraid to speak out. A public jury usually gets the verdict right in a criminal case, and experts because of conflicts of interest get it wrong in our judicial system.

This is too funny. There are articles upon articles in legal journals detailing precisely how prosecutors and defense attorneys routinely misuse statistics, withhold or massage vital data, and then put ignorant people in the jury box because they’re going to not be able to recognize the distortions being fed to them. It happened to me once. I was removed “for cause” in voir dire because I admitted to being a biologist.

This is behind the denialists’ campaign for public debate, and the creationists’ campaign, the relativity-deniers’ campaign, etc. People without the technical background can be led by the nose in a way which is less likely when the data is laid out and the arguments circumscribed by the necessity to put forth one’s claims in a manner which evaluates it against the existing literature, rather than using mere rhetoric to wow the public.

Your list of scientists is misplaced. Nobody cares. You’re just putting forth stupid rhetorical tricks again. I got my degree from a university (UCSD) with seven Nobel laureates in its biology department, the most for any university in the US. The second is the U of Chicago, and they have six laureats of only the fake Nobels in economics given out by the Bank of Sweden.

And it may shock you to discover that nobody gave a damn that person X had won a Nobel prize. It is the quality of their research that matters, not the name, the degree, or anything else which people like you latch on to try to give a veneer of credibility to an argument that has no basis in reality.

Posted by: Nullifidian | June 30, 2007 4:45 PM

Tara,

you write that the ‘evolution deniers’ debate has already taken place ‘in the literature’, but ‘hasn’t withstood the test.’

I see a debate ongoing, spilling into the public sphere, gaining momentum and a great deal of ink spilled in the press. I am familiar with the historical debates, reaching back to Ernst Mayr, I know of no serious scientist who would claim any debate to be over because of putsch-like arguments forwarded by a medical elite.

I am not a Christian, by the way, and I am agnostic on most evolutionary claims, although I reject the neo-Darwinian simplification of descent as a means and natural selection – ie sexual congress – as the means for speciation.

The symbiogenicists are much further along the right path, in my opinion.

I think that is an expression you should learn, quickly: “In my opinion.”

Science is always an opinion. The ancient greeks knew this well, and gave us the words:

Doxa, opinion

and

Episteme, knowledge

The reason for the disjunct was the unreliability of human senses to correctly interpret the world.

You’re no doubt so clever a sophist, an Orthodoxist, that you will find a way to retort any criticism and claim it as a further victory for your cause.

But some of your readers might appreciate knowing that you are arguing, as a constant theme, from rationalized authority, and almost never, that I have witnessed, from actual humbling critical thinking.

Good luck to those who continue in this forum, it is an exercise in immoderate self-abuse for those bringing interesting ideas to challenge the entrenched, and bilious, new church.

Posted by: William Miller | June 30, 2007 5:21 PM

I’m sorry to add this before allowing a response, but I happened across it, and it gave me a reason to doubt your Wisdom, Tara, yet again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6230580.stm

Lack of certainty

Researcher Professor Jaroslav Stark, from Imperial College London, said: “Scientists have never had a full understanding of the processes by which T helper cells are depleted in HIV, and therefore they’ve been unable to fully explain why HIV destroys the body’s supply of these cells at such a slow rate.

“Our new interdisciplinary research has thrown serious doubt on one popular theory of how HIV affects these cells, and means that further studies are required to understand the mechanism behind HIV’s distinctive slow process of cellular destruction.”

The researchers think one possible explanation could be that the virus slowly adapts itself over the course of the infection.

But they stress that further analysis is needed to verify this alternative theory.

Ah-hah, we see the permissiveness of the Orthodoxy in allowing generous re-writing of The Theory, as long as, I suppose, it doesn’t abandon it altogether.

Why wouldn’t the theories of the ‘denialists’ count for even more, as they predicted the absolute failure of the central dogma I think, at least a decade ago?

I expect nothing but shrill argument in response, Tara, but I hope your readers will not be cowed, and will stand up for their rights to think.

regards,

Wm. Miller
private citizen
language teacher

Posted by: William Miller | June 30, 2007 5:33 PM

Yes just like evolution deniers. What’s wrong with debating evolution in public? Why is it that scientific debate must be hidden from the public’s eye in “the literature”

Nothing is “hidden.” Rather, as is easily seen in the comments thread on here, it’s all too easy for deniers to misrepresent literature and outright lie–and it takes much more time to rebut them and set people straight than it does for them to just throw out their dishonest claims. Look up what a “Gish gallop” means to the evolution debate, and then look how Maniotis has done much the same thing in the other thread.

Duesberg’s ideas have been falsified. If drug use causes AIDS, then why is only those HIV_ drug users who develop the syndrome? Why do HIV+ individuals who’ve never used drugs develop the syndrome? (Oh, right, according to Duesberg and others, they’re all lying about their past drug use, sorry.)

William,

I am familiar with the historical debates, reaching back to Ernst Mayr, I know of no serious scientist who would claim any debate to be over because of putsch-like arguments forwarded by a medical elite.

I’m not claiming there are no controversies left wrt evolutionary biology. Certainly there are–including what the most important mechanisms of speciation are, for one. But the question “does evolution happen?” certainly is answered in the affirmative (even creationists accept “microevolution”, they just deny that it had anything to do with humans), the question “does RM + NS cause evolution” is answered in the affirmative (many, many experiments in bacteria), etc etc etc. Questions remain to be sure, but the debate that remains is much about the details, not about the big picture.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | June 30, 2007 5:36 PM

So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You’re a total moron.

The HIV debate shouldnt be decided by frauds like Gallo who can tell the american people anything, make millions of his ridicolous hypothesis without hearing the many scientists that think he’s full of it.

Its not rocket science, this is 8th grade stuff, Kochs postualtes. How do you prove a microbe causes disease in humans?

Animal model………..oh jeez 99% of animals injected with hiv nothing happens!

Have it be detectable in large amounts…………awwwwww, according to Gallo in his book Virus Hunting hiv is in only 1 of 10,000 t cells! I just talked to that fool JOel Gallant and he admitted HIV is now an autoimmune disease and theres not much direct cell killing because he admitted it doesnt infect enough cells! Great speculation to save the hypothesis!

There should be some epidmiological sense, but according to the Army HIV is split evenly between the sexes, while AIDS is 90% male! This makes a lot of sense

Why arent people informed that AZT is a Chemotherapy that kills cells, why are they told it’s an “antiretroviral” another lie.

You are pretty unamerican to force this disinformation on the public. Its called informed consent, People have a right to hear another side of an argument, people are not stupid, if some group of scientists argued that eating 20 pizzas a day was good for you, nobody would believe it, unless you bar americans for learning about other sides of issues, than they would believe anything, as in the case with HIV!

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 5:38 PM

the previous post is directed at nullifidian, for being a condescending worm.

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 5:40 PM

I did a quick google search for execptions to Koch’s postulates, I found:
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~flegal/etox80e/SpecTopics/microbial.html
As with almost every, if not all, postulates in science, there are limitations and exceptions to Koch’s postulates. For example, virulent strains of the bacteria that cause syphilis, Treponema pallidum, or leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae, have never been cultured in artificial media. Similarly, some infectious diseases, such as nephritis, may be caused by several different pathogens; and some pathogens can cause several different disease conditions, including Streptococcus pyogenes that can cause sore throat, scarlet fever, erysipelas (skin infections), puerperal fever, and osteomyleitis (bone inflammation).

I don’t know how powerful any of this is to the argument, but the existence of some exceptions suggests the possibility that there might be more exceptions.

“So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You’re a total moron.”

cooler, I don’t believe anyone has said this. For starters, science is international, the constitution is not. Secondly, jury’s depend on the testimony of various experts to form their judgement. They are also wrong very often. Many guilty people have been found innocent and vice versa. Jury’s are also not free to take what an expert claims and then test it on the defendent to validate it.
It would certainly be nice if a layman could spend 20 minutes listening to both sides adn be educated enough to make a decision about which side is correct but that is not the case. You are free to make your mind up either way but eventually you are relying on trusting what someone has said in order to form your opinion. I don’t see how a jury of millions of laypeople would change this at all. Let’s say the entire world decides to come to a majority rules verdict. In the end it comes down to how many people believed one side over the other and their verdict is not guranteed to be correct just because a majority agree to it.

Posted by: apy | June 30, 2007 6:42 PM

AIDS does not inevitably lead to death, especially if you suppress the co-factors that support the disease. It is very important to tell this to people who are infected. I think we should put the same weight now on the co-factors as we have on HIV. Psychological factors are critical in supporting immune function. If you suppress this psychological support by telling someone he’s condemned to die, your words alone will have condemned him. ”

- Luc Montagnier Virologist, Discoverer of HIV

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 7:09 PM

Cooler et al,

You can’t handle the evidence. We place something before you and you turn your head. We use reason, and you use snark. We show you micrographs of AIDS viruses lysing a T-cell, and you see a man in an ape suit. You want things your way, and fuck the facts.

You are a true believer, just like any other creationist and Holocaust denier. It contradicts your beliefs it has to be a lie, and is not to be countenanced in any manner. I have to ask, aren’t you getting tired of hauling those goal posts around?

I know how science works, and I know how scientists work. Tain’t perfect, but at least scientists do make an honest effort to correct their errors when they are wrong.

And BTW, go over to ENWorld and ask about Ryan “Angles Boi” Boelle. Or do a Gigablast on the name. You want to accuse somebody of lying, know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 30, 2007 7:24 PM

BTW, here’s the result page for a search on “angelsboi”. I’m now waiting for your apology, and I’m ready to wait till Hell freezes over.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 30, 2007 7:33 PM

AIDS does not inevitably lead to death, especially if you suppress the co-factors that support the disease. It is very important to tell this to people who are infected. I think we should put the same weight now on the co-factors as we have on HIV. Psychological factors are critical in supporting immune function. If you suppress this psychological support by telling someone he’s condemned to die, your words alone will have condemned him. ”

- Luc Montagnier Virologist, Discoverer of HIV

You forgot to give a reference for this quote.
It’s from an interview that appered in Omni magazine in December 1988 v11n3

You also forgot to include the rest of the paragraph.

“… have condemned him. It simply isn’t true that the virus is one hundred percent fatal. If you lead a normal life — sleep regularly at night, avoid alcohol, coffee, and tobacco — your immune system could perhaps resist the diseas for ten or fifteen years. By then we might have found an effective therapy”

This hardly supports your claim that Montagnier is really a closet
“rethinker”. Various co-factors almost certainly have a strong effect on the rate of progression. The single key factor is HIV.

Posted by: Chris Noble | June 30, 2007 9:39 PM

He said in 1990 that hiv “might be benign” and in his book in 2000 “virus”, he stressed the need for cofactors.

Anyways im sick of talking to you, youre like a robot, talking to you is not fun, go out and get some sun, son.

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 9:49 PM

Along the same lines, no one is HIV viral load negative. All samples of human blood, tested by PCR Viral Load, always demonstrate the presence of copies of “HIV RNA.” The standard protocol for HIV Viral Load declares a blood sample negative if less than 400 copies of HIV RNA are found. Similarly, the ultrasensitive protocol for HIV viral load declares a blood sample negative if less than 50 copies of HIV RNA are found (Roche 2003). No single human being is, therefore, entirely free of copies of “HIV RNA” in his/her blood. We all are “HIV Viral Load” positive to some degree. Whether this is due to minimal expression of endogenous retroviruses or to universal exposures to stressor agents remains to be analyzed.

HIV TESTS CANNOT DIAGNOSE HIV INFECTION

If your aim was to find a textbook example of the sort of illogical HIV Denialism that you can find on the internet then you have succeeded.

Less than 50 includes 0. A viral load measurement of less than 50 copies/uL does not mean that there are some copies of HIV RNA present. It measn exactly what it says.

It’s hard to come up with any response other than “Duhhhhh”;

Posted by: Chris Noble | June 30, 2007 10:34 PM

As discussed above, the CDC report of 26 cases of occupationally acquired AIDs out of 24,000 AIDS cases in healthcare workers, 99.9% of which were not occupationally acquired is a problematic study for reasons which have been amply explained.

The case of Brazil illustrates that Duesberg’s original 1987 statement, that AIDS is not contagious and not occupationally acquired by healthcare workers is correct. Yes, healthcare wotkers seroconvert. But they dont get AIDS.

Brazil has 200,000 AIDS cases treated in Brazilian hospitals up to the year 2000 with not one single occupationally acquired AIDS case until one report was made of a nurses aide, that appears to be a text book case of AIDS. Problem is that there is only one single report when there should be hundreds. Is this one case prrof that Duesberg is wrong and proof that AIDs is occupationally acquired? I say no, because it is only one SINGLE case when hundreds are expected. This makes the actual report suspect.

The First Case of AIDS in a Health Care Worker Occupationally Acquired in Brazil

Even though health care workers seroconvert after the needle sticks, the few single or isolated reports of AIDS are not sufficient to convince a reasonable person that AIDS is an occupational hazard of taking care of AIDS patients in hospitals.

The AIDS political activists and drug company reps can puff out and froth at the mouth, but the evidence in the medical literature is plain and clear, casting a serious doubt on the HIV causes AIDs hypothesis.

Independence Day is approaching; this is a day to celebrate freedom from taxation without representation. Let us declare our freedom from taxation which pays for academic misconduct and fraud in AIDS research which soaks up our hard earned public dollars.

Let us declare our freedom of speech in the media. Let us declare freedom from the brownshirted AIDS political activists, and drug company reps who use intimidation, lies, tricks and gimmicks to oppress honest scientists who stand up and speak the truth about the glaring falsehoods of HIV science. There is no animal model of HIV causing AIDS, no mechanism of disease, and no placebo controlled drug study showing efficacy of drug treatment. There is no gold standard for the HIV tests. This is a disgrace.

Is there proof in the medical literature that HIV causes AIDS? No, this proof that HIV causes AIDS has not been presented here or anywhere else, in spite of ample opportunity. This is a disgrace.

Posted by: Independence Day | June 30, 2007 10:58 PM

Hello Alan.

My name is Michael and I just read your comments up above about your friend and his illness and passing. If cooler does not apologise for his assumption that your friend was a real person or your story was made up, then I certainly do. My condolences for the loss of your friend. I too have lost many friends that at one time I too believed were due to HIV. My beliefs, however, have evolved since then.

I do think that you are only giving us a very small and partial picture of the situation and factors involved with your friend, his illness, and his passing, and not a full enough picture of the situation to do anything with but jump to premature and unknowledgeable conclusions, although I am sure it is accurate as to the best of your knowledge and memory of 3 years ago. As you said, Ryan was an internet friend of yours, not an intimate friend that you personally spent one on one time with, so we readers are now getting the information 3rd hand.

I would like to point out to you, Alan, some things you may not have considered, and one being that people do not die of AIDS. They die of something specific, and you did not share with us, what specifically, your friend died of nor any of what his specific symptoms were, nor what his treatments were, nor how his body reacted to the treatments. What was the cause of death? Was it hepatitis, TB, pneumonia, thrush, KS, PCP, or what? Or was it liver failure or kidney failure or heart failure? Was it something viral, bacterial, or was it related to his treatment. Please understand that without the full and complete picture, Alan, it is impossible for anyone to understand or do anything except jump to conclusions and assumptions of whether your friends death was HIV related or not. What were the other influencing factors if any? What was going on with him emotionally? What was going on in his relationship with his family? Did they accept him as a gay person, or did they reject him for this. Was he a person who expected to live, or did he have expectations of sickness or death? Did he even possibly have an inner death wish that he did not even share with you? You mentioned that he had formerly had drug problems, are you sure he resolved the drug addiction as well as the underlying emotional issues that drove his addiction? One can be sober and still suffer deeply from emotional stress that weakens ones immune system. Psychological factors can intensely affect one’s immune system.

The reason I ask, is because I feel you are making assumptions that it is all about HIV, when his situation and exact illness was deeper than that even if it were partially true that HIV was a factor. Ignoring all of the other factors does not change them and make only HIV true. And the factors that could also have affected his situation are also much deeper than what little you have shared with us, and perhaps even deeper than the limited parts of his life that your friend had even shared with you over the internet.

I would hope you will also come to understand, that even though you believe you “knew” your internet friend well, there is yet much more you do not know, from which position it is very easy for you to jump to conclusions based on very limited information.

You wrote: “HIV denial has become a matter of faith, and that is poisonous to critical thought”.

That statement is a double edged sword Alan, and one that can just as easily take a piece out of the opposite side of the issue.

I would only hope you would keep a more open mind on this issue Alan, although it seems you are already married to only one side of the issue.

Posted by: Michael | June 30, 2007 10:59 PM

Dear corn flake, oh I’m sorry, Kellog,

Scroll back i never mentioned anything about your friends passing liar, you are confusing me with someone else, ive never replied to any of your posts here in fact! Jesus, scroll back, why do you people lie with impunity?

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 11:18 PM

So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You’re a total moron.

I’m a total moron because you’ve made up a wholly fictitious argument and attributed it to me? Well, doesn’t that just scream “intellectual honesty” of the kind that has given the AIDS denialist camp its numerous successes in the courtroom?

If you want to know what my proposals for overhauling the currently established “expert testimony” is, just ask me. For one, I think that unannounced, blinded trials of forensic technicians should be done on at least a biannual basis, and that the results of these trials should form the basis for reporting any probabilities of a forensic “match”.

I think that random samples should be elicited from populations by disinterested parties (i.e. not the police) in order to evaluate the degree of population substructuring in a given geographic area and that should be another basis for reporting any probabilities of a forensic DNA match.

I think that the product rule should be banned entirely when reporting the likelihood of a forensic DNA match since it skates the line of perjury.

And I think that the state should fund labs and forensic experts to replicate results, evaluate results, and testify on behalf of the defense, thus preventing situations where the defense doesn’t raise a challenge to forensic evidence despite previous challenges to its legitimacy and known errors and frauds.

The HIV debate shouldnt be decided by frauds like Gallo who can tell the american people anything, make millions of his ridicolous hypothesis without hearing the many scientists that think he’s full of it.

Virologists, epidemiologists, etc. have already heard the so-called ‘many’ scientists who are HIV denialists and they’re unconvinced.

Its not rocket science, this is 8th grade stuff, Kochs postualtes. How do you prove a microbe causes disease in humans?

You don’t. Next!

At best you can just establish a reasonable degree of confidence based on the correlation of diseases to symptoms. There are many organisms for which one or more of Koch’s postulates do not obtain, so waving it about as if were the final answer to everything while not being equally skeptical about whether Mycobacterium leprae, for example, causes leprosy is fundamentally dishonest.

Animal model………..oh jeez 99% of animals injected with hiv nothing happens!

So Koch’s postulates include the assumption that every disease will be transmissible across every animal on the planet? Uh, no, I think you just made that up.

Have it be detectable in large amounts…………awwwwww, according to Gallo in his book Virus Hunting hiv is in only 1 of 10,000 t cells!

As has been explained to you repeatedly, CD4+ cells are t-cells, but not all t-cells are CD4+ cells. Anyone who cannot get this by now is either a moron, someone irreversably committed to the denialist position come what may, or both. Which are you?

I just talked to that fool JOel Gallant and he admitted HIV is now an autoimmune disease and theres not much direct cell killing because he admitted it doesnt infect enough cells! Great speculation to save the hypothesis!

You can’t tell the difference between an immunodeficiency disease and an autoimmune disease, and you’re staking the claim that it’s virologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists who have to satisfy you that HIV is the causative agent in a certain immunodeficiency disease?

Way to support, by example, anything I could possibly say about the general public not being qualified to make a judgment on the matter.

There should be some epidmiological sense, but according to the Army HIV is split evenly between the sexes, while AIDS is 90% male! This makes a lot of sense

This is so incoherent that it’s difficult to parse, but I assume it’s about how the incidence of AIDS patients in “the Army” (I assume the U.S. one, since it seems to be certain Americans alone who think that nowhere else in the world exists) is skewed to men, while HIV-positive women equal the number of HIV positive men.

If that’s so, it could be explained several ways, one of the easiest being that, since AIDS takes a long time to progress, it would be primarily seen in “lifers” who were HIV positive early in their career, and the demographics of lifetime military people in the Army skews to men, rather than women. Wow, something that’s consistent with what we know about the demographics of the army, plus what is known about the progression of the disease, predicts a skew between male and female AIDS patients in the Army. One could think that’s because the virologists, epidemiologists, etc. etc. are right!

Why arent people informed that AZT is a Chemotherapy that kills cells,

Because it doesn’t. It may damage mitochondria, and people are told about that. Mitochondria haven’t been independent cells for over two billion years.

why are they told it’s an “antiretroviral” another lie.

Because it is an antiretroviral.

You are pretty unamerican to force this disinformation on the public.

Oh boo hoo. I’ve got news for you: I’m “unamerican” in more ways than that. I’m an anarchist. As such, I fully support your right to, if you are HIV positive, not take antiretrovirals if you don’t want to. But you certainly had better disclose your status to any future sexual partners, so that they can make an autonomous decision of their own. However, I do not support misleading large swaths of people in ways which are likely to lead to thousands of preventable, or at least postponeable, deaths. In fact, I view it as genocide.

Its called informed consent,

The only consent that matters is the consent of the patient to take or not take the antiretrovirals, and I fully support the doctor giving the patient a full and frank explanation of all that is known about HIV. What the denialists claim is not known. In fact, it’s a collation of bullshit, stupid misunderstandings, and demagoguery.

People have a right to hear another side of an argument,

Yes, but the issue is not that you want them to hear it, but you want us all to be forced to believe it. We’ve all heard the arguments of the denialists and found them to be utter crap.

What you hope to gain by doing public debates outside of the literature is to get public assent for your views even though you know they can’t hack it among a genuinely skeptical audience of scientists. Given the human consequences of proposing stuff that you know is false and has already been debunked in the area of virology, it amounts to nothing more nor less than a prescription for genocide.

You disgust me.

Posted by: Nullifidian | June 30, 2007 11:33 PM

Cooler,

You do know what “et al” means.

Michael,

You will find my reply on my site. For here I have a new phrase for you, “Contributory factor”. Learn it well, it can take you far.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 30, 2007 11:42 PM

I keep seeing this word “hiv” coming up, and I still dont’ know what the pure particulate purified gold standard smithsonian museum reference for this particle is.

no one will tell me. Spongy Noble believes in hiv like Peter Pan believes in fairies, and I know that Spongy must KNOW what the purified particulate molecule is that is also the where the buck stops here’ gold standard for all and each and every ‘hiv’ test.

Spongy made a ‘duhhhh’ before, but I was wondering if it’s true that you can call someone pcr ‘negative’ if they’re, you know, below 400 whatever it is per cubic crapulmiter.

Please, Will someone tell me what the pure particulate purified gold standard is? I’ve been asking for days and days, and everybody keeps using the word ‘hiv’, and I know that you’re not just making it up, you know, by believing in it – I know you have the purified gold standard reference particle for each and every test that corresponds with the tests so that all the true positives are positives and all the false positives are just misplace white people… anyway…

Can you please just send it to me in Australianus? The gold standard, just in a shoe box or something. I need a standard, because we have white straight people where I live as well as the Aboriginees, so you know, I can use the high-risk strategy for the brown-skins, but what do I do for the nice white ladies (I try to sleep with them, but I’m a restless sleeper and kick a lot, and that bothers their husbands).

Please, somebody, please, please, please,

what is the singular one-of-a-kind always there purified particulate gold reference standard for hiv tests?

What is it? Where is it? Why isn’t it here at this special place, with Spongy and the gang? Please help.

Posted by: JD | June 30, 2007 11:46 PM

If HIV is NOT the cause of AIDs, then what is?

There have been a number of requests for an alternative explanation. We are all familiar with the drug hypothesis by Professor Duesberg as one alternative explanation.

Here is another.

The role of micronutrients such as selenium has been largely ignored by the mainstream medical system. Recent studies have implicated selenium deficiency as a key to AIDS pathogenesis. It is well known that the HIV genome encodes for glutathione peroxidase which causes selenium depletion.(1) Selenium deficiency impaires the immune system.

HIV positive patients who are supplemented with cheap inexpensive, nontoxic selenium tablets, have 30% less hopitalization (2)

and show dramatic improvements in CD4 cell count and HIV reduction by PCR measurements. (3)

This improvement in CD4 cell count and surrogate markers with selenium is much more impressive than any of the HAART drug cocktail studies, none of which are REALLY placebo-controlled.

An excellent review article on all micronutrients and HIV can be found here. (4)

For Noreen and Kevin, for a non-toxic cost effective approach, this makes sense. Diagnostic testing for selenium, B12, and other micronutrients is straight forward with blood testing with the large national labs like Quest and Labcorp.

Organic Acid testing is available with US Biotek, Great Plains, Genova, Metametrix. Organic Acids are commonly used for diagnosis of nutritional deficiencies in autistic kids, and are quickly becoming the latest cutting edge method for evaluating nutritional deficiencies in adults and kids.

Supplementation with selenium is a no-brainer. It is non-toxic and cheap. Other micronutrients such as B12, and vitamin C are mentioned in the review article.

It is well known that malnutriton is a direct cause of immune-suppression, which in fact , is the definition of AIDS. Depletion of key nutrients like selenium could be a possible mechanism which could explain why HIV could produce a syndrome indistinguishale from starvation in Africans and North American drug abusers who are already suffering from malnutrition. It could also explain why well nourished non-drug users who are HIV positive become long term non-progressors. They are better nourished and better able to withstand micronutrient deficiencies.

This information is available in the public domain and is not original by any means.

(1) Biochemistry, Molecular modeling and in vitro activity of an HIV-1-encoded glutathione peroxidase Lijun Zhao et al. PNAS June 6, 2000 vol. 97 no. 12 6356-6361

(2) HIV Clin Trials. 2002 Nov-Dec;3(6):483-91.Impact of a selenium chemoprevention clinical trial on hospital admissions of HIV-infected participants.

(3) Suppression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Viral Load With Selenium Supplementation, A Randomized Controlled Trial, Barry E. Hurwitz, PhD Arch Intern Med. Jan 27, 2007;167:148-154.

(4) American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 85, No. 2, 333-345, February 2007 REVIEW ARTICLE

Micronutrients in HIV-positive persons receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy.Paul K Drain, Roland Kupka, Ferdinand Mugusi and Wafaie W Fawzi

Compared with HIV-negative person, HIV-infected persons have lower serum concentrations of several micronutrients and more commonly have micronutrient deficiencies (35-42). Among HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART, Observational studies have shown low or deficient serum concentrations of several micronutrients, including thiamine, selenium, zinc, and vitamins A, B-3, B-6, B-12, C, D, and E to be individually associated with either low CD4 cell counts, advanced HIV-related diseases, faster disease progression, or HIV-related mortality (43-57). In addition, micronutrient interventions have been shown to have cellular and clinical benefits in HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART. In randomized placebo-controlled trials, a daily supplement of vitamins C and E for 3 mo reduced oxidative stress (61), a daily multivitamin supplement for 48 wk reduced mortality in subjects with baseline CD4 counts

Posted by: Why Not Selenium? | July 1, 2007 12:00 AM

Step off, you disgust me.

If we were in Stalins Russia, Mao’s China or Hitlers Germany a young Thomas Paine like myself would come up to a brainwashed loser like you and say, The policies of our leaders are crazy and are killing millions, you’re reply would be “all the experts agree with it so shutup”

Experts are going to agree with the party line regardless of its merits most of the time, and only a brave few scientists will speak out. Why did experts in many historical instances supported corrupt policies as they did in Russia and Germany for example?

There are several reasons, thought control, money, funding, fear of speaking out, and a establishment that prevented the public from hearing the other side of an argument. All these circumstances are present here in America today.

An open public debate is the only way to get to the truth, and most Americans are unaware of the “denialists” arguments because of facsists like you, once they do, the gig is up. Im not saying hiv has nothing to do with AIDS, but I Agree with experts that are not bought and paid for that

“AIDS is much more complicated than HIV”

Shyh Ching Lo MD PHD
Cheif of the infectious disease dept
Armed Forces Institute of pathology

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 12:06 AM

I suggest people read www.projectdaylily.com
and you’ll find out a lot more about Lo and the mycoplasma/biowarfare program. Unlike hiv this microbe kills every animal thats injected with it and it is slowly spreading through the population causing a wide array of diseases like CFS etc.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 12:08 AM

Step off, you disgust me.

Nice to see you can only insincerely parrot me.

If we were in Stalins Russia, Mao’s China or Hitlers Germany a young Thomas Paine

You envision yourself as a latter-day Thomas Paine?! Bwahahahahahah!!

like myself would come up to a brainwashed loser like you and say, The policies of our leaders are crazy and are killing millions, you’re reply would be “all the experts agree with it so shutup”

Your is different than you’re. One is a possessive, the other is a contraction. Thomas Paine knew the difference.

And if you want to go to historical analogies, Stalinist Russia provides us with an unqualified hack ruining Soviet biology by promoting a contrarian view (Lysenkoism) which was refuted by the experience and experiments of experts in the field.

Given this, you look more like Lysenko than I do.

Experts are going to agree with the party line regardless of its merits most of the time, and only a brave few scientists will speak out.

Wrong. There is not a “party line” in science. There’s what works, and what doesn’t. In situations where the evidence is ambiguous, like whether things combusted due to “phlogiston” or oxygen in the 17th century, there is debate. Where things have proven their utility as a predictive and explanatory model like evolution or the transmissibility of HIV as a causative agent of AIDS, there is minimal to no scientific debate about these essentials, and attention turns to finding out more beyond the basics which have already been established.

If one has evidence that the basics are fundamentally wrong, one can publish a refutation in the literature, where it will be evaluated. What you object to is that scientists aren’t pushovers for your stupid form of argumentation, so you want us to engage in a game of public debate which would lend your view unwarranted credibility and allow you to pull the cheap tricks you can’t get away with from scientists, because you know that your position cannot stand up to scrutiny in the full light of day. That is immoral.

Why did experts in many historical instances supported corrupt policies as they did in Russia and Germany for example?

Because everyone of them who didn’t were purged, kept their opinions to themselves, or fled the country. Duh.

There are several reasons, thought control, money, funding, fear of speaking out, and a establishment that prevented the public from hearing the other side of an argument. All these circumstances are present here in America today.

So you name “thought control” as the #1 reason that people don’t accept your shit for shinola? Wow. Got to dust off the tinfoil hats, those government mind control rays are way too strong for me!

An open public debate is the only way to get to the truth,

Wrong. Where was the “open public debate” and vote on the validity of the general theory of relativity? Inflationary theory? The atomic theory of matter? The chromosomal theory of heredity?

One would have to be a moron to think that reality changes when you vote on it.

and most Americans are unaware of the “denialists” arguments because of facsists like you,

You misspelled “factists”.

once they do, the gig is up.

There is no “gig”. People who go into virology, epidemiology, etc. do not want it to be the case that there’s a virus out there which is currently uncurable, and for which there is no vaccine, and which cuts one’s life expectancy down by several decades. They would much rather that AIDS be due to “poppers”, drug use, etc. because those are relatively fixable, compared to a virus.

Your conspiracy theories are infantile, moronic, unrealistic, and are currently leading people doen the road to death because this cavalcade of bigots and nuts that makes up the public ’scientific’ face of HIV denialism has achieved some level of traction in countries like Gambia.

Im not saying hiv has nothing to do with AIDS, but I Agree with experts that are not bought and paid for that

“AIDS is much more complicated than HIV”

Shyh Ching Lo MD PHD
Cheif of the infectious disease dept
Armed Forces Institute of pathology

I see. So the taint of government support shows that people cannot possibly be trusted except when they say things that you can mangle until you like them. What sterling intellectual consistency you display.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 12:56 AM

I did watch the 20 minute video with Moore and Bergman, and noticed there are comments below the video. Here is one from Michael, and I must agree with Michael points, he is correct. The next comment there is about selenium supplementation, which has been reported in the medical liteature and referred to by the video as a “quack” remedy. A “quack” remedy is defined as anythng that costs a nickel and works better than the toxic drugs peddled by Big Pharma.

Michael said;

Dear readers, when someone such as the two fools interviewed in this video tell you there is only one side to an issue, namely their own, you better roll up your pants and put on your boots as quick as you can.

To begin with, the host, John Mikytuck, introduces these two politicians as doctors: Dr. Moore and Dr. Bergman. But they ain’t medical doctors. These two have NEVER medically or even psychologically dealt with ill or healthy HIV patients. They simply have PHD’s and you don’t even know what their PHD was even in! “Doctor” Bergman is a lawyer, with a P”iled” H”igher & D”eeper” PHD in law at the New York HIV Law Center that relies on funding from pharma companies. Moore is the recipient of AIDS drug manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $500,000 “Freedom To Discover” grant and the man HIV dissidents refer to as the most “unashamed” spokesperson for the AIDS establishment.

Moore says their is no dispute that HIV causes AIDS “among the serious credible scientists”. What a joke. So if you happen to disagree with him, you simply are not serious or credible??? There are hundreds if not thousands of quite serious credible medical doctors and bio scientists that quite vehemently disagree with Moore’s well paid political stance that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Check the list for yourself at the “RethinkingAids.org” website. It includes more than 1000 medical doctors and bio researchers, including Nobel Laureates who disagree with “doctor” Moore.

“doctor” Bergman, tries her best to paint the top dissidents as somehow rascist and homophobic. Nice try Bergie! But who are you kidding besides yourself? I am a gay man with a black lover who regularly enjoys the company and the friendship of some of the TOP DISSIDENTS who you call rascist and homophobic! I talk to Peter Duesberg and Harvey Bialy quite often, as well as David Rasnick and Charles Geshekter and Henry Bauer, and several of the other leading dissident scientists. They are more supportive of me and my black lover than anyone else I know including my own birth family! Does Bergman really think that Bialy and Duesberg and Black Historian and AIDS dissident Charles Geshekter and David Rasnick are rascist? What a load of crap! They are all willing and unpaid appointees of the South African Presidential AIDS Commission for chrissake! Rasnick and Geshekter and Bialy have DONATED (Hey Bergie, that means, unlike yourself and dr. Moore, unpaid for their services), many months of their lives in assisting health issues throughout Africa!

Pharma funded doctor Moore tries to show some animations and pictures of who knows what from who knows where as some kind of proof of HIV. What a joke! How does he know what these are pictures of? The dissident scientists say HIV has NEVER even been isolated from a human host, let alone proven to be the cause of AIDS, and that these jokers don’t have a clue if their pictures are of HIV or syphillis or who knows what.

At least Bergie admits that the “Hit Hard Hit Early” treatment of the late 90’s was a huge mistake, but she fails to mention the greatest mistake of all, which was the 10 years of High Dosage AZT monotherapy that was given to all HIV positives from 1987 to 1997. The average patient taking that poison lived 8 months to 1-1/2 years! Now there are 300,000 gay men that are dead from it including many of my friends! And by the way, 300,000 is FIVE TIMES the number who were killed in Vietnam. All I can say is Bergie should be voted among the top enemies of the gay and black communities! With drug pusher Doctor Moore right beside her!

Moore warns us that the stuff found on the internet is disinformation, lies, and distortion. Does that include his AIDSTRUTH internet site? You betcha it does!

Bergie says the black community has had a long tragic relationship to medicine and science, and is justifiably suspicious since the Tuskeegee experiments, but “this time is different”. Who is she kidding? This time it is even worse, because liver failure, directly related to who is taking the HAART drugs, is currently the leading cause of death among those told they are HIV positive.

The host asked “doctor” Moore “Are there studies that show the difference between those treated with AIDS drugs and those who are untreated? Moore, carefully ignores this simple yes/no question (which by the way the true answer is NO there are no studies of untreated versus treated) and Moore goes back into drug pusher mode with his answer: “There are multiple studies that show the benefits of antiretroviral therapies”. Yeah, of course there are, and they are all done by the very drug companies that are pushing these poisons! There certainly ain’t no studies out there done by any independent non drug company paid groups!

Bergie goes on to say that “the prime leaders of the denialist movement are overwhelmingly heterosexual, white males who are highly educated, very elite, and most are remarkably hostile to communities of color, african Americans, and gays and lesbians”. Well, just who the hell does she think is running the mainstream 10 billion dollar HIV research thing? Blacks and gays? No indeed, just the very same white/hetero/educated/elite such as Doctor Moore who is sitting right beside her! Not to mention Dr. Gallo of the NIH, Tony Fauci-the head of NIAIDS, and ALL of the US GOVERNMENT HIV researchers and big pharma HIV drug developers. They are all exactly what she says the dissidents are! This woman is seriously in denial!

The host asks Moore and Bergie if their AIDSTRUTH site is funded by the drug companies. Of course they answer with a “No, it is not funded by drug company money”, but conveniently leave out the fact that both of their own day job paychecks DO COME FROM the drug companies. And Moores most recent check was a straight up cool half million dollars from AIDS drug manufacturer Smith Kline!

But “doctor” Moore tops it all off when he says: “As a scientist, I find it hugely offensive that there is disinformation, distortion, and lies peddled by people with PHD’s and MD’s who are at least in theory scientists. I them in deep contempt for the perversion of the science that they try to pass to others. They are the people responsible for this death and destruction”.

What a laugh. He must be talking about himself in this one, but obviously is to enthralled with his half million to listen to his own advice for even a moment. Just remember dr. Moore, when you point at others there are three of your own fingers pointing back at your own self!

Posted by: Independence Day | July 1, 2007 1:09 AM

You preach and whine, but you dont have much evidence to back your position. If you have a brain, you’ll realize there was never any debate on HIV after the Orwellian press conference in 1984. But you don’t have a brain, so please dont send me another sanctimonious tirade, I dont even read half of your idiotic posts.

Can you give me a link of a scientific study/experiment that was designed to confirm/disprove Gallo’s hypothesis? Guess what, all the studies after Gallo’s claim in 1984 were designed with the premise that HIV already caused AIDS and were measuring something else entirely, had these studies been designed to test the hiv hypothesis they would have designed totally differently.

So what’s an idiot like you left with? Gallo’s original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference. What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells that was seemingly nuetralized by antibodies. If you think that alone is enough to prove causation you’re even dumber that I thought.

Please dont tell me of the “20 years of confirmatory evidence since Gallo” NONE OF THOSE STUDIES/EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED TO TEST THE HIV HYPOTHESIS, THEY ASSUMED IT TO BE TRUE AND WERE DESIGNED TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THAT!

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 1:20 AM

Please, Will someone tell me what the pure particulate purified gold standard is? I’ve been asking for days and days, and everybody keeps using the word ‘hiv’, and I know that you’re not just making it up, you know, by believing in it – I know you have the purified gold standard reference particle for each and every test that corresponds with the tests so that all the true positives are positives and all the false positives are just misplace white people… anyway…

Go here NIH AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program for HIV viral isolates, purified, proteins, infectious molecular clones, viral load standards, PCR primers, monoclonal antibodies etc.

Of course you can tell from your armchair that all this is just pixie dust and that thousands of scientists that both contribute to the reagent project and get reagents (for free) are all completely stupid.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 1:21 AM

You preach and whine,

Wrong again! I’ve neither preached nor whined. I’ve just refused to yield to a known liar.

but you dont have much evidence to back your position.

Wrong again!

If you have a brain, you’ll realize there was never any debate on HIV after the Orwellian press conference in 1984.

Also incorrect, but when you’re on a roll, why not go for the gusto?

But you don’t have a brain, so please dont send me another sanctimonious tirade, I dont even read half of your idiotic posts.

I see. I don’t have a brain because I accept that the widespread acceptance of HIV as the causative agent of AIDS is due to the weight of the evidence and not due to “thought control”.

It would be funny if the human consequences were not so dire.

Can you give me a link of a scientific study/experiment that was designed to confirm/disprove Gallo’s hypothesis? Guess what, all the studies after Gallo’s claim in 1984 were designed with the premise that HIV already caused AIDS and were measuring something else entirely, had these studies been designed to test the hiv hypothesis they would have designed totally differently.

Okay, then wow us with your grasp of immunology and how to design a scientific experiment and tell us how these thousands of published studies and experiments should have looked, given your manifestly extensive expertise in the subject (which leads you to confuse immunodeficiency diseases for autoimmune diseases, for example).

You’ve made enough unsourced claims. Now’s the time for the rubber to hit the road.

So what’s an idiot like you left with? Gallo’s original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference.

And nearly every other paper to do with HIV in the immunological literature since then.

What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells

So is it 1 out of 1,000 or 1 out of 10,000? Or is it 1 out of pi? One out of e? One out of 58 x log 7?

It has already been explained to you, by others previously and me most recently, that t-cells and CD4+ cells are not the same thing. CD4+ cells are t-cells, but not all t-cells are CD4+ cells. Since repeating arguments based on assumptions known to be false is to be a known liar, why should I give a damn about anything you have to say?

Please dont tell me of the “20 years of confirmatory evidence since Gallo” NONE OF THOSE STUDIES/EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED TO TEST THE HIV HYPOTHESIS, THEY ASSUMED IT TO BE TRUE AND WERE DESIGNED TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THAT!

Okay, so how would they be designed if they didn’t allegedly assume HIV-as-the-causative-agent-of-AIDS wasn’t true? I’m sick and tired of you making wild accusations you can’t support. If you can’t show any basis for your claims in fact, then you should admit that and retract that, or if you’re a more abashed soul just shut up and go away. Continuing to try to face those of us who know better out brazenly is a strategy which could only be convincing to a complete babe in the woods.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 3:02 AM

dele, this is what your DT colleague says is a placebo for the placebo controlled nevirapine trial. The drug group received nevirapine and 2 more toxic HIV drugs, the placebo group received a placebo (instead of nevirapine) and two more toxic HIV drugs.

This is a remarkably deceptive argument. There is not a human subjects ethics committee in the country that would approve such a study, because a fundamental principle of medical ethics is that it is unethical to carry out a placebo controlled study of a life-threatening or painful disease when an effective treatment is available. Instead, studies are required to compare new drugs against the best current treatment. Placebo controlled studies were carried out with first generation drugs such as AZT, when it was unclear whether they would be beneficial or harmful to patients. The landmark AZT study was terminated early (again, as required by ethics rules) when the patients in one treatment group showed dramatically lower AIDS symptoms than the other. When the double-blind code was broken, the group showing reduced progression to AIDS turned out to be the AZT group. Since that time, it has been unethical to carry out placebo controlled studies on anti-HIV drugs. Rather, the drugs are compared against other drugs that have already been established to be effective. Originally, this was AZT. When newer drugs were shown to work better than AZT, these in turn became the standard for the control group.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 3:17 AM

So what’s an idiot like you left with? Gallo’s original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference. What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells that was seemingly nuetralized by antibodies. If you think that alone is enough to prove causation you’re even dumber that I thought.

Gallo’s original paper had passed peer-review before the press conference.

You are also displaying symptoms of DTWS (Denialist Time Warp Syndrome).

Only a small percentage of lymphocytes are in peripheral blood. The majority of lymphocytes are in the gut.

It is now recognised that a high proportion (~60%) of CD4+ cells in the gut are infected during acute infection and that the majority of CD4+ cell depletion occurs in the gut at this stage.

HIV pathogenesis: the first cut is the deepest.

The same pattern is seen in the SIV/macaque models of HIV infection.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 3:31 AM

3) Adele, this is what your DT colleague says is a placebo for the placebo controlled nevirapine trial. The drug group received nevirapine and 2 more toxic HIV drugs, the placebo group received a placebo (instead of nevirapine) and two more toxic HIV drugs. Adele, so you really believe that this charade is a placebo controlled trial? The “placebo” is in actuality 2 toxic drugs. What ever happened to the old way, one group receiving the drug and the other group receiving a placebo? (not a placebo and two toxic drugs?) This is very sick twisted logic which is a disgrace to humanity and medical science. Do you agree with this Adele, that 2 toxic drugs can be called a “placebo”? You want to talk about crap? This is crap.

You seem to be claiming that three different drugs, A, B and C are all highly toxic and provide no benefit.

What does the “dissident” theory predict will happen to two groups that take
a) Drugs A, B and a placebo C
b) Drugs A, B and C

?

If you look at any set of ethical guidelines for clinical experiments you will find that it is considered unethical to test a new drug against no treatment where there is an existing treatment.

In fact pharmaceutical companies are often criticised for doing exactly this. When a pharmaceutical company develops a new me-too drug to compete on the market there is an obvious incentive to sponsor research that compares the new drug to placebo rather than the existing treatments. If they do an experiment comparing their new me-too drug with the best existing treatment and it performs worse then it doesn’t look good. If they do an experiment comparing the new me-too drug with a placebo and it is better than placebo then it looks good.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 3:58 AM

For the drug compnay reps and paid AIDS political activists, repeating again, a placebo controlled study is one in which the study group is divided into two arms. The placebo group gets the inert tablet with no pharmacologic activity, and the drug group gets the drug with the pharacologic activity.

For HIV drugs, these rules have been thrown out the window, and it is common practice to do these unethical studies in Africa where the data cabinet sometimes is found missing and the data “recontructed”. Scientific misconduct and outright fraud has been publicly exposed in a number of these studies. These studies are paid by the drug maker, and if you believe these tainted studies, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Again, the use of two toxic drugs for the placebo arm and three toxic drugs for the drug arm of a study is NOT a placebo controlled study. It is a charade and a disgrace to science and humanity. For a real placebo controlled study see reference number 3 below in which a simple nontoxic mineral that costs a nickel performed better than any HIV drug study.

Repeating, NONE of the HIV drug studies were REALLY placebo controlled. AIDS political activists are paid to repeat their dogmas and actually believe in it. The rest of the free world is not required to.

If HIV is NOT the cause of AIDs, then what is?

There have been a number of requests for an alternative explanation. We are all familiar with the drug hypothesis by Professor Duesberg as one alternative explanation.

Here is another.

The role of micronutrients such as selenium has been largely ignored by the mainstream medical system. Recent studies have implicated selenium deficiency as a key to AIDS pathogenesis. It is well known that the HIV genome encodes for glutathione peroxidase which depletes serum selenium. (1)

HIV positive patients who are supplemented with cheap inexpensive, nontoxic selenium tablets, have 30% less hospitalization. (2)

and show dramatic improvements in CD4 cell count and HIV reduction by PCR measurements. (3)

This improvement in CD4 cell count and surrogate markers with selenium is much more impressive than any of the HAART drug cocktail studies, none of which are REALLY placebo-controlled.

An excellent review article on all micronutrients and HIV can be found here. (4)

For Noreen and Kevin, for a non-toxic cost effective approach, this makes sense. Diagnostic testing for selenium, B12, and other micronutrients is straight forward with blood testing with the large national labs like Quest and Labcorp.

Organic Acid testing is available with US Biotek, Great Plains, Genova, Metametrix. Organic Acids are commonly used for diagnosis of nutritional deficiencies in autistic kids, and are quickly becoming the latest cutting edge method for evaluating nutritional deficiencies in adults and kids.

Supplementation with selenium is a no-brainer. It is non-toxic and cheap. Other micronutrients such as B12, and vitamin C are mentioned in the review article.

It is well known that malnutriton is a direct cause of immune-suppression, which in fact , is the definition of AIDS. Depletion of key nutrients like selenium could be a possible mechanism which could explain why HIV could produce a syndrome indistinguishale from starvation in Africans and North American drug abusers who are already suffering from malnutrition. It could also explain why well nourished non-drug users who are HIV positive become long term non-progressors. They are better nourished and better able to withstand micronutrient deficiencies.

This information is available in the public domain and is not original by any means.

1) Biochemistry, Molecular modeling and in vitro activity of an HIV-1-encoded glutathione peroxidase Lijun Zhao et al. PNAS June 6, 2000 vol. 97 no. 12 6356-6361

(2)HIV Clin Trials. 2002 Nov-Dec;3(6):483-91.Impact of a selenium chemoprevention clinical trial on hospital admissions of HIV-infected participants.

(3) Suppression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Viral Load With Selenium Supplementation, A Randomized Controlled Trial, Barry E. Hurwitz, PhD Arch Intern Med. Jan 27, 2007;167:148-154.

(4) American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 85, No. 2, 333-345, February 2007 REVIEW ARTICLE
Micronutrients in HIV-positive persons receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy. Paul K Drain, Roland Kupka, Ferdinand Mugusi and Wafaie W Fawzi

Compared with HIV-negative person, HIV-infected persons have lower serum concentrations of several micronutrients and more commonly have micronutrient deficiencies (35-42). Among HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART, Observational studies have shown low or deficient serum concentrations of several micronutrients, including thiamine, selenium, zinc, and vitamins A, B-3, B-6, B-12, C, D, and E to be individually associated with either low CD4 cell counts, advanced HIV-related diseases, faster disease progression, or HIV-related mortality (43-57). In addition, micronutrient interventions have been shown to have cellular and clinical benefits in HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART. In randomized placebo-controlled trials, a daily supplement of vitamins C and E for 3 mo reduced oxidative stress (61), a daily multivitamin supplement for 48 wk reduced mortality in subjects with baseline CD4 counts

Posted by: Independence Day | July 1, 2007 7:23 AM

On June 30 at 6:42, Apy said (in reference to others claiming that a court of law should decide whether or not HIV is harmless):
===
It would certainly be nice if a layman could spend 20 minutes listening to both sides adn be educated enough to make a decision about which side is correct but that is not the case. You are free to make your mind up either way but eventually you are relying on trusting what someone has said in order to form your opinion. I don’t see how a jury of millions of laypeople would change this at all. Let’s say the entire world decides to come to a majority rules verdict. In the end it comes down to how many people believed one side over the other and their verdict is not guranteed to be correct just because a majority agree to it.
======

What is missing in this line of reasoning, is the fact that at least in USA courts of law, there are rules and regulations about telling lies, presenting evidence to back up claims, etc. There are very good reasons why Duesberg et al restrict their comments about the “gay lifestyle” being the cause of AIDS to web sites, and do not enter courts of law with them.

Recently, the Perth Group entered a legal arena with their rhetoric about lack of proper isolation of HIV, but they were careful not to enter during the trial, where perjury laws were in effect. Instead, they tested the waters in an appeal hearing where there were no laws against perjury. They could say whatever they liked, and not risk penalty if they were caught lying.
http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/judgments/Judgments2007/0427-SASC-143.htm

The other point to be made is that scientific peer review is another type of jury system. It too has rules and regulations, and penalties for breaking those rules. While anyone can set up a web site claiming that all gays who get AIDS are drug abusers, if one wished to publish that type of statement in a peer-reviewed journal, they would have to have data to back the claim up. Duesberg has in fact published a few papers in journals, but often in letters or commentary sections where peer review is not done. He has some data on drug use in the USA and data on AIDS cases in the USA, but has never bothered to check to see if the individuals who use the drugs are the same individuals who get AIDS. In fact others have done so, and found that HIV and not drug use, is the factor that correlates with development of AIDS.

Posted by: Dr. PS Duke | July 1, 2007 7:32 AM

Independence Day, you hit the nail right on the head? Selenium is important to health, in the states the areas with the lowest naturally occurring selenium in the soil have the highest cancer rates. In Africa, places with low selenium have high AIDS cases. Many vitamins and supplements have been proven to contribute to health. At the height of my sickness, I was taking 50 vitamins, supplements, herbs, good eating habits along with the medicines, which all assisted in my recovery. I believe in using all that is available to the patient to get well. I never said that the meds did not help, only that they should not be used for persons without symptoms or for long term use, then they become the next problem of the patient.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 7:42 AM

Again, the use of two toxic drugs for the placebo arm and three toxic drugs for the drug arm of a study is NOT a placebo controlled study. It is a charade and a disgrace to science and humanity. For a real placebo controlled study see reference number 3 below in which a simple nontoxic mineral that costs a nickel performed better than any HIV drug study.

Suppression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Viral Load With Selenium Supplementation, A Randomized Controlled Trial, Barry E. Hurwitz, PhD Arch Intern Med. Jan 27, 2007;167:148-154.

Errr. The majority of patients (~75%) in this study were taking “toxic drugs”. By your logic the study must be invalid.

You also neglect to mention that the patients taking ART had much lower viral load measurements than those not taking ART. This effect was much bigger than the effect of selenium supplementation.

You also forgot to answer my question.

What does the “dissident” theory predict will happen to two groups that take
a) Drugs A, B and a placebo C
b) Drugs A, B and C

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 8:05 AM

Why isn’t studies being done to settle this arguement? There are too many unanswered questions and things that just don’t add up to accept only the current theory. There has to be many avenues, which leads a person to AIDS. What do I have in common with gay men, who seem to have the majority of cases? I never took drugs except what was over-prescribed by doctors, smoked pot. etc. and probably some of them didn’t either. If the AIDS cases were equally divided between the sexes, then I could entertain that HIV had something to do with it, but it is not.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 8:25 AM

Tara,

you write that the ‘evolution deniers’ debate has already taken place ‘in the literature’, but ‘hasn’t withstood the test.’

I see a debate ongoing, spilling into the public sphere, gaining momentum and a great deal of ink spilled in the press.

LOL. I see a debate in the popular media of the USA and Turkey, and that’s it (with the rest of the world laughing at it). Anywhere else there’s no debate on whether evolution happens, most importantly not in the scientific literature. The proverb applies here:

Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.

I am familiar with the historical debates, reaching back to Ernst Mayr, I know of no serious scientist who would claim any debate to be over because of putsch-like arguments forwarded by a medical elite.

There are debates within evolutionary biology, like precisely how fast evolution can happen under which circumstances (or rather how common those circumstances are). Ernst Mayr participated in such debates. The debate on whether evolution happens ended in the late 19th century, and I’m quite surprised you didn’t know that.

and I am agnostic on most evolutionary claims

Then read more.

although I reject the neo-Darwinian simplification of descent as a means and natural selection – ie sexual congress – as the means for speciation.

So you don’t know what natural selection is.

Some inheritable traits lead to more surviving and fertile offspring (in a given environment). Over time, the frequency of these traits in a population will therefore increase (if the environment stays stable). That’s natural selection.

You don’t need sex for it. Give me ten million Escherichia coli on a petri dish, a few microliters of a suspension of a suitable bacteriophage, and a day or two on 37 °C: a few of the bacteria will acquire a mutation that happens to make them resistant against the virus, and so you’ll see circular patches of bacterial lawn appear in the petri dish that is otherwise covered by plaque. (I’ve done that experiment several times at the university; it’s part of introductory courses in molecular biology.) The trait is resistance, and the environment is the virus. There you have natural selection. It’s very simple.

The symbiogenicists are much further along the right path, in my opinion.

Symbioses, too, are subject to natural selection. Sure they are important, and sure they were overlooked too much before a few decades ago, but they are merely a special case, not something new that mutation and selection couldn’t explain. It’s like how you can’t predict biology from quantum electrodynamics and the theory of gravity, even though these are enough to explain (in hindsight) every detail that happens in biology, and even though they don’t make the big picture impossible.

Science is always an opinion.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. No matter what the postmodernists say, there is such a thing as reality, and there is such a thing as an observable fact.

The rest is opinion — but it’s testable. If there’s no way it could possibly be falsified by observation, it’s not science, by definition! As long as you can answer the question “If I were wrong, how would I know?”, you are doing science.

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 1, 2007 9:10 AM

What do I have in common with gay men, who seem to have the majority of cases?

They did AFAIK have the majority of cases around when I was born in 1982. That was because they changed their partners most frequently.

Those times are over. The vast majority of cases nowadays are heterosexual people of both sexes in southern Africa. Excuse me, don’t you know anything?

You get HIV by blood contact; tiny wounds suffice. Sex (including oral, BTW) is enough to create such wounds. That’s the most important way AIDS keeps spreading.

And if you don’t live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells and thus your immune system, you will get the full range of AIDS symptoms from getting moldy alive, or from a mutation that would otherwise have been kept under control by the immune system but now leads to Kaposi’s sarcoma, or from the common cold, and your years will be numbered.

(There, incidentally, we have the “cofactors” that make AIDS “more complicated than HIV”.)

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 1, 2007 9:21 AM

I do know that the majority of AIDS cases in the states is not equal, which you avoided addressing. What is your explantion for that? KS was on the planet long before HIV was implimented with AIDS but let’s just keep on adding more and more unrelated conditions to the AIDS defining diseases as soon it won’t matter what an HIV-Positive person has, it will be blamed on HIV.

And I do know how to live with AIDS naturally as you see no one is ever allowed to be cured of AIDS. Even cancer patients get a reprieve after 7 years. They cannot let go of the AIDS numbers or else their statistics would crash. Do you not find it odd that these statastics are counted cumulatively, to make it look worse than it is? Why is HIV and AIDS lumped together in the counting, to hide the truth?

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 9:36 AM

I know what it feels like to be sick and dying, not to make make it to the bathroom and have accidents in the house. I know what if feels like not be able to eat anything and vomitting one’s gut up. I know how it feels not to be able to get off the couch or even have the strength to fix Christmas bulbs on a tree. I know what if feels like to drop weight and have hair fall out and to look like death warmed over. I know how odd it feels not to be able to remember simple things like a grocery list or phone numbers. I know how painful thrush is in one’s mouth and fearing that it might be cancer. I know how anemia feels and adds to one’s tiredness, how a fast heart beat feels and having heavy breathing and not being able to breath. I’m sure that I have forgotten things and I know how arterial, blood gas tests, spinal taps, IV’s and bone biopsies feel. Most of you talk about theories and papers but I have been there and know what works for me, whether you agree with me or not.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 10:04 AM

They [gays] did AFAIK have the majority of cases around when I was born in 1982. That was because they changed their partners most frequently.
Those times are over. The vast majority of cases nowadays are heterosexual people of both sexes in southern Africa. Excuse me, don’t you know anything

Mr. David,

Was there ever a time when the vast majority of cases in South Africa were not heterosexual people of both sexes (hint, hint perhaps when the apartheid regime was in place).

Does this mean that before it was homosexuals who changed partner most often, but now that the South Africans are left to their own devices, they are the ones who change partner most frequently?

Perhaps you mean that there are more AIDS cases in South Africa nowadays than in the rest of the world?

And if you don’t live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells and thus your immune system, you will get the full range of AIDS symptoms.

Thats quite a mouthful, david, the full range of AIDS symptoms is pretty extensive. In fact you get the opportunistic diseases that are prevalent in the area or subpopulation you are part of, even if you live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells, since some opportunistic infections are already lying dormant in your body.

Don’t you know anything?

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 10:14 AM

PS

David writes “southern Africa”. That of course makes it possible that he is educating us about the conditions not in South Africa, but in what Dr. Noble and Mr. Jefferys would refer to as “subsaharan Africa”.

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 10:25 AM

This is a very important paper, dicussing the probable mechanism of disease, i.e. selenium depletion caused by HIV.

It is well known that selenium depletion leads to immune system failure. There are many studies such as this one showing selenium supplementation to have a beneficial effect. This is non-toxic and inexpensive, so it is ignored by conventional medicine which gives toxic drugs causing liver failure, lipodystrophy and stevens johnson exfoliation.

This paper also explains the long term non-progressors who have HIV and don’t get sick. They have excellent nutrition and don’t get selenium depleted.”Dietary deficiencies that are common in chronically ill, impoverished, and drug-using populations can lead to oxidative stress and alter a viral genome such that a normally benign or mildly pathogenic virus can become highly virulent.44 ”

Suppression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Viral Load With Selenium Supplementation

This study is, to our knowledge, the first double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in a community-based cohort of HIV-infected men and women to demonstrate that daily supplementation with 200 μg of selenium for 9 months elevates the serum selenium level and suppresses the progression in HIV-1 viral load.

The selenium supplement resulted in no adverse events, suggesting that it may be administered safely at the dosage used, a finding consonant with that of previous oncological clinical trials.13

The treatment effects were independent of subject-related factors, including age, sex, ethnicity, income, education, and past and current drug use. In addition, the findings remained significant after correcting for the effects of disease-related factors, including ART regimen and adherence, HIV disease stage and duration, and HCV coinfection.

The study showed that the induced change in serum selenium concentration significantly predicted change in the HIV-1 viral load. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the primary selenium effect was on the viral burden. In contrast, the observed benefit of treatment on the CD4 cell count was indirect via the treatment effect on the viral load.

Although no previous studies have examined the relationship of serum selenium level with HIV-1 viral load, previous HIV studies have shown a relationship between a lower serum selenium level and a lower CD4 count,28-30 more opportunistic infections,31 faster disease progression, and greater HIV-related mortality.6-7 The only other randomized controlled trial of selenium supplementation (200 μg/d) in HIV-infected individuals found a significant decrease in hospital admission rates and CD4 counts declining below 50 cells/μL for those treated with selenium.32 Thus, selenium supplementation appears to have beneficial effects on HIV disease severity and progression.

The literature indicates that, throughout HIV disease progression, micronutrient and trace element deficiencies are prevalent and may result from malabsorption, altered metabolism, gastrointestinal tract infection, and altered gut barrier function.8

The exact mechanism by which selenium exerts its effect on HIV-1 viral replication is not known, although the literature suggests several possibilities. One prominent hypothesis has been that diminished antioxidant function may be a contributing factor. The HIV virion is a powerful polyclonal activator and, in turn, stimulates high levels of proinflammatory cytokines and enhanced reactive oxygen species formation, the consequence of oxidative metabolism.38

The excessive reactive oxygen species formation, when in imbalance with antioxidant capacity, is termed oxidative stress. Excessive reactive oxygen species formation can damage cells and essential biological molecules, resulting in greater expression of proinflammatory cytokines that can further exacerbate oxidative stress.39-40

Selenium is required for the formation of glutathione peroxidase,41 which acts in the destruction of hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxides, thereby reducing the further propagation of free radicals and cytotoxic agents.

The HIV-1 virus may require selenium to produce its own selenoenzymes, thereby depleting selenium resources.42-43

Dietary deficiencies that are common in chronically ill, impoverished, and drug-using populations can lead to oxidative stress and alter a viral genome such that a normally benign or mildly pathogenic virus can become highly virulent.44

In particular, HIV-1 replication in vitro is facilitated by exposure to oxidative stress.45 In contrast, antioxidant multivitamin supplementation has been observed to diminish oxidative stress and HIV-1 viral burden.46 These findings support the notion that selenium may act on the HIV virus indirectly.

The cellular actions of selenium are also linked to the redox regulation of genes. Others have provided evidence that the HIV-1 virion encodes homologues of selenoproteins that influence immune-related genes that regulate cytokine production, cellular proliferation, and apoptosis.47-48 Therefore, the selenoprotein is posited to act directly on the HIV-1 virion to suppress its replication. However, supporting evidence for this hypothesis remains to be obtained. Therefore, benefits derived from selenium supplementation may be due to its indirect and direct effects, but may also be related to another, as yet unidentified, chemopreventive activity.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 11:58 AM

For the what’s it worth department, many HIV-Positives take much higher doses of selenium, 1000mcg or eating 10 brazil nuts is the equivalent. As was mentioned above, it is easy to get selenium, Vitamin D and other nutrient levels tested. However, infectious disease doctors don’t routinely test for these. I found it difficult to get them interested in any supplements whatsoever. They stay focused on “viral loads” and CD4 counts.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 12:10 PM

…young Thomas Paine like myself…

Cooler,

I knew Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine annoyed the crap out of me. You, sir, are no Thomas Paine.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 1, 2007 12:38 PM

Sir Kellog,

I was just admiring the genius of your literary style (I suppose these are your sharp analyses, since one arrives on them when clicking your name). It’s truly marvelous how your artful figures of speech distinguish you from the likes of Tara, Noble and Jefferys. It was a difficult choice, I deny it not, but I think this representative piece of prose poetry more than anything bespeaks your originality:

You ever notice how alike denialists sound? We could be talking about creationists, holocaust deniers, sasquatch skeptics, HIV deniers, terrorism deniers, global warming deniers, or even flat earthers, and you’ll get the same rhethoric with only the details changed.

One caveat, Sir Kellog, a mere factual correction if you don’t mind, since your style and pitch are truly perfect. We denialists have never expressed scepticism about the existence of the sasquatch.

While we are on the subject of factual corrections:

The HIV/AIDS connection is not something cobbled together by people with nothing better to do.

As a matter of fact that’s exactly what it is. Gallo and friends were so-called retrovirologist left with nothing better to do than looking for an HIV-AIDS connection since they had failed so miserably in finding a retroviral explain-all for cancer. Gallo himself had several failed attempts to come up with a pathologically significant retrovirus under his belt before he finally made a useful invention.

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 1:44 PM

This myth that science operates in such a pristine manner and that no public scrutiny should be allowed is ridicolous. We are just supposed to take 100 times the safe EPA level of mercury and listen to Frauds like Gallo and not be allowed to ask any questions. Just trust that a vaguely defined group of “scientists” have reached a “consensus”

We are told the science is too complex to understand……..An 8th grader could understand Koch’s postulates, much like the public can learn about economic policy, abortion, global warming etc and make a desicion based upon informed consent, not by being brainwashed by a “scientific community” thats been either bought off or brainwashed by the CDC, much like many experts in other oppresive societies have being unduly influenced by governmental/corporate propaganda.

Where are these honest scientific debates taking place when it comes to health issues? They are not taking place at all. If you have a bad hypothesis yet have support from a particular administration or drug company your hypothesis will be accepted regardless of it’s merits in many instances.

Can someone show me the scientific studies that were designed to test Gallo’s hypothesis? They dont exist, all the studies that came after 1984 were designed with the premise that HIV already caused AIDS, nullifidian, dumbass, they would have been designed much differntly and controlled for confounding factors if they really saught to confirm what he said. The scientists never saught to prove or disprove his claims because if the CDC supported it, In Orwellian fashion It must be true right?

Where are the original papers that tested the hypothesis that it was ok to put mercury in vaccines? They don’t exist. There is no debate in science, establishment scientists mindlessly beleive anything the CDC says, do you think if Robert Gallo didnt have government support any of us would have ever heard of “HIV.” Probably not.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 2:33 PM

Amongst those who promote the HIV=AIDS hypothesis, I’ve noticed many times they use the words murder, murdering, murderer and murderers.

Larry Kramer has often said that gays are murdering each other.

In one of my hometown weeklies, gay writers talk about gays murdering each other at bathhouses.

Outspoken AIDS activists have called those who question/challenge the hypothesis murderers.

Are people who question/challenge the HIV=AIDS hypothesis murderers?

Yes or No.

Posted by: Dan | July 1, 2007 3:09 PM

We are told the science is too complex to understand……..An 8th grader could understand Koch’s postulates,

But can they understand the exceptions to Koch’s postulates, like the fact that Mycobacterium leprae has not been cultured in vitro and understand why that doesn’t matter to knowing that M. leprae is the causative agent of leprosy?

much like the public can learn about economic policy,

Can they critique the general equilibrium theory of macroeconomics in light of recent observed trends in globalization? Do they know the general criticisms of globalization, including recent ones in trade theory which show that the benefits of free trade are a special case, and do not apply now?

abortion,

Many of the arguments against abortion rest on assumptions which can be exploded by developmental biology, like the oft-repeated claim that fetuses can feel pain by nine weeks, five weeks, seven weeks. Whatever the number is, and it seems to vary far too much for any real observed phenomenon, the actual baseline for even the possibility of sensing pain (or anything) is when the thymus develops at approximately week 25.

global warming etc

Can they understand the difference between weather and climate? Could they explain how global warming could lead to local cooling? What is the “hockey stick”? What’s the current scientific consensus on the “hockey stick”?

People can learn about these things, but true understanding requires a significant investment in one’s background knowledge, and serious mental effort. You don’t want to admit that because you’re lazy, dishonest, or incapable of mental effort, or some combination of all three. Just look at how you react when I ask you to support your claims with evidence and reasoning, in re: explaining how published studies would look different if they were testing the notion that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS.

nullifidian, dumbass, they would have been designed much differntly and controlled for confounding factors if they really saught to confirm what he said.

There it is. There’s your support for your claim. You just repeat the same claim over and over again, and call me a “dumbass” apparently for demanding that you adduce some support for your claim. I guess I should just bow down in abject prostration before the Big HIV Denialist Expert who cannot support his claims. Oh well, if he cannot, who cares since he’s so obviously right that the scientific consensus is due to “thought control” rather than an evaluation of the evidence, even if he doesn’t know what the evidence is and is so ignorant as to confuse an autoimmune disase with an immunodeficiency disease.

And yet somehow I’m the authoritarian precisely because I disdain this argument based on your overweening arrogance and completely illegitimate arguments to authority. Too funny.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 3:53 PM

…when the thymus develops at approximately week 25.

Of course, I meant to say the thalamus. I really need to start using preview.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 3:56 PM

Dan said:

Amongst those who promote the HIV=AIDS hypothesis, I’ve noticed many times they use the words murder, murdering, murderer and murderers.
Larry Kramer has often said that gays are murdering each other. In one of my hometown weeklies, gay writers talk about gays murdering each other at bathhouses. Outspoken AIDS activists have called those who question/challenge the hypothesis murderers. Are people who question/challenge the HIV=AIDS hypothesis murderers? Yes or No.

In Nazi Germany, average ordinary doctors were deeply involved assisting the national program of sterilization and medical genocide of the mentally retarded, homosexuals, and any undesirables for that matter, including 6 million undesirable Jews. This average ordinary doctor went to work every day, and looked into the mirror and said to himself, “I am a good person. I am doing my job.”

And the same mentality and social forces are at work with the iatrogenic genocide of 300,000 homosexuals and drug addicts, the undesirables of our society. This time the drug was AZT, instead of cyclon B, and it was the ordinary doctor in the Medical System, not Nazi doctors that administered the lethal drug. And again, these ordinary doctors are good people who receive community awards for their deeds. Under the Nazi doctors, millions marched to their deaths unwittingly hoodwinked into believing they entered shower rooms. Similarly a quarter of a million undesirables were eliminated with AZT, all the while trusting in the our medical system, our government agencies, the media and their doctors who simply betrayed them with a lethal drug.

We sometimes forget that the state of Indiana had an active program of sterilization with laws on the books for many years which served as an example for the Germans to follow.

And again we see these forces at work with sleep walking doctors administering toxic drugs to pregnant mothers with no placebo controlled trial showing efficacy and plenty of studies showing hideous adverse toxicity. All of which is justified by the prevailing social hysteria over HIV /AIDs. Well, the hysteria is over, and people are waking up and opening their eyes for the first time, and those responsible for these crimes will be held accountable. Justice is swift.

Nazi Nightmares: Medical Killing

Nazi doctors carried out direct medical killings as part of “life unworthy of life” policy, as well as deathly experiments on concentration camp prisoners. German doctors were forced to do that according to the Nazi medical decisions. There were two racial programs which directed the entire work of the German physicians of that time:

– coercive sterilization,
– killing of “impaired” people.

Euthanasia program alone, the centers of which were in Hartheim, Somnenstein, Grafeneck, Bernburg, Brandeburg and Hademar, has launched into eternity about 100000 mentally and permanently sick people. They were murdered in carbon monoxide gas chambers. The systematic euthanasia procedures began in April 1940 and within three weeks all Jewish patients were to be murdered.

Along with that, Nazi obsession with an idea of complete erasure of the Jews out of Europe led to the elimination of Jewish physicians and the gradual exclusion and barring of Jews from medical practice altogether. In 1939 an amendment to the Nuremberg Laws nullified the medical licenses of all Jewish doctors. Jewish professors, among them well known authorities, were excluded from the universities and medical schools.

In June 1933 a sterilization law was introduced. Chronically sick and “asocial” Germans were sterilized. Physicians took part in “Heredity Health Courts” and performed the sterilization surgical procedures. Reliable estimates for the number of sterilizations fall between 200000 and 350000.

Further on, in their fulfillment of the Reich commands, the Nazi set up a series of pure extermination camps using gas chambers and specially trained personnel. SS doctors also practiced a murderous “epidemiology” sending prisoners with a contagious disease, especially typhus and scarlet fever, to the gas chambers, sometimes with their fellow patients, contagious or not, so that the entire block could be “disinfected”. In the medical blocks, SS doctors ordered and supervised, and sometimes themselves killed debilitated prisoners with phenol injections.

Posted by: Justice is Swift | July 1, 2007 3:58 PM

Again, the use of two toxic drugs for the placebo arm and three toxic drugs for the drug arm of a study is NOT a placebo controlled study. It is a charade and a disgrace to science and humanity.

No, this is sheer nonsense. Ethical standards do not permit placebo controlled studies in dangerous or painful diseases when an effective treatment is available. This is not unique to HIV; it applies to ALL diseases, ranging from cancer to arthritis. The effectiveness of first-generation anti-AIDS drugs was established in placebo controlled studies. Once that was achieved, placebo-controlled studies became unethical, and subsequent generations of drugs were tested against known treatments. Again, this is standard practice for all known diseases.

Referring to the standard regimen as “toxic drugs” is also deceptive. ALL drugs have soem degree of toxicity associated with them, so “toxic drugs” is at best redundant, as well as falsely implying that there is something uniquely bad about this particular combination of drugs.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 4:13 PM

Dumbass,
It was HIV expert Joel Gallant that said a diffuse immune response that causes immune depletion, not me. When you “experts” change your tune over and over it’s ok, right? Remember it was Gallo who first said HIV is killing the T cells!

What about those Experts that said “hit hard hit early” in 1996 and gave monster doses of AZT in the 80’s ooops! The experts admitted they were wrong, and now only give treatment late in the disease. Many people died because of this. It was those evil denialists that warned that it was wrong to take high doses AZT early in treatment! How dare them, even though they were right!

Because there is no animal model, there should be a study that’s desingned to see if HIV positive people without drugs, AZT, coinfections and catastrophic stress die sooner than hiv negative people.

All those cohort studies on AIdstruth don’t control for confounding factors because they were never designed to test the HIV hypothesis, they assumed it to be true.

How else is one supposed to prove that your barely detectable/no animal model/10 year window period microbe causes disease, since you have thrown out Koch’s postulates? Using your standards any passenger virus could be said to cause a disease.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 4:13 PM

An 8th grader could understand Koch’s postulates

Indeed. In particular, an 8th grader would surely know the meaning of the word “postulate,” understanding its meaning as basically similar to “hypothesis,” or “assumption,” and would immediately recognize the foolishness of holding up these 19th century speculations as some sort of absolute standard for identification of an infectious agent. Indeed, Koch himself revised his postulates after finding exceptions, and many other exceptions have been identified since then.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 4:26 PM

However, the use of antiretroviral therapy is NOW associated with a series of serious side effects and long-term complications that may have a negative impact on mortality rates. More deaths occurring from liver failure, kidney disease, and cardiovascular complications are being observed in this patient population.
www.nih.gov/about/researchresultsforthepublic/HIV-AIDS.pdf

Trrl, since an answer wasn’t forthcoming on the smallpox thread, maybe you can tell me what that “now” means.

Does it mean that previously there were no problems with serious side effects, that “might have a negative impact on mortality rates”, but now (Oct. 2006) there are?

Or does it mean, previously we didn’t really want to admit it, but now we can’t afford to ignore the problem any longer?
The drugs we’re talking about “now” are all part of the new “mild” drugs that were tested against AZT are they not?

Would you care to point us to all those placebo controlled studies that showed unequivocally that AZT was a good thing to hit hard and early with?

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 4:34 PM

nullfidian said

We are told the science is too complex to understand……..An 8th grader could understand Koch’s postulates, But can they understand the exceptions to Koch’s postulates, like the fact that Mycobacterium leprae has not been cultured in vitro and understand why that doesn’t matter to knowing that M. leprae is the causative agent of leprosy? [snp for brevity]People can learn about these things, but true understanding requires a significant investment in one’s background knowledge, and serious mental effort. You don’t want to admit that because you’re lazy, dishonest, or incapable of mental effort, or some combination of all three. Just look at how you react when I ask you to support your claims with evidence and reasoning, in re: explaining how published studies would look different if they were testing the notion that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS. nullifidian, dumbass, they would have been designed much differntly and controlled for confounding factors if they really saught to confirm what he said. There it is. There’s your support for your claim. You just repeat the same claim over and over again, and call me a “dumbass” apparently for demanding that you adduce some support for your claim. I guess I should just bow down in abject prostration before the Big HIV Denialist Expert who cannot support his claims. Oh well, if he cannot, who cares since he’s so obviously right that the scientific consensus is due to “thought control” rather than an evaluation of the evidence, even if he doesn’t know what the evidence is and is so ignorant as to confuse an autoimmune disase with an immunodeficiency disease. And yet somehow I’m the authoritarian precisely because I disdain this argument based on your overweening arrogance and completely illegitimate arguments to authority. Too funny.

Nullfidian uses a typical evasive gimmick in his reply to cooler. The science is much too complex for poor illiterate cooler to understand. Its futile trying to explain, so why bother. Sorry Nullfidian, that crap doesn’t pull any weight. Either put up or shut up. It is not up to cooler to support his claims. He doesn’t have any claims to make. He only has questions, and it is up to you and other paid AIDS political activists and drug company reps to answer them in a calm, logical, understandable fashion with a minimum of ad hominems. It is up to AIDS/Inc., Big Pharma to convince us they are worthy of trust. So far they have not done a very good job at it. The 20 minute John Moore video does not help to instill trust, and is in actuallity a large set back in developing credibility and trust, especially when he appears with his lawyer. The two of them make an “odd” couple if you catch my drift, and the pair actually shoot themselves in the foot. The video actually backfires, just like the Rachel Carsen, environemntal book which was bitterly denounced by the chemical industry only making it more popular, creating a groundswell movement called the EPA.

Put up a rational dialog which explains 1) the mechanism of disease, how HIV causes Aids. Here is your chance to be creative give it a try. 2) The AIDS animal model or lack therof, 3) the absence of expected numbers of occupationally acquired AIDS cases (take Brazil for example, 200,000 AIDS cases and only ONE occupationally acquired case), 4) the gold standard for HIV test kits or lack therof, 5) the lack of proof of efficacy of any HIV drug over a placebo, 6) and explain why anyone in their right mind would trust a medical system that has admitted past mistakes with AZT and the Dr. Ho “Hit Em Hard” policy, killing hundred of thousands, oops, sorry about that ? Here take this nice smiley face drug and you will feel better soon, my sweet goldilocks. 7) Why the main cause of death of AIDS patients is now liver failure which is not an opportunistic infection, it is an adverse side effect of a toxic HIV drug.? and the original cooler question about the articles which followed the 1984 Gallo article which were announced at a Heckler press conference before any peer review. How did these following articles prove Hiv as a cause of AIDS?. Or, as cooler says, they were set up with the pre-supposition that HIV causes AIDS and therfore did not ever actually prove it. Why should anyone in their right mind believe Gallo after he was convicted of scientific misconduct? Unless of course, there were big bucks from the NIH, buckeroos from the drug companies, and HIV test kit sales involved, which there were. Gallo made a nice penny on his HIV test kit patent. The entire field of HIV research reeks of corruption and scientific misconduct tainted by drug compay money and NIH money. Even Africans are willing to pad their numbers to keep the money rolling in. Is that what you stand for nullfidian, padded numbers, and the genocidal elimination of undesirable homosexuals and drug addicts with medically administered AZT? Do you stand for the outrageous proposal that 2 toxic anti HIV drugs represent a placebo and three toxic anti-HIV drugs represents a drug? What do you stand for, nullfidian? Yourself?

Back to the placebo question for trill (is it actually troll). Thanks for FINALLY coming up with the well known argument that it is UNETHICAL to test a drug against a placebo, once the first drug in its class has been found effective. Guess what, the first AZT drug trial was corrupted, halted early and tested nothing. The drug group was kept alive with blood transfusions, while the placebo group died of whatever they had, hardly a fair comparison. We need to go back to using a REAL placebo,trll, my honorable drug company representative, especially when selenium which is nontoxic and costs a nickel performs better than your toxic drugs which cost a fortune. At this point it is unethical NOT to use a real placebo controlled trial. There are long term non-progressors who never get sick. Why not do a placebo controlled trial on them? Half get killed off in the toxic drug arm, and the other half lives happily ever after in the placebo arm. What are the ethics of this scenario?

And yes these are toxic drugs, that’s why I use the word toxic. And no, not all drugs are toxic to the point they cause liver failure and stevens johnson sydrome or mitochondrial dysfunction. That’s REAL toxicity, and as John Moore says in his video, quite truthfully, these drugs should not be sprinkled on your morning bowl of cereal.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 5:16 PM

Dumbass, It was HIV expert Joel Gallant that said a diffuse immune response that causes immune depletion, not me. When you “experts” change your tune over and over it’s ok, right? Remember it was Gallo who first said HIV is killing the T cells!

What about those Experts that said “hit hard hit early” in 1996 and gave monster doses of AZT in the 80’s ooops! The experts admitted they were wrong, and now only give treatment late in the disease. Many people died because of this. It was those evil denialists that warned that it was wrong to take high doses AZT early in treatment! How dare them, even though they were right!

Because there is no animal model, there should be a study that’s desingned to see if HIV positive people without drugs, AZT, coinfections and catastrophic stress die sooner than hiv negative people.

All those cohort studies on AIdstruth don’t control for confounding factors because they were never designed to test the HIV hypothesis, they assumed it to be true.

How else is one supposed to prove that your barely detectable/no animal model/10 year window period microbe causes disease, since you have thrown out Koch’s postulates? Using your standards any passenger virus could be said to cause a disease.

I’m looking, and not seeing any statement which explains what a virology study which attempted to show that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS would be different from the wealth of studies done so far, even though it is still being alleged that the studies done simply assume the link between HIV and AIDS and that somehow renders them illegitimate. Of course, those of us who actually practice science for a living know that if a foundational assumption is wrong, then hypotheses generated from that assumption are more likely to be falsified in experiment and observation.

So I ask again, O Masterful Expert on Experimental Design, how would the literature be different if they were testing the hypothesis that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS?

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 6:09 PM

Nullfidian uses a typical evasive gimmick in his reply to cooler. The science is much too complex for poor illiterate cooler to understand.

Wow, and where did I say that?

If I were to say anything in regards to cooler, it would be, as I have asserted before, that he already knows that the facts do not support him and doesn’t care, which is why he’s so enamoured of the idea of the “public debate” where he and his heros can scam the unsuspecting public.

Of course, so do you, Troll of 1,000 Identities, so why should I bother jumping through yours or his hoops when neither of you are honest enough to address my questions?

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 6:15 PM

Nullfidian: So I ask again, O Masterful Expert on Experimental Design, how would the literature be different if they were testing the hypothesis that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS?

DUESBERG 2003:

The chemical AIDS hypothesis could be readily refuted
by any of the following experiments:
(i) Demonstrate that in two matched groups, differing
only with regard to HIV infection, HIV-positives develop
AIDS but HIV-negatives do not (above the low, longestablished
risk of AIDS defining diseases in the general
population). HIV antibody-positive and negative recruits
from the US Army, which tests routinely for HIV, would
be ideal for this experiment since their health, lifestyles
and age are closely matched.
(ii) Demonstrate that in two matched groups of intravenous
drug users, differing only in the presence of HIV,
only the HIV-positives develop AIDS diseases.
(iii) Demonstrate that in two matched groups of HIVpositive
humans, differing only in the addiction to recreational
drugs, both groups have the same incidence of
AIDS-defining diseases.
(iv) Demonstrate that in two matched groups of HIV-free
humans or animals, differing only with regard to the
addiction to or treatment with recreational drugs, neither
group would develop AIDS defining diseases over time.
(v) Demonstrate that in two matched groups of HIVpositives,
differing only in the treatment with anti-HIV
drugs, the untreated group develops AIDS long before the
treated group.
(vi) Demonstrate that in two matched groups of pregnant,
HIV-positive mothers, differing only in the now standard
treatment with AZT during the last two trimesters, those
treated with AZT are free of abortions and deliver
healthy babies, but those who are not treated either abort
spontaneously or deliver babies with AIDS.
(vii) Demonstrate that in two groups of HIV-positive
hemophiliacs matched for age and lifetime dosage of factor
VIII, differing only in anti-HIV treatments, those who
are untreated have a higher mortality and a higher AIDS
risk than treated controlsAlthough the controlled studies proposed here follow classical, scientific standards, they are not available in the huge AIDS literature. This is surprising in view of the many AIDS advocacy groups or “activists” reviewing AIDS research for flaws and for new clues. The lack of adequately controlled studies of the long-term effects of recreational drugs and anti-HIV drugs in animals is particularly surprising, because all of these drugs and research funds for AIDS are abundant.

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 6:26 PM

Trrl, since an answer wasn’t forthcoming on the smallpox thread, maybe you can tell me what that “now” means.

Does it mean that previously there were no problems with serious side effects, that “might have a negative impact on mortality rates”, but now (Oct. 2006) there are?

Or does it mean, previously we didn’t really want to admit it, but now we can’t afford to ignore the problem any longer?

It means that before antiretroviral therapy was available, there were no side effects from them. With the advent of ARV drugs, the HIV population began to live longer and have reduced AIDS symptoms, but these drugs are not a perfect solution; while patients do much better on ARV therapy than without it, and live longer on the average, these drugs do carry a significant risk of side effects. When HIV infection was a near-term death sentence, ARV side effects were not so much of a concern. Now that ARV therapy is good enough that people with HIV are living much longer, there is more concern for developing improved treatment regimens with reduced side effects.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 6:42 PM

The reason why Duesberg is ignored by the scientific community is because many of these studies have been done despite Duesberg’s protestations to the contrary.

The following papers deal with several cohorts where it is possible to compare the rates of progression to AIDS and death between HIV+ and HIV- individuals.

The first set looks at the San Francisco Men’s Health Study that had records going back to the 70s.

Does drug use cause AIDS? Ascher MS, Sheppard HW, Winkelstein W Jr, Vittinghoff E. Nature. 1993 Mar 11;362(6416):103-4.

The lack of association of marijuana and other recreational drugs with progression to AIDS in the San Francisco Men’s Health Study. Di Franco MJ, Sheppard HW, Hunter DJ, Tosteson TD, Ascher MS. Ann Epidemiol. 1996 Jul;6(4):283-9.

The next group is a cohort of homosexual men in Vancouver.

HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS. Schechter MT, Craib KJ, Gelmon KA, Montaner JS, Le TN, O’Shaughnessy MV. Lancet. 1993 Mar 13;341(8846):658-9.

The last set is from studies of people with haemophilia in the UK

Comparison of immunodeficiency and AIDS defining conditions in HIV negative and HIV positive men with haemophilia A. Sabin CA, Pasi KJ, Phillips AN, Lilley P, Bofill M, Lee CA. BMJ. 1996 Jan 27;312(7025):207-10.

Mortality before and after HIV infection in the complete UK population of haemophiliacs. UK Haemophilia Centre Directors’ Organisation. Darby SC, Ewart DW, Giangrande PL, Dolin PJ, Spooner RJ, Rizza CR. Nature. 1995 Sep 7;377(6544):79-82.

The impact of HIV on mortality rates in the complete UK haemophilia population. Darby SC, Kan SW, Spooner RJ, Giangrande PL, Lee CA, Makris M, Sabin CA, Watson HG, Wilde JT, Winter M; UK Haemophilia Centre Doctors’ Organisation. AIDS. 2004 Feb 20;18(3):525-33.

Response: arguments contradict the “foreign protein-zidovudine” hypothesis. Sabin CA, Phillips AN, Lee CA. BMJ. 1996 Jan 27;312(7025):211-2.

The consistent finding is that people with HIV infection suffer progressive loss of CD4 cells and eventual immunesuppression and AIDS. Those people who have the same behaviours such as drug taking and haemophilia that are HIV- do not.

I am fully aware that Duesberg has replied to these articles. These replies are less than satisfactory. Duesberg unjustly accused Ascher of fabricating data when the truth was that Duesberg had misread the paper.

Duesberg also claims that the HIV+ groups were given AZT and that is why they suffered CD4 cell loss. The reality is that people were not prescribed AZT until they had either progressed to clinical AIDS or CD4 counts less than 300.

I’ll go into more detail about Duesberg’s “reanalysis” of the Ascher et al SFMHS study.

HIV as a surrogate marker for drug use: a re-analysis of the San Francisco Men’s Health Study.

Duesberg writes: … we found 45 HIV-negative men with AIDS defining conditions (according to the CDC), as listed in Table 1.

and

It is important to emphasize that had any of these 45 men been positive for antibod- ies against HIV, they would likely have been recorded as AIDS cases.

Now If we go through Table 1 Duesberg gives Salmonella as the AIDS defining illness for 18 of the 45. But the CDC clearly state that it must be a recurrent infection to count as AIDS defining. Salmonella is a very common food-borne disease. The CDC estimates 1.4 million cases annually in the US You can do the math to find out how many cases you would expect over 4648 patient years.

The next biggest group is 14 with transitory CD4 counts less than 200 cells/ml. The CDC is quite clear that repeat testing may be necessary to ensure that CD4 counts are truly reflective. Sheppard et al point out in this letter CD4+ T-Lymphocytopenia without HIV Infection that these CD4 counts were transient low counts amongs a background of normal counts.

After that Duesberg lists 9 patients with Herpes zoster. I looked in the CDC list of AIDS defining illnesses and couldn’t find Herpes zoster. Now Duesberg does say he is using the CDC definition.

Next Duesberg lists 6 patients with Thrush/oral candidiasis except the CDC definition clearly states that the cadidiasis must be esophageal or of the bronchi, trachea or lungs. Oral candidiasis doesn’t count it is frequently seen in immunocomptetent persons.

Immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is also not in the CDC definition. It is also observed in immunocompetent persons as is TB. Given the incidence of TB in the US at the time was roughly 10 per 100,000 per year it is not unexpected to see one case in 4648 patient years.

In short there were no HIV-negative AIDS cases in the SFMHS cohort. This has been pointed out to Duesberg before in the literature AIDS data.

Duesberg was so desperate to produce HIV-negative AIDS cases that he stretches the definition so far that he includes the roughly 1.4 million people in the US that get salmonella food poisoning each year.

This isn’t someone arguing from the evidence. He twists the evidence to match his own preconceived ideas.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 6:43 PM

The chemical AIDS hypothesis could be readily refuted by any of the following experiments:

Essentially all of these “experiments” would require withholding antiretroviral therapy from HIV infected individuals. Such Tuskegee style experiments are considered highly unethical, and would not be approved by any Human Subjects committee.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 6:49 PM

Guess what, the first AZT drug trial was corrupted, halted early and tested nothing. The drug group was kept alive with blood transfusions, while the placebo group died of whatever they had, hardly a fair comparison. We need to go back to using a REAL placebo,trll, my honorable drug company representative

The test was halted early because there was a big difference in how well the treatment groups were doing. This is standard procedure and is ethically required, as in the recent Vioxx study by Merck that was terminated early because one group had a much higher incidence of cardiac events. In the AZT study, the placebo group had a much higher rate of AIDS symptoms. Note that it was a double blinded study, so prior to the termination of the study, the doctors did not know which group was AZT and which was placebo. This is done precisely so as to make it impossible to treat the groups differently.

Oh, and for the record, I do not work for the drug industry, nor do I receive any income from AIDS treatment or research.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 7:01 PM

Actually since HIV progresses so slowly, there really would not be much risk, if the people really got around 200 tcells they could opt to be on ARV’s if they wanted to, there is no risk. A Much bigger risk is telling people there is 100% chance of death when you dont have the evidence to say that, that alone could kill them.

Its the only way to test a hypothesis of microbe causation when there’s no reliable animal model and where the microbe is only present in a tiny fraction of the cells its said to kill, according to Gallo in 1990 its 1 in 10,000, according to the fool John Moore its like 1 in 100.

A matched study between hiv postives and negatives where the both dont use AZT/drugs/coinfections/catastropic stress. This is how the study should be conducted, the Cohort studies on AIDStruth were not designed to test the hypothesis, so they didn’t control for these things, a new study would.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 7:03 PM

Was there ever a time when the vast majority of cases in South Africa were not heterosexual people of both sexes (hint, hint perhaps when the apartheid regime was in place).

Does this mean that before it was homosexuals who changed partner most often, but now that the South Africans are left to their own devices, they are the ones who change partner most frequently?

Perhaps you mean that there are more AIDS cases in South Africa nowadays than in the rest of the world?

I did not mean South Africa, as you found out. Concerning the rest of my claims, I can only repeat: the times when most people with AIDS were male are long over. AIDS is established in the population of large parts of Africa (and to a lesser degree many other places in the world), not just in some fringes.

And if you don’t live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells and thus your immune system, you will get the full range of AIDS symptoms.

Thats quite a mouthful, david, the full range of AIDS symptoms is pretty extensive. In fact you get the opportunistic diseases that are prevalent in the area or subpopulation you are part of, even if you live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells, since some opportunistic infections are already lying dormant in your body.

Don’t you know anything?

Sorry for being imprecise. If you had already lived in a sterile environment before getting HIV, you wouldn’t get AIDS except for Kaposi’s sarcoma and the like (which is a probability and not a certainty), of course. If you have dormant infections, you’ll get those when you’ve lost your helper T cells.

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 1, 2007 7:20 PM

David, my question had nothing to do with which part of Africa you were talking about. The AIDS ‘epidemic’ started in Africa. Was it at any point a predominantly male disease there?

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 7:28 PM

This myth that science operates in such a pristine manner and that no public scrutiny should be allowed is ridicolous. We are just supposed to take 100 times the safe EPA level of mercury and listen to Frauds like Gallo and not be allowed to ask any questions. Just trust that a vaguely defined group of “scientists” have reached a “consensus”

We are told the science is too complex to understand……..An 8th grader could understand Koch’s postulates, much like the public can learn about economic policy, abortion, global warming etc and make a desicion based upon informed consent, not by being brainwashed by a “scientific community” thats been either bought off or brainwashed by the CDC, much like many experts in other oppresive societies have being unduly influenced by governmental/corporate propaganda.

Where are these honest scientific debates taking place when it comes to health issues? They are not taking place at all.

They have taken place, long ago. Read them up, and if you come up with anything new, reopen the debate. If a debate gets merely repeated for the 10th time without any new arguments, as seems to be the case here, debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.

BTW, the “no animal model” claim is bogus. Some viruses are simply human-specific. You don’t get smallpox outside of humans; cow pox (vaccinia) is closely related, but still a different virus. Similarly, chimpanzees can be successfully infected with HIV, but they don’t get ill. Probably they have adapted to the virus, and vice versa, over a long time. Maybe people should try a gorilla model, if only there weren’t so few gorillas (of both species, eastern and western) left, but the chimps (and bonobos) are more closely related to us than the gorillas are.

the genocidal elimination of undesirable homosexuals and drug addicts with medically administered AZT?

What a stupid conspiracy “theory”. The times are long over when only homosexuals and drug addicts carried HIV in the First World, let alone Africa (HIV comes from bushmeat — we even know which subspecies of chimpanzee).

Go over to ERV’s blog. ERV is an actual virologist who actually works on retroviruses.

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 1, 2007 7:45 PM

Trrl,

Despite the inevitable toxicity of anti-HIV drugs, the over 5000 signatories of the Durban Declaration assert that, “drugs that block HIV replication in the test tube also” (i) “delay progression to AIDS”, and (ii) “have reduced AIDS mortality by more than 80%”.
However, the authors of the Declaration have not provided a reference for controlled studies in support of their assertion. But, they do acknowledge “That it is crucial to develop new antiviral drugs that . . . have fewer side effects” (The Durban Declaration 2000). Since many doctors share the views of the Declaration, we investigate here the evidence for these claims.
(i) Controlled studies investigating the ability of anti-HIV
drugs to “reduce mortality” and “delay progression to
AIDS”: The licensing study of AZT, performed in 1987 by
the NIH in collaboration with the drug’s manufacturer
Burroughs Wellcome in the US, is the primary placebo controlled study set-up to test the ability of AZT to reduce
the mortality of AIDS (Fischl et al 1987; Richman et al
1987). The study showed that, after 4 months on AZT, 1
out of 145 AIDS patients died, whereas 19 out of 139
died in the placebo group. The study interpreted this result
as evidence for reduced mortality by AZT. However,
this interpretation failed to consider that among the 4-
month-survivors of AZT, 30 could only be kept alive
with multiple blood transfusions because their red cells
had been depleted by AZT below survivable levels(Fischl et al 1987; Duesberg 1992). Thus, without lifesaving
transfusions 30 more AZT-recipients would have
died from anemia. In addition many AZT recipients had
developed life-threatening bone marrow suppression, neutropenia, macrocytosis, headaches, insomnia and myalgia,
that augured poorly for their future survival (Richman
et al 1987). Indeed, the low mortality of 1/145 reported
for the first 4 months on AZT, could not be maintained in
a follow-up study, which found the “survival benefits” of
AZT rapidly declining after the original 4 months period.
By 21 months, 42% of the original AZT group had died
and 35% of the control group, which by then had also
received AZT for 12 months on a “compassionate” basis
(Fischl et al 1989). Thus the placebo-controlled, licensing
study did not prove that AZT “reduces AIDS mortality by
more than 80%” compared to the untreated control.

The ability of AZT to “delay the progression to AIDS”
was investigated in 1994 by the largest, placebo-controlled
study of its kind, the British-French Concorde study
(Seligmann et al 1994). This study investigated 1749
HIV-positive, mostly male homosexual subjects divided
into untreated and AZT-treated subgroups for the onset
of AIDS and death. The Concorde study found in 1994
that AZT is unable to prevent AIDS and increases the
mortality of recipients by 25%. In view of this it concluded, “The results of Concorde do not encourage the early use of zidovudine (AZT) in symptom-free HIV-infected
adults.” (Seligmann et al 1994). Thus there is no controlled
evidence that anti-HIV drugs “reduce the mortality of
“or “delay progression to AIDS”.

But, in the absence of untreated control groups, the
effects of the new anti-HIV drugs on the morbidity and
mortality of HIV-positive recipients can not be determined
scientifically from the results of these surveys.
However, the average annual AIDS mortality of all HIVpositives on this planet [including the minority that is on anti-HIV drugs (The Durban Declaration 2000)] can be
estimated for 2000, the year that falls in between the two
surveys, based on data provided by the WHO and the
Durban Declaration: The WHO and the Declaration report
in 2000 34×3 million “living with HIV”, and the WHO
reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000 (World Health
Organization 2001b) (obtained by subtracting the WHO’s
cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000, see also table
4). Thus, even if we assume that all AIDS cases were
fatal in 2000, the resulting global mortality rate of HIVpositives would only be 1×4% – and thus 4 to 6 times
lower than the 6×7-8×8% mortality rate of HIV-positives
treated with anti-HIV drugs in the US and Canada.
Therefore, the claims that anti-HIV drugs reduce the
mortality of, and delay progression to AIDS are at odds
with the AIDS facts reported by the Durban Declaration
and the WHO.

(i) Diseases and death in HIV-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs: A sudden 10-fold increase in the mortality of HIV-positive British hemophiliacs, right after the introduction of AZT in 1987, made scientific headlines in
1995, because the increased mortality was attributed to
HIV by the authors of the study, i.e. Darby et al (1995),
as well as by the editor of Nature, “More conviction on
HIV and AIDS” (Maddox 1995). Even the editor of the
Lancet wrote an editorial asking, “Will Duesberg now
concede defeat” (Horton 1995)? Darby et al based their
conclusion on the sudden 10-fold increase of the hemophiliacs’ mortality in 1987, shown in figure 5, on the
facts that the increased mortality was restricted to HIVpositive hemophiliacs and that the increase was independent of the degree of hemophilia (which is inversely
proportional to the life expectancy of the patient). But, by 1987 transfusions of blood and factor VIII had
already infected most hemophiliacs for a long time. Most
of them were already infected before 1984 (about 75% in
the US), because all blood supplies with HIV antibodies
were banned after the introduction of the HIV-antibody test in 1984 (Duesberg 1995c, 1996a). Moreover, the
mortality of hemophiliacs was steadily decreasing since
the 1970s until 1987 – despite the presence of HIV
(Duesberg 1995c)! Thus the only new risk of mortality,
in and after 1987, was not HIV, but AZT.

According to researchers from the NIH, 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).

http://duesberg.com/papers/chemical-bases.html

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 7:45 PM

I thought the denialists were nuts until i saw the video Hiv Fact or fraud last summer. Its pretty rude that many reputable scientists have questioned the hiv hypothesis, and have been insulted by many. Here is the video I saw last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064591712431946916

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

People question HIV because there is no reliable animal model (virtually every animal injected does not die of aids) and there is not much virus present, (its only in a small fraction of T cells) Like 1 in a hundred or so.

Many take the middle road, Like Luc montagnier the discoverer of HIV, Who in his book “virus” in 2000 still stresses the need for co factors, specifically shyh ching Lo’s mycoplasma penetrans. This microbe causes disease and death in every animal injected as lo showed. DR. Nicolson has found this microbe via pcr in CFS, ALS, GWI and you can see his research here.

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

Garth Nicolsons new book must be read about mycoplasma and Gulf war Syndrome.

www.projectdaylily.com

Im not saying that HIV does or Does not cause AIDS but there needs to be more study, and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly, not insulted personally

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 7:47 PM

Nullifiddian said;

I’m looking, and not seeing any statement which explains what a virology study which attempted to show that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS would be different from the wealth of studies done so far, even though it is still being alleged that the studies done simply assume the link between HIV and AIDS and that somehow renders them illegitimate. Of course, those of us who actually practice science for a living know that if a foundational assumption is wrong, then hypotheses generated from that assumption are more likely to be falsified in experiment and observation.

So I ask again, O Masterful Expert on Experimental Design, how would the literature be different if they were testing the hypothesis that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS?

Duesberg placed into the record the studies you are asking for 20 years ago in his 1987 book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, and again in his 2003 paper as posted above by Pope which can be found at this link:

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition

J. Biosci. Vol. 28 No. 4 June 2003 PETER DUESBERG, CLAUS KOEHNLEIN and DAVID RASNICK.

Over time, more and more of Duesberg’s ideas originally published 20 years ago, which had been, rejected are now being accepted by the weight of the evidence. He was right about AZT, he was right about HAART, he was right about the absence of believable series of occupationally acquired AIDS cases in the peer reviewed literature. He was right about the lack of correlation between CD4 cell count and HIV viral load, which means that he was right about the fact that HIV does not directly kill T cells in vivo. He was right about no animal model. He was right about long term non progressors who have HIV and dont get sick, which means HIV is a benign passenger virus (at least in this group). Is he right about everything? Nobody is. But one thing is as sure as night following day, in the end, he will be right, and you and your drug company sponsored associates, and your paid political AIDS activist brown shirts will be wrong.

There will come a day of reckoning when those responsible for poisoning pregnant mothers with toxic drugs will be held accountable.

for more information: reviewingaids dot com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 8:05 PM

According to researchers from the NIH, 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).

This is one misrepresentation that is difficult to characterise as anything other than a lie.

Duesberg fails to distinguish the findings of the researchers from the delusions of his twisted imagination. AZT was given preferentially to people that either had clinical AIDS or who had already suffered sever CD4+ cell depletion. Unless AZT can travel backwards in time then it is not possible for it to cause something that occurred before it was administered.

It’s like saying that insulin injections cause diabetes.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 8:18 PM

What I am seeing from the HIV/AIDS denialists is ad-hominem attacks, name-calling, viciousness and a failure to understand some rather simple concepts that their opponents have put forth time and time again.

1) We aren’t doing randomized placebo-controlled trials any more; we’re doing randomized controlled trials of new agents against proven therapies, because to deny a patient an effective therapy is unethical. What part of this do people not understand?

2) “We need to go back to using a REAL placebo” says “Patriot Games”, whilst appearing to misrepresent why the trial was stopped (do you have justification for your very serious allegation, and if you do, why aren’t you in court with it?). Randomized controlled trials (whether placebo or not) are stopped early for either of two reasons: First, because the trial arm is doing so much better than the placebo/standard-therapy arm that it is unethical to withhold the drug from the placebo (what happened with AZT). Second, because the trial arm is doing significantly WORSE and must be discontinued for the patients’ safety (as happened with Flecainide, IIRC, for the treatment of some cardiac rhythm abnormalities).

3) If you would like to put your money where your mouth is, denialists, why don’t you sign up to receive a transfusion of blood from an HIV-positive person, then deny yourself antiretroviral agents and see what happens? Since HIV does not, in your view, cause AIDS, you ought to be safe.

4) There is no animal model for HIV-AIDS for the same reason that there is no human model for a range of animal diseases – some diseases do not cross species barriers.

Posted by: Justin Moretti | July 1, 2007 8:27 PM

The honorable Dr Chris Noble said

This is one misrepresentation that is difficult to characterise as anything other than a lie. Duesberg fails to distinguish the findings of the researchers from the delusions of his twisted imagination. AZT was given preferentially to people that either had clinical AIDS or who had already suffered sever CD4+ cell depletion. Unless AZT can travel backwards in time then it is not possible for it to cause something that occurred before it was administered. It’s like saying that insulin injections cause diabetes.

You have already demonstrated that you are untrustworthy, so why should anyone trust your appeal to authority without even a quote from your source, not even a link to your reference. Very impolite and inconsiderate of you Dr. Noble to deprive your readers of the proof behind your words. Until then your words are empty shells waiting to be filled. Lets not fill them with colonic contents like last time.

We have posted ample links to AZT effects on mitochondria. AZT essentially killed all the hemophilacs and homosexuals given the drug, whether HIV or not. Ariel Glaser and Elizabeth Glaser were both sacrificed to AZT toxicity, and betrayed by the medical system, and government agencies they trusted. This is as plain as day from the descriptions posted on the Michael Glaser web site.

AZT was a horrendous toxic mistake by the medical system. Or was it really a mistake?. Perhaps Dr. Noble is one of those who feels that it is right to eliminate the undesirables of our society as was the state program in Indiana and in Nazi Germany? Is that your opinion Dr. Noble? Iatrogenic Genocide is OK with the noble Dr. Noble? Let’s have your answer to this please.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 8:43 PM

You have already demonstrated that you are untrustworthy, so why should anyone trust your appeal to authority without even a quote from your source, not even a link to your reference. Very impolite and inconsiderate of you Dr. Noble to deprive your readers of the proof behind your words. Until then your words are empty shells waiting to be filled. Lets not fill them with colonic contents like last time.

How exactly have I demonstrated that I am untrustworthy. Maniotis has fabricated two quotes. He has repeatedly cited papers that have the opposite conclusions from his own spin. You’re calling me untrustworthy? Is this some kind of silly game?

Caroline Sabin responded to Duesberg’s assertion that the AIDS in people with haemophilia was actually caused by AZT in this article.

Response: Arguments contradict the “foreign protein-zidovudine” hypothesis

Patients are given zidovudine because they are ill

It is not true that most British haemophilic patients infected with HIV have been given zidovudine since 1987. Initially patients were given zidovudine after the development of AIDS. Subsequently, since around 1989, patients have been given zidovudine once their CD4 count has fallen below 0.2×109/l or after the development of symptomatic disease. Similar recommendations are made for pentamidine or co-trimoxazole as prophylaxis against Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. Consequently, by the time patients begin zidovudine and pentamidine they have low CD4 cell counts and are usually symptomatic.

Observational studies often show that patients given zidovudine have a worse prognosis than untreated patients.7 Patients receiving zidovudine are selectively treated because they are ill. The interpretation of findings from these studies should not therefore be that zidovudine increases the risk of AIDS. Of the nine patients developing AIDS in our study, seven received zidovudine only after an initial AIDS diagnosis when immunological deterioration had already occurred. There is no possibility, therefore, that either zidovudine or pentamidine had a causal role in the initial development of symptomatic disease in these patients.

How many times does this need to be pointed out to the acolytes of Duesberg?

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 8:57 PM

Justin Moretti said:

If you would like to put your money where your mouth is, denialists, why don’t you sign up to receive a transfusion of blood from an HIV-positive person, then deny yourself antiretroviral agents and see what happens? Since HIV does not, in your view, cause AIDS, you ought to be safe.

Your experiment entitled, “inject HIV into a primate, and observe the primate come down with AIDS” has already been done and has been a collossal failure in both chimp-primates and human-primates. The Yerkes primate lab closed down the chimp experiments because they don’t get AIDS after injection with HIV. Not only that, chimps and all primates in the wild have HIV naturally and don’t get AIDS from it.

What about the human primate experiments? Who did that and where is it published? Our human primates are the health care workers who have been punctured with HIV laden needle sticks for the last 20 years, with no convincing series of occupational AIDS in health care workers ever published in the peer reviewed literature. In Brazil, they had 200,000 cases of AIDS treated in hospitals over 16 years, and not one single case of occupationally acquired AIDS. (until 2000, when one single one was reported and the link has been posted here).

Don’t accept that do you? OK, what about the other human HIV experiment going on right now? That is the long term non-progressor, elite controller human primate group who have HIV and don’t get AIDS. Don’t have to inject them with HIV cause they already have HIV. They don’t get sick. They dont get AIDS. Your experiment is a collossal failure multiple ways.

Can’t inject another human with HIV, no IRB would ever approve it, its unethical. Besides who would want a blood transfusion Hiv or not? Nobody.

So in spite of all that, what if I agreed to your experiment and was injected with HIV, and we waited 10 years and nothing happens. Well, we would have to wait 20 more years. What if I finally die of a heart attack at the age of 72. Oh well, you will say, he must have been a long term non-progressor, lets go inject some one else and keep doing it until we find somebody who dies of AIDS from it. That’s what they did to the chimps, and they didn’t get AIDS unless you kill them with AZT, now that looks exactly like AIDS.

For more information see reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 9:07 PM

Dr. Noble, you are right that many times the patient has already progressed to AIDS and then are given the antiretrovirals with CD4 decline. Nevertheless, how can one have CD4’s under 100, be sick and dying prior to the medcines and later again have CD4’s under 100 and be healthy as a horse without the antiretrovirals? What is going on here?

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 9:13 PM

Our human primates are the health care workers who have been punctured with HIV laden needle sticks for the last 20 years, with no convincing series of occupational AIDS in health care workers ever published in the peer reviewed literature.

You have been given a peer-reviewed paper describing 57 case of occupationally acquired HIV infection. 26 of these had at that time progressed to AIDS.

You may not be convinced by this but this tells us more about your ability to maintain your delusional state that the existence of the evidence.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 9:14 PM

Im sure they were given monster doses of AZT and were terrified with a diagnosis of death which can probaly kill you much more than a virus thats in like 1 of 100 cells, nuetralized by antibodies and doesnt kill 99.9 % of animals injected with it.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 9:19 PM

Cooler, you may helped to answer my question as having low CD4’s has never bother or frightened me. Therefore, I didn’t stress out no matter what they were but like the EverReady Battery, I just keep on going.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 9:29 PM

Im sure they were given monster doses of AZT and were terrified with a diagnosis of death which can probaly kill you much more than a virus thats in like 1 of 100 cells, nuetralized by antibodies and doesnt kill 99.9 % of animals injected with it.

Oh, good science there….

Feh.

Posted by: gwangung | July 1, 2007 9:48 PM

Its common sense dope, but I’m sure you think monster doses of AZT, chemotherapy in a pill, is good for you!

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 10:04 PM

Hey Justin.

You made four wonderful “points” or suggestions up above.

In response to your first and second “points”, if they could be called such, wherein You claim: “1) We aren’t doing randomized placebo-controlled trials any more; we’re doing randomized controlled trials of new agents against proven therapies, because to deny a patient an effective therapy is unethical. What part of this do people not understand”?

Justin, are you testing our patience? The ONLY HIV drug that was ever placebo controlled was the original and only four month long, corrupted AZT trial that was run, conducted by, and overseen by the drugs manufacturer. Many of The “lucky winners” of this trial had blood transfusions during the 4 month trial, and ALL ended up dead within 1-1/2 years!!!

You are simply admitting that it is still currently a situation of more recent non placebo-controlled and fast tracked drug trials that have been done against other non placebo controlled fast tracked trials. And every one of these trials was designed and operated and paid for by the drug company that stood to benefit. And NOT EVEN ONE of these drugs has had the followup long term trials finished that were required by the FDA and promised to in order to market them. Can you say “Conflict of interest”? What part of this do YOU not understand?

Your third “point”, if you want to call it that:

“3) If you would like to put your money where your mouth is, denialists, why don’t you sign up to receive a transfusion of blood from an HIV-positive person, then deny yourself antiretroviral agents and see what happens? Since HIV does not, in your view, cause AIDS, you ought to be safe”.

Hey Justin, how many years would we “denialists” who get such a transfusion have to wait before you admit that you are mistaken? 2? 5? 10? 20? 50? And if we got a cold or flu or herpes or pneumonia or whatever common illness 20 years after such a transfusion, would you be jumping up and down cheering and telling us we now have AIDS from the transfusion?

Not only that, but in your own ignorance, you are certainly overlooking the FACT that ALL BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS INTERFERE WITH THE IMMUNE SYSTEM!

See: http://www.med.unipi.it/patchir/bloodl/deleterious.htm

Blood transfusions are also associated with reduced cancer survival, and a multitude of other problems.

The only thing getting sick after any blood transfusion gotten from someone HIV positive or negative would prove, is that the dissidents are quite correct that many of the so called AIDS cases were caused by the transfusions themselves! How come hetero hemophiliacs diagnosed as HIV/AIDS never came down with the Number One AIDS Defining Gay Disease of Kaposis Sarcoma????

Even Ryan White’s death certificate showed he did NOT DIE of anything viral, but due to blood loss and a failed liver from his AZT!

In your fourth point: “4) There is no animal model for HIV-AIDS for the same reason that there is no human model for a range of animal diseases – some diseases do not cross species barriers”.

Well I got news for you Justin. Chimpanzees get ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE DISEASE that humans get, except for ONE? Three guesses what supposedly human infectious agent does NOT CAUSE ANY DISEASE IN CHIMPS, and the first two guesses don’t count! And I will even give you a hint: It has three letters and is spelled HIV!

You know what Justin, if you refrained from posting ignorant posts like the last one you did, you would not have to worry about ad hom attacks, such as being called an ignoranimus or a damned fool! Perhaps you are a young know-it-all that has no room to learn anything new, or perhaps you are naive, or perhaps you are just intentionally playing dumb because you are starved for attention?

Posted by: Michael | July 1, 2007 10:40 PM

Dear drug company representative doctor noble,

Your reference is a government CDC surveillance report which starts off by telling us they found nearly 24,000 AIDS cases among health care workes. This is not a report from the peer review literature (its from the CDC), of course, but GREAT!! This is exactly what we wanted to prove that HIV cause AIDS. 24,00 cases !!.

Problem is that all these 24,000 cases were not occupationally acquired AIDS. These were the bad boy gay heathcare workers who had outside activities, IV drug users, gay, minorities and others who got their AIDS from something other than occupationally acquired from needle sticks.

Of these 23,951 AIDS cases in healthcare workers, there were only 26 cases of documented occupational exposure, and this is from the CDC, and we know that nobody would ever lie to the CDC , and the CDC would never lie to us. Right?

There were also 122 AIDS cases in healthcare workers who were “possible occupationally acquired HIV infection”, And another 51 healthcare workers claiming to have occupationally acquired AIDS with no history of any recognized risk related to occupational or non-occupational exposure.

Does this report prove that Hiv causes AIDS in our primate experiment? remember that’s the experiment where we inject HIV into chimps and they don’t get AIDS. Does this CDC report contradict the chimp experience, and show that in human primates injected with HIV occupationally, they get AIDS? No. Not enough clarity in the data set to unequivocally say that AIDS is tranmissible from patient to health care worker. You want to believe go ahead. You are paid to believe it.

Healthcare Workers With AIDS

Through December 2001, 23,951 cases of AIDS among healthcare workers were reported to the CDC, representing 5% of the 469,850 adults or adolescents with AIDS for whom information on healthcare employment was indicated on the surveillance case report form used in the HIV/AIDS Reporting System. Information on healthcare employment was missing or unknown for 337,225 reported adult or adolescent cases of AIDS. Most (91%) of the healthcare workers with AIDS reported non-occupational risks for HIV infection (eg, sexual contact, injection drug use, or transfusion). The remaining 9% includes healthcare workers with AIDS who had documented occupationally acquired HIV infection (n = 26), possible occupationally acquired HIV infection (n = 122), or no history of any recognized risk related to occupational or non-occupational exposure (n = 51); the investigation to identify risk exposures is ongoing for 1,410 and is incomplete for 640 healthcare workers (due to special circumstances such as death, loss to follow-up, or declining participation in the investigation).

Lets try to answer this question by looking at Brazil, the highest number of AIDS cases in the world.

In Brazil, there were 200,000 AIDS patients treated in hospitals and not ONE SINGLE occupationally acquired AIDS case until the year 2002 when this report appeared in the literature.

Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases vol.6 no.3 Salvador June 2002

The first case of AIDS due to occupational exposure in Brazil

If anyone is delusional it is the noble doctor noble who wants to believe a problematic cdc report of “26″ out of 24,000 AIDS cases which are “retrospectively occupationally acquired”.

Take a look at the rest of the WORLD AIDS literature, and what do you find? Duesberg is right. One case of occupationally acquired AIDs in Brazil after caring for 200,000 patients does not cut the mustard as far as I am concerned. If this satisfies your criteria for transmission of AIDS from patient to health care worker, then you are deluded my noble doctor noble, peddler of HIV drugs and AIDS activist politico.

Oh I forgot, you are the one who believes that 2 toxic HIV drugs equals a placebo, while one toxic HIV drug equals a drug. Right? No wonder. That explains how you can still believe there is plenty of occupationally acquired AIDS in Brazil. After all, dogma is key, and all AIDS drug peddlers and political activists must believe, right?

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 10:46 PM

Noble said

Caroline Sabin responded to Duesberg’s assertion that the AIDS in people with haemophilia was actually caused by AZT in this article.

My dear Dr. Noble, you obviously have not read Professor Peter. Duesberg’s very thoughtful reply to Sabin’s earlier hemophilia AIDS study which contains all the information rebutting her later comments.

Your quote is not really accurate, and you are guilty of the crime you accuse others, the misquote. The correct quote is here, by Dr. Duesberg.

“Patients with haemophilia treated with commercial factor VIII and zidovudine are at risk of developing AIDS defining immunodeficiency diseases like pneumonia, candidiasis, and toxoplasmosis but not Kaposi’s sarcoma or dementia. Their risk of these diseases is proportional to their lifetime dosages of factor VIII and cytotoxic DNA chain terminators like zidovudine.”

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 11:10 PM

Hey Patriot Games. Doctor Noble, if you want to call him that, is not a drug company rep. He is much more dangerous than that. Reality is stranger than fiction they say, and he is certainly evidence of this.

He is a computer animation programmer down under in Australia with his “doctorate” in computer programming.

And this is true! A few years ago, he helped work on a cartoon animation job model of an HIV drug supposedly destroying the evil HIV.

I think that after having been lauded for his animation job, it seems to have gone straight to his overactive imagination and seems to interfere with his grasp on reality. Happens to a lot of programmers. They confuse their computer programs for reality. Perhaps because he thought the animation of a drug destroying HIV was reality and he also thought for sure that he had helped saved the world from the evil HIV by programming the drug to destroy it!

Ever since helping to make that cartoon, he has become an all knowing “expert” in virology, HIV, and HIV drugs. He is not about to let a little reality pointed out by you or anyone else get in the way of his mission to save the world from his cartoons of the evil and brilliant genius HIV running amok in his mind!

Posted by: Michael | July 1, 2007 11:45 PM

My dear Dr. Noble, you obviously have not read Professor Peter. Duesberg’s very thoughtful reply to Sabin’s earlier hemophilia AIDS study which contains all the information rebutting her later comments.

Duesberg makes a number of claims here that are rebutted by Sabin in the comment that I posted. Duesberg argues that it must have been the AZT that caused the AIDS in these patients with haemophilia. However, as Sabin points out the patients were given AZT after they had progressed to AIDS.

Simply repeating Duesberg’s initial false assertion does not make it any more true. Try to explain to me how the AZT travelled back in time to cause AIDS before it was taken.

Your quote is not really accurate, and you are guilty of the crime you accuse others, the misquote. The correct quote is here, by Dr. Duesberg.

What are you talking about? You’re going to have to be a bit more specific if you are going to accuse me of dishonesty.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 11:51 PM

Hey Patriot Games. See what I mean? “Doctor” Noble is not about to let reality interfere with the cartoon playing over and over in his head.

Posted by: Michael | July 1, 2007 11:57 PM

Patriot, Justin is not the only one who overlooks what I posted about blood transfusions. Even pseudo animation doctors are susceptible to ignoring the hazards of blood transfusions.

For the Second Time:

YOU are certainly overlooking the FACT that ALL BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS INTERFERE WITH THE IMMUNE SYSTEM!

See: http://www.med.unipi.it/patchir/bloodl/deleterious.htm

Blood transfusions are also associated with reduced cancer survival, and a multitude of other problems.

The only thing getting sick after any blood transfusion gotten from someone HIV positive or negative would prove, is that the dissidents are quite correct that many of the so called AIDS cases were caused by the transfusions themselves! How come hetero hemophiliacs diagnosed as HIV/AIDS never came down with the Number One AIDS Defining Gay Disease of Kaposis Sarcoma????

Even Ryan White’s death certificate showed he did NOT DIE of anything viral, but due to blood loss and a failed liver from his AZT!

Posted by: Michael | July 2, 2007 12:08 AM

Noninfectious Serious Hazards of Transfusion

Although there has been a 10,000-fold reduction in the risk to patients from transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases in recent decades, there has been little progress in reducing the risk of noninfectious hazards of transfusion. As a result, patients today are harmed from noninfectious serious hazards of transfusion at a rate that exceeds infectious hazards by 100-fold to 1000-fold.

American Association of Blood Banks – ASSOCIATION BULLETIN , June 14, 2001

Serious hazards of transfusion (SHOT) initiative: analysis of the first two annual reports. Over 24 months, 366 cases were reported, of which 191 (52%) were “wrong blood to patient” episodes. Analysis of these revealed multiple errors of identification, often beginning when blood was collected from the blood bank. There were 22 deaths from all causes, including three from ABO incompatibility. There were 12 infections: four bacterial (one fatal), seven viral, and one fatal case of malaria. During the second 12 months, 164/424 hospitals (39%) submitted a “nil to report” return.
BMJ 1999;319:16-19 ( 3 July )

Transfusion-related acute lung injury: epidemiology and a prospective analysis of etiologic factors. We conclude that TRALI may be more frequent than previously recognized, and patient susceptibility, product age, and increased levels of bioactive lipids in components may predispose patients to TRALI. TRALI, like the acute respiratory distress syndrome may be a two-event phenomenon with both recipient predisposition and factors in the stored units playing major roles.
Blood. 2002 Sep 5

Transfusion-related alloimmune neutropenia: an undescribed complication of blood transfusion. Alloimmune neutropenia in neonates is rare. We describe severe and persistent neutropenia in a 4-week-old neonate, which arose within 2 h of a transfusion of blood that contained about 28 mL of plasma and in which strong antibodies against human neutrophil antigen 1b (HNA-1b) were subsequently identified. The infant was positive for HNA-1b. No other likely cause of neutropenia was discovered. We believe this complication of blood transfusion to be a previously unrecognised one, and have called the condition transfusion-related alloimmune neutropenia (TRAIN).
Lancet. 2002 Oct 5;360(9339):1073.

Transfusion in premature infants impairs production and/or release of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Forty-eight hours after red blood cell transfusion to premature infants, there is an absolute decrease in red blood cell precursors, immature white blood cells and platelets, probably due to erythropoietin-suppression.
J Paediatr Child Health. 2002 Jun;38(3):265-7.

Influence of storage on red blood cell rheological properties. Serious hemorrheological disorders, including the decrease in RBC deformability secondary to shape abnormalities, acidosis, and the decrease of blood clotting, start already at the second week of storage and progress up to the end of the storage period. Transfusion of packed RBC older than 7 days may contribute to hemorrheological disorders in critically ill patients.
J Surg Res. 2002 Jan;102(1):6-12.

Immunological aspects of blood transfusions.
Almost all identified acute and/or severe immunological reactions towards blood transfusions, reported by surveillance systems such as SHOT (Severe Hazards of Transfusion) in the UK are mediated by allo-antibodies. In contrast, the clinical effects of transfusion-induced cellular immunity are virtually unknown. Although alterations in lymphocyte responses and natural killer cell functions after blood transfusion has been reported in many publications, the relevance of these in vitro assays for in vivo immunity are lacking. Even for clinically obvious immunomodulatory effect of blood transfusions, such as the mitigation of renal graft rejection, no uniform in vitro explanation has been identified. In the laboratory animal it has been shown that when two antigenic stimuli are given simultaneously, the response to one of these antigens is often decreased. Blood transfusions introduce a multitude of foreign antigens. Indeed, immunostimulation and suppression by blood transfusions have both been found. Systematic studies on immunological side-effects of blood transfusions are hardly available. Since the UK and France introduced a transfusion vigilance system, severe immunological side-effects such as haemolytic reactions, TRALI (acute lung injury), PTP (post-transfusion purpura) and graft vs. host disease are registrated in these countries and their incidence can be estimated based on the national number of transfusions. However, every blood transfusion interferes with the immune system of the recipient. The available evidence of harm from immune responses not leading to severe transfusion reactions will be discussed.
Transpl Immunol. 2002 Aug;10(2-3):183-90.

Stored blood products stimulate cancer growth. During storage, blood products become proangiogenic stimulating both cancer cells and endothelial proliferation in vitro. These findings may have clinical significance in terms of the detrimental effects blood products contribute to cancer patients survival.
British Journal of Surgery Volume 89 Issue s1 Page 19 – June 2002

Effect of blood transfusion on long-term survival after cardiac operation. We found that blood transfusions during or after coronary artery bypass operations were associated with increased long-term mortality.
Ann Thorac Surg. 2002 Oct;74(4):1180-6.

The Association Between Preoperative Concentration of Soluble Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor, Perioperative Blood Transfusion, and Survival in Patients with Primary Colorectal Cancer Preoperative blood transfusion may be associated with high preoperative concentrations of soluble vascular endothelial growth factor (sVEGF) in patients with colorectal cancer. Transfusion during or after the operation is associated with poor survival in patients with Dukes stage A, B, and C rectal cancers.
Eur J Surg 2001 Apr;167(4):287-92

Impact of allogenic packed red blood cell transfusion on nosocomial infection rates in the critically ill patient. Transfusion of packed red blood cells is associated with nosocomial infection. This association continues to exist when adjusted for probability of survival and age. In addition, mortality rates and length of intensive care unit and hospital stay are significantly increased in transfused patients.
Crit Care Med. 2002 Oct;30(10):2249-54.

Red blood cell transfusions in critically ill patients. If RBC transfusions increase the risk of death, as suggested by the results of the study by Vincent et al and by the TRICC study, it is possible that several factors related to the processing and storage of blood products may have important clinical consequences. For example, decreasing the number of leukocytes using leukofiltration by an order of 4 logs in packed units of RBCs prior to storage may have significant clinical ramifications. As a second example, there is limited information establishing the efficacy of RBCs after prolonged storage. One of the first clues to the disturbing possibility of harm associated with transfusion of older vs newer RBCs was an association between RBCs older than 15 days and gut ischemia measured using gastric tonometry. Both examples illustrate the need for further research regarding the clinical consequences of blood transfusions.
JAMA. 2002 Sep 25;288(12):1525-6.

Blood transfusions correlate with infections in trauma patients in a dose-dependent manner. In summary there is a clear dose-dependent correlation between transfusions of pRBCs and the development of infection in trauma patients. Multivariate analysis further demonstrated that pRBCs were an independent risk factor for the development of infections. Although transfusions are frequently indicated, they should be administered appropriately and with no more pRBCs than absolutely necessary.
Am Surg. 2002 Jul;68(7):566-72.

Increased Rate of Infection Associated With Transfusion of Old Blood After Severe Injury. Transfusion of old blood is associated with increased infection after major injury. Other options, such as leukocyte-depleted blood or blood substitutes, may be more appropriate in the early resuscitation of trauma patients requiring transfusion.
Arch Surg. 2002 Jun;137(6):711-717.

Association of bacterial infection and red blood cell transfusion after coronary artery bypass surgery. RBC transfusions were independently associated with a higher incidence of post-CABG bacterial infections. The risk of infection increased in proportion to the number of units of RBC transfused.
Ann Thorac Surg 2002;73:138-142

Transfusion of Blood Components and Postoperative Infection in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery The administration of blood derivatives, mainly RBCs, was associated in a dose-dependent manner with the development of severe postoperative infection, primarily nosocomial pneumonia.
Chest. 2001;119:1461-1468

Emerging infectious disease issues in blood safety. In recent years, numerous infectious agents found worldwide have been identified as potential threats to the blood supply. Several newly discovered hepatitis viruses and agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies present unique challenges in assessing possible risks they may pose to the safety of blood and plasma products.
Emerg Infect Dis. 2001;7(3 Suppl):552-3.

West Nile virus infection transmitted by blood transfusion. Seroconversion of a symptomatic donor, the presence of viral genetic material in an associated whole-blood retention segment, and recovery of WNV from an associated component provides compelling evidence for transfusion-acquired infection. This report has important implications for blood safety.
Transfusion. 2003 Aug;43(8):1018-1022.

Transmission of prion diseases by blood transfusion Transmission of BSE to a single animal using this approach was reported recently. This study confirms this result with a second transmission of BSE and four new cases of transmission of natural scrapie. Positive transmissions occurred with blood taken at pre-clinical and clinical stages of infection. Initial studies indicate that following such infection by the i.v. route, deposition of the abnormal prion protein isoform, PrP(Sc), in peripheral tissues may be much more limited than is seen following oral infection. These results confirm the risks of TSE infection via blood products and suggest that the measures taken to restrict the use of blood in the UK have been fully justified.
J Gen Virol. 2002 Nov;83(Pt 11):2897-905.

A prospective study of blood transfusion history and liver cancer in a high-endemic area of Japan. A history of blood transfusion carried a significant risk of developing liver cancer in the study region. The people with a history of transfusion should be monitored more aggressively for viral infections and liver disease, as they may not report the infection or they may be unaware that they are infected
Transfusion Medicine 2002 Oct; 12:297-302

Rethinking blood shield statutes in view of the hepatitis C pandemic and other emerging threats to the blood supply.
Researchers have identified at least twenty-five pathogens that can be transmitted through blood transfusions. Four percent of patients who receive the average amount of blood during a transfusion are at risk of being infected with a contaminated unit, and exposed to the danger of serious adverse reactions, including future debilitating conditions.
J Health Law 2001 Summer;34(3):419-58

Posted by: Michael | July 2, 2007 12:25 AM

Over time, more and more of Duesberg’s ideas originally published 20 years ago, which had been, rejected are now being accepted by the weight of the evidence.

This rewrites the history rather drastically. I’ve been reading the AIDS/HIV literature since the early days when it was merely an unusual cluster of cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma, and I remember that when originally published, Duesberg’s ideas were originally taken quite seriously by many scientists. Over the years, as more and more evidence accumulated supporting the HIV hypothesis, scientists one by one discarded Duesberg’s claims. Today, Duesberg is left virtually alone, still doggedly hanging onto his own pet hypothesis while the scientific community has moved on, still trying with increasing desperation to nitpick away the flood of results that do not support his hypothesis.

Posted by: trrll | July 2, 2007 1:09 AM

This rewrites the history rather drastically.

Duesberg: KS is caused by poppers.

Duesberg: KS is caused by poppers.

Duesberg: KS is caused by poppers.

Duesberg: KS is caused by poppers.

Evidence: KS is caused by HHV-8

Duesberg: See I told you KS wasn’t caused by HIV.

PS. Evil totalitarian Tara was censoring this relevant post with lots of links

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 1:23 AM

Here is another Maniotism.

The A, B, C’s of AIDS Denialism

But AIDS denialists at the Red Cross published statistics recently indicating that (31):

“among “non-risk” blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA – or 1 in 3.1 million donations – and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing.”

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

….

13 Stramer et. al. “Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing”, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004.

The “quote” is manufactured by Maniotis. This is not what Stramer et al report. Even a brief look at the title would give you a clue. Stramer et al looked at how many extra HIV infected units were picked up by testing units from antibody-negative donors.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 4:27 AM

In their predictably weak and selective response to Duesberg’s long (but by no means exhaustive http://aras.ab.ca/azt-sicker_n_deader.html) list of nails in the AZT coffin, we equally predictably find the centre piece argument that AZT was only administered to patients already sick and dying of AIDS, hence the poor record.

Even the words of Goedert et al. themselves contradict this:

Sujects who had started AZT had an increased risk [4.5 times]of AIDS, probably because Zidovudine was administered first to those whom clinicians considered to be at highest risk (Lancet 1994)

Please note the “we don’t really give a shit” probably, then note the wording “increased risk of AIDS”, meaning the patients didn’t have AIDS yet. Clinicians may very well have decided through CD4 counts, clairvoyance or some other means that some patients were more likely to progress from mere HIV+ to fullblown AIDS and administered AZT preferentially to those. Regardless, the intervention was A SPECTACULAR FAILURE BY ANY STANDARD.

When Duesberg mentions that something akin to a nuclear device hit haemophiliacs in 1987 and increased deaths tenfold after years of decrease, the only new factor was AZT:

Thus the only new risk of mortality,
in and after 1987, was not HIV, but AZT
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/06/introduction_to_hiv_and_hiv_de.php#comment-485409

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 6:44 AM

Patriot Games said:

“My dear Dr. Noble, you obviously have not read Professor Peter. Duesberg’s very thoughtful reply to Sabin’s earlier hemophilia AIDS study which contains all the information rebutting her later comments.

Dr Noble has responded quite comprehensively to this. But I wondered if you really read the Duesberg analysis yourself? As you seem to speak for him, can you explain why he says the following:

“The HIV hypothesis predicts the same pattern of AIDS diseases in haemophilia as in other AIDS patients, but Kaposi’s sarcoma and dementia were not observed in the haemophilic patients studied by Sabin et al (table 2).”

First I’d like a reference to a paper stating that the “HIV hypothesis” predicts the same pattern of diseases in hemophiliacs. There must be a published prediction somewhere.
Where is it?

Obviously to claim this is nonsense – there is no such prediction because it is patently false. What infections/OIs/conditions someone gets is dependent upon current and previous exposure to opportunists.

Hemophiliacs do not get Kaposi because…….. they do not use poppers (only joking!). We all know it is because they have very low infection rates with HHV8 which causes KS (as opposed to gay men/heterosexuals). The relevant point here is that HHV8 is sexually transmitted, so is prevalent in those with high rates of partner change / history of other STIs.

Duesberg just doesn’t understand STIs – he never has and never will.

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 6:59 AM

Michael, thank you for your long (and irrelevent) spamoid post detailing the problems that can arise with blood transfusion. It is much appreciated as evidently medical science must have previously been totally unaware of these problems.

However, among all the references, I think I may have missed the crucial one that shows that blood recipients without HIV infection develop AIDS-defining illnesses.

Blood transfusion is common, many hundreds of thousands of recipients should now be wasting away with “AIDS”. Can we see one paper that reveals the extent of this devastation somewhere (anywhere?). Extra brownie points are awarded if this is in a country which has been screening blood for HIV since 1983.

And while you are at it, could you provide any paper showing, as denialists claim, that hundreds of thousands of HIV negative drug users have got PCP?

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 7:15 AM

Pope, the fact remains that in the Goedert hemophilia study those who are more ill, who already had AIDS or who were more likely to get AIDS are preselected as the ones who were given AZT.

The study was actually designed to assess the impact of factor 8 purity on progression of HIV, and not to look at the impact of AZT. In science one cannot twist study design around and jump to totally invalid conclusions. The study methodology correctly controls for the different independent variables (including AZT use) for the study variable of Factor 8 purity.

If a study was designed to assess the impact of AZT then it would have been completely different, and controlled for variables such as duration of infection, CD4 count and clinical stage of disease. This was not done, since this is not what the study was about.

In typical fashion, denialists have taken a single line out of a table in a paper, reinterpreted it’s significance to promote their own agenda, and falsely claim that the overall study suddenly supports their spurious claims. They ignore the context of the study, ignore relevant parts of the text which explain why sick patients were given AZT, and dispense with all conventional scientific protocol concerning trial methodology and analysis.

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 7:34 AM

Pope, the fact remains that in the Goedert hemophilia study those who are more ill, who already had AIDS or who were more likely to get AIDS are preselected as the ones who were given AZT

DT, That was a probably, not a “fact”. the fact, according to the wording in the paper, is that HIV+ patients given age had a 4.5 times higher risk of AIDS.

That this particular study, like every other study, with perhaps a handful exceptions, is not designed to test the “HIV=AIDS, and the drugs are great” party line does not change that.

Perhaps you have noticed that Duesberg does not cite this study as other than a piece of corroborating evidence, just a little something that should give drug reps a pause for thought before touting their goods?

Other, more direct, evidence is given, which you can choose not to ignore.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 9:17 AM

My “£%$£” computer, probably programmed By Dr. Noble, chose for some, I’m sure very logical, reason to change ‘AZT’ into ‘age’.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 9:23 AM

Aside from your handwaving Pope, I see little that actually answers any of the substance of my post.

This was NOT a study looking at the impact of AZT. If it were then the methodology would have used completely different variables, and been presented in a different way. Since the analysis did not do this, you cannot conclude that AZT was given or not given to groups of patients with similar duration of HIV infection, CD4 counts and similar clinical correlates for advanced HIV.

Like we said, AZT was just becoming generally available back then. It was earmarked for those with advanced disease or AIDS (as is suggested in the text of the paper). The fact that those who actually got it had a high mortality means nothing in the context of determining if AZT could affect outcome.

And yes, other more direct evidence is available, which supports the orthodox view (Sabin’s paper for starters) which Duesberg misinterprets and in which Sabin, in response to Duesberg’s misrepresentation, conclusively demonstrates that AZT was given to those who already had AIDS or whose counts dropped below 200.

Like Dr Noble said, you can’t blame insulin for giving people diabetes (or to relate this more specifically to what you claim, you can’t blame insulin for “killing diabetic patients” when insulin is only given to the diabetics with the worst glucose control who have high predicted mortality anyway)

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 10:01 AM

The noble doctor noble is back to his “quote picking”

maniotis said:
But AIDS denialists at the Red Cross published statistics recently indicating that (31): “among “non-risk” blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA – or 1 in 3.1 million donations – and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing.”
….
2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.
….
13 Stramer et. al. “Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing”, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004.

noble said;
The “quote” is manufactured by Maniotis. This is not what Stramer et al report. Even a brief look at the title would give you a clue. Stramer et al looked at how many extra HIV infected units were picked up by testing units from antibody-negative donors.

The quote is not “manufactured”. It is very correct, as anyone can easily see.

Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing Volume 351:760-768 August 19, 2004 Number 8 NJM, Susan L. Stramer, Ph.D.,

Background Testing of blood donors for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA by means of nucleic acid amplification was introduced in the United States as an investigational screening test in mid-1999 to identify donations made during the window period before seroconversion. Methods We analyzed all antibody-nonreactive donations that were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 and HCV RNA on nucleic acid-amplification testing of “minipools” (pools of 16 to 24 donations) by the main blood-collection programs in the United States during the first three years of nucleic acid screening. Results Among 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA — or 1 in 3.1 million donations — only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing. For HCV, of 39,721,404 units screened, 170 were confirmed to be positive for HCV RNA, or 1 in 230,000 donations (or 1 in 270,000 on the basis of 139 donations confirmed to be positive for HCV RNA with the use of a more sensitive HCV-antibody test). The respective rates of positive HCV and HIV-1 nucleic acid-amplification tests were 3.3 and 4.1 times as high among first-time donors as among donors who gave blood repeatedly. Follow-up studies of 67 HCV RNA-positive donors demonstrated that seroconversion occurred a median of 35 days after the index donation, followed by a low rate of resolution of viremia; three cases of long-term immunologically silent HCV infection were documented. Conclusions Minipool nucleic acid-amplification testing has helped prevent the transmission of approximately 5 HIV-1 infections and 56 HCV infections annually and has reduced the residual risk of transfusion-transmitted HIV-1 and HCV to approximately 1 in 2 million blood units.

This following paragraph is not a quote, rather is a comment, and it is clear as day that the point of the comment is quite correct.

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

Yes, my honorable noble doctor noble, your very astute interpretation of the title of this article is quite correct.

The topic of the paper concerns the techniques used by the blood bank to screen donor samples for HIV, especially for antibody negatve samples which might harbor HIV which is missed.

About 1% of the blood donor samples are discarded because of a serologically positive result to HIV antibodies (ELISA) which, as we all know, is overly very sensitive, producing false positives.

In 1999 DNA amplification testing for HIV was introduced, and all blood donor samples were also tested using this method in which 16 samples are pooled as a cost saving measure.

The Stramer paper is concerned with establishing the validity of doing the DNA amplification test. Stramer looked at the data and found that 12 of the blood donor samples were postive for HIV by DNA amplification, yet were negative by HIV antibody serology. This is good news, because our blood supply is safer by picking up these 12 cases of HIV by which would have been missed, and Stamer is doing a good job.

Dr. Stramer then explains that these 12 HIV positives, which were HIV antibody negative, were explained as window period cases. This means these 12 cases are new HIV infections ocurring in the window period before antibody production starts, so the antibody test is still negative. Eight of these 12 had follow up and all seroconverted, or developed a positive antibody test after about 20-40 days days or so, when their natural antibody production kicked in. We assume the other 4 lost to follow up would have done the same.

Getting back to the validity of the comment,

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

Lets give you the benefit of the larger number 12, and Stramer is telling us that there are 12 cases of new infection window periods detected when testing a pool of 37 million Americans. Assuming the CDC number of ONE million HIV infectd Americans annually, is this enough new infection to maintain a pool of 1 million HIV infections annually? Perhaps an AIDS mathematican like Dr. Rebecca Culshaw should answer this question.

It appears obvious that 12 cases of new infection window periods detected in 37 million americans doesn’t seem hardly enough to maintain our epidemic, does it? Let’s ask kevin, cooler, noreen, Pope, Michael, Adele and Raven what they think.

So in conclusion, my noble doctor noble, not only are you incorrect in your accusation about the misquote which was exactly correct. You are also demonstrated your interpretive failure to understand the comment below the quote. Of course this is nothing unusual for the noble doctor noble, as we have seen this repeatedly in your past comments. The noble doctor noble’s ability to actually understand what he reads is similar to the ability of a robot. Try to do better next time, if there is one.

For more information see reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 2, 2007 10:41 AM

Forty Mules playing Patriot Games on the Fourth of July,

Are you familiar with the concept, self-selected group?

HEre’s a story for you. Back in 1985 they started testing people who applied for the military for HIV. If you have HIV or some other things they don’t take you. In 1985 most infected people hadn’t been tested and didn’t know. People applied and got rejected. Word got around. Also public education got ramped up and people learned more about HIV and AIDS and testing. Fast forward to 1995 and alot more HIV positive people knew they were positive and didn’t apply for the military. ANd all those people who apply and got rejected couldn’t apply again. If you graph all this data it looks like HIV rates go down over time.

Problem is, your having a population that’s self selecting. Against drug use, HIV positive, homosexuality etc. ANd a population who’s knowledge about the policies and HIV changes over time. You can’t take it to the whole country. Unless your a complete idiot like that guy at Virgina Tech what’s his name?

SAme with any of these other groups like blood donors. Last time I gave blood they asked me some questions like where I had been traveling and who I had sex with. Obvious, if I was HIV+ the last time they wouldn’t have taken me too. Blood donors self select and get screened too. THey’re not the general population.

Even when Maniotis gets his quote right he’s taking it out of context and lying about what it means. What a pathetic man.

Posted by: Adele | July 2, 2007 11:14 AM

In that HIV Facts movie, Duesberg says that if you have HIV antibodies then that means your body is controlling the virus and killing it off. He says this is how it is for all known viruses.

It also says all retroviruses have something like 6 genes and there is nothing in the genetic structure that should make it act like it supposedly does.

I don’t know enough about retroviruses to comment would anyone mind informing me? Thank you.

Posted by: apy | July 2, 2007 3:27 PM

Adele said

Are you familiar with the concept, self-selected group? (snipped for brevity)

Oh, sure the blood donors are self selected. That’s why 1 per cent (15,000 to 40,000 bags) of donated blood are discarded every year because of a positive serology. These 15-40,000 donors must have forgot to un-selfselect.

Don’t forget we are looking for window period cases who don’t know they are HIV positive because their serology is still negative. How can a blood donor person self select when they are still HIV negative?

Handwaving Adele?

Again I pose the same question with you have evades or ignored. Are 12 cases of “window period” new HIV infections out of tesing 37,000 samples enough to maintain ONE MILLION HIV infections in America annually?

While you are thinking about that, why not post the links to your HIV electron micrographs with the gold labeled antibody tags?

Even when Maniotis gets his quote right he’s taking it out of context and lying about what it means. What a pathetic man.

Compared to your idol John Moore who is a repulsive snake, Andy Maniotis is an angel. I have demonstrated Andy’s quote to be correct, and his comment to be correct as well, and you still cast ad hominems? Your ill will towards Maniotis is misplaced and reflects poorly on you Adele.

Happy Fourth of July.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 2, 2007 4:21 PM

I’m down for a review of the unanswered question -

what is the gold standard? The purified, particulate reference standard?

Anyone?

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 5:00 PM

Chris Noble answered this already.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/06/introduction_to_hiv_and_hiv_de.php#comment-484878

Posted by: apy | July 2, 2007 5:17 PM

I went to the page and this is what’s there. There is no purified particulate standard for HIV tests. There is a grabass of garbage from every experiment on people you nazis say has clinical Aids.

Where is the particulate standard?:

The Source of Critical HIV Research Materials
Almost twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health realized the need for a source of critical research materials involving HIV and other pathogens for the scientific community. This led to the establishment of the NIH AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program. Created by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases [NIAID], this year marks the nineteenth year of this vital and growing program.

What’s New >> Reagent News
Cell Lines
Rev-CEM (#11467)
CEM-SS cells were infected with a Lentivirus pNL-GFP-RRE(SA), [cat# 11466]. Clones were isolated and selected for HIV-dependent GFP expression. Order #11467 here.
Cloning Vectors
pNL-GFP-RRE(SA) (#11466)

pNL-GFP-RRE was first constructed by complete deletion of all HIV ORFs of pNL4-3 by replacing the 8.1 kb BssHII-BlpI fragment of the HIV-1 genomes with an insert containing the GFP ORF and the HIV-1 Rev-responsive element (RRE) including the HIV-1 sequence immediately following the BssHII site and the first 336 nucleotides of the gag ORF (the gag reading frame was disrupted by a frame shift mutation at the ClaI site by blunt end ligation), the GFP ORF was derived from pIRES-hrGFP-1a (Stratagene) by PCR amplification. pNL-GFP-RRE-(SA) was constructed by insertion of a PCR fragment into the NotI-SmaI site of pNL-GFP-RRE, in front of the GFP ORF. The insert carries the HIV-1 A5 splicing acceptor and D4 donor. GFP is expressed from the HIV-1 LTR promoter in HIV infected cells when Tat and Rev are present. Order #11446 here.
Expression Vectors
pEGFP-Vpr (#11386)

The Vpr coding region was amplified using PCR, from a full-length pNL4-3 clone. The 5′ oligonucleotide contained a HindIII restriction site that allowed fusion of the eGFP open reading frame with that of Vpr. The 3′ oligonucleotide contained a stop codon as well as an Xbal restriction site. The mammalian coding sequences include humanized GFP (eGFP) fused with Vpr under control of a CMV-IE promoter and a neomycin resistance gene under the control of an SV40 promoter. Order #11386 here.
pcRev (#11415)
Derived from pBC12/CMV/IL-2 (cat#11416) by cleavage with Hind III and Xho I followed by insertion of a Rev cDNA from the HXB3 strain of HIV-1 IIIB. Order #11415 here.
pQE30T gly-met SDF-1a/CXCL12 (#11435)
The pQE30 plasmid from QIAGEN was modified to contain a tobacco etch virus (TEV) protease cleavage site following the hexa-histidine tag and preceding the multiple cloning site. The DNA encoding mature SDF-1a was cloned into the BamHI (5′) and HindIII (3′) sites. Subsequently, site directed mutagenesis was used to modify the TEV protease site from ENLYFQGS to ENLYFQGM. This results in the DNA coding for modified TEV protease site preceding the DNA coding for mature SDF-1a. Since mature SDF-1a protein has no Met residues, SDF-1a expressed with this vector can be subjected to CNBr cleavage to remove the hexa-histidine tag. This leaves mature SDF-1a with a native N-terminus. XL-1 blue E. coli should be used for propagation or production of more plasmid. SG 13009 E. coli with pREP4 should be used for expression. Order #11435 here.
pcDNA3.1-APOBEC3DE-V5-6xHIS – (#11433)
The cloning insert was obtained from Open Biosystems (Huntsville, AL). Insert for human AID was cloned into mammalian expression vector pcDNA3 with a V5 epitope tag from SV5 paramyxovirus and a polyhistidine epitope at the C terminus. Plasmid DNA was transfected into 293T cells and expression of human APOBEC3DE was detected with a monoclonal anti-V5 antibody. Expression of human APOBEC3DE is driven by the CMV promoter. Order #11433 here.
pMM310 (#11444)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11444 here.
HIV-1 clone BaL.01 (#11445)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11445 here.
HIV-1 clone BaL.26 (#11446)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11446 here.
pGag-EGFPt (#11468)
The insert consists of Rev-independent HIV-1 Gag coding sequences [pCMV55M1-10 obtained from Dr. George Pavlakis, NCI (Schwartz et al (1992) J. Virol. 66: 7176-7182] fused in frame to EGFP. The clone was constructed as follows: 1) Rev independent Gag was amplified by PCR. The 5′ primer contained a Kpn I site and overlapped with the start of the coding region of Gag. The 3′ primer contained a Bam HI site, linkers that removed the Gag STOP codon, and bases that overlapped with the 3′ end of Gag. 2) The PCR product was digested with Kpn I and Bam HI and ligated into KpnI/BamHI cut pEGFP-N1 (Clontech). Note that the protein product contains a linker of 10 amino acids (NRNGDPPVAT) between the end of Gag and the beginning of EGFP.. Order #11468 here.
Molecular Clones
pAncCgp120-op (#11397)
Derived from the pAncCgp160-opt clone (cat#11399). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 490aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11397 here.
pAncCgp145-opt (#11398)
Derived from the pAncCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11399). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 686 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11398 here.
pAncCgp160-opt (#11399)
A full-length subtype C ancestral env reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype C env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The ancestral env was inferred from maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses and represents the most likely sequence at the interior node of the subtype C cluster (Gaschen et al. Science 296:2354-2360, 2002). For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (Andre et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 842 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11399 here.
pConBgp120-opt (#11400)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 505 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11400 here.
pConBgp145-opt (#11401)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 701 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11401 here.
pConBgp160-opt (#11402)
A full-length subtype B consensus env gene reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype B env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The consensus env was generated by selecting the most common amino acid at each position in the protein alignment. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11402 here.
pConBgp160-201NS-opt (#11403)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The envelope cleavage site was generated by altering the potential N-linked glycosylation site at AA position 201 (201N/S). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11403 here.
pConBgp160-UNC-opt (#11404)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The envelope cleavage site was removed by altering the primary cleavage site (REKR?SEKS). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11404 here.
pConCgp120-opt (#11405)
Derived from the pConCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11407). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 490 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11405 here.
pConCgp145-opt (#11406)
Derived from the pConCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11407). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 686 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11406 here.
pConCgp160-opt (#11407)
A full-length subtype C consensus env gene reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype C env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The consensus env was generated by selecting the most common amino acid at each position in the protein alignment. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 842 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11407 here.
pWITO4160.27 gp160-opt (#11408)
Derived from pWITO4160 clone 27. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503,1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 849 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11408 here.
pWITO4160.27 gp160-rev (#11409)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from plasma virion-associated RNA from a subject acutely infected with a clade B virus by reverse transcription and nested PCR amplification. The env/rev cassette was cloned into the pcDNA3.1/V5-His©TOPO® expression vector and screened to ensure correct orientation with the CMV promoter. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. The size of the translated Env protein is 849 aa. Order #11409 here.
pCAAN5342.A2 gp160-opt (#11410)
Derived from pCAAN5342 clone A2 (Cat#11038). For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 852 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11410 here.
pWT/BaL (#11414)
This vector contains a Full-length HIV-1 provirus. This consists of the backbone of the HXB-3 strain of HIV-1 IIIB containing 2687bp Sal I to Bam HI fragment from strain BaL, i.e. the BaL Tat, Rev, Vpu and gp120 sequences plus part of Vpr and gp41. Order #11414 here
p81A-4 (#11440)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V1-V3 envelope regions of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 213:70-79, 1995. Order #11440 here
p21-85 (#11441)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V2-V3 envelope regions of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 79:4828-4837, 2005. Order #11441 here.
p20-36 (#11442)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V3 envelope region of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 79:4828-4837, 2005. Order #11442 here.
p49.5 R5-Tropic Molecular Clone (#11389)
This clone is a full-length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V3 envelope region of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. This vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in J. Virol. 65:5782-5789, 1991; J. Virol. 66:6547-6554, 1992; Virology 213:70-79, 1995. Order #11389 here.
Monoclonal Antibodies
D50 MAb anti-gp41 (642-665) (#11393)
Affinity purified from ascites fluid by Protein A/G chromatography. Recognizes gp41 (642-665). MAb D50 binds to the C-heptad but is not neutralizing. D50 MAb was generated during a study of the influence of the oligomeric structure of Env in determining the repertoire of the antibody response. ELISA titer against HIV-1 lysate (200ng/well) is 1:1000-1:10,000. Order #11393 here.
Anti-human DC-SIGN (9E9A8) MAb (#11422)
Does not cross react with DC-SIGNL. Use at 20 µg/ml for blocking, or at 0.5 µg/ml for FACS.. Order #11422 here.
Anti-human DC-SIGN/DCSIGNL (14EG7) MAb (#11423)
Cross reacts with DC-SIGN. Use at 20 µg/ml for blocking, or at 0.5 µg/ml for FACS. Order #11423 here.
Polyclonal Antibodies
Chicken polyclonal antibody to APOBEC3F#157 (IgY) (#11425)
Chicken polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F (NP_660341.2) using a synthetic peptide specific for N-terminal amino acids (CYEVKTKGPSRPRLDAK). Affinity purified against immunizing peptide. The APOBEC3F antibody can be used for western blot detection of recombinant APOBEC3F protein from E. coli or Baculovirus, etc., at a 1:250-1:1000 dilution. NOTE: Reagent will not easily detect human APOBEC3F derived from human cells by western blot. Order #11425 here.
Chicken polyclonal antibody to APOBEC3F#162 (IgY) (#11426)
Chicken polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F (NP_660341.2) using a synthetic peptide specific for C-terminal amino acids ((C+)KYNFLFLDSKLQEILE). Affinity purified against immunizing peptide. The APOBEC3F antibody can be used for western blot detection of recombinant APOBEC3F protein from E. coli or Baculovirus, etc., at a 1:250-1:1000 dilution. NOTE: Reagent will not easily detect human APOBEC3F derived from human cells by western blot. Order #11426 here.
Rabbit Anti-Human APOBEC3F (C-18) (#11474)
Rabbit polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F using a synthetic peptide specific for C-terminal amino acids (C-GLKYNFLFLDSKLQEILE). Affinity purified using peptide antigen. The APOBEC3F (C-18) antibody works well at 1/1000 for immunoblotting, and readily detects APOBEC3F expressed in transiently transfected cell lines such as 293T, but has not been shown to detect endogenous APOBEC3F present in primary human T-cells. Order #11474 here.
Proteins
HIV-1 Nef Protein (#11478)
A cDNA sequence encoding HIV-1 Nef, Gly 3-Asp 205 (Accession #AAL12764), was fused to His-tag (MASTTHHHHHHDTDIPTTGGGSRPDDDDKH) at the N-terminus and expressed in E. coli. Order #11478 here.
Viruses
HIV-1 CC 1/85 (#11394)
R5 primary virus which became R5X4 by 7/86 during the course of infection in patient “C”. Order #11394 here.

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 5:38 PM

Is this how you convince yourselves that your donig science? By doing all this lab voodoo, cloning scraps in bacteria? There’s no purified particulate reference standard.

There is no stand-alone particle in the list above, only scraps that you’ve anvilled together, most of them you constructed by following academic models of what you think you should find.

Is this how you convince yourself? Because its’ so dense and complicated?

There is no purified particulate reference standard. It’s not there. That is why the tests always say the same thing, like, Don’t use this test to diagnose, and if you do, then use another too, and another, and then don’t use any test, but use this one, but only for peopel in risk groups.

Isn’t that it? The risk grop makes the test work, because the test is bullsh**.

Thank yoyou you answered my question.

Seriously dude, thanks. You’ve been a big help. You sick pucks.

No, serously, You just answered my question, thanks.

SensOR.

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 5:44 PM

And on top of that Bush just commuted Libby’s sentence – no jail time.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 5:59 PM

Senor Sensor is not exactly helping the case of those very few whom I would consider “honest denialists.”

Which also raises the question, have the career denialists ever truly cared, or in the words of the sophomorically Bialyesque Sensor, “iven a gats rass,” about those with HIV and AIDS?

The behavior of dishonest denialists (Maniotis, Duesberg), depraved and deranged denialists (Bialy, Jensen), or out-and-out ready-for-the-institution freaks (JD and Sensor, assuming these are not any of the above-mentioned) prompts me to ask why Noreen Martin takes what they say so seriously. I commend her for distancing herself from “Sensor’s” hatred and encourage her to reexamine what these people say, not simply how they convey it.

Truly, all of the scientific arguments presented by the various level-headed debaters on this page, as convincing as they are, do not hurt denialism so much as the inexplicably sociopathic behavior of most of its own practitioners.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | July 2, 2007 6:04 PM

Elkmountaingoat,

What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for hiv tests?

There, is that “Hate-free” enough for you?

Simple question, sensitive one, answer it simply.

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 6:10 PM

Some people snap when they percieve an injustice and are constantly mocked by big pharma/cdc sycophants, some don’t. Im not saying whats right or wrong but thats probably the philosophy behind it.

Posted by: cooler | July 2, 2007 6:14 PM

ElkMountainMAN,

What you don’t get is, if this “”"SCIENCE”"” is Wrong, and it sho nuff is, then millions of po folk is getting murdered on drugs and going without good water food and medicine.

Simple enough Mountain Friend? So feelings can run, ya know, a little HIGH After 20 years of bein all sweet and nice.

So, I’ll give it to you nice, one mo time:

What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for “HIV TESTS”?

SenSor SenSes ALL

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 6:16 PM

Elkmountainman, you make some valid points and sometimes some of the denialists seem to be nuttier than a fruitcake. That being said, we cannot ignore some of the questions that these people or level-headed “rethinkers,” I like that term better, bring up. If some of these questions had been satisfactory answered, I would not be a rethinker myself. But direct questions deserve direct answers and direct proof. I have asked my doctors over and over, I see alot because I go to a training hospital, where is the document that unequivocally proves that HIV cause AIDS? This is a fair question to ask and expect an answer too. But all I ever get is that it is somewhere in PubMeb. That’s not good enough. I would hope that these doctors should be able to quote the reference just like a preacher could quote scripture. They tell me that they will get back with me, which means three more months and they never cross that bridge again with me. This is only one issue, there are many more. And you folks on the other side wonder why we are rethinkes?

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 2, 2007 6:21 PM

Slooowwww down there, Sensor.

Just because this bunch of folks couldn’t lead you to that singular purified particulate reference standard for HIV tests, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist now…does it?

Posted by: Dan | July 2, 2007 6:35 PM

ElkMountainMan,

To show you that we in the HIV resistance movement have our hearts in the right place, I have linked the one and only incontrovertible picture of the purified, particulate HIV just for you.

http://www.reviewingaids.com/awiki/index.php/Image:ObjectAndSubject.jpg

That and the good news about Libby should make your Independence Day.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 6:59 PM

Sensor said,

Elkmountaingoat,What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for hiv tests?There, is that “Hate-free” enough for you? Simple question, sensitive one, answer it simply.

ElkMountaineerGoatMan would probably say (if he could);

The gold standard for HIV tests; Don’t you know this is 2006 and science has advanced since 1984. We don’t need a gold standard for the HIV tests. Besides we have DNA tests now and we know they are always right 100% of the time, so who needs a gold standard?

Proof that HIV causes AIDS; How HIV causes AIDS is proven and published somewhere in pubmed. Exactly where is not important. We know it is in there somewhere. Just ask Google or Wikipedia, they will tell you that its there somewhere. Anybody who asks where, is a “denialist”, gets cut off from NIH funding and drug company money.

Animal model for AIDs. We have an animal model. One chimp got AIDS and died after we injected some blood into it. Exactly what we injected is published in the paper, so go look it up stupid.

Occupational AIDS. Hundreds or thousands of doctors and nurses got AIDS from needle stick injuries from their AIDS patients. This is a fact. They were too embarassed to let any body know about it. After all getting AIDS is a bad thing, so they hid this information. That’s why there are no reports in the medical literature, they were embarassed to tell anyone.

Aids drugs are safe and have saved millions of lives. You didn’t now this? Yes its true. How do we know. Well we did PLACEBO controlled studies and showed this. Yes placebo controlled. A cocktail of HIV drugs is a perfectly good placebo. All HIV patients who die on these drugs died of AIDS, while all patients who lived, lived because of the miraculous healing powers of the drugs. Yes, destroying the mitochonria actually heals the cells. Its unhealthy to have too many mitochondria, you know.

The HIV AIDS vaccine; Just because there is no vaccine for HIV does not one small iota detract from the fact that HIV causes AIDS, or the need to spend billions of dollar over the next 20 years doing research to find a vaccine. A vaccine is just around the corner. Another 100 billion dollars, and AIDS will be cured saving billions of lives on the planet. Nobel prizes will be awarded for the vaccine discovery. It will be glorious.

HIV drugs for pregnant HIV MOMs and kids. The benefits are so great and the adverse side effects so miniscule, it is hard to actually give out these life saving drugs without breaking out in tears and cry with joy at how many lives are saved from each pill.

AIDs in Africa. Yes the Indianapolis Star is correct. There is AIDS in Africa and its getting worse every day. We had AIDS in gay drug addicted America and we cured it with the life saving drugs, so AIDS escaped and went to Africa because Africans are not too careful, if you catch my drift. We may never cure Aids in Africa because they don’t listen to us when we tell them to stop having sex. They just keep doing it. Go figure.

Posted by: Old Glory | July 2, 2007 7:46 PM

Sensor said,

Elkmountaingoat,What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for hiv tests?There, is that “Hate-free” enough for you? Simple question, sensitive one, answer it simply.

ElkMountaineerGoatMan would probably say (if he could);

The gold standard for HIV tests; Don’t you know this is 2006 and science has advanced since 1984. We don’t need a gold standard for the HIV tests. Besides we have DNA tests now and we know they are always right 100% of the time, so who needs a gold standard?

Proof that HIV causes AIDS; How HIV causes AIDS is proven and published somewhere in pubmed. Exactly where is not important. We know it is in there somewhere. Just ask Google or Wikipedia, they will tell you that its there somewhere. Anybody who asks where, is a “denialist”, gets cut off from NIH funding and drug company money.

Animal model for AIDs. We have an animal model. One chimp got AIDS and died after we injected some blood into it. Exactly what we injected is published in the paper, so go look it up stupid.

Occupational AIDS. Hundreds or thousands of doctors and nurses got AIDS from needle stick injuries from their AIDS patients. This is a fact. They were too embarassed to let any body know about it. After all getting AIDS is a bad thing, so they hid this information. That’s why there are no reports in the medical literature, they were embarassed to tell anyone.

Aids drugs are safe and have saved millions of lives. You didn’t now this? Yes its true. How do we know. Well we did PLACEBO controlled studies and showed this. Yes placebo controlled. A cocktail of HIV drugs is a perfectly good placebo. All HIV patients who die on these drugs died of AIDS, while all patients who lived, lived because of the miraculous healing powers of the drugs. Yes, destroying the mitochonria actually heals the cells. Its unhealthy to have too many mitochondria, you know.

The HIV AIDS vaccine; Just because there is no vaccine for HIV does not one small iota detract from the fact that HIV causes AIDS, or the need to spend billions of dollar over the next 20 years doing research to find a vaccine. A vaccine is just around the corner. Another 100 billion dollars, and AIDS will be cured saving billions of lives on the planet. Nobel prizes will be awarded for the vaccine discovery. It will be glorious.

HIV drugs for pregnant HIV MOMs and kids. The benefits are so great and the adverse side effects so miniscule, it is hard to actually give out these life saving drugs without breaking out in tears and cry with joy at how many lives are saved from each pill.

AIDs in Africa. Yes the Indianapolis Star is correct. There is AIDS in Africa and its getting worse every day. We had AIDS in gay drug addicted America and we cured it with the life saving drugs, so AIDS escaped and went to Africa because Africans are not too careful, if you catch my drift. We may never cure Aids in Africa because they don’t listen to us when we tell them to stop having sex. They just keep doing it. Go figure.

Posted by: Old Glory | July 2, 2007 7:50 PM

Compare

“among “non-risk” blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA – or 1 in 3.1 million donations – and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing.”

with

“Among 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA — or 1 in 3.1 million donations — only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing”

Quotation marks are meant to indicate a direct quote. Unless you check the references you are relying on Maniotis to correctly report the findings of the paper. The fabricated parts of the quote do accurately describe the findings of the paper. The donors were not “non risk” they were antibody negative. The “incidence” was actually a prevalence (Denialists never seem to understand the difference) and not in the total population of blood donors but in the subpopulation that were antibody negative. Blood donors are also not a good indictaion of the general population because they are already screened.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 8:18 PM

OK, noble doctor noble, enough of your obsessive compulsive rituals and answer the simple question posed. Are 12 HIV acute infection window cases out of 37 million blood tests sufficent to maintain One Million HIV infections in the America annually? Lets have it yes or no. Stop your evasion and spit it out, or you dont get to peddle any more toxic drugs to unsuspecting Africans.

Posted by: No More Evasion | July 2, 2007 8:28 PM

OK, noble doctor noble, enough of your obsessive compulsive rituals and answer the simple question posed. Are 12 HIV acute infection window cases out of 37 million blood tests sufficent to maintain One Million HIV infections in the America annually? Lets have it yes or no. Stop your evasion and spit it out, or you dont get to peddle any more toxic drugs to unsuspecting Africans.

The “simple question” is not simple. It is based on false premises. The prevalence of HIV detected in blood units is around 300 times higher than the value that Maniotis implies. You are not allowed to donate blood if you have previously tested HIV positive or are in a high risk group. The people that donate blood are not the same group that are responsible for infecting people. The prevalence of HIV in blood donors is about 30 times lower than the prevalence of HIV in the total population.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 8:41 PM

The noble Doctor noble said:

The “simple question” is not simple. It is based on false premises. The prevalence of HIV detected in blood units is around 300 times higher than the value that Maniotis implies. You are not allowed to donate blood if you have previously tested HIV positive or are in a high risk group. The people that donate blood are not the same group that are responsible for infecting people. The prevalence of HIV in blood donors is about 30 times lower than the prevalence of HIV in the total population.

excuse me for asking, but what is the “prevalence” of HIv in donated blood samples? Providing a number here would sufficent.

What prevalence number is Dr. Maniotis implying?

How do you have this knowledge that the people who are HIV positive and donate blood which is discarded are not the people who infect others? Did you ask them? Or did you read this in a publication somewhere, reference please.

The prevalence of HIv in blood donors is 30 times lower than the prevalence of HIv in the population

What is this prevalence number and list the reference for your statement please.

Why do you first say 300 then say 30. Typo?

How many acute window period HIV infections would you estimate are needed to maintain one million HIV infections annually? How about a million? Does that work for you? To many? How about 100,000 does that work for you. Still too many? How about 10,000? Does that work for you? Still too many, How about 12 ? does that work for you? good, because that is exactly the number that was detected after testing 37 million blood samples for HIv and discarding the ONE PER CENT (37,000) positives for HIV serology. After discarding the chronic HIV cases, they found 12 acute window period HIV infections. The magic number is 12. TWELVE. TWO times SIX. Count the fingers on both hands and add two.

That’s why Stramer is a denialist;

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

Starting to see the light now, noble doctor noble?

Posted by: Red White and Blue | July 2, 2007 9:31 PM

excuse me for asking, but what is the “prevalence” of HIv in donated blood samples? Providing a number here would sufficent.

One of the adavntages of reading the papers that Maniotis cites rather than relying on his misinterpretation is that you can learn something.

Reference 15 of the paper is Current prevalence and incidence of infectious disease markers and estimated window-period risk in the American Red Cross blood donor population.

The observed prevalence of HIV in the donated blood units was 9.7 per 100,000 this is about 300 times higher than that implied by Maniotis.

It is also about 30 times lower than the overall prevalence in the US population (around 1 million per 300 million).

Considering that you have to fill out a questionairre with a long list of questions such as “Have you had sex with a HIV+ person” before you donate blood it is no wonder that the prevalence amongst blood donors is lower than the national average.

There also aren’t 1 million new infections per year. That is the estimate for prevalence. The estimate for incidence is about 40,000.

Starting to see the light now, noble doctor noble?

No.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 11:10 PM

It also says all retroviruses have something like 6 genes and there is nothing in the genetic structure that should make it act like it supposedly does.

To a biologist, this is an amazingly dumb argument. It is simply not possible to inspect the genome of any organism, no matter how small, and predict with any reliability what it will do once introduced into the body. Moreover, there is no minimum number of genes required to produce selective toxicity to a particular cell type. There are some bacterial proteins, made by a single gene, that are highly toxic only to one specific type of cell in the body.

Posted by: trrll | July 2, 2007 11:52 PM

Trrll,

I’m glad we got that straight. I’ve always thought that the idea of specific suppressor and activator (AIDS) genes to explain HIV’s unpredictably long latency periods must sound amazingly dumb to any real biologist.

Posted by: Pope | July 3, 2007 2:05 AM

Well, I’m a biologist masters not PhD, I’m not a kickboxer. So maybe I’m not as qualified as Pope Claus Jensen to talk about transcription regulation of HIV.

If Claus thinks transcriptional regulation is funny maybe he should talk to his pal Bialy who used to research that stuff in the sixties and seventies. If Claus is right then Bialy’s whole career is a failure not just the past thirty years of it.

But Claus is wrong. But it’s ok it’s easy to make a mistake like saying “real biologist” thinks transcription is “amazingly dumb” when you don’t have a clue what your talking about.

Posted by: Adele | July 3, 2007 10:17 AM

Hey Adele,

How about those links to the EM photos of HIV with the gold tagged antibody labels?

Please?

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 3, 2007 10:29 AM

How do you get on here if you don’t have access to internet? Just type in immunogold and HIV or SIV or FIV or virus.

But I can help out too. Since you all are stuck in 1975 itcan be a shock to bring you up to 2007 too fast. So here’s an old review with 85 references and a few images too.

Nakai M GotoT, J Electron Microsc (Tokyo). 1996 Aug;45(4):247-57 “Ultrastructure and morphogenesis of human immunodeficiency virus.”

When you’ve read it and the references you’ll know enough about the subject to learn what happened the last ten years espcially with computer aided things. Get back to me then.

PS two really cool papers from this year not exactly what you’re asking for but related

Wright E et al “Electron cryotomography of immature HIV-1 virions reveals the structure of the CA and SP1 Gag shells” EMBO J. 2007 Apr 18;26(8):2218-26. Epub 2007 Mar 29

Arhel N et al “HIV-1 DNA Flap formation promotes uncoating of the pre-integration complex at the nuclear pore” EMBO J. 2007 Jun 20;26(12):3025-37. Epub 2007 Jun 7

Posted by: Adele | July 3, 2007 12:08 PM

Maybe after you read the review you can send your friend Etienne a mail and ask him why he doesnt keep up with his old field. Too busy being a quack I guess.

Posted by: Adele | July 3, 2007 2:03 PM

Since using pubmed or even google seems beyond the denialists grasp, perhaps a direct link to a couple of other papers with HIV ems might help…
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/72/5/4403
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/77/9/5439

In fact, the journal of virology is packed with similar papers. But I guess some only see what they wish to see.

Posted by: DT | July 3, 2007 8:40 PM

Adele said Maybe after you read the review you can send your friend Etienne a mail and ask him why he doesnt keep up with his old field. Too busy being a quack I guess.

As you know Peter Duesberg was the original retro-virologist, and there never was even the faintest question about the existence of retro-viruses in any of his publications.

Etienne’s objections related to purification of materials for a gold standard, and I believe his issues have never been addressed properly. So, if asking a few unanswered questions is your definition of a quackery, then you definitely picked the right century and the right country for it. Welcome to 1984.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 3, 2007 9:03 PM

As you know Peter Duesberg was the original retro-virologist, and there never was even the faintest question about the existence of retro-viruses in any of his publications.

Have you asked Stefan Lanka? See there is no scientific consensus!
If you ever manage to convince Stefan Lanka that the retroviruses that Duesberg studied actually exist then I’ll believe you.

Etienne’s objections related to purification of materials for a gold standard, and I believe his issues have never been addressed properly.

Duesberg has addressed these issues.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 3, 2007 9:30 PM

Dear Adele,

Thanks loads for the links to the gold labeled HIV Electron micrographs. I have been reviewing them as well as others using your helpful suggestions and found them quite interesting.

The HIV cone shaped cores, lateral bodies and surface knobs are well demonstrated, and I can see the small gold particles as well, indicating the HIV is labeled with the gold antibodies.

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell. Perhaps I am missing this paragraph, and could you please point it out to me? Which article and page specifically?

While you are at it, would you please point out in this schematic of the retroviral life cycle, at which step the HIV does damage to the host cell? As you can see, this diagram does not specfically mention that the host cell is being damaged by the viral replication, so please indicate at which step this is ocurring.

Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 3, 2007 9:39 PM

Gold.

Of course Adele cannot point out the step wherein HIV does damage to the host. The reason is simple. The step at which HIV does damage to the host is the very moment it is believed in, and beliefs are invisible as they are but the vibrations of energy within the cells when the belief is activated.

Notice that the life cycle picture you shared is not an actual picture of what goes on in a cell, but is a very clear and accurate picture of what goes on in a human mind. It is actually a diagram showing how the HIV belief enters into the ear of a human, enters the mind and is chewed up, freaked out over, and regurgitated right back out of the mouth with very slight mutations to the belief and directly into the ear of the next believer who then does the same. This HIV stuff is absolutely the most infectious belief that humankind has ever dreamed up. There may be no salvaging the infected. Perhaps it would be better to administrate immediate high dosage AZT and put them all out of their misery (and we can blame the effects on the HIV, haha).

Posted by: Michael | July 3, 2007 10:31 PM

Nobody knows how HIV escapes antibody protection, and how it kills cells, when it only infects a very small % of t cells. But scientists have reached a “consensus”, which is what you’d expect if the government supports a particular theory, therefore anyone questioning the “consensus” is a “denier”

Posted by: cooler | July 3, 2007 10:45 PM

Nakai M GotoT, J Electron Microsc (Tokyo). 1996 Aug;45(4):247-57 “Ultrastructure and morphogenesis of human immunodeficiency virus.”

That’s a bit too far past 1970 for people suffering from Denialist Time Warp syndrome.

How about this one from 1987?

Fine structure of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and immunolocalization of structural proteins.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 4, 2007 1:00 AM

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell.

This doesn’t make sense. EM is well suited for imaging physical structures like virus particles, but is not capable of imaging biochemical phenomena like cell death. Particularly since the process of preparing tissue for EM kills the cells anyway.

To study biolchemical processes like cellular damage, one primarily uses the methods of biochemistry and cell biology.

Posted by: trrll | July 4, 2007 1:01 AM

Well, I’m a biologist masters not PhD, I’m not a kickboxer. So maybe I’m not as qualified as Pope Claus Jensen to talk about transcription regulation of HIV.
If Claus thinks transcriptional regulation is funny maybe he should talk to his pal Bialy who used to research that stuff in the sixties and seventies. If Claus is right then Bialy’s whole career is a failure not just the past thirty years of it.

Adele, since you have a Masters in biology, I would have thought you had read and understood that qualifying word I put in the parentheses in front of (AIDS) “gene”. I was obviously not referring to ‘ordinary’ transcriptional regulation or ‘ordinary’ late gene expression.

But you can stop me laughing by producing that specific AIDS gene for Jensen and Bialy, whoever they are.

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 2:51 AM

Thanks loads for the links to the gold labeled HIV Electron micrographs. I have been reviewing them as well as others using your helpful suggestions and found them quite interesting.

I don’t think anyone doubts there are plenty of pictures of gold tagged things. The question is what they show apart from the gold tags.

Funny thing Dr. Noble should mention Dr. Lanka. Has Dr. Noble forgotten that Dr. Lanka obtained an admission in his petition to the German Bundestag via Federal Ministry of Health that there exists no EM of HIV from patient plasma or serum?

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 3:25 AM

Gold Tagged said;
Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell.

Trill said;

This doesn’t make sense. EM is well suited for imaging physical structures like virus particles, but is not capable of imaging biochemical phenomena like cell death. Particularly since the process of preparing tissue for EM kills the cells anyway. To study biolchemical processes like cellular damage, one primarily uses the methods of biochemistry and cell biology.

Trill comments are very obviously wrong, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the field knows that electron microscopy shows a number of changes which take place indicative of injury leading to cell death: distention of cisternae of endoplasmic reticulum, detachment of ribosomes from rER with increase in free cytoplasmic ribosomes, swelling of mitochondria, formation of blebs in the plasma membrane, segregation of fibrillar and granular components of the nucleolus.

Yes, of course, the cell are fixed with glutaraldhyde and imaged in a vaccum which kills the cells. The point is that the changes in the cells in vivo, are FIXED, so even though the cells are dead from fixation, the EM images are what the cells looked like while alive at the time of fixation. (artifacts can occur of course).

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 8:00 AM

Perhaps Trll is taking you too literally, GTAM.
You had asked “Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell. Perhaps I am missing this paragraph, and could you please point it out to me? Which article and page specifically?”

Well, as you say, EMs can indicate cell damage, and they do in HIV. And contrary to the assertion of dissidents, HIV DOES damage cells.
Here is a good paper for starters:
http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v12/n1s/full/4401582a.html
This gives over a hundred references to HIV-induced cell damage, so get reading if you need more details.

The dissident MO is to throw around broad statements as though they represent solid fact (eg “There are no EMs of HIV”). In response, we then point them towards EMs.

The dissident MO then takes us down one of 2 paths, either to dispute that the EMs show HIV at all (and drag readers into an abtruse detailed discussion about microvesicle constructs), or to qualify their original statement by saying “Ah, but what I actually meant was there are no EMs of HIV inducing cellular damage”.

The response again is to point them towards just such papers (and then the whole cycle can begin again).

Employing these techniques we soon arrive at a point where the dissidents are arguing “Ah, but I still haven’t seen evidence that Nef activates P21-activated kinase (PAK) proteins or Rho GTPase exchange factor Vav in T cells. Usually well before this point the dissident has lost all sense of direction completely and is just arguing for the sake of it, and hoping to hell that random viewers of the bloated thread will be so overwhelmed by detail that they are unable to see how wrong they are. The initial refuted assertion that “There are no EMs of HIV” has been left gathering cobwebs deep in the infancy of the exchange.

To give them credit, this MO works usually quite well. It does however equally well expose their intellectual bankrupcy.

Posted by: DT | July 4, 2007 10:27 AM

Well, as you say, EMs can indicate cell damage, and they do in HIV. And contrary to the assertion of dissidents, HIV DOES damage cells.Here is a good paper for starters:

nature DOT com/cdd/journal/v12/n1s/full/4401582a.html

This gives over a hundred references to HIV-induced cell damage, so get reading if you need more details.

My dear drug company representatives and AIDS political activists,

Thanks for agreeing that EM is capable of showing cell organelle damage and findings leading to cell death as was DENIED by your fellow AIDS apologist.

Also thanks for pointing us to the 100 refences which you say shows EM images of gold tagged HIV particles producing cell damage and death.

However, I am still having difficulty locating the exact EM image showing cell organelle damage and cell death. Perhaps you might be of assistance?

For example, the fifth reference article of the 100 or so is this one. The title sound very promising. This is what we wanted to know, the behavior of HIV in living cells.

Visualization of the intracellular behavior of HIV in living cells

by David McDonald1, et al The Journal of Cell Biology, Volume 159, Number 3, 441-452

The authors correlated EM with LM with a green fluorescent tag on the HIV genome to study the lifecycle and movement of HIV into and out of cells.

To track the behavior of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 in the cytoplasm of infected cells, we have tagged virions by incorporation of HIV Vpr fused to the GFP. Observation of the GFP-labeled particles in living cells revealed that they moved in curvilinear paths in the cytoplasm and accumulated in the perinuclear region, often near the microtubule-organizing center. Further studies show that HIV uses cytoplasmic dynein and the microtubule network to migrate toward the nucleus. By combining GFP fused to the NH2 terminus of HIV-1 Vpr tagging with other labeling techniques, it was possible to determine the state of progression of individual particles through the viral life cycle. Correlation of immunofluorescent and electron micrographs allowed high resolution imaging of microtubule-associated structures that are proposed to be reverse transcription complexes. Based on these observations, we propose that HIV uses dynein and the microtubule network to facilitate the delivery of the viral genome to the nucleus of the cell during early postentry steps of the HIV life cycle. . Our observations of the composition and trafficking of intracellular HIV complexes suggests the following scenario. After entering the cytoplasm, the HIV genome uses some aspect of the actin cytoskeleton to move within the peripheral regions of the cell. This is consistent with evidence that actin can be used to gain access to the microtubule network (Taunton, 2001). It is also supported by previous reports that an intact actin cytoskeleton is necessary for efficient infectivity (Bukrinskaya et al., 1998). The infectious viral particle must next make its way to the microtubule network, where it can initiate reverse transcription even before losing the majority of its capsid protein. At some point after interaction with the microtubule network, the conical capsid dissociates, yet the RTC maintains its interaction with microtubules. This interaction is likely mediated by tethering with a cellular motor complex which has both minus end- and plus end-directed motor activities, as is proposed for Ad-2. Minus end-directed movement of the RTC along the microtubule network ultimately leads to the microtubule organizing center, very near the nuclear membrane, where the mature RTC can then enter through nuclear pore complexes in order to integrate into the host DNA.

Although this article deals with a very advanced technique with simultaneous Light Microscopy with Green Flourescent tags and Electron Microscopy of the HIV particles in living cells, nowhere in their observations of the composition and trafficking of intracellular HIV complexes did the authors show EM or LM images of damage to cell organelles or death of host cells by the tagged HIV particles they observed.

If this is incorrect, allow me to apologize in advance, and then point us to the figure number for the EM image, the paragraph and page which shows the HIV particles causing cell damage or cell death.

Sorry to be a bother about it, but, this is the second or third time I have asked for a link which shows the gold tagged HIV particles damaging the cell organelles.

Please dont say, just go to pubmed. Thats not very polite, is it? And please don’t list a hundred refences and say, it’s in there somehere. That not very polite either is it?

So far, your assertion that there are plenty of EM photos showing damage and cell death caused by the gold tagged HIV particles, has not been backed up by producing those images. Why the delay?

A whole series of EM papers were already listed above. Why not use one of those and merely give us the page and figure number that shows the HIV particles damaging cell organelles ?

Thanks in advance for your thoughfulness.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 12:36 PM

The dissident MO then takes us down one of 2 paths, either to dispute that the EMs show HIV at all (and drag readers into an abtruse detailed discussion about microvesicle constructs), or to qualify their original statement by saying “Ah, but what I actually meant was there are no EMs of HIV inducing cellular damage”.

There is as simpler path which you forgot to mention: to qualify by saying “a picture of HIV directly from a patient’s serum or plasma”.

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 1:29 PM

GTAM and Pope,

How about this.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570

Figure 4 the electron micrograph of HIV infected T4 cells releaseing HIV particles, panels “(D and E) Cells actively producing virus. Note degenerative ultrastructure that follows virus release.”

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 4, 2007 2:37 PM

Roy Hinley said

GTAM and Pope, How about this.
www DOT pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570
Figure 4 the electron micrograph of HIV infected T4 cells releaseing HIV particles, panels “(D and E) Cells actively producing virus. Note degenerative ultrastructure that follows virus release.”

Dear Roy, when did they let you out?

Seriosly, thanks for the link to,

Cytopathic effect of human immunodeficiency virus in T4 cells is linked to the last stage of virus infection by REGINE LEONARD, DANIEL ZAGURY, ISABELLE DESPORTES, JACKY BERNARD, JEAN-FRANCOIS ZAGURY, AND ROBERT C. GALLO, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Vol. 85, pp. 3570-3574, May 1988

Yes, I can see that figure 4 demonstrates cells with “degenerative ultrastructurw following virus release”, just as you say. Great. Now we all know that CD4 cell damage (and also cell death) occurs when HIV particles are released from the host cell. HIV kills CD4 cells at particle release when (as in Figure 2 schematic), the host cell wall is ruptured. Therefore, this means that Duesberg is wrong and Gallo is right. But wait a minute. One thought just ocurred to me. And that is this, it’s been 19 years since this publication, so there has been plenty of time for others to replicate and confirm these findings. I don’t remember anybody else mentioning host cell wall rupture upon particle release. Seems to me that if this was true, the whole debate over HIV would have been long finished in 1988. None of the more recent EM papers showed cell wall rupture upon particle release. As a matter of fact, they all showed “budding” of particles from the outer cell membrane which DOES NOT CAUSE CELL RUPTURE. Maybe I just missed it. Have these findings of host cell wall rupture after HIV particle release been repeated and confirmed by others? You know, that’s what science is all about.

Let’s ask all the other AIDS political activists, and drug company reps, and everybody else, Adele, andy, Raven, franklin, Pope, kevin, Patriot Games, cooler, Tara and Michael on the thread if they agree that Figure 4 and also the schematic Figure 2 have been verified by subsequent research.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 7:45 PM

Sometimes these debates can become rather surreal. It seems that dissidents who either deny the existence of HIV or deny its primary role in causing immunodeficiency quite like to indulge in their pastime of intellectual masturbation.

I can imagine the equivalent arguments with someone who vehemently denies that planes can fly. Their strategy is to as quickly as possible sidetrack the main argument into a discussion about the minutiae of drag coefficients with rounded versus straight winglet tips, and claim that unless evidence is forthcoming that the former is superior to the latter, that this will undermine the entire concept of aerodynamics and send the paradigm of heavier-than-air flight tumbling from the skies.

Why on earth are the dissidents seeking such specific information about EM demonstrable ultrastructural damage to organelles in the cell from HIV? So far, whenever evidence for anything has been demanded, it has been provided. But what is the dissidents’ purpose? Provision of the information will not shake their denial – they have stated before that this is too deeply entrenched to change. And if the few posters here who represent the orthodox scientific viewpoint fail to provide a particular reference, what difference would this make? Could one of the dissidents tell us what their conclusion would be if say GFP-Vpr-labeled HIV was not shown to move along a particular microtubule when another researcher had previously said it was?

Posted by: DT | July 4, 2007 7:49 PM

Does that mean you agree or disagree with Figure 2 and Figure 4 of the PNAS paper cited by Roy Hinckley? A simple yes or no would be sufficient, with your reasons for the answer.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 8:00 PM

“Let’s ask all the other AIDS political activists, and drug company reps, and everybody else, Adele, andy, Raven, franklin, Pope, kevin, Patriot Games, cooler, Tara and Michael on the thread if they agree that Figure 4 and also the schematic Figure 2 have been verified by subsequent research.”

Aww! I’m feeling left out now!

Firstly, direct CPE/lysis is only one of several ways in which HIV can impair T cell function/deplete their numbers.

Secondly, the Gallo paper is further work building on earlier work from their group – so the work has been replicated/confirmed.

Thirdly, there are other papers referring to HIV CPEs – 20 seconds on Pubmed threw up this:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=1527842
No doubt there are others. So there is verification of this point. But you are wrong to think that because this is so the whole debate about HIV should be over. Firstly there will always be a scientific debate- science doesn’t stand still and there is still a lot to learn about this virus and how it does what it does, and secondly there will always be plonkers like yourself indulging in a pseudo-debate, imagining that it is somehow important and people of importance are taking any notice of what you say.

Posted by: DT | July 4, 2007 8:16 PM

Let’s ask all the other AIDS political activists, and drug company reps, and everybody else, Adele, andy, Raven, franklin, Pope, kevin, Patriot Games, cooler, Tara and Michael on the thread if they agree that Figure 4 and also the schematic Figure 2 have been verified by subsequent research.

There is a thing called Science Citation Index. Use it.

Several people have shown good will by giving you references to support their arguments.

What have you provided other than multiple aliases, accusations of being pharmashills and hot air?

Funny thing Dr. Noble should mention Dr. Lanka. Has Dr. Noble forgotten that Dr. Lanka obtained an admission in his petition to the German Bundestag via Federal Ministry of Health that there exists no EM of HIV from patient plasma or serum?

That is dishonest on two counts. It was not an admission. There are thousands of electronmicrographs of HIV from plasma and serum. The viral titer is relatively low in the peripheral blood except during acute infection and hence viral culture is used. Contrary to “dissident” claims controls are used and HIV does not magically appear in non-infected cultures.

If you really have a hang-up about culture (which you shouldn’t) there are electronmicrographs of HIV in lymphoid tissue without culture.

HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 4, 2007 9:13 PM

Dear Robodoc. Noble,

Are you programmed to write ‘dishonest’ at regular intervals or what’s wrong with you? Are you paid extra for using certain words?

If you don’t like ‘admission’, then use ‘confirmation’ or whatever you’re comfortable with for heaven’s sake. you’ll have to forgive me for smiling, but I don’t think this qualifies as an honesty issue.

I say “no EMs directly from serum or plasma”. You say “dishonest! there are thousands of EMs from culture. My dear, dignified friend, how is it dishonest to be precise?

The German Federal Ministry for Health say that the ‘viral concentration’ would only be high enough for EM directly from serum or plasma during initial ‘burst stage’ infection or ‘advanced AIDS stage’- which begs some familiar questions about pathogenesis. However, they admi… I mean confirm that these pictures had by 2001 never been taken.

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 9:51 PM

I say “no EMs directly from serum or plasma”. You say “dishonest! there are thousands of EMs from culture. My dear, dignified friend, how is it dishonest to be precise?

The post I was replying to did not have that caveat.

The German Federal Ministry for Health say that the ‘viral concentration’ would only be high enough for EM directly from serum or plasma during initial ‘burst stage’ infection or ‘advanced AIDS stage’- which begs some familiar questions about pathogenesis.

If you has read the article that I linked you would have realised that it has been known for quite some time that the major reservoirs of HIV are in lymphoid tissue where the vast majority of the CD4 cells are. This is where the pathogenesis of HIV disease occurs. Only a small percentage of CD4 cells are in peripheral blood.

Duesberg is like a second rate magician tring to distract his audience with his right hand while he bends a spoon with his left hand and the chair leg.

However, they admi… I mean confirm that these pictures had by 2001 never been taken.

I have just given you a link to a paper from 1993 that shows HIV in uncultured lymphoid tissue. What is your ad hoc pretense for ignoring this evidence?

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 4, 2007 10:20 PM

I say “no EMs directly from serum or plasma”. You say “dishonest! there are thousands of EMs from culture. My dear, dignified friend, how is it dishonest to be precise?

The post I was replying to did not have that caveat.

Dr. Noble, you absolutely rock!

And you are quite right, I didn’t use the word ‘directly’ in my first formulation. I didn’t use the word ‘culture’ either. Since I’m not a virologist, I wasn’t aware that if I don’t specifically point out that the serum or plasma hasn’t been tinkered with in all sorts of ways I am misleading people.

I have just given you a link to a paper from 1993 that shows HIV in uncultured lymphoid tissue. What is your ad hoc pretense for ignoring this evidence?

Dr. Noble, I have 2 equally poor excuses.

1. We were talking about HIV in plasma and serum.

2. When I followed your link I didn’t immediately end up on a picture of anything. In view of ‘1′, I admit I was too lazy to do more about it.

Contrary to “dissident” claims controls are used and HIV does not magically appear in non-infected cultures.

I do confess I have a hard time believing that controls always are being carried out (when they are being carried out) in a fraudulent manner. Perhaps I’m a little less hard nosed than Dr. Lanka after all?

However, I followed Dr. PS Duke’s (aka Harvey Bialy I suspect) exciting link and came upon this good old denialist classic, courtesy of our friend Dr. Maniotis:

The 1997 DIADS Official “HIV” Culturing Manual also exhibits evidence of AIDS denialism. Under quality control,” Section VI, page 45, the DAIDS manual
warned “HIV” cell culturists: “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when
testing them for the absence of “HIV” from your healthy donor source In non-technical language, DAIDS claimed that the way to make sure control cultures (healthy donor source) were indeed not infected with “HIV,” was to quit
watching the control cultures after 3 days. Perhaps DAIDS simply followed Montagnier’s and Gallo’s AIDS denialism, and accepted that it was PHA, and not “HIV” that could, after 3 days, induce the same effect on T-cells not incubated with “HIV” (A), as it did with infected cultures (2-9)? Nevertheless it is denialism, because they warn culturists to terminate control cultures after 3 days, and thus control cultures are NOT terminated at the same times as the “HIV” infected cultures.

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 10:59 PM

Ok, that quotation got a little bit muddled. Since I don’t want to be the cause of further allegations against Dr. Maniotis for manipulating his quotes let me make clear this is the main quotation from DIADS:

“Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when testing them for the absence of “HIV” from your healthy donor source”

Following that is Dr. Maniotis’ commentary

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 11:08 PM

This part is possibly not a verbatim quote:

“when testing them for the absence of “HIV” from your healthy donor source”

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 11:12 PM

Oh Pope! What do you suppose happens if you use PHA stimulated PBMCs that are more than 3 days old? It’s not what Andy is trying to imply. It won’t reduce the specificity of the assay but the sensitivity.

Posted by: Dale | July 4, 2007 11:35 PM

Since some of my comments have sparked a new blog, I felt obliged to comment. There are many theories about health such as the Botanic Theory, which believed that health is a perfectly sound mind in a perfectly sound body; different organs performing in an easy and regular manner.

The Botanic Theory of Health was founded around 1813 by Dr. Samuel Thomson who developed the principle of life from nature and the field of nature for its cures. Dr. Thomson stated that our bodies were composed of four elements – earth, air, fire and water. He believed that a healthy state consisted in the proper balance of these elements and disease occured in their disarrangement. He believed that whatever supported the internal heat and directed the determining powers to the surface, would expel the disease and save the patient.

He used plants to restore and repair the waste and decay within the body; by removing obstruction, promoting perspiration and restoring the digestive organs by exciting and maintaining a degree of heat and action in the system; he found this to be suited to treat every form of disease.

Therefore, he believed that the first conditon in health was to have suitable food, being necessary to generate heat and form new cells for growth and to repair worn out tissue.

Posted by: Rock of Gibraltar | July 4, 2007 11:55 PM

Posted under wrong category, should be under what is health.

Posted by: Rock of Gibraltar | July 4, 2007 11:57 PM

Adele gave us some links to EM photos of HIV particles with gold tagged antibody labels, and about 24 hour ago, it was mentioned that none of the images showed injury or damage to the host cella. A request was made for these images.

The initial reply to this was incorrect, that EM is not capable of showing cell damage, which it is.

The next reply was a link to an old paper co-authored by Gallo in PNAS from 1988 which says that cell damage from the final step of hiv partical release is shown in Figure 4 page 3574. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570
In addition, the page 3472 figure 2 schematic shows cell wall lysis and cell death upon release of the HIV particles.

The honorable drug company reps and political AIDS Activists were asked if they agreed or not with model proposed by the 1988 PNAS Gallo paper, and the few replies to this question have been, to put is bluntly, stonewalling and evasion.

So rather than waste time, I will anser this question for noreen, kevin, cooler, adele and raven and others who may be lurking and learning about HIV AIDS for the first time.

The answer to this question comes from the Robert Koch Institute Dec 1997 entitled, Fine Structure of HIV and SIV by Hans R. Gelderblom Dec 1997,
Robert Koch-Institut, Nordufer 20, D-13353 Berlin, Germany

please see figurs 2 thu 6 whch shows HIV particles budding from the outer cell membrane with no damage to the host cell. Nowhere in this review is there any mention of damage to the host cell upon viral particle release or at any other step. In addition to that, the last paragraph says, viral half life for the HIV shed by budding is 30 hours explaining the rapid decay of viral infectivity, and “fine structure data have been collected on EM on viruses grown in culture, the validity of the structural model still has to be proven by EM evaluation of infectious plasma HIV”

This 1997 review of HIV fine structure contradicts the 1988 PNAS Gallo Figure 2 and Fig 4 proposals. Of course, this is not surprising considering Gallo’s reputation for being wrong on his past proposals, and Gallo’s tainted past history of scientific misconduct.

For the lurkers here, and other readers learning about HIV AIDS for the first time, I will summarize the conclusions reached so far.

1) HIV causes AIDS has never been proven in the peer reviewed literature.(unless “go to pubmed” is supposed proof)

2) The EM and IMF studies show HIV particles, however, these images do not show host cell damage caused by the tagged HIV. EM studies showing fine details of HIV grown in cell culture has never been validated by EM of infectious plasma virus.

3) There is no gold standard for the HIV antibody test kits.

4) There have been no placebo controlled testing proving efficacy of highly toxic HIV drugs. (unless you consider two toxic drugs to be a placebo , and three toxic drugs to be a drug). The first AZT phase II trial was fraudulent, and later trials could not be truly placebo controlled because of the accpetance of the fraudulent first AZT trial.

5) The rationale for using cytotoxic drugs is flawed, since HIV is a genetic sequence in the cellular genome, and this can never be eradicated by toxic drugs.

6) The proposal that everyone testing positive for HIV will die without HIV drugs is obviously incorrect, as many long term non-progressors are alive and well without ever using toxic HIv drugs for 10 to 15 years.

for more information see; reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 4, 2007 11:59 PM

To the University of Illinois at Chicago, I’ll be forwarding you my CV for consideration for an open faculty position. At least I can read with comprehension.

Pope, Maniotis has totally misread that section of the document. He has in fact quote-mined a sentence and is telling the unwitting that it says what his delusions would like for it to say rather than what the authors actually said.

The manual advises against using 3 day post stimulation PBMCs for either a control or as cells to culture HIV on.

Read section one:

“I. PRINCIPLE
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) are isolated from healthy, uninfected donor blood for
use in various assays and to culture HIV. The PBMC are stimulated with the mitogen
phytohemagglutinin-P (PHA-P), in the presence of human interleukin 2 (IL-2) for 24-72 hours
before use to promote blast formation and replication of T-cells.”

That’s the 3 days the sentence:
“Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation.”

refers to. It’s saying once cells have been stimulated with PHA they must be used within 3 days whether you intend to use them as a negative control, or to be innoculated with the virus.

It’s a quality control step, in less technical terms it says: “Use cells while they’re still fresh.”

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 5, 2007 12:09 AM

“Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when testing them for the absence of “HIV” from your healthy donor source”

You’re right it is not a verbatim quote. It’s another Maniotism.

You could have performed an f..ing google search and discovered this for yourself.

Virology Manual for HIV Laboratories

Maniotis is either illiterate, deluded or lying. I’ll leave it for you to choose an option.

The quote comes form a section that describes the method for preparing PHA-Stimulated uninfected domor PBMCs. These are commonly used for culturing HIV. The protocol warns that you shouldn’t use these more than 3 days after preparing them. Maniotis’s misinterpretation is frankly weird.

The protocol also says that the PHA-Stimulated uninfected PBMCs should be checked to make sure they really are uninfected. The assay for this is exactly the same one that is used to coculture HIV from the PBMCs of people possibly infected with HIV. The control goes through exactly the same assay.

If I were Maniotis I would not be sending this ABC of stupidity around the web with his university affiliation on it. He appears to crucify himself.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 5, 2007 12:18 AM

Dear Dr. Noble, Roy Hinkley,

Heheh… I actually did perform a f..ing google and concluded Maniotis was being a little bit tongue in cheek, but that the quote + paraphrase was basically correct. But then I obviously got nervous and tried to make everything perfect re. the quotes – clumsily and unsuccessfully. I’ll try again.

Set up a qualitative HIV culture using the newly prepared donor PBMC as “patient cells” to verify that the new donor is HIV culture negative (See – Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Method.)
Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation.

So far I think Dr. Maniotis has given us a fair paraphrase.

He then goes on to interpret the 3 days post stimulation as the recommended max. period in which to watch the negative culture. Assuming that by ” See Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Method” is meant the following section on
Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Assay, there’s these instructions:

Maintain cultures for 21 days or until culture meets criteria for positivity.

If this is not the difference Dr. Maniotis meant, and if it is not the correct interpretation of the “Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation”, I admit defeat and leave it to Dr. Maniotis to explain himself.

Posted by: Pope | July 5, 2007 1:23 AM

So far I think Dr. Maniotis has given us a fair paraphrase.

Only if fair is a synonym for deceptive.

He then goes on to interpret the 3 days post stimulation as the recommended max. period in which to watch the negative culture.

Which is wrong. It means don’t leave the stimulated PBMCs lying around for 3 days before you use them either to culture HIV or as controls. Start with a fresh batch.

It is very hard not to conclude that Maniotis is deliberately trying to deceive his audience. Close to every single reference he gives is either misquoted (sometimes entirley fabricated) or misrepresented.

You have demonstrated that you were deceived

His ABC of AIDS Denial serves one purpose. It is a classic example of pseudoscience and fits the title of the thread rather well.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 5, 2007 1:41 AM

It is typical of AIDS apologists to evade and stonewall, rather than come clean and admit a mistake. That’s because they are paid political activists, drug company reps with NO MORAL or ETHICAL character.

Since our AIDs Apologists seem to be busy with thir own mental masturbation dealing with technical minutia of PHA and PMBC’s , and are ignoring a recent illustration (above) about their idol Bob Gallo, the inventor of the AIDS Virus, that Bob Gallo was caught in a lie in his 1988 PNAS paper Figure 4 and Fugure 2 in which he deceitfully and falsely told the world that when HIV particles are released from the host cell, there is cell damage and cell wall lysis. This a lie in the peer reviewed medical literature, and this lie is not alone. There are many more similar lies upon which the AIDS dogma is built. This is not science. It is pseudoscience, and those who defend it are the lowest of the low. No wonder people have lost trust in a system that has betrayed them with toxic drugs for a false theory supported with lies like this 1988 PNAS article coauthored by Gallo.

Adele gave us some links to EM photos of HIV particles with gold tagged antibody labels, and about 24 hour ago, it was mentioned that none of the images showed injury or damage to the host cella. A request was made for these images.

The initial reply to this was incorrect, that EM is not capable of showing cell damage, which it is.

The next reply was a link to an old paper co-authored by Gallo in PNAS from 1988 which says that cell damage from the final step of hiv partical release is shown in Figure 4 page 3574. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570
In addition, the page 3472 figure 2 schematic shows cell wall lysis and cell death upon release of the HIV particles.

The honorable drug company reps and political AIDS Activists were asked if they agreed or not with model proposed by the 1988 PNAS Gallo paper, and the few replies to this question have been, to put is bluntly, stonewalling and evasion.

So rather than waste time, I will answer this question for noreen, kevin, cooler, adele and raven and others who may be lurking and learning about HIV AIDS for the first time.

The answer to this question comes from the Robert Koch Institute Dec 1997 entitled, Fine Structure of HIV and SIV by Hans R. Gelderblom Dec 1997,
Robert Koch-Institut, Nordufer 20, D-13353 Berlin, Germany
http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/COMPENDIUM/1997/partIII/Gelderblom.pdf

please see figures 2 thu 6 whch shows HIV particles budding from the outer cell membrane with no damage to the host cell. Nowhere in this review is there any mention of damage to the host cell upon viral particle release or at any other step. In addition to that, the last paragraph says, viral half life for the HIV shed by budding is 30 hours explaining the rapid decay of viral infectivity, and “fine structure data have been collected on EM on viruses grown in culture, the validity of the structural model still has to be proven by EM evaluation of infectious plasma HIV”

This 1997 review of HIV fine structure contradicts the 1988 PNAS Gallo Figure 2 and Fig 4 proposals. Of course, this is not surprising considering Gallo’s reputation for being wrong on his past proposals, and Gallo’s tainted past history of scientific misconduct.

For the lurkers here, and other readers learning about HIV AIDS for the first time, I will summarize the conclusions reached so far.

1) HIV causes AIDS has never been proven in the peer reviewed literature.(unless “go to pubmed” is supposed proof)

2) The EM and IMF studies show HIV particles, however, these images do not show host cell damage caused by the tagged HIV. EM studies showing fine details of HIV grown in cell culture has never been validated by EM of infectious plasma virus. Gallo’s 1988 PNAS article lied about this.

3) There is no gold standard for the HIV antibody test kits.

4) There have been no placebo controlled testing proving efficacy of highly toxic HIV drugs. (unless you consider two toxic drugs to be a placebo , and three toxic drugs to be a drug). The first AZT phase II trial was fraudulent, and later trials could not be truly placebo controlled because of the acceptance of the fraudulent first AZT trial.

5) The rationale for using cytotoxic drugs is flawed, since HIV is a genetic sequence in the cellular genome, and this can never be eradicated by toxic drugs.

6) The proposal that everyone testing positive for HIV will die without HIV drugs is obviously incorrect, as many long term non-progressors are alive and well without ever using toxic HIv drugs for 10 to 15 years or longer.

for more information see; reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 5, 2007 10:09 AM

Adele said

The questions about damage were answered by other people. Our “patriot” can pretend they weren’t or not look at the papers they gave. I guess the goal is, get the “drug company reps” to say slightly different things you can twist and then say falsely we’re all lying to you.

Dear Adele,

After reviewing your cited EM studies of images of host cells with labeled HIV particles, th question came up, where is the cell damage from the HIV? None of the images showed any cell damage. Your response is, OH the question has already been answered by somebody else. Well guess what Adele, you are wrong, the question has NOT been answered, and bluntly you appear to be stonewalling and evasive as your AIDS Activists have done.

This was the reply you are referring to by your AIDS Activist associate

Well, as you say, EMs can indicate cell damage, and they do in HIV. And contrary to the assertion of dissidents, HIV DOES damage cells.
Here is a good paper for starters:
http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v12/n1s/full/4401582a.html
This gives over a hundred references to HIV-induced cell damage, so get reading if you need more details.

Well, I spent a lot of time looking at the 100 references of this article which SUPPOSEDLY show EM electron micrographs of HIV induced host cell damage, and I can report to you that THIS IS A LIE. None of them show it. If they do, post the page and figure number. Nobody did.

At this point, only one paper was presented by the Drug Rep alias Roy Hinkley.

This showed host cell damage, the PNAS 1988 paper coauthored by Gallo,
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570

and this was found to be contradicted by a 1997 review from the Koch Institute.

http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/COMPENDIUM/1997/partIII/Gelderblom.pdf

The figure 2 and figure 4 in the 1988 PNAS article co-authored by Gallo is a LIE in the peer reviewed literature which was contradicted by the Gelderblom 1997 review.

Since it was so difficult or impossible for you AIDS activists to come up with a credible paper which shows HIV host cell damage, they then came up with this one:
Nature 362, 355 – 358 (25 March 1993); doi:10.1038/362355a0 HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease Giuseppe Pantaleo*, Cecilia Graziosi*, James F. Demarest*, Luca Butini†, Maria Montroni†, Cecil H. Fox‡, Jan M. Orenstein§, Donald P. Kotler & Anthony S. Fauci*

However, this discusses HIV in Lymph nodes of the GI tract, and there are no Electron Micrograph images showing HIV induced host cell damage in this letter either. Why do you lie to us and say that this has been answered when it has not? Have you betrayed our trust, Adele?

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 5, 2007 3:23 PM

cell damage and cell wall lysis

So Bob Gallo said HIV kills plant cells?!! Amazing. GTAM, you are a credit to denialists everywhere. Never have so few brain cells lied about so much in so many ways. Probably without even realizing it.

You don’t understand how puzzling your demands are, patriot plow and now I see I’ll never be able to teach you. Like I told you the only thing you’ll be satisfied with is when we can shrink a electron microscope from truck sized to microscopic and put it in the bloodstream and take pictures of dying cells. Check back in forty or fifty years.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 12:13 PM

In other words, Adele, you cannot produce any relevant EMs. Why didn’t you just say so at first?

Posted by: Pope | July 6, 2007 12:40 PM

The original question was for EMs of virions.

You got EMs of virions.

Then the question was how do you know they’re not microvesicles.

I sent the review including image and links to other immunogolds.

Then you want virions in the act of killing cells.

Claus Jensen, do you understand what EMs are for? Do you understand why you sometimes use a light microscope and why you use EM?

I hope your a better kickboxer than logician. Otherwise why would you live in Thailand don’t they have enough kickboxers there already?

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 12:52 PM

In other words you don’t have the relevant EMs, which is fair enough. Antibody Man’s request was too tall an order. Is it so illogical to ask why you didn’t just say so at first, without your weird comments about Thai kickboxers? Are you sure you are well?

Posted by: Pope | July 6, 2007 2:31 PM

Just saying Claus Jensen from Barnesworld is a kickboxing instructor in Thailand not a scientist or EM technician. Richard Jefferys did identify you as Claus Jensen if you remember. I think you also sometimes go by McDonald don’t you.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 2:52 PM

hahaha… You may be stupid enough to believe Jefferys when he comes out with something like that, but are you now telling me you believe those lying homophobics on Barnesworld?

Is that how you do science Adele?

At least there’s a picture of an almost purified supposed me in vivo. http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2007/05/views_from_the_.html

That’s more than you can say for your pet supposed virus.

Posted by: Pope | July 6, 2007 3:05 PM

Yeah, but do you have a photo of yourself taken from the Hubble Space Telescope? Or an EM of you at your computer?

Didn’t think so.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 3:59 PM

What do I know? Big Brother and Jefferys are obviously watching me from somewhere.

Posted by: Pope | July 6, 2007 4:08 PM

Thanks to Chris Noble for linking to the DAIDS Manual, an expose of “trade secrets” that reveals a few of the “inbred” notions of “isolation” from dedicated HIV researchers. And of course we now see him giving his “expert opinion” on cell-culture quality control to an experienced researcher, which no doubt would qualify him in Judge Sulan’s court, but hardly anywhere else. What we need is an opinion formed in light of the relevant sections of the DAIDS manual.

Chris said: “It means don’t leave the stimulated PBMCs lying around for 3 days before you use them either to culture HIV or as controls. Start with a fresh batch.”

No, it doesn’t mean that.

Chris, it’s called refrigeration … do they really need a special standard explicitly stating that cell-cultures shouldn’t be left “lying around?

Alas, as usual by now, it is the zealotry of the rush to attack that takes over when Chris evaluates a legitimate point. The general point is the likelihood of artifacts when “co-culturing” and assaying so-called HIV-1 antigen as confirmation of “HIV infection” in a “seropositive” patient, on which Dr Maniotis has provided more than enough evidence.

BTW, his expertise includes cell-culturing which certainly qualifies him in pointing out the obvious flaw in pages 41-50 of the DAIDS Manual. We really have a literacy test at this point. The distinction between “patient” and “donor” cells is critical in order to grasp what’s going on. Why? Because the 3 day “limit” on pg 45 clearly refers to the next section (45-50) where the “new donor” cells become the equivalent of “patient” cells which in turn require another donor’s cells for determination of a negative co-culture. Presumably, “donor” cells are from seronegative persons so an assumption may be that for negative results in accordance with 45-50, there’s no problem. But the culturing is supposed to be an independent verification, which means that possible positive results from a “donor” monoculture needs to be assayed in accordance with the procedures of 45-50, excluding the co-culturing step. This requires “use” or assay for p24 past the 3 day time limit, i.e. “maintain cultures for 21 days or until culture meets criteria for positivity”. Unfortunately, this simple control has been effectively deleted by the “quality control” statement.

So Dr Maniotis’ point stands.

Posted by: Nick Naylor | July 6, 2007 6:12 PM

No, it doesn’t stand. Except as a textbook example of a lie.

And what the hell do you mean by “refrigeration”? Do you think you can just throw cells in the refrigerator and keep it there forever?

What kind of a chemical engineer are you, Eugene Semon? Go back to watching Fox and Bill O’Reilly. You don’t have anything to contribute here.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 6:21 PM

GTAM, 40, Pope, birds of a feather, et al. ad nauseum,

I was waiting for you and your drawer full of sockpuppets to indicate that you had actually read the Gallo paper. Since you haven’t, and you seem hell-bent on putting your ignorance on display I’ll help you out a little. Mind you, I won’t be able to answer a lot of follow-up questions, you know the ones where you keep changing the issue at hand to try to evade the fact that you’ve been proven wrong yet again…, because I don’t really like to ride the HIV/AIDS denialist merry-go-round. Whenever I do take a ride it’s always the same: A never-ending cycle of illogic and nonsense spinning round and round in a downward spiral towards insanity….

And then I throw up.

In other words, you sicken me.

First, as others have pointed out, nobody would expect to determine the mechanism for cell killing by using electron microscopy. To deamnd such “proof” that HIV kills cells is as idiotic as a tobacco company executive who demands an electron micrograph of cigarette smoke caught in the act of causing widely metastatic lung cancer.

Second, if you read the Gallo paper you will see that introducing HIV to cultures of growing CD4+ cells causes 10-30% of activated T cells to die. That’s your cell death right there. It happens when HIV is introduced and it does not happen in cell cultures where no HIV is introduced. You do not need an electron micrograph to see devastation on this scale.

Third, as I’m sure you’ve ignored hundreds of times, HIV kills CD4 cells through several different pathways some are direct, as shown in the Gallo EM I provided, others are indirect. Direct cell killing is not the only mechanism HIV uses to kill CD4 cells, it’s not even the main mechanism. It is the mechanism you asked for, and received, an electron micrograph of though.

Fourth, you claim that figures 2 through 6 here: http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/COMPENDIUM/1997/partIII/Gelderblom.pdf
Disprove direct cell killing by HIV. I don’t expect you to follow this but just in case someone else is reading this too:

look at figure 6. See the reference for the figure: “(from Gelderblom et al. 1987b26).”? It refers to reference 26 in the “References”:

26. Gelderblom, H.R., H. Reupke, T. Winkel, R. Kunze and G. Pauli. 1987b. MHC-Antigens: Constituents of the envelopes of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses. Z. Naturforsch. 42c: 1328-1334

(You may note that Gelderblom is the same Gelderblom who wrote the original document you cited.)

Do you see the title? ” MHC-Antigens: Constituents of the envelopes of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses.” This would seem to indicate that Dr. Gelderblom is studying viruses in this work right? He didn’t write a paper called, for instance, “Mechanisms of HIV induced cell death as determined by Electron Microscopy” or something. Rather, he is studying viruses, in particular he is studying the MHC-Antigens which are constituents of the envelope of the virus. To do that it seems reasonable that he will need a source of virus to study, no? Where would be the best place to get those viruses from?

Dead cells from a line of cells that experience cell death in the presence of the virus?

Or, living cells from a line of cells that are resistant to the cytopathic effects of the virus and are able to go on producing virus indefinitely?

My personal preference would be living cells from a resistant line of cells. But your preference may differ from mine, and that’s fine. Why don’t we see which one Dr. Gelderblom preferred for this work?

You may find the abstract for reference 26 here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2452527&dopt=Citation
in it you will see that Gelderblom used two different CD4+ cell lines: H9 and Molt-3. Guess what? Both are resistant to HIV’s cell killing effects! Look it up if you don’t believe me. Here’s a little something to get you started.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=6200935&ordinalpos=26&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

This is why so much of what you read about HIV science seems mysterious, wrong, and sometimes diabolical to you. It’s because you don’t understand what you’re reading. It’s because, with all due respect, you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground in regards to biology.

Now, settle down. Settle down. I know what you’re saying. (It’s time to spin the merry-go-round right?) “Of course they’re resistant to HIV because HIV doesn’t kill cells!”

To which I’ll refer you to the 10-30% cell-killing when HIV is added to activated CD4+ T cells in the first Gallo EM paper I cited. You can work backwards or forwards through the mountains of evidence that HIV kills CD4+ cells from there if you like.

Oh! I almost forgot.

That.

That one, right there.

No! Not that one. The other one.

Yeah that one! That’s it!

The other one’s just a hole in the ground.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 6, 2007 6:24 PM

The debate tactics here remind me of the great boxer Mohammed Ali and his “rope-a-dope” thing… Lean back and relax, let the other guy get worn out.

Anyway, for most assays, the protocol would specify to start with fresh reagents, cells or whatever. And it is important for people who are interested in this to know for example, what percentage of cell cultures plus virus will show positive results in 2-to-5 days vs 18-to-21 days. When the protocol says “incubate for 21 days or until positive” it could be interpreted here as meaning either that 21 days is the minimum time or the maximum time.

In fact, from what I have seen of assays done on an aliquot of each culture ever day over a 3 week time period, is that the level of virus proteins produced is not constant. It ramps up over the first few days, then goes down as the virus kills off the cells. It only goes back up again if the culture is refreshed with new uninfected cells. There are dozens of papers showing this, with many different virus isolates and clones, and with many different cell types.

Lu W, Andrieu JM.
Similar replication capacities of primary human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates derived from a wide range of clinical sources.
J Virol. 1992 Jan;66(1):334-40.
PMID: 1727492

Dittmar MT, Simmons G, Donaldson Y, Simmonds P, Clapham PR, Schulz TF, Weiss RA.
Biological characterization of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 clones derived from different organs of an AIDS patient by long-range PCR.
J Virol. 1997 Jul;71(7):5140-7.
PMID: 9188581

Clark SJ, Saag MS, Decker WD, Campbell-Hill S, Roberson JL, Veldkamp PJ, Kappes JC, Hahn BH, Shaw GM.
High titers of cytopathic virus in plasma of patients with symptomatic primary HIV-1 infection.
N Engl J Med. 1991 Apr 4;324(14):954-60.
PMID: 1900576

Chiodi F, Valentin A, Keys B, Schwartz S, Asjo B, Gartner S, Popovic M, Albert J, Sundqvist VA, Fenyo EM.
Biological characterization of paired human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates from blood and cerebrospinal fluid.
Virology. 1989 Nov;173(1):178-87.
PMID: 2683359

etc…

Posted by: pope-on-a-rope | July 6, 2007 7:23 PM

For those who might think Adele has the slightest leg to stand on, here are a few links to EM studies of viral induced cell death, illustrating that electron microscopy is a routine tool for examining viral cell damage. This is not an impossible dream as Adele claims, it is a commonplace tool used every day to examine the effect of a virus on host cell structure. Where are the Electron Microscopy studies of HIV induced cell damage? There aren’t any because HIV is a benign passenger virus as Duesberg correctly stated in his landmark 1987 PNAS paper, and in his 1996 book, “Inventing the Aids Virus”.

http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/78/9/4884

Journal of Virology, May 2004, p. 4884-4891, Vol. 78, No. 9

JC Virus Induces Nonapoptotic Cell Death of Human Central Nervous System Progenitor Cell-Derived Astrocytes Pankaj Seth,1 Frank Diaz,1 Jung-Hwa Tao-Cheng,2 and Eugene O. Major1*

JC virus (JCV), a human neurotropic polyomavirus, demonstrates a selective glial cell tropism that causes cell death through lytic infection. Whether these cells die via apoptosis or necrosis following infection with JCV remains unclear. To investigate the mechanism of virus-induced cell death, we used a human central nervous system progenitor-derived astrocyte cell culture model developed in our laboratory. Using in situ DNA hybridization, immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy, and an RNase protection assay, we observed that astrocytes support a progressive JCV infection, which eventually leads to nonapoptotic cell death. Infected astrocyte cell cultures showed no difference from noninfected cells in mRNA expression of the caspase family genes or in any ultrastructural features associated with apoptosis. Infected cells demonstrated striking necrotic features such as cytoplasmic vacuolization, watery cytoplasm, and dissolution of organelles. Furthermore, staining for caspase-3 and terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling were not detected in infected astrocyte cultures. Our findings suggest that JCV-induced cell death of these progenitor cell-derived astrocytes does not utilize an apoptosis pathway but exhibits a pattern of cell destruction consistent with necrotic cell death.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/2/1/26

Ultrastructural studies on dengue virus type 2 infection of cultured human monocytesJesus A Mosquera , Juan Pablo Hernandez ,Virology Journal 2005, 2:26

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/84/12/3305

The mechanism of cell death during West Nile virus infection is dependent on initial infectious dose J. J. H. Chu and M. L. Ng, J Gen Virol 84 (2003), 3305-3314

Posted by: Frederick Gillet | July 6, 2007 7:36 PM

For those who might think Adele has the slightest leg to stand on, here are a few links to EM studies of viral induced cell death, illustrating that electron microscopy is a routine tool for examining viral cell damage. This is not an impossible dream as Adele claims, it is a commonplace tool used every day to examine the effect of a virus on host cell structure. Where are the Electron Microscopy studies of HIV induced cell damage? There aren’t any because HIV is a benign passenger virus as Duesberg correctly stated in his landmark 1987 PNAS paper, and in his 1996 book, “Inventing the Aids Virus”.

http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/78/9/4884

Journal of Virology, May 2004, p. 4884-4891, Vol. 78, No. 9

JC Virus Induces Nonapoptotic Cell Death of Human Central Nervous System Progenitor Cell-Derived Astrocytes Pankaj Seth,1 Frank Diaz,1 Jung-Hwa Tao-Cheng,2 and Eugene O. Major1*

JC virus (JCV), a human neurotropic polyomavirus, demonstrates a selective glial cell tropism that causes cell death through lytic infection. Whether these cells die via apoptosis or necrosis following infection with JCV remains unclear. To investigate the mechanism of virus-induced cell death, we used a human central nervous system progenitor-derived astrocyte cell culture model developed in our laboratory. Using in situ DNA hybridization, immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy, and an RNase protection assay, we observed that astrocytes support a progressive JCV infection, which eventually leads to nonapoptotic cell death. Infected astrocyte cell cultures showed no difference from noninfected cells in mRNA expression of the caspase family genes or in any ultrastructural features associated with apoptosis. Infected cells demonstrated striking necrotic features such as cytoplasmic vacuolization, watery cytoplasm, and dissolution of organelles. Furthermore, staining for caspase-3 and terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling were not detected in infected astrocyte cultures. Our findings suggest that JCV-induced cell death of these progenitor cell-derived astrocytes does not utilize an apoptosis pathway but exhibits a pattern of cell destruction consistent with necrotic cell death.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/2/1/26

Ultrastructural studies on dengue virus type 2 infection of cultured human monocytesJesus A Mosquera , Juan Pablo Hernandez ,Virology Journal 2005, 2:26

Posted by: Frederick Gillet | July 6, 2007 7:37 PM

Adele, I strongly object to your implication that this Eugene is a fan of mine when everyone knows he’s in favor of surrender in Iraq.

And if you don’t know what refrigeration means … well … I have enough idiots for fans and certainly don’t welcome you or your ilk as new viewers.

Posted by: Bill O’Reilly | July 7, 2007 12:19 PM

Trill comments are very obviously wrong, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the field knows that electron microscopy shows a number of changes which take place indicative of injury leading to cell death: distention of cisternae of endoplasmic reticulum, detachment of ribosomes from rER with increase in free cytoplasmic ribosomes, swelling of mitochondria, formation of blebs in the plasma membrane, segregation of fibrillar and granular components of the nucleolus.

Yes, EM can identify morphological changes in cells, which may be interpreted as reflecting damage. But morphological changes are not cell death, and the demand was for “where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs.” Cell death is a biochemical phenomenon and cannot be imaged with an imaging method that kills all cells. I’d be more convinced of cell dath by something like failure of Trypan blue exclusion by unfixed cells than by any kind of EM.

Posted by: trrll | July 7, 2007 3:30 PM

Trrl,

Let’s have the EMs of morphological damage then, since it’s long been the way the request was formulated.

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 3:43 PM

Now, settle down. Settle down. I know what you’re saying. (It’s time to spin the merry-go-round right?) “Of course they’re resistant to HIV because HIV doesn’t kill cells!”
To which I’ll refer you to the 10-30% cell-killing when HIV is added to activated CD4+ T cells in the first Gallo EM paper I cited.

Dear Roy, I was more thinking along the line of what is the percent of HIV cell-killing in non-activated cells?

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 4:16 PM

One sock puppet or another said,
electron microscopy is a routine tool for examining viral cell damage. This is not an impossible dream as Adele claims, it is a commonplace tool used every day to examine the effect of a virus on host cell structure

I didn’t say that. You twist my words like you twist what trrll said. How many people have told you, the electron microscope is not the best tool to use for this? We can take EMs of syncytia but why would you take an EM of that? You can see it in light. The paper you gave above with “watery cytoplasm” and “cytoplasmic vacuolization” why do you need EM to do that? If viruses are all accumulating in one organelle and lysing it, maybe an EM would be nice, try to catch it in the act. But that’s not what HIV does as far as I know so why an EM.

I think it was Hinkley sorry if I’m confusing him who gave the best analogy to what your asking for, “Where’s the EM of cigarette smoke in the act of causing lung cancer?”

If you can give us that EM and I mean I want to see the actual cigarette smoke and the actual damage its causing and accompanying biochemical evidence the damage is leading to cancer. Then I’ll find every EM you want or take them myself in the lab if I can’t find them. Until then your a poser like Andrew.

Posted by: Adele | July 7, 2007 6:13 PM

Gee Pope,

I thought we made this clear. It’s that one. Right there. The other one is just a hole in the ground.

Since HIV causes T cell activation in vivo, it really wouldn’t be a valid experiment if we didn’t activate the T cells in vitro.

But, the very first time a meet a person HIV+ or – who doesn’t experience regular T cell activation, I’ll be sure to give that question the serious consideration it deserves.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 7, 2007 6:21 PM

Claus, claus, claus, pope, can’t you do better than this,
I was more thinking along the line of what is the percent of HIV cell-killing in non-activated cells

Do you know what an activated cell is?

Ok, step back.

Do you know what a cell is?

OK. How’s this,

Do you have access to an immunology textbook there in Thailand?

Take a break from whatever it is you do and read a few chapters. Laugh at yourself like we all laugh at you. And come back and ask some more intelligable questions.

Posted by: Adele | July 7, 2007 6:26 PM

Sorry Roy missed your post!

Posted by: Adele | July 7, 2007 6:27 PM

If you will actually look at the Gallo paper I think you will see it very nicely answers all of your questions so far.

You want aberrant morphology? How but the multinucleated syncitial cells in panels F, G, and H of figure 4? nuclear membrane dissolved, chromosomes dispersed throughout the cytoplasm? What’s normal about this?

Additionally this same paper looked at both in vitro grown virus and virus obtained fresh from the blood of AIDS patients.

To put it bluntly:

“Look you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Monty_Python)

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 7, 2007 6:33 PM

Let’s have the EMs of morphological damage then, since it’s long been the way the request was formulated.

I copied and pasted the the request exactly as it was formulated. Do you need to see it again?

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs

Perhaps you are under the mistaken impression that EM is some sort of gold standard for detecting cell damage. This is quite wrong. As I noted before, preparation for EM kills cells, so by the time that you look at them, they are already quite dead. It is true that sometimes one can observe structural abnormalities that give one an indication that a cell is damaged, and some clue as to what has happened to it, but the converse is not true–i.e. failing to observe structural damage in EM does not mean that a cell is healthy. Moreover, there are artifacts in EM that can sometimes be mistaken for cell damage. To ask whether a cell is healthy or not, the best approach is to use a method that measures its metabolic activity or the integrity of its cell membrane. There are also some histological stains that can detect if a cell has been triggered to die via the apoptotic pathway, in which the cell digests its own DNA. These are in general more reliable than EM for assessing cell health.

Posted by: trrll | July 7, 2007 6:56 PM

I can only imagine that after the next moved goalpost the sockpuppet choir will insist that somebody produce an electron micrograph of HIV during sexual transmission.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 9:47 PM

Adele ‘intelligable’ is spelled with 3 ‘i’s, and yet I understood what you meant. You, however, persist in pretending Patriot Games asked for a picture imaging cell death in Trrll’s sense.

You and Trrll were wrong, you don’t need the Hubble telescope to show a virus doing cell damage. There’s nothing more to it. No big deal, doesn’t mean HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. But you were wrong.

You (Roy) showed one picture of cell lysis, Patriot accepted that if that was genuine and could be backed up it was what he was looking for. Well can it? You can say ‘no’, ‘yes’ or ‘go screw yourself’. But returning to nitpicking how the request was originally worded/interpreted is just childish. Trrll has now returned 3 times to give us the basic lecture about imaging cell death. Has he anything else to contribute, like a photo?

I agree with you guys, there’s plenty of pictures of syncytia. Maybe Patriot Games will have to swallow that one. Maybe not. The cell lines used are leukemic no? – that is if one is allowed to ask a simple good faith question without being booed out of the theatre. nobody made fun of the Hubble telescope.

The same goes for Roy and Adele on the point of activation. Are you saying that the in vitro mitogenic, PHA, IL-2 or what have you activation/stimulation and the absence of antibodies accurately mimics the in vivo conditions? Is that what you’re saying Roy, cuz it sure sounds like it? If you’re gonna pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about here, I’m just gonna have to say you guys are ‘unintelligable’and should go back and do some more reading, or go for a holiday in Thailand, you know take a break from the kids and the other parent.

In the meantime direct your scorn towards Zagury, Gallo and the Perth Group, who obviously all think different results obtain when you change culture conditions:

Early in 1986, Zagury, Gallo and their colleagues reported that: “T4 lymphocytes from normal donors infected by HTLV-III in vitro, as well as HTLV-III-infected primary T4 cells from AIDS patients, have been difficult to maintain in culture for longer than 2 weeks, and it has often been assumed that the virus has a direct cytolytic effect on these cells”. However, by avoiding PHA stimulation and by reducing the number of cells per millilitre of culture medium from 105-106 to 103-104, they were able to “grow the infected cells for 50-60 days” without cellular degeneration which, according to them, was due to “the lack of further antigenic stimulation and, presumably, the reduced concentrations of toxic substances released by the mature cells”

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 10:24 PM

Where are the Electron Microscopy studies of HIV induced cell damage?

There are hundreds if not thousands of studies that show HIV induced cell damage in lymphoid organs.

I’ve already cited one of them in this thread so you have no excuse for your ignorance.

HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 10:30 PM

Ok you Sharks, I meant in the absence of an immune system to be precise

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 10:31 PM

In vivo cytolysis and fusion of human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected lymphocytes in lymphoid tissue.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 10:34 PM

If you’re gonna pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about here, I’m just gonna have to say you guys are ‘unintelligable’and should go back and do some more reading, or go for a holiday in Thailand, you know take a break from the kids and the other parent.

The only person that is pretending anything is you when you pretend that you understand what you are talking about.

Why do you assume that virtually every scientist in the world is stupid? You have yet to demonstrate that you understand even an infinitesimal fraction of the science that you pretend to judge.

This study is for you.

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 10:49 PM

Dr. Noble, you’re the one who is presuming and judging and cooking up wild accusations. Show me where I judge, or imply that the scientists in question are stupid (regarding the lab stuff we’re talking about), Or shut up, cut back on the drugs for awhile and do some in vivo jerking off instead of merely cyber-abreacting your frustrations.

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 11:29 PM

Wow. The ‘PBMC refrigeration’ comment up there. Wow.

When I do my experiments, I always start with freshly isolated PBMCs or ones frozen back in nitrogen (NOT optimal, but if you dont need all the fresh cells, you save them ‘just in case’). You can keep the cells going in your experiment for months–>years if you keep feeding them and pumping in fresh cells. But you dont just keep PBMCs going in the incubator to use ‘whenever’ like you can with COS1s, TZMs, or 293Ts.

Thats fantastically stupid, and considering the source, deceptive.

Posted by: ERV | July 7, 2007 11:32 PM

Dr. Noble, you’re the one who is presuming and judging and cooking up wild accusations. Show me where I judge, or imply that the scientists in question are stupid (regarding the lab stuff we’re talking about), Or shut up, cut back on the drugs for awhile and do some in vivo jerking off instead of merely cyber-abreacting your frustrations.

When your arguments are of the form that DAIDS openly state in their reference manual that controls should be treated differently to the standard assay for HIV culture then it is appararent that you think that thousands of scientists are stupid.

Every single HIV Denialist argument eventually reduces to the implication that every scientist that accepts the overwhelming evidence that HIV exists and causes AIDS is corrupt, ignorant or stupid.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 1:18 AM

Dr. Noble,

You may remeber that it was not I, but a real credentialed scientist who advanced that argument.

I mentioned it here, and when you all in an unusally not too condescending and beside the point way informed me it was a based on misreading/misinterpretation, I publicly conceded you might very well be right, as well as own inability to judge the matter.

However, when the piranhas pounce on one word, “activated”, in what was merely a playful one-liner response to a humorous comment about “denialists”, it invites a sharper answer than “ooppss sorry guys, maybe I misunderstood something, here’s what I meant, please help me understand the issue…” – Especially when it’s obvious that no one’s interested in what I meant or if I know what I’m talking about, only in the fact there was meat in the feeding trough.

The exact same goes for Nick’s “fridge” comment and countless other examples.

Posted by: Pope | July 8, 2007 2:17 AM

You may remeber that it was not I, but a real credentialed scientist who advanced that argument.

The point was that you were prepared to accept that the credentialled scientists at DAIDS are all inept and stupid. If you don’t understand the science then it boils down to you choosing to believe a tiny fringe of scientists who do no research on HIV of their own over the thousands of scientists that do.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 2:45 AM

Nonono, Dr. Noble, you’re barking up the wrong tree with that Nathan Geffen line. Intelligent laypeople are very well capable of understanding the science with a little bit of explanation. Your new version of the argument from consensus, holding the majority of scientists’s intelligence hostage to your cause, is not valid. The scientists who thought the Earth was flat were not all stupid, they were operating under mistaken assumptions.

Far be it from me to lecture a science connoiseur like yourself, Dr. Noble, but it is easy to operate within a system made up by facts, beliefs, assumptions that are all rational seen from within that system, but look stupid from without.

In this debate, I have to test anything the prominent ‘denialists’ say without regard to how stupid it may make certain people look. If you haven’t worked in a testing lab, it is not easy to know what the DAIDS manual translates into in practice, or what Dr. Maniotis meant by his remark, which was part of a larger argument.

I do find it unlikely that clinicians are instructed to terminate all control cultures after 3 days, but I didn’t concede the point because I find it unlikely or because it might make somebody look stupid, but because I didn’t find enough support in the text or in Maniotis’ consequent explanation.

In his considered answer, Maniotis did have things to say relating to the tests and the DAIDS manual which do not hinge on this. I fail to understand why you keep revisiting over and over these old already settled very minor points, when new ones have been made for you to sink your teeth into.

Are your perceived victories so few and far between that you have to keep pulling them out again and again

Posted by: Pope | July 8, 2007 3:47 AM

Nonono, Dr. Noble, you’re barking up the wrong tree with that Nathan Geffen line. Intelligent laypeople are very well capable of understanding the science with a little bit of explanation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Science is democratic. The knowledge is freely available to any one that wants to learn. Unfortunately, HIV Denialists start from a position of ignorance and fight tooth and nail to maintain that ignorance. Denialists are not interested in understanding the science they are only interested in finding justifications to continue their Denial. It is transparently simple to see who gets their “knowledge” from Denialist websites and books and who gets it from actually studying the science.

Your new version of the argument from consensus, holding the majority of scientists’s intelligence hostage to your cause, is not valid. The scientists who thought the Earth was flat were not all stupid, they were operating under mistaken assumptions.

The idea that scientists thought that the Earth was flat is propagated almost solely by cranks who want to justify why the vast majority of scientists view their crank ideas as pseudoscience.

In this debate, I have to test anything the prominent ‘denialists’ say without regard to how stupid it may make certain people look. If you haven’t worked in a testing lab, it is not easy to know what the DAIDS manual translates into in practice, or what Dr. Maniotis meant by his remark, which was part of a larger argument.

The problem is that I see the opinions of the prominent Denialists regurgitated without the slightest picogram of skepticism. If you don’t understand how to read a virology manual then you have to weigh up the probability that the scientists at DAIDS are all amazingly stupid compared to the probability that Maniotis has reading problems.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 5:56 AM

Science is not democratic. It’s an elitist discipline if any, and doesn’t have to obey any democratic consensus or consider anybody’s feeling. Scientific institutions and the scientists that work in them, however, are a very different matter. They should not censor questioning, even the most radical questioning in an oligarchical manner. They are obliged to subject themselves to the scrutiny of those who pay their salaries (and that ain’t the pharma cos) and are all but force-fed their drugs. They should not be their own judges, and they should certainly not be part of a political power apparatus.

Everybody is interested in what justifies her own point of view, Dr. Noble. As the saying goes, one man’s denialist is another man’s freedom fighter. Some people learn, and perhaps change their points of view, some don’t. The ones that you attract here with every second headline bashing “denialists”, are obviously the people who are going to either pat your back or confront you with the well-known denialist claims. There is no better way to learn about a thing than to confront it with radical critique, and it’s not realistic to expect that everybody who’s not on your side must become expert on virology, epidemiology, immunology, pathology, biochemistry, genomics etc. to participate. If you don’t like it, don’t respond. Or ask Tara to write on something else. Or ask her to require proof of a PhD in a relevant field to join.

Robodoc Noble, I should have known a red flag would go up when I chose the flat Earth example. I was not implying that denialists are part of a Copernican revolution by mentioning the flat Earth. I was merely saying that many things make sense from within. You can substitute capitalism for flat Earth, if you will. From within the capitalistic system, greed, price gouging, accumulation of obscene wealth and private property seems both rational and ethical. Why it is even compatible with the loftiest Christian ideals if you ask the current prez. Even so, not all Capitalists are stupid or deliberately hypocritical.

Again Dr. Noble, most people can read a virology manual, just like most people can read and understand a book on horse riding. That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of blanks to fill in between the page and the saddle, so to speak. Once again, I do not consider what’s stupid or not. I air the idea, running the greatest risk myself of sounding stupid I should think, and abandon it if I find it wanting.

Posted by: Pope | July 8, 2007 7:07 AM

Trrll has now returned 3 times to give us the basic lecture about imaging cell death. Has he anything else to contribute, like a photo?

When you quit making the same basic mistake, I will quit administering the same basic lecture. I’m certainly not going to bother to cite EMs, since it is not a technique that is well suited to detrmining cell health. I recognize this tactic: insist on evidence using a technique that is not well suited to answering the question, then when people provide evidence of the kind demanded (as has been done multiple times in this thread), nitpick it because it is does not clearly answer the question (meanwhile ignoring abundant evidence using methods that are far better suited to answering the same question).

Posted by: trrll | July 8, 2007 8:39 AM

Science is not democratic. It’s an elitist discipline if any, and doesn’t have to obey any democratic consensus or consider anybody’s feeling. Scientific institutions and the scientists that work in them, however, are a very different matter. They should not censor questioning, even the most radical questioning in an oligarchical manner.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but scientists and scientific institutions have work to do that they regard as more important than repeatedly answering the same fallacious criticisms from zealots who want to re-argue a scientific question that virtually the entire scientific regards as having been settled over a decade ago. HIV denialists actually get far more attention from scientists than, say, people who write letters to physics departments insisting that they can prove that special relativity is wrong, or who write to math departments insisting that they have a construction for squaring the circle. A few scientists devote their time, without compensation, to re-arguing this long-settled debate simply because this is one area where denialism is not merely annoying working scientists, but actually killing people.

Posted by: trrll | July 8, 2007 8:48 AM

I love this thread! Pure comedy gold.

What makes it great is that the denialists get so utterly, completely trashed, but still manage to keep their offensive, gleefully mocking tone. It’s like the Monty Python black knight, sans limbs, still full of offensive overconfidence. “Come back you yellow bastard, I’ll bite your legs off!”

I honestly think they know, deep down, that they’re wrong. No-one could possibly fail to grasp simple concepts, over and over. No-one would resort to claiming that their concerns are never addressed, when the responses are right there on the same page, unless they were in deep, DEEP denial.

They are supernaturally dense. It’s just not possible to be that stupid. They must be doing it on purpose.

Guys, give up. You lost. Badly. You’re just humiliating yourselves now.

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 9:14 AM

Wow Trrll,

Good one. Touche! Did you write it yourself, or did you quote from the script? Do you pat yourself on the shoulder every night before you go to bed? Do you get those steamy eyes and that familiar choking feeling in your throat that only really, really decent people get from knowing that they’ve devoted their valuable time to save lives, and (GASP!) without compensation too? Do angels play violin in your wet dreams?

We don’t have to ask any of those questions of the next moron, who I’m sure makes Tara proud of her blog. He cribbed his comment from Roy Hinkley “right there on the same page”.

In the face of such overwhelming proof of intelligence and originality, and most of all sheer righteousness, how could I possibly hold this bridge any longer?

Posted by: Pope | July 8, 2007 1:37 PM

See? Perfect example. Pope launches an attack on Trrll’s answer without even saying what his objection is! Could he have missed that Trrll beat the textual crap out of him in the previous posts? Does he fondly believe that his vague insults (do they actually mean anything?) actually constitute a rebuttal? He’s “accusing” Trrll of… what? Being employed? And apparently thinking this is some kind of devastatingly witty argument!

Surely not. Surely no even-slightly-rational person could genuinely think he’s actually winning this exchange.

…and cribbing from Roy Hinkley? WTF? Uh, I said the answer is on the same page as your protestations that there was no answer because – stay with me here – it is on the same page. How would you prefer I phrase it? I don’t see that it’s such a witty or original phrase that anyone would need to crib it from anyone else. It’s a simple statement of fact in the plainest english I can think of.

Might as well accuse people of plagiarism for using the word “the”.

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 2:41 PM

Gee, for somebody who accuses others of being dense, you must belong to an entirely new category. Just one hint, and this is really the last I can bothered with you. Feel free to take that as a “textual victory” (there at least was a novel expression)

If you will actually look at the Gallo paper I think you will see it very nicely answers all of your questions so far (…) To put it bluntly:
“Look you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Monty_Python)
Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 7, 2007 06:33 PM

No-one would resort to claiming that their concerns are never addressed, when the responses are right there on the same page (…)What makes it great is that the denialists get so utterly, completely trashed, but still manage to keep their offensive, gleefully mocking tone. It’s like the Monty Python black knight, sans limbs, still full of offensive overconfidence. “Come back you yellow bastard, I’ll bite your legs off!” (Moron)

Now go stink somewhere else.

Posted by: Pope | July 8, 2007 3:33 PM

Wait a second, so you’re focussing on the fact that we both made the same joke (yup, I missed Roy’s – I was foolishly reading the science), and not even bothering to defend yourself against the substance.

Wow. Score one for the Pope! Actually, I think you’ll find that the black knight is a pretty popular symbol for idiot perseverance in the face of ignominious defeat. That at least two posters have applied it to you guys here is supposed to be good for you… how?

“Hey, everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I win!”

You manage to remember all the throw-away remarks, but somehow miss the answers you repeatedly ask for, and get. Staggering. How on earth do you expect this to convince anyone of your side of the argument?

…and did you just call me stinky? What are you, twelve?

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 4:00 PM

Hypothesis: Bad science is strident, good science is calm. Now, in this thread, who has been strident and who has been calm?

BTW, some people [waves] don’t need to respond to every little snit somebody has over something they’ve said.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | July 8, 2007 5:05 PM

They should not censor questioning, even the most radical questioning in an oligarchical manner.

Nobody is censoring you. Most people ignore you and other Denialists because despite your pretence you are not interested in the answers to your questions. You are not interested in learning anything. Most scientists are only too ready to help people understand their field of study.

Anybody can go to a library and pick up an introductory book about virology if they really want to learn. But that isn’t what Denialists do. They start with the premise that HIV doesn’t exist or doesn’t cause AIDS and then they attempt to find “anomalies” in the “orthodox” science. Or even better they go to Denialist websites where other Denialists have already collected these “anomalies”. Then they appoint themselves to be the arbiters of science and under the pretence of asking questions start to attack the integrity and intelligence of scientists that work in the field.

Take the Perth Group as an example. They had their oxidative theory of cancer before AIDS was observed. When AIDS was recognised all of a sudden their oxidative theory now postdicted AIDS. At this stage they had not even heard of retroviruses. After HIV was discovered and demonstrated to cause AIDS they all of a sudden became experts in the isolation of retroviruses despite never having had any practical experience. It is possible to teach yourself a lot of the science if you are honestly interested. But they aren’t interested in understanding the science. Their only objective is to find self-serving justifications for ignoring the science.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 7:33 PM

noreen Martin writes: “In Africa, places with low selenium have high AIDS cases.”

Those places have ALWAYS had low selenium. So why hasn’t AIDS been endemic there for centuries?

Posted by: Jon H | July 8, 2007 11:22 PM

I get the impression that the real problem with HIV denialists is that people with immune system problems just don’t like being lumped in with Teh Gheys.

Posted by: Jon H | July 8, 2007 11:27 PM

Pope, you don’t have radical questions. You have old, already answered questions, and long discarded hypotheses. You don’t have criticisms. You have nitpicking of data and a misunderstanding of the process of science.

The hypotheses and claims of the denialists aren’t considered worthwhile by scientists because these concepts were passed over in favor of better and more substantial research.

If you have something to contribute, it needs to be an alternative hypothesis that is more solid than HIV as the causal factor of AIDS. You don’t have one.

If there is to be a debate, it should be based on time for evidence. We can let the denialists go first. How much time will it take them to stand up, say, “We don’t have anything.” and sit down?

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 8, 2007 11:59 PM

Dear AIDS apologists or denialists,

Have you taken the AIDS test that medical students must pass after they receive their mandatory HIV test before beginning medical school?

Find the best answer:

1. Reverse transcriptase (RT) is a specific marker for “HIV” because:

A) It is a normal protein found in the uninfected cells of bacteria, yeasts, insects and mammals.

B) RT is important for telomere replication at the tips of normal chromosomes.

C) RT is now seen in market magazines concerning biotechnology stocks regarding a variety of normal, non-pathological contexts.

D) Because worms develop AIDS.

E) All of the above.

E) A, B, C, but not D or E.

2. Read the following information and provide the best title:

In symptomatic patients with HIV infection, early treatment with zidouvdine delays progression to AIDS, but did not improve survival, and was associated with MORE side effects. There were 43 deaths, 23 in the early-therapy group, and 20 in the late-therapy group. The medium time from the diagnosis of AIDS to death was 16 months in the early therapy group, and 19 months in the late-therapy group.
The racial and ethnic groups appeared to respond differently to the timing of zidpovudine therapy. Fewer minority (African American and Hispanic) patients died in the late therapy group (two deaths) than in the early-therapy group (nine deaths), but the difference was not significant. Among non-Hispanic white patients, early therapy significantly delayed the onset of AIDS but had no effect upon survival. Minority patients were much more likely than white patients to be intravenous drug users (40% vs. 10%).
After two years of follow-up, we found no difference in survival between the two treatment groups.

A) AZT is a “life-saving” drug?

B) AZT kills more healthy patients (early group) than sicker (late treatment) patients.

C) You should hit white patients hard and early but only treat black and hispanic patients late, cause they’re “different biologically.”

D) AZT increased survival.

E)AZT disproportionately harmed Blacks and Hispanics, and provided no benefit to the quelling of advancing immune suppression in Caucasians.

F) B&E

3. HIV test kits are nearly 100% accurate because:

A) At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence of absence of antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 in human blood.

B) Abbott’s 1997 Laboratory’s ELISA test kit package insert says:”ELISA testing alone cannot be used to diagnose AIDS.” (Abbott 1997).

C) Epitope’s 1997 (the maker for one of the Western Blot kits) package insert says: “Do not use this kit as the sole basis for HIV infection.” (Epitope 1997).

D) Roche’s 1996 “Amplicor” test kit’s insert states:
“The amplicor HIV-1 monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV, nor as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection.” (Roche 1996).

E) These disclaimers are typo’s on the “HIV” test kits and should be ignored.

F) Because Seville Marketing of British Columbia, Canada, on two Web sites had advertised the “Discreet” home HIV test kits as producing 99.4% accurate results based on three independent studies, yet three minutes after performing the test according to the package instructions, 15.4% of the results were inaccurate; after eight minutes, 29.6% of the results were inaccurate; and 59.3% of the tests produced inaccurate results after 15 minutes, and the FTC will seek a permanent ban on sales and advertising of the kits in the United States and a permanent order to seize any kits that are imported.

G.Because NucliSens(R) HIV-1 QT package insert says:
“The NucliSens(R) HIV-1 QT assay is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV-1 nor is it to be used as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV-1 infection.”

H) Because COBAS AmpliScreen HIV-1 Test, version 1.5 says:
“This test is not intended for use as an aid in diagnosis.”

I) Because the clinical implications of antibodies to HIV-1 in an asymptomatic person are not known.

J) Because OraSure(R) HIV-1 Western Blot Kit says is not intended for use with blood, serum/plasma or urine specimens, or for screening or reinstating potential blood donors.

K) Because Defer et al. in a paper entitled, “Multicentre quality control of polymerase chain reaction [viral load] for detection of HIV DNA” (AIDS 6: 659-663, 1992), claimed that: False-positive and false-negative results were observed in all laboratories (concordance with serology ranged from 40 to 100%).

L) Because Busch et al., in a paper entitled, “Poor sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of detection of HIV-1 DNA in serum by polymerase chain reaction” claimed that: PCR-DNA tests on 151 ELISA-negative people found that 18.5% (28 people) had positive PCRs. Furthurmore, only 25.5% of people diagnosed HIV-positive had positive PCR’s.

M) Because viral load does not correlate with T-cell numbers, and progression of disease can only be predicted in 4%-6% of any HIV-positives studied (out of 2,800).

N) Because out of 37,000,000 samples, 12 PCR-positive or 2 (ELISA positive) were found.

O) None of the above.

P) All of the above.

4. “HIV” is the virus that causes AIDS, but it causes anemia because:

A) Because as a retrovirus, it really doesn’t need to intercalate its genome into target cell nuclei.

B) Because although it only may infect 1 in 10,000 T cells, it also infects, like Ss sickle-cell anemia, 50/100 RBC’s to cause anemia.

C) Because RBC’s are actually made by muscle cells, and it is well known that HIV causes muscle wasting, which decreases the production of RBC’s.

D) Because patients selectively biased and targeted by AIDS doctors as high risk patients are put on AZT, which depresses all cell division.

E) Because AIDS is neither a disease of too few or too many lymphocytes, but a disease that affects neurons, glia, endothelial cells, liver cells (which is why liver failure is now the leading cause of death in Cleveland).

5. Nevirapine decreases MTCT of HIV:

A) Because single dose of nevirapine is the cornerstone of the regimen recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

B) Because Max Essex thinks feline leukemia virus is the AIDS virus.

C) Because nevirapine resistance is detected (with the use of standard genotyping techniques) in 20 to 69% of women and 33 to 87% of infants after exposure to a single, peripartum dose of nevirapine.

D) Because no women in the placebo group and 41.7% in the nevirapine group had virologic failure.

E) All of the above.

F) None of the above.

6. There are no good animal models of AIDS:

A) Because it is well known that some viruses are very species specific, and will not jump species.

B) Because HIV came from monkeys and not hominoid primates such as chimps because black people have their children play with dead monkey carcasses because they can’t afford toys for them, and somehow this virus got into the gay community from black children in Africa eating (or “playing with”) monkeys.

C) Because hungry blacks living in Africa eat monkeys and HIV can infect through kissing, and eating food.

D) Because SIV is a better model for HIV infection than HIV.

E) Because chimps that live in retirement homes actually have very low stress levels, and stress created by an “HIV diagnosis” can be very immune suppressive (to humans), and because chimps are dumb and unless they are taught to sign, they don’t know they have an HIV infection, and thus stress plays no role as a co-factor and they can’t develop AIDS (unless they understand they are infected, as one transfused monkey did).

F) Because the structural proteins of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, have been found in dogs, sheep, and goats (bacteria, worms, and other animals if you believe that RT is specific to HIV and is found in all these critters as Varmus and Temin believed), it is difficult to study immune suppression in collies and worms, or bacteria.

7. A registry has been established to monitor fetal outcomes born to women exposed to efavirenz and other life saving ARVS, and HAART:

A) Because neural tube defects have been noted among women taking Efavirenz (Sustiva).

B)Because drug-induced liver toxicity with highly elevated liver enzymes (greater than 20 times the upper limit of normal) has been observed in 39% of healthy volunteers receiving rifampin 600 mg once daily in combination with ritonavir 100 mg/saquinavir 1000 mg twice daily (ritonavir boosted saquinavir).

C) Because females and patients with higher CD4 cell counts are at increased risk of liver toxicity (because they are healthier when they begin “the life-saving drugs” than are people with lower counts.

D) Because females have a three-fold higher risk of symptomatic nevirapine liver toxicity than males, and females with CD4 cell counts above 250 cells/mL have a 12-fold higher risk of symptomatic liver toxicity than females with CD4 cell counts below 250 (11% vs. 0.9%).

E) Because males with CD4 cell counts above 400 cells/mL have a five-fold higher risk of symptomatic liver toxicity than males with CD4 cell counts below 400 (6.3% vs. 1.2%).

8. Dr. Nobel said to a nameless AIDS apologist named Raven that “I’ll save Maniotis the effort because all of those studies you cited are meaningless because the allopathic authors have to claim success or else they wouldn’t get their pharma funding: (refering to “In Alberta, HAART dropped the AIDS mortality by 80% in HIV+ that many patients died of other causes”):

A) Because Dr. Nobel doesn’t like Raven.

B) Because “all of those studies” (Raven) cited “are meaningless because the allopathic authors have to claim success or else they wouldn’t get their pharmainc funding.”

C) Because Tara Smith, an epidemiologist, says that “HIV” is like all diseases and that mutations happen in the CCR5 receptor that protect some folks from getting ill, but that pregnant women should be put on nevirapine, AZT, 3Tc, and saquinavir just in case they aren’t mutant women.

D) Because the Concorde study showed NO mortality benefits of AZT, and was a much longer, and larger study than the Fischl FDA approval study in which the 19 patients who were transfused to keep them alive all died anyway after about a year, arms of the trial were switched, the trial was unblinded, and the Freedom of Information Act documents that describe the study had sentences which were “blacked out” so we have no way of knowing what really happened in that study.

E) Because The 2006 Lancet study of 22,000 patients over the past 10 years on meds, entitled, “HIV Treatment Response and Prognosis in Europe and North America In The First Decade of HAART: A Collaborative Analysis” concluded with: “Virological Response after starting HAART improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated into a decrease in mortality.” (see page 453)

9. The DAIDS 1997 official “HIV” culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source:”

A) Because it is part of a test using (some of those kits listed above in question 3) of sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cell supernatants for at least 21 days wherein two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or “out of range” (O.D.>2).

B) Because it is a test using sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cells for at least 21 days wherein two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values that are “out of range (Optical density.> 2).

C) Because it is a test using sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cells for at least 21 days wherein three consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, where neither consecutive value is > four times the previous sample, but the third value is at least four times greater than the first.

D) Because someone is considered “HIV” positive if they exhibit 30 but not 29 picagrams/ml of p24 protein on the second test.

E) Because someone is not considered “HIV” positive if they exhibit 40 pg/ml on the first test, but 4 picagrams/ml p24 on the second test.

F) Because a woman named Christine Maggiore is really “HIV” positive although she never has tested positive on two consecutive tests and has never been ill.

G) Because “control cells” or cells derived from “a healthy donor source are cells that consistently test less than 30 pg/ml.

10. “Original antigenic sin” is a term “HIV” vaccinologists use to describe:

A) When a vaccinated individual is exposed to a noncross- reactive strain of HIV that induces the production of antibodies specific for the vaccine strain that are unable to neutralize the newly encountered strain (in other words when a vaccine doesn’t work).

B)The fixing of an immune response in a non-adaptive pattern.

C) When vaccinated individuals may be no worse off than unvaccinated individuals because unvaccinated individuals also have a lag in generation of antibody to HIV because their immune response has not been “primed” by vaccination.

D) The conclusions of The Office of Technology
Assessment Book (1995 Congress of the United States: Office of Technology assessment. Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues. Roger C. Herdman, Director) presented to the 1995 Congress of the United States in 1994 by the AIDS Research Advisory Committee (ARAC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dieases (NIAID) that recommended that Phase III clinical trials with enveloped vaccines should not proceed in the United States because of scientific, political, and ethical issues, and the significant level of scientific uncertainty about the wisdom of immediate trials.

E) Vaccines may cause a false-positive HIV screening testing test…resulting in discrimination against vaccine recipients in, for example, military service, health insurance, life insurance, employment, and travel.

F) Participation in an HIV vaccine trial, itself, may result in stigmatization, as others may assume that all vaccine trial participants are members of groups, such as injection drug users and men who have sex with men, who are at increased risk for HIV infection.

G) Vaccinees, relying on the protection afforded by an experimental vaccine, may engage in behaviors that increase their risk for HIV infection.

H) There is the potential for the viruses to be inadequately attenuated, for an adequately attenuated viral vaccine to cause disease in immunocompromised individuals (Read AIDS patients), and for an adequately attenuated virus to revert to virulence. There is also concern that a live attenuated vaccine could induce tumors.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 9, 2007 3:28 AM

Andrew, I got bored with your manufactured list of misquotes and lies half way through the first question.
If you have any genuine hypothesis to advance about the cause of AIDS, please let us see it. Otherwise stop spamming the thread with your inconsequential and scientifically irrelevant thoughts. You might fool a couple of the intellectually-challenged denialists into thinking you are being oh so humorous and clever, but every one else sees you for what you really are.

Posted by: DT | July 9, 2007 4:26 AM

Repeat DT’s comment for me. Thank you.

How many times did we go over the “endogenous RT” already?

If HIV RT activity doesn’t exist and all anyone measures is endogenous RT
OR
If endogenous RT overwhelms HIV RT measurements
OR
If endogenous RT just interferes with HIV RT measuring
THEN
Every time I do an RT assay I would confirm Andrew’s theory that scientists all dumb and confuse HIV RT with endogenous RT. I’v been doing them for I think about ten years now off and on thank god because they’re damn boring and I never saw what I should see if Andrew’s right.

I had this above but again, here’s a good experiment and its results. And I’m doing primary cells so people don’t object to cancer cells and artificial activation, but it doesn’t matter.
1)Primary cells with replicating virus 175000 cpm
2)Primary cells with virus with several inactivating mutations 500 cpm
3)with killed virus 400 cpm
4)Primary cells all by their selves 150 cpm
5)Nothing not even cells just some saline 95 cpm

WE wash off the virus after a few hours so any virus we measure later is coming from inside the cells. After some days we take some liquid off the cells and put it in a centrifuge to take out any dead cells and floating things. So all we’ve got now is liquid with tiny stuff in it like virus. We centrifuge it fast to pellet the virus. Detergent to break open virus. All the little proteins spill out yes RT too. Then we give the RT some stuff it can work on and measure how much work it does with radioactivity, counts.

Now look back up at those results.
The machine always detects something. It’s called noise. Theres 95 counts in the saline by itself. Not much more in the cells by themselves. This tiny difference could be random or maybe some real endogenous RT activity. The killed virus and the mutant virus are again slightly higher something might have got through one or two cells were susceptible to the mutant maybe or something or one or two virions not killed. But guess what? The “normal” virus gives us three logs higher than any of this. 175 000 versus 500 the second highest.

If endogenous RT is what everyone is reading when they think HIV RT, I should get 175 000 counts in everything with cells in it.

Is there another explanation? Maybe the virus on the cells does something toxic to them and they make more endogenous RT enzymes. OK, but my controls like killed virus don’t make RT. Or maybe the virus has to get in the cells and do something. Ok, but my mutant virus with just a few point mutations that’s kind of the exact thing as the real virus except its defective post integration, that one doesn’t make RT either.

I can’t think of a good explanation for that except HIV has a RT I’m measuring

Especially since, this cell enzyme Andrew talks about isn’t made in our cells much. it’s silenced. Yes, epigenetically. It gets made in cancer cells mainly.

So why would it be outside primary cells anyway in quantities high enough to confuse it with virus RT?

Andrew should have answered these questions before instead of joking around but he hasn’t yet.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 10:59 AM

In the Gardasil debate this denialist idea came up its shared with fundamentalists and now Andrew says it too,
Vaccinees, relying on the protection afforded by an experimental vaccine, may engage in behaviors that increase their risk for HIV infection

So I guess we should also,

Take railings off balconies and stairs because they encourage people to engage in risky behavior at great heights

Outlaw the use of seatbelts antilockbrakes airbags and bumpers because they encourage bad driving

Take locks off doors because they give people a false sense of security from crime

Destroy ambulances because they make people think medical help is close and they take more risks

Stop making doctors get degrees because people trust them too much. They’ll take care of themselves more if there’s no “experts” to talk to.

Right, Andrew?

I’ve met parents who say, I’m not giving my child this Hepatitis vaccine because we dont want her doing drugs or having sex outside of marriage. So sad but this idea is all around. No prevention. Just the wrath of God as cure.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 11:12 AM

No Adele,
Don’t outlaw balconies or ambulances just yet. And its not about the rath of God. So good for you to respond specifically to my points on my test. You probably would get and F in my class.

The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) shows that the hepatitis B vaccine damages far more individuals than there are persons who exhibit the hepatitis B syndrome. Evidence obtained from the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and other physicians, vaccine-monitoring agencies such as the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the CDC and World Health Organization, the Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition, the hepatitis B vaccine manufacturers Merck and GallaxoSmithKline, and evidence from the peer reviewed scientific literature, all show that the risk of groups such as infants and children acquiring liver hepatitis associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is nearly 0%. In all comprehensive statistical surveys available, the actual incidence of the hepatitis B syndrome in the US has remained constant at about 2 to 4 cases/ 100,000 individuals despite widespread mandated and aggressive vaccination programs in all but 4 states [1].
The data also show that the hepatitis B syndrome, when it does occur in non-vaccinated individuals, spontaneously resolves in almost 100% of those who became seropositive for the HBV molecular markers (HBsAg, anti-HBsAg, HbeAg, anti-HbeAg, or HBV-DNA). The liver syndrome is quite rare (0.00024%-hovering near zero percent for both adults and children), while over 10% of hepatitis B vaccine recipients experience adverse reactions. According to the Merck package inserts, 10.4% experience adverse reactions, and 1% are serious enough for emergency room admission.
Some of the severe adverse effects include autism, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, arthritis (both transient and permanent), Guillain-Barré Syndrome, myelitis including transverse myelitis, seizure, febrile seizure, peripheral neuropathy including Bell’s palsy, diabetes mellitus, pancreatitis, encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, thrombocytopenia, systemic lupus erythematosus, lupus-like syndrome, vasculitis, optic neuritis, radiculopathy. Lesser vaccine effects include vomiting, abdominal pains, vertigo, dizziness, pruritus, angioedema, urticaria, lymphadenopathy, insomnia, dysuria, hypotension, increased risk of shingles, migraine, severe muscle pain and weakness, hypesthesia, alopecia, petechiae, increased sedimentation rate, tinnitus, conjunc vitis, visual disturbances, syncope, tachycardia, keratitis, irritability [2].
The practical and economic impact of the effects of this mandated recombinant hepatitis B vaccine policy is devastating infants, families, and the nation, because the nature and frequency of the vaccine damage is typically so debilitating. The damage experienced during the French mandatory hepatitis B program prompted France to discontinue its hepatitis B program several years ago, and a class action lawsuit compensated some 15,000 families that had been devastated from hepatitis B vaccine injury [3].
The efficacy of the vaccine has also been challenged. According to some long-term studies in populations said to exhibit “endemic” frequencies of markers indicating endemic hepatitis B “infection” such as Gambia and Egypt, antigenicity (the presence of the HbsAg antibody among the vaccinated) does not persist beyond about 5 years [4], yet expression of the hepatitis B syndrome confers immunity and antigenicity for life [5] in nearly 100% of those who are unvaccinated and experience the full-blown syndrome that spontaneously resolves without significant morbidity in almost all cases [6]. A study conducted with Egyptian children, reported a similar lack of long-term antigenicity as determined by antibody levels. The study population comprised six equal groups (30 children in each group, 15 boys and 15 girls) at different post-vaccination intervals following the completion of the third dose of HB vaccine: 1 month (group 1), 1 year (group 2), 2 years (group 3), 3 years (group 4), 4 years (group 5), and 5 years (group 6). “63.3% of the children in group 1 had a good immune response (anti-HBs > 100 mIU/mL), in groups 2 and 3 this had dropped to 43.3%, to 23.3% in group 4, 6.7% in group 5 and in group 6 (5 years post-vaccination) none of the children had a good immune response (0.0%)” [7].
The “cryptic argument,” that every person on the planet must be vaccinated because the hepatitis B “virus” can hide in cells in “chronic carriers” for decades without causing clinically detectable disease, and then mysteriously, decades later, “cause” hepatocellular carcinoma, ignores the fact that seropositivity for the hepatitis B antigens may not have anything to do with serum hepatitis. In the vast majority of seropositive individuals without liver disease, the presence of the HBV markers may represent non-specific markers of immunological stress, or merely represent a normal genetic polymorphism, as was originally thought by Baruch Blumberg (who discovered the Au antigen, HbsAg, in the blood of a black Australian aboriginal, and was awarded the Nobel Prize that he shared with NIH’s former Neurobiology Program director, D. Carlton Gajducek–the discoverer of the so-called “slow virus” prion diseases). For these discoveries, the doctors were jointly given The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 “for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases,” because the infectious agents and mechanisms of disease causation were believed not to conform to the standards of accepted pathogen isolation, the idea of distinctive genetic (nucleic acid) identity, the timing of infection to demonstrable cell pathology or morbidity, or to the classic proofs of pathogenicity worked out by Koch. For instance, D. Carlton Gajducek championed the idea that “infectious proteins” devoid of nucleic acids were at the basis of slow, debilitating neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., kuru, CJD, Mad Cow, scrapie in sheep)–syndromes that are characterized by extremely long latency periods after initial “infection,” and destruction of the brain tissue years or decades after “infection.” Although the concept of slow viruses, and pathogens devoid of nucleic acids were vigorously challenged and rejected by many in the scientific establishment during the 1980’s because the idea challenged the established biochemical chain of events worked out for all other infectious agents, and because these syndromes appeared to be both infectious and run in families, Stanley Pruisner believed Gajducek’s hypotheses to be plausible, and found that the hypothesized disease-causing PRP protein was present in both diseased and healthy hamsters (for which another Nobel Prize was awarded).
Blumberg termed the rare “hepatitis B” antigen, Au, for Australian antigen, because the Au antigen was first found in the blood of a healthy black, Australian aboriginal man, but he also detected it in the blood samples of Micronesians, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Native Americans, and patients with Down syndrome, leukemia and transfusion patients. Blumberg acknowledged, however, that the vast majority of people, who test positive for HbsAg or HbeAg, never become sick, develop hepatitis, or cancer of any kind.
For instance, as the first to identify the hepatitis B antigen in their survey of genetic polymorphisms in blood samples, Blumberg and Alter reported that leukemia patients (not liver cancer patients), patients with Down syndrome, hemophiliacs, and blood transfusion recipients tested positive more than the general population for the hepatitis B antigen, yet rarely developed liver hepatitis [8], suggesting there is no specificity or pathogenicity with respect to Au marker and the appearance of the rare hepatitis B syndrome (because these syndromes are manifested due to vastly different etiologies).
Therefore, despite the presence of (Au) HBsAg antigen in a blood sample of a rare patient with full-blown hepatitis or liver cancer, the antigen did (does) not predict who would (will) develop clinically detectable hepatitis, and is not a specific marker for the development of liver cancer. Consequently, the genetic polymorphic “causes,” or physiological stress “causes” of hepatitis as a form of autoimmune dysfunction or stress have been largely ignored, and instead, an infectious viral cause for hepatitis was advanced, as it was for pellagra, SMON, and a variety of other syndromes.
Blumberg and his colleagues reasoned that a virus might cause hepatitis because something smaller than bacteria that was associated with inducing transfusion hepatitis could pass through filter pores too small for bacteria to pass. Yet not only viruses, but foreign and antigenic proteins also can pass through these filters, and it has been well established in the medical literature since that era that foreign proteins can profoundly disturb the immune system, specific organs, and organ systems.
Although some agencies such as the World Health Organization and others claim that about 40-60 percent of liver cancer is attributable to HBV, how do we explain the fact that about 1/3 of Down patients also express the Au antigen, and 1 in 10 leukemia patients express the antigens, according to Blumberg, yet Down syndrome isn’t due to a virus – its due to chromosomal non-disjunction.
Regardless of what “causes” the rare hepatitis B syndrome or the appearance of the hepatitis B “markers” (which most physicians admit is likely due to an autoimmune disease process set into motion by a viral infection), and despite the ill-defined molecular markers that appear in 1/3 of Down syndrome children, and in 1 in 10 leukemia patients according to Blumberg [8], abundant evidence accumulated by the VAERS and the CDC shows that the hepatitis B vaccine is strongly associated with an unacceptable frequency of debilitating life-long illnesses.
Despite widespread mandated hepatitis B vaccines for more than a decade, and claims that it can prevent heptatocellular carcinoma, no evidence whatsoever exists linking hepatitis B causally with hepatocellular carcinoma, as no animal models have ever exhibited this carcinoma after experimental infections, and no liver cell culture of normal human or animal liver cells has ever been induced to change into cancerous cells after adding the “hepatitis B agent” to them.
As titles of papers about Hepatitis B published in journals as prestigious as Science sometimes suggest [9], it is reasonable to ask why neither chimps show liver pathogenicity, cellular damage, or develop anything resembling hepatitis in modern studies when they are experimentally infected with “hepatitis B,” nor do humans show cytotoxic damage either [10]. In this respect, one might reasonably wonder why “hepatitis B” and “hepatitis C,” are not considered primarily acquired autoimmune diseases, rather than infectious viral diseases, since cellular pathology in most cases is not present?
It also should be added that the antigenicity (the presence of the “hepatitis B” antibodies among the vaccinated) does not persist beyond about 5 years, yet hepatitis infections of all kinds confer immunity and antigenicity for life in those who are unvaccinated and experience a full-blown hepatitis B syndrome that spontaneously resolves in almost all cases. Moreover, despite widespread mandated hepatitis B vaccination in 47 states, liver cancer rates have increased in the US from 4 cases/100,000, in 1992, to 5.5 cases/100,000, since at the end of 1999, and leukemia rates have slightly decreased according to the NCI and CDC’s official records.
One should rightly ask if a decade even qualifies as long enough to make such claims about a vaccine that prevents liver cancer, or which is associated with 10% of leukemia cases decades later. First of all, epidemiological studies cannot be used to claim a causal connection between the expression of a protein in a person’s blood, and the development, or non-development of a cancer, decades after infection. In addition, a Japanese study” claims that heavy drinking rather than transfusions or cigarette smoking accounted for at least 41% of hepatocellular carcinoma patients harbouring antibodies against hepatitis B and C antigens in this country, 50 years after atomic bombs (not a risk factor for cancer?) were dropped by the U.S. on two of its civilian populations, such as Hiroshima, 175 miles away [11].
In this regard, the hepatitis B antigens may be only non-specific markers for some cancers or other grave medical conditions, as Blumberg first believed. The claim that seropositivity for HBV markers is linked to liver cancer decades later is unsupported by evidence, and, it is like claiming that a freckle on an infant signals that melanoma will develop decades later.
As scientists and physicians, or as concerned citizens, we should no longer allow this dangerous state-mandated vaccine program to proceed, while it continues to cause hundreds of vaccine damaged persons for every one person the vaccine supposedly protects.
By so doing, we are irresponsibly risking the health of a generation of infants and children, without providing parents with information about the adverse vaccine reactions, because of propaganda that suggests that by vaccinating them, we will insure that they will not contract hepatitis B or liver cancer if they grow up to become needle-using drug addicts, persons with multiple sex partners, prisoners, mental health patients, or health care workers exposed to human blood.
This kind of fear mongering and propaganda not only ignores evidence showing that these possibilities are without foundation, but functions to stifle legitimate questions about the biology of the hepatitis B syndrome, or legitimate questions concerning the benefits and consequences of vaccination that should have been addressed before this (or any) vaccine was mandated. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) should have asked the following legitimate questions:

1. Why is such alarm regarding hepatitis B sweeping across the planet now as a sexually transmitted syndrome, when jaundice (and assumed hepatitis) has been recorded in the medical literature since the time of the Ancient Greeks?

2. Because it is claimed that hepatitis B can only be spread through venereal contact or through exposure to infected fluids, are humans more promiscuous now than they were during the Eleusinian orgies and Roman bacchanals chronicled by the ancient poets?

3. Because the hepatitis B molecular markers are non-specific, what evidence is there to substantiate that 350,000,000 people in the world are “carriers” of HBV, and that 1,000,000 people in the US are carriers?

4. In this regard, why are the projected figures for hepatitis B syndrome given, when data recording the actual incidence of hepatitis B have been available for 20 or more years?

5. If the hepatitis B antigens are specific for the hepatitis B syndrome, and if these antigens don’t simply represent markers for certain physiological stress responses such as cancer or long term alcohol or drug use, or if the presence of the hepatitis B antigens don’t merely represent the different incidence and expression of certain Human genetic polymorphisms (differences in the kinds of molecules found in the blood of different peoples, as was originally thought by Blumberg), then why did Bluberg and his collaborators find the hepatitis B antigens present in a vast majority of healthy people who never develop hepatitis, or in patients experiencing other non-liver related illnesses or genetic disorders? In this same context, why did Blumberg clearly indicate that when Millman came to his laboratory in June of 1967, “and calculated the amount of Au in the serum of carriers and estimated that in some it amounted to about 1% of the serum proteins, that his immediate response was that if this was all virus it would be incompatible with the life of the carrier” (p7124, ref. 8)?

6. Do leukemia and hepatocellular carcinoma share something in common other than a high likelihood of generating molecular mimicry, or other types of mimicry, or is the antigen merely expressed in both diseases in persons whose immunology is altered by cancer, alcoholism, autoimmune stress, or altered for some other reason?

7. If a hepatitis B (or C) virus could by themselves cause liver cancer decades after infection, then why does the microscopic percentage of those who exhibit the hepatitis B antigens and who develop chronic clinically detectable liver disease, require carcinogenic co-factors “such as fungal aflatoxins” (p. 7121 paragraph 4), or a lifetime of alcohol abuse or drug consumption to develop cancer [8]?

8. Why can’t the hepatitis B virus (and C virus) be isolated according to standard isolation techniques, even after a Roman effort and after decades of trying, and why did Blumberg insist that nucleic acids were not recoverable from these “virus isolation” preparations (page 7124 paragraph 6 ref. 8), but were inferred to be a virus? In this same context, why did Blumberg clearly present the fact that “Millman and London found that partially purified Au particles that presumably also contained whole virus particles, which we had not yet visualized, could be transmitted by inoculation into experimental animals. The fully purified particles from which the whole virus had been removed were not infectious. The implication was that we could separate the non-infectious particles containing only the surface antigen from the pathogenic whole virus particles.” Is this reason to mount a global vaccine campaign, against what may be inherited genetic and biochemical polymorphisms, that Blumberg believed were at the basis of Au-associated morbidity? Why did Blumberg state that”Additional studies, some of which are still in progress, were consistent with a genetic susceptibility to persistent infection with HBV, which is part of a complex interaction of polymorphic systems. Hence the research on genetic polymorphisms related to differences in disease susceptibility was central to the discovery of HBV” (page 7123 paragraph 9, reference 8)?

9. What substance(s), then, were actually isolated from sick persons, and modified and developed by Merck as antigenic material to make hepatitis B the first “molecularly derived recombinant” vaccine?”

10. Why don’t supposedly infectious and pathogenic hepatitis B isolates induce liver disease in chimpanzees, mice, or other organisms [9, also see 10]? Why doesn’t it induce either liver cancer or leukemia in animals? Why have there been no instances reported where “the hepatitis B virus” generated a pathological effect in animal models, or in liver cells infected in vitro that even remotely resembles the hepatitis B syndrome’s hallmarks in those tiny fraction of seropositive individuals who exhibit morbidity consistent with the hepatitis B syndrome?

11. If the recombinant vaccine is molecularly specific against a hepatitis B virus and if the vaccine confers long-term immunity, then why does the vaccine ‘wear off’ after only several years? By contrast, when the real hepatitis B syndrome resolves in the vast majority of persons in nearly 100% of all cases who develop jaundice and demonstrable liver pathology, then why does this mild and transient syndrome provide lifetime immunity, and produce detectable antibody titres of the hepatitis B antibodies for at least 50 years [5]? If these data are correct and acknowledged even by the vaccine manufacturers, then what is the logic behind vaccinating newborns when their immune and digestive systems are developing and fragile, and when their often hypothesized membership into in IV injecting, multiple sex partner, or blood product exposure risk group might occur a decade or more after the antibodies generated by the vaccine can no longer be detected?

12. Why have some studies shown an increase in the hepatitis B syndrome when infants are vaccinated? (EG. “Children vaccinated in infancy are at increased risk of hepatitis B virus infection in the late teens” [12]?

13. Why is the hepatitis B vaccine still mandated after a congressional hearing that put its safety in question, and why aren’t are parents given any information at all about the possible adverse effects of the hepatitis B vaccine that are listed on the manufacturer’s package inserts?

14. Finally, is vaccine policy written according to politics rather than prudence?

The Illinois Department of Public Health versus the Parent Teachers Association of Illinois

A small group of physicians and scientists gained the support of the Illinois PTA in a unanimous decision to support a current halt to the current mandated hepatitis B vaccine. Another way of saying this is that every school representative present at the convention, when shown the data we had obtained, had agreed with our concerns, and immediately held a brief session to advance a motion to direct PTA funding to disseminate literature so that parents would be informed.
This group of perhaps a thousand parents (mostly women), appeared to have only one concern: the total welfare, protection, and education of the school children of Illinois.
It should be stated emphatically, that the current hepatitis B mandate threatens not only our children’s health, but also serves to threaten our children’s education and admission to all kinds of institutions (day care and school admission), with the bluff that “if you don’t get your kid vaccinated against this STD, that is detected only in subpopulations of injection drug users and perhaps highly promiscuous persons, healthy black Australian aboriginal men, Micronesians, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Native Americans, patients with Down syndrome, leukemia and transfusion recipients, he or she cannot enter school to learn how to read and write.” This is not overstating it. Children cannot gain admission into day-care, Kindergarten, elementary schools, junior highs, high schools, and now even colleges, without showing evidence of a mandated (federally-recommended), and dangerous vaccine (hepatitis B).
Pursuing these issues, we presented the current head of the IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health Director Whitaker and his staff), with the same publicly available data from Medline, the vaccine manufacturer’s package insert warnings, data from the Vaccine Adverse Events reporting System, the CDC, Vaccine-link, and other databases, that we had presented to the Illinois PTA convention. After visits with numerous Senators, and public officials during the past several years, over a year later, in June of 2005, we finally were granted a brief meeting with the IDPH, after they could put us off no longer.
As a response to our pleas to institute informed consent regarding the dangers of the hepatitis B vaccine’s side effects and safety record as it appears on the Federal governments VAERS database, and after many weeks of deliberation, Dr. Whitaker and his staff emailed us a one paragraph letter stating:

“Parents are currently given enough informed consent.”

Well, one may ask Dr. Whitaker, “how do threats that our children won’t be admitted to school unless they are jabbed with the hepatitis B vaccine (a rare syndrome) and whose safety data we have yet to see, constitute, informed consent?”
Shouldn’t parents at least be given a list of the adverse syndromes induced by the vaccines that are presented on the manufacturer’s package inserts, as shown above on Merck’s insert? Should parents be shown the VAERS data? Should a list of the hundred or so articles on Medline regarding adverse syndromes induced immediately after vaccination, by mostly private physicians? Shouldn’t parents be informed that the data supposedly supporting the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine in neonates doesn’t exist [13].
Somebody should tell the public, as we have tried to warn for the past several years, that parents have the right to refuse all vaccines or medical treatments on their children’s behalf, with the aid of a publicly-available form on which either religious or philosophical objection to these experimental medical interventions can be declared.
The school nurse and Public Health Department, or school admittance policies should not be used to threaten you that you cannot enroll your kid, based on the madness surrounding the possibility that your 5-year-old will transmit a sexual, or needle-borne, or blood-product-transmitted “syndrome” that has a 95% or greater spontaneous resolution rate, to someone else’s 5 year old, (when they have sex or shoot heroin in the gym locker-room, or if they share razor blades-are the reasons typically given to support mandatory vaccination) as the pharmaceutical company and Public Health Service logic goes.
We beg the Public Health Service to regard your own children as potentially at risk for becoming sexually promiscuous and needle-using drug addicts (or health care workers), and use them as experimental subjects of an expensive vaccine possessing a 10.4% rate of adverse events, so they won’t contract a rare disease that poses almost 0 risk, that will resolve without treatment in most cases, that simply produces harmless antibodies as evidence of exposure, or that may represent immunological stress or a simple genetic polymorphism, as Blumberg first proposed. Please leave our infants and children alone.
Why in the face of all this damning evidence against the vaccine, does the hepatitis B vaccine mandate still stand with no end in sight? It is because new legislation has insured that there is no incentive, compensation laws, or mechanisms in place anymore to guard against dangerous universally mandated experiments.

The future is here: Medical Terrorism into law

From the “Biodefense and Pandemic and Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005–a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to enhance biodefense and pandemic preparedness activities, and for other purposes [14] SEC. 319F-3:

“(a) Authority- As provided in subsection (b), and subject to subsection (b)(1)(C), a manufacturer, distributor [sic; distributor], or administrator of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A) or a health care provider shall be immune from suit or liability caused by or arising out of the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A).”

Further, subsection (b)(1)(A)(i) reads:

“(i) IN GENERAL- No cause of action shall exist against a person described in subsection (a) for claims for loss of property, personal injury, or death arising out of, reasonably relating to, or resulting from the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure or qualified pandemic or epidemic product distributed, sold, purchased, donated, dispensed, prescribed, administered, or used in anticipation of and preparation for, in defense against, or in response to, or recovery from an actual or potential public health emergency that is a designated security countermeasure or a qualified pandemic or epidemic product by the Secretary in a declaration described in paragraph (2).”

What’s being described here is almost carte-blanche freedom to use untested vaccines, drugs, medical products, or “security countermeasures”. And there is nothing you, or we, can do about it because it is in the interest of “National Security.”

References

[1] 2003CDC MMWR January 24, / 52(RR01):34-6.
[2] Merck and GallaxoSmithKline package inserts.
[3] Marshall E, Science; 07/31/98, 281(5377):630.
[4] The Gambian study: Whittle et al., Observational study of vaccine efficacy 14 years after trial of hepatitis B vaccination in Gambian children. BMJ, 2002 Sept. 14; Vol 325.
[5] Black FL, Jacobson DL. Hepatitis A antibody in an isolated Amerindian tribe fifty years after exposure. J Med Virol , 1986 May;19(1):19-21.
[6] 2003 CDC MMWR report.
[7] el-Sawy IH, Mohamed ON. Long-term immunogenicity and efficacy of a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine in Egyptian children. Eastern Medi terranean Health Journal Vol. 5, Issue 5, p. 922-932, 1999).
[8] Blumberg BS. Hepatitis B virus, the vaccine, and the control of primary cancer of the liver. PNAS, 1997; 94:7121-5.
[9] Guidotti et al. Viral clearance without destruction of infected cells during acute HBV infection. Science. 1999 Apr 30; 284:825-9.
[10] Ordog et al., Perinatal and intrafamily transmission of hepatitis B virus in three generations of a low-prevalence population J Med Virol., 2003 Jun;70 (2):194-204.
[11] Pyong et al. Case-control study of hepatocellular carcinoma among Koreans living in Osaka, Japan. Jpn J Cancer Res. 1994 Jul;85(7):674-9.
[12] Hilton Whittle, Shabbar Jaffar, Michael Wansbrough, Maimuna Mendy, Uga Dumpis, Andrew Collison, Andrew Hall. Observational study of vaccine efficacy 14 years after trial of hepatitis B vaccination in Gambian children. BMJ vol 325, 14 September, 2002.
[13] Lewis E, Shinefield HR, Woodruff BA, Black SB, Destefano F, Chen RT, Ensor R; Vaccine Safety Datalink Workgroup. Safety of neonatal hepatitis B vaccine administration. Pediatr Infect Dis J. Nov;20(11):1049-54, 2001; Also, Testimony of Dr. Marc Geier at IOM hearing, Aug. 2004.
[14] http://thomas.loc.gov/ Search Bill Title or Number – S.1873RS click ‘enter bill number.’

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 9, 2007 11:59 AM

Andrew, why don’t you just link to your rants instead of serving copypasta. Or are you afraid that we will notice that your letter is reproduced on the crackpot AAPS site (god complex group that wants no oversight of medical practices)?

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 9, 2007 12:15 PM

Notice everyone that the question was, how does Andrew explain lack of RT activity in samples that lack actively replicating virus in the experiment I described.

Andrew had no response a few weeks ago, no response today. He just repeats himself like he hasn’t been debunked.

Instead of an explanation for RT he copies reams on Hepatitis vaccine.

So where’s the explanation? Andrew is obviously more interested in his own self promotion than developing an idea further.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 12:24 PM

After I hit post for my comment about outlawing seatbelts and stuff I realized there are actually alot of people who agree with all of that! Probably alot of them are also HIV denialists. And some AAPS members like Robster says.

Doesn’t matter how hard you try to parody someone like that they’re always a step ahead of you in making a fool of themself.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 12:27 PM

So Andrew has spammed us with a cut and paste about Hepatitis B. I know he isn’t too bright, but surely he must know this is a thread about HIV?

Anyhow, he would have us believe hepatitis B is a harmless irrelevancy from antiquity, where no one gets ill, and where vaccinees get more problems than do those catching Hepatitis B. In fact, it appears from his claims that he thinks Hepatitis B does not exist at all. What next, TB denial, germ theory denial??

Welcome to the surreal world of denial, folks.

A few facts:
Hepatitis B:
Acute phase: manifestations range from subclinical (70%) to icteric hepatitis (30% – generalised weakness, nausea and vomiting, jaundice, anorexia for up to 3 months) and, in some cases, and fulminant hepatitis in 0.1-0.5% of cases (liver failure and death).
Chronic phase: (This may occur in those who have failed to clear hepatitis during their initial illness, usually around 5-10% of all cases). Manifestations are chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (and death).
Extrahepatic manifestations also can occur with both acute and chronic infection, usually in about 10-20% of cases. These include a serum sickness-like syndrome manifested as fever, skin rashes, arthralgia and arthritis. Serious complications may occur in the form of polyarteritis nodosa and renal glomerular disease and nephrotic syndrome.

(if I were Maniotis, at this point I would scare-monger even more by cut and pasting dozens of pages of horrible sounding consequences from all these conditions, but I’ll keep things brief)

In those who acquire Hep B perinatally, there is initial immune tolerance and few apparent problems. All of these kids become carriers, but at around 30 years of age immune tolerance is lost. Seroconversion can result in all the above conditions, and death from hepatic failure may result. Only 20% of people will spontaneously clear the virus when infected perinatally.

There are 2 billion individuals with serological evidence of hepatitis B infection worldwide. Of these, 400 million are chronic carriers and 500,000 to 1.2 million will die annually from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
(See Epidemiology and natural history of hepatitis B. McMahon BJ. Semin Liver Dis. 2005;25 Suppl 1:3-8).

Vaccination:
Using the definition of >10 IU/L anti-HBs as a positive response, the overall seroconversion rate is about 95 percent in healthy adults.

The most common adverse reaction is soreness over the site of injection (10-20%). 1-3 % report mild low grade fever, malaise, headache, joint pain and myalgia. These adverse reactions are usually mild and resolve completely.

The only real possible concern about the vaccine which was thought to be visible above “background noise” was multiple sclerosis. Some reports of a possible association prompted the French Government to suspend routine school-based vaccination for hepatitis B in October 1998. However, at least six subsequent studies have failed to show a statistically significant temporal or causal association between hepatitis B vaccination and multiple sclerosis.

Studies on vaccine reactions:
These are best determined within the context of follow up studies on cohorts of vaccinees, rather than the VAERS reporting system which often registers uninterpretable noise.

Frequency of adverse reactions to hepatitis B vaccine in 43,618 persons. McMahon BJ; Helminiak C; Wainwright RB; Bulkow L; Trimble BA; Wainwright K. Am J Med 1992 Mar;92(3):254-6.

PURPOSE: To determine the incidence of adverse reactions to hepatitis B plasma-derived vaccine. PATIENTS: Alaska natives (43,618) who received 101,360 doses of hepatitis B vaccine. METHODS: All adverse reactions, excluding transient fever, myalgia, or soreness lasting less than 3 days, were reported. An intradermal skin test was developed to test purported adverse reactions. Records of the entire population were reviewed for Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). SETTING: A statewide hepatitis B control program for Alaska natives. RESULTS: Possible adverse reactions occurred in 39 persons. The most frequent adverse reactions were myalgia/arthralgia lasting longer than 3 days (14), followed by skin rashes (eight) and dizziness (seven). Skin tests were performed on 13 persons and were positive in five. Six of the persons with negative skin tests and eight persons who did not undergo skin testing received additional doses of vaccine without any adverse reactions. No increased incidence of GBS was found in the vaccinees. CONCLUSION: Hepatitis B vaccine is safe and most adverse reactions are coincidental.

Nevertheless, even the VAERS system gives Hep B vaccine the green light:
Recombinant hepatitis B vaccination of neonates and infants: emerging safety data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Niu MT; Davis DM; Ellenberg S. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1996 Sep;15(9):771-6.

METHODS: US reports associated with HB vaccination and received between January 1, 1991, and May 31, 1995, by the national Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) were reviewed as a case series. RESULTS: During 1991 through 1994, 12,520 (32%) VAERS reports were received for events temporally associated with administration of HB vaccine, of which 14% were received for neonates and infants. More reports described serious outcomes for neonates (under 0.1 year old) than for other age groups (40% vs. 6 to 15%). HB alone was administered to 58 (97%) neonates; review of these reports did not reveal unexpected serious events. Among infants (0.1 to 0.9 years old) 192 (9%) received HB vaccine alone and 1469 (66%) received HB in combination with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine. Similar serious adverse events reported in neonates and infants included fever, agitation and apnea. Events reported for infants receiving HB/DTP and DTP alone were similar and differed from reports filed for infants receiving HB vaccine alone, suggesting that these events may be associated with use of DTP vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: This review shows no unexpected adverse events in neonates and infants given HB vaccine despite use of at least 12 million doses of vaccine given in these age groups. Although VAERS lacks the ability to distinguish coincidental events from true vaccine reactions, this database represents the largest case series of events temporally associated with HB vaccination of neonates and infants.

MY CONCLUSION:
Bring on the vaccine, please!!

Posted by: DT | July 9, 2007 1:09 PM

Re: the Maniotis Hep B letter on the crackpot AAPS site:

I can’t help noticing that Maniotis has thrown away the concept of quoting from authority, at least.
The AAPS Hepatitis Paper is authored by Maniotis, his wife(?) in her role within a Parent Teachers Association, a surgeon from Chicago, a Chinese ophthalmic pathologist and finally a physical chemist (whtever one of those is).

All of them are obviously global specialists in the relevant fields of epidemiology, immunology, infectious disease and microbiology, and eminently placed to conclusively determine and pronounce on the existence of Hepatitis B, its sequelae and the ability to prevent it through vaccination.

Posted by: DT | July 9, 2007 1:28 PM

Quick question folks.

How do you sleep at night given Gallo’s Parenzee trial testimony when he says that “if nobody here in the court room is “HIV” positive, there will be no molecules of “HIV” in their blood!

Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?

Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

Together with Dura et al., saying that they can find it in the thymus of “HIV-negative children.”

Together with marketing magazines as I have already quoted saying that it is in a number of normal contexts.

Together with the cancer literature I am familiar with saying that it is in the expression patterns of a variety of tumor cells (tumor cells come from normal pre-existing non-tumor cells as far as I have been able to determine. Where did they pick up their RT, from HIV?

Where did “HIV” supposedly acquire it’s RT? From outer space? Or from normal (or diseased) cells? It is supposedly a virus after all-with all of its genome, and proteins, and lipids ultimately derived from cells.

Gelderblom says RT is part of the pol gene along with IN and PR. Where did “HIV” acquire its RT from if not from normal cells (or diseased cells with messed up expression patterns)?

Just wondering.

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 11, 2007 11:11 AM

Still in wonderland, I see.
Well I too am wondering….. Why can’t you stick to the point? Why must you post disconnected, rambling irrelevancies that have nothing to do with the thread topic nor previous posts in the discussion? When are you going to tell us your hypothesis as to what causes AIDS?

Posted by: DT | July 11, 2007 12:38 PM

Wonderland, that’s a good one. Nothing Andrew says touches my questions about RT from above.

In case Andrew had problems reading, the question was, how does Andrew explain lack of RT activity in samples that lack actively replicating virus in the experiment I described. Andrew had no response a few weeks ago, no response today. He just repeats himself like he hasn’t been debunked.

And no response today.
Instead he wrote

How do you sleep at night given Gallo’s Parenzee trial testimony when he says that “if nobody here in the court room is “HIV” positive, there will be no molecules of “HIV” in their blood!

Same way I sleep at night knowing if there were never any lizards in my bedroom there aren’t any lizard molecules in my bedroom.

Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?

Who disputed this? Glycoproteins are also found everywhere. A sheep has glycoproteins, doesn’t mean HIV can’t have glycoproteins too. Doesn’t mean a sheep glycoprotein is the same as a HIV glycoprotein.

Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

Define normal? Like I said before RTs in your body are tightly regulated. You usualy just see them made in cancer cells. Other places they’re silenced. Maybe Andrew needs to learn more about epigenetics.

Together with Dura et al., saying that they can find it in the thymus of “HIV-negative children.”

This is new. Dura et al find HIV RT in the thymus of HIV negative kids? Did they do an RT assay? Did they use antibodies? Did they sequence the protein to confirm it? Or was it just a crap experiment with a cross-reacting antibody they didn’t control right? I don’t know since Andrew didn’t even tell us what journal this was or when it was

Together with marketing magazines as I have already quoted saying that it is in a number of normal contexts.

“marketing magazines”?! Did Andrew find anything in comic books? Like maybe the Silver Surfer is made of 60% HIV RT?

Together with the cancer literature I am familiar with saying that it is in the expression patterns of a variety of tumor cells (tumor cells come from normal pre-existing non-tumor cells as far as I have been able to determine. Where did they pick up their RT, from HIV?

This was covered before. In normal cells TERT the reverse transcriptases for telomere maintenance are silenced epigenetically. Cancer cells get their programming messed up and the RT gets turned on. You can get RT activity you can also measure levels of RT RNA. Guess what? It’s not even close to HIV RT RNA.

Where did “HIV” supposedly acquire it’s RT? From outer space? Or from normal (or diseased) cells? It is supposedly a virus after all-with all of its genome, and proteins, and lipids ultimately derived from cells.

I don’t know what to say. I hope Andrew isn’t serious about this. If he is maybe he could talk to some of his colleagues who teach virology. HIV RT translates from HIV RNA transcribed from HIV DNA.

Gelderblom says RT is part of the pol gene along with IN and PR. Where did “HIV” acquire its RT from if not from normal cells (or diseased cells with messed up expression patterns)?

Gelderblom? Hans R. Gelderblom? Is he the only one who says RT is part of the pol gene? This is from the textbooks decades old. Andrew is being silly. Infected cells make HIV RT when HIV is there to direct the process via DNA and RNA. Uninfected cells don’t make HIV RT. Unless they’re cancer they don’t usually make any RT and if they do no one should confuse it with HIV RT.

HIV RT is not in uninfected cells.

Posted by: Adele | July 11, 2007 1:33 PM

Andrew may be only a pathologist, and not a biochemist, but he has surely taken enough biochemisty classes to know that he is being dishonest and misleading about reverse transcriptases.

His arguments are similar to saying that hair is a property of mammals, so finding hair-like stuctures on plant leaves or other organisms makes us question whether mammals exist. Or claiming that maybe the “milk” in milkweed plants can’t be distinguished from mammalian breast milk.

Reverse transcription activity is not absolutely specific to HIV, and nobody ever claimed it was. All retroviruses have reverse transcriptase, and there are also other types of viral and non-viral reverse transcriptases. Arguing that someone has claimed that reverse transcriptase is absolutely unique to HIV-1 is a classic straw man argument, and Andrew knows very well he is attempting to mislead people with it.

The reverse transcriptases produced by lentiviruses have a preference for Mg++ over Mn++ for optimal activity, whereas the reverse transcriptases of most endogenous retroviruses and other retroviruses mostly prefer Mn++. However, this is only one of hundreds of different methods of distinguishing one RT from another.

Posted by: Dr. Duke | July 11, 2007 3:00 PM

Andrew the pathological liar wrote:
“7. If a hepatitis B (or C) virus could by themselves cause liver cancer decades after infection, then why does the microscopic percentage of those who exhibit the hepatitis B antigens and who develop chronic clinically detectable liver disease, require carcinogenic co-factors “such as fungal aflatoxins” (p. 7121 paragraph 4), or a lifetime of alcohol abuse or drug consumption to develop cancer [8]?”

Where [8] was
Blumberg BS. Hepatitis B virus, the vaccine, and the control of primary cancer of the liver. PNAS, 1997; 94:7121-5.

So I downloaded this paper and read all of page 7121, and found that paragraph 4 does not state that toxins and/or alcohol abuse are “required” to cause liver cancer:

“Some patients infected with HBV, HCV, HDV, and probably
HGV may develop chronic infection. This may follow an
acute attack; the virus does not resolve, but remains active or
sub-active in the body for many years. More and more of the
liver cells are destroyed, scarring occurs, and liver function
decreases. Chronic liver disease can be life shortening. For at
least two of the viruses, HBV and HCV, primary hepatocellular
carcinoma (HCC) may develop, usually many years after
the initial infection. The probability of HCC increases if the
chronic carriers also are exposed to other agents, such as the
carcinogen aflatoxin, which is produced by Aspergillus fungus
that contaminates poorly stored foodstuffs. There is also
epidemiological and other evidence that high body iron stores,
which can be a consequence of excessive iron intake, also can
increase the probability of HCC.
”

Inhalation of certain types of asbestos fiber particles increases the risk of lung cancer. Likewise, chronic exposure to cigarette smoke increases the risk of lung cancer. Inhaling both asbestos and smoking cigarettes has a synergistic effect, increasing the risk of cancer far beyond the additive total of the increase in risk from both.

Marsella LT, Marmo C, Saracino V, Del Vecchio R.
The association of asbestos and cigarette smoke in lung cancer. Note 2
Clin Ter. 2006 Jan-Feb;157(1):53-9.
PMID: 16669552

Kurihara N, Wada O.
Silicosis and smoking strongly increase lung cancer risk in silica-exposed workers.
Ind Health. 2004 Jul;42(3):303-14.
PMID: 15295901

Liddell FD.
Joint action of smoking and asbestos exposure on lung cancer.
Occup Environ Med. 2002 Jul;59(7):494-5
PMID: 12107302

Contrary to what Andrew would like to confuse people into believing, this does not mean that asbestos exposure is harmless, or that cigarette smoke is “required” in order for asbestos to cause cancer.

Posted by: Dr. Duke | July 11, 2007 3:42 PM

Dr. Duke is a lentivirolgist, probably infecting the New York City area

Lentivologist derived from Lentivirus (lenti-, Latin for “slow”) is a genus of slow virologists of the Retrovirologist family, characterized by a long incubation period before awaking to or acknowledging the obvious. Lentivirologists can deliver a significant amount of genetic misinformation into the mind of the host, so they are one of the most efficient methods of misinformation. HIVologists, SIVologists, and FIVologists are all examples of lentivirologists.

Posted by: The Watcher | July 11, 2007 9:19 PM

Andrew,
Here’s your quick question:

Quick question folks.
How do you sleep at night given Gallo’s Parenzee trial testimony when he says that “if nobody here in the court room is “HIV” positive, there will be no molecules of “HIV” in their blood!
Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?
Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

There is absolutely no conflict between these statements. None whatsoever.

Hyenas have hemoglobin in their blood, but if there are no hyenas in the zoo then there will be no “hyena molecules” in the blood of any of the zoo animals. This is true even though lions have hemoglobin, tigers have hemoglobin, and bears have hemoglobin (Oh My!). They all have hemoglobin, but none of them have hyena hemoglobin.

Worms make actin, but they don’t make hyena actin.

Reverse transcriptases are found in all retroviruses and in other cellular contexts, but the only people with HIV reverse transcriptase in their blood are HIV-infected people.

Andrew, how do you sleep at night knowing your arguments are so lame?

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 12:21 AM

Andrew, how do you sleep at night knowing your arguments are so lame?

I don’t think he sleeps at night. The black helicopters circling around his house keep him awake.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 12, 2007 12:54 AM

Hey Pope,
I see you dredged up Dr. Maniotis’s false statements about the DAIDS manual:

However, I followed Dr. PS Duke’s (aka Harvey Bialy I suspect) exciting link and came upon this good old denialist classic, courtesy of our friend Dr. Maniotis:
The 1997 DIADS Official “HIV” Culturing Manual also exhibits evidence of AIDS denialism. Under quality control,” Section VI, page 45, the DAIDS manual
warned “HIV” cell culturists: “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when
testing them for the absence of “HIV” from your healthy donor source In non-technical language, DAIDS claimed that the way to make sure control cultures (healthy donor source) were indeed not infected with “HIV,” was to quit
watching the control cultures after 3 days. Perhaps DAIDS simply followed Montagnier’s and Gallo’s AIDS denialism, and accepted that it was PHA, and not “HIV” that could, after 3 days, induce the same effect on T-cells not incubated with “HIV” (A), as it did with infected cultures (2-9)? Nevertheless it is denialism, because they warn culturists to terminate control cultures after 3 days, and thus control cultures are NOT terminated at the same times as the “HIV” infected cultures.

I apologize for repeating myself, but I’m not sure if you saw Dr. Maniotis’s most recent explanation of his DAIDS blunder in the Smallpox thread:

The DAIDS 1997 official “HIV” culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation” when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,”
was taken out of context of the argument I was making because in
“The Reporting Results Section which follows (section VII) a rationale follows that obviously employs both healthy (or non-”infected” cells-although I don’t think anybody tests intentionally non-”infected cells”) in a manner that is irrational to my way of thinking, unless I really don’t understand what is going on.

If you read the relevant protocols that Maniotis cites from the DAIDS Manual, then you will see that his current explanation, namely, that he “really don’t understand what is going on” is exactly right.
As already explained by Dale, the assay requires non-infected cells. It is the ability of the patient specimen to induce a productive infection of the normal cells that forms the basis of the assay. The stipulation that the normal cells should not be older than 3 days post-stimulation does not apply to only the control cultures (as falsely claimed by Maniotis), rather it is a quality control mechanism applied to all of the assays (control or patient specimen) to make sure that the normal cells are still able to support a productive infection and thereby avoid false negative results that might be obtained using older cells. This is very clearly explained in the DAIDS Manual, as well as in the papers cited in the bibliography included in the DAIDS Manual. The fact that the use of non-infected cells is “irrational to (Maniotis’s) way of thinking” simply illustrates that he has no clue as to how the assay works and proves that (as Maniotis puts it) he “really don’t understand what is going on.”

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 12:56 AM

Chris wrote
The black helicopters circling around his house keep him awake.

Don’t forget the firetrucks outside Andy’s house spraying toxic pesticides and mercury through his open windows until his spaghetti tastes like confetti.

Posted by: Adele | July 12, 2007 11:01 AM

RE:

The DAIDS 1997 official “HIV” culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,”

Why doesn’t somebody answer my simple question. Let me rephrase it using small words:

The Reporting Results Section which follows (section VII) a rationale follows that apparently employs both healthy (or non-infected cells) and infected cells-although I don’t think anybody tests intentionally non-”infected cells”) in a manner that is rational or what we would considered CONTROLLED. For example:

Cultures whose supernatant meet one of the following criteria are considered culture positive IF:

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or “out of range” (O.D.>2) or

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values (read: from a healthy donor source) that are “out of range (Optical density.> 2); or

“Three consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), where neither consecutive value is > four times the previous sample, but the third value is at least four times greater than the first,”

Would you consider a sample negative (read: from a healthy donor source) if the 3 consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA corrected values read (first test) 25 pg/ml, and (second test) 15 pg/ml, (third test) 5 pg/ml?

Would you use these cells as uninfected controls?

Asked another way, are these control cells considered non-infected if they read 25 on the first reading, and 15 on the second and 5 on the third?

Try a second sample using the first criterion stated above:

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or out of range” (O.D.>2)

First sample =6pg/ml: second sample)=23pg/ml

Yes? No? Maybe better get other “healthy cells” than go with a 6 and a 23? Or are these two readings enough to say, “Aw-what the heck-they aren’t over 30pg/ml and the second series ain’t quite 4 times greater that the first value of 6, so I will just tell the doc that they are negative, and will tell the patient nothing about it.

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 12, 2007 4:02 PM

Andrew,

Is that your question?

I thought your original question had something to do with cheerleaders.

I think a PhD from Berkeley should be able to figure that one out all by himself.

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 4:55 PM

Andrew is still dodging. He demands answers but he won’t give any.

I will answer his question about p24 readings and there’s a good answer.

BUT only after he gives us a honest response to why I don’t find RT activity in any of my controls. I described my experiment above. I asked simple questions. Andrew Maniotis hasn’t been able to answer.

Posted by: Adele | July 12, 2007 5:21 PM

Adele,

The answer to your question is simple-but it is a tautology.

If I put some toxic antibody on my cultures, and do a total RNA reading, I get virus-like particle prodcution, and, cell death, all kinds of strange effects. If I put serum from a lupus patient, for instance, on tumor cell cultures, I get viral like production, and increases in nucleic acid “shedding” in the supernatant. Nothing specific.

In your experiment, there is no proof you are adding something called “HIV” because, according to those of us that are critical of the HIV=AIDS hypothesis, it hasn’t been demonstrated with the certainty that de Harven, for instance showed with MMTV, and I posted the comparative pictures in a previous blog-without any of you even bothering to try to give a response. So yes, you get an increased reading because you are adding something the cells don’t like that you have not characterized.

You are adding something indeed to the experimental group that gives you those readings in the thousands compared to the controls-you just haven’t proven to us that you are adding something called “HIV” and haven’t shown that if it is indeed a virus you are adding, that it is infectious and induces any of the 47 AIDS-defining illness.

I and many others, in addition, criticise your use of RT to measure what you think is “HIV,” but alas, again there is a tautology, and judging by the lame comments above,

“Hyenas have hemoglobin in their blood, but if there are no hyenas in the zoo then there will be no “hyena molecules” in the blood of any of the zoo animals. This is true even though lions have hemoglobin, tigers have hemoglobin, and bears have hemoglobin (Oh My!). They all have hemoglobin, but none of them have hyena hemoglobin.

Worms make actin, but they don’t make hyena actin.”

why should I even bother, but here goes. How do you know that the RT you are measuring isn’t endogenous RT that isn’t stimulated once you sprinkle your toxic “antibody” you call “HIV” on your experimental cells (after all you said it is epigenetically silenced in most normal cells-so it is there somewhere).

“The reverse transcriptases produced by lentiviruses have a preference for Mg++ over Mn++ for optimal activity, whereas the reverse transcriptases of most endogenous retroviruses and other retroviruses mostly prefer Mn++. However, this is only one of hundreds of different methods of distinguishing one RT from another.”

This is pure crap because you haven’t isolated “HIV” at anywhere close to sufficient purity to claim you have a distinct RT from the “epigenetically silenced” RT that is endogenous.

Let me try to use some letters to explain it to you.

A=”HIV” B=Cells. “HIV” particles contain actin, ezrin, and a list of other molecules that Bess et al., found, which again nobody wanted to comment on when I posted that material. Supposedly, “HIV” contains a specific RT, let’s call it HIVrt.

Back to the letters.

A+Art +B +Brt=the crud you call a purified “HIV” prep that Bess and others have said in the titles of their papers actually contain more crap than “HIV.”

You need to separate A+Art from B=Brt in order to claim “HIV” RT is special. You nor anybody else has not done this to anywhere close to the purity needed to make the outragious claims made by all of your religious catechisms.

Now will you answer my question. Yes, No, Maybe?

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 12, 2007 6:24 PM

Andrew,

HIV reverse transcriptase has been molecularly cloned and can be easily distinguished from any reverse transcriptase encoded in the human genome. Just as hyena hemoglobin can be easily distinguished from the hemoglobin of other mammals.

Your starting to sound like a case of social promotion at UC Berkeley.

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 7:13 PM

Perhaps Maniotis shares Etienne de Harven’s views on molecular biology:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/edhrecol.htm

In the article, de Harven (currently president of the “Rethinking AIDS” group) rails against the rise of molecular biology, scorns the “virus hunters” and rues Nixon’s War on Cancer Act. Yet de Harven was happy to feed at the trough of the US Government-sponsored Special Virus Cancer Program from at least 1963 through 1978. I emailed him once to ask about his experience with the SVCP and why he doesn’t mention it on his CV; he never replied.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 12, 2007 7:29 PM

Might as well also mention that T cell responses against HIV’s reverse transcriptase are readily detectable in HIV-infected individuals (just Google “rt-specific ctl”). I wonder if Andrew Maniotis has ever talked to a cellular immunologist about their “outragious claims” regarding HIV infection and AIDS.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 12, 2007 7:54 PM

This is pure crap because you haven’t isolated “HIV” at anywhere close to sufficient purity to claim you have a distinct RT from the “epigenetically silenced” RT that is endogenous.

Well-said, Dr. Maniotis.

Posted by: Kevin | July 12, 2007 7:55 PM

Andrew wrote:

“This is pure crap because you haven’t isolated “HIV” at anywhere close to sufficient purity to claim you have a distinct RT from the “epigenetically silenced” RT that is endogenous.”

What part of “infectious molecular clone” do you fail to understand?

Grisson RD, Chenine AL, Yeh LY, He J, Wood C, Bhat GJ, Xu W, Kankasa C, Ruprecht RM.
Infectious molecular clone of a recently transmitted pediatric human immunodeficiency virus clade C isolate from Africa: evidence of intraclade recombination.
J Virol. 2004 Dec;78(24):14066-9.
PMID: 15564517

Brehm JH, Koontz D, Meteer JD, Pathak V, Sluis-Cremer N, Mellors JW.
Selection of Mutations in the Connection and RNase H Domains of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Reverse Transcriptase that Increase Resistance to 3′-Azido-3′-Dideoxythymidine.
J Virol. 2007 May 16;
PMID: 17507476

Hu Z, Giguel F, Hatano H, Reid P, Lu J, Kuritzkes DR.
Fitness comparison of thymidine analog resistance pathways in human immunodeficiency virus type 1.
J Virol. 2006 Jul;80(14):7020-7.
PMID: 16809307

Hammond JL, Parikh UM, Koontz DL, Schlueter-Wirtz S, Chu CK, Bazmi HZ, Schinazi RF, Mellors JW.
In vitro selection and analysis of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 resistant to derivatives of beta-2′,3′-didehydro-2′,3′-dideoxy-5-fluorocytidine.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2005 Sep;49(9):3930-2.
PMID: 16127074

Abram ME, Parniak MA.
Virion instability of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase (RT) mutated in the protease cleavage site between RT p51 and the RT RNase H domain.
J Virol. 2005 Sep;79(18):11952-61.
PMID: 16140771

Posted by: Dr. Duke | July 12, 2007 7:56 PM

How do you know that the RT you are measuring isn’t endogenous RT that isn’t stimulated once you sprinkle your toxic “antibody” you call “HIV” on your experimental cells (after all you said it is epigenetically silenced in most normal cells-so it is there somewhere).

If the RT you were measuring were endogenous RT, epigenetically silenced or not, you would still be able to find its sequence in a non infected cell genome ie. in the DNA of your cells both before and after the addition of HIV.

Posted by: Dale | July 12, 2007 8:27 PM

Andrew Maniotis asked:

” How do you know that the RT you are measuring isn’t endogenous RT…”

Why Andrew, you simply use your secret decoder ring.

We must have been remiss in issuing yours.

Here it is:
http://psyche.uthct.edu/shaun/SBlack/geneticd.html

May it serve you well.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 12, 2007 10:12 PM

I didn’t expect Andrew to respond since there’s no good answer to my questions except HIV on cells infects and later produces RT when it’s a functional virus. But he did respond and that’s interesting because the main thing you take away is, he didn’t understand the question or my experiment.

you get an increased reading because you are adding something the cells don’t like that you have not characterized.

First Andrew should remember I also put heat-inactivated virus on the cells. I also put a mutant virus that doesn’t complete its whole replication. These virus have the same stuff as regular virus. If the cell doesn’t like the regular virus it shouldn’t like the mutant virus because their exactly the same thing except for a couple base changes in the RNA inside them. Like maybe five changes or ten changes or maybe less out of 10,000 The heat inactivated is exactly the same except it’s been denatured. at least partly.

Second if the replicating virus is the only thing the cell doesn’t “like” it’s weird you get the exact same result if you transfect proviral DNA into the cell instead of using virus. Replicationg virus, you get ginormous RT, same proviral DNA except with two or three mutations, you get no RT. So if Andrew’s right the cell can go, “Hey there’s a G at 4533 instead of a A so let’s not respond to this virus, or DNA.” That’s absurd. If Andrew’s got evidence it’s not he needs to show it or shut up with his nutty conspiracy theories.

Third if Andrew ever learned more about HIV research he would know you always characterize the virus you make. You sequence it to make sure it’s not contaminated with other strains. You do antigen tests on it to see how much of it there is. You can do infectivity for how infective the prep is, that’s kind of the same thing as before. If you have alot of techs and money you could do an EM too but why? Etienne doesn’t like it but molbio does the same verification alot easier. Some people even do mass spec and stuff to look at viral and host proteins in the virion. Characterizing your virus is a standard thing.

By the way I know some people who do protein stuff with viruses. I don’t think they’ve ever seen endogenous RT in the virion. Hmm.

So Andrew didn’t answer my question to satisfy anyone who knows something about this. But he did answer it in his own way and I promised, so. Here’s my answer to his idiotic quesiton about p24 and being positive if a reading’s near the cuttoff.

A p24 antigen test shouldn’t be used as your only diagnosis test. Also a cuttoff isn’t so set as you want to think. If it’s close you do it again and you do other tests like PCR to make sure its not false.

There’s a thing in statistics. Margin of error. These antigen tests measure colors. Is there anything that’s completely colorless. So you get a value for every test you do and it’s never zero. In your margin of error there can be values of protein concentration. It doesn’t mean there’s actually protein there. That’s why they come up with some kind of cuttoff because in their testing they did with the ELISA with recombinant protein and also validated samples probably hundreds or thousands of them they know a certain percentage of positive samples will always be above that usually WAY above it. And they know negative samples will always be below it.

Yes rarely you’ll get a antigen result near the cuttoff depending where you are in the infection. Usually there’s no question though. If there is there’s a hundred other tests to do to confirm it.

Andrew is completely full of it, making up hypothetical stuff he doesn’t even know about to hang on.

Posted by: Adele | July 13, 2007 11:12 AM

So I guess you would run with the cells being 29pg/ml or some similar permutation as being “normal healthy controls.” You guys really don’t know how to do a controlled experiment. A simple yes is really all you needed to say. Or yes, we use cells that are showing 28pg/ml for our healthy normal controls, while cells over 30 are considered infected.

RE: the heat inactivated virus.

You are correct. I did forget about the heat inactivated virus not ringing up the counts in the experiment you described. Normally this would be a good control for real viruses like Herpesvirus. But what you detect here must be an endogenous noxious protein that is heat stable?

You can’t say otherwise-sequencing or not-mobio or not. It doesn’t matter cause there ain’t no gold standard which is the virus itself. You don’t know if the sequence you are consistently getting is the same sequence due to the same stimulus generating the same pathological effect.

RE:
“If it’s close you do it again and you do other tests like PCR to make sure its not false.”

I’m sure the DIADS folks and those reference labs that follow their manual do this over and over until they find “a healthy donor source” that would consistently ring up

Wonderful certainty here to risk a person’s life by then convincing them they are going to die.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 13, 2007 12:00 PM

Andrew still missed my controls. Perhaps all those pesticides sprayed through his windows gave him ADHD?

To recount replicating virus gives ginormous RT. Virus with a post-entry block because of a few bases changed out of 10,000 gives no RT. Heat inactivated virus gives no RT. And Andrew says,

But what you detect here must be an endogenous noxious protein that is heat stable?

I guess he means NOT heat stable. Because then his imaginary noxious protein in the virus would cause production of endogenous RT but in heat inactivated virus it wouldn’t.

Unfortuantely Andrew forgot that other control, the one with a virus that’s got a couple of mutations keeping it from replicating right after it gets into the cell. So our imaginary noxious protein is there and its not heat denatured. But it doesn’t produce that RT effect here!

That’s not all. We get the same results if we use proviral DNA transfected in. DNA of regular virus, you get RT. DNA of the mutant, again its exactly the same DNA except for like .01 percent changes, doesn’t give you RT. There’s no protein here. Absolutely not that “noxious” human protein Andrew imagines. Just DNA. And the same results.

Re the p24 thing, I won’t dignify Andrew’s grasping stupidity with a response. I’ll just remind everyone, this is not about patients, it’s about cell culture. No patient should ever be diagnosed based on p24 of 29.4 vs 29.6 and as far as I know no one is. That happens in Andrews fever not reality. And Andrew is the only one trying and convincing people they are going to die, no one says this stuff except the deniosaurs.

you know everyone is always talking about Monty Python and the knight with no arms and legs. I would say that’s Duesberg. Maniotis is like that but without a body or brain even, a dis embodied mouth that just keeps on going No Gold Standard No Gold Standard. Well Many-lie-tis doesn’t know a gold standard from a hole in the ground.

Also like William jennings Bryan could have said to him “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Posted by: Adele | July 13, 2007 12:32 PM

Excellent takedown, Adele. The controls are solid, especially the proviral DNA.

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 13, 2007 1:19 PM

Adele,
There is no evidence that you aren’t seeing the effects of what you think is “HIV” is harming or infecting the cells in any way: Can’t show it in chimps, in non-activated T-cells (red blood cells, neurons, muscle cells, or whatever cell type you want to be the target of “HIV’s” malicious nature this month), etc. But its fun to publish long papers about culture artifacts like “HIV” or HERV’s, and even more fun to tell the public health agencies that these are emerging threats that need billions thrown at them to increase “HIV” infection with microbicides as Moore and others have accomplished, increase the leading cause of death as liver failure in HAART-treated patients, administer experimental vaccines that damage the immune system, etc.

You are sure proud and sure of yourself and your science through! Sure hope you are right! By contrast, I hope someday you will realize your errors, and apologize to whom ever will listen to you.

Gene
Volume 390, Issues 1-2, 1 April 2007, Pages 175-179
ASILOMAR 2006

Copyright © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The potential of retroviral vectors to cotransfer human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) from human packaging cell lines

Udo Zeilfeldera, Oliver Franka, Sandra Sparaciob, Ulrike Schönc, d, Valerie Bosche, Wolfgang Seifartha and Christine Leib-Möscha, c, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author
aMedical Clinic III, Faculty of Clinical Medicine Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, 68305 Mannheim, Germany
bDepartment of Molecular Virology, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
cGSF-National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Molecular Virology, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany
dAlopex GmbH, 95326 Kulmbach, Germany
eForschungsschwerpunkt Infektion und Krebs, F020, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Received 30 June 2006; revised 10 August 2006; accepted 10 August 2006. Received by M. Batzer. Available online 3 September 2006.

Abstract

Using a versatile and highly sensitive retroviral microarray, we have investigated particle preparations from three different human packaging cell lines harboring retroviral vector systems based on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and murine leukemia virus (MLV). 293Rev/Gag/Poli cells inducibly express high titers of HIV-derived particles for packaging of HIV vectors. The Phoenix-GP and the Anjou 65 cell lines constitutively express MLV vector particles. We compared the transcription profiles of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) in all cell lines with the HERV sequences present in the particles. In addition, the influence of the transfected vector plasmid on the copackaging of HERVs was investigated. All particle preparations showed a defined pattern of endogenous retroviral sequences that differed from the cellular HERV expression pattern. HERV transcripts were observed in the particle preparations independent of whether a vector construct was coexpressed or not.

Furthermore, our results suggest that particle preparations are frequently contaminated by cellular vesicles (exosomes) containing cellular RNAs including HERV transcripts.

Keywords: Human endogenous retroviruses; HERV; Retroviral vector; Packaging cell line; Copackaging; DNA chip; Microarray; Gene therapy

Abbreviations: CMV, cytomegalovirus; DEPC, diethylpyrocarbonate; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; ERV, endogenous retrovirus; GFP, green fluorescent protein; HERV, human endogenous retrovirus; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; IRES, internal ribosome entry sequence; MLV, murine leukemia virus; MOP, mixed oligonucleotide primers; MMTV, mouse mammary tumor virus; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; PGK, phosphoglycerate kinase; RCR, replication-competent retrovirus; RT, reverse transcriptase; RRE, Rev responsive element; RSV, Rous sarcoma virus; SV40, simian virus 40; VSV-G, vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein.

Corresponding Author Contact Information
Corresponding author. GSF-Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Molecular Virology, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, D-85764 Neuherberg, Germany. Tel.: +49 89 3187 3270; fax: +49 3187 3329.

RE:Re the p24 thing, I won’t dignify Andrew’s grasping stupidity with a response. I’ll just remind everyone, this is not about patients, it’s about cell culture. No patient should ever be diagnosed based on p24 of 29.4 vs 29.6 and as far as I know no one is.

Thanks for answering my question. Its just a shame that people’s lives are based upon your junk science that ejected cause and effect along with controlled experiments.

Sheesh!

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 13, 2007 4:41 PM

I told Andrew about my controls. He had something to say about ONE of them. His explanation was a stretch, heat denatured protein, and he got it wrong anyway, he said heat stable protein, but it was a possibility. The others all three of them he can’t respond to because they prove he’s completely wrong. So he makes jokes and insults and pastes alot from irrelevant papers.

The junk science is Andrew’s. Science that doesn’t have hypotheses or experiments at all. Much less controlled experiments like mine. Actually I wouldn’t call his stuff science.

Andrew says,
“There is no evidence that you aren’t seeing the effects of what you think is “HIV” is harming or infecting the cells in any way: Can’t show it in chimps, in non-activated T-cells (red blood cells, neurons, muscle cells, or whatever cell type you want to be the target of “HIV’s” malicious nature this month), etc.”

I’ve seen HIV infecting two primary cell types this week alone. No stimulation required. Is Andrew such a Kool-Aid drinker he can’t read the literature?

When Andrew wants to talk about my other controls that will be fun. But he won’t. He’ll post some more stuff on HERVs or how pesticides get sprayed on his pasta or whatever.

Posted by: Adele | July 13, 2007 5:17 PM

Andrew and Eugene Semon should get together if they haven’t already. They’re both ignorant about microvesicles and HERVs and they both deny HIV exists. Or maybe Gene Semon is just another Andrew sock. Who knows? Who cares?

Posted by: Adele | July 13, 2007 5:25 PM

Adele,

I think you’re being too hard on Dr. Maniotis:

“The junk science is Andrew’s. Science that doesn’t have hypotheses or experiments at all. Much less controlled experiments like mine. Actually I wouldn’t call his stuff science.”

Why, I saw a control being used in Dr. Maniotis’ work just the other day. HIV integrase was tested to see if it had the same chromosome reconstituting ability as Topoisomerase.

It did not. Obviously, very powerful conclusions can be drawn from a well controlled experiment like this. The most obvious, of course, is that HIV does not exist.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 13, 2007 7:21 PM

Dont listen to adele. I highly question her claims that she has a masters in biology and works in a lab, what kind of lab lets you sit on the internet all day and make posts?

Posted by: cooler | July 13, 2007 7:38 PM

Roy,

Care to explain what you mean by “chromosome reconstituting ability” means? Just because two proteins have similar activities does not mean that one exists. If this passes for Maniotis style science, Adele is being too polite, if anything.

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 13, 2007 7:40 PM

Robster,

Briefly, and I’m sure incompletely, chromatin was stripped, or partially stripped from condensed chromosomes. Topoisomerase II was added and the chromosomes recovered a condensed structure. When HIV integrase was added (it’s apparently from the same family as Topoisomerase II) the chromosomes were not reconstituted. Experiments were conducted in the absence of ATP to show that it was not due to the enzymatic activity of topo II.

The conclusion that HIV does not exist is not drawn in the paper, for obvious reasons ie: the HIV hierarchy censoring results that show HIV does not exist. But Maniotis does cite this series of experiments elsewhere as calling the existence of HIV into question. See his manifesto the ABC’s of AIDS denial.

Here’s the abstract for the paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9548561&dopt=Abstract

You should of course read my comments about the nonexistence of HIV and censorship by the hierarchy as dripping with sarcasm.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 13, 2007 8:01 PM

Andrew,

You still haven’t been able to figure out the the qualitative macroculture assay from the DAIDS manual?

Maybe you should try doing an experiment and setting the assay up in your lab. At least then you could speak from experience.

Posted by: franklin | July 13, 2007 8:03 PM

Adele,

I’d love to employ the mutants that you say you have, to do real first class molecular virology like you do in your “lab,” except I don’t know how you keep the little fragile “HIV” buggers that can’t even be photographed in a sucrose density gradient from mutating, especially under the highly un-natural conditions of culturing, stimulation, in cancer cells, etc., from month to month or from experiment to experiment?

If your mutants are stable, as you imply, you have achieved nothing less that thwarting the enormous power of “HIV” to mutate from second to second in order to evade the “life saving medications” in its quest to kill all those people despite “compliance.”

But if:

“Well over 875,000 women and infants have received a single dose of nevirapine. A single dose of nevirapine is the cornerstone of the regimen recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to prevent mother-to-child transmission among women without access to antiretroviral treatment and among those not meeting treatment criteria. However, nevirapine resistance is detected (with the use of standard genotyping techniques) in 20 to 69% of women and 33 to 87% of infants after exposure to a single, peripartum dose of nevirapine. Among 60 women starting antiretroviral treatment within 6 months after receiving placebo or a single dose of nevirapine, no women in the placebo group and 41.7% in the nevirapine group had virologic failure (P

then how can your claim even be credible? Do you remember Harrington’s Chinese Menu Approach piece I posted earlier, or “The Power of Prayer” over “HIV’s” ability to mutate? I guess “HIV” doesn’t mutate in culture or in your “lab” but only does so under the selective pressure of “life-saving” drugs like nevirapine that was withdrawn from the US for its toxicity, but then given to 875,000 African mother-infant pairs to “see what would happen.”

Also, Adele, how on earth did you get your cells infected without stimulating them?

“I’ve seen HIV infecting two primary cell types this week alone. No stimulation required. Is Andrew such a Kool-Aid drinker he can’t read the literature?”

But how can this be?
You ought to immediately write Montagnier and Gallo to tell them their efforts with PHA, IL2, polybrene, cancer cell “amplification of HIV” etc., were all for nothing-and while you are at it, write the DAIDS folks and tell em that all that PHA stimulation they do to declare folks with 30 pg/ml or more (or 2×7 plus 4 times 2-16 on 2 consecutive tests where the last test is at least 4 1/2 times the first test) are dead men walking, while they tell the folks with non-stimulated chimps (chimps that don’t have high risk behaviors), red blood cells to cause “HIV” associated “anemia,” infect neurons and glia to cause AIDS dementia, muscle cells to cause AIDS wasting, or whatever other cell type you want to be the target of “HIV’s” malicious nature this month), etc.”

RE: Hinkley (are you related to the one who did the shooting a few years back)?

“Why, I saw a control being used in Dr. Maniotis’ work just the other day. HIV integrase was tested to see if it had the same chromosome reconstituting ability as Topoisomerase.”

“The conclusion that HIV does not exist is not drawn in the paper, for obvious reasons ie: the HIV hierarchy censoring results that show HIV does not exist. But Maniotis does cite this series of experiments elsewhere as calling the existence of HIV into question.”

The “HIV” integrase we used, and the name of the vendor we obtained it from (who has fortunately since gone out of business)- is in the figure legend of our paper. We used it because on gene-base searches, “HIV-integrase” came up as a molecule that bound to the minor groove of DNA, in a manner identical to topoisomerase IIa. Therefore, to determine if topo’s dramatic activity had something to do with minor-grove binding of DNA as “HIV”s integrase activity was claimed to, we tested topo and “HIV-integrase” (and various other molecules with established activity) side by side. Of course, “HIV-integrase” had no observable activity, and so we had to conclude it as a negative result, and had to conclude that topo’s profound effects and activity were independent of its minor-grove-binding nature (and from other experiments concluded that its activity was primarily charge-driven and lysine dependent).

But one might think that something with the power to alter chromatin and DNA to the extent that a provirus could be integrated such as “HIV-integrase” would have some measurable activity in these sensitive assays, but it did not.

We didn’t make a big deal about it at the time, because as a negative result, it suggested a number of things:

A. The “HIV integrase”we obtained could have been damaged in transit or not active because it was denatured.

B. HIV integrase requires ATP (but we also tried it in the presence of ATP and it didn’t work).

C. The activity of “HIV” integrase is sooooooooo subtle, that its activity escaped our detection.

C. HIV doesn’t exist as an exogenous retrovirus, so how on earth could its integrase?

Now my lab is testing the effects of cigars versus pipe-smoke on acquiring “HIV” infections:

Thu Sep 21, 8:12 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) – “Smoking, already linked to several illnesses, may also increase the risk of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

In a review of studies that looked at the association between smoking and HIV, British doctors said five of the six studies they analysed showed smokers had a higher chance of becoming infected.

Nine of 10 other studies in the review that tracked the progression from HIV to AIDS found no link with smoking.

“The studies identified in this systematic review indicate that while smoking might be independently associated with acquiring HIV infection, it does not appear to be related to progression to AIDS,” said Dr Andrew Furber, of the South East Sheffield Primary Care Trust.

Furber and his colleagues, who reported the findings in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, said tobacco smoke may increase susceptibility to HIV infection by modifying a variety of immune system responses.

Research has shown that smoking is a leading cause of preventable death. It increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, respiratory problems, lung and other types of cancer.

The researchers suggest in the study that public health measures that encourage smokers to quit could also improve the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.

About 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS. Nearly 5 million were newly infected in 2005 and more than 3 million adults and children died of AIDS in the same year.”

Maybe second hand smoke is responsible for at least part of the AIDS pandemic in children as well? Its a fascinating if not clever virus, to say the least!

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 14, 2007 7:38 AM

Dear Franklin, Adele, Dr. Duke, Hinkley (Hinkley, is this you? http://www.gilligansisle.com/prof.html)

Why don’t you all ever try to even respond to my questions? As Franklin I believe said about cheer-leaders…following some questions I stated, it would be most helpful for you to address the following issue of Bess et al:

RE:

Not one molecule of “HIV’s” proteins would be present in a whole stadium full of sports fans, given none of them were HIV postive.’

Well gee Mr. Gallo, Mr. Fauci, Mr. Wainberg, I got 29 “units” of p24 in my blood, so I guess its safe that I can go after the cheerleaders or donate blood tomorrow! I ain’t got 30 pg/ml on two consecutive tests, so I OK! For shame! I’d rather take my chance with phrenology as a test for intelligence, or burning witches to see if they die (as you did to Christine’s family). But I’d bet that, naïve to the absolute junk science of the “HIV/AIDS” religion, and if somehow convinced to take an “HIV” test (or now under mandatory testing conditions at my “routine checkup” without any informed consent as is currently in place by the Nazi administration), that I’d finally fulfill Jesse Helm’s dream-to be afraid of any cheerleaders, and to regard for sure selectively biased populations such as gays (and African Americans) as being the object of “God’s revenge.” How are you supposed to feel if you blew a 29 on an AIDS breathalizer p24 test?

The DIADS culturing manual, in light of the warnings of Larent-Crawford are even more disturbing, and suggest, if you really think about it, that not only are there no animal models of “HIV,” but there are no in consistent vitro models either, despite the DIADS attempt to codify a single set of protocols for normal stimulated lymphocyte culturing coupled to a diagnostic that doesn’t make any sense.

Most heartbreaking of all, perhaps, is the fact that the equation of p24, or the spate of other “hidden epitope antibody tests or phony nucleic acid testing described in the last half of the DIADS handbook, all suffer from the same problems that Bess et al., (1997) so eloquently described (Microvesicles are a source of contaminating cellular proteins found in PURIFIED HIV-1 preparations”). In other words, on top of there being no consistent cell culturing model for “HIV’s” so-called pathogenic effect (principally but not only due to the problems with mitogen interference that causes, according to Laurent-Crawford et al., unbalanced signals and apoptosis or syncytial formation or persistant non-pathogenic viral production depending on whether lymphocytes are “immature or “mature” there is still, no evidence whatsoever, that p24 has anything to do with an exogenous virus called “HIV.” I’d like to give a few examples:

1. If you go to figure 3 in this paper, one cannot tell a piece of cellular debris from any other piece of debris or crap. And this is where p24 was isolated from under the best PURIFICATION conditions that “HIV” science could muster? If you want to see what a virus prep for purification should look like, see http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/news/edhlettercont.htm

And note that in this EM photograph, there isn’t any crap that can co-purify and be mistaken for a unique, exogenous, viral protein, or at least it is highly unlikely given the purity of the prep. The author points to the two pieces of shit in the prep that aren’t viral in nature in a background of hundreds that are identical.

2. The Bess et al., authors specifically state that: “Identification and analysis of the virus are complicated by the presence of cellular membrane vesicles which COPURIFY with the virus.”

3. “We recently reported a proteolytic procedure (Ott et al., 1995b) that effectively removes greater than 95% of proteins associated with these membrane vesicles. This procedure has allowed us to demonstrate that the cytoskeletal proteins, actin, ezrin, moesin, and cofilin are located IN THE INTERIOR of virions.”

Funny-I never saw this in any testbooks…along with pol, env, p24, p32, etc., that actin, ezrin, moesin, and cofilin were part of “HIV’s” deadly arsenal it carries into cells from other infected cells.

Question: If actin, exrin, and cytoskeletal proteins are located INSIDE the virions, how can one tell if p24, which is a faint band on most cellular gels that come from non-infected cells in most labs, isn’t also a cellular protein? The gel shown in figure 1 (the non-infected lane) has weaker bands at all of these weight designations that supposedly the infected supernatants were run (B,C). In fact the p24 band is extremely PRESENT in lane A, which is the uninfected lane. This gel is the basis for giving someone cancer chemo on their cornflakes for life as Moore pointed out? For shame!

4. “PHA activated human PBLs were also shown to produce microvesicles that incorporated cellular proteins (Fig. 6).”

5. “In addition to proteins, microvesicles were also shown to contain both RNA and DNA. Approximately 10ug of RNA and 4 ug of DNA were found per mg of protein. The major RNA species in microvesicles were ribosomal 28S and 18S subuitis and some low molecular species, PERHAPS tRNA.”

Could these nucleic acids form little dark “cones” one might ask? Hard to tell you say. Look at figure 3 and tell me in those several dark cone-containing pieces of cellular crap, do you see your father, the sea, Mana from heaven, the “HIV” genome, your future?

6. “We have been unsuccessful at separating microvesicles from HIV- by centrifugation techniques (data not shown).” What! It’s shown in figure 3!

7. GP120 may do the trick (if it isn’t a cellular protein which it is).

8. “Clearly, future experiments utilizing purified viruses must be carefully controlled to account for the effects of cellular antigens present on microvessels” (like p24 and all the other so-called proteins and nucleic acids thought to be specific to “HIV”). Clearly indeed!#@###$@

9. “Numerous other cellular proteins have been identified in PURIFIED preparations of HIV-1. It is not known if these are physically associated with HIV particles and, if so, whether or not they have a role in the virus replication cycle. IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO STUDYING THE POTENTIAL FUNCION OF CELLULAR PROTEINS IN THE VIRUS REPLICATION CYCLE.”

SHOULD READ:
IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO MAKING A GODDAMN TEST KIT, WHETHER OR NOT IT IS PROTEIN OR NUCLEIC ACID BASED, AND THEN USING IT TO RISK THE LIVES OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE DANGEROUS CHEMOTHERAPIES BASED ON A p24 or nucleic acid-based test that has been developed from the likes of this junk science.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 14, 2007 8:07 AM

When the FDA recalls defective “HIV” tests or statistic software, how long does it take the medical community to respond to the typical recall? For instance, are testing labs immediately provided with the lot numbers of defective testing merchandise in a timely manner, and are patients who received these tests quickly notified about the recall of the test they were subjected to? A few recent cases may here be illustrative:

Recall of HIV p24 Antigen Test Kit
Globus Media REcall HIV test
ORTHO Antibody to HBsAg ELISA Test FDA recall Ortho HBsAG System
Recall of Antibody to Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 p24 Antigen Test Kits
Recall lancets for HIV kit
FDA Recall of NucliSens HIV test kit
FDA Recall of HCV EIA 2.0 Test Kit
Market Withdrawal of HIV-1 – HCV Assay, FDA recall Procleix
FDA Recall HIV-1 – HIV-2 Plus O EIA Testing Software
Recall of HIV Types 1 &2 (Synthetic Peptide)
FDA Recall of Amplicor HIV test kit

Why hasn’t humoral, cellular, or mucosal immunity been evoked in “HIV” vaccine trials? [1995 Congress of the United States: Office of Technology assessment. Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues. (Roger C. Herdman, Director]? Something wrong with the molecular nature of the components vaccinated into these experimental human being vaccine recipients?

J Int Assoc Physicians AIDS Care. 1998 Mar;4(3):45-6.
Does the HIV-1deltakURNe vaccine strain hold the key to curbing HIV infection? An interview with Ronald Desrosiers, PhD.

Desrosiers R.
AIDS: Dr. Ronald Desrosiers of the New England Primate Research Center at the Harvard Medical School provides his opinions on the HIV-1deltakURNe vaccine strain. Dr. Desrosiers explains what this strain represents and how it was chosen for live-attenuated HIV vaccine human safety trials. Further, Desrosiers discusses the balance in using highly attenuated vaccines and protection effectiveness, whether it is possible for the vaccine strain to revert to a disease-causing form, the possibility of transmission of a vaccine virus to unvaccinated individuals, and the issue of cancer development through insertional mutagenesis.

Continuing from Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues:

“Safety Concerns Associated with Attenuated Virus
There are four primary safety concerns about attenuated viral vaccines that have been recognized” (11,22,104).

1. Level of attenuation. Inadequate attenuation (reduction of virulence) of virus may result in a vaccine that induces the disease4 that it was designed to prevent; over-attenuated virus may fail to induce protective immune responses. However, even an appropriately attenuated virus may show virulent behavior when not constrained by a competent immune system , such as in vaccine recipients with immue systems compromised by cancers, immunosuppressant drugs, and other non-AIDS causes. The highly infectious nature of SIV administered orally to monkeys at birth, before the monkey’s immune system has developed, has rasied new questions about safety of vaccines in immunocompromised individuals (79).
2. Stability of attenuation. The vaccine strain could undergo genetic reversion to a more virulent form during the lengthy course of replication in the vaccine. Tis risk is of particular concern with vaccines using attenuated strains of HIV, as the human immunodeficiency virus is cyharacterized by rapid and frequentg genetic mutations.
3. Possibility of secondary spread. Spread of attenuated virus to contacts of vaccines (secondary spread) may provide the virus with further opportunity to revert to virulence (e.g. vaccine-induced poliomyelitis in contacts of vaccinees.) However, if it can be assured that the level of attenuation of the virus remains stable, secondary spread of the virus may be beneficial, because the attenuated virus could induce protective immunity in contacts. Sufficient spread of the attenuated virus would result in the induction of herd immunity (as had occurred with poliovirus vaccine.” (But if the virus is constantly mutating in people, or able to be induced to mutate with a single dose of Nevirapine, then how could any be stable? See 2007, January).
4. Possibility of induction of tumors. Other members of the retrovirus family regularly produce tumors (e.g., mouse tumors and a form of human leukemia). Theoretically, the prolonged residence of a live attenuated HIV vaccine strain in vaccinees could allow the retrovirus to rpoduce tumors. Recent evidence for a direct role for HIV infection in the etiology of some T-cell lymphomas suggest a need to proceed cautiously while continuing to investigate the long-term potential of these vaccinees to produce tumors (92, 104)…(From page 52, 2nd pararaph-)…The protective mechanism of attenuated SIV vaccine is unclear. It is not correlated with antibody or cytotoxic T lymphocytes responses, and mucosal immunity is not involed.”

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 14, 2007 2:10 PM

What are you dribbling on about now, Andrew? No live attenuated HIV vaccine has ever been tested in humans, some doctors from the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care wanted to volunteer for a study but it never happened because of safety concerns.

And why are you obsessively citing a 12 year old report on vaccine trials? There are three ongoing efficacy trials, two involving attenuated adenovirus vector-based constructs that evoke HIV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses in the majority of recipients.

I’ve also been wanting to ask you about that child with cancer you mentioned in one of your posts on Barnesworld; you had some idea for treating him that you couldn’t try? What was that?

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 14, 2007 3:06 PM

Andrew,

You’re neglecting to include your disclaimer on your posts. You already admitted that your mistaken views about HIV assays might simply refelect the fact that you “really don’t understand what is going on.” All your subsequent posts about the assays are based on your inability to interpret the results of the assay–asking for help in determining what the assay results mean.

There seems to be no controversy–we all seem to agree that everything can be explained by remembering that you “really don’t understand what is going on.” Your helplessness in figuring out the meaning of the assay results just continues to reinforce this interpretation.

But please remember to append your disclaimer to your future posts to make sure new readers will understand your position:

“I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
–Andrew Maniotis, July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 14, 2007 4:06 PM

Andy writes SHOULD READ:
IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO MAKING A GODDAMN TEST KIT, WHETHER Never mind, franklin’s right “I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
–Andrew Maniotis, July 6, 2007 pretty much explains your confusion.

Posted by: Dale | July 14, 2007 11:00 PM

Jeffreys,
RE:

“And why are you obsessively citing a 12 year old report on vaccine trials? There are three ongoing efficacy trials, two involving attenuated adenovirus vector-based constructs that evoke HIV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses in the majority of recipients.”

Because at that time 1995 there was claimed to have been (at least) 30 vaccine trials in the Congressional document I cited (closer to 80 if you look at the tables of this document-so there has been sufficient time to analyze these-and to discover there was no activation of T-cells claimed, no humoral immunity documented, no mucosal immunity that was apparent, and no cellular immunity demonstrated, largely because the stimulating antigens are not non-self-from an exogenous “HIV.” And you’ll tell me that “HIV” isn’t immunogenic. Try telling that to the millions of “HIV-positives” that are thought to be infected.

RE:
“I’ve also been wanting to ask you about that child with cancer you mentioned in one of your posts on Barnesworld; you had some idea for treating him that you couldn’t try? What was that?”

Can you be more specific about that Barnesworld post? I don’t remember writing anything about a child with cancer.

Franklin, Dale, (Adele), Duke, and others,

I guess you can’t answer my questions. Somehow, I’m not surprised. As for your stonewalling, dodging the issues, making up diseases, etc., all I can say is that we clearly can see that you are revisiting the tactics of the Spanish Grand Inquisitors, or patriotic commission run by Senator Joe McCarthy, with Ronald Regan at his side, attempting to cleanse America of normal scientific discourse. “Have you now, or ever been, someone who dared ask a question regarding the reality and pathogenesis of “HIV,” and its role in causing the previously known 47 diseases or syndromes now collectively called “AIDS?” And Sir, do you know anyone, especially scientists or physicians, who have asked such a question? Could we please have their names now?”

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 15, 2007 12:50 AM

“Have you now, or ever been, someone who dared ask a question regarding the reality and pathogenesis of “HIV,” and its role in causing the previously known 47 diseases or syndromes now collectively called “AIDS?” And Sir, do you know anyone, especially scientists or physicians, who have asked such a question? Could we please have their names now?”

Well as I understand it, Harvey Bialy and Peter Duesberg have asked such questions. Sadly, like yourself, they apparently don’t seem to understand the answers.

Posted by: Dale | July 15, 2007 1:07 AM

Andrew,

You said: “Franklin, Dale, (Adele), Duke, and others, I guess you can’t answer my questions.”

As far as I can tell your question relates to the proper interpretation of specific results on a DAIDS Virological Assay. I already explained that given your education at UC Berkeley, you should be able to figure out the answer all by yourself. Try reading the supporting bibliography in the DAIDS Manual, and if that doesn’t work–set the assay up yourself.

You like to pretend that your education gives you credibility that apparently you lack. You state that the use of unifected cells in this assay is “irrational to (your) way of thinking,” yet the use of unifected cells is ESSENTIAL to the assay.

By the way, you still haven’t explained how you came to “quote” Stramer et al. (2004) as saying they had studied “non-risk donors”. Nor have you explained the meaning of the term you made up–”non-risk donors”–and falsely attributed to Stramer.

So far, I’ve only been able to confirm the truth of one statement you have made:

“I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
–Andrew Maniotis, July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 15, 2007 1:46 AM

Andrew Maniotis wrote:

Because at that time 1995 there was claimed to have been (at least) 30 vaccine trials in the Congressional document I cited (closer to 80 if you look at the tables of this document-so there has been sufficient time to analyze these-and to discover there was no activation of T-cells claimed, no humoral immunity documented, no mucosal immunity that was apparent, and no cellular immunity demonstrated, largely because the stimulating antigens are not non-self-from an exogenous “HIV.” And you’ll tell me that “HIV” isn’t immunogenic. Try telling that to the millions of “HIV-positives” that are thought to be infected.

No, I won’t tell you HIV isn’t immunogenic because it’s plenty immunogenic. The antigens used in these vaccines are from exogenous HIV, unless you’re seriously attempting to suggest that the HIV genes inserted in a vector such as ALVAC have a match in the human genome.

For immunogenicity data from HIV vaccine trials, you should look in PubMed. Even the gp120 subunit HIV vaccines activated CD4 T cells and generated CD4 T cell and B cell memory and gp120-specific antibodies. ALVAC induces HIV-specific memory CD8 T cell responses in ~20% of recipients, ALVAC was also in studies by 1995. Mucosal HIV-specific memory CD8 T cell responses have also been documented in some ALVAC recipients. Since 1995, newer vaccine vectors have been designed that are much better at inducing HIV-specific memory CD4 and CD8 T cells, they do so in the majority of recipients (the problem with reliably inducing CD8 T cells did not relate to HIV’s immunogenicity, it related to efficiently accessing the class I antigen processing pathway with non-replicating vectors). The two vaccines that are currently in efficacy trials are Merck’s Ad5 vector which encodes the Gag, Pol and Nef proteins from HIV-1 and the Vaccine Research Center’s DNA prime/Ad5 boost which encodes Gag, Pol, Nef and three Env proteins from clades A, B & C.

Can you be more specific about that Barnesworld post? I don’t remember writing anything about a child with cancer.

David Steele deleted it very quickly so I guess it’s lost to posterity.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 15, 2007 5:38 PM

Maniotis wrote,

I guess you can’t answer my questions. Somehow, I’m not surprised. As for your stonewalling, dodging the issues, making up diseases, etc.

Andrew “answers” questions by questioning if things exist. Like my stocks of virus at minus 80 degrees that I sequenced after I made them are supposed to mutate all by themselves in the freezer before I use them. Or maybe revert to wild type in a single round of replication. That’s how he “answers” my RT results. And by the way they’re not like big results they’re just standard things you use to test new cells you get in or validate stuff.

When he’s so far out there how do you answer someone like that.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 10:42 AM

“Like my stocks of virus at minus 80 degrees that I sequenced after I made them are supposed to mutate all by themselves in the freezer before I use them. Or maybe revert to wild type in a single round of replication. That’s how he “answers” my RT results. And by the way they’re not like big results they’re just standard things you use to test new cells you get in or validate stuff.”

Adele, are you some sort of budding young scientist? Do these comments have something to do with life on Mars? What in heaven’s name are they supposed to mean?

Posted by: Shawn Hannity | July 16, 2007 1:03 PM

Gosh Richard, do all of your precious victims really need their CD4 cells activated?

Posted by: Fritz the Cat | July 16, 2007 1:06 PM

And here we have a serious contributor named “Franklin” who doesn’t know what a “non-risk donor” means.

Of course, it logically follows that risk assessment must be something that Dr Maniotis has made up.

Posted by: Phineas T | July 16, 2007 1:16 PM

“…they apparently don’t seem to understand the answers.”

Dale, a more appropriate statement defining “HIV” researchers could not be made.

Posted by: Manual Virus | July 16, 2007 1:22 PM

Oh Adele, such little faith you have that you have to impute such existential positions to Maniotis and Semon.

Of course deadly HIV exists.

Posted by: Meme Machine | July 16, 2007 1:39 PM

More numbers for everyone.

Cooler said

Dont listen to adele. I highly question her claims that she has a masters in biology and works in a lab, what kind of lab lets you sit on the internet all day and make posts?

Between when cooler wrote that and this comment
Me, 330 words
Andrew Maniotis, 3,326 words

I think you find similar result with other times. So does Cooler question Maniotis is a professor? Don’t professors have alot more time issues than techs?

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 2:13 PM

Too bad the Moore Bergman propaganda film

http://health.scribemedia.org/2007/06/22/fighting-aids-denialism/

didn’t show the 3 fold variable size differences reported by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University team showed, when they claimed that (BBC News Tuesday, 24 January 2006, 14:04 -”3D structure of HIV is ‘revealed’”):

“Scientists have created a map showing the 3D structure of the virus which causes Aids.

The variable size and shape of HIV has made it hard to map, the team said in the journal Structure.

So the UK-German team took hundreds of images of viruses, that are 60 times smaller than red blood cells, and used a computer program to combine them.

Oxford University’s Professor Stephen Fuller said the 3D map would assist in understanding how the virus grows.

Unusual features

He told the BBC: “You say can you show me the structure of the HIV virus and the question is which one.

[YES THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION BY THE OXFORD SCIENTIST-WHICH ONE INDEED??????]

“HIV is very variable. It varied in diameter by a factor of three.” [MAYBE SOME "HIV" VIRIONS ARE HAPLOID, DIPLOID, AND TRIPLOID?????] HA HA HA HA HA-THAT’S A JOKE].

The way the research team, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University, dealt with this was by taking multiple images at different tilts.

[THE APPARATUS WAS TILTED, NOT THE RESEARCHERS]!

Working with colleagues in Heidelberg and Munich, they took about 100 images of 70 individual HIV viruses and then looked at similarities.

Despite the variability, the team found some consistent features.

T-Cells

This included the finding that the core of virus – which is cone-shaped – spans the width of the viral membrane.”

But there are spikes on the outside which bind to human immune cells, called T cells, and allow the virus to invade them.

[NOT JUST ANY T-CELLS-CD4+ T-CELLS. DAVID HO AND OTHERS HAVE SHOWN IN SCIENCE, FOR INSTANCE, THAT CD4+ T-CELLS ARE THE ONLY RESIDENT POPULATION IN THE GUT'S LYMPH PATCHES SHOWN OF COURSE TO BE "WIPED CLEAN" (BECAUSE OF "HIV'S INCREDIBLY NARROW CD4+ CELL TROPISM) VERY SOON AFTER INFECTION, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, THE VIRUS IS LYING DORMANT AS A PROVIRUS IN 1: 10,000 T-CELLS ELSEWHERE SOMEWHERE ELSE. WE NOW KNOW THAT AIDS CAN BE A DISEASE OF BOTH TOO FEW absolute AND TOO MANY absolute LYMPHOCYTES, AS IN THE CASE OF ELIZA JANE. BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT HIV IS VERY SPECIFICALLY TARGETING ONLY THE CD4'S, DESPITE WHAT DENIALISTS SAY REGARDING NO CORRELATION BETWEEN VIRAL LOAD AND T-CELL NUMBERS].

The significance of this is that whereas most viruses have internal structures which define the size, in the HIV virus it is the membrane which defines the size.”

[FUNNY HOW TMV AND OTHER VIRUSES THAT HAVE BEEN SHOWN CAPABLE OF SELF-ASSEMEBLY FROM ISOLATED AND SEPARATED CONSTITUTENTS IN VITRO ALL HAVE THE SAME SIZE AND SHAPE BECAUSE THE CONSTITUENT MOLECULES HAVE STRUCTURAL CONSTAINSTS THAT DEFINE THE CURVATURE, GYRE, SIZE, AND OVERALL SHAPE OF A VIRUS, AS THEY DO A MICROTUBULE-I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE SOMETING SPECIAL REGARDING THIS FEATURE WITH HIV! SEEMS LIKE IT BREAKS ALL THE RULES. EVOKES ANTIBODIES BUT A VACCINE CAN'T BE GENERATED AGAINST ITS CONSTITUENT COMPONENTS, KILLS WHILE AT LEVELS OF 1:1000-10,000 T-CELLS WHILE WIPING THE GUT "CLEAN" IN A FEW MONTHS, ETC].

YET WITH CELLS, SUBCELLULAR ASSEMBLAGES, ETC, ISN’T IT TRUE THAT MEMBRANES DON’T DEFINE OR DICTATE STRUCURE OR MORPHOLOGY-BUT IT IS THE PROTEIN SCAFFOLDS AND NUCLEIC ACIDS AND OTHER MOIETIES (LIKE POLYAMINES) THAT DON’T BEHAVE ACCORDING TO A FLUID MOZAIC CONSTRAINT MODEL, WHICH IS WHY YOU CAN LIGHTLY TREAT CELLS OR VIRUSES WITH NON-IONIC DETERGENTS AND PRESERVE MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE PRECISESLY? MAYBE “HIV” EVOLVED DIRECTLY FROM THE FIRST MICELLES FORMED OF HYDROCARBON MOLECULES IN THE PRIMORDIAL OOZE. IF THIS IS THE CASE, WHY DID IT SUDDENLY SHOW UP IN 1981(1959? 1971 IN ST. LOUIS?]. MAYBE IT IS A PROPHECY LIKE THOSE OF NOSTRADOMUS (SP) TO DELIVER GOD’S REVENGE FOR THOSE WHO FORNICATE!!! SOMEBODY NAMED NOAH SHOULD START BUILDING AN ARC]!

This could inform the development of more effective therapeutic approaches Professor Stephen Fuller Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.

This puts constraints on the way it can assemble, the team said.

RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT-OH-OLD CHAP!

Professor Fuller said: “Identifying how the virus grows will allow us to address the formation of this important pathogen and how it accommodates its variability.”

“This could inform the development of more effective therapeutic approaches,” he added.”

[IT CERTAINLY COULD]!

“But Professor Fuller, who continues to work on HIV, acknowledges that a new HIV vaccine or treatment resulting from his research was a long way off.”

[WAY WAY OFF!!! T'WOULD SEEM THEY NEED TO FIRST ISOLATE IT AND SHOW, AS A CONTROLLED INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, THAT IT HAS A CONSISTENT MORPHOLOGY, HAS SOME PATHOGENIC EFFECTS ON CELLS IN CULTURE, OR EVEN IN AN ANIMAL MODEL].”

But he says the research could provide an insight into the way to prevent the virus from assembling.

[ANTIBODIES AND ENDOGENOUS GAMMAGLOBULINS FOUND IN HEALTHY INDIVUALS NUTRALIZE "IT," ACCORDING TO SOME AIDS DENIALISTS I COULD QUOTE.]

Treatments?

Like any virus, HIV is not a cell but rather strands of genetic code wrapped in protein.

[RIGHT! "HIV" ISN'T A CELL AT ALL, BUT CONTAINS ACTIN AND OTHER CYTOSKELETAL PROTEINS ACCORDING TO BESS ET AL.].

The virus invades living cells and take them over by usurping the cell’s genetic code with its own.”

[USURP IS PROBABLY AN UNFORTUNATE WORD CHOICE-RETROVIRUSES INTEGRATE THEIR GENOMES AND, LIKE GAJDUSEK'S PRIONS, REMAIN SILENT FOR YEARS WHILE THEY DISTROY THE GUT LYMPH NODES AT THE SAME MOMENT].

Roger Pebody, treatment specialist at HIV/Aids charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “Revealing the 3D structure of HIV may not sound very exciting but it’s actually really useful [PROFITABLE], giving us more information about the virus and how it grows.

[HE OUGHT TO WRITE TO ADELE, SHE SAYS SHE CAN GROW "HIV" IN NON-PHA-STIMULATED PRIMARY T-CELL CULTURES (ADELE-ARE ALL THESE CD4+ OR ARE THESE MIXED LYMPHOCYTE/MONOCYTE/MACROPHAGE POPULATIONS?) WITHOUT STIMULATING THE HELL OUT OF THEM AND OXIDIZING THE CELLS TO CREATE TOXIC EFFECTS WITH PHA DEPENNDING ON "THE MATURITY" OF THE CELLS OF COURSE-ACCORDING TO LAURENT-CRAWFORD ET AL.,]! HOURAY ADELE!

“The more we understand about HIV, the more likely we are to be able to develop effective treatments and hopefully one day a cure.”

[SOMEBODY OUGHT TO WRITE THE BBC AND TELL THEM ABOUT THE LIFE-SAVING MEDS, SO THEY WON'T EDGE INTO AIDS DENIALISM AND SAY THINGS LIKE:"develop effective treatments and hopefully one day a cure."

Also, somebody ought to tell Dr. Moore and Bergman to show "HIV" particles on their 20 minute propaganda piece that are also 3 different sizes instead of particles all the same size. At least the AIDS establishment ought to clean up their data a bit. They also might want to provide a picture on this propaganda movie that shows at least 1 particle with a "wedge-shaped core."

Someone might also want to tell that cunning legal mind, Bergman, in addition, that treating pregnant women with therapies that might be "effective" and "hopefully one day will cure" might not work so well when the retrovirus has intercalated its genome in a cell passed from mother to infant during labor, no matter how many grams of AZT or nevirapine she wants to give them, or regardless of whether or not 47% of the women will develop mutant viruses after one dose of nevirapine (Lockman et al.,). What might happen instead, is that these drugs may suppress normal immune functioning, cause diarrhea, vomiting, bone marrow suppression, liver failure, or perhaps just suppress the normal immune system functioning, including those cells that may be responsible for generating high RT readings, or p24 levels that exceed 30 pg/ml, or other so-called specific retroviral signatures. Maybe Bergman should advocate full-body radiation to kill any "HIV-harboring T-cells, plus of course, AZT, Nevirapine, 3Tc, ddI, sequinavir, mycoplasma removal agent, and perhaps for good measure, prophalactic bactrim for at least 28 days, and a good dose of amoxicillin to ward off any potential microbial "flair-up" these AIDS-infested women may harbor during pregancy? Certainly, if the mothers don't comply, Bergman ought to have suggested putting g-tubes into them to force them to take these "life-saving meds" so their babies won't grow up to infect low-risk people by accident!

Try to overlook the remarks of Moore and Bergman regarding denialists all being heterosexual racists and homophobes motivated by deep resentments toward these minority groups. Its not true. Lee Evens is no racist, nor is President Mbeki, and they have their opinions, as does Sam Mlongo, and others.

Peace
Jimi

Posted by: Jimi Hendrix | July 16, 2007 2:52 PM

It is certainly entertaining, at the very least, to review the insults and piling on directed at Andrew Maniotis that carefully avoid his substantive points. Included are such wonderful irrelevancies as hundreds of ways to distinguish reverse transcriptases, of course plural in the case of "HIV-1", since we no longer can ignore Brian Foley's admonitions on the "singular" fallacy. How about distinguishing the kinetics of nucleotide incorporation, say comparing synthetic versus wild-type templates? Could that possibly help us in the search for what's real and what's artifact? Could it even be true - gasp - that RT in terms of reaction-rate governance, has more of a "preference" for the synthetic template (that's a polymer chain of lots and lots of rA's bound to priming oligo dT's) than either of the two famous divalent cations?

But some of us - still capable of wonder - might dig in on what exactly are these reverse transcriptase exosomes - so called microvesicles. Could they have a biological function that have something to do with the cellular proteins that are found in the "purified" fraction? BTW, can any of the resident experts here tell us how many cellular proteins have been documented as parts of RT microvesicles/exosomes? And why, if such a process has been going on since the origin of DNA - you can say one of life's seeds - it should suddenly turn on us? But HIV has different sequences, they plead. And over and over they assert, HIV proteins are unique. So any fool can see this must be proof of pathogenicity. Proof? Or always assumed? At least always in every paper that's tossed at the unwary. And yet, when one scrutinizes for the differences that make a difference - we get nothing but more assumptions and pointless pointing ... look at those T cells or look what we can do in this culture ...

The "DNA-directs" old textbook fallacy: consider the original period when the hypothesis was formed. Introns had just been discovered. Very little was known about transcriptional regulation in eukaryotic cells. It was assumed to be the same as prokaryotes, which turns out to be a highly inaccurate picture. The basic presentation was "wily HIV insidiously inserts itself into the genome and DIRECTS it's own replication from this position". It's now understood that this supposition or habit of thinking that governed in the early 80's mind is no longer appropriate given "epigenetics", novel discoveries in transcriptional regulation, etc.

There are indeed whole sets of questions that never get answered by the fine crew here. So logically, one can default, at least at this point, to a preliminary risk assessment that after hundreds of millions of years of being imbedded in vertebrates, it is highly unlikely that a set of retroviruses came flying out of primate genomes to cause the worst plague in history.

So why not now, in the light of so much new data since Gallo's heyday: this retrospective analysis on retroviruses? (A retro on retros.) Doesn't real progress mean questioning the pharmaceutical companies as they happily invent new diseases to expand markets? Why should any retrospective risk assessment that adds to our understanding of a potential threat to public health be declared out of the bounds of scientific discourse?

Is it the economy that forces us to accept such verdicts of institutionalized science? Are antioxidants and medical marijuana a threat to Big Pharma? Will revisionism increase the peril to our economic health? How many jobs would be lost and what kind of ripple effect through the biotech industry would occur if a moratorium was declared on the HIV research?

Anyway, there's a guy waving at me from a black helicopter ...

Posted by: Bill Collector | July 16, 2007 3:22 PM

Maniosemon or Eugeniotis writes
HE OUGHT TO WRITE TO ADELE, SHE SAYS SHE CAN GROW "HIV" IN NON-PHA-STIMULATED PRIMARY T-CELL CULTURES (ADELE-ARE ALL THESE CD4+ OR ARE THESE MIXED LYMPHOCYTE/MONOCYTE/MACROPHAGE POPULATIONS?)

I didn't say T-cells. HIV infects other cells too. Maybe you can look them up on google and write jokes about them for your split personalities.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 3:23 PM

Some apologist for Maniotis wrote:

And here we have a serious contributor named "Franklin" who doesn't know what a "non-risk donor" means.
Of course, it logically follows that risk assessment must be something that Dr Maniotis has made up.

I see no evidence that Professor Maniotis understands the field of risk assessment, much less that he invented it. I suspect that he made up only the phrase "non-risk donor", since a Medline search returns zero (0) documents containing that phrase--not even the paper he was purportedly "quoting".

On the other hand, Professor Maniotis purports to be a serious scientist, but his claims about HIV/AIDS have repeatedly been shown to be due to invented quotes, quotes taken out of context, or complete misunderstandings of simple clinical or virological methods.

Most of the distortions we have pointed out in his writings have gone undetected for months by the HIV denialist sites on which he usually writes, even though all that is required to detect his lies is to read the papers he cites. It seems that none of the regular contributors to the HIV denialist sites is "serious," since none of them shows any evidence of actually having read the papers cited by Maniotis.

Posted by: franklin | July 16, 2007 4:56 PM

Another Maniotis apologist wtote:

It is certainly entertaining, at the very least, to review the insults and piling on directed at Andrew Maniotis that carefully avoid his substantive points.

Professor Maniotis has made no substantive points. He has only provided distorted or flat-out-false statements about the work of other scientists, as amply documented in his posts.

That the denialists continue to defend the integrity-challenged claims of Maniotis simply illustrates their desperate need to deny reality.

Posted by: franklin | July 16, 2007 5:03 PM

Bill said:

"The basic presentation was "wily HIV insidiously inserts itself into the genome and DIRECTS it's own replication from this position". It's now understood that this supposition or habit of thinking that governed in the early 80's mind is no longer appropriate given "epigenetics", novel discoveries in transcriptional regulation, etc."

Got that everyone?

Epigenetics exists, therefore HIV does not.

Profound...

ly....

stupid.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 16, 2007 5:59 PM

Franklin,

Ok, but "denialists"? I think we've just seen an encore performance of Eugene Semon.

One day.

Ten thousand names.

Zero knowledge of epigenetics OR HIV.

The Eugenedrew Semoniotis show.

Coming soon to a blog near you.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 6:17 PM

Adele said:

I didn't say T-cells. HIV infects other cells too. Maybe you can look them up on google and write jokes about them for your split personalities.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 03:23 PM

Gee Wizz Adele. Do these mysterious non-T cells you use have CCR5 receptors? I know Gallo said something as to the effect that "HIV" can infect endothelial cells, and some macrophages perhaps, but the target has always been the CCR5-bearing T-cells (either young or old-doesn't matter although these lymphocytes behave differently according to Laurent-Crawford et al., with respect to their susceptibility to "HIV" infection and how they exhibit pathogenicity-see the Discussion of that paper-in other words read the whole paper one of these days).

How bout muscle cells. Doesn't "HIV" cause slim disease or wasting? Is it multiplying in their mitochondria? Perhaps "HIV" is replicating in Z-bands to cause wasting. What about neurons or glia-do they also have CCR5 receptors attached to their dendrites or filopodia, and why aren't they "wiped clean soon (moments) after infection" as are the gut's lymphoid tissue as Ho, Desroisiers and other hacks claimed in their "It's the gut stupid Science article" that proposed to revise the incubation period for "HIV" infection.

Shouldn't you tell those affected with "AIDS" that their muscle cells are all actively dividing to promote retrovirus production because retroviruses must integrate their genomes and propagate in ACTIVATED DIVIDING CELLS?

How about anemia? Don't you need to get that "HIV" genome into those enucleated red blood cells or was this an effect of AZT?

How about McDonald et al.s funny claims about dendritic cells, and how "HIV" "hides" in cytoplasmic vesicles until the dendritic cell 'presents" the little bad "HIV" virions to an uninfected cell (without the retrovirus infecting its nucleus-just sort of hangs out for awhile until the dendritic cell decides to infect another T-cell)?

Adele, I can't tell you what your confidence certainty means to me...to all of us. I'm sure whatever cell you can infect without PHA activation (other than cancer cells of course, which are a little different than primary T-cells), you ought to be given an award...something like the Failure of Fear Award for Irreproducible Results perhaps. Keep on lying...

BTW-are your healthy control cells with or without these CCR5 receptors that you claim aren't T-cells producing levels of p24 consistently below 30pg/ml, because if they ain't, you know you should not consider them from a healthy donor source, and throw them in the trash along with everything else you have done.

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 22, 2007 1:52 PM

"Do these mysterious non-T cells you use have CCR5 receptors?"

Aside from T cells, the CCRs that permit HIV entry are found on other cells such as monocyte-macrophage lines. This, FYI, includes microglial cells and dendritic cells.

It is becoming a little tedious constantly correcting the Maniotis view of reality. At least there is some hope that he can learn from previous errors- I note the message has sunk home with him that RBCs are not nucleated.

Posted by: DT | July 22, 2007 2:48 PM

DT,

I learned some time ago that Human RBC's aren't nucleated. My question to you and the others has been to explain how "HIV" infection causes anemia in half of patients, to the extent they are given transfusions (of course ignore the fact that they are on AZT or HAART, whose package inserts state that anemia is present in about half the patients as does the clinical trial literature?

Instead of ignoring my points, simply admit that you don't have a clue and save everybody from having to endure your lies/distortions.

For example, if dendritic cells (which are nucleated), disseminate "HIV" infection, why do the little "HIV" virions "wait" in their cytoplasmic vesicles until the dendritic cell delivers them like the angel of death to unsuspecting T cells elsewhere? Why doesn't "HIV" undergo the same pathway of infection in a dendritic cell thought to be the hallmark of "retroviruses," and first go to the nuclei of the dendritic cells. McDonald et al actually show the little red "vpr-"labeled particles jumping in and out of a nucleus 3 times. Amazing little virus!!!!

Amazing mythology of science being erected by the AIDS establishment.

For shame.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 22, 2007 6:00 PM

Andrew, I find it very ironic you accuse me of lies and distortions, when all I have done is correct your own. You have already demonstrated your capacity for playing fast and loose with the truth several times on this blog (and have even acknowledged it, I recall).

You implied only T-cells had the requisite receptors for HIV entry - I merely disabused you of this idea. In return I get accused of telling lies?

If you want an example of distortions/lies, let's look at your latest post shall we (we could select almost any at radom):

I learned some time ago that Human RBC's aren't nucleated. My question to you and the others has been to explain how "HIV" infection causes anemia in half of patients, to the extent they are given transfusions (of course ignore the fact that they are on AZT or HAART, whose package inserts state that anemia is present in about half the patients as does the clinical trial literature

This claim is revealing. You now admit you "learned some time ago" that RBCs are not nucleated (I believe I recall that previously you had tried linked AZT's toxicity to its action within the cell nucleus). Your knowledge of pathology presumably does not extend to the make up of (nucleated) erythroid precursor cells within the bone marrow, which is where AZT's toxicity takes effect.

I am also intrigued you say AZT causes anemia in "half of patients to the extent they are given transfusions". You say the package inserts and trial literature attest to this.

Well, I recall that transfusion-dependent anemia occurs in between 5-10% of patients on AZT. The only trial literature I can find that comes anywhere close to "half" is the Fischl data where anemia occurred in 39% of those with advanced disease (AIDS) who were also on high dose AZT. Of course, anemia is a common finding in AIDS patients, even without any contribution from AZT. I hope you do not suggest all anemia in AIDS cases is solely the result of AZT?
https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/15/1009

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/8D480CE7-8E2B-4F01-9487-913431A85B86.asp
This presents data from a meta-analysis of 54 long term clinical trials involving 12640 patients with HIV showed that 1.5% to 1.8% of those on AZT in current treatment doses (500-600mg/d) had anemia -In contrast the rates of anemia in those NOT on the drug were 0.6% to 1.1%. No mention of your "50%" anywhere, and that's from 54 clinical studies. Are you reading the "clinical trial literature" from another parallel universe or something? (Don't answer that [It was rhetorical] – I know you are reading from the “Virusmyth” version of reality). The incidence of severe grade 3/4 anemia (the sort that requires transfusions) was only 1% in those on AZT as opposed to 0.3% to 0.6% of those not on the drug.

(You know, the more I find out about this drug, the more I am amazed at how lethal it is!) The only caveat on this study is the fact that the meta-analysis was done by Glaxo Smith Kline. I know this will be enough for you to scream “Conspiracy!”, but it is not original company “data on file” being reported (which I would be suspicious of), but a collation of 54 clinical trials that have already been published in the literature.

So in summary, there is nothing to suggest what you claim. Perhaps you are deliberately lying about the data, or perhaps you have access to some that confirms your claim of 50% transfusion dependent anemia rates. If so I am sure we all would all like to see it.

Posted by: DT | July 22, 2007 7:25 PM

DT, how can a natural nucleoside, i.e. thymidine, modified by an azido group to prevent further nucleotide incorporation into the polymer chain possibly be specific to a reaction never shown to be happening in the first place in AIDS patients: the 70S RNA template-directed incorporation of nucleotides into a “preintegration complex” by reverse transcriptase in the cytoplasm, presumably after cellular entry via the endosome pathway? In other words the presumed efficacy is nonexistent.

But the toxicity considering the obvious non-specificity, is there any way that incorporation of available nucleoside analogues such as AZT in necessary DNA synthesis cannot occur? Do the analogue chain terminators make a detour somehow to avoid substantial impairment of DNA synthesis?

Well … yes, there are reactions with non-DNA molecules. According to Heinrich Kremer, MD: “The reactive azido molecule group is used in the experimental mitochondrion research in order to block the cytochrome oxidase enzyme in the mitochondria respiration chain. The intact mitochondria (former bacterial cell symbionts that appear in all human cells except red blood corpuscles) work with molecular oxygen (02) to produce 90% of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy carrier molecules necessary for human life. The blockade of the respiratory enzyme cytochrome oxidase by AZT prevents conversion of electrons into O2. The immediate result is reduced ATP production and an increased synthesis of toxic oxygen radicals. The cells suffer from loss of energy.” ETC at http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/hkmbeki1.htm

Posted by: Drug Lobby | July 23, 2007 3:28 PM

Is that all you have Mr. Hinkley, a caricature of my position and an insult?

That’s your substantive response?

Posted by: Wewant Chris | July 23, 2007 3:33 PM

And then there’s the absolutely fascinating Franklin who believes a claim has been made that Maniotis invented risk assessment.
And the entertainment – Bill O’Reilly style – continues: “Professor Maniotis has made no substantive points. He has only provided distorted or flat-out-false statements about the work of other scientists, as amply documented in his posts.”
Really, Franklin, it must be so nice to have a blog-home like this where you can just make it up as you go along, right?
We need to take note of this example of uncritical acceptance by your “friends”, who are not doing you a service, and the contrast with critical thinking at “denialist” websites.
And what did the invention of an AIDS virus have to do with cancer risk assessments, especially lymphomas? Any fool can see that Andrew Maniotis has nothing to contribute on this subject.
So those who are not STUPID know that the intelligent course of action is simply never to end the volley of cheap shots. How scientific.

Posted by: Phineas | July 23, 2007 3:56 PM

Gene or whoever you are,
Please don’t abuse Tara’s patience. Another thread just got closed down because of Semon style sockpuppet abuse. I don’t want that do you? Please pick a name and stick to it like the rest of us do.
Thanks.

Posted by: Adele | July 23, 2007 5:14 PM

Gene asked how can a natural nucleoside modified by an azido group possibly be specific to a reaction And then he says In other words the presumed efficacy is nonexistent

Like asking “how can a couple of pins be specific for a lock? In other words its impossible to pick a lock.” Newsflash to IDers it doesn’t have to be designed for something to fit by chance. They found AZT when they screened a few hundred chemicals.

“the 70S RNA template-directed incorporation of nucleotides into a “preintegration complex” by reverse transcriptase in the cytoplasm, presumably after cellular entry via the endosome pathway”

This is funny!

OK, the RT incorporates nucleotides into DNA not the preintegration complex. The DNA’s not the preintegration complex its just inside it. With the RT.

Ok and you can’t get the virus core into the cytoplasm by endosome. If its in a endosome its not in the cytoplasm. You need envelope fusion from outside cell or from in an endosome whatever.

Does this man need a virology textbook because I have an extra one I can send him.

Posted by: Adele | July 23, 2007 6:05 PM

Is Adele, the lovable one-gal lab crew, the one for you?

She makes, sequences and grows her own stocks of non-T cell, non-stimulated non-cancerous cell line HIV all by herself. She keeps them at an undisclosed location, which isn’t in Australia, at minus 80 degrees until use. She enjoys watching children get injected with thimerosol, but disapproves of Kevin inflicting PCP on himself by overdosing on doctor’s advice. In her spare time she feeds the monkeys until they all come down with AIDS brought on by injections administered by Adele, the one-gal lab crew, herself with her non-T cell, non-stimulated non-cancerous cell line HIV, grown at home in an undisclosed location which isn’t in Australia.

NB. The last bit of information was repeated to prevent any speculation in Murchian origins for either Adele or her HIV.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | July 23, 2007 7:24 PM

Epidemigene Simonelisa that’s really very funny. Isn’t it “murchasonian” though not “murchian”? Another question can you get through a comment without saying Murchason ERVs epigenetics or Bill OReilly?

Again please stick to one name. WEll you killed the thread already so who cares?

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 10:29 AM

Dear dear Adele, how can you be so confused over the point on AZT specificity? You see that post as an argument for Intelligent Design? You compare polymerization chemical reactions to locks and keys?

Of course the azido group on the thymidine is a human design with the purpose of terminating the DNA chain, stopping the reverse transcription process cold, so to speak, that is destined in theory to become the “preintegration complex”.

If you can explain to me why the AZT won’t terminate any DNA polymerization reaction it encounters, I’m all ears.

Posted by: Drug Lobby | July 24, 2007 11:57 AM

Simple misunderstanding about AZT gene and I might even explain it if you stop using sockpuppets.

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 12:12 PM

For DT:

Glad to see you are familiar with the fraudulent 1987 trial of Fischl et al. Did you read John Lauretson’s book and see how the FDA data on the trial is blacked out when he obtained it from the freedom of information act and posted it in the end of his book? There is no way of knowing exactly how many patients received transfusions during this trial (but it was at least about half as you agreed)because it is clear that some of the patients were swapped between the AZT group and control group at the last minute, to further scew the results from the miserable and unblinded 4 month long results they already had (before the decided to keep the fudged Boston arm of the study). When I think of AZT, I think of this study, as you did.

Therefore, there is progress here, so I am going to drop my defensive tone and resume in this blog a sincere attitude I started with, if that’s ok with you all.

My stance has been all along, but perhaps not obvious because of the criticisms I have made, that I realize doctors and pharmaceutical companies aren’t trying to hurt but to help. I work at a medical school. I know that. The denialists, by and large, are trying to improve things through criticism, and my posts have been no exception. I have honestly learned from this blog, as I have over the years-e.g. I used to think AZT was 100% fatal until I began meeting people who were taking the stuff for 10 years or even 12 years and were not dead although they had a plethora of side effects (often debilitating) that could all be found on the package insert. That these patients taking AZT should even be alive 10 years after AZT violates biochemistry, and all I thought I knew about the biochemistry of DNA-chain termination in living cells and especially cancer cells (but humans aren’t living cells they are organisms and group connected organisms at that, as are all primates at some point during their life cycle. These and other realizations prompted me to rethink my entire cancer therapeutics program (yes, reading the AIDS literature is relevant to cancer research) and rethink how we approach toxic cancer chemo with FuDR and other DNA disruptive agents, and I begin to understand the principles I posted before on this blog that were only to be ridiculed by those of you who KNOW what cancer and AIDS really is all about. Instead of a reductionist explanation, I began seeing that there are two great medical traditions in Western Medicine that are governed by “a law of similars” strategy (vaccination-where a like substance is presented to the organism at a low dose or in attenuated form with the hope of repeating Pasteur’s Poully-Fort demonstration with anthrax, that something in the organism will recognize an imbalance created by the like substance or attenuated antigen, and be able to restore the balance, naturally (eg. Coley’s toxins, modern cancer immunotherapies, vaccines, etc.). By contrast the “law of contraries strategy” that exists in Western Medicine a la Virchow, Erhlich, and Koch, and the German dye industry (and which dominates the reductionist approach), where a molecule binds to a side chain (like a dye binds to a fabric fiber) specifically and “kills” the thing ( I gave examples before you can see-penicillin is the prime example).

AZT’s toxicity profile does not make sense according to a “principle of contraries” or reductionism because of the mitochondrial toxicity and the ability it must not have to distinguish host cell DNA from any other (which is why it probably acts as an antibiotic in many AIDS patients and why it reduces “viral load” signals because it suppresses all kinds of bone marrow, immune cells, B cells, etc., that generate these spurious signals (EG p24, non-specific RNA signals, HERV’s, etc.).

By virtue of the law of similars, AZT makes sense. As an immunotoxin, it does what the homeopathic law of similars describes precisely: it boosts immune cell production shortly after the first doses (at low doses) for some time, but at high doses it kills the cells outright. So here I formally propose to you that AZT is a homeopathic remedy that stimulates T-cells precisely because it is so immunotoxic because these cells require DNA synthesis so much-so in effect it is like giving a perpetual vaccine every morning on your cornflakes, as Dr. Moore is fond of saying.

Then I remember reading, I god help me get the goddamn quotes right (you ought to check because I have made all corrections in a book I am writing that you all have suggested-as well as distortions of information that have crept in over the years):

McKinney et al., in an article entitled, “A multicenter trial of oral zidovudine in children with advanced human immunodeficiency virus disease” (NEJM. 1991 Apr 11;324(15):1018-25) reported that:

“Children treated with zidovudine continued to have bacterial and opportunistic infections. The effect of the drug on the frequency of these events could not be assessed because of the lack of control groups…One or more episodes of hematologic toxicity occurred in 54 children (61 percent)anemia (hemoglobin level,

Dalakas in “Mitochondrial toxicity of antiviral drugs” (Nat Med. 1995 May;1(5):417-22) claimed that:

“Clinical manifestations of ANA [Antiviral Nucleoside Analogs, such as AZT] toxicity: It is self-evident that ANAs, like all drugs, have side-effects. However, the prevalent and at times serious ANA mitochondrial toxic side-effects are particularly broad ranging with respect to their tissue target and mechanisms of toxicity: … Haematalogical toxicity [anemia, and other blood disorders] … Myopathy [muscle disorders] … Cardiotoxicity [heart disorders] … Hepatic toxicity [liver disorders] … Peripheral neuropathy [nerve damage]?”

When Fischl et. al repeated their human experimentation in 1990:

Fischl et al., in “A randomized controlled trial of a reduced daily dose of Zidovudine in patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome” (NEJM. 1990;323(15):1009-14) reported that:

“178 subjects (34%) had a hemoglobin concentration below 5 mmol per liter [anemia]…A greater proportion of subjects in the standard-treatment [high dose AZT] group had a first episode of severe anemia earlier in the study, as compared with the proportion in the low-dose group. 134 subjects (26%) received red-cell transfusions (65 in the standard-treatment group and 69 in the low-dose group)…230 subjects (44%) had a [low] neutrophil [infection fighting white blood cells] count…134 (51%) in the standard-treatment group and 96 (37%) in the low-dose group…22 subjects (4%) had a [low] platelet [blood clotting cells] count?”

Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine states: “[AZT], used for treating [HIV], often causes severe megaloblastic anemia caused by impaired DNA synthesis?”

AZT alone has some of the following warnings on its package insert printed in bold and CAPITALIZED type:

“WARNING: RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE, AZT) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA PARTICULARLY IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED HIV DISEASE.”

“PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS. RARE OCCURRENCES OF LACTIC ACIDOSIS IN THE ABSENCE OF HYPOXEMIA, AND SEVERE HEPATOMEGALY WITH STEATOSIS HAVE BEEN REPORTED WITH THE USE OF ANTIRETROVIRAL NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES, INCLUDING RETROVIR AND ZALCITABINE, AND ARE POTENTIALLY FATAL.”

Other side effects of AZT that have been listed on the AZT package insert also include:

“Persistent headaches lasting longer than 1 month, anemia, dementia, diarrhea, muscle wasting, candidiasis, non-specific oral lesions, severe fatigue, enlarged liver and liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, unmasking of opportunistic infections including CMV retinitis, spontaneous bleeding in hemophiliacs, lymphoma, severe skin rashes, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and other toxic reactions, back pain, body odor, chest pain, chills, edema of the lip, fever, flu syndrome, hyperalgesia, syncope, vasodilation, bleeding gums, constipation, dysphagia, edema of the tongue, eructation, flatulence, mouth ulcer, rectal hemorrhage, lymphadenopathy, arthralgia, muscle spasm, tremor, twitch, anxiety, confusion, depression, dizziness, emotional lability, loss of mental acuity, nervousness, paresthesia, somnolence, cough, dyspnea, epistaxis, hoarseness, pharyngitis, rhinitis, sinusitis, acne, changes in skin and nail pigmentation, pruritus, rash, sweat, urticaria, amblyopia, hearing loss, photophobia, taste perversion, dysuria, polyuria, urinary frequency, urinary hesitancy.”

There also have been numerous mutagenesis studies regarding AZT and drugs with similar mechanisms of action that have been published. For example, among infants of mothers given AZT “to prevent the vertical transmission of “HIV”‘, the peer-reviewed literature has reported physical deformities result including:

“misshapen heads, triangular faces, misplaced ears, extra fingers, albinism, cavities in the chest, webbed fingers, spontaneous abortion, and “congenital” birth defects of the heart, chromosomal damage and various cancers. ”

Other important warnings on the package insert of AZT carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, and impairment of fertility include:

“Zidovudine was administered orally at three dosage levels to separate groups of mice and rats (60 females and 60 males in each group). Initial single daily doses were 30, 60, and 120 mg/kg/day in mice and 80, 220, and 600 mg/kg/day in rats. The doses in mice were reduced to 20, 30, and 40 mg/kg/day after day 90 because of treatment-related anemia, whereas in rats only the high dose was reduced to 450 mg/kg/day on day 91 and then to 300 mg/kg/day on day 279.”

“In mice, seven late-appearing (after 19 months) vaginal neoplasms (5 nonmetastasizing squamous cell carcinomas, one squamous cell papilloma, and one squamous polyp) occurred in animals given the highest dose. One late-appearing squamous cell papilloma occurred in the vagina of a middle dose animal. No vaginal tumors were found at the lowest dose.”

“In rats, two late-appearing (after 20 months), non-metastasizing vaginal squamous cell carcinomas occurred in animals given the highest dose. No vaginal tumors occurred at the low or middle dose in rats. No other drug-related tumors were observed in either sex of either species.”

“It is not known how predictive the results of rodent carcinogenicity studies may be for humans. At doses that produced tumors in mice and rats, the estimated drug exposure (as measured by AUC) was approximately 3 times (mouse) and 24 times (rat) the estimated human exposure at the recommended therapeutic dose of 100 mg every 4 hours.”

” In the presence of metabolic activation, the drug was weakly mutagenic at concentrations of 1000 µg/ml and higher. In an in vitro mammalian cell transformation assay, zidovudine (AZT) was positive at concentrations of 0.5 µg/ml and higher. In an in vitro cytogenetic study performed in cultured human lymphocytes, zidovudine induced dose-related structural chromosomal abnormalities at concentrations of 3 µg/ml and higher.”

“In two in vivo micronucleus studies (designed to measure chromosome breakage or mitotic spindle apparatus damage) in male mice, oral doses of zidovudine 100 to 1000 mg/kg/day administered once daily for approximately 4 weeks induced dose-related increases in micronucleated erythrocytes. Similar results were also seen after 4 or 7 days of dosing at 500 mg/kg/day in rats and mice.”

Human chromosome breakage results are reported on the package insert also:

“In a study involving 11 AIDS patients, it was reported that the seven patients who were receiving Retrovir (1200 mg/day) as their only medication for 4 weeks to 7 months showed a chromosome breakage frequency of 8.29±2.65 breaks per 100 peripheral lymphocytes. This was significantly (P

A skull and cross bones warning appears on the Sigma Catalogue purchasing information for AZT: Rather than muscular men climbing a mountain, the following warning is advanced:

Toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organ: Blood Bone Marrow. If you feel unwell, seek medical advice (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing.

So, all in all, AZT is good stuff to give a pregnant woman? No I don’t think so.
A developing fetus. Perhaps not.
The devil’s in the dosage. Perhaps. But the data suggests no specificity for AZT and any so-called retroviral reverse transcriptase, but does suggest a homeopathic law of similars is at work (with lower doses of AZT) which stimulates production of the very cells it eventually will kill. The fact that people take it continuously and for years violates every principle we know about cancer chemo, other than a law of similars as I have stated.

It is really good to be sure, therefore, if someone really has 30pg/ml p24 or 29 pg/ml of p24 before doing drug experiments with drugs like these. Especially with children I would think.

Ok-now sling your insults.

Cheers,

andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 24, 2007 1:38 PM

Not for the faint of HAART!

In Botswana, Step to Cut AIDS Proves a Formula for Disaster

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR2007072201204_4.html?hpid=topnews

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 23, 2007; Page A01

NKANGE, Botswana — Doctors noticed two troubling things about the limp, sunken-eyed children who flooded pediatric wards across Botswana during the rainy season in early 2006: They were dying from diarrhea, a malady that is rarely fatal here. And few of their mothers were breast-feeding, a practice once all but universal.

After the outbreak was over and at least 532 children had died — 20 times the usual toll for diarrhea — a team of U.S. investigators solved the terrible riddle.

A decade-long, global push to provide infant formula to mothers with the AIDS virus had backfired in Botswana, leaving children more vulnerable to other, more immediately lethal diseases, the U.S. team found after investigating the outbreak at the request of Botswana’s government.

The findings joined a growing body of research suggesting that supplying formula to mothers with HIV — an effort led by global health groups such as UNICEF — has cost at least as many lives as it has saved. The nutrition and antibodies that breast milk provide are so crucial to young children that they outweigh the small risk of transmitting HIV, which researchers calculate at about 1 percent per month of breast-feeding.

“Everyone who has tried formula feeding . . . found that those who formula feed for the first six months really have problems,” Hoosen Coovadia, a University of KwaZulu-Natal pediatrician and author of a recent study on formula feeding, said from Durban, South Africa. “They get diarrhea. They get pneumonia. They get malnutrition. And they die.”

That’s what happened in Nkange, a tiny village on the sandy northern edge of the Kalahari Desert. In a cluster of several dozen homes here, eight children under 2 died during the four-month-long diarrhea outbreak, according to interviews with families. Only two had ever been breast-fed, and only one was being breast-fed at the time of the outbreak.

Chandapiwa Mavundu, 28, a mother of three who has HIV, said she never breast-fed her son, Kabelo, because government nurses warned her not to.

When he died at 8 months, after two months of withering diarrhea and vomiting, she could not muster the strength for the long walk to the graveyard. Instead, Mavundu stayed behind, she said, weeping amid the thatch-roofed huts and the dust and the goats as a hastily assembled parade of relatives carried her son’s shrunken body away in a tiny, cream-colored coffin.

“That was the only boy child I had,” said Mavundu, who has sad, wide-set eyes and long braids that dangle past her shoulders. “I loved him very much.”

The medical records kept by Mavundu and other families here echoed the finding of the U.S. investigators: Government clinics often ran out of cans of formula, forcing parents and grandparents to buy cow’s milk or feed their children with diluted porridge or even flour and water.

Many of the babies had recurrent sicknesses and registered steep drops in their growth patterns during their final months. When the diarrhea struck, it was severe, prolonged and difficult for even doctors to cure. One child survived diarrhea only to die soon after from pneumonia, another disease that breast-feeding helps prevent.

“Since I was a girl, I can’t remember a time when we lost so many kids,” said Ntselang Swimbo, 66, whose 9-month-old grandson died during the outbreak. “Once a kid got diarrhea, you knew the chance of surviving was almost zero.”

The vast diamond reserves in this landlocked southern African nation have allowed Botswana’s government to build a safety net unmatched on the continent, offering its 1.8 million citizens cradle-to-grave support for education and health care. And though it has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV, with one in four adults infected, it has some of Africa’s most celebrated programs to combat AIDS, including effective measures to prevent mothers from infecting their children during pregnancy and birth.

The country was also a pioneer in the international drive to protect babies at risk of becoming infected through breast-feeding. In 1997, the United Nations began urging new mothers with HIV to use formula wherever supplies could be provided safely and reliably. Botswana, with an extensive public water system, good roads and a legacy of competent governance, joined the UNICEF-led effort and agreed to pay for the program as a standard service to new mothers.

Chandapiwa Mavundu’s 8-month-old son died during a diarrhea outbreak in Botswana last year that a U.S. team has linked to the use of infant formula.

There were skeptics. Some international public health experts, including Coovadia, cautioned that few Africans had the means to prepare formula in a sanitary manner — a process that requires access to clean water, utensils, formula powder and heat for sterilization.

And even for those who could make formula safely, some experts warned, breast-feeding’s other health benefits could not easily be replaced. A study by Coovadia and other South African researchers published in the medical journal Lancet in August 1999 found that breast milk alone, when not mixed with other foods, was no more likely to infect children than formula.

But Botswana’s health officials were determined to begin the programs. In a recent interview, Health Minister Sheila D. Tlou angrily recalled a conference of international policymakers in Montreal a month after the Lancet article appeared. Some favored urging mothers with HIV in rich countries to use formula while telling those in poorer, less-developed ones to breast-feed.

“We saw red!” Tlou said. She recalled asking other participants in the meeting: “Why are you sentencing all of our children to death? And why are you sentencing all of us to psychological damage in knowing that we were the ones who infected them?”

The program started slowly because few women were willing to be tested for a virus that at the time was a death sentence. But as Botswana expanded the availability of antiretroviral drugs, which can dramatically extend and improve lives, HIV testing gradually became routine for pregnant women.

Those with the virus received a series of antiretroviral pills in the final weeks of their pregnancies, and their newborn children received a dose of syrup laced with another powerful anti-AIDS drug in their first hours of life.

The rate of HIV among babies born to mothers with the virus fell from 40 percent in 2002 to 6 percent. Demand for the free government formula soared.

Among the beneficiaries was Mavundu. She didn’t have reliably sterile utensils or a stove, as U.N. agencies envisioned in their policy statements. But she did have access to firewood for cooking. And the seemingly clean water that flowed from a communal tap was just an eight-minute walk from her compound, consisting of round, dirt-floor huts and a fenced yard that she shared with her family and its livestock, including packs of voracious chickens.

Unusually for rural Africa, there was also a government clinic nearby and, she was told, a reliable supply of Nan, a popular formula marketed by the international food group Nestlé, to keep her playful, chubby-cheeked son strong and healthy.

But it was a promise, Mavundu soon discovered, that the government was unable to keep.

“Sometimes it was there,” she recalled. “Sometimes it was not there.”

A Shifting Consensus

The government later blamed hitches in its contracting system for the formula shortages. But supply was not the only problem uncovered by the investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which announced its findings at a scientific conference in Los Angeles in February.

Testing of government water pipes in 26 villages in northeastern Botswana found contamination in every one, apparently caused by flooding during the heavy rainy season. Tests of the stools of sick babies also found dangerous waterborne pathogens such as cryptosporidium and an especially virulent strain of E. coli.

Investigators determined that it was mainly the babies who were not breast-fed who got sick from the dirty water. Among a group of infants at one hospital, those admitted for diarrhea were 50 times more likely to be fed formula or cow’s milk than those admitted for other ailments. Cow’s milk is more difficult for babies to digest and lacks the antibodies found in breast milk.

In one village the team visited, 30 percent of the formula-fed babies had died; none of those being breast-fed had.

The report also reflected the shifting scientific consensus on breast-feeding. In the years since Botswana began its formula-feeding program, studies have increasingly shown that the risk of HIV transmission comes mainly from the combination of breast milk and other foods, such as formula and solids, that damage the lining of a baby’s intestines, inviting infection.

In one study in Botswana, breast-fed babies contracted HIV at a slightly higher rate than those fed with formula, but formula-fed babies were more likely to die. By the time the children in the study reached 18 months, similar numbers from both groups were alive and free of HIV.

Putting a mother on an effective combination of antiretroviral drugs, which are widely available in Botswana and some other African nations, also dramatically cuts the risk of transmission through breast-feeding — likely to less than 2 percent, Coovadia said.

“You can protect kids, and you can give them the benefits of breast-feeding,” he said.

UNICEF, after distributing 365,000 packs of formula in eight African countries — and providing training and technical assistance to the program in Botswana — began phasing out its infant-feeding programs in 2002.

UNICEF officials also participated in an October 2006 conference that issued new guidelines reemphasizing the importance of breast-feeding and warning that formula can be dangerous in all but the most developed, reliably sanitary settings.

“There are very few places where those conditions exist,” Alan Court, director of programs for UNICEF, said in an interview from New York.

Health officials in Botswana remained unconvinced. Tlou, the health minister, said the outbreak was a one-time occurrence that should not, by itself, dictate a new policy. Officials instead are focusing on making formula feeding safer by encouraging women to boil water and feed their babies using cups, which are easier to clean than bottles.

She also said the ministry will monitor emerging studies to determine if a change is warranted. “We are amenable to research, especially our own research,” she said.

The debate, which has consumed global public health officials for years, has not reached the grieving mothers of Nkange village. None expressed any suspicions about water contamination or about the dangers of feeding formula rather than breast milk to babies.

“It was just an outbreak,” Swimbo said.

Mavundu, who is pregnant again, has reached the same conclusion. Her new baby is due in October.

“I think it’s a boy,” she said, smiling, with her hand on her rounded belly.

Since the loss of Kabelo, Mavundu has also started on a combination of antiretroviral drugs that should control her AIDS symptoms and also make breast-feeding far safer. But no one has told her that.

When rainy season arrives in the first months of her new baby’s life, she said, “I know that I will give the Nan.”

*Question:

Can you be “HIV” positive with a value of 2 consecutive tests exceeding or equaling 30pg/ml p24 protein versus 29pg/ml of p24 protein, and do you need toxic antiretrovirals if you have a consistent value of 30pg/ml value versus a consistent p24 value of 29pg/ml or lower? Why are healthy control cells considered by the DAIDS culturing manual to be 29pg/ml or less on consecutive tests while diseased,’HIV’ infected cells are valued at 30pg/ml or more (*see below).

Does anyone know if these woman who were dissuaded from breast feeding and who tested positive for “HIV” were tested according to The DAIDS 1997 official “HIV” culturing manual, where it says, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,” and in the Reporting Results Section (section VII), a rationale follows that apparently employs both healthy (or non-infected cells) and infected cells-although I don’t think anybody tests intentionally non-”infected cells”) in a manner that is rational or what we would considered CONTROLLED. For example:

Cultures whose supernatant meet one of the following criteria are considered culture positive IF:

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or “out of range” (O.D.>2) or

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values (read: from a healthy donor source) that are “out of range (Optical density.> 2); or

“Three consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), where neither consecutive value is > four times the previous sample, but the third value is at least four times greater than the first,”

Would you consider a sample negative (read: from a healthy donor source) if the 3 consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA corrected values read (first test) 25 pg/ml, and (second test) 15 pg/ml, (third test) 5 pg/ml?

Would you use these cells as uninfected controls?

Asked another way, are these control cells considered non-infected if they read 25 on the first reading, and 15 on the second and 5 on the third?

Try a second sample using the first criterion stated above:

“Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or out of range” (O.D.>2)

First sample =6pg/ml: second sample)=23pg/ml

Yes? No? Maybe better get other “healthy cells” than go with a 6 and a 23? Or are these two readings enough to say, “Aw-what the heck-they aren’t over 30pg/ml and the second series isn’t quite 4 times greater that the first value of 6, so I will just tell the doc that they are negative, and will tell the patient nothing about it?

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 24, 2007 1:43 PM

Andrew has a serious problem with the first anti HIV drug. Hmmm, so does every doctor and scientist and even me! It was a good try but not good enough when they found better things.

Andrew wants us to live in a world where there aren’t any drugs where there aren’t any vaccines were if there’s a chance a kid will get a stomach ache from a medicine that saves her life she shouldn’t have it. She should just die and save the rest of our tax money. Right andrew? Very sad.

Its funny even though everyone agrees AZT shouldn’t be used by itself anymore with a few exceptions Andrew still has to selectivley quote sloppy cut and paste like this
“Children treated with zidovudine continued to have bacterial and opportunistic infections. The effect of the drug on the frequency of these events could not be assessed because of the lack of control groups…One or more episodes of hematologic toxicity occurred in 54 children (61 percent)anemia (hemoglobin level,

why does he cut it off? HEre’s why, the authors say
Many of these abnormalities resolved spontaneously, but 30 children required transfusions or a modification of the dose of zidovudine. Only three children had to stop receiving the drug because of hematologic toxicity.

and later
There was marked improvement in weight gain, cognitive function (mainly in children less than 3 years old), serum and cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of p24 antigen, and the proportion of cerebrospinal fluid cultures negative for HIV. CD4+ lymphocyte counts (mean at base line, 0.263 x 10(9) per liter) improved during the first 12 weeks, although the improvement was not sustained through the 24th week.

No AZT’s not a great drug on its own mainly because the virus mutates not the side effects, but they aren’t good. Not as bad as Andrew says though and everythings a poison at the right dose.

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 1:59 PM

Andy writes Can you be “HIV” positive with a value of 2 consecutive tests exceeding or equaling 30pg/ml p24 protein versus 29pg/ml of p24 protein, and do you need toxic antiretrovirals if you have a consistent value of 30pg/ml value versus a consistent p24 value of 29pg/ml or lower? Why are healthy control cells considered by the DAIDS culturing manual to be 29pg/ml or less on consecutive tests while diseased,’HIV’ infected cells are valued at 30pg/ml or more (*see below).

No, no, and it’s the sensitivity of the assay. And you haven’t stated it quite correctly anyway. It’s two consecutive measurements >30 with the second being at least 4x the first or three consecutive measurements >30 with the 3rd being at least 4 x the first. To me that reads there’s got to be at least one measurement of 120 or more.

Does anyone know if these woman who were dissuaded from breast feeding and who tested positive for “HIV” were tested according to The DAIDS 1997 official “HIV” culturing manual, where it says, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, “Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,”
It’s highly unlikely they were tested by HIV culturing as that is both expensive and not as sensitive as antibody testing.

Would you consider a sample negative (read: from a healthy donor source) if the 3 consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA corrected values read (first test) 25 pg/ml, and (second test) 15 pg/ml, (third test) 5 pg/ml?

Would you use these cells as uninfected controls?

Asked another way, are these control cells considered non-infected if they read 25 on the first reading, and 15 on the second and 5 on the third?

Yes, yes and yes. See above.

First sample =6pg/ml: second sample)=23pg/ml

Yes? No? Maybe better get other “healthy cells” than go with a 6 and a 23? Or are these two readings enough to say, “Aw-what the heck-they aren’t over 30pg/ml and the second series isn’t quite 4 times greater that the first value of 6, so I will just tell the doc that they are negative, and will tell the patient nothing about it?

From reading the manual I would imagine that third and fourth and possibly 5th readings would be made; readings are continued until the cultures are clearly positive by criteria 1 or 2 or 28 days old. Were there still a question, I assume the cells would be tested by PCR.

Posted by: Dale | July 24, 2007 3:20 PM

Libya Announces Transfer of Medics

Anybody know how “HIV” can be transfered so efficiently to so many all at once through “pills?” I guess when the AIDS establishment decides someone tests positive because of sex it is worthy of a homicide trial, but here they just say, “woops!”

Statement by Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
July 24, 2007

We applaud today’s decision by the Bulgarian and Libyan governments to
transfer the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to Bulgaria,
which follows the Libyan Higher Judicial Council’s July 17 commutation of
the medics’ death sentences. The United States had repeatedly urged Libya
to find a way to allow the medics to return home. This is an important step in Libya’s continuing positive reengagement with the international
ommunity.

Along with its European allies, the U.S. has contributed to efforts to ensure this long overdue outcome, including through the establishment of the Benghazi International Fund, a private initiative to provide care and assistance to the over 400 HIV-infected children and their families.

We remain concerned about these young victims and will continue our support for Their treatment, including through our contribution to the Baylor College of Medicine’s Pediatric AIDS Initiative’s program in Libya and other
initiatives.

I wonder if they’ve read that:

“viral load is only able to predict progression to disease in 4% to 6% of HIV-positives studied, challenging much of the basis for current AIDS science and treatment policy” [Rodriquez B, Sethi AK, Cheruvu VK, et al. Predictive value of plasma HIV RNA level on rate of CD4 T-cell decline in untreated HIV infection. JAMA 296(12):1498-506, 2006;Cohen J. Study says HIV blood levels don't predict immune decline. Science 313(5795):1868, 2006.

Woops!

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 24, 2007 4:32 PM

Woops is right Andy. Hopefully 'they' have read Rodriquez more carefully than you apparently have. Because although it says a lot of things, it doesn't say that viral load is only able to predict progression to disease in 4% to 6% of HIV positives studied.

Posted by: Dale | July 24, 2007 5:04 PM

Yeah Andrew's quoting himself again not Rodriguez.

Here's from the far right AAPS-TWYCSLOS, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons who wish this was a Theocracy Where You Can Shoot "Libs" on Sight:

"Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Chicago notes that "viral load is only able to predict progression to disease in 4% to 6% of HIV-positives studied, challenging much of the basis for current AIDS science and treatment policy" (JAMA 2006;296:1498-1506). Moreover, influenza vaccination is a cause of false positive screening tests and indeterminate Western blot tests (NEJM 2006;354:1422-1423)."

The first part of the quote's not even from him, its on a fake HIV information site for a while.

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 5:23 PM

Andrew "Ok-now sling your insults" Maniotis, I asked for documentation of transfusion-dependent anemia in those recieving AZT, not a list of its side effects. You are on record as saying the incidence of this particular side effect is 50% as shown by product leaflets and published studies.

I am not here to sling insults, I just want the truth from you. Can we have some citations for your claim?

All you did was quote:
1. The original Fischl study, which even though patients had advanced AIDS, which causes anemia, showed only a third on AZT had anemia,
2. The McKinney study (again looking at advanced AIDS) which had 27% with anemia that needed dose adjustment of AZT OR transfusion (Thanks for the true numbers on this one, Adele!). Presumably the percentage needing transfusion is somewhat less than 27%.
3. Another Fischl study where 26% of patients on AZT needed transfusion.
4. Product leaflets for AZT which do not indicate what percentage of patients on AZT get severe anemia.

I, on the other hand, referred you to a meta-analysis of 54 different published trials where the incidence of anemia requiring transfusion was 1% (versus up to 0.6% in thoses not on AZT), and I did not need to massage the numbers or leave out data to beef up my claim, like you have.

My question is a simple one, and remains the same: Can you provide a citation for your claim that transfusion dependent anemia occurs in 50% of those on AZT? One paper will do, just one....

Posted by: DT | July 24, 2007 6:55 PM

Azt is a chemotheraputic drug that wasnt even patented because it was so useless and dangerous. The damn guy that invented says its a horrible drug. What is wrong with you people? Give a drug that kills dividing cells to treat a disease thats supossed kill cells as well, that makes a lot of sense, for an infection thats in only a small % of tcells.

You guys need help. In a hundred years this is going to be looked at as the dark ages of medicine, and you guys will be laughed at in the history books.

Posted by: cooler | July 24, 2007 7:15 PM

In a hundred years this is going to be looked at as the dark ages of medicine, and you guys will be laughed at in the history books.

We won't have to wait that long.

Although, it's not so laughable as it's incredibly tragic...and pathetic the way these "scientists" hold onto the greatest failure of modern medicine. They really are a sorry lot.

Posted by: Dan | July 24, 2007 7:27 PM

DT,

Don't hold your breath waiting for the reference. Andrew drops his misquotes, disappears and comes back a week later with something different. Its flu false positive one week and when we show he misquoted its some vaccine and then its AZT the next week.

Andrew gives a quote up there about viral load. He gives his source. Thing is, the source doesn't have that quote in it. Andrew lied to us again. I'm done taking anything from Andrew seriously.

If I was still interested in Andrew I might ask him this question though since he's down with the anti-immigrant AAPS, "American Association of Phact-challenged Surgeons" Do people in the AAPS think undocumented aliens should be lethally injected as a matter of policy when they come to an ER, or do they just think it should be left up to each "American-Associated Phact-challenged Surgeon"?

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 9:55 AM

I want to clarrify this.

I didn't say Andrew thought this stuff about immigrants I'm sure he just hangs with the ultra right AAPS neanderfolk because they're the only people who take him seriously.

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 9:59 AM

The diarrhea deaths in Botswana has been on my mind.

There's over a thousand peer-reviewed articles on breastfeeding and HIV. Nobody with cred who says HIV doesn't get transmitted by breastfeeding. And everyone who works on this wants to keep babies and mothers alive. So if there's controversy its because scientists are trying to find the facts and best approach.

I've read about maybe ten or twelve of thos articles but abstracts from alot more but not all. I don't expect Kevin and Maniotis and other people to read many of these articles and they obviously haven't. But they haven't even read the Lancet article from earlier this year the one they all talk about. And they don't even read the Washington Post article Maniotis pasted up there.

In the article
The rate of HIV among babies born to mothers with the virus fell from 40 percent in 2002 to 6 percent. Demand for the free government formula soared.

OK, so first formula helped to cut this rate. No expert denies safe formula cuts transmission.

SEcond thing though the only reason Coovadia and other people are even considering exclusive breastfeeding is antivirals. They get viral load down far enough risk of breastfeeding isn't nearly as high anymore. So low if you have to choose between bad formula and breastfeeding with good antivirals breast could be best but it's still being looked at and too early to know.

Didn't the denialists read the article? They go on about how bad the drugs are. Then they say breastfeeding is so great. But the only reason its so great is, its possible because of the drugs! No drugs, we'd still be at 40% transmission.

The other thing about the article they didn't see. It was a rainstorm not formula feeding spreading diarrhea. The 532 children who died, that rate was 20 times the usual deaths in a year. It was rainy season, some sewage or something got in water pipes, and kids died. Breastfeeding protects the linings better than formula. It wasn't formula killed people it was E. coli. If you could know in advance it was a bad rainy season maybe breastfeeding is better for that time. But this was a special incident. Its not like formula is blanket bad and breast is blanket good.

More complicated that Lancet study Kevin and people always talk about without reading it the mothers there who chose formula that's right CHOSE they weren't forced were the ones with really low CD4s and they knew it and that's why they chose formula. So they weren't as healthy and there babies probably too.

Another thing, the Lancet authors only looked at 6 months. But other people show transmission risk from breast is highest between 6 and 24 months. And also at 6 months survival it doesn't account babies who will die of AIDS at 4 or 5. So some situations, breast is best up to six months maybe but by five years it can even out or favor formula.

Lots of other stuff but obvi very complicated. I'm glad and probably all those women who have to deal with this are glad it's not men like Andrew and Kevin who get to make the choice for them. People who just say well breast is natural so breast is best and who cares what happens to your baby it makes me feel better.

While Kevin and Andrew exploit tragic deaths from a rain born local diarrhea problem and twist them into a science bashing tool, hundreds of MDs and other people are working on getting answers that are going to help people. That's science for you.

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 11:00 AM

Adele, the Botswana episode demonstrates how difficult it is sometimes in the developing world without access to the things we take for granted. The moms are really between a rock and a hard place - Either breast feed and risk infecting your baby with HIV, or bottle feed and risk infecting your baby with gastroenteritis (and acquire the stigma of being "HIV" because you bottle feed). Either option could be lethal.

For a first world perspective, one needs to look no further than at Christine M -she had the choice available to her to bottle feed EJ. This would doubtless have been a very safe option in sunny California, and have minimal risk of causing harm by causing E. coli gastroenteritis. The Botswana moms ostensibly face the same choices, but the consequenses of their choices are quite different because of the situation in which they live.

Re Cooler on AZT and its origin:

"Azt is a chemotheraputic drug that wasnt even patented because it was so useless and dangerous. The damn guy that invented says its a horrible drug."

I presume Cooler means David Belz, the developer of AZT. Belz was said to have claimed that "AZT was shelved for two reasons: My studies showed that it caused cancer at any dose and it was too toxic even for short term use." (This claim being widespread in denialist circles, and picked up more or less by our fact-challenged "rethinker", Cooler).

This is what Belz had to say when asked directly if he had said what he was quoted as saying (and this is true, since it comes direct from David Crowe on Virusmyth):

"Now let me say that I am aware of the existence of certain quotes attributed to me on the Internet, such as the one you mentioned in your letter. Such quotes are completely untrue!"

Regarding its chemotherapy potential:

"I prepared 1 gram of crystalline AZT and sent it to my friend Dr. Alan Sartorelli, Professor of Pharmacology at Yale University, for testing against animal cancers. It proved to be completely inactive in all of the test systems he employed. In my laboratory I found AZT incapable of inhibiting the growth of Jensen sarcoma cells in vitro at very high concentrations. Thus, AZT showed no activity as a potential anticancer drug at that time."

Statements from Cooler that AZT was both "useless" as a cancer drug and "dangerous" are nonsense, and represent something of a biochemical paradox. Antimetabolite activity and potential use as a chemo agent will usually parallel cellular toxicity. We know from its developer that AZT was shelved purely because it had no demonstrable anticancer or antimetabolite activity, and not because it was shown to be toxic or because it caused cancer. Belz did not go on to study AZT's potential to cause cancer, or study its toxicity, as he told David Crowe.

Posted by: DT | July 25, 2007 12:27 PM

Adele, you're a liar and a denialist. In one comment about breastfeeding you begin by calling it a tragedy but end by comparing the infant deaths from formula feeding to receiving a scratch on the leg.

This time you make an even more implausible claim than when you pretended to give a shit about African children dying: Now you want us to believe that you've "thought about it". Adele, the process of thinking is supposed to get you somewhere. Apart from changing your tack from "really obvious fact" (in theory) to "very complicated" (in practice), I see no evidence that all your reading and thinking got you anywhere. You're still far more interested in your apologetics for Nestle and your jabs at Kevin and Andy than you are in even the briefest tip of a hat in recognition of the tragedy that has happened.

In the article
"The rate of HIV among babies born to mothers with the virus fell from 40 percent in 2002 to 6 percent. Demand for the free government formula soared."
OK, so first formula helped to cut this rate. No expert denies safe formula cuts transmission.

So is that science for YOU Adele? Public demand soars for something, so it must be good and helpful - as advertized?

Of course SAFE formula feeding that doesn't lead to malnutrition or harm the lining of the gut etc. PER DEFINITION cannot but cut transmission of whatever is in the breastmilk.

A megadose of AZT cuts transmisson
The 5 year life expectancy of an HIV+ gay in the mid-eighties cuts transmission
Early infant death cuts transmission.
Cutting off a woman's breasts or a man's penis will do much the same to transmission.
No expert denies that either.

Is that science for you Adele?

Posted by: Nestle | July 25, 2007 12:38 PM

Michael or whoever you are

I invite you to read the article. It's just a newspaper article it would be better if you read the Lancet report and then some other studies but its a place to start.

The sentence I gave is in context of drugs have cut transmission from 40% to 6% and formula also had some contribution. It's the drop in transmission not demand for formula proving drugs and formula cut transmission. The Lancet study author Coovadia says this not me.

Again without antiretrovirals this discussion wouldn't be possible. The risks of breastfeeding would outweigh any protective effects. We know this from studies from before any drugs were around and in places where there aren't drugs. No one who has a clue about this topic denies it.

If you've got counter evidence let's see it. But it's easier and funner to call me names I know so if that's what you want go ahead.

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 1:01 PM

Adele,

I see now that you didn't claim to have thought about anything at all. You just said it's been on your mind. But I do appreciate your sudden non-combative approach; It's as heart warming as "gently heating mother's milk", if you'll allow.
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/tripoli_sixhome_and_free.php#comment-512818

But dear me, Adele, reading through all those studies on breastfeeding and the best you can do is,

The sentence I gave is in context of drugs have cut transmission from 40% to 6%

I guess it's silly me who thought the context was infants dying from a horrible, easily avoidable, thoroughly disgusting medical scandal killing real babies.

If you've got counter evidence let's see it.

You betcha, Adele of the noble heart, (you do know the meaning of your own name don't you?) I've got counter evidence! But do you really think it has escaped anybody's notice that you 'forgot' to actually present the 'evidence'? Is that how you do science Adele?

Again without antiretrovirals this discussion wouldn't be possible

At last a true statement. This was never about the children, the mothers or the breastfeeding. Without the antiretrovirals this wouldn't have you or your masters' interest.

Sweet dreams.

Posted by: Nestle | July 25, 2007 8:58 PM

Dear lying AIDS DENIALIST Adele. Whats the matter girl? You can dish it out but you can't take it?

You deserve vitriolic ad hominem and verbal attack even more than most of your fellow thugs and denialists, because that is all that 95% of what you write is composed of.

By the way, I am not Nestle. I am Michael. Who Nestle is, I do not know.

But I do know you are a lying denialist Conspiracy theorist, with your crap about Dr. Maniotis that he "just hangs with the ultra right AAPS neanderfolk".

If you don't have anything intelligent to add to the conversation, Adele, then perhaps you should consider shutting your denialist pie hole!

Even better, perhaps you should spend your time a bit more wisely and go see a psychotherapist for your obvious discomfort with sex and the human body, especially your own!

Your obvious discomfort with your own mammary glands was more than evident in your statement about breast feeding:

"People who just say well breast is natural so breast is best and who cares what happens to your baby it makes me feel better".

You are one sick little AIDS and reality denialist Adele! Now quit staring at your lab monkeys sexual organs and get back to work!

Posted by: Michael | July 25, 2007 10:32 PM

It really is fairly obvious to me that so many of the real HIV believing AIDS denialists are very uncomfortable with human sexuality and the human body. They only thing they can do is to consider such things soley from clinical points of view that lack any semblance of humanity or reality. They are freaked out over sex and it is no wonder they believe so rabidly that AIDS is a sexual disease and that human reproduction must be stopped because it is too scary and dangerous and the only way of reproducing should be done invitro from a test tube.

What a bunch of sick repressed freaks of nature!

It is always so obvious that many sexually dysfunctional and warped personalities are often behind the belief that HIV causes AIDS.

Posted by: Michael | July 25, 2007 10:45 PM

Speaking of blatantly obvious sexually repressed human beings, the big daddy of all of the AIDS denialists, John P. Moore himself, breaks out in a cold sweat if anyone discusses something sexual around him. The man is totally paranoid of sex and sexual desires.

No wonder he spends his time trying to invent microbicides to spread on his lab monkeys dicks and vaginas! No wonder he is trying to come up with microbicide anal and vaginal goo rings. No wonder he is obsessed by gays and obsessed by circumsizing the well endowed Africans.

The man is a total sexual repression case.

Speaking of sexual repression and dysfunction, I would love to hear the AIDS denialist Robster, Roy, Adele, DT's, Richard Jefferies, and Chris Nobles experiences and attitudes with sex. But I can just picture it. They would all be very clinical about it and insist on the quadrupling of condoms.

Nahhhh, they would most likely NEVER even remotely consider having sex at all, let alone consider simply enjoying it as a natural expression of human intimacy and sharing and playing and reproducing.

I would bet a dollar to a doughnut they are all extremely sexually repressed!

I wonder if any of them have ever even had sex. They were probably all taught that it is wrong and bad and dirty and if they masturbate their hands will fall off or grow hair. I seriously doubt that any of these fools have ever considered the role that sexual repression takes in all of their lives!

The belief that sexually transmitted HIV causes AIDS just makes such total sense to such sexually repressed people as these. No wonder they are so freaked out over it all! The very mention of the word breast or penis or vagina in anything but the strictest of clinical use, and they WOULD JUST FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKK OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Michael | July 25, 2007 11:25 PM

Dear HIV-OPHOBES, please do the world a favor and go get some counseling.

WARNING: only someones own filthy and guilt and shame filled and judgemental mind could conceive of anything "filthy" in the following)

FOR ALL OF YOU SEXUALLY REPRESSED HIVOPHOBIC BELIEVERS who yet believe the slogan that "HIV IS THE VIRUS THAT CAUSES AIDS":

Freud noted that, at different times in our lives, different parts of our skin give us greatest pleasure. Later theorists would call these areas erogenous zones. It appeared to Freud that the infant found its greatest pleasure in sucking, especially at the breast. In fact, babies have a penchant for bringing nearly everything in their environment into contact with their mouths. A bit later in life, the child focuses on the anal pleasures of holding it in and letting go. By three or four, the child may have discovered the pleasure of touching or rubbing against his or her genitalia. Only later, in our sexual maturity, do we find our greatest pleasure in sexual intercourse. In these observations, Freud had the makings of a psychosexual stage theory.

The oral stage lasts from birth to about 18 months. The focus of pleasure is, of course, the mouth. Sucking and biting are favorite activities.

The anal stage lasts from about 18 months to three or four years old. The focus of pleasure is the anus. Holding it in and letting it go are greatly enjoyed.

The phallic stage lasts from three or four to five, six, or seven years old. The focus of pleasure is the genitalia. Masturbation is common.

The latent stage lasts from five, six, or seven to puberty, that is, somewhere around 12 years old. During this stage, Freud believed that the sexual impulse was suppressed in the service of learning. I must note that, while most children seem to be fairly calm, sexually, during their grammar school years, perhaps up to a quarter of them are quite busy masturbating and playing "doctor." In Freud's repressive era, these children were, at least, quieter than their modern counterparts.

The genital stage begins at puberty, and represents the resurgence of the sex drive in adolescence, and the more specific focusing of pleasure in sexual intercourse.

Of course, Freud was very influenced by the religiosity and subsequent demonizing of sex in those Victorian times, and felt that masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality, and many other things we find acceptable in adulthood today, were immature.

Of course, today we know better, and those of us who are not caught up in projecting our own fear of sexuality onto others or projecting it in the fear of HIVophobia are much more comfortable with ourselves and our bodies and the bodies and sexuality of others.

And of course, this is the true stage theory, meaning that Freudians believe that we all go through these stages, in this order, and pretty close to these ages.

Posted by: Michael | July 26, 2007 12:04 AM

The more the AIDS "rethinkers" like Michael and Kevin spew their vitriol, the more idiotic the "rethinker" arguments appear (though I must admit they continue to surprise me, as I thought the stupidity ceiling had been reached a while ago).

If they think their utterances are a good advert for their cause, they had better think again. With every post, the "rethinkers" are exposed for what they truly stand for, and its not pretty, is it?

Posted by: DT | July 26, 2007 2:36 PM

Hello Dt. Thank you for your kind words and vote of support.

Posted by: Michael | July 26, 2007 3:35 PM

Listen up, Dolts. It's very simple.

In the 70's, Burroughs Wellcome hooked many gays -- mostly gay young men on poppers.

The use and overuse of poppers caused many ill-effects, including Kaposi Sarcoma -- again in mostly gay young men.

In the 80's, these people were deemed "AIDS patients."

Then, Burroughs Wellcome sold these patients toxic AZT, which finished them off.

No poppers, no AZT -- no epidemic in US and UK.

Posted by: Philly Boy | July 26, 2007 8:53 PM

Philly Boy,

Ever heard of human herpes virus 8?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaposi's_sarcoma

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 26, 2007 9:07 PM

Hey Roy. The HHV8 virus is a very common virus to a large percentage of the population that remains perfectly healthy.

The hosts affected by HHV8 HAVE ALWAYS HAD QUITE OBVIOUS additional co-factors for HHV8 to have had a deleterious effect. And by golly, poppers and AZT fit the bill, right beside high stress lives, such as those experienced 20 years ago by a gay population living under constant threat of attack by police, homophobes, and rejecting families.

Or did you, Roy, think for some strange reason that drug abuse, stress, and chemicals that are not found in nature were always healthy for a human body?

Get a clue there Roy, will yah?

Posted by: Michael | July 26, 2007 9:26 PM

"Get a clue there Roy, will yah?"

God! You have NO idea how amusing that is coming from you!

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 26, 2007 9:39 PM

July 23, 2007
Low-Key Recall of AIDS Drug Hits World's Poor
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

ROME, July 21 -- A total recall of an important AIDS drug widely used in developing countries has disrupted treatment for tens of thousands of the world's poorest patients, with no clear word from the manufacturer on when shipments will resume.

The recall of the drug, Viracept, by Roche Pharmaceuticals of Switzerland, went largely unnoticed in the developed world when it was announced in early June, after the company had discovered that some batches made at its Swiss plant contained a dangerous chemical. But the recall has caused growing concern among global health officials and in AIDS programs in many poor nations. They say the company did an inadequate job of informing patients and officials about the potential risks and helping them find affordable access to newer alternative drugs.

Roche said that it had been actively working with health officials across the globe and that the risk from the affected batches was low.

The scope of Roche's recall is extraordinary, if not unprecedented, in the battle against the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, global health officials say. Dr. Lembit Rago, an official at the World Health Organization, said tens of thousands of people take Viracept worldwide, many of them poor people with H.I.V. in developing countries. The recall has left those patients with the painful choice of discontinuing a lifesaving medicine, or using a drug that might contain a dangerous contaminant.

Officials at the W.H.O. in Geneva and the European Medicines Agency in London said Roche had not provided information they consider essential for safeguarding public health: which countries the tainted medicine was shipped to, the concentration of the contaminant and what the company will do for its patients. The European agency, which regulates drugs for the European Union, has canceled Roche's license to market the drug.

Dr. Rago called the recall "sort of a disaster" for patients in very poor countries. He said of Roche, "They failed in communication." Roche has denied the accusation. The company, which had revenue of $35 billion last year, said it promptly notified health providers in the affected countries to discontinue use of the drug, which is dispensed in both pill and powder form. It also said it would cover the "reasonable costs" of the recall. It did not define "reasonable costs."

So far, in some countries like Panama, patients or treatment programs have had to make up the difference in cost between Viracept and far more expensive alternatives. For some patients in other countries, like Venezuela, alternatives to Viracept are unavailable.

Roche said the recall affected "Europe and some other world regions" but has not been more specific. The recall does not affect the United States, Canada or Japan, where a version of Viracept is made by Pfizer. Roche has been in discussions with Pfizer about supplying Pfizer's version to some affected countries, but regulatory and licensing issues could take "some time," said Martina Rupp, a Roche spokeswoman.

Roche sells Viracept for use in low-income countries at the discounted median price of about 28 cents a dose, according to the W.H.O.'s 2006 global price reporting system for AIDS medicine. The drug, also known as nelfinavir, is a member of the class of AIDS drugs known as protease inhibitors. It is considered an important defense against H.I.V., but it has fallen out of favor in Europe in recent years compared with newer medicines that are more convenient and cause fewer side effects.

In some places, newer substitutes are not available to patients, either because they are not licensed or are much more expensive, said people with H.I.V. and international health experts. In Panama, for example, a substitute drug, Kaletra, costs three times as much as Viracept.

"Roche has provided information, but there has been much less support in terms of who is going to pay the additional cost," said Dr. César Nuñez, the United Nations AIDS program's coordinator for Latin America, who is based in Panama.

A more limited recall might have been possible had Roche been more forthcoming about the countries affected and the lots that were suspect, said Dr. Rago, the W.H.O. coordinator of quality assurance and safety for medicines. "It's fine for Roche to say 'withdraw and replace,' but there may not be much else at hand to substitute" in many places, he said. "This is not just about Europe."

In response to questions sent by e-mail, Ms. Rupp said Roche had shipped "at least one packet of Viracept with high levels of the impurity to 35 countries." But she declined to say which countries because Roche regards such information as proprietary. High levels of the contaminant "were observed in batches of Viracept that had been released to countries since March 2007," she said.

The company made the recall worldwide "in order to avoid confusion," she said. Roche estimates that about 45,000 patients were affected by the recall. Ms. Rupp said the toxic substance, ethyl mesylate, should be called an "impurity" rather than a contaminant because it was created in the manufacturing process and because that type of chemical can be found in very low levels in other medicines, although it was not supposed to be present in Viracept.

The company was performing studies on the issue, but the results would not be available for "some months," she said. At high doses, ethyl mesylate has been shown to cause cancer in animals, and at lower levels it can cause genetic mutations, which means children and fetuses are particularly vulnerable.

Asia Russell, the coordinator of international advocacy for Health Gap, a nongovernmental organization based in New York and Philadelphia that focuses on medical care in the developing world, said, "It seems that Roche has abandoned these patients, since in many places there aren't ready alternatives."

In Venezuela, 3,000 people were on Viracept, paid for by the national health service, and the effect of the recall was "severe," because many had no other options, said Edgar Carrasco, an advocate on issues relating to AIDS in Caracas.

Alberto Nieve, another advocate, said Roche had promised to make a donation of another medicine. "Most people are still waiting," he said. "They have not switched yet, especially outside Caracas."

In the month since the recall, officials at the European Medicines Agency and the W.H.O. said that they, too, would like more information from Roche about the dose of the contaminant and where exactly the medicine was sent.

"We have not gotten information, not even an order of magnitude," said Martin Harvey-Allchurch, a spokesman for the European agency. "I understand sales figures are confidential, but I would have thought by now we would have this information."

Viracept was sold in 49 countries since 2004, according to the W.H.O., with more than 12 million units sold in 2006 and 2 million in 2007. Tido Von Schoen-Angerer, director of the essential medicines campaign at Doctors Without Borders, said about half of the 400 patients who received therapy supplied by the group in Africa were on Viracept. The alternate from Abbott is not yet available, he said.

Cheers!

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 27, 2007 8:02 AM

Andrew drops by for a quick pasting! Yes the same Andrew who just disappears when he gets tough questions. Someone should tell him how to put a link in. You know, link, maybe a little quote, then your commentary. That's what a blogs about.

This way we don't know what Andy thinks they should of done,
shipped the tainted drug and kept their mouths shut?
ended making the drug because one batch didn't pass QC?
made sure people who take the drug had an alternative?

WEll we don't need a conclusion from Andy we already know it, if something doesn't got through qc, the whole company should get shut down and put on trial and all HIV drugs made illegal and all there money to Alive and Well.

My conclusion is, people need this drug their health relies on it and there's gotta be a way to put some redundancies in the supply system so people aren't left without.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 8:45 AM

Dear Adele,

Regarding those mutants you keep in your freezer, what relevance do your in vitro studies on non-PHA stimulated cells with heat inactivated virus and plasmids to the following?

The little buggers mutate every 19 seconds and therapy always fails because it mutates so fast, and we can't get a consistent sequence because the virus hasn't been isolated, so we tell the public and our peers that there is constant mutation-which violates the idea of hereditary material.

You must stretch the rules of genetics to accommodate the "HIV-AIDS" paradigm. From A. LAU et al. (Suppression of HIV-1 infection by a small molecule inhibitor of the ATM kinase. Nature Cell Biology 7, May 2005, 17 April 2005).

"HIV treatment: targeting host proteins."

Question: Why is "the host" being targeted? I thought "HIV" was an exogenous retrovirus. Please don't continue to target the host proteins? OK?

"Chemotherapy to treat human immuno-deficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) infection, targets virally encoded proteins, but tends to select for drug-resistant variants of the virus. An alternative strategy is to identify and target host proteins that are essential for the virus but not the host. In Nature Cell Biology, Alan Lau and colleagues make use of an ATM-kinase-dependent cellular response to genomic damage. By inhibiting this non-essential kinase, the authors are able to suppress HIV-1 replication.

Translation:

First sentence: Toxic discarded and non-FDA-approved toxic cancer chemotherapy compounds to "treat" "HIV" infection, target "virally encoded" proteins that haven't yet been identified because nobody has isolated that virus, but sometimes these drugs don't work because some of those "viral particles" that are resistant to the toxic drugs that preferentially kill bone marrow, will squeak through because they are drug resistant- variants of the virus. The reason we know they are mutants is because their "sequence is different from patient to patient."

Second sentence: The authors are targeting a kinase, and they are following the paradigms of cell signaling science which is fashionable.

Third sentence: By taking advantage of a theoretical construct regarding how non-essential kinases work in eukaryotic cells, the authors will now use this information to interfere with "HIV" replication and thereby solve "AIDS." Well.....

From: The Body Covers (41st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy ICAAC 2001):

"Prevention of HIV Infection, Epidemiology and the Changing Face of HIV/AIDS (Poster Session 020)"

"Coverage provided by Andrew T. Pavia, M.D."

"Comparison of Nevirapine Resistance (NVPR) Mutations in Women vs. Infants Receiving Single Dose NVP Prophylaxis to Prevent HIV-1 Vertical Transmission (HIVNET 012)."

"Abstract 234
Authored by Susan H. Eshleman (The Johns Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, MD), M. Deseyve (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Res. Ctr., Seattle, WA), L.A. Guay (The Johns Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, MD), M. Mracna (The Johns Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, MD), M. Furtado (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA), P. Musoke (Makerere Univ., Kampala, Uganda), F. Mmiro (Makerere Univ., Kampala, Uganda), J.B. Jackson (The Johns Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, MD)."

"The HIVNET 012 study was a landmark study, demonstrating that a single dose of nevirapine given to a pregnant woman in labor, combined with a single dose for the neonate within 48 hours of birth, was about twice as effective as a short-course AZT regimen at preventing mother-to-child transmission. The promise of a simple, practical and inexpensive treatment raised hopes for making a dramatic impact on mother-to-child transmission."

"The reality has been more complex, as usual. Political and organizational hurdles have made it hard to begin programs. Relatively few women have had access to programs using nevirapine, even though the drug is available for free to programs in developing countries."

"Resistance is an issue that requires careful attention as well. In the HIVNET 012 study, nineteen percent of the women who had received nevirapine, and who were tested at six to eight weeks post partum, had evidence of nevirapine-resistant mutations."

"At 48 weeks, these mutations could not be detected in any of the women, but we would expect them to be archived. Only 24 infants were infected and available for resistance testing at four to six weeks, but 49% had resistant virus. (If nevirapine prevents transmission in 67%, as the Times article claims, and resistance mutants occur at 49% frequency, then in fact the 1 dose nevirapine has only saved 18% from the jaws of AIDS death! Check out this math!) Although many women and infants in Africa currently have no chance of receiving HAART therapy, the emergence of nevirapine resistance could compromise their chance of responding to treatment when it becomes available."

"Dr. Eshelman reported on the genotypic resistance patterns in the mothers and children with nevirapine resistance in HIVNET 012. Remarkably, the mothers and infants had different patterns of resistance mutations, demonstrating that resistance evolved independently in mother and child. Of 18 women, 15 had the K103N mutation, either alone or with other mutations. In contrast, most of the infants had Y181C."

I guess the genetic background of the host influences how the virus mutates. Amazing! Such startling new information! Different organisms respond to the same disease differently. Good reason to do chemotherapy experiments on them I would say...

"The implications of this are not yet clear. (They should be!!!) It is likely that the different selection pressure based on persistence of drug levels leads to different resistance patterns (EVERY VIRUS HAS A DIFFERENT SEQUENCE-AT LEAST 15 OUT OF 18). Because the drug is metabolized slowly, infants maintain nevirapine levels for up to two weeks. This may provide some protection against transmission through breast milk, but seems to increase the selection for resistance."

(IMPOSSIBLE!).

"For physicians in the developed world, it means that if nevirapine is to be used for a woman with no prenatal care or with a persistent viral load, it should be combined with additional drugs to prevent the emergence of resistance. AZT, 3TC and nevirapine might be a reasonable choice when therapy is begun during labor."

GREAT TIME TO HIT A WOMAN WITH 3 TOXIC ANTI-CANCER CHEMOTHERAPY DRUGS-WHEN SHE IS IN LABOR! A REASONABLE CHOICE INDEED!

"In the developing world, it means that trials combining nevirapine with other agents for short, effective therapy are urgently needed. We need to be able to preserve the mother's chance of response to therapy. Candidate regimens might include nevirapine and AZT begun at the onset of labor and continued for three days (see abstract 232) or AZT and 3TC. The use of tenofovir, which has been remarkably effective in a monkey model of mother-to-child transmission, needs to be evaluated."

FOLLWING THIS LOGIC, IF MUTATIONS ARE DIFFERENT IN INFANTS AND MOTHERS, THEN DON'T YOU THINK THEY WILL BE WAY DIFFERENT IN MONKEYS? MONKEYS DON'T GET AIDS-CHIMPS ARE LIKE HUMANS AND DON'T GET AIDS DESPITE INJECTION WITH "AIDS-PATIENT SERA."

"The problem of breast-feeding HIV transmission is not addressed by these regimens. (NO ITS NOT). In many ways, the obvious solution is to treat the mother with HAART after birth. This would give the uninfected child a healthy mother, perhaps the most important therapy of all.

SEND HER OVER TO US FOR A MASTECTOMY SO THAT SHE WILL COMPLY WITH NON-BREAST FEEDING!

Yet another:

"December 16, 2001

Maternal resistance to nevirapine can develop after single intrapartum dose

Last Updated: 2002-08-02 13:45:10 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Will Boggs, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nevirapine resistance mutations commonly develop in pregnant women receiving standard antiretroviral treatment after single-dose nevirapine treatment for the prevention of perinatal HIV transmission, according to a report in the July 15th issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19% ???? (I thought it was 49%?????? According to the article by Esheleman above??? Hmmmmm....) of women who are not receiving other antiretroviral drugs. Whether such mutations develop in women receiving standard antiretroviral treatment had not been studied.

As part of a study testing the effectiveness of nevirapine for prevention of perinatal transmission of HIV-1 in women and infants receiving standard antiretroviral therapy, Dr. Coleen K. Cunningham from State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York and colleagues evaluated the risk factors associated with the development of nevirapine resistance.

Five of 217 women (2.3%) had nevirapine resistance mutations present at the time of delivery and 6 months postpartum, the authors report, though none of them had received nevirapine previously.

An additional 14 of 95 nevirapine-treated women (15%) without detectable nevirapine resistance at the time of delivery had virus with resistance mutations (most commonly the K103N mutation) by 6 weeks postpartum, the report indicates.

Mutations associated with resistance to nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors were also common, the results indicate, and resistance mutations in the protease gene less so.

DAMN! AND I THOUGHT ADLELE'S MUTATIONS CONSISTED OF A VERY TINY PORTION OF THE "HIV" GENOME! JUST THINK, YOU CHANGE THE RULES OF GENETICS, MUTATE REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE IN HUMANS, AND PRESTO! THE VIRUS STILL WORKS IN HUMANS AND KILLS THEM BUT ADELE GETS NO RADIOACTIVE COUNTS IN HER SUPERNATANTS WHEN SHE TRANSFECTS WITH HER "MUTANT" VIRUS. INTERESTING KIND OF SCIENCE YOU ARE DOING THERE, ADELE!

The development of new nevirapine resistance mutations was not related to the CD4 cell count or HIV-1 load at the time of delivery, (Does this mean the mutant HIV particles don't bother the T-cells??????????????????) the researchers note, and such mutations did not vary with the type of antiretroviral regimen used before or during the current pregnancy or with the presence of resistance mutations to other antiretroviral agents.

MUTATIONS DON'T VARY WITH THE TYPE OF DRUG USED! INTERESTING.

"This would suggest that any patient with active viral replication incurs some risk for the development of detectable nevirapine-resistance mutations if given a single dose," the investigators warn, "even if he or she has susceptible virus and nevirapine is given concurrently with other medications."

"For women who are on standard antiretroviral therapy, there is no demonstrable benefit to adding the single dose of nevirapine for mother and baby," Dr. Cunningham told Reuters Health, "and this substudy shows the downside of using it: the potential for nevirapine resistance mutations in Mom's virus."

ISN'T THAT SPECIAL! THE POTENTIAL FOR RESISTANCE MUTATIONS IN "MOMS" VIRUS. I GUESS BABY'S VIRUS HAS A DIFFERENT SEQUENCE OF RT OR SOME OTHER "HIV" GENE EVERY TIME IT ESCAPES THE DRUG AND THE BABY DIES OF AIDS, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MUTATE ON THE SAME NUCLEOTIDE, AND IF IT DID, HOW WOULD IT STILL WORK THE SAME, OR AT ALL, LET ALONE 49% OF THE TIME MUTATING TO A DRUG-RESISTANT FORM THAT IS NOW IMPERVIOUS TO THAT DRUG THAT CAUSED ITS MUTATION, AND IF YOU BELIEVE CUNNINGHAM, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT DRUG CAUSED THE MUTATION-IT ALWAYS WILL MUTATE THE VERY GENES THAT WILL ALLOW IT TO GET AROUND THE MUTATION DEFECT, AND THE PRESENCE OF THE DRUG, BY THE USE OF ITS MUTATED GENE PRODUCT. AMAZING MOLECULAR BIOCHEMICAL CYBERNETICS GOING ON HERE. MONOD, JACOB, LWOFF WOULD BE PROUD!

This "may lead to difficulty in treating the woman in the future.,"

THIS IS NOT GOOD!

Dr. Cunningham continued. "So, in areas of the world where treatment is available, except in very rare circumstances, single-dose maternal nevirapine should not be recommended."

SHOULD NOT!

TRANSLATION.

SHOULD NOT!

J Infect Dis 2002;186:181-188.//

HIV Treatment Bulletin Volume 5 Number 6 July 2004
Persistent nevirapine resistance following mother to child transmission interventions

Polly Clayden, HIV i-Base

Three studies presented at this meeting evaluated resistance in women having received single dose nevirapine to reduce mother to child transmission.

Patterns of selection and "fading" of Y181C and K103N in women with subtype A vs D:

A resistance substudy of the HIVNET 012 trial from Susan Eshleman and colleagues examined the impact of subtype A vs D on the selection and "fading" of nevirapine associated mutations K103N and Y181C in a group of women following a single dose of nevirapine to reduce mother to child transmission [1].

Genotypes were obtained at 7 days and 6-8 weeks and paired data were available for 159 women. Of this group 83 women had subtype A and 57 subtype D.

The investigators found a significantly higher overall rate of resistance (ie any nevirapine mutation) at 6-8 weeks than at 7 days, 47/140 (34%) and 31/140 (22%) respectively, in women with either A or D subtypes (p=0.013; OR 1,916; 95% CI: 1.287, 2.854). There was a higher rate of accumulation of mutations for subtype D vs A (OR 2.519; 95% CI: 1.136, 5.587).

The K103N mutation was detected at a higher rate in the 6-8 week samples: 41/140 (29%), than the 7 day samples: 18/140 (13%), (p=0.0001; OR 2.926; 95% CI: 1.287, 2,854) across both subtypes. Again the investigators noted a higher rate of accumulation for subtype D vs A although this was not statistically significant.

Conversely the detection rate for the Y181C mutation was higher at 7 days than at 6-8 weeks overall, 26/140 (19%) and 15/140 (11%) respectively (p=0.0145; OR 0.509; 95% CI: 0.297, 0.872. The investigators added: “Furthermore Y181 faded quickly in subtype A with little or no fading in subtype D.”

These findings demonstrate HIV-1 subtype to influence patterns of emergence and “fading” (from detection)
for the K103N and Y181C mutations The investigators also looked at G190A but the number of mutations detected were too small for meaningful statistical analysis (they also noted other nevirapine mutations eg V106 and Y 188C in a small number of women). They report that for all three mutations, the results suggest that nevirapine mutations are better tolerated in subtype D than subtype A viruses and conclude that these findings suggest that HIV-1 subtype should be considered in the design and interpretation of studies to determine whether single dose nevirapine compromises subsequent NNRTI containing treatment.

Surveillance of nevirapine resistance in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

The startling scale of 75% nevirapine resistance at two weeks following single dose nevirapine, reported in women with subtype C at this meeting last year provoked much speculation around the longer term consequences of selecting nevirapine resistant virus [2]. Will NNRTI containing drug programmes be effective if women have access to treatment for their own HIV?

In their surveillance report Gordon and colleagues write: “It is essential that the rate and pattern of drug resistance development is closely monitored.

(Did Tremont closely monitor this??? I doubt it! He was busy changing the safety data reports against the advice of his staff)!

This is especially true for South Africa, in the light of the initiation of its national antiretroviral programme [3].” They examined nevirapine resistance patterns in 30 mother and infant pairs (including one set of twins) with HIV-1 subtype C who had participated in a single dose (to mother and infant respectively) mother to child transmission (MTCT) programme at a clinic in Hlabisa, South Africa.

At six weeks following the nevirapine prophylaxis, 12/30 (40%) of women and 40% of infants had detectable resistance. The K103N mutation was the most common mutation in 10/12 (83%) of the mothers. Other mutations reported in the mothers included: Y181C in 3/12 (25%), Y188C in 3/12 (25%), V106M in 2/12 (17%) and G190A in 1/12 (8%) Two or more mutations were found in 4/12 (33.3%) mothers.

SEE THERE ADELE! HOW MANY TIMES DOES YOUR VIRUS MUTATE IN 6 WEEKS OF CULTURING? WHY DOESN’T IT EVER MUTATE TO EVADE DRUGS YOU MIGHT PUT INTO YOUR DISH TO “EVOKE” MUTATIONS? EVENTUALLY, WOULD YOU EXPECT YOUR MAGIC LITTLE VIRUS TO DEVELOP RESISTANCE TO NEVIRAPINE IF YOU SPRINKLED SOME IN YOUR CULTURE DISH? THEREFORE, YOU WOULDN’T GET SUPPRESSED COUNTS OF RADIOACTIVITY, YOU’D GET ENHANCED COUNTS EQUALING THOSE OBTAINED WHEN YOU INFECT WITH YOUR WT VIRUS.

Of the group of infants, the Y181N was the most common mutation and was present in 11/12 (92%) of the children (including one of the twins). Additionally 2/12 infants (17%) had the K103N and another 1/12 (8%) had a subtype C associated V106M mutation.

ITS AMAZING HOW NATURE MAKES MUTATIONS A RANDOM THING-THE GRIST FOR THE MILL OF NATURAL SELECTION, BUT HERE, IN HIV SCIENCE, YOU GET THE SAME MUTAION 92% OF THE TIME! THAT’S REALLY LANDING A NICKEL ON ITS EDGE (92% OF THE TIME) AFTER THROWING IT OFF THE SEARS TOWER, IF YOU GET MY MEANING?

The investigators also reported that the K103N mutation resulted in the loss of a protein kinase phosphorylation site at codons 102 to 105 in reverse transcriptase. This was replaced with myristoylation site at codons 99 to 104 and a glycosylation site at 103 to 106. All infants with nevirapine resistance lacked a tyrosine kinase phosphorylation site at codons 174 to 181.

SIMPLY AMAZING THAT THE MUTATION OR FRACTIONATION OF THE GENETIC MATERIAL ALWAYS HAPPENS AT THIS SITE ON THE REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE GENE (BETWEEN SITES 102-105), AND THE ENZYME ALWAYS WORKS BETTER THAN IT DID BEFORE BECAUSE AIDS KILLS THE INFANT BECAUSE THE VIRUS IS NOW “RESISTANT DUE TO THIS CHANGE IN THE STRUCTION, AND FUNCTION, OF RT!

The investigators concluded: “Given the high rate of resistance in mothers and infants after single dose nevirapine, the search for safer regimens to prevent MTCT should be intensified.” ]

MORE MONEY FOR SURE!

But what should we do in the mean time to distribute the life-saving meds to all those pregnant African Women, while we “intensify our search” for new toxic drugs to give to the pregnant or birthing African women?

LET EM BREAST FEED WILL YA!@@#$#@@#$$#

Persistence of nevirapine resistance: the Ditrame Plus study:

A resistance substudy of the Ditrame Plus trial – in which women received single dose nevirapine in addition to short course zidovudine to reduce MTCT and the infants short course zidovudine and single dose nevirapine syrups – evaluated nevirapine resistance at four weeks post partum.

Baseline and four week samples were available for 63 women, of this group 21 had infected and 42 uninfected infants. Samples from the 26 infected children were also evaluated (21 children whose mothers had and 5 children whose mothers had not received nevirapine, but who had received the infant dose.

The investigators reported 21/63 (33.3%) of women having developed nevirapine resistance at week four, with the K103N being the most common mutation. They also reported the mothers with infected and uninfected infants developed resistance at the same rate (33.3%), 7/21 and 14/42 respectively. No zidovudine resistance was detected in this group. Additionally DNA-PBMC nevirapine mutations were detectable in 15/20 (75%) of women for whom DNA samples were available at week four.

21 out of 63 women developed resistance in week four? Looks like they need to take 15 different drugs at a time. I hope Bush’s 3 by 5 program knows about these MUTATIONS AND statistics! (The 3 by 5 program is slated to distribute toxic drugs to 3 million persons by the year 2005).

Analysis of nevirapine plasma concentrations revealed wide inter patient variability with a median concentration of 648 (range 417-954) ng/ml. Resistance was significantly associated with a higher plasma concentration of nevirapine and among women who received two doses of nevirapine 3/4 (75%) acquired resistance. (This is going the wrong way…..it should reduce viral load of all “non-resistant viruses because it is so effective at preventing mother to infant transmission BECAUSE IT PREVENTS THE VIRUS FROM REPLICATING TO FORM MASSIVE POPULATIONS IN WHICH A RARE MUTATION CAN OCCUR ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF GENETICS-why do two doses of nevirapine increase the “resistant strains to 75%??????????????????????????????????).

75% resistance? Wow! But isn’t this good news on account of the fact that these drugs should be given to persons with threats about their personal freedom and with death sentences imposed if they don’t take their meds on schedual?

The investigators described predictive factors for nevirapine resistance for the mothers as: median viral load 4.93 log10 copies/ml (nevirapine resistance) vs 4.54 log10 copies/ml (no nevirapine resistance) (95% CI: 3.11[1.04-9.29], p=0.020); median nevirapine plasma concentration 851 (633 – 1063) ng/ml (nevirapine resistance) vs 598 (315-885) ng/ml, p=0.014 and CD4 350 cells/mm3, p=0.06. Multivariate analysis revealed two factors to be independently predictive of development of resistance: viral load OR 95% CI: 4 (1.13 – 14.09) p=0.12 and plasma concentration 2 days post partum OR 95% CI: 1.05-1.50, p=0.31.

Additionally 6/26 (23%) of the infected infants developed nevirapine resistance detectable in plasma and DNA-PBMC at four weeks post partum, and follow up samples in two children – one at 3 and one at 12 months old – detected archive mutations in the DNA-PBMC.

Summarizing their findings the investigators note that the association between high level nevirapine plasma concentrations suggests, “That a high level of nevirapine concentration induced a prolonged viral replication under suboptimal drug selective pressure which promote the emergence of resistant strains.” Concerning the infants they write: “Recent studies have reported a negative impact of nevirapine resistance on a subsequent treatment including nevirapine; our results raise anxiety for those very young children presenting with resistant viruses.”

Comment:

More bad news for highly active drugs with long half-lives, given as monotherapy. Although nevirapine resistant variants “faded” from detection in women in HIVNET 012 by 12-24 months using population sequencing methods, resistant variants will surely still persist as minority variants and rapidly return when drug pressure is reintroduced. “Fading” is an incongruous term in a room of viroloists that have warned of the risks from archived resistance for many years now.

Jourdain et al showed dramatically reduced response in women receiving NNRTI containing regimens following acquisition of nevirapine resistance after receiving single dose nevirapine to reduce MTCT (at six months 75% unexposed, 53% of exposed but with no detectable mutations and 34% of exposed with detectable resistance were below 50 copies). Additionally when Mellors et al evaluated the role of minor NNTRI mutations, failure to achieve viral suppression was associated with previous NNRTI experience and NNRTI mutations at baseline. However, genotyping failed to detect NNRTI mutations in 50/216 (23%) baseline samples in the NNRTI experienced patients, yet this group performed no better than those with detectable NNRTI resistance, and much worse that the NNRTI-naïve group who similarly showed no mutations.

Utter non-sense! “This group performed no better than those with detectable NNRTI resistance.”

SO MUTATIONS REALLY DON’T MATTER AFTER ALL. WHERE DID THE RULES OF GENETICS GO! THEY HAVE BEEN PLUNGED INTO THE DANK HOLE OF SCIENTIFIC WHOREDOM.

Furthermore, as in the Thai study, adding nevirapine to background zidovudine is not associated with significantly less nevirapine resistance. The early emergence of the Y181C in the Uganda study (HIVNET 012) may help to explain the different rates of NNRTI mutations in mothers compared to infants, as previously reported and as seen in Kantor’s study. The more rapid “fading” of the Y181C would seem to suggest that this mutation is “less fit” relative to both K103N and wild-type virus at least in sub-type A virus.

Better news is that no resistance was reported for zidovudine as prescribed in the DITRAME study and this should equate with less of an impact on future therapy.

These data, and emerging pharmocogenomic data, highlight the need for more thorough investigation of antiretrovirals, new and old, and their resistance patterns, paying attention to clade, gender, age and ethnicity.

THEY HARKEN FOR A NEED FOR MORE HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION ON BLACK PREGNANT WOMEN.

References

1. Eshleman SH, Wang L, Guay LA et al. Distinct patterns of selection and fading of K103N and Y181C are seen in women with subtype A vs D HIV-1 after single dose nevirapine: HIVNET 012. XIII Intl Drug Resistance Workshop, Tenerife 8-12 June 2004. Abstract 50. Antiviral Therapy 2004; 9:S59.
2. Kantor R, Lee E, Johnston E et al. Rapid flux in non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor resistance mutations among subtype C HIV-infected women after single dose nevirapine. XIII Intl Drug Resistance Workshop, Tenerife 8-12 June 2004. Abstract 78. Antiviral Therapy 2004; 9:S89.
3. Gordon M, Graham N, Bland R et al. Surveillance of resistance in KZN South Africa, including mother-infant pairs six weeks after single dose nevirapine. XIII Intl Drug Resistance Workshop, Tenerife 8-12 June 2004. Abstract 71. Antiviral Therapy 2004; 9:S80.
4. Dabis F, Ekouevi DK, Rouet F et al. Effectiveness of a short course of zidovudine and lamivudine and peripartum nevirapine to prevent HIV-1 mother-to-child transmission. The ANRS 1201 DITRAME Plus trial, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. 2nd IAS Conference. France. 8-12 July 2003. Abstract 219.
5. Chaix ML, Ekouevi DK, Peytavin G et al. Persistence of nevirapine resistant virus and pharmacokinetic analysis in women who received intrapartum NVP associated to a short course zidovudine (ZDV) to prevent perinantal HIV-1 transmission: the Ditrame Plus ANNRS 1201/02 Study, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Abstract 160. Antiviral Therapy 2004; 9:S176.
6. Jourdain G, Ngo-Giang-Huong N,Tungyai P et al. Exposure to intrapartum single-dose nevirapine and subsequent maternal six-month response to NNRTI-based regimens. Abstract 41LB.
7. Mellors J, Palmer S, Nissley D et al. Low frequency NNRTI-resistant variants contribute to failure of efavirenz-containing regimens. 11th CROI 2004, Abstract 39.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 27, 2007 9:10 AM

4,126 words. Impressive! Annoying thought I can’t tell what he wrote here and what he wrote somewhere else and what hes quoting.

Oh well I can’t respond anyway now I’m working unlike Dr. Maniotis who must be on vacation for four months or something.

I just want to say, this is really disturbing and Maniotis or Semon or someone going by Nestle already said it a few days ago,
SEND HER OVER TO US FOR A MASTECTOMY SO THAT SHE WILL COMPLY WITH NON-BREAST FEEDING!

Disturbing and disgusting.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 9:45 AM

ADELE,

THANKS FOR ANSWERING MY QUESTION ABOUT THE RELEVANCE OF YOUR MUTANT EXPERIMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ABSTRACTS I POSTED ABOVE. YOU SHOULD BE A PROFESSOR WITH THE CLARITY OF YOUR RESPONSES.

BUT SADLY, I MUST ADMIT,

I knew it DAmnit! Its all the fault of those BLACKS!!!! CAN’T WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THOSE BLACKS!

MONTAGNIER IS A RACIST.

“…Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist whose team discovered HIV, concluded that the AIDS virus was present in the hospital before the nurses arrived, probably brought to Libya by guest workers from countries in sub-Saharan Africa.”

GUEST WORKERS FROM SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA MY ASS-THOSE PEOPLE WERE BLACK,BLACK, BLACK I TELL YOU! THEY SHORE DID A WHOLE LOT OF TRANSFUSIONS AWEFUL QUICK THERE, YA KNOW? MUST HAVE ALL BEEN WHOLE BLOOD FROM BLACKS THEY INFUSED INTO THOSE 426 CHILDREN.

Epilogue in Libya: A spreading AIDS epidemic
By Elisabeth Rosenthal, INTERNATIONAL HERALD
Thursday, July 26, 2007.

ROME: Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor landed in Sofia this week, freed of a death sentence after eight years in Libyan prisons, an apparent victory of diplomacy at long last.

Officially, two visits to Libya by Cécilia Sarkozy, the French president’s wife, precipitated the release of the six medics who had been found guilty – not once, but twice – of infecting more than 400 children with HIV as part of a plot by the Israeli secret service.

Sarkozy’s visit was only the latest in countless pilgrimages by diplomats and scientists to the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, to plead the medics’ cause. Recent visitors included the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, the European Union’s external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and Richard Roberts, a Nobel laureate, who represented more than 100 Nobel Prize winners.

But the drawn-out drama also reflects a complex structure of Libya’s internal politics that prevented an obvious solution from being reached, experts in the case said. And the sad epilogue will be in Libya, too: an AIDS epidemic that has never been fully acknowledged and that continues to spread, as well as the 426 children dependent on treatment in a system ill-prepared for the task.

“It was completely clear scientifically since 2002 that they were not guilty,” said Vittorio Colizzi, a renowned AIDS expert who was invited by the Qaddafi family to study the hospital in Benghazi where the infections took place and was given wide access to wards and medical records. “But the nurses suffered for years from the incapacity of diplomacy and politics to free them in a timely manner.”

He and another expert, Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist whose team discovered HIV, concluded that the AIDS virus was present in the hospital before the nurses arrived, probably brought to Libya by guest workers from countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In many of these nations more than 10 percent of the adult population is infected. It was spread by the infusion of unscreened blood and blood products, as well as by unsterilized equipment – problems that have been only partly solved, Colizzi concluded.
A homegrown AIDS outbreak caused by lax practices at a government hospital was not a result the government could acknowledge, medical and other experts say, especially when there was a convenient foreign scapegoat.

Bulgarians have long provided medical care in Libyan hospitals and “are very unpopular because of racism,” said George Joffe, an expert on Libya at Cambridge University’s Center for International Studies. Palestinians are unpopular, too, he said. “So this group provided an obvious target,” Joffe said.

Once the medics were blamed, the families of the children had to be placated, which took time and carried special problems. Qaddafi is unpopular in Benghazi, which was the home of Libya’s former regime, Joffe said. Also, Benghazi is a city of extended clans, so many residents were related, if distantly, to a sick child.

“Qaddafi needed to pacify the community there, while satisfying the international community,” said Joffe. “Of course, he exploited the issue for political and economic gain internationally, but, basically, a domestic issue delayed international resolution.”

The families also have pressing needs. The children, many of them approaching the teenage years, are carrying a disease that is difficult to treat in a country with poor medical infrastructure. A million dollars – the amount each family got in compensation – “is nothing” for the lifetime treatment of a child with HIV, Colizzi said. “It won’t cover their medical problems, let alone issues of discrimination and their psychological needs.”

Libya had reported 10,450 cases of HIV/AIDS to the World Health Organization by the end of 2006, but outside experts consider the figure low.

“There is evidence of increasing HIV infections in Libya, especially among the younger age groups,” with many if not most cases among injection-drug users, the WHO’s annual report says.

Early on, European negotiators recognized that winning over the families would be crucial in freeing the nurses. “We knew since 2004 that the families were the key to resolving this,” said an EU diplomat who was involved in the negotiations and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Once the medics had been sentenced to death, their best hope was to invoke Islamic law and custom, under which injured parties accept compensation and express forgiveness, allowing the sentences to be reduced or overturned.

“We were constantly working around two axes: to give signs of attention to the families to show them the world cared, vis-à-vis things like equipping hospitals and providing medical care,” the EU diplomat said. “And to see how far we could go in helping with compensation. But in many ways, this was less important.”

In the end, the families received $1 million apiece, almost all of that paid by the Libyan state, Joffe said, and agreed to the death sentences being dropped. The European Union and its member states have sent tens, if not hundreds, of million of dollars in aid to Libya, to create “a positive psychological and political environment” for the families. Furthermore, the children have been treated in hospitals in Italy, France and Britain.

Still, said Colizzi, who has seen the children during visits to Benghazi and in Europe, some are “really sick” and are not getting good treatment at home. More than 50 have died.
“The tragedy for the nurses is finished; now starts the tragedy for the children,” he said. “If there’s no more attention” – and money – “their situation will start to deteriorate.”

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 27, 2007 1:45 PM

Sorry Andy, will get to you in time. Some of us have day jobs.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 3:08 PM

I’ll try again. Maybe Maniotis would like to respond this time. He brought this subject up, but doesn’t want to answer questions about it. I wonder why not?

He is on record above as saying the incidence of transfusion-dependent anemia in those on AZT is 50% as shown by product leaflets and published studies.

Can we have some citations for this claim?

All he did was quote:
1. The original Fischl study, which even though patients had advanced AIDS, which causes anemia, showed only a third on AZT had anemia,
2. The McKinney study (again looking at advanced AIDS) which had 27% with anemia that needed dose adjustment of AZT OR transfusion (Thanks for the true numbers on this one, Adele!), so presumably the percentage actually needing transfusion is somewhat less than 27%.
3. Another Fischl study where 26% of patients on AZT needed transfusion.
4. Product leaflets for AZT which do not indicate what percentage of patients on AZT get severe anemia.

I, on the other hand, referred him to a meta-analysis of 54 different published trials where the incidence of anemia requiring transfusion was 1% in those on AZT (versus up to 0.6% in thoses not on AZT), and I did not need to massage the numbers or leave out data to beef up my claim, like he did.

My question to him was a simple one: Can you provide a citation for your claim that transfusion dependent anemia occurs in 50% of those on AZT? One paper will do, just one….

His continued refusal to answer confirms he was lying when he made his original claim.

Posted by: DT | July 27, 2007 4:39 PM

Yeah dt, AZT is good for you, thats why it was never patented because it was deemed to dangerous and useless for cancer. Sprinkle some on your toast, have a birthday party for your kids and give them AZT candy bars. Treat a virus thats in 1 of 1000 blood t cells with a drug that kills all cells. Its good fun.

Dr. maniotis has posted tons of studies showing AZT’s damagae to mitochondria etc that you ignore, as usual like a corrupt defense lawyer you focus on details and try to get off on technacalities.

Posted by: cooler | July 27, 2007 5:35 PM

Hello DT.

You said: “so presumably the percentage actually needing transfusion is somewhat less than 27%”.

Whether or not Maniotis is right or wrong about 50% needing a blood transfusion after taking AZT is absolutely beside the point, when you yourself readily admit that at least 26%, MORE THAN ONE FOURTH, of those poor fools who were given AZT needed a blood transfusion……………….

DT, you DO realize, that YOU, DT, are defending a drug that has AT LEAST a 1/4th blood transfusion rate, not to mention its other myriad destructive effects?

Think about this DT, just for a fraction of a mommmmmmmmennnnnntttttt………………………..

By the way, DT, is your last name Kevorkian by any chance?

I only ask because you certainly seem to be in favor of doctor assisted suicide.

Or is your defense of such a drug as AZT more about some repressed subconscious death wish of your own, DT?

Posted by: Michael | July 27, 2007 7:34 PM

Microchips mulled for HIV carriers in Indonesia’s Papua

Jul 24 03:57 AM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070724075657.4w2f978g&show_article=1

Lawmakers in Indonesia’s Papua are mulling the selective use of chip
implants in HIV carriers to monitor their behaviour in a bid to keep
them from infecting others, a doctor said Tuesday.

John Manangsang, a doctor who is helping to prepare a new healthcare
regulation bill for Papua’s provincial parliament, said that unusual
measures were needed to combat the virus.

“We in the government in Papua have to think hard on ways to provide
protection to people from the spread of the disease,” Manangsang told
AFP.

“Some of the infected people experience a change of behaviour and can
turn more aggressive and would not think twice of infecting others,”
he alleged, saying lawmakers were considering various sanctions for
these people.

“Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those
infected people who can pose a danger to others,” Manangsang said.

“The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for
those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what
they know about the disease and spread the virus to others,” he said.

A decision was still a long way off, he added.

The head of the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission,
Constant Karma, reportedly slammed the proposal as a violation of
human rights.

“People with HIV/AIDS are not like sharks under observation so that
they have to be implanted with microchips to monitor their movements,”
he told the Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

“Any form of identification of people with HIV/AIDS violates human
rights.”

According to data from Papua’s health office cited by the Post, the
province has just over 3,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Some 356
deaths have been reported. Papua has a population of about 2.5
million.

Copyright AFP 2005

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 28, 2007 4:27 AM

More pap from Maniotis, without answering the question (yet again).

This issue is not so much about AZT as it is about Maniotis. I am not saying AZT is harmless – it clearly has toxicities and can cause all the problems mentioned above. But Maniotis claimed it caused transfusion dependent anemia in 50% of recipients, and said he had papers to prove this.

By giving evidence that the anemia rate is far lower than he stated, I am merely correcting what is another of his completely unfounded claims. I am offering him the opportunity to correct me and show us the evidence he says he has. He has turned down this offer several times, so it should be apparent to everyone that he has lied about this.

Posted by: DT | July 28, 2007 6:55 AM

RE: The action of AZT on cells…

“Telomerase inhibition as a potential new therapy for colorectal cancer”

“Abstract:
Colorectal cancer represents the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Despite local tumour control, patients die from disseminated disease and improved therapy is clearly required. One possible new approach is inhibition of telomerase, a reverse-transcribing enzyme thought to be essential to prevent senescence of cells by synthesizing chromosomal telomeres, which is reactivated in 85-95% of colorectal cancers. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of telomerase inhibition by known retroviral reverse-transcriptase inhibitors using concentrations that are not acutely toxic to cells. The concentrations of three drugs (azidothymidine (AZT); dideoxythymidine (ddT); and dideoxyguanidine (ddG)) needed to reduce the proliferation (ID50) of the colorectal cell line HT29 by 50% were determined. Extracts were made of cells exposed for 24-48 h to these concentrations of each prodrug, telomerase activity determined using the Telomerase Repeat Amplification Protocol (TRAP), quantifying polymerase chain reaction products generated by telomerase with a phosphorimager and ImageQuantTM software. The drug treatments reduced the activity of telomerase in these cells by 97% for AZT, 38% for ddT and 47% for ddG, compared with control extracts. In order to confirm that the drugs used were directly inhibitory to telomerase, extracts of control cells were exposed to the active (phosphorylated) drugs and telomerase activity determined: greater than 60% and 80% inhibition occurred at 0.02 mM and 0.04 mM concentration of ddT and ddG, respectively. Control experiments demonstrated that the action of the active drug was not at the PCR stage of the TRAP assay and so was directly exerted on telomerase. We conclude that reverse transcriptase inhibitors can directly inhibit telomerase in cells exposed to prodrug concentrations, which are not acutely toxic, and that the active drug does directly inhibit telomerase. We propose that such inhibitors may have a role in reducing the survival, by inducing senescence, of remaining malignant cells after potential curative surgery, thus reducing recurrence and improving the prognosis of the disease. In addition they may be used in high-risk susceptible patients and in early-stage cancers.”

Or AZT is used to stop Acute Myogenous Leukemia cells from dividing: (From Mangiacasale R, Pittoggi C, Sciamanna I, Careddu A, Mattei E, Lorenzini R, Travaglini L, Landriscina M, Barone C, Nervi C, Lavia P, Spadafora C. CNR, Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, Rome, Italy. Exposure of normal and transformed cells to nevirapine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor, reduces cell growth and promotes differentiation. Oncogene. 2003 May 8;22(18):2750-61):

Endogenous, nontelomeric reverse transcriptase (RT) is encoded by two classes of repeated elements: retrotransposons and endogenous retroviruses. Expression of RT-coding genes is generally repressed in differentiated nonpathological tissues, yet is active in the mammalian germ line, embryonic tissues and tumor cells. Nevirapine is a non-nucleoside RT inhibitor with a well-characterized inhibitory activity on RT enzymes of retroviral origin. Here, we show that nevirapine is also an effective inhibitor of the endogenous RT in murine and human cell lines. In addition, progenitor and transformed cells undergo a significant reduction in the rate of cell growth upon exposure to nevirapine. This is accompanied by the onset of differentiation, as depicted in F9 and C2C7 progenitor cells cultures in which nevirapine triggers the expression of differentiation-specific markers. Consistent with this, an extensive reprogramming of cell cycle gene expression was depicted in nevirapine-treated F9 cultures. Furthermore, nevirapine exposure rescued the differentiation block present in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines and primary blasts from two AML patients, as indicated by morphological, functional and immunophenotypic assays. The finding that an RT inhibitor can modulate cell proliferation and differentiation suggests that RT may represent a novel target in the development of therapeutical approaches to neoplasia.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 28, 2007 12:47 PM

Regarding transfusion-dependent anemia: some numbers for ya DT!

Good stuff for anemia…

Dainiak N et al. 3′-Azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) inhibits proliferation in vitro of human haematopoietic progenitor cells. British Journal of Haematology. 1988;69:299-304 wrote:

…nearly one half of patients treated with AZT for [HIV]-associated disease develop transfusion-dependent anaemia due to bone marrow depression…

The good news of course is that half of patients don’t experience hematotoxicity!

Costello C. Haematological abnormalities in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease. J Clin Pathol. 1988;41:711-5 also reported that:

“Blood transfusion is often necessary in patients with AIDS, especially in those receiving AZT, a drug which produces severe anaemia in a proportion of recipients. Forty nine (36%) of 138 patients treated with AZT … required blood transfusion at least once.”

Walker RE et al. Anemia and erythropoiesis in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AiDS) and Kaposi sarcoma treated with zidovudine. Ann Int Med. 1988;108:372-6 reported:

“In the current study, transfusion-dependent anemia occurred in 6 of 15 patients with AIDS and Kaposi sarcoma who were receiving zidovudine therapy. All 6 affected patients required their first blood transfusion between 3 and 9 weeks after starting zidovudine therapy, and each required 4 to 14 units of packed erythrocytes to maintain a hemoglobin level above 100 g/L over a 12-week study.”

In one article, Gina Kolata from the New York Times health desk wrote: “Imminent marketing of AZT raises problems; marrow suppression hampers AZT use in AIDS victims.” (Science. 1987 Mar 20;235:1462-3) where she argued that:

“more than half of all AIDS patients may not benefit from the drug because it is more toxic for them than their AIDS infection. The most serious side effect of AZT is to suppress the bone marrow, leaving patients highly vulnerable to bacterial infections”

Richman DD et al. The Toxicity of Azidothymidine (AZT) in the Treatment of Patients with AIDS and AIDS-Related Complex. NEJM. 1987;317:192-197 reported that:

“Anemia…developed in 24% of AZT recipients and 4% of placebo recipients (P

Fischl MA et al. Prolonged zidovudine therapy in patients with AIDS and advanced AIDS-related complex. JAMA. 1989;262(17):2405-10 in a follow-up study to the 1987 study which ushered AZT through FDA approval concluded:

“58% of all subjects with AIDS and AIDS-related complex receiving zidovudine experienced granulocytopenia of grade 3 or higher…Serious anemia occurred in 32% of all subjects receiving zidovudine…and could be typically managed by dose attenuation, temporary dose interruption of zidovudine therapy and/or red blood cell transfusions…12% of subjects…had an episode of thrombocytopenia [low platelet count] after the initiation of zidovudine therapy…Ten patients had liver enzyme levels elevated…and were managed with dose attenuations or interruptions of zidovudine therapy…One report of a grand mal seizure, two events associated with cardiac dysfunction, and five reports of myopathy were the only new serious potentially drug-related adverse events reported during extended periods of zidovudine administration.”

Dournon E et al. Effects of zidovudine in 365 consecutive patients with AIDS or AIDS-related complex. Lancet. 1988 Dec 3;2:1297-1302 concluded that:

“AZT was started at full dose in 260 patients, 64 with ARC and 196 with AIDS. In 58 of these patients, AZT had to be stopped at least once for a minimum of 7 days. In 142 other patients, dosage was reduced by half because of leucopenia (79), leucopenia and anaemia (32), anaemia (20), rash (3), vomiting (3), headaches and insomnia (2), myalgia (2), or hepatitis (1). 3 patients reduced the dose with no medical reason. Later on, progression of toxicity led to suspension of AZT (for at least 7 days) in 85 of the 142 patients whose treatment had been reduced to half dose. Thus AZT was stopped at least once in 143 (55%) patients who began the full-dose regimen. Because of their initial haematological status 105 (28.8%) patients were treated from the start with half-dose AZT – toxicity led to cessation of treatment in 71 (67.6%) cases”

Mocroft A et al. Anaemia is an independent predictive marker for clinical prognosis of HIV-infected patients from across Europe. AIDS. 1999;13:943-50 reported:

“We found that 78.2% of the patients with mild or severe anaemia at baseline had received zidovudine [AZT]”

Hymes KB et al. The Effect of Azidothymidine on HIV-related Thrombocytopenia. NEJM. 1998 Feb 25;318(8):516-7 reported:

“The hematocrit [red blood cell count] decreased in the same patients…with three of eight patients requiring red-cell transfusion by the fourth week of treatment.”

The advertisement for PROCRIT, 1997 solicited that:

“While effective drug therapy is continued in zidovudine [AZT]-treated HIV-infected patients…PROCRIT Reduces Transfusion Requirements and Helps Lift the Burden of Anemia.”

Fischl MA et al. A randomized controlled trial of a reduced daily dose of Zidovudine in patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. NEJM. 1990;323(15):1009-14 and a follow up study reported that:

“178 subjects (34%) had a hemoglobin concentration below 5 mmol per liter [anemia]…A greater proportion of subjects in the standard-treatment [high dose AZT] group had a first episode of severe anemia earlier in the study, as compared with the proportion in the low-dose group. 134 subjects (26%) received red-cell transfusions (65 in the standard-treatment group and 69 in the low-dose group)…230 subjects(44%) had a [low] neutrophil [infection fighting white blood cells] count…134 (51%) in the standard-treatment group and 96 (37%) in the low-dose group…22 subjects (4%) had a [low] platelet [blood clotting cells] count.”

Mir N, Costello C. Zidovudine and Bone Marrow. Lancet. 1988 Nov 19;1195-6 reported:

“Zidovudine is well known to produce haematological toxicity in vitro and in some patients…It is worrying that bone marrow changes in patients on zidovudine seem not to be readily reversed when the drug is withdrawn…These findings have serious implications for the use of zidovudine in HIV positive but symptom-free individuals.”

Dainiak N et al. 3′-Azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) inhibits proliferation in vitro of human haematopoietic progenitor cells. British Journal of Haematology. 1988;69:299-304 wrote:

…nearly one half of patients treated with AZT for [HIV]-associated disease develop transfusion-dependent anaemia due to bone marrow depression…

The good news of course is that half of patients don’t experience hematotoxicity!

Costello C. Haematological abnormalities in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease. J Clin Pathol. 1988;41:711-5 also reported that:

“Blood transfusion is often necessary in patients with AIDS, especially in those receiving AZT, a drug which produces severe anaemia in a proportion of recipients. Forty nine (36%) of 138 patients treated with AZT … required blood transfusion at least once.”

Walker RE et al. Anemia and erythropoiesis in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AiDS) and Kaposi sarcoma treated with zidovudine. Ann Int Med. 1988;108:372-6 reported:

“In the current study, transfusion-dependent anemia occurred in 6 of 15 patients with AIDS and Kaposi sarcoma who were receiving zidovudine therapy. All 6 affected patients required their first blood transfusion between 3 and 9 weeks after starting zidovudine therapy, and each required 4 to 14 units of packed erythrocytes to maintain a hemoglobin level above 100 g/L over a 12-week study.”

In one article, Gina Kolata from the New York Times health desk wrote: “Imminent marketing of AZT raises problems; marrow suppression hampers AZT use in AIDS victims.” (Science. 1987 Mar 20;235:1462-3) where she argued that:

“more than half of all AIDS patients may not benefit from the drug because it is more toxic for them than their AIDS infection. The most serious side effect of AZT is to suppress the bone marrow, leaving patients highly vulnerable to bacterial infections”

Richman DD et al. The Toxicity of Azidothymidine (AZT) in the Treatment of Patients with AIDS and AIDS-Related Complex. NEJM. 1987;317:192-197 reported that:

“Anemia…developed in 24% of AZT recipients and 4% of placebo recipients (P

The Fischl Phase II trial is the trial said to have demonstrated the efficacy and safety of AZT, upon which FDA approval was obtained, and which was the only trial in US history to show in a record 4 months, that a drug (AZT) was “worthy” of FDA approval (From Duesberg et al., J. Biosc, Vol. 28 No. 4, June 2003, 383-412) (Fischl M A, Richman D D, et al and the AZT Collaborative Working Group 1987 The efficacy of azidothymidine (AZT) in the treatment of patients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex; N. Engl. J. Med. 317 185-191, 1987):

“The licensing study of AZT, performed in 1987 by the NIH in collaboration with the drug’s manufacturer Burroughs Wellcome in the US, is the primary placebo-controlled study set-up to test the ability of AZT to reduce the mortality of AIDS. The study showed that, after 4 months on AZT, 1 out of 145 AIDS patients died, whereas 19 out of 139 died in the placebo group. The study interpreted this result as evidence for reduced mortality by AZT. However, this interpretation failed to consider that among the 4- month-survivors of AZT, 30 could only be kept alive with multiple blood transfusions because their red cells had been depleted by AZT below survivable levels. Thus, without lifesaving transfusions 30 more AZT-recipients would have died from anemia. In addition many AZT recipients had developed life-threatening bone marrow suppression, neutropenia, macrocytosis, headaches, insomnia and myalgia, that augured poorly for their future survival (Richman D D, et al and the AZT Collaborative Working Group 1987 The toxicity of azidothymidine (AZT) in the treatment of patients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex; N. Engl. J. Med. 317 192-197). Indeed, the low mortality of 1/145 reported for the first 4 months on AZT, could not be maintained in a follow-up study, which found the “survival benefits” of AZT rapidly declining after the original 4 month period. By 21 months, 42% of the original AZT group had died and 35% of the control group, which by then had also received AZT for 12 months on a “compassionate” basis:

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 28, 2007 1:08 PM

Andrew,

Once again you demonstrate the truth of your admission that you “really don’t understand what’s going on.”

Having failed at reading the primary scientific literature and a simple virological protocol, you now show that you are incapable of understanding even simplified press coverage of scientific results.

You quote from the summary by Andrew T. Pavia, M.D., of an abstract authored by Eshleman et al. at the 2001 ICAAC:

In the HIVNET 012 study, nineteen percent of the women who had received nevirapine, and who were tested at six to eight weeks post partum, had evidence of nevirapine-resistant mutations.

You then quote from a piece written for Reuters by Will Boggs, M.D., on Cunningham et al. (2002) J Inf. Dis. 186:181-8, and with strings of question marks you reveal your inability to understand straightforward English prose:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19% ???? (I thought it was 49%?????? According to the article by Esheleman above??? Hmmmmm….) of women who are not receiving other antiretroviral drugs.

Pavia says “nineteen percent” and Boggs says “19%”–yet Maniotis is totally baffled!

I really don’t understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 1:52 AM

Andrew, I was appreciative that you looked out some studies. I was prepared to revise my opinion of you, but then realised that you just resorted to your usual “cut and paste” spam tactic. The problem with answering by compiling “cut and paste” lists from places like virusmyth is that you don’t actually look at any of the original articles yourself, and just compound their misinterpretations. You also seem to have cut and pasted several studies twice – Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you even look at what you wrote, or are you entirely on autopilot?

Quoting the same study twice which has an anemia rate of 26% does not provide evidence of transfusion dependent anemia in 50%, or do you think we can double the percentage if we read 26% twice?

In all you have produced about 9 studies for us to see, (including your previous posts). Most quote rates af anemia around 20-30%. Disingenuously, you also slipped in one study to try make us think the rate of anemia on AZT is as high as 78% -

Mocroft A et al. Anaemia is an independent predictive marker for clinical prognosis of HIV-infected patients from across Europe. AIDS. 1999;13:943-50 reported:
“We found that 78.2% of the patients with mild or severe anaemia at baseline had received zidovudine [AZT]”

This of course says nothing about the rate of anemia in everyone on AZT. 78% of the patients who were anemic might also have recieved kisses from the ward sister. In fact, for all you know, 100% of the patients without anemia may have also “recieved zidovudine”. You cannot draw any conclusion from this about the frequency with which AZT does cause anemia.

The only study which comes close to your mythical figure of 50% is the first study you cite (and also the 9th I think – you quoted it twice)

Dainiak N et al. 3′-Azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) inhibits proliferation in vitro of human haematopoietic progenitor cells. British Journal of Haematology. 1988;69:299-304 wrote:
…nearly one half of patients treated with AZT for [HIV]-associated disease develop transfusion-dependent anaemia due to bone marrow depression…

This phrase is extracted from the introduction to this article on the mechanisms of AZT’s marrow toxicity. The study itself did not look at the incidence of anemia. The phrase actually refers to the original Fischl study where 39% of patients with advanced AIDS (which itself can cause anemia).

So we are still searching for a paper that shows 50% of recipients of AZT developed transfusion-dependent anemia.

Care to try again?

Posted by: DT | July 29, 2007 7:06 AM

Dear AIDS Apologists,

I looked up some studies I had on file in order to make good on your request(s) to provide data for my claim re: 50% transfusion-dependent anemia due to AZT. Actually it was an underestimate from the Fischl trial (1987) where it gained FDA approval fraudulently, and DT agreed on this approximate figure (39% I think she said without checking what she posted), but I wanted to see for myself if I was correct and was providing an accurate number.

By pasting these studies above as I have, (no I wasn’t aware I pasted one twice)-I thought (incorrectly) that you AIDS apologist denialists may accept the fact that I am trying to connect with you folks to achieve some kind of understanding, after 25 years of anger, insults, name-calling, dismissal, and unproductive exchanges.

What I learned from this AZT exercise, is that we need to carefully separate transfusion-dependent anemia stats from anemia stats-they are undoubtedly different things that are lumped together, and I’m pretty sure not many investigators have rigorously separated one from the other, because there are no placebo control groups in most of the studies, and a wide variety of medications will induce anemias. Transfusions are dangerous medical procedures in and of themselves-they cause auto-immune diseases in many who receive them (that old self-versus-non-self thing-which is why no “HIV” vaccine has evoked cellular, humoral, mucosal immunity, or activated T-cells-but this is another story you don’t want to address).

The more important point to me is that some authors have noted 3/8, 6/15, and nearly half requiring TRANSFUSION dependent anemias, not to mention the first Fischl study where it is claimed by a number of investigators that all 30 of the AZT group had received them at some point in order to stay alive, which in the long run didn’t help with survival even though AZT is still called “life saving.”

I would be far more interested in what insults you have to sling regarding my hypothesis of a drug like AZT’s law of similar’s effect on the immune system and other systems, as opposed to its so-called specific action against “HIV.” As I have indicated above (to earn the title of homeopathologist, liar, I don’t know what’s going on, etc.),
a dispassionate view of all drugs, and their effects on organisms is not easily achieved by anyone for any compound I have ever worked with, nor is it the case here with AZT, as I have followed many persons on this drug, and those who refused the drug, and those that came off of the drug because it made them too ill, or very occasionally, those who came off the drug because their doctors told them to take a holiday because of the toxicity (especially anemia and neutropenia, throbocytopenias).

I’m sure many of you have had a lot of experience developing new cancer drugs as I have, designing pre-clinical experiments, and following them through human clinical trials, so I’m sure you have a lot of advice or teaching for me to learn. The desperation to do SOMETHING for immune suppressed individuals early during the AIDS era ushered in some very unfortunate results with AZT, and I’m sure not even you religious folks would deny this fact anymore. In the meta-analysis that was raised a few blogs ago, transfusion-dependent anemia is in perhaps now in the single digits as I remember-earlier studies in double digits, and there have been studies, all imperfect, that go as high as 50% as was the first one I pasted, and when AZT was used at super-gram dosages because the Gay community demanded it so vociferously. Dosages have all been lessened over time, scheduling has also been adjusted, or drug holidays imposed, and the effects of these interruptions, dose diminutions, have either been recorded or not, so to obtain a hard and fast statistic for AZT’s ability to cause transfusion-dependent anemia is dependent on all of these factors.

The cell biology, and warnings that have arisen, however, have and are still ignored, and with the “standard of care” being the blind, ignorant, and harmful thing it often is in medicine, no concerted opinion ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE has been advanced to help stop the drug-reliance and carnage for either AIDS or cancer patients. Fauzi et al., can publish all they want on vitamin supplements, promising studies with selenium, forced eating schedules in Cuba that showed promise, and legions of folks who stopped taking AZT and HAART and are living productive and healthy lives 20 years later cannot for a moment change the forced drugging going on in this culture.

The most egregious issue for me was and is the scheduling and threats of compliance that are still forcefully imposed on patients using a DNA chain-terminating compound like AZT, 3Tc, DDI, etc. We sometimes get dozens of calls/ a month from folks who, for instance , developed HCC after 10 years of HAART, and who quit taking their HAART 6 years ago (this happened last week for instance). What do you tell a desperate housewife of an “HIV-positive, 10 year recipient of HAART who quit HAART on his own because of its toxicity, and then began to feel normal until a year ago began to develop liver cancer, and who now can’t receive “the standard of care” for HCC at any hospitals or clinics where he lives (in a major metropolitan American city), because no doc will treat him for his cancer unless he also agrees to go on HAART again. What do you say to the wife? When you see this kind of story, and other similar conundrums again and again, what does a poor scientist to do/think?

I’d really appreciate Adele answering my question re: the relevance of her mutant’s lack of activity to all of those mutant studies in humans I posted above where mutation is able to overcome the suppressive effects of nevirapine or other ARV’s. I’m not interested in Franklin’s inability to follow what the studies are saying-perhaps his “students” who do not know of his extracurricular activities can help him out here, if he for instance provides them with the Lockman et al., (and Essex)study from earlier this year citing a figure of I believe it is 47.1% mutations after a single dose of nevirapine (I have posted this on this blog at least 4 times without a single comment from you AIDS apologists debunking my inability to post a study verbatim. Franklin, you really should come clean with your students, and tell them that you are not only a teacher somewhere, but a devoted drug-enforcer for the federal government’s forced drugging programs.

I’d also like a reaction from you folks regarding Montagnier’s proported reason for the infection of the 426 children being due to “an influx of workers from sub-Saharan Africa” (read Blacks) that was quoted in the National Harold by Rosenthal. Also I suppose the breast feeding debacle is something I don’t anticipate you have anything to say about where children have been dying due to lack of breast feeding because of the abhorrance of the human female breast and breast-feeding, or sexuality in general, as the implications of the carnage due to pulling mothers away from their infants because of an impassioned crusade to give toxic drugs to pregnant women is so disgusting that not even folks like you could excuse the ignorance here. In this regard, you might like to look at the following:

Among the more sober assessments of global health crises by certain mainstream AIDS Establishment doctors and scientists, “AIDS” isn’t even the collection of diseases that poses the greatest challenge. For example, a series of articles was published in the January 6, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by Berkley et al. (96), that is accompanied by a short and pointed commentary in the same issue, that introduces the Berkeley et al. study, (by Kim Mulholland, and Richard Adegbola) entitled, “Bacterial Infections-A Major Cause of Death among Children in Africa:”

” For the past 25 years, since the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has been publishing estimates of mortality among children worldwide, the international medical community has been aware of the appalling burden of early deaths among African children. Early studies indicated that, in the absence of any effective medical care, children born in a rural African village had a probability of death before the age of five years of 30 to 50% (2. Reference 2 given here is from Mosley WH. Primary care: rhetoric and reality. Poluli J UN Fund Popul Act 1983; 10: 41-53, which is from a period of time before the “AIDS era).” From the outset, it was understood that many of these deaths result from the combined effect of poverty and malnutrition (2). Since 1990, mortality rates have fallen but remain high by global standards. Twelve African countries still report official death rates for children under the age of five of more than 20 percent. Community-based studies of death among children have been able to attribute these deaths to a number of common causes, either syndromes or specific diseases (see table I).”

“Table I. Official Estimates of Mortality among Children under 5 years of Age According to Cause in Sub-saharan Africa and Globally in 2002.

“Table I. Official Estimates of Mortality among Children under 5 years of Age According to Cause in Sub-saharan Africa and Globally in 2002.
Cause of Death Africa Global
Acute respiratory infection 16 18
Diarrheal disease 14 15
Malaria 22 10
Measles 8 5
HIV or AIDS 8 4
Neonatal deaths 13 23
Other causes 19 25
All causes 4.5 million 10.9 million

“Data are from the World Health Organization (WHO) and reflect the WHO African region, which excludes most North African countries, Somalia, and Sudan. Many of the deaths that were classified as due to “other causes” may actually belong among the main causes listed. A total of 54 percent of all deaths among children are believed to be associated with malnutrition. HIV denotes human immunodeficiency virus, and AIDS the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.”

“In the study, 28 percent of children admitted to the hospital with bacteremia died. Even more important, 26 percent (308 of 1184) of hospital deaths were associated with bacteremia. This finding compares with 22 percent of the deaths that were associated with malaria, suggesting that bacterial disease may be responsible for more deaths in children than malaria in this area where malaria is endemic. Did the children who died at home die from a spectrum of causes similar to that among children who died after reaching the hospital? Both malaria and bacterial illness are amenable to relatively simple therapeutic approaches, but antimalarial drugs tend to be more widely available in African communities than are antibiotics. Therefore, in a rural community, bacteremia may be even more important as a cause of death among children than it is in a hospital setting, since the management of bacteremic illness in the community is likely to be less effective than the management of malaria.”

The article concludes with:

“only 18 percent of children admitted with bacteremic illness were infected with HIV, whereas severe malnutrition was present in 37 percent, suggesting that the latter is a more important cofactor.”

“During the past six years, the world of international health care has been dominated by high-profile efforts to control HIV infection, malaria, and tuberculosis. Of these, malaria is seen as the most important contributor to death among children in Africa. This study (Berkeley et al) gives us cause to question whether this very narrow, disease-based approach is indeed appropriate and whether the most important causes of death among children have been appropriately targeted. Even in an area of rural Kenya with high rates of HIV infection and malaria, there appear to be more deaths of children associated with bacterial infection than with malaria, with malnutrition still the main cofactor. Global health strategies, like any other public health activities, should be based on evidence.”

If you want to see some real African statistic kept by Africans themselves, you also might want to look at the statistics that were painstakingly arrived at over a 35 year period that were presented in a piece I wrote this year with Charles Geshekter, which can be found here.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2007/01/a_global_strate.html

Cheers,

andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 29, 2007 1:21 PM

Franklin, the REAL AIDS DENIALIST, seems to think that 19% of patients developing mutations makes for a good “life saving” drug.

AIDS denialist Franklin also conveniently ignores that Nevirapine was never compared to a placebo to get a real finding of how effective the drug is for reducing HIV transmission, but was only tested against toxic AZT!

He also conveniently forgets that the study done formerly to compare AZT treatment to nontreated women came up nearly the same for both groups. Did AZT actually even have any effect on HIV transmission.

The denialist Franklin doesn’t know and really doesn’t even care, as long as he continues his slogan of propaganda of “RahRah lifesaving drugs”.

AIDS denialist Franklin also conveniently ignores that all of the investigators on these drugs had conflicts of interest with the drugs manufacturers.

Franklin the AIDS DENIALIST has nothing at all to comment on the fact that the HIVnet 012 investigators claim to have “lost the log book in a flood” that just so happened to verify all of the other destructive effects of Nevirapine.

Why is that Franklin? Why is it that you blindly and ignorantly believe the head investigators claim that the logbook was lost in a flood, when the investigator himself was being paid directly by the drugs manufacturer for his study?

Why does Franklin have no healthy sensce of critical thinking and why does he even blindly accept the results of many of these pharma directed and pharma controlled and pharma paid studies whose sole purpose was to gain marketing approval?

You are one sick puppy Franklin, and you are the Real AIDS Denialist!!!

Did the denialist Franklin just fall off of a turnip truck.

Or is he also a paid off shill for pharma companies?

Which is it Franklin?

Are you a lying AIDS denialist simply due to your own ignorance or due to financial motives?

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 3:10 PM

Andrew,

You asked us to check out your math. I have, and once again you prove that (as you put it yourself) you “really don’t understand what is going on.”

When quoting from Pavia’s summary of an abstract authored by Eshleman et al. at the 2001 ICAAC, you tried to reason through the statistics on your own, with typically confused results:

“Only 24 infants were infected and available for resistance testing at four to six weeks, but 49% had resistant virus. (If nevirapine prevents transmission in 67%, as the Times article claims, and resistance mutants occur at 49% frequency, then in fact the 1 dose nevirapine has only saved 18% from the jaws of AIDS death! Check out this math!) Although many women and infants in Africa currently have no chance of receiving HAART therapy, the emergence of nevirapine resistance could compromise their chance of responding to treatment when it becomes available.”

Huh? Andrew, is simple arithmetic beyond your skill level?

The identification of nevirapine-resistant HIV in 49% of the children who became infected despite nevirapine prophylaxis has no bearing on the reduction of the infection rate brought about by nevirapine.

If, as Andrew suggests, nevirapine prevents 67% of the cases of HIV transmission, then 67% of the children who would have developed AIDS have been spared. This remains true even if 49% of the children who did become infected have nevirapine-resistant HIV.

Let’s check out Andrew’s math by applying his numbers to an illustrative case. Assume a population in which, in the absence of Nevirapine, 100 children would acquire HIV. According to Andrew, nevirapine would reduce this number to 33 children (ie., “nevirapine prevents 67% of the cases of HIV transmission”), but 16 of these 33 infected children (49% of infected children) are now expected to have nevirapine-resistant HIV.

So according to Andrew’s numbers: without nevirapine–100 infected children (with an unknown fraction having nevirapine-reisistant HIV), and with single-dose nevirapine–33 infected children (with 16 having nevirapine-resistant HIV). Yet somehow Andrew calculates that that nevirapine would only save 18% from AIDS.

Keep posting Andrew–you just keep proving the truth of your statement:

I really don’t understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 5:03 PM

Hey Franklin, you damned AIDS denialist. You, Franklin, are the one who “Really Does not understand”.

You sound like a broken record. Why are you ignoring my post Franklin?

The details of the following as well as the study cites were presented publicly by Celia Farber in her March 2004 Harpers Article: “OUT OF CONTROL-AIDS, AND THE CORRUPTION OF MEDICAL SCIENCE”!!!

The REAL AIDS denialist Franklin also conveniently ignores that Nevirapine was never compared to a placebo to get a real finding of how or even IF the drug is effective for reducing HIV transmission. IT WAS ONLY TESTED AGAINST PROVEN DEADLY TOXIC AZT!

Franklin also conveniently forgets that the study done formerly to compare AZT treatment to nontreated women came up nearly the same for both groups. Did AZT actually even have any effect on HIV transmission.

The denialist Franklin doesn’t know and really doesn’t even care, as long as he continues his slogan of propaganda of “RahRah lifesaving drugs”.

Hey Franklin, enough with the babbling denialist nonsense. Wake up!!!

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 7:49 PM

I really don’t understand what is going on.

A quote by

FRANKLIN, the Prize Winning REAL LYING AIDS DENIALIST

Unanimously elected into the “Denialists Hall Of Infamy” on July 29th 2007

Dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 8:00 PM

DT, you AZT addicted bonehead! I see you are still rambling on that AZT is deadly poison, but not as deadly poisonous as Dr. Maniotis says.

Oh, you really are a case DT. You really are a very special case.

However, it was very nice to see you finally admit a couple of posts above:

“AZT clearly has toxicities and can cause all the problems mentioned above. But………”

Well, DT, you can but,but,but,but,but,but, all you want. BUT THIS DT: It does not change one simple fact:

All of your “but but butts” clearly show you to be either psychopathic or insane, because you are still arguing for the use a a proven very deadly toxic poison to be used on your fellow human beings.

I suppose you thought that The Hippocratic Oath” to FIRST DO NO HARM, taken by doctors that you have sold this stuff to actually meant:

HYPOCRITIC OATH!

Well DT, it may come as news to you, but Hippocrates and Hypocrites are actually two very different and opposite things:

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath traditionally taken by physicians pertaining to the ETHICAL practice of medicine.

On the other hand…….

HYPOCRITE-Definition:

Noun.

1) a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold

2) dissembler, phoney, phony, pretender, beguiler, cheater, deceiver, trickster, slicker, cheat -

3) someone who leads you to believe something that is not true

4) charmer, smoothie, smoothy, sweet talker – someone with an assured and ingratiating manner

5) a person who is inwardly evil but outwardly professes to be virtuous

Now which of those two definitions would DT, the AZT and Nevirapine advocate be a follower of?????

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 8:22 PM

There are what – 20 licensed HIV drugs now? And the denialists still get hung up on AZT and nevirapine, big time.

Nevirapine seems to be the bete noir for the reason that the single dose given to mothers to prevent MTCT of HIV can select resistance to nevirapine. This is through a K103 mutation, which would also rule out efavirenz. But there are plenty of other drugs available, should the mother require treatment sometime in the future (and why are rethinkers getting so worked up about drug resistance if they think that the drugs don’t work in the first place?)

One way to look at the rethinker POV is to compare HIV MTCT like bacterial meningitis. Imagine these two scenarios (the first being equivalent to giving nevirapine, the second being to withold it.)

OPTION 1: Give people antibiotic A, which will prevent the meningitis in 2/3 of recipients. However, of the third who do get meningitis, half will have resistance to antibiotic A in the future, so if an antibiotic is ever needed again, you will have to use a different antibiotic, of which there are at least a dozen available.

OPTION 2: Give nothing, and let 100% get meningitis. Comfort yourself in the knowledge that although this will result in significant morbidity and mortality, if the patients do survive and ever need an antibiotic in the future, you could give them antibiotic A, even though this may not be necessary considering all the other antibiotic options there will be available to you.

Posted by: DT | July 29, 2007 8:36 PM

Michael, I see you are still doing your best to persuade visitors to this blog that rethinkers are thoughtful, accurate, polite, rational and in full possession of their critical faculties….

I doubt you will find anyone who says HIV drugs do not have toxicities. That is undisputed. It may come as a bit of a shock to you Michael, but all drugs have side effects, not just those against HIV. The decision whether to give them to someone rests on the risk-benefit outcome.

As for Hippocrates/hypocrisy, may I suggest you consider what you are saying? How would you treat a child with meningococcal meningitis? Since all antibiotics can “cause harm”, you would no doubt be perfectly happy to let the doctors twiddle their thumbs and watch the child die, since they have sworn to “First, do no harm”.

Completely ridiculous.

Posted by: DT | July 29, 2007 8:47 PM

Ahhhhh, there goes the hypocritic Real AIDS denialist DT, trying to take us all down another primrose path of delusion.

No-one here ever said meningitis should not be treated! The antibiotics given for meningitis do not commonly require blood transfusions as does AZT. They do not cause an individuals skin to completely peel off as does Nevirapine.

DT would have us believe that AZT and Nevirapine are as nontoxic and relatively risk free as is a simple antibiotic. They are not, DT. There is absolutely NO COMPARISON, and YOU KNOW IT! AZT and Nevirapine are deadly toxic poisons that DT has often and probably still sells to doctors.

DT is running away from the internal guilt and shame of having done this, because DT has played a role in many people getting blood transfusions, lypodystrophy, neuropathy, and even death.

Had I been carrying such guilt on my own shoulders, I too might go insane or become a complete denialist as DT has obviously done.

Well not to worry DT, because if there is a God, then surely God is forgiving of all, and even forgives you. But not one moment before you admit to your guilt, and admit to your error and seek to change your evil ways!

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 8:48 PM

They do not cause an individuals skin to completely peel off as does Nevirapine.

Antibiotics are one of the drugs most commonly implicated in SJS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 29, 2007 9:15 PM

Chris said: “Antibiotics are one of the drugs most commonly implicated in SJS”.

That is very true Chris, and obviously science needs to be pressured to come up with ways to quickly and accurately find out who will suffer these rare reactions to antibiotics and other drugs before full administration of any antibiotic or any other drug known to cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome, instead of wasting 14 billion a year needlessly pushing the unnecessary poisoning of patients with toxic anti HIV drugs. Or wasting untold more billions on more fruitless HIV research.

After all, liver failure is still the leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans, and almost all of the illnesses related to AIDS are completely treatable for those patients who want to live and want to be well, and are not also doing themselves in with drug addiction or high stress lives from untreated emotional problems or malnutrition.

Stevens Johnson Syndrome has been attributed to:
painkillers
rheumatoid arthritis
antibiotics
drugs for bi-polar disorder
non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)
barbiturates
anticonvulsants
sulfa antibiotics
penicillins

SJS has been reported as caused by these specific medications

Bextra
Arava
Remicade
Ibuprofen
Daypro
Children’s Motrin
Advil
Topamax
Lamectal
Allopurinol
Phenytoin
Carbamazepine

Why certain drugs cause SJS is still not fully understood. However, it is generally accepted that patients with known allergies to sulfa-based drugs have a greater chance of acquiring the conditions. Examples of sulfa-based antibiotics include:

Penicillins
Tetracycline
Doxycycline
Amoxicillin
Ampicillin
Zithromax/azithromycin
Beta-Lactams
Ciprofloxacin

Proper labeling of drugs is crucial to helping medical professionals and consumers recognize and understand adverse reactions such as SJS. Too often, drugs have sulfa components, but are not labeled as sulfa drugs.

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 9:42 PM

Just tried to post this under my old email address, but seems Tara is holding all posts from that email address. So I will try to post it again:

Chris said: “Antibiotics are one of the drugs most commonly implicated in SJS”.

That is very true Chris, and obviously science needs to be pressured to come up with ways to quickly and accurately find out who will suffer these rare reactions to antibiotics and other drugs before full administration of any antibiotic or any other drug known to cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome, instead of wasting 14 billion a year needlessly pushing the unnecessary poisoning of patients with toxic anti HIV drugs. After all, liver failure is still the leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans, and almost all of the illnesses related to AIDS are completely treatable for those patients who want to live and want to be well, and are not also doing themselves in with drug addiction or high stress lives from untreated emotional problems or malnutrition.

painkillers
rheumatoid arthritis
antibiotics
drugs for bi-polar disorder
non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)
barbiturates
anticonvulsants
sulfa antibiotics
penicillins

SJS has been reported as caused by these specific medications

Bextra
Arava
Remicade
Ibuprofen
Daypro
Children’s Motrin
Advil
Topamax
Lamectal
Allopurinol
Phenytoin
Carbamazepine

Why certain drugs cause SJS is still not fully understood. However, it is generally accepted that patients with known allergies to sulfa-based drugs have a greater chance of acquiring the conditions. Examples of sulfa-based antibiotics include:

Penicillins
Tetracycline
Doxycycline
Amoxicillin
Ampicillin
Zithromax/azithromycin
Beta-Lactams
Ciprofloxacin

Proper labeling of drugs is crucial to helping medical professionals and consumers recognize and understand adverse reactions such as SJS. Too often, drugs have sulfa components, but are not labeled as sulfa drugs.

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 9:45 PM

Andrew,

You wrote:

I’m not interested in Franklin’s inability to follow what the studies are saying

I assure that I understand very well the Eshleman study on nevirapine-resistance in the follow-up to HIVNET 012.

On the other hand, you seem unable to figure out even the simplified coverage of this study that appeared in the press. You quoted two press reports–One by Pavia, which you quoted as saying:

In the HIVNET 012 study, nineteen percent of the women who had received nevirapine, and who were tested at six to eight weeks post partum, had evidence of nevirapine-resistant mutations.

And another by Boggs, which you quoted as saying:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19%

But the juxtaposition of these quotes confused you so much that you embellished Boggs with a string of question marks:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19% ???? (I thought it was 49%?????? According to the article by Esheleman above??? Hmmmmm….) of women who are not receiving other antiretroviral drugs.

You can’t even figure out the press summaries that you cite. It’s no wonder that you are so at sea when you try to read a real paper that you typically resort to fabricated quotes or other attempts at distortion.

I really don’t understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 9:49 PM

Michael,

With every post you display your ignorance of biology and medicine.

According to your post, this is your list of “sulfa-based antibiotics”:

Examples of sulfa-based antibiotics include:

Penicillins

Tetracycline
Doxycycline
Amoxicillin
Ampicillin
Zithromax/azithromycin
Beta-Lactams
Ciprofloxacin

Not one of the antibiotics on your list is sulfa-based. Not one.

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 10:06 PM

As usual Franklin, you are simply mistaken.

They are indeed sulfa. Don’t take my word for it! Contact the manufacturer or the FDA.

You really should properly investigate before you type what you mistakenly believe are facts, as otherwise you simply and repetitively come across as being hopelessly ignorant. And even worse, as being a know-it-all who, as such, is simply incapable of learning anything new!

Posted by: Manu | July 30, 2007 1:00 AM

Hey Franklin, you dork! Take it up with these guys:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:QoWd5kLlSRoJ:www.mediafact.com/sjs/drug-list.php+Amoxicillin+%22sulfa+based%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

Posted by: Michael | July 30, 2007 1:10 AM

They are indeed sulfa. Don’t take my word for it! Contact the manufacturer or the FDA.

How about a textbook? None of the antibiotics listed are sulfa-drugs.

You really should properly investigate before you type what you mistakenly believe are facts, as otherwise you simply and repetitively come across as being hopelessly ignorant. And even worse, as being a know-it-all who, as such, is simply incapable of learning anything new!

Oh, the irony!

Michael should have done some checking before he copied and pasted from a random website on the internet.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 30, 2007 1:38 AM

Andrew Maniotis blames government conspiracies, big drug companies for AZT a drug that killed three quarters of the world’s population and anemia in 50% of people because if you round up 1.2 to 2 and move a decimal point and correct for something and round up again you get 50. as the evidence of his mistakes hits him he sways a teeny bit. Admits maybe some people were trying to help. But recovers immediately and falls back on the old denialist standby.

AZT was used at super-gram dosages because the Gay community demanded it so vociferously

Yeah, Maniotis, like a new version of that Milli Vanilli song, Blame It On the “Gays”

Posted by: Adele | July 30, 2007 8:54 AM

Michael,

There you go denying reality, again. I point out that you are providing false information about “sulfa-based antibiotics,” and you persist in your fantasy. Not one of the antibiotics you listed is sulfa-based. Not even one!

The full text of a microbiology textbook is available for free at PubMed. Try reading the Chapter 11 Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Maybe you will learn the difference between a “sulfa-based” or sulfonamide antibiotic and the other classes of antibiotics. If you need help with the chemical structures in the diagrams, try asking a high school student.

On the other hand, you will probably continue to deny reality and insist that beta-lactams and tetracyclines are examples of “sulfa-based antibiotics”.

Michael, every time you post such obviously false statements you further erode your credibility. When you insist that such obviously false statements are true, you undermine the entire denialist position.

Your arguments are so riddled with errors and falsehoods–errors and falsehoods to which you cling despite all evidence–that one is left with no reason to take any of your claims seriously.

Posted by: franklin | July 30, 2007 9:30 AM

Andrew MAniotis says
I’d really appreciate Adele answering my question re: the relevance of her mutant’s lack of activity to all of those mutant studies in humans I posted above where mutation is able to overcome the suppressive effects of nevirapine or other ARV’s.

Very easy. The mutations I’m talking about would kill the virus in vivo so you don’t see them they die. I wonder if Andy’s familiar wtih a “fitness landscape” these mutants are the absolute worst end of it. You can’t even usually grow up a stock for obvious reasons unless you supply whatever it is they don’t have in trans on another plasmid. So you can get a virus out that gets into a cell but doesn’t make new virus, “single round”. Depending on how its setup maybe there’s a chance of mutation at RT step or something but remember theres only one chance to get exactly the right combination of mutations it comes down to you could do this twenty times a day in your lab for a year and never get anything out.

Virus can’t go from defective to functioning in a single round. I think Andrew should sit in on a evolutionary biology seminar this fall, might help him out, I think he doesn’t understand what selection is, its limits.

Eeek,
I’d also like a reaction from you folks regarding Montagnier’s proported reason for the infection of the 426 children being due to “an influx of workers from sub-Saharan Africa” (read Blacks)

Is it racist to say, people who come from a place of high prevalence are more likely to carry a disease than people living in low prevalence area? No but it would be racist to say that’s a reason to discriminate by skin color. That’s not what the quote was saying. Huh but that IS what Andy’s friends at AAPS says about immigrants like Mexicans and people from further south. Weird haven’t seen Andy protesting AAPS I guess they’re that important to him they take him seriously so their racism’s ok.

Posted by: Adele | July 30, 2007 2:18 PM

The point is that every time a decision is made to treat with a drug, the doctor considers the possible risks against possible benefits. Squabbling about 2% anemia or 50% anemia, or which drugs cause SJS etc is getting us all nowhere fast (although it nicely demonstrates Michael’s ignorance).

Rethinkers feel that drugs to treat HIV are unjustified on the basis of their toxicity, and on the other side of the equation consider HIV to be nonexistent/harmless. If one takes that view, then any drug is unecesary, even one with minimal side effects.

What we disagree about is the relative pathogenicity of the virus and the relative toxicity of the drugs. Orthodox HIV specialists consider there is a vast amount of relevant research and clinical experience that indicates it is far and away better to give the drugs than do nothing – genuine benefits are seen. Rethinkers seek to ignore or dismiss the totality of clinical experience and research, and do so in a dishonest way (like Maniotis does) by misrepresenting studies and lying about the degree of toxicity of the drugs.

Posted by: DT | July 30, 2007 8:36 PM

What we disagree about is the relative pathogenicity of the virus and the relative toxicity of the drugs.

Denialists deny that HIV is pathogenic. Denialists lie about the toxicity of AZT and other antiretrovirals.

If AZT were really as dangerous as the Denialists make out then what would they have predicted for the results from the Concorde study.

The Concorde study had an immediate group, taking AZT, and a deferred group that took a placebo. The deferred group were given AZT if they progressed to AIDS or had CD4+ depletion.

If HIV were harmless then according to denialist dogma the deferred group should not have progressed to AIDS and should not have suffered prtogressive CD4+ cell depletion. In reality the deferred group did progress to AIDS and did suffer CD4+ cell depletion.

If AZT is really as toxic as the Denialists would have us believe then the immediate group should have progressed to AIDS much faster than the deferred group. In reality there was not a significant difference between the two groups.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 30, 2007 9:15 PM

DT, I would agree with you when you said:

“Rethinkers feel that drugs to treat HIV are unjustified on the basis of their toxicity, and on the other side of the equation consider HIV to be nonexistent/harmless. If one takes that view, then any drug is unecesary, even one with minimal side effects”.
——————————————————–
I myself, even as a dissident, would fight for anyone’s right to take any of these drugs, if the individual themselves believes they must have them. The reason being that the placebo effect can work just as well in the opposing situation wherein the patient may believe they will die or sicken without taking certain medications, and will possibly worry themselves sick, or perhaps even mentally contribute to manifesting illness if not given something they believe in.

DT, You also said:

“Orthodox HIV specialists consider there is a vast amount of relevant research and clinical experience that indicates it is far and away better to give the drugs than do nothing – genuine benefits are seen”.

This may very well be what orthodox specialists consider, however, this statement cannot be taken by me at face value, because those “specialists” who often have individual conflicts of interest, or are unknowledgeable of contributing factors such as drug addiction or extreme fear that the patient may be in, or the extreme stress that a patient may have in their life, are all too often ignoring or blind to anything that presents their product in any negative light, or conflicts with their bias that any presenting illness is due soley to HIV while ignoring all co-factors. This is often, if not even usually, the case.

Vioxx is a current and blatant example, and vioxx is far less toxic and has far less side effects than the HIV drugs.

There is no way to verify this, but I suspect the outcry over vioxx was as intense as it was because it is a drug commonly used by white middleclass heterosexuals.

There has not been such a public outcry over the toxicities of the HIV drugs, partly because of the public ignorance that believes HIV is an absolute death sentence, and I would also suspect it is because these drugs are commonly given 97% to homosexuals and blacks. If any drug were as toxic as these and were given to predominantly white heteros, the drug simply would not be on the market for long, and the manufacturer would have quickly been taken to task for the side effects.

There are a very high percentage of toxic and deadly side effects with the HIV drugs, but there is very seldom a drug company held reliable for any deleterious effects of these drugs at all. All of the cases I know that were taken to court were all done so by white heterosexual women!

Obviously, there is something seriously wrong with that picture. We can all close our eyes and pretend such is not the case, but the elephant is nonetheless sitting in the living room while we pretend to ignore it.

Almost no-one is aware that the study volunteers for ALL of the AIDS drug trials have never, not even once, been informed that the study was paid for by a pharmaceutical company or that the director of the studies had conflicts of interest. Absolutely NO HIV study volunteers have ever been made aware of this fact! Almost no-one is aware that the HIV meds are not proven against placebos. Unethical my ass, as they have never even sought willing volunteers, many of who would be glad to put their health at risk by taking the meds or by taking a placebo to further the scientific knowledge. Unfortutely, it seems the research community, which is pharma oriented and financed, has no desire to find out such information. Most likely because it is highly threatening to many special interests.

The patients enrolling in all of these studies all are in a state of fear and agitation and are therefor easily led into a study. This borderlines on illegal co-ersion of the study volunteers because the patients are in a state of irrational fear, and they are not told that there are many long term nonprogressors, and they are not told that there is another choice of simply avoiding hiv drugs and treating for presenting illnesses only! This practice, in and of itself, is wrong!

Nobody even knows how many there are that are untreated, and any such guess by anyone on either side would be simply that. It could be as low as a few percent, it could be more than 50 percent. Nobody knows.

The volunteers are not told that they could simply opt to only treat any actual illness that they present with and not treat HIV, and not treat for the very possibly if not probably misleading CD4 T cell counts and viral loads that current medication schedules are based on. Even the Rodriguez study and the current study shooting down the “runaway theory” show that this could very well be good policy that may benefit the patient. That this is ignored is absolutely not right, and I, as a gay man with friends and lovers affected with this issue, will fight any of you absolutely to the death in order to stop this immediately!

We all know that HIV does not necessarily lead to death. Anyone claiming that HIV inevitably leads to death, as Robert Gallo had proclaimed, is also a liar and an AIDS denialist, who is simply poisoning the fertile minds of those affected by a diagnosis, and contributing to their fear, stress, and any illness they may get.

Anyone who denies the above facts is a complete AIDS denialist. Anyone who plays down or simply guesses at what the survival rates of people only being treated for any presented illness may be are also lying as they are purely speculating as there are no studies done on this.

Those who take up the “everyone HIV positive will get AIDS and die unless they take the proven toxic deadly, but simply presumed to be life saving drugs” banner as a pure and total AIDS DENIALIST and REALITY DENIALIST LIE. Such promotion may be good for the pharma biz, but it has proven disastrous for many thousands of people who will now go through the rest of their lives damaged by AZT, Nevirapine, Lipodystrophy, Neuropathy, liver cancer and liver failures.

The AIDS apologists can feel as guilty as they want over this, or they can go into denial of it all they want. It does not change the facts. But there is no need to go into guilt or into denial over it. There are other choices such as focus on the solutions, and chalk the past mistakes up to simple human foible or error or ignorance that all of us are at times affected by.

Posted by: Michael Geiger | July 30, 2007 10:04 PM

Hey Chris.

You are the real AIDS denialist that denies anything and everything the dissidents have ever presented. You also deny that there is anything at all to ever question or criticise in more than 200,000 HIV papers. You couldn’t be any more of an AIDS denialist if you tried.

Do the world a really big favor and just shut the fuck up unless you have something intelligent or rational to say.

Posted by: Michael | July 30, 2007 10:08 PM

DT
“Rethinkers seek to ignore or dismiss the totality of clinical experience and research,”…

Not necessarily. There seems to be benefits if one is on their death bead supposedly from the anti-microbial effects these drugs have, but to administer them ritually for a lifetime all in the hopes to keep one alive is sheer stupidity. How would you feel if you were told you have to stay on chemo for the rest of you life? Huh?

Your pretty little protected doctrine of more drugs into mouths is killing more people branded HIV then anything else. Jesus Christ. wake up.

Posted by: carter | July 30, 2007 10:28 PM

Chris, the Sasquatch AIDS denialist said:

“How about a textbook? None of the antibiotics listed are sulfa-drugs”.

Franklin, the “I really don’t know whats going on” AIDS denialist said:

“There you go denying reality, again. I point out that you are providing false information about “sulfa-based antibiotics,” and you persist in your fantasy. Not one of the antibiotics you listed is sulfa-based. Not even one”!

Unfortunately, you asshole know-it-alls are too ignorant to understand that all of the antibiotics listed do indeed contain SULPHA BASED COMPONENTS that are not listed!

The fact that they are NOT LISTED AS SULPHA BASED when all have components that ARE SULPHA BASED was the VERY POINT of posting them. But obviously you did not bother to READ MY ENTIRE POST or you would have understood that the reason for listing those particular antibiotices is because THE SULPHA BASED COMPONENTS OF THEM ARE NOT LISTED AS SUCH!

What a pair of supreme know-it-all assholes!!! You would really make a lovely couple!

Posted by: Michael | July 30, 2007 10:35 PM

Hey Michael,

Another typical post from you:

The fact that they are NOT LISTED AS SULPHA BASED when all have components that ARE SULPHA BASED was the VERY POINT of posting them. But obviously you did not bother to READ MY ENTIRE POST or you would have understood that the reason for listing those particular antibiotices is because THE SULPHA BASED COMPONENTS OF THEM ARE NOT LISTED AS SUCH!

So the reason for listing the antibiotics as sulfa drugs in your post is because they aren’t sulfa drugs? Denying reality is your occupation? Or just a hobby?

Beleive me, I read your entire post. There wasn’t much there.

I’ve also read some microbiology and pharmacology textbooks. The reason for pointing you to the free Microbiology textbook available on PubMed was so that you could see for yourself that none of those antibiotics have “sulfa-based components”. The textbook shows the chemical structures for many of the antibiotics you listed as “sulfa-based”–and guess what–not one of them contains a sulfa group.

Maybe you should complain to the organic chemists who determined the structures of the compounds and call them to task for hiding the “sulfa-based components”. Maybe you can develop a new conspiracy theory about hiding sulfa groups.

It would be the logical next step for your denial strategy.

Keep up the front. Every time you insist on clinging to such an obviously false statement you undermine your entire HIV denialist position. If you can argue so vehemently for claims that are proven false simply by looking at a Pharmacology or Microbiology textbook, what value can your arguments hold over any other matters?

Posted by: franklin | July 30, 2007 11:25 PM

Unfortunately, you asshole know-it-alls are too ignorant to understand that all of the antibiotics listed do indeed contain SULPHA BASED COMPONENTS that are not listed!

Even the website that you uncritically copied and pasted from does not say this.

Examples of specifically designated sulfa drugs would be the sulfa-based antibiotics listed below.

None of the antibiotics that are listed as “sulfa-based” are in fact sulfa-based.

The website states :This Site is not operated by a licensed legal or medical professional, and none of the information contained within the Site should be construed or relied upon as legal or medical advice.

Michael. Pick up a textbook and read it. None of the antibiotics in your cut-and-paste list are sulfa-based nor do they have any sulfa-component.

The chemical structure of all of these antibiotics is known. You are simply wrong. Admit it.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 30, 2007 11:28 PM

How many people died if he made an innocent mistake about an antibiotic, vs your “mistake” of giving people monster doses of AZT, a chemotherapy that kills cells to treat a microbe thats in 1 of 1000 cells! Treat an illness that supposedly kills cells by killing even more, makes good sense! oops!

Posted by: cooler | July 30, 2007 11:32 PM

Well, you two bobsey twins of AIDS denialism may be right about these antibiotics that they do not have any sulpha based components. I cannot say you are and I cannot say you are not. As you see for yourselves, there are others in the world at several sites on the net that say they do have sulpha components.

Personally, I really do not give a damn one way or the other whether antibiotics have sulpha components or not. But I would believe anyone else in the world before I would believe either of you two lying hateful troll AIDS denialist creeps.

Posted by: Michael | July 31, 2007 2:45 AM

Well, you two bobsey twins of AIDS denialism may be right about these antibiotics that they do not have any sulpha based components. I cannot say you are and I cannot say you are not. As you see for yourselves, there are others in the world at several sites on the net that say they do have sulpha components.

Personally, I really do not give a damn one way or the other whether antibiotics have sulpha components or not. But I would believe anyone else in the world before I would believe either of you two lying hateful troll AIDS denialist creeps.

We are talking about a very simple chemical fact. It isn’t something that can be debated. Just look at the chemical formulas of the antibiotics in question. Do you even know what a Sulfonamide is? It appears that you don’t and yet you are prepared to argue that non-sulfa drugs are really sulfa-drugs. Your passion and vehemence are inversely proportional to your knowledge of the topic.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 31, 2007 3:15 AM

Know-it-all
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A know-it-all is a person who believes that he or she is extremely knowledgeable, and is determined to demonstrate his or her perceived intelligence at every opportunity. A know-it-all boasts about being an expert on a given subject, although his or her actual knowledge is often (but not always) limited or non-existent.

A know-it-all will invariably dispute others. For instance, someone may present a conflicting opinion or make a recommendation, but the know-it-all will act as though it had already been suggested, analyzed, and discounted. A know-it-all may also disregard or devalue advice from someone who actually has the knowledge the know-it-all purports to have.

Know-it-all may also refer to a legitimate expert who flaunts his or her knowledge.

Read your posts Chris. That description sounds to me exactly like YOU!

Chris you are welcome to shut the fuck up about sulpha drugs because I am not knowledgeable about sulpha drugs or SJS and really do not care to know as I have no interest in that line of study. Of course, you seem to have the need to be a know-it-all on every subject in all of science, including sulpha drugs or what their possible components may be, and that is fine. Perhaps you work behind the scenes manufacturing and designing them when you are not busy fighting the dissidents. Or perhaps you really do know everything. But perhaps not.

It has been my experience that those who have such seemingly “know-it-all” attitudes are incapable of learning, because their brains are already full of what they think they “know” and what they “believe” truth and reality are.

But regardless, Chris the Know-It-All Noble,

You do have the right to be a know-it-all!

You do have the right to freedom of speech.

You do have the right to say whatever you want.

You do have the right to believe whatever you want.

You do have the right the think whatever you want.

You do have the right to believe that HIV causes AIDS.

You do have the right to believe the dissidents are killing people.

You do have the right to believe you are “saving peoples lives” with all of your anti-dissident campaigning.

You do have the right to believe there is nothing to criticise in 200,000 plus studies of HIV or AIDS or the meds.

You do have the right to base your opinions and beliefs solely on what these studies claim.

You do have the right to base your opinions and beliefs solely on what you have heard or read instead of based on the practical experience of personally knowing the facts and details of the lives of those affected.

You do have the right to ignore or despise or hate whatever the dissidents present.

You do have the right to believe the peer review process that supposedly oversees these works just fine.

You do have the right to believe none of the studies presented were ever based in bias or prejudice.

You do have the right to believe Bob Gallo was correct about HIV or to believe whatever comes out of his mouth is truth.

You do ave the right to believe that whatever every HIV researcher says is truth.

You do have the right to ignore the conflicts of interest in HIV science or to claim there have never been such conflicts.

You do have the right to believe financial conflicts of interest have no effect of study outcomes.

You do have the right to your own bias and your own prejudice.

You do have the right to believe you have no bias or prejudice.

You even do have the right to be completely wrong as well as the right to make a complete fool of yourself while believing you are wise and knowledgeable!

You even have the right to have simply made a mistake, for to err is human.

Chris, you have all of these rights and more!

And I will even fight to defend your rights to all of these Chris!

However, I too have the very same rights as you Chris.

I have the right to decide for myself if you and the other HIV defenders and promoters are full of shit.

I have the right to my own beliefs and my own truths and to believe that you HIV defenders are all completely unknowledgeable, unaware, and blind to the realities of the HIV/AIDS situations, especially the many that I have personally perceived, witnessed and experienced through the direct personal knowledge of knowing many HIV positives, knowing people who take or have taken the meds, knowing the side effects they have suffered or been maimed by or died from, knowing their personal lives and addictions and emotional problems and personalities and beliefs and fears and emotions.

Unfortunately, for you defender of HIV guys, all you have is your studies that you have read, or what you have heard from someone else or read in a paper or seen on tv, while I, on the other hand, have the same as you, PLUS, I have had many hundreds of personal experiences with those diagnosed as HIV or AIDS, including with many very close friends and lovers!

While you have NOT had any such personal experience!

Gee, I wonder which counts for a better understanding of truth and reality!

Posted by: Michael | July 31, 2007 9:55 PM

Michael says personal experience is what’s important for understanding something.

I’m sorry for what Michael’s gone through. I’m also sorry he’s responding in putting out bad information to other people who could die of AIDS because of it.

Millions and millions of people died of malaria, centuries running. People needed an explanation their experience demanded one. They decided it was bad air caused it, mal-aria. Or a hex or being close to a kind of animal there were alot of reasons from “experience” and people like Michael who knew victimes sat around and talked naturally. Maybe they decided all the victims were depressed or impulsive or selfish or reckless or negative or they had ate too many nuts from a kind of tree in the fall.

They were all wrong. Michael’s wrong. People see and remember what they want unless their in a system that doesn’t let them fool themselves all the time like science. Not perfect either but there’s checks and balances.

People who figured out malaria needed knowledge about microbes and insects and medicine. Not experience with their sister or best friend dying of it. It’s tragic yes. But all this experience and emotion in the world doesn’t help anyone unless its directed to solving problems not saying lies you don’t even understand.

Posted by: Adele | August 1, 2007 10:47 AM

Adele
What I think Michael is saying is that there are a huge number of HIV+ people who live longer and healthier without your drug interventions and then those that believe you, consume and receive toxic chemical overload from your meds die an early death because their belief is so strong that HIV=AIDS=Death. This is what I’ve seen too. It’s seriously pathetic how your doctrine works to undermine people’s health for the one and only reason of protecting your unproven theory that HIV is the reason for it. Stupidity at its finest.

Posted by: carter | August 1, 2007 1:29 PM

Carter,

What I think Adele is saying is that the science disagrees with you. HIV in most cases (>90%) does lead to AIDS, and untreatede AIDS in most cases (>90%) does lead to death, despite Michael’s assertions to the contrary.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | August 1, 2007 6:30 PM

Do you have any scientific studies that prove this, ie an epidemiogical study that clearly stated in the study aims to confirm/falsify the hiv hypotheis, to see if hiv did kill people faster than hiv negative Matched controls?

The studies that Ive seen already assume HIV to be the cause of AIDS, so they didnt do much to control for confounding factors. Both groups should controlled for other confounding factors such as AZT, Drugs, other microbes/ catastrophic stress.

This would be the only way to test your microbe considering 99.% of animals dont get/die of aids from hiv.

Posted by: cooler | August 1, 2007 6:41 PM

Chris you are welcome to shut the fuck up about sulpha drugs because I am not knowledgeable about sulpha drugs or SJS and really do not care to know as I have no interest in that line of study. Of course, you seem to have the need to be a know-it-all on every subject in all of science, including sulpha drugs or what their possible components may be, and that is fine. Perhaps you work behind the scenes manufacturing and designing them when you are not busy fighting the dissidents. Or perhaps you really do know everything. But perhaps not.

It has been my experience that those who have such seemingly “know-it-all” attitudes are incapable of learning, because their brains are already full of what they think they “know” and what they “believe” truth and reality are.

Michael I never claimed to know everything. I am well aware of the limits of my knowledge and understanding. If I don’t know something I do some research before I open my mouth.

You on the other hand appear to have to problems expressing opinions on subjects of which you have zero knowledge. You could have just said from the start that you have know understanding of antibiotics and severe side effects such as SJS. Instead you copied and pasted from a random website and tried to pretend that you knew something abut these subjects. This is symptomatic of your approach to science in general.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 1, 2007 6:42 PM

Michael, don’t you dare presume you have a monopoly on personal experience with this disease. Why do you think all I know about it comes from “reading studies”? I am a clinician who has dealt with AIDS patients for over 20 years, and have seen and helped treat more people than you will ever know.

My personal experience is a direct contradiction to what you say is yours – In the days before HAART I saw patients with low CD4 counts sicken and die while all I could do was try and hold whatever OI they had at the time in check until something untreatable eventually killed them. In the last 10 years I have gone from consoling bereaved partners every week or two to running a thriving clinic filled with patients who are living beyond any expectation they or we had 15 years ago. Despite seeing 3 times as many patients, I see fewer than half the number of deaths I did 10 years ago. Sure, some have had serious toxicities – no-one here has ever said the drugs are not without problems, and some have been very ill because of those toxicities, but even these patients gratefully appreciate they wouldn’t be alive today without the drugs they have.

The studies I read merely expand my knowledge and enable me to sample and learn from the experience of others. Almost without fail, these studies confirm what I myself have seen over the years. HIV therapy works.

I have also had patients who did not wish to take drugs – some because of a fear of toxicities and developing lipo, and a few who like you felt that HIV was harmless. A couple of these patients have persisted in their wish not to start therapy, even after becoming ill with serious infections. Some have dissuaded partners from accepting treatment, and I have seen this strategy have diasastrous consequenses for those concerned.

I do not sell drugs or work for a drug company. I do what I do here because I have seen what I have seen, and I don’t wish misguided people like you “rethinkers” to cost anymore people their lives.

Posted by: DT | August 1, 2007 7:12 PM

DT, don’t forget those of us who refuse the drugs and are healthy. For well, over a year my CD4’s have been well under 200 without incident. There are many such cases out here as I am in contact with them. These people live normal, healthy lives by adopting healthy, living habits and for me, I add LDN. It is possible to live without the antiretrovirals regardless of all the rhetoric that the mainstream spouts.

Posted by: noreen | August 1, 2007 9:07 PM

DT, You said:

“I am a clinician who has dealt with AIDS patients for over 20 years, and have seen and helped treat more people than you will ever know”.

Thank you for clarifying this. I apologise for having assumed that you were a pharmaceutical detail person who had been posting priorly as pharmabawd.

There is now no doubt in my mind that you are doing your best to do what you believe is right and to help in whatever ways you know how.

Furthermore, DT, I now see how you and I can even work together to end the entire fiasco of HIV/AIDS.

But first you must understand, if you are at all capable of understanding, where I am coming from.

I have been convinced, now for 20 some years, and I am more and more convinced with EVERY HIV positive person that I get to know, of what I believe with all of my being, to be a few very important facts, that you may as yet be incapable of percieving or understanding.

And these things go BEYOND what any medical book or scientific study can present. Science is incapable of even verifying that we humans have emotions, and that these emotions are extended over a vast range with a vast range of intensities of each. And I am talking about emotions such as shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, pride, anger, courage, acceptance, willingness, love, joy, and beyond.

How many of your patients ever share any of this with you? How many would tell you that they are suffering extreme shame because they killed someone, or molested a child or even their own child, or cheated on their lover, or beat their wife, or had sex with 25 people in the last week, or were up on crystal meth for the last 7 days?

None would tell you the honest and intimate details and facts of their lives DT! None would.

But yet these facts could and WOULD deeply effect their health and well being!

Some of the things that I myself take as fact are the following, though I do not expect you to agree or understand:

1) Ones own beliefs co-create their own manifestations of experiential reality.

What I mean by this, DT, is that when one believes in something, it assists in creating what is believed in. The very well proven fact of the “placebo effect” bears this out quite clearly.

How does this effect people with the issue of HIV/AIDS? Simple. If one believes they will get sick, then they most likely will. If ones trusted clinician believes they will get sick, the clinician is subconsciously projecting this very belief to the patient and the patient oftimes picks up on the belief and gets sick.

If one believes they are going to die, they most oftimes will. Even most surgeons will NOT OPERATE on any patient that believes they will die from the operation! Because too often, the patient does EXACTLY THAT!

The opposite happens as well. If the patient believes they will be well, most often they will. If the clinician believes the patient will be well, they contribute to the patient attaining such.

One other major factor to understand, is that when the public was told to expect imminent death from HIV, then the public manifested such HIV along with imminent death.

When the public was told they could live longer, the patients manifested living longer.

Please note that patients who free themselves from believing they will get sick from HIV most often stay well. Those who have freed themselves from believing in HIV medications as being what keeps them well, have most often succeeded in living out their lives free of those medications. Certainly there are some exceptions. Health is more than just HIV and crosses into realms of mind/body/spirit and physical factors such as nutrition. Certainly you are bright enough to know that lots of HIV negative people also get ill at times in their lives! But the mind/body/spirit connections are even more rattled by the mind part of the equation when someone believes their diagnosis, such as of HIV, will eventually inevitably cause them illness.

Now that does not mean there are not exceptions to this. Of course there are. Some will again be back in a place of believing they will sicken or being afraid they will need to be on meds again, or even convinced by the friends and so called “doctors” that they better take the drugs or they will sicken and die, and these people at times buy back into the beliefs of sickness or death or needing medications to keep them well.

For this reason, DT, I see it as absolutely crucial for you to deeply understand that the effect you have on patients goes far beyond whatever magic potions you bless them with in the form of medications! Understand this, Or do your patients a favor and get your ass out of their healthcare! Your very beliefs, conscious and subconscious, are effecting any and all patients who put their trust in YOU! Whether you know it, or believe it, or not.

When you as their caregiver, are in fear for their lives, or believe they will lose their lives, then you transfer your fears directly to the patient without a word ever being spoken! They do the very same to you, if you are not aware of it!

2) Many people see gain in illness and do not ever get well until they see no gain from illness and instead see gain in attaining health.

Some people feel gain in feeling sorry for themselves. Some have very direct gains such as others now having to take care of them, or the system itself taking care of them. This could be financially, emotionally, and physically or otherwise.

I am quite sure that if you have dealt with patients even for a very short time, you will note that some come to you for treatment, or at least for attention, for every single silly little ache or pain or sneeze or wheeze.

Many patients do not even take any responsibilty at all for their own physical well being, and will transfer all such responsibility to their caregiver to be the one responsible for every decision about their own health.

3) Some people even have death wishes.

Some people are intensely shame and guilt based. These people do not share with their caregivers their deepest darkest secrets or shame or guilt. They simply smile and say “Hello DT, I am fine” while they hold their gut wrenching emotional problems in their gut, and in their private moments, oftimes wish to themselves for their life to be over. For those who are seriously troubled emotionally, or who live lives of apathy, hopelessness, loneliness, or extreme emotional illness, as well as the extreme stress often associated with such, they will make choices or have reactions to medications or other experiences that will often even kill them.

What about HIVers? Well some feel extreme guilt about their sexcapades, some feel intense shame for being gay, some feel bad for cheating on their lovers, some want to get even with their families for childhood traumas, some are dealing with parental rejection or nonexceptance. Some will at some time or another have a death wish, and they will subconsciously attain their wish! And oftentimes, they will do it with their caregivers assistance, because the caregivers are not aware of such as it happens on very subconscious levels of human mind. Of course, there is much that an astute and aware caregiver can do, but these people are few and far between in the healthcare industry.

4) Mind affects body: Where the mind goes, the body follows.

When the patients mind believes they have a virus that will eventually make them sick, then they will eventually fulfill that very belief. When the patient believes they have a virus that will kill them, they will eventually die from it.

And on the opposing side, when a patient believes they will be just fine, or believes they will be healthy and they focus on what contributes to health and avoid what contributes to illness, then they will be healthy.

Therefore, DT, although I realise you lack understanding or awareness of the levels of human consciousness or of the interplay of mind, body, and spirit, your lack of understanding or awareness does nothing to change reality, as you will simply become an unknowing unaware co-creator with your patients, whether it be health or illness or death that you co-create and co-manifest with them.

However, if you should ever open up to the higher levels of human consciousness, wherein you can see and realize and understand this interplay, then you will become not a clinician, but a healer. However, that, is a choice to become a healer, instead of a supposedly learned and booksmart clinician, that only you can make or not, as you yourself choose.

Meanwhile, whether you make such a choice of not, is of absolutely no consequence to me, as I will continue to do my best to bring awareness to all that health and healing are a choice and an option, no matter how it may look to ones own inner ego that can perhaps only see reality from levels of fear and victimization due to external and uncontrollable external forces such as a mere virus or a mere medication.

So how can we work together DT? Simple. You do what you believe is best for those who come to you or cross paths with you, and I will do what I believe is best for all who cross my path.

What do I believe is BEST?

I believe it is of paramount importance to break the world free of believing HIV is a death sentence or that it will inevitably cause AIDS, because it quite simply is not true, although it is highly apt to become the truth for those who do choose to believe it!

I have seen over and over again that once people break free of egoic domination and its associated beliefs and mentations, they are then able to focus on what they wish to create in their lives, and create such, instead of being dominated or controlled or victimized by their own ego which accepts the beliefs of other egos, or its own mentations or manifestations that seem to the individual who is trapped in this egoic hell to be completely external and therefore seems to always require an external “fix”.

I will also continue to assist freeing people of their shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger and the resultant stresses that they create. This is done through accepting them exactly as they are, being tolerant, understanding, caring, forgiving, and completely nonjudgemental even if they have raped, pillaged, plundered, or murdered. Love heals DT. Whether you know it or believe it or not.

I will continue to assist others in attaining such levels of mind/body/spirit understanding, especially as regards HIV/AIDS. As once the very power of the belief is broken, along with the fear filled beliefs of sickness and death that attend to it, then there will be no more AIDS, and an HIV diagnosis, if any would have one or even seek one, will be a simple shrug of the shoulder followed by a “who cares, it doesn’t mean a thing”.

Until such time passes, clinicians such as yourself will undoubtedly be doing the best you can with the awareness and beliefs that you hold, and pass on to your patients.

So, DT, I applaud your past efforts, and encourage you to continue in growing and understanding health and well being. And please do continue to do what you do, and to do it the best you can, as I am sure you will, though I do encourage you to come to a greater understanding of mind/body/spirit as it pertains to your own health and the health of those who have chosen to come to you for assistance. Meanwhile, I will continue to do my best, to help others to grow beyond their own self limiting beliefs, and egoic domination, and to grow to a new understanding of their own inner connection to health and well being so they will not even need to come to such as you for their next magic pill “fix”.

Posted by: Michael | August 1, 2007 10:49 PM

Adele.

You said:

“Millions and millions of people died of malaria, centuries running. People needed an explanation their experience demanded one.

A couple of hundred gays got sick back in 81 and millions of people needed an explanation their experiences demanded one!

“They decided it was bad air caused it, mal-aria. Or a hex or being close to a kind of animal there were alot of reasons from “experience” and people like Michael who knew victimes sat around and talked naturally. Maybe they decided all the victims were depressed or impulsive or selfish or reckless or negative or they had ate too many nuts from a kind of tree in the fall. They were all wrong.”

THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY SURPRISES ME about that story, ADELE, is that the scientists and doctors at the time, DIDN”T BLAME MALARIA ON GAYS, BLACKS, OR SEX!

But back to what we humans later did discover, and why we dissidents simply love your story of Malaria and your example of another disease that was falsely accused of being blamed on the wrong facts……., and HOW ELSE it relates to HIV and AIDS……

Today, We all know the explanation for malaria.

We know it is spread person to person by a parasite infecting red blood cells and transmitted only by blood via mosquitos.

We know it can be easily seen with a microscope in all the affected.

And we know that it thoroughly and easily passes all of kochs postulates.

We also all know that HIV is NOT spread through mosquitos as Malaria parasites are, nor any other insect bites.

SAY WHAT???? HIV is not spread by blood via mosquitos????

Would you please explain to us why HIV is not transfered through mosquitos?

How could this be Adele, when HIV is supposedly a blood borne disease that one supposedly very easily gets through simply sharing dirty needles or from blood transfusions or from semen????

HIV retrovirus is thousands of times smaller than the huge ass parasite that infects red blood cells that causes malaria that is transmitted by mosquitos. By this standard alone, HIV should be the easiest thing in the world for a mosquito to transmit!

But they do not, and never ever have!

How can this possibly be Adele?

Does this make any sense to you?

Please do explain to us why HIV is not ever transmitted through blood via mosquitos.

I can’t wait for your answer, Adele. So please do not make me wait for eternity!

I am sure it will be another great moment of Pure Unadulterated Homer Simpson Science!

By answering just this one question, Adele, if you can explain this phenomenon of aetiology to all of us denialists, we can then return to the orthodoxy fold and once again all will believe that HIV is real, and actually infects Tcells in the blood, and that HIV is the true cause of AIDS!

Why isn’t HIV spread by mosquitoes Adele?

DDDDOOOOOOOOOOHHHhhhhhhhh!!! said the all knowing and wise scientist and Double Doctor, – Dr. Homer Simpson!!!!

Posted by: Michael | August 2, 2007 1:41 AM

Michael,
One word; Brilliant! If one truly wants to end the suffering and death culture of 25 years, this is the way.

However, the prevailing mainstream orthodoxy will have nothing of it. Why do they have to hold on to HIV? They have to hold onto their jobs, and their funding… Right DT?

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 2:05 AM

Well stated Michael and you are right! Years ago, cancer was the worse thing on the planet and those with it were looked at by society as given a death sentence. We have since adjusted to cancer. Now, AIDS is the latest grim reaper. AIDS was invented on paper from a collection of old diseases, none of themselves were particularly life-threatening. Throughout history mankind has developed diseases and some made it and others died, survival of the fitest. This is as ancient as history.

Doesn’t folks remember that AIDS was called GRID and why? That retroviruses are harmless and that Gallo only found it in about 40% of cases? Why isn’t the HIV test specific to HIV or why hasn’t it been validated? This is key to the HIV issue as lives are being ruined by these tests while most wave the HIV causes AIDS banner. Have all of you who believe in this had an HIV test? Will you trust your life and its accuracy to this test?

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 7:33 AM

Noreen,

I am glad that you haven’t noticed any serious problems with your health. But If HIV infection is innocuous, what do you think explains the decline in your CD4+ T-cells?

I realize that you deny that HIV infection causes disease, but do you also deny that a decline in CD4+ T-cells leads to immunosuppression?

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 9:20 AM

Franklin, I can only go on what I see and that is great health despite low CD4’s. I agree with the Pittsburg doctors and what was stated at the AIDS Conference in Spain, that CD4’s and viral load weren’t the best indicators of who would develop AIDS. Although, I progressed on to AIDS, I agree with them that the liver enzymes and white blood counts were better indicators and since mine are perfect and I haven’t any OI’s, I can only conclude that they are right and that my course of action is working for me.

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 9:41 AM

Would like to add, I have had low CD4’s of 78 and was sick and dying, which would support the mainstream’s point of view. However, I have had CD4’s of 83 and with current CD4’s under 200 for a long period of time and extremely healthy, this to me does not support great importance to CD4’s in regards to indicators of health.

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 9:45 AM

Michael,

You asked Adele why mosquito bites can transmit malaria but are not an effective vector for transmission of HIV:

HIV retrovirus is thousands of times smaller than the huge ass parasite that infects red blood cells that causes malaria that is transmitted by mosquitos. By this standard alone, HIV should be the easiest thing in the world for a mosquito to transmit!
But they do not, and never ever have!
How can this possibly be Adele?
Does this make any sense to you?
Please do explain to us why HIV is not ever transmitted through blood via mosquitos.
I can’t wait for your answer, Adele. So please do not make me wait for eternity!
I am sure it will be another great moment of Pure Unadulterated Homer Simpson Science!

By answering just this one question, Adele, if you can explain this phenomenon of aetiology to all of us denialists, we can then return to the orthodoxy fold and once again all will believe that HIV is real, and actually infects Tcells in the blood, and that HIV is the true cause of AIDS!

Once again you reveal your ignorance of biology and medicine.

It is not the size of an infectious organism that determines whether or not it can be transmitted by mosquitoes. Infectious agents that can be transmitted to humans by mosquito bite have evolved to be able to replicate in mosquitoes and in humans. Not all human pathogens can productively infect mosquitoes. In fact, like HIV, most human pathogens do not infect mosquitoes.

Malaria, the example you cite, illustrates the complex evolutionary adaptations that are characteristic of those pathogens that can infect humans and mosquitoes. The malarial life cycle requires passage through mosquitoes for sexual reproduction. The mosquito-phase of the malarial life cycle takes 2-3 weeks before the malaria parasites are infectious for humans. It’s not as if the mosquito’s stinger is the equivalent of sharing a dirty needle and injects someone else’s infected blood into your body. Once the parasite is ingested by the mosquito, it has to be able to infect and grow within the mosquito host. This is explained in the FREE Microbiology textbook available on PubMed:

The gametocyte, which is the sexual stage of the plasmodium, is infectious for mosquitoes that ingest it while feeding. Within the mosquito, gametocytes develop into female and male gametes (macrogametes and microgametes, respectively), which undergo fertilization and then develop over 2 to 3 weeks into sporozoites that can infect humans. The delay between infection of a mosquito and maturation of sporozoites means that female mosquitoes must live a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks to be able to transmit malaria. This fact is important in malaria control efforts.

Michael, once again your denialist argument lacks any true intellectual content and is based solely on your ignorance of biological science. Again you show how your denialism masquerades as an intellectual activity, yet simply reflects your desperate emotional defense mechanism against the very serious personal tragedy affecting your life.

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 10:11 AM

Franklin got to it before me. Sorry Michael.

Michael says about malaria,
THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY SURPRISES ME about that story, ADELE, is that the scientists and doctors at the time, DIDN”T BLAME MALARIA ON GAYS, BLACKS, OR SEX!

Well only ignorant people blame AIDS on “gays blacks or sex” AIDS is caused by HIV not your sex sexuality race ethnicity or any kind of identity or activity. Without HIV you can do or be anyone and not get AIDS. Let me say it again. HIV not behavior or identity causes AIDS.

Michael and Carter prove me right on superstition and science. When people are ignorant about a disease, they blame the victim lazy, bad attitude, negative, went to a haunted place, pissed off some spirits, had a death wish. When they find out there’s a biology explanation they can’t accept it so they revise the science explanation to make it look like the doctors are the intolerant idiots not them. Like HIV causes AIDS turns into “gays blacks and sex” cause AIDS.

Not only ignorant also destructive. Like Michael’s violent hateful comments to franklin.

Posted by: Adele | August 2, 2007 10:34 AM

“When they find out there’s a biology explanation they can’t accept it”

Ah — yes, except that the Biology is seriously flawed.

If you seriously believe that the Biology its not flawed, then please show us the purified particulate reference standard that determines unequivocally whether or not someone is infected with a particular infectious (HIV) virus particle?

If you seriously believe that the Biology its not flawed, then please show us a study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that shows the validation of any HIV test by the direct isolation of HIV from the fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues of positive testing persons. (And by the way, $50,000.00 awaits someone who can).

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 1:43 PM

What else do you want carter? Should we inflate a virion so you can put it on your lawn like one of those blow-up lawn ornaments? Maybe string a bunch of virions together on a rope so you can wear a virionecklace? After all if you can’t make it into jewelry or a lawn ornament it doesn’t exist.

Sorry to poke fun carter but saying “purified particulate reference standard” your just showing how much I mean little you know about “Biology” and if you really believe that 50,000 dollar thing I’ve got a nice used car to sell you.

Posted by: Adele | August 2, 2007 2:27 PM

Carter the valid test kits,
Ok we can send a space shuttle to orbit, right?
We can build a space station in orbit.
We could build another rocket on the space station and take it to the moon.
When we’re there, would you say we didn’t really reach the moon from earth? Because we took a few steps to go from earth to moon?

In the middle eighties they isolated HIV in gradients. Photographed by EM, Nucleic acids sequenced, proteins identified, proteins linked to the nucleic acid, found patient antibodies identifed proteins from the particular fraction of gradient, 1.15-1.17 if you want numbers. They cloned the sequences, mass produced proteins in bacteria made antibodies to them, made tests.

You can look up all of this on pubmed. hint it’s not all in a single paper. There’s lots of them. Is that really such a problem?

If it is make sure you never stop at a gas station on your way to work. Or you won’t actually be at work when you get there and you might get fired.

Posted by: Adele | August 2, 2007 2:37 PM

Adele, There’s no need to rant on and on with superfluous nonsense and ridiculous analogies.

Where are these validations? You fail to cite anything other than your ineptitude and ignorance.

Where are they so we can pick them apart one by one. What?… Are you scared you can’t come up with what you say exsists?

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 4:04 PM

Noreen,

Study after study has shown the importance of declining CD4+ T-cell levels in predicitng opportunistic infections. I am glad that you aren’t currently experiencing any opportunistic infections, but you should realize that you are at very high risk of developing potentially fatal complications of your immunosuppression.

I can understand your reluctance to start anti-retroviral therapy if you feel healthy. But I am curious what you will do in the future if–despite your positive attitude, healthy living habits, and avoidance of anti-retroviral drugs–you still go on to develop opportunistic infections. Will you refuse to take anti-retroviral therapies if you become ill despite your best efforts at healthy living?

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 4:41 PM

What validations? What do you want? The pubmed citations you can get yourself? The papers? The original lab notebooks?

Aren’t they all forged though according to you people? Corrupted? By big pharma, big guvmint, some kinda conspiracy?

Would you trust any kind of “validation” from scientists? Or only “dissidents” who agreed with you?

Posted by: Adele | August 2, 2007 4:48 PM

Adele,

Kindly point out the readers here and I, what substantiates that there are purified particulates for reference? The standard that determines unequivocally whether or not someone is infected with HIV. Please, since you know so much, surly you could find something to reference here. Maybe a couple since since you point to and from your bible of HIV. Don’t you know where to find this? Or are you just spouting that HIV is real because “we have correlation” and consensus makes it so. If people weren’t dying from your death camp, your ranting would be laughable.

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 5:02 PM

Franklin, LDN is what is preventing the OI’s by helping to regulate my body’s own endorphins. If LDN can stop MS and certain cancers, it can certainly help AIDS persons too. People do not die from low CD4’s but from OI’s.

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 6:44 PM

Kindly point out the readers here and I, what substantiates that there are purified particulates for reference?

AIDS Reagents

You can get various reference viruses, molecular clones etc here.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 2, 2007 7:04 PM

Joe posted:

This is not a social issue that is decided by persuasion; this is a technical issue that is decided on the data, by people qualified to understand the data.

I couldn’t agree more. However the data that shows HIV=AIDS isn’t much more than correlation, and we all know that all the correlation in the world doesn’t equal causation. Correlation does though indicate a direction in which research should be pursued with exhaustive resources. That certainly has been done, but where are the peer reviewed papers from all of the research, that show evidence other than correlation? Please (PLEASE) show me the papers with evidence that HIV causes AIDS other than by strong correlation (I will check back later).

By a social issue do you contend that the majority AIDS patients (almost two thirds) are not among gay men? That the next largest group of AIDS patients isn’t IV drug users? CDC data shows that that is the case. Don’t take me wrong. I’m not saying that IV drug use and recreational drugs used by gays is the cause of AIDS either. It is just another correlation that bears research.

In fact that was an area of research before the great announcement in 1984 that “the cause of AIDS has been found,” and that “a vaccine will be ready for testing within two years.” After that announcement by Margaret Heckler, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, research in IV and recreational drug use was dropped.

I don’t know that HIV does or doesn’t cause AIDS. I don’t know if IV and recreational drug use does or doesn’t cause AIDS. Maybe HIV causes AIDS but we haven’t found out how yet. Maybe HIV helps some other process cause AIDS, or maybe it is harmless. What I do know is that after the infamous announcement in 1984, all eggs were placed in one basket and we have made little progress. We have spent well over 120 billion dollars on research with no vacine, or other cure on the horizon.

With AIDS somehow knowing what part of the world it’s infecting, and if it infects male or female more in the US and Europe, yes, I’m more inclined (though not sold) on the so-called denialist point of view.

Instead of demeaning and name calling towards the s-called “denialists” those subscribing to the established scientific theory should humor them with debate. No, they are called murders, flat earthers etc.

The correlation with drug use is also pretty strong, especially if when one realizes that in the early 90s AIDS was redefined to bolster the correlation that HIV=AIDS, thereby removing most AIDS cases that were HIV negative. Of course that makes it easy to correlate near 100 percent, but it’s not objective, it’s deceptive, and it isn’t scientific. Science is designed to get around such deception. Yet the official definition was changed, based on a predetermined outcome. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, by simply removing what doesn’t correlate.

Posted by: Sandi | August 2, 2007 8:03 PM

Noreen,

I am not aware of any scientific evidence that Low Dose Naltrexone is an effective therapy for MS or AIDS, nor do I understand your rationale that any drug effective for MS or cancer will certainly benefit AIDS patients, as well.

On the other hand, given that you currently feel well and are reluctant to risk drug toxicities, trying LDN is an approach that, although of no demonstrated benefit, is unlikely to cause significant toxicity.

But I remain curious what you will do in the future if–despite LDN treatments, your positive attitude, healthy living habits, and avoidance of anti-retroviral drugs–you still go on to develop opportunistic infections.

Will you refuse to take anti-retroviral therapies if you develop opportunistic infections despite LDN therapy and your best efforts at healthy living?

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 8:08 PM

There has been research about LDN with many diseases. Check out lowdosenaltrexone.org. Right now there is a study in Africa and one of the control groups is AIDS patients who are only taking LDN. To answer your question, if I had an opportunistic diseases, then I would do what was done prior to AIDS being on the planet, I would treat the problem with what ever was necessary. I would not entertain antiretrovirals unless I were dealing with many viruses, extremely sick and then only for the short haul. I know that they work when one has many viruses attacking the body but I also feel that it is unwise to place the patient on them indefinetly.

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 8:20 PM

The correlation with drug use is also pretty strong, especially if when one realizes that in the early 90s AIDS was redefined to bolster the correlation that HIV=AIDS, thereby removing most AIDS cases that were HIV negative. Of course that makes it easy to correlate near 100 percent, but it’s not objective, it’s deceptive, and it isn’t scientific. Science is designed to get around such deception. Yet the official definition was changed, based on a predetermined outcome. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, by simply removing what doesn’t correlate.

In the Ascher study AIDS was diagnosed without using HIV status as a criterion. The result was that none of the HIV- patients got AIDS. On the other hand HIV+ patients got AIDS irrespective of their drug use. There is no circular logic here.

There are several other studies that show the same results.

There are also animal models such as SCID-hu mice that undeniably show that HIV causes CD4+ cell depletion and AIDS.

Duesberg and others are labelled Denialists exactly because they deny the existence of the evidence that discredits their views.

Duesberg’s response to Ascher was to a) accuse him of lying and b) invent 45 HIV- AIDS cases. The debate has been over for a long time. People do not take Duesberg seriously because he blatantly lies about the science.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 2, 2007 11:03 PM

WHAT WAS THAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT HOW HIV CAUSING AIDS?

Many years prior to the belief in HIV and AIDS, and on the heels of the sexual revolution of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, followed an epidemic of venereal disease, with an incidence that shot sky-high during the 60s and remained high throughout the 70s. But in the mid-70s the term “gay bowel syndrome” was coined for the plethora of illnesses encountered by proctologists. Significantly, the incidence of amebiasis abruptly took off in 1975, with a dramatic increase over the previous year.

Since no overt change in sexual habits took place in 1974 (such as a sudden introduction of anilingus), we have to look for alternative explanations. So lets look at what was happening socially in 1975!

An additional clue can be read from an advertisement that ran in The Advocate (the most important homosexual newspaper at that time), for about 2 years on and off, starting in 1975. It was an ad for the GSF (Gay Social Forum), and ran as its eye-catcher the line, “The Only Happy Homosexual Is A Dead One”. This was an ad that was written by someone very homophobic, but gay! Obviously a lot of self loathing going on. This was carefully rationalized by the gay community as a statement by the “enemy”, and the ad went on to condemn gays as it spoke of “a lifetime of suicide”.

I interpret this as the first sign of the massive buildup of unconscious guilt over such sexual abandon, a particularly difficult demon to placate and one which was to demand many sacrifices in times ahead.

Whatever death wishes the homosexuals may have been unconsciously entertaining towards themselves in 1975, they were just that: wishes. Soon, however, as they were continuing to be projected into the “enemy out there”, they found an object to stick to, which escalated the seriousness. As long as one perceived threats where there are none, all is vaguely well. When someone responds to that perceived threat and starts to really threaten you, it sets up a process of resonance, making one’s greatest fear become very real and inducing dread. This is, I think, what happened around the time of that crucial switch in the mid-70s. By July 1976 the United Federation of Teachers went on record against gay rights (85). By early 1977 the homosexual press started reporting that students on campuses were wearing T-shirts saying: “Bury a Fairy” or “Do the world a favor — Shoot a ‘Fa@@ot’.” (87) The process of liberalization of gay rights, though slowed down, continued. Dade County, Florida had passed a gay rights ordinance in February — the first major city in the previous year. There had been active campaigning by the homosexuals since the previous November, and it was the first victory by a “gay political machine” of its kind. And here, in the spring of 1977, the stage was set for the clampdown-to-come.

Enter Anita Bryant, of a I HATE GAYS campaign.

Bryant, an unhappy singer who identifies herself with “Deborah in the Bible whom God chose in a period of spiritual depravity when male leaders weren’t what they should be…” Her marriage of many years’ standing unhappy, unfulfilling and on the brink of divorce, she feels herself drawn to lead the counterrevolution. She leads the attack on gay rights, and founds at first “Save Our children (From Homosexuals), Inc.” and later “Anita Bryant Ministries”. The popularity of this cause is evident in the more than $2 million contributed by 400,000 people within the first 10 months. In her book, The Anita Bryant Story — subtitled: The Survival of our Nation’s Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality — she outlines the major issues: “The women’s liberation programs…have weakened family ties…single men are the chief source of crime and social disruption…marriage is essential to male socialization…” The gay rights movement is an “escape from sexual responsibilities and its display a threat to millions of young men who have precarious masculine identities.” That all of this would lead to a sacrificial ritual in which people would actually have to die, is clear from statements such as: “they were sacrificially committing themselves to

whatever was necessary to save our children”

(my emphasis) and “I’m not out with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other” (negation). She correctly foresaw that “a repeal [of the gay rights ordinance] would send a tidal wave of repression across the country.” She quoted a Dr. Lindsell: “if [the homosexual] does not repent, he is doomed…” A commingling of her personal and the group’s fears are revealed in: “…as the more liberal lifestyles come into the open, divorce rates soar, leaving the debris of human tragedy behind to suffer. The debris? Our children.”

As the campaign heated up in Dade County, homosexuals nationwide realized exactly what was going on, and became appropriately scared. Their most outstanding response to this threat, however, was also the most self-destructive: they started wearing little pink triangles, like those that had been issued to homosexuals under the Third Reich, saying, in effect, “We are your willing sacrificial victims.” Bumper stickers in Dade County started to sport overt death wishes: “KILL A QU33R FOR CHRIST.”

When the vote was tallied, victory was in the hands of Bryant and the New Right. “The ‘normal majority’ have said, ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’”

It was obvious to Sergeant Leonard Matlovitch (a former Vietnam War hero who had deliberately provoked a discharge from the Air Force in 1975 by informing his superior officer that he was gay) that a wave of repression was indeed going to follow, as well as the sacrificial events that Bryant had prophetically foretold. He warned that “Stormy times are ahead. I fear repression. Some gays are going to have to be prepared to make sacrifices — even die.”

Those were the first pieces of the puzzle: the delivery of the harangue was underway.

A similar harangue was delivered directly to the drug addicts of the US with identical results. Even the president and Nancy Reagan had declared a “National War On Drugs”, which really meant a war on drug addicts. These harangues, with their severe public shaming of these two groups for irrational reasons, were the factors that intensified whatever change had taken place in 1975, and were thus the direct precipitants of the AIDS epidemic.

Enter Jerry Falwell.

Falwell writes that “the Old Time Gospel Hour hereby declares war against the evils threatening America during the 1980s…this shall be a Holy War, not a war with guns and bullets…lead an army of Christian soldiers into the war against evil”. “The Evils to be fought against are abortion, the murder of innocent babies, and homosexuality as the cause of the deterioration of home and family”. He vows in another letter to “continue to expose the sin of homosexuality… I believe that the massive homosexual revolution is always a symptom of a nation coming under the judgment of God… The homosexuals are on the march in this Country.” Behind the fear of homosexuals was a conspiracy: “the drive for homosexual rights…[is] just a fraction of a master plan to destroy everything that is good and moral here in America”, said another.

It is impossible to estimate the numbers of letters and appeals such as these that went out in the US mail: the Moral Majority Report goes out to 840,000 homes per month, and there is no way of estimating the volume of mail sent out by Richard Viguerie’s direct-mail empire.

That the Moral Majority knew that they were engaged in a witch hunt (”Holy War”) was evident from statements made at training seminars such as, “We’re here to learn how to burn witches and everything else the press says we’re about.” Sentiments were expressed blatantly: “I know what you and I feel about these qu33rs, these fairies. We wish we could get in our cars and run them down while they march…” (108) Another: “I agree with capital punishment and I believe that homosexuality…could be coupled with murder and other sins… It would be the government that sits upon this land who will be executing the homosexuals.” And: “The cure to cancer is not to ignore it — remove it.”

Put together succinctly, this whole catalogue of threats delivered into the public arena (starting with Bryant’s campaign materials which contained a paper entitled, “Why Certain Sexual Deviations Are Punishable By Death”) points to one end, which is “Death to the Homosexuals.” And this was indeed the message they picked up. Full-page advertisements have been run since the AIDS epidemic started. They show how the death threats and the clampdown have been internalized: gone was the gallows humor of “The only happy homosexual is a dead one.”

The cure for an epidemic of hysteria is extremely simple. Once identified as such, all one has to do is to publicly announce it to be an epidemic of “mass hysteria”, after which the epidemic resolves itself in a very short space of time.

In an outbreak of psychosomatic symptoms due to a suspected poison gas at an elementary school in Dade County, Florida (in 1976), it was possible for Nitzkin to effectively terminate the epidemic within a time span of 2 hours and 10 minutes after it was started. The rumor that a gas leak was causing girls to faint (fantasy of poison gas) had started and spread within one hour, by which time most major news media from South Florida had arrived on the scene. By announcing that the disturbance was a mass hysteria and that there were no toxic causes, all further attacks were prevented and the school returned to its usual functioning. During the Koro epidemic in Singapore in 1967 a delusion of poisoned pork (based on recent vaccinations of pigs for swine fever) caused 469 persons over a period of 10 days to seek help in great panic that their genitals were retracting into their bodies.

Now, one more time, what was that you were telling me about HIV causing AIDS?

Posted by: Michael | August 2, 2007 11:34 PM

What else should be looked at in retrospect?

Lets begin with the number of gay men or drug addicts dying of AIDS since the first deaths in 1982.

In 1981, in the USA, five gay men became ill with an uncommon pneumonia, and by the way, none of these first five ever had any sexual partners in common. In 82 there were 8 deaths, in 83 there were 75, in 84 there were more than 100, in 85 the HIV test is invented and more than 170 die, in 86 there were more than 200 deaths, and in 87 there were between 250 and 300 deaths to AIDS.

Enter High dosage AZT monotherapy in 1987, given to ALL who tested positive for HIV. The death rate SOARED. By 1993 the word was out that AZT was deadly poison and doctors and patients slowly began to abandon it. The peak incidence of deaths was 50,877, reached in 1995. The average person taking AZT monotherapy lived 8 months to 1-1/2 years.

Enter the HAART drugs. As AZT was abandoned, but its effects still took their toll, the newer classes of drugs were put into use. The AIDS death rate came back down to pre 1987 levels. The leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans ever since use of the newer drugs replaced AZT has been liver failure, directly associated with those taking the newer medications. Other effects have been the maiming, disfiguring, and other effects of the newer drugs including lipodystropy, neuropathy, kidney and heart failure, and more.

Now, one more time, what was that you were telling me about HIV causing AIDS?

Can you say Epidemic of Psychosomatic Mass Hysteria?

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 12:20 AM

Oh, Come On Michael,

You promised to abandon your denialism if we explained why HIV isn’t spread by skeeters.

Posted by: Franklin | August 3, 2007 12:37 AM

As long as gays perceive themselves to be hated, either by God, or by the heterosexual majority, they will continue to believe that the heterosexual majority is out to kill or poison them, and they will submit to death as well as poisoning. No-one, and I mean NO-ONE! wants to live in a society or in a world, where they are hated, despised, looked upon as less than, or not fully wanted or appreciated.

Since gays, can no more change their sexuality then a leopard can change its spots, they will allow the heterosexual majority to dominate them, poison them, and submit to death by them.

The black races of the world will do the same, as they can also not change their skin color, any more than a homosexual can change his sexual preference.

May you all do as you will, and choose as you will. It is your world, and the choices are yours. And there are other choices available than the ones currently believed and imposed.

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 12:49 AM

Dear Franklin, You said:

“Oh, Come On Michael,You promised to abandon your denialism if we explained why HIV isn’t spread by skeeters.

Well, Franklin, your absolutely right for a change. HIV is not spread by skeeters,

HIV/AIDS IS SPREAD BY YOU AND ALL THE REST OF THE “HIV, The Virus That Causes AIDS” PROCLAIMERS AND PUSHERS.

YOU are the cause of AIDS! Every time you open your mouth

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 12:55 AM

Robert Gallo is the cause of AIDS. Tony Fauci is the cause of AIDS. John P Moore is the cause of AIDS. Marc Wainberg is the cause of AIDS. Every American President since Ronald Reagan has been the cause of AIDS. Most Americans are the cause of AIDS. The media is the cause of AIDS. Opera Winfrey is the cause of AIDS. Bono is the cause of AIDS. The surgeon general is the cause of AIDS. The “Moral Majority” are the cause of AIDS. The rascists and homophobes are the cause of AIDS. Even most Gays are the cause of AIDS.

And on this blog site….

Tara Smith is the cause of AIDS, Chris Noble is the cause of AIDS, Seth Manapio is the cause of AIDS, Richard Jefferies is the cause of AIDS. Franklin is the cause of AIDS. Adele is the cause of AIDS. DT is the cause of AIDS. Robster and Dale are the cause of AIDS. And the list goes on and on and on and on and on……….

So why don’t ALL OF YOU HIV/AIDS LOVERS and PUSHERS just shut your own selves up and enjoy what each and every one of you yourselves are all creating?

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:15 AM

And of course we must Always Remember that ALL of the wonderful HIV/AIDS Doctors, and scientists, and researchers and advocates ARE ALL THE VERY ACUTE CAUSE OF AIDS!

A BIG HIP HIP HOORAY! AND THANK YOU! TO ALL OF THEM!

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:24 AM

HIV

THE

HUMAN IGNORANCE VIRUS

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:28 AM

And once again, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time,

The cure for an epidemic of hysteria is extremely simple. Once identified as such, all one has to do is to publicly announce it to be an epidemic of “mass hysteria”, after which the epidemic resolves itself in a very short space of time.

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:48 AM

Some of you are just a little slow to catch on…., so one more time just for good luck:

THE CURE FOR AN EPIDEMIC OF HYSTERIA AND PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS IS EXTREMELY SIMPLE. ONCE IDENTIFIED AS SUCH, ALL ONE HAS TO DO, IS TO PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE IT TO BE AN EPIDEMIC OF “MASS HYSTERIA” AND “PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS”, AFTER WHICH THE EPIDEMIC RESOLVES ITSELF IN A VERY SHORT SPACE OF TIME

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:57 AM

THE CURE FOR AN EPIDEMIC OF HYSTERIA AND PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS IS EXTREMELY SIMPLE. ONCE IDENTIFIED AS SUCH, ALL ONE HAS TO DO, IS TO PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE IT TO BE AN EPIDEMIC OF “MASS HYSTERIA” AND “PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS”, AFTER WHICH THE EPIDEMIC RESOLVES ITSELF IN A VERY SHORT SPACE OF TIME

I thought you had to repeat “there is no HIV” three times while clicking the heels of your ruby slippers together.

A large proportion of people only get diagnosed with HIV infection when they turn up in hospital with PCP or other rare opportunistic infections. HIV causes AIDS whether you know you are infected with HIV or even if you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS.

You can try all the magical wishful thinking that you want. It won’t change reality.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 3, 2007 3:34 AM

Michael,
You know the sure fire, once and for all way to stop AIDS as well as I do. STOP THE FUNDING!

How to stop the disease states: Fund the stuff big pharma can’t make money on. And starting with Gov subsidies for organic farming.

Posted by: carter | August 3, 2007 3:43 AM

Chris,

Why must it be HIV for you..? Your mental aquity says HIV must explain everything, which is absolutely ludicrous. You and your cronies have had 25 years and all your explanations amount to death by liver failure and AZT which by the way is repackaged under Combivir/Trizivir and still prescribed today.

People are waking up to shear lunacy you all crated. You guys will have to deal with a mortal flesh wound sooner or later. So why not give it up now and start saving lives instead of killing with toxicity overload?

Posted by: carter | August 3, 2007 4:10 AM

Sandi,

After that announcement by Margaret Heckler, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, research in IV and recreational drug use was dropped.

Of course research on drug use continued after the announcement. And studies on drugs and HIV and progression to AIDS are still done now.

Ask yourself this,
How many, proportion, HIV negative drug users get AIDS?
How many HIV positive people who don’t use drugs get AIDS?

Of all drug users only a few get AIDS and they are the ones with HIV.
Of all HIV positive people almost all progress to AIDS if they don’t take HAART and alot even if they do.

HIV is necessary and sufficient for AIDS but drug use isn’t necessary or sufficient for AIDS. Even in the pre 1993 definition like in Ascher et al study, the number of HIV negative “AIDS” is so low every case is so medicaly remarkable, you could write it up for publication. Same with people who have HIV and don’t progress.

Posted by: Adele | August 3, 2007 9:03 AM

Adele,
With rhetorical long winded statements like that it’s no wonder and plain to see that you are in a serious “trance.” (As is the case with most people in your camp.) You act as if “AIDS” is a single disease. Go look up the definition and you will find it’s a collection of independent illnesses that have their own symptoms and own cures which existed long before the AIDS definition. Blanket statements like those have been used like a religious mantra by the likes of you and your establishment as a way to confuse and cajole everyone and especially the branded “poz” ones to taking your mostly useless meds.

Posted by: carter | August 3, 2007 10:31 AM

Ask yourself this, How many, proportion, HIV negative drug users get AIDS?

Adele,
Zero according to the definition, however not because they are not suffering from the same thing, it’s because they are excluded by the definition. Or should I say re-definition to ensure correlation:

Kaposi’s Sarcoma + HIV=AIDS
Kaposi’s Sarcoma – HIV=Kaposi’s Sarcoma

Wasting Syndrome + HIV=AIDS
Wasting Syndrome – HIV=Wasting Syndrome

Tuberculosis + HIV=AIDS
Tuberculosis – HIV=Tuberculosis

Also correlations for HIV=AIDS are not based on any national or international statistic reporting, because no such thing exists. They are based on selected individual studies. These studies are based on the presence of HIV, and often non-standardized antibody tests at that. Further these HIV tests are test for antibodies, antibodies that may or may not be antibodies against HIV.

How many HIV positive people who don’t use drugs get AIDS?

Not very many. I don’t have fresh numbers, but the older WHO estimates that there are 28.1 million HIV positive worldwide, and only 5 percent (1.4 million) worldwide cases of AIDS have been reported. I can’t find any numbers on drug use worldwide, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a fair correlation there.

Of all drug users only a few get AIDS and they are the ones with HIV.

Of all the sun bathers only a few get skin cancer. However unlike HIV=AIDS they don’t predicate the diagnosis of skin cancer (call it other than skin cancer) on whether one sun bathes or not, and/or whether they use sun block or not.

Of all HIV positive people almost all progress to AIDS if they don’t take HAART and alot even if they do.

Baloney. As I said in the WHO data above, 28.1 million are HIV positive worldwide. The total officially reported AIDS cases is 1.4 million, or only 5 percent of those that have the HIV virus.

Adele, you need to read and research for yourself all the data available from all sides. Then you can have an informed opinion.

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 6:12 PM

By the way Tara, why do you not week the posts like those Michael has makes. Regardless of which side he takes, he is simply a troll.

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 6:14 PM

Doh! week=weed above. My spell checker goes by what I spell, not necessarily what I mis-spell. *blush*

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 6:18 PM

Sandi,
I take it you didn’t look up Ascher et al, using the pre 1993 definition of AIDS?

Posted by: Adele | August 3, 2007 6:23 PM

Sandi, I take it you didn’t look up Ascher et al, using the pre 1993 definition of AIDS?

I’m familiar with the classic AIDS definition as well as the new definition. Do you have a point to make?

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 7:00 PM

Chris Noble said: “A large proportion of people only get diagnosed with HIV infection when they turn up in hospital with PCP or other rare opportunistic infections.”

Keyword here Chris, is “diagnosed”! That brings us back to the tests and diagnosis procedures, and the highly questionable way that HIV was supposedly isolated.

Testing in Africa and most all of 3rd world countries is extremely suspect. The most common test in Africa is a single Orasure Saliva RapidTest. That very test is now banned from use in many US clinics. December a year and a half ago, this test was found to give 1/4th false positives in San Fran, and similar problems in New York and LA. It was never discovered what was causing the test to show false positive, but that did not stop the CDC from purchasing millions of dollars worth of the test just 3 months later and distributing this worthless test to clinics nationwide. Another sweetheart inside deal that all you HIVheads love to ignore.

And then we could go into the problems of the validity of the back up tests of Western Blot and PCR. As there is no original reference of HIV in existence, that has been isolated from those diagnosed as AIDS, other than Gallo’s original clone of who knows what, all HIV tests are therefore completely suspect of confirming antibodies only to “who knows what” instead of to an isolated purified from patient sera virus that passes the postulates!

You can ignore this Chris, but to ignore it makes YOU the denialist!

You greatly enjoy using cloned material as a reference for evidentiary proof that HIV exists and is supposedly infectious.

Problem with this Chris. YOU do not know what the clone was originally cloned from. You are welcome to assume it was cloned from an exogenous retrovirus that is currently called HIV, but your assumption may be quite mistaken. The clone could just as easily have been cloned from pieces or parts of artefacts or some other DNA materials. Some snippets of DNA are infectious. Human DNA is also composed of more than 1000 sequences of exogenous retroviral materials in every human being.

But what was the ORIGINAL DNA from or a part of? Nobody knows! The inescapable fact that Gallo only evidenced traces of retrovirus activity in the form of RT activity from a mere 40% of his advanced AIDS patients, certainly does not prove that whatever it is that he believes was isolated was the cause of AIDS. As a matter of fact, it just as easily shows us quite the opposite.

Chris says “HIV causes AIDS whether you know you are infected with HIV or even if you don’t believe that HIV causes AIDS”.

And just where is your evidence for this? There is no proof in existence that the pieces of genetic material called HIV are doing any damage whatsoever. There is no evidence of such.

This is another great leap of faith by the believers in HIV. And science is not founded in FAITH. It is founded only by evidence that is demonstrable and repeatable. If the evidence can be falsified in any way shape or form, or if there is room for any other possible explanations, then the science is not factual, and is nothing more than belief and hypothesis.

Considering that all HIV positives do not get AIDS, but only a very tiny percentage of them, right there is the proof that the science of HIV could be fatally flawed. Right there is the only evidence that is needed to call the entire episode psycosomatic.

And there are many more explanations as well. Oh yes, Chris, you can and do ignore them, but that will not dispel them no matter how much you protest.

There is no significant cohort of HIVabpoz groups that are not drug abusers.

There is no cohort of HIVabpoz AIDS patients that are not under extreme stress, if for no other reason, than the stigmatization or fear induced by the diagnosis.

There is much evidence that AIDS is nothing more than the stress induced lowering of functions in the thymus that oversee all immune function.

Again, you can ignore this, but EVERY HIV/POZ AIDS case has had intense stress going on, whether they knew they were abpoz or not.

Until science proves how HIV causes AIDS, the construct must be assumed to be false, not faithfully believed in just because!

Science is not a realm of faith. It is a realm of proven or unproven. Falsifiable or not falsifiable. True in every case or NOT TRUE!

There are unlimited holes and gaps in the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS. Just because you and others approach science from faith instead of reasoning and logic, does not change this fact.

Unfortunately, the “Faith Based” scientists and researchers will destroy public trust in science.

There are absolutely NO SUSTAINABLE FLAWS ANYWHERE, Nor can you or anyone else falsify theories or hypothesis of Psychosomatic Stress Induced Lowering of Function of the Thymus Gland in EACH AND EVERY CASE of AIDS!

THEREFORE, IT MUST BE SCIENTIFICALLY ASSUMED TO BE TRUE!

But you know what Chris, as you just said to me up above:

“You can try all the magical wishful thinking that you want. It won’t change reality.”

Right back at yah Chris and Company!

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 7:49 PM

Adele said:

“HIV is necessary and sufficient for AIDS but drug use isn’t necessary or sufficient for AIDS”.

HIV is only necessary because the CDC definition has limited AIDS to ONLY BEING DEFINED AS SUCH if a person tests HIV positive. If they test negative, then it is not ever defined as AIDS, even if they presented with 10 or 20 of the 30 possible OI’s that are on the CDC AIDS definition list!

You and the CDC and the retrovirologists who pulled this circular definition crap as being the definition of AIDS should be exposed to the public as frauds and as lacking all integrity! This defintion was orchestrated by the AIDS retrovirologists and researchers for ONE REASON ONLY:

Simply to protect the HIV theory, and for absolutely NO OTHER REASON, after being highly threatened by the work of Peter Duesberg!

The ONLY thing that is necessary and constant in EVERY CASE of AIDS with any OI presenting, is Psychosomatic STRESS which impairs the thymus gland.

EVERY SINGLE AIDS CASE that reports Actual Illnesses SHARES THIS STRESS INDUCED LOWERING OF THE THYMUS GLAND IN COMMON, provided, one avoids including the 50% of AIDS diagnoses that are fully physically healthy who simply happen to have low CD4 counts which obviously makes no difference in their actual physical health!

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 8:16 PM

My apologies to to Michael for the “he is simply a troll” comment I made above.

Coming into the thread late, I only read his latter replies. Michael did make plenty of good posts earlier, but possibly lost patience and came off a bit harsh describing the other side of the debate in a few later comments. Unfortunately I took it the wrong way.

Again my apologies MIchael.

Posted by: Sandi | August 4, 2007 1:12 AM

I’m familiar with the classic AIDS definition as well as the new definition. Do you have a point to make?

The point that you are doing your best to ignore is that if you use a definition of AIDS that does not have HIV serology in the definitioon then the tight relationship between HIV and AIDS remains.

The Ascher study demonstrated this very well. Take HIV- and HIV+ patients and follow them over time. Who got Kaposi’s sarcoma? Only the HIV+ patients got KS regardless of their recreational drug use.

The number of people with the specific depletion of CD4+ cells that are HIV- is extremely, extremely small.

Unexplained opportunistic infections and CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection. An investigation of cases in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia Task Force.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 4, 2007 8:55 PM

Sandi, if you want to make a contribution then try to work out a response to my earlier post.

Does drug use cause AIDS

If you had read the thread you would have noticed the conspicuous absence of any rational response to this post.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 4, 2007 9:38 PM

I mistakenly said:

“Human DNA is also composed of more than 1000 sequences of exogenous retroviral materials in every human being”.

I meant to say “ENDOGENOUS”.

PS: All AIDS cases are psychomatic in nature, due to stress lowering the function of the Thymus Gland.

Every AIDS case proves this.

Posted by: Michael | August 5, 2007 1:15 AM

Well, if every AIDS case proves that Michael, you won’t have any problems providing recent scientific (i.e. peer-reviewed) studies that shows that. By recent, I mean studies published after the HIV-AIDS connection became generally accepted.

Posted by: Kristjan Wager | August 5, 2007 2:20 AM

Michael, could you expand on your comment. I think that one’s emotional state can contribute to AIDS but in order for it to make a great impact, it would have to be severe stress. Most of the AIDS cases have many AIDS defining diseases, which all have their respective causess. However, when one is extremely sick then one is not emotionally strong.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 7:24 AM

I would add that if one is given an HIV+ status and if one believes the current dogma, then this may play on their emotional well-being and health. Nevertheless, many of us were given this designation after being extremely sick and ending up at the hospital.

However, I do believe that one’s state of mind greatly contributes to one’s recovery. I was relieved when I was diagnosed. Even though, I had known diseases, they didn’t seem to know what to do, which to me is amazing. They needed to call a host of unrelated symptoms something.

I have done very well because I do not believe that having AIDS is a death sentence, which takes away the “fear factor” that so many struggle with.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:10 AM

Chris Noble said this paper means something:

N Engl J Med. 1993 Feb 11;328(6):373-9.

Unexplained opportunistic infections and CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection. An investigation of cases in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia Task Force.
Smith DK, Neal JJ, Holmberg SD.

Division of HIV/AIDS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333.

BACKGROUND. The clinical and public health importance of recent reports of patients with CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is unclear. We conducted investigations to determine the demographic, clinical, and immunologic features of patients with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia; whether the syndrome is epidemic or transmissible; and the possible causes. METHODS. We reviewed 230,179 cases in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) AIDS Reporting System and performed interviews, medical-record reviews, and laboratory analyses of blood specimens from adults and adolescents who met the CDC case definition of idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (

…”25 (53 percent) had conditions that were not AIDS-defining,”

“…and 3 (6 percent) were asymptomatic.”

Asymptomatic of what? Having no “risk factors” for the disease case’s definition? Asymptomatic of what?

“Eighteen patients had “risk factors” for “HIV?”

Were these among those selected because:

???

Isn’t this a “risk factor” also?

Common Chris! Who you tryin to fool?

Of 47 “patients” all having nothing in common, including clinical illness, half of whom have none of 47 possible AIDS-defining conditions to choose from in order to link them to a syndrome,

RE: ” CONCLUSIONS. This investigation of patients with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia and unexplained opportunistic infections indicates that the disorder is rare and represents various clinical and immunologic states.”

Very good! You finally give us a good definition of AIDS!

Thanks so much.

“Ten sex partners, three household contacts, and four children of the patients, as well as six persons who had donated blood to the patients, were immunologically and clinically normal…” and a partridge in a pair treeeeeeeeee.

Because there were 29 elephants and 16 lions exchanging exhaled air after they saw the Harry Potter movie, while 4 whales bumped their heads against some porposes and got bloody noses which, when their anaemic enucleated red-blood corpuscles carrying the virus washed ashore to there infect some sea gulls, who, upon flying to New York for the annual West Nile Virus Convention to meet with other birds to figure out how those Israeli birds transfered the virus only to infect other birds in New York with WNV from a black Ugandan woman from 1940, which then got into New York’s lower East side to infect other persons whom mosquitoes would bite and then fly to St. Louis and Illinois to infect other birds, insects, and people who have suffered approximately 40-700 deaths per year for decades due to what has been called SLE or St. Louis Encephalitis but now have WNV too, we figure that there are no common features of this disease which exactly behaves like “HIV/AIDS.”

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | August 5, 2007 9:57 AM

Another way of discussing drug use and “HIV/AIDS” case definitions: eg

“300 CD4+ cells per cubic millimeter or a CD4+ cell count

is to recall that Dr. Fauci’s AIDS denialism began before the AIDS era when he claimed that immune suppression is caused by doctors! Doctors cause immune suppression, Fauci claimed, if they subject their patients to multiple transfusions, transplant surgery, or corticosteroid administration, as these drugs and treatments can non-specifically induce AIDS-specific drops in T-cells with high frequency (1, 2).

Fibrosis of the lung due to to heavy crack cocaine use also was considered a potent inducer of the AIDS-defining illness, PCP, by Fauci and others before the AIDS era. These qualifications serve to undermine the “HIV=AIDS” hypothesis, because A (”HIV”), does not generate B (immune suppression), because iatrogenically applied glucocorticoids, transfusions, blood factor concentrates in hemophiliacs, and other factors such as chronic crack cocaine use may induce a precipitous drop in B, and consequently lead to C. Thus, this is AIDS denialism in its worst form, as it denies the existence of “HIV,” or the need to detect “HIV,” altogether, in a patient with low (B), while suggesting that doctors, and illicit drug use, cause “AIDS-like” immune suppression.

1. Fauci, A.S. Mechanisms of Corticosteroid Action on lymphocyte Subpopulations I. Redistribution of circulating T and B lymphocytes to the bone marrow. Immunology 28: 669-679. 1975.

2. Fauci, A.S., Dale, D.C., and Balow, J.E. Glucocorticosteroid therapy: Mechanisms of Action and Clinical Considerations. Annals of Internal Medicine 84: 304-15, 1976.

To help Chris’s confusion over ICL-”AIDS” definition, I re-post here my former “plaigerism” containing several years of scientific references regarding ICL. Note that there are about twice as many cases listed here below (from years ago) than all of the CDC’s 47 they “selected” from 230, 179 cases in the N Engl J Med. 1993 Feb 11;328(6):373-9.

Some ICL AIDS denialist literature: 1993-1998

Ostrowski, M., I. E. Salit, W. L. Gold, D. Sutton, M. L. Montpetit, D. Lepine, and T. Salas. 1993. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in two patients. Cmaj. 149(11):1679-83.

1994

Grossman, D., D. E. Lewis, Z. K. Ballas, and M. Duvic. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia in a patient with mycosis fungoides [see comments]. J Am Acad Dermatol. 31(2 Pt 1):275-6.

McLane, N. J., J. J. Weems, Jr., and M. V. Antworth. 1994. Cytomegalovirus retinitis in a patient with idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia [letter]. Clin Infect Dis. 18(6):1012-3.

Holland, S. M., E. M. Eisenstein, D. B. Kuhns, M. L. Turner, T. A. Fleisher, W. Strober, and J. I. Gallin. 1994. Treatment of refractory disseminated nontuberculous mycobacterial infection with interferon gamma. A preliminary report. N Engl J Med. 330(19):1348-55.

Dunn, D., and M. L. Newell. 1993. Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 12(8):705.

Tindall, B., J. Elford, T. Sharkey, A. Carr, J. Kaldor, and D. A. Cooper. 1993. CD4+ lymphocytopenia in HIV-seronegative homosexual men [letter]. Aids. 7(9):1272-3.

Cathebras, P. J., K. Bouchou, and H. Rousset. 1993. Pulmonary Mycobacterium avium intracellulare with transient CD4+ T- lymphocytopenia without HIV infection [letter]. Eur J Med. 2(8):509-10.

Spira, T. J., B. M. Jones, J. K. Nicholson, R. B. Lal, T. Rowe, A. C. Mawle, C. B. Lauter, J. A. Shulman, and R. A. Monson. 1993. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia–an analysis of five patients with unexplained opportunistic infections. N Engl J Med. 328(6):386-92.

Heredia, A., B. Joshi, S. H. Weiss, S. F. Lee, J. Muller, K. L. Poffenberger, J. Quirinale, J. S. Epstein, and I. K. Hewlett. 1994. Absence of evidence of retrovirus infection in intravenous drug users with idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia [letter]. J Infect Dis. 170(3):748-9.

Burg, S., W. Weber, and C. Kucherer. 1994. [Idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia with lethal Salmonella typhimurium sepsis]. Dtsch Med Wochenschr. 119(27):956-8.

Baumgarten, R., and R. von Baehr. 1994. [Idiopathic CD4 T-lymphocytopenia. Case follow-up over 5 years]. Z Arztl Fortbild (Jena). 88(5-6):429-32.

Heredia, A., I. K. Hewlett, V. Soriano, and J. S. Epstein. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia: a review and current perspective. Transfus Med Rev. 8(4):223-31.

Laraque, F., and D. Sosin. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia in New Jersey. N J Med. 91(9):604-6.

Dine, G., S. Brahimi, B. Culioli, and Y. Rehn. 1994. [Idiopathic T+CD4 lymphocytopenia: an asymptomatic form followed-up for two years (letter)]. Presse Med. 23(9):447.

Lin, J. C., and H. M. Tripathi. 1994. Pure red cell aplasia and idiopathic CD4 T-lymphocytopenia [letter]. Clin Infect Dis. 18(4):651-2.

Griffiths, T. W., S. R. Stevens, and K. D. Cooper. 1994. Acute erythroderma as an exclusion criterion for idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Arch Dermatol. 130(12):1530-3.

Kaczmarski, R. S., A. D. Webster, J. Moxham, F. Davison, S. Sutherland, and G. J. Mufti. 1994. CD4+ lymphocytopenia due to common variable immunodeficiency mimicking AIDS. J Clin Pathol. 47(4):364-6.

Heredia, A., J. Muller, V. Soriano, S. F. Lee, A. Castro, J. Pedreira, K. L. Poffemberger, J. Epstein, and I. K. Hewlett. 1994. Absence of evidence of retroviral infection in idiopathic CD4+ T- lymphocytopenia syndrome [letter]. Aids. 8(2):267-8.

Dev, D., G. S. Basran, D. Slater, P. Taylor, and M. Wood. 1994. Immunodeficiency without HIV. Consider HIV negative immunodeficiency in cryptococcosis [letter; comment]. Bmj. 308(6941):1436.

Deng, G. H., and A. X. Wang. 1994. [Idiopathic CD(4+)-positive T-lymphocytopenia]. Chung Hua Nei Ko Tsa Chih. 33(3):208-10.

Famularo, G., R. Giacomelli, C. De Simone, and G. Tonietti. 1994. The syndrome of idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia. Ann Ital Med Int. 9(1):22-6.

Seligmann, M., B. Autran, C. Rabian, F. Ferchal, D. Olive, M. Echard, and E. Oksenhendler. 1994. Profound and possibly primary “idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia” in a patient with fungal infections. Clin Immunol Immunopathol. 71(2):203-7.

Park, K., B. J. Monk, S. Wilczynski, J. I. Ito, Jr., and S. A. Vasilev. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia and recurrent vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia. Obstet Gynecol. 84(4 Pt 2):712-4.

Wakeel, R. A., S. J. Urbaniak, S. S. Armstrong, H. F. Sewell, R. Herriot, N. Kernohan, and M. I. White. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia associated with chronic pruritic papules. Br J Dermatol. 131(3):371-5.

Ohashi, D. K., J. S. Crane, T. J. Spira, and M. L. Courrege. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T-cell lymphocytopenia with verrucae, basal cell carcinomas, and chronic tinea corporis infection. J Am Acad Dermatol. 31(5 Pt 2):889-91.

Thomas, D., D. Leslie, P. Stanley, and B. Clarke. 1994. Disseminated Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare infection in an HIV- negative male. Aust N Z J Med. 24(4):403.

Monteil, M. A., D. C. Henderson, and S. Obaro. 1994. Immunodeficiency without HIV. Clinical presentation vary [letter; comment]. Bmj. 308(6941):1436.

Piketty, C., L. Weiss, and M. Kazatchkine. 1994. [Idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia (editorial) (see comments)]. Presse Med. 23(30):1374-5.

Stasi, R., G. Delpoeta, A. Venditti, U. Coppetelli, M. Masi, and G. Papa. 1994. Clinical heterogeneity of idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia [letter]. J Intern Med. 235(1):92-3.

McNulty, A., J. M. Kaldor, A. M. McDonald, K. Baumgart, and D. A. Cooper. 1994. Acquired immunodeficiency without evidence of HIV infection: national retrospective survey [see comments]. Bmj. 308(6932):825-6.

Wortley, P. M., and S. D. Holmberg. 1994. No evidence of blood-borne transmission of idiopathic CD4+ T- lymphocytopenia [letter]. Transfusion. 34(6):556.

Girotto, M., D. A. Verani, and P. P. Pagliaro. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in blood donors: cohort study [letter]. Transfusion. 34(10):935-6.

Djomand, G., L. Diaby, J. M. N’Gbichi, D. Coulibaly, A. Kadio, A. Yapi, J. M. Kanga, E. Boateng, K. Diallo, L. Kestens, and et al. 1994. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocyte depletion in a west African population. Aids. 8(6):843-7.

Grosshans, E. 1994. [HIV seronegative human immunodeficiency syndrome (letter; comment)]. Presse Med. 23(39):1833.

1995

Vertes, D., M. D. Linden, and J. L. Carey. 1995. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia: analysis of a patient with selective IgA deficiency and no evidence of HIV infection. Cytometry. 22(1):40-4.

Seddon, M., and R. B. Ellis-Pegler. 1995. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia: case report [letter]. N Z Med J. 108(997):134.

Sanchez Roman, J., M. J. Castillo Palma, R. Torronteras Santiago, and M. T. Pastor Ramos. 1995. [A new case of idiopathic T CD4+ lymphocytopenia and opportunistic infection without HIV infection (letter)]. Med Clin (Barc). 104(5):198-9.

Richert, S. M., and J. L. Orchard. 1995. Bacterial esophagitis associated with CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection. Possible role of corticosteroid treatment. Dig Dis Sci. 40(1):183-5.

Rhew, D. C., M. B. Goetz, and M. H. Louie. 1995. Reversible CD4+ T lymphocyte depletion in a patient who had disseminated histoplasmosis and who was not infected with human immunodeficiency virus [letter]. Clin Infect Dis. 21(3):702-3.

Pohl, W., C. Armbruster, K. Bernhardt, M. Drlicek, and N. Vetter. 1995. [Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in 2 patients without indications for HIV infection]. Wien Klin Wochenschr. 107(3):95-100.

O’Brien, T. R., L. Diamondstone, M. W. Fried, L. M. Aledort, S. Eichinger, M. E. Eyster, M. W. Hilgartner, G. White, A. M. Di Bisceglie, and J. J. Goedert. 1995. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in HIV seronegative men with hemophilia and sex partners of HIV seropositive men. Multicenter Hemophilia Cohort Study. Am J Hematol. 49(3):201-6.

Neumeister, B., T. M. Zollner, D. Krieger, W. Sterry, and R. Marre. 1995. Mycetoma due to Exophiala jeanselmei and Mycobacterium chelonae in a 73- year-old man with idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Mycoses. 38(7-8):271-6.

Neukirch, B., and G. J. Kremer. 1995. [Disseminated extrapulmonary tuberculosis in idiopathic CD4- lymphocytopenia]. Dtsch Med Wochenschr. 120(1-2):23-8.

Lobato, M. N., T. J. Spira, and M. F. Rogers. 1995. CD4+ T lymphocytopenia in children: lack of evidence for a new acquired immunodeficiency syndrome agent. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 14(6):527-35.

Kirtava, Z., J. Blomberg, A. Bredberg, G. Henriksson, L. Jacobsson, and R. Manthorpe. 1995. CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection: increased prevalence among patients with primary Sjogren’s syndrome. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 13(5):609-16.

Frassanito, M. A., G. Iodice, R. Rizzi, and F. Dammacco. 1995. [Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia: a case report]. Ann Ital Med Int. 10(3):188-92.

Quiles, I., P. Anaut, F. Cibrian, J. Gainzarain, L. Vega, and A. Andia. 1995. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia with opportunistic infection and non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma [letter]. J Intern Med. 238(2):183-4.

Confalonieri, M., S. Aiolfi, L. Gandola, A. Scartabellati, A. Colavecchio, G. Cannatelli, and A. Mazzoni. 1995. [Disseminated histoplasmosis and idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. An autochthonous Italian case (letter)]. Presse Med. 24(9):459.

Dupon, M., M. Bonnefoy, P. A. Bohu, M. Pinsard, B. Dumon, and H. Fleury. 1995. [Idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia syndrome disclosed by meningeal cryptococcosis. A new case (letter; comment)]. Presse Med. 24(37):1752.

Caminal Montero, L., D. Ramos Barbon, J. Ferro Mosquera, and J. B. Diaz Lopez. 1995. [CD4+ lymphocytopenia and sarcoidosis (letter; comment)]. Med Clin (Barc). 105(4):158.

Sanchez Roman, J., M. J. Castillo Palmo, C. Rey Romero, and M. D. Mendoza Muro. 1995. [Idiopathic T CD4+ lymphocytopenia and opportunistic infection without human immunodeficiency virus infection (letter)]. Rev Clin Esp. 195(2):127-8.

Calderon, E., B. Sanchez, F. J. Medrano, P. Stiefel, and M. Leal. 1995. CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in the elderly [letter]. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 14(1):75-7.

Blum, A., and B. Shohat. 1995. CD-4 lymphopenia induced by streptokinase [letter; comment]. Circulation. 91(6):1899.

Ferrer, X., C. Vital, M. Larriviere, S. Richard, and J. Julien. 1995. Idiopathic CD4+ T-cell lymphocytopenia and subacute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. Neurology. 45(1):196-7.

1996

Urnovitz, H.B. and R. W. Stevens. 1995. AIDS research priorities [letter; comment] [published erratum appears in Science 1995 Mar 24;267(5205);1753]. Science. 267(5202):1249-50.

Belmin, J., M. N. Ortega, A. Bruhat, A. Mercadier, and P. Valensi. 1996. CD4 lymphopenia in very elderly people [letter] [see comments]. Lancet. 347(8997):328-9.

Anzalone, G., M. Cei, A. Vizzaccaro, B. Tramma, and A. Bisetti. 1996. M. Kansasii pulmonary disease in idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. Eur Respir J. 9(8):1754-6.

Zollner, T. M., S. Stracke, B. Neumeister, B. Manfras, W. Boehncke, B. O. Boehm, R. Marre, and W. Sterry. 1996. Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia presenting as mycetoma in a patient with a mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator gene [letter]. Arch Dermatol. 132(10):1247-9.

Yonetsu, M., K. Sato, T. Michimata, T. Sekiguchi, M. Mori, K. Hoshino, and H. Murakami. 1996. [Case of idiopathic CD4+T-lymphocytopenia complicated by Mycobacterium avium infection]. Nippon Naika Gakkai Zasshi. 85(8):1293-4.

Wolf, P., R. Mullegger, L. Cerroni, R. Aigner, G. Fueger, G. Hofler, J. Derbaschnig, and H. Kerl. 1996. Photoaccentuated erythroderma associated with CD4+ T lymphocytopenia: successful treatment with 5-methoxypsoralen and UVA, interferon alfa- 2b, and extracorporeal photopheresis. J Am Acad Dermatol. 35(2 Pt 2):291-4.

Sinicco, A., A. Maiello, R. Raiteri, M. Sciandra, G. Dassio, C. Zamprogna, and B. Mecozzi. 1996. Pneumocystis carinii in a patient with pulmonary sarcoidosis and idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Thorax. 51(4):446-7: discussion 448-9.

Rodot, S., J. P. Lacour, L. Van Elslande, and J. P. Ortonne. 1996. [Idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia]. Ann Dermatol Venereol. 123(12):852-6.

Rijnders, R. J., I. E. van den Ende, and F. J. Huikeshoven. 1996. Suspected idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in a young patient with vulvar carcinoma stage IV. Gynecol Oncol. 61(3):423-6.

Reichart, P. A., H. D. Pohle, and H. R. Gelderblom. 1996. Oral manifestations in a patient with idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 25(4):290-2.
Pohl, W. 1996. [A patient with idiopathic bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia and idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia]. Wien Klin Wochenschr. 108(15):473-7.

Petersen, E. J., M. Rozenberg-Arska, A. W. Dekker, H. C. Clevers, and L. F. Verdonck. 1996. Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation can restore CD4+ T-lymphocyte count and immune function in idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. Bone Marrow Transplant. 18(4):813-5.

Paolini, R., E. D’Andrea, A. Poletti, A. Del Mistro, P. Zerbinati, and A. Girolami. 1996. B non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in a haemophilia patient with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. Leuk Lymphoma. 21(1-2):177-80.

Navarro, V., C. Tuset, and C. Gimeno. 1996. [T CD4+ lymphocytopenia syndrome without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Study on 4 patients (letter)]. Med Clin (Barc). 107(4):157.

Michel, J. L., J. L. Perrot, D. Mitanne, S. Boucheron, L. Fond, and F. Cambazard. 1996. [Metastatic epidermoid carcinoma in idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia syndrome]. Ann Dermatol Venereol. 123(8):478-82.

McBride, M. 1996. CD4 lymphopenia in elderly patients [letter; comment]. Lancet. 347(9005):911; discussion 912.

Laurence, J., D. Mitra, M. Steiner, D. H. Lynch, F. P. Siegal, and L. Staiano-Coico. 1996. Apoptotic depletion of CD4+ T cells in idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. J Clin Invest. 97(3):672-80.

Tassinari, P., L. Deibis, N. Bianco, and G. Echeverria de Perez. 1996. Lymphocyte subset diversity in idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Clin Diagn Lab Immunol. 3(5):611-3.

Garry, R. F., C. D. Fermin, P. F. Kohler, M. L. Markert, and H. Luo. 1996. Antibodies against retroviral proteins and nuclear antigens in a subset of idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia patients. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 12(10):931-40.

Fernandez-Cruz, E., J. M. Zabay, and M. A. Munoz-Fernandez. 1996. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in an asymptomatic HIV-seronegative woman after exposure to HIV [letter]. N Engl J Med. 334(18):1202-3.

Bordin, G., M. Ballare, S. Paglino, P. Ravanini, D. Dulio, M. C. Malosso, R. Boldorini, and A. Monteverde. 1996. Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia and systemic vasculitis. J Intern Med. 240(1):37-41.

Belmin, J., M. N. Ortega, A. Bruhat, A. Mercadier, and P. Valensi. 1996. CD4 lymphopenia in elderly patients [letter; comment] [see comments]. Lancet. 347(9005):911-2; discussion 912.

1997

Yinnon, A. M., B. Rudensky, E. Sagi, G. Breuer, C. Brautbar, I. Polacheck, and J. Halevy. 1997. Invasive cryptococcosis in a family with epidermodysplasia verruciformis and idiopathic CD4 cell depletion. Clin Infect Dis. 25(5):1252-3.

Torikai, K. 1997. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia [editorial; comment]. Intern Med. 36(11):759.

Shimano, S., N. Murata, and J. Tsuchiya. 1997. [Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia terminating in Burkitt's lymphoma]. Rinsho Ketsueki. 38(7):599-603.

Pilheu, J. A., M. C. De Salvo, J. Gonzalez, D. Rey, M. C. Elias, and M. C. Ruppi. 1997. CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in severe pulmonary tuberculosis without evidence of human immunodeficiency virus infection [see comments]. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 1(5):422-6.

Louis, E., M. P. Moutschen, P. De Marneffe, R. Malherbe, T. Closon, M. T’Jean, J. Demonty, and J. Belaiche. 1997. Extensive ulcerative colitis and extraintestinal manifestations in a patient with HIV infection and significant CD4 T-cell lymphopenia. Gastroenterol Clin Biol. 21(11):884-7.

Hayashi, T., Y. Hinoda, T. Takahashi, M. Adachi, S. Miura, T. Izumi, H. Kojima, S. Yano, and K. Imai. 1997. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia with Bowen’s disease [see comments]. Intern Med. 36(11):822-4.

Hardman, C. M., B. S. Baker, J. Lortan, J. Breuer, T. Surentheran, A. Powles, and L. Fry. 1997. Active psoriasis and profound CD4+ lymphocytopenia. Br J Dermatol. 136(6):930-2.

Hanamura, I., A. Wakita, S. Harada, K. Tsuboi, H. Komatsu, S. Banno, O. Iwaki, G. Takeuchi, M. Nitta, and R. Ueda. 1997. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patient. Intern Med. 36(9):643-6.

Galie, M., M. Cassone, C. Ausiello, and P. Serra. 1997. [Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocyte deficiency: the clinical evolution of a case (see comments)]. Ann Ital Med Int. 12(4):233-7.

Dammacco, F. 1997. [Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia: a clinico-immunological syndrome of uncertain significance (editorial; comment)]. Ann Ital Med Int. 12(4):197-8.

Coutant, G., J. P. Algayres, H. Bili, and J. P. Daly. 1997. [CD4 lymphocytopenia, Gougerot-Sjogren and systemic lupus erythematosus]. Ann Med Interne. 148(7):503-4.

Venzor, J., Q. Hua, R. B. Bressler, C. H. Miranda, and D. P. Huston. 1997. Behcet’s-like syndrome associated with idiopathic CD4+ T- lymphocytopenia, opportunistic infections, and a large population of TCR alpha beta+ CD4- CD8- T cells. Am J Med Sci. 313(4):236-8.

Chikezie, P. U., and A. L. Greenberg. 1997. Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia presenting as progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy: case report. Clin Infect Dis. 24(3):526-7.

al-Attas, R. A., A. H. Rahi, and F. E. Ahmed el. 1997. Common variable immunodeficiency with CD4+ T lymphocytopenia and overproduction of soluble IL-2 receptor associated with Turner’s syndrome and dorsal kyphoscoliosis. J Clin Pathol. 50(10):876-9.

1998
Tumbarello, M., E. Tacconelli, C. Colosimo, R. Cauda, and L. Ortona. 1998. Meningoencephalomyelitis caused by herpes simplex virus-1 in a patient with idiopathic T CD4+ lymphocytopenia. Neurology. 50(2):569-70.

Suzuki, Y., S. Suzuki, M. Numata, Y. Matsumoto, J. Suzuki, H. Ikeda, and T. Okubo. 1998. Acute respiratory failure due to miliary tuberculosis in a patient with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopaenia. Respir Med. 92(7):977-9.

Menon, B. S., I. L. Shuaib, M. Zamari, J. A. Haq, S. Aiyar, and L. M. Noh. 1998. Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia in a child with disseminated cryptococcosis. Ann Trop Paediatr. 18(1):45-8.

Ishida, T., T. Hashimoto, M. Arita, I. Ito, and M. Osawa. 1998. Pulmonary Mycobacterium avium disease in a young patient with idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Intern Med. 37(7):622-4.

Ho, C. L., B. C. Chang, G. C. Hsu, and C. P. Wu. 1998. Pulmonary cryptococcoma with CD4 lymphocytopenia and meningitis in an HIV-negative patient. Respir Med. 92(1):120-2.

Hayashi, T., M. Adachi, Y. Hinoda, and K. Imai. 1998. [Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia]. Ryoikibetsu Shokogun Shirizu. (21(Pt 2)):185-7.

Freier, S., E. Kerem, Z. Dranitzki, M. Schlesinger, R. Rabinowitz, C. Brautbar, M. Ashkirat, and Y. Naparstek. 1998. Hereditary CD4+ T lymphocytopenia. Arch Dis Child. 78(4):371-2.

Cook, M. A., D. Bareford, and D. S. Kumararatne. 1998. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma: an unusual complication of idiopathic CD4+ lymphopenia. Hosp Med. 59(7):582.

Cascio, G., A. M. Massobrio, B. Cascio, and A. Anania. 1998. Undefined CD4 lymphocytopenia without clinical complications. A report of two cases. Panminerva Med. 40(1):69-71.

Of course all of these are exceptions and are not AIDS.

And do you know why?

Cuz they don’t got “HIV” but present in clinics to confuse a few doctors (probably ones not trained correctly)
as AIDS patients, and then these docs go through the formal long process of writing them up for the journals (which takes on average 6 months if they are lucky to several years (thereby screening out probably a vast collection of other ICL cases that go unreported as such).

New question: Can “HIV” be left to dry out on a counter top in your kitchen for a week, allowing it to dry out and then be infectious?

Well if the answer is no, how the hell did it survive the lyopholization process (vacuum drying) used to make factor VIII and IX and then go on to infect thousands of hemophilacs?

I do not understand what’s going on, as I indicated before, and as oh ye knowledgeable ones like to point out to me. Maybe that’s why Robert Gallo called me up a few days ago to review with me the whole scientific and political events at the time of the Pasteur/NIH, Reagan/Chirac/Patent lawyer battle, Dingell commission exchanges, to tell me what it is that he and his associates actually think they accomplished. I’d love to relate it, but not here in this blog. It will need to be published in a book, which you guys have been helping me edit.

With much appreciation,

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | August 5, 2007 10:55 AM

Maybe that’s why Robert Gallo called me up a few days ago to review with me the whole scientific and political events at the time of the Pasteur/NIH, Reagan/Chirac/Patent lawyer battle, Dingell commission exchanges, to tell me what it is that he and his associates actually think they accomplished.

They accomplished a nice royalty stream of $$ for a test that doesn’t confirm the absence or presence of a virus, but, for those stigmatized as “HIV+,” scares them into thinking they have a virus, that will kill them, unless they take a lot of unecessary prescription drugs.

Heluva way to make money in medicine and science.

Posted by: Philly Boy | August 5, 2007 5:48 PM

Yeh, a pure shame. Mr. Gallo just received millions in a grant from the Bill and Melinda Foundation to use to research a vaccine for a non-existant viral cause of AIDS. What a waste of money, which could have been used for the starving and needy in Africa instead of lining Gallo’s pockets.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 5:53 PM

Andrew, thanks for emphasising that ICL4 is so extremely rare that individual cases are written up and published as case reports. Even after your monumental effort to scour the literature (or copy and paste) you could only come up with a 100 or so cases. Compare this to the millions of AIDS cases caused by HIV.

New question: Can “HIV” be left to dry out on a counter top in your kitchen for a week, allowing it to dry out and then be infectious? Well if the answer is no, how the hell did it survive the lyopholization process (vacuum drying) used to make factor VIII and IX and then go on to infect thousands of hemophilacs?

Lyophilisation is not comparable to drying on a kitchen counter for a week. You know this. Everybody knows this. What do you hope to achieve with this stupidity.

As an anti-vaccination kook you would also be aware that several live vaccines are stored as lyophilised powders exactly becuase the process does not destroy these viruses. Simply add water and you have live virus.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 5, 2007 7:57 PM

Hello Noreen!!! Hows it going kid?

You said: “Michael, could you expand on your comment. I think that one’s emotional state can contribute to AIDS but in order for it to make a great impact, it would have to be severe stress”.

Yes I can expand on it, I could probably write a book or two on it as this point. Yet for some who I would present aspects of this to, they would perhaps bulk due to their own ego that would react in judgement of what I present. What I present here can be very threatening to the positionality of many peoples egos!

Discussions of this nature are quite often highly threatening to ones ego because our ego’s percieve only from a physical perception based in perceptions of duality, instead of a spiritual viewpoint of monality, or “all is one”, and therefore seek to blame external factors instead of owning what the ego itself is creating, as well as being oblivious to what others egos, programming, and beliefs are creating.

Attempting to get the answers or the truth from an ego is like going to a fire chief to get him to find an arsonist when he himself threw the match that lit the fire and is the actual arsonist. And naturally, out of egoic self protection and avoidance of painful feelings of guilt, fear of persecution, etc, instead of humbling itself and admitting to its error, it will be in absolute denial of the truth. The ego is just this way, and it cannot help it. For many people who are primarily in egoic levels of being, to admit to error is impossible for them, because their ego equates making a mistake as equivalent to death, and so admitting to error can “feel” like one is going to die, and ones ego will completely balk at admitting or deny its own errors! We have all experienced people in this state of egoic deception. They cannot help it until they can.

The ego will do all possible to avoid the physical death that it perceives will also be the end of it, and will avoid anything that it equates as deathlike, such as admitting to error, at ALL costs. (Doesn’t this also easily explain to you quite well the refusal to re-examine their positionalities of a lot of HIV researchers such as Gallo and JP Moore, and also explain the rabid positionality of a lot of the HIV believers, advocates, and promoters? It is simply Ego!)

But back to your comment and question:

Noreen, You said stress would need to be sudden or severe. I do not agree. It seems very evident, to me at least, from most disease states that stress or stressors do not need at all to be sudden or severe. It seems quite evident that they can and usually are actually more often cumulative.

For perspectives on disease and illness, consider this: From a strictly egoic and physical realm of speaking, we would look for the A plus B that equals C. As science is based on the physical realm and not the so-called spiritual realms, it is of course, usually analyzing any given situation of phenomenon from an egoic level of perception. This is “linear cause and effect” thinking, such as, wherein we look only at a given pathogen and see that it does such and such which results in so and so, and seemingly does it in most or all of the affected.

But of course, we all know that one person gets TB and recovers another does not. One person gets cancer and it goes into remission, another does not.

This forces us to look deeper for a higher, or more truthful, understanding. It also forces us to look at “non-linear cause and effectors” for an answer.

When one is looking only from the linear causation perspectives, one is ignoring all of the often not so easily identified, yet very much FELT, but “unseen” causes that lie beneath the seen and believed physical realm causes. The unseen causes are translated to us emotionally, and either “feel good” or “feel bad”. The effectors on this level are egoic positionalities and egoic “pay-offs”, ones own beliefs and prior experiences, ones uniquie pre-programming due to all prior experiences, and ones level of conscious awareness.

A person with say, a shame based or fear based personality, will contend with ones life situations completely differently than a person with say, an accepting, or a rationality based level of consciousness and personality. Scientists are dealing with their own individual level of consciousness, usually of “rationality”, that is very intelligent, and often capable of handling massive amounts of data and of extracting conclusions or of interpreting the symbology of what is experience on such a level according to each of their own abilities that are highly influenced be the non-linear aspects.

However, the level of rationality most often does not perceive from the higher levels of consciousness, such as the level of consciousness of love or of any of the higher spiritual realms of consciousness. Ones level of rationality may also be influenced by how much of their own consciousness is still down in lower levels of consciousness such as fear. This even explains why some scientists go to great lengths to fearfully hype bird flu, sars, global warming, overpopulation, vaccinations, etc. Many of these scientists themselves are very affected by their own unconscious fears.

Therefore, many a scientist is incapable of “seeing the whole picture” or of correctly interpreting the data or symbology of the data.

But back once more to stress and health and the emotions that result in illness. All are found on the lower levels of human consciousness. They are not found in the higher levels of courage, willingness, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, love, joy, or peace:

Too many emersions in the “emergency” emotions seemingly will result in one too many straws that finally broke the camels back, resulting in manifestation of illness. One either recovers from the illness by releasing these emergency emotions, or they hold onto them and continue to suffer, or perhaps even worsen. Of course, stress can also be physical environmental stress must be included as well, such as nutrition, diet, environmental toxins, or even emotional. But for the sake of this conversation, we will deal with the non-physical non-linear.

Emotions:

Welfare Emotions:

Welfare emotions are emotional responses that are associated with positive events. Included in this category are affection, warmth, tenderness, love, consolation, and happiness. In healthy functioning families, individual members consistently respond to one another with these emotions. People express welfare emotions with such actions as a hug, a kiss on the cheek, a pat on the back, a word of encouragement, or even a simple smile.

Emergency Emotions:

Unlike welfare emotions, emergency emotions are typically negative responses. Included in this category are anger, fear, loneliness, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, and depression. Although these emotions are often associated with negative events, they are not abnormal or unhealthy in appropriate situations.

At some point in a person’s life, he or she will almost always experience some type of disappointment or anxiety provoking situation. In healthy families, the members respond to one another with appropriate emotions. For example, when a family member is confronted with a serious illness, such as cancer, it is appropriate for the rest of the family to experience fear, sadness, disappointment, and depression. It would be inappropriate not to have such feelings. But it can take the family members to their own place of illness to overindulge in these emotions.

Everyone of us is different, with different perceptions, beliefs, levels of consciousness, awareness, intelligence, experience, pre-programming. What is extremely difficult of highly emotionally painful for one, another calls no big deal. An example is divorce. For one person it is an awful and excrutiatingly painful tragedy, yet for the next person it is an event to be thankful for, now that they are free of a difficult or unhealthy relationship. We all handle things differently.

So stress can be inner emotional or environmental or both or combinations. It can be steady or intermittent. It can be different for one whose emotional difficulties are different. There is a difference between the stress of intense personal shame, which can be so painful that one locks it away subconsciously. An example is childhood sexual abuse that one has suffered. One can lock away the associated memories and emotional pain, but it then remains subconscious. Feelings buried alive never die. They often manifest into physical expressions of illness. Emotionally, it could express itself in many forms. Feelings of shame, guilt, apathy, fear, anger, etc, that even get transferred to other aspects of ones life.

Enough immersions in the “emergency emotions” eventually take a toll as they depress the inner life energies and depress the functions of our physical systems. The result is to “feel drained”. It is this inner feeling of being drained that is our own inner warning system to make changes, and if change is not addressed, it is then the precursor nexus point to the manifestation of illness. One either gets to the bottom of what is causing dis-EASE, and makes a new choice, or they can be further taken down in life energy from it.

We all have other choices, even if we are not aware of what they are. The answer depends on the issue. The answer may lie in acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, love, willingness, surrendering self pity or financial benefit of illness, surrendering of vengeance: “If I die, then YOU”LL be sorry”, etc.

Such is life. Life is choices, learning, and growing, and each and every one of us staying stuck in difficulty, or evolving, or perhaps suffering the consequence of not surrendering to a higher truth, or simply admitting error and making a new and better choice! But always an amazing adventure, if one chooses to percieve it as such!

Wishing you a wonderful journey through life Noreen! Love Yah!
Michael

Posted by: Michael | August 5, 2007 8:34 PM

Chris, where are the millions of AIDS cases supposedly caused by HIV? They certainly are not in America, Canada, etc. You must be referring to all the sicknesses in Africa, which have plagued that continent for many decades. And how many in Africa are blood tested verses just given this diagnosis by four symptoms? Another thing that does not add up, why doesn’t Canada for instance, have a CD4 criteria as part of the AIDS definition. Shouldn’t a life-threatening disease have the same criteria and means of diagnosis be the same all over the world?

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 8:36 PM

Noreen,

There’ve been hundreds of thousands AIDS cases in the US, millions in the world.

In Africa almost all places anyway AT LEAST one blood test needed for an AIDS diagnosis. You’re talking about a definition they used for a few years until tests arrived. Your sources might’ve been right in 1987 not anymore. Where did you get that information? It’s so out of date I hope that book wasn’t less than ten years old!

There’d be the same AIDS criteria everywhere if you could get all countries medical authorities together and agree but there’s still these pesky things called nations. If a sickness has some symptoms A B C and D and one country says you need A B and C and another country says B C and D does it mean there’s no sickness? Or there’s different sicknesses in those places. No, it means you’ve got independent doctors and overlapping criteria. That’s all. Doctors everywhere use different standards sometimes. It’s not just AIDS.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 8:54 PM

Michael, you’re a trip, a good one at that! Are you some type of higly educated therapist? Any way, I agree that Gallo and others are in too deep now to do a 180 turn around.

I suppose that I never thought of stress being cumulative and harmful in that regards. But if what you say is true, then even I would have to question why the AIDS cases in the states are not higher? Certainly more than several thousands are highly stressed in the fast pace of today’s society. Nevertheless, I do agree that it, along with many factors such as diet, nutrition, exercise, environment and the cumulative effects of diseases, all play a role in the development of AIDS. Other than those who are AIDS patients due to low CD4’s, most of us have had some very real health issues to deal with.

I notice too, that most do not enter religious beliefs into the equation, which are probably conducive to the healing process. I suppose that I have a simplistic viewpoint, either one gets better or it is isn’t one’s time to go.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 8:58 PM

Chris, where are the millions of AIDS cases supposedly caused by HIV? They certainly are not in America, Canada, etc. You must be referring to all the sicknesses in Africa, which have plagued that continent for many decades. And how many in Africa are blood tested verses just given this diagnosis by four symptoms? Another thing that does not add up, why doesn’t Canada for instance, have a CD4 criteria as part of the AIDS definition. Shouldn’t a life-threatening disease have the same criteria and means of diagnosis be the same all over the world?

If you want then just look at the US. There have been about 1 million AIDS diagnoses compared to a couple of hundred cases of ICL4. The exceptions prove the rule. The vast, vast majority of the specific form of immune deficiency involving CD4+ cell depletion are caused by HIV.

Noreen, surveillance definitions are just that – surveillance definitions. Diagnosis and surveillance are two different things. While the redefinition of the surveillance definition in the US to include a criteriuon of CD4+ cell counts less than 200 produced a temporal discontinuity in the statistics the ultimate effect was minimal. The vast majority of people with CD4+ cell counts less than 200 go on to develop AIDS defining illnesses. I sincerely hope you are one of the exceptions.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 5, 2007 9:02 PM

I am not an exception in one way, as I have already developed AIDS. I am an exception now though because for about 1 1/2 years my CD4’s have been under 200 and I am in great health. Chris and others, doesn’t this raise any questions in your mind how I and many others, which I am in contact with, are doing this? And going back to the AIDS numbers in the states, why do you count them cumulatively when in reality there are approximately 15,000 new, AIDS cases per year.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:11 PM

Noreen
heres a page with the numbers by year
http://www.avert.org/usastaty.htm
Almost a million AIDS diagnoses in USA over half of them died and most before HAART.

Also the Canadians don’t use CD4 for surveillance but that doesn’t mean they just forget it. Chris is right. Doctors in CAnada like everywhere else you can get a CD4 count use it for diagnosing and for deciding when to start therapy.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 9:11 PM

Andrew, I never thought I would see a “scientist” post such tripe as you did:

“Nor can you or anyone else falsify theories or hypothesis of Psychosomatic Stress Induced Lowering of Function of the Thymus Gland in EACH AND EVERY CASE of AIDS!”

THEREFORE, IT MUST BE SCIENTIFICALLY ASSUMED TO BE TRUE!

If you are hypothesising that stress has AIDS-like consequences, YOU must come up with the evidence to show this. Our inability to refute this (i.e. proving a “negative”) does not make what you claim true.

Analogy time: Quote from DT:
“Nor can Andrew or anyone else falsify theories or hypothesis of Chocolate Tea Pot In Orbit Around Earth-induced Lowering of Function of the Thymus Gland in EACH AND EVERY CASE of AIDS!
THEREFORE, IT MUST BE SCIENTIFICALLY ASSUMED TO BE TRUE!”

See how ridiculous your statement makes you look?

Please post your next spam with your pants back up where they belong, instead of round your ankles.

Oh, and BTW, it would be nice to see a few references to the epidemic of PCP and toxoplasmosis in bereaved parents, and the rampage that atypical mycobacteria and PML are making through patients recovering from heart attacks (you know, all those really stressful conditions that you seem to think cause AIDS)

Posted by: DT | August 5, 2007 9:18 PM

Well then lets just look at each year where are you getting 15,000? There’s between 40 and 50 thousand new AIDS diagnoses every year in the USA. Your source is off by 3 times.

Noreen, I’m glad your well and if it’s LDN then thank god for LDN. So why do you need to keep saying these half truths? Your smarter than the people like Duesberg and Culshaw who feed them to you. Why let them make an idiot out of you? 1 million US infected? No there’s one million who’ve had AIDS. 15,000 new cases a year? No its 45,000. African AIDS is malnutrition? No AIDS hits wealthy people first in some countries. Don’t need a blood test in Africa? No almost every African country requires.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 9:20 PM

Nice DT! I’ll have two of those chocolate teapots!

I thought if its not falsifiable its not science? Ok, is this Andrew MAniotis really a scientist? and are we sure he’s the same one who’s a real scientist?

I wonder if someone’s trying to make the real Maniotis look bad? WHat’s this stuff about Bob Gallo friendly chatting with him on the phone? It’s preposterous. Bob Gallo is a very respected man a great scientist.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 9:27 PM

Checking the site, it listed over 550,000 deaths from AIDS. We know that there are 30 AIDS-defining disease but when the patient dies, not one is listed on the death certificate but complications from AIDS. The patient had to die from something and this should be on the certificate.

I wonder how many died from the side effects of the drugs? Some patients may be dying from the drugs and it is blamed on AIDS.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:28 PM

Adele, are you quoting HIV or AIDS statistics? HIV have remained the same for the most part but the AIDS cases is a different number. I do not lump HIV with AIDS, they are two separate things. And I wish that you folks would leave other rethinkers out of this, I do not need any of them to think for me.

And I would love to hear the mainstream explanation of how GRID, then AIDS which was discoverd in America made it to Africa.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:34 PM

Noreen you said,

when the patient dies, not one is listed on the death certificate but complications from AIDS

Usually there’s a “underlying condition” on the certificate. So PCP as a complication of AIDS or TB as a complication of AIDS.

THat’s how they can go back with studies and look at everyone who died in like five years and find out how many AIDS diagnosed people died of AIDS disease or other things.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 9:37 PM

What is liver failure or kidney failure attributed too? Neither are not AIDS defining diseases. I am glad that I stopped the drugs because they do affect the patient’s liver and cause anemia and other problems with one’s blood. It’s sad, because enough studies have not been done on LDN, it is not a standard AIDS treatment and no drug company in their right mind will spend the money to do research because they would lose income from selling antiretrovirals.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:46 PM

I am not an exception in one way, as I have already developed AIDS. I am an exception now though because for about 1 1/2 years my CD4’s have been under 200 and I am in great health. Chris and others, doesn’t this raise any questions in your mind how I and many others, which I am in contact with, are doing this? And going back to the AIDS numbers in the states, why do you count them cumulatively when in reality there are approximately 15,000 new, AIDS cases per year.

Noreen, low CD4+ cell counts are a risk factor for OIs. Having a low CD4+ count does not mean that you have an OI. There are obviously factors other than peripheral blood CD4+ counts that determine who gets OIs. This does not change the reality that the vast majority of people with extremely low CD4+ counts go on to develop AIDS defining illnesses.

The paper on ICL4 that I cited covered the period up to 1993. The case reports that Andrew cited covered the period 1993-1998. The total number of cases of ICL4 from the 1980s to 1998 numbered only a couple of hundred. Over that same period hundreds of thousands of AIDS cases were diagnosed.

The desperation of the “dissidents” to find HIV- AIDS cases only demonstrates the tight connection between HIV and AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 5, 2007 9:48 PM

Noreen,

I’mquoting AIDS. If there’s a million diagnosed AIDS cases in America how can there be only a million HIV? Do they all have AIDS?

This prevalence thing is a big joke with Duesberg. First you can’t know how many’s infected, right, unless EVERYBODY gets a mandatory test. Not everyone does. The results weren’t turned in for alot of years in most states either. So no one’s tracked infections.

Second so you have to estimate it. Maybe Tara could tell us about how you do that. In eighties people tried to estimate, argued about it, got better methods did it again etc. ANd there’s been I don’t know a hundred different numbers around. You could pick any number from ok 200,000 to a million and you could find a study that said that in 1986 or sometime.

Third so Duesberg and other people take a hundred studies throw out the ones they don’t like and keep one that says a million. And please don’t tell me Noreen that you got this number yourself. I know you think for yourself but you want me to believe you came up with a million by yourself? A million in 1984 and a million today? Duesberg came up with that noreen and then his copycats copied him. And now you’re joining them which makes me sad because like I said your smarter than that.

Look at those studies noreen and you see they use different methods different samples. But if you take ALL of them, look at the ranges, the medians, you see a trend. A trend upwards. The only way you get a flat line is if you kill most of the data.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 9:52 PM

Checking the site, it listed over 550,000 deaths from AIDS.

988,000 AIDS diagnoses.

If you can find out the number of deaths from ICL4 then you can compare that with AIDS deaths.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 5, 2007 9:54 PM

Chris, I think that part of the problem is a bogus HIV Test, which is cannot be so accurate if 70 things cause a false positive and it is not specific to only HIV. If it were, then I might put more stock in what the mainstream is preaching and add the fact that Gallo under oath, claimed to have only found HIV in 40% of cases. This isn’t even 50% and certainly not 100. There are too many flaws in the current theory, that’s why there are rethinkers.

Hopefully, all of this is slowing coming out in the wash. I do know that more and more HIV+ are becoming educated to all of the inconsistencies and are flushing these drugs down the toilet so to speak.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 9:56 PM

Noreen, the bogus HIV test is not one test.

There are alot of HIV tests. Different generations of antibody tests. First just antibody. Then antibody and antigen. Now you have antigen tests by themselves. You can do culturing. There’s PCR.

Nobody gets a false positive if you test ELISA then Western then PCR. Did you ever hear of one?

Look at Andy’s claim. He says some scientist says some other scientists say 2% of people with flu vaccine test HIV positive. But you look at those papers you find out the first scientist was a doctor who had ONE patient. And the guy tested indeterminate for HIV, then they did PCR and he was negative. He had a flu vaccine before that. They didn’t do anything to prove a connection. The paper that first doctor gave was from ten years ago and its conclusion was, the flu vaccine DIDN’T cause false positives it was a cross reaction thing with a year’s group of tests for a few things not just HIV. When they tested the same samples with NEW kits they were negative.

All of the “false positive” literature is like that. People like Andrew come out and tell you stuff about it because they think you won’t read it for yourself. You say 70 conditions. But flu is the biggest one and its a lie. All the others its like a sample size of two or one and you can’t get a conclusion about if rabies or HBV or anything is causing indeterminate or false positive.

There’s a tiny number of false positives and none if you do enough tests. There’s no condition I know is proved to cause one using proof like dissidents say they want for HIV and AIDS. None.

BTW, please don’t say bad things about Gallo. He found HIV in that many of his first AIDS patients because he didn’t have what we have now. He did an amazing thing back then. If we test those people today 100% gauranteed.

Posted by: Adele | August 5, 2007 10:05 PM

Adele, we dissidents would never say anything bad about your hero Robert Gallo, because he, for us, is our best entertainment value for the money!

For the best descriptions of what a LAB RAT Robert Gallo was, read the book “SCIENCE FICTIONS” 2003 by Pulitzer Prize winner John Crewdson.

Here is an older bit of info on this crook who was found guilty of Scientific Misconduct and then let off by his buddies:

LAB RAT
What AIDS Researcher Dr. Robert Gallo Did in Pursuit of the Nobel Prize
By Seth Roberts

Spy July 1990:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/srlabrat.htm

“If Machiavelli were to write a book today, he’d call it The Lab Chief.”

- a former colleague of Dr. Robert Gallo’s

Posted by: Michael | August 5, 2007 11:00 PM

Chris, I think that part of the problem is a bogus HIV Test, which is cannot be so accurate if 70 things cause a false positive and it is not specific to only HIV.

The question isn’t whether a number of different things can cause a false positive. The question is how often they cause false positives. The reality is that false positives using the standard protocols are very rare.

I am willing to bet that you have not gone through and read the references for the “Factors Known to Cause False Positive HIV Antibody Test Results” article. Many of them describe single events that are extremely rare. Many of these occurred only in a specific test-kits from the 1980s that are now obselete.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 5, 2007 11:14 PM

That really is quite a hero, you picked there Adele. Have you always been so taken with psychopaths?

There is an old saying that “A man is known by his heros”.

I am sure the same thing goes for women!

Your choice of Robert Gallo as your hero of worship says much about you dear Adele!

Gotta love it:

“About the time that Richard Nixon resigned, and David Gillespie, then second-in-command at Gallo’s lab, was discussing the former president with his boss. “I was saying what a lousy president Nixon was, because he put the ends ahead of the means,” says Gillespie. “I said it didn’t matter to Nixon how he got where he was going; as long as he got there he felt he was justified. Gallo looked at me, and he said basically that I didn’t understand the real world. He said, “Nixon did exactly the right thing. It’s unfortunate that he got caught.”

Gallo did not confine his competitiveness to other big, well-funded labs. For a few years he reviewed grant proposals for the Leukemia Society of America. But each year, Gallo would bring the proposals – which, of course, were supposed to be confidential – back to Bethesda and, at a Monday-morning meeting, pass them out to people in his lab working in related areas. Here are their ideas, Gallo would say. Work on them (”I’ve never known him to have an idea that didn’t come from someone else,” says a former co-worker.) Most scientists would be repelled by such underhandedness, but the people in Gallo’s lab went through a process of adaptation and selection. Only the weak survived: Gallo was surrounded by yes-people.

NIH lab chiefs themselves go through a similar process of adaptation and selection, but with an emphasis on different traits. Gallo is fond of participant sports, and as someone in his lab delicately told People, “Gallo doesn’t just like to win, he insists on winning.” According to another lab member, “With something as friendly as a lab softball game, he’d be dirty – he’d kick you in the balls if he thought he was going to lose.” Another employee says that when Gallo was losing at tennis, “he would start to deliberately call the lines wrong on your side of the net. He’d hit a ball six feet out, and he’d say, ‘That isn’t out, that’s in.’ He argues and rants and raves so long, you let him have it.”

Even as it became clearer and clearer that Gallo had not discovered the AIDS virus but merely copied it from the French (”I think science always builds on the discoveries of other people, doesn’t it?” Gallo told SPY), his detractors still did not completely write him off. “If he didn’t discover the AIDS virus, he still discovered IL-2,” they would say, or “He still discovered HTLV-1,” the first known virus convincingly associated with human cancer. The AIDS virus mix-up might have been an accident, a case of laboratory contamination, wherein a virus somehow makes its way from one petri dish to another – “an honest mistake,” says Beatrice Hahn, a former Gallo employee

In the late 1970s the discovery of IL-2, a molecule important in the immune system, occurred despite Gallo’s efforts to ignore it. Doris Morgan, a researcher in Gallo’s lab, stumbled on a way to grow certain white blood cells. When she presented her results at a weekly lab meeting,

Gallo was unimpressed. Others in the lab, however, encouraged her to keep working on it, and she continued without Gallo’s knowledge. Eventually, with the help of Frank Ruscetti, a cell biologist, the growing cells were identified as T cells – key elements in the immune system. Gallo said that “growing T cells [wouldn't] lead anywhere,” and he ordered Morgan and Ruscetti to stop working on that “‘worthless molecule.” Not long after Morgan was fired, and she remained unemployed for ten months.

After Morgan was canned, Gallo did little with her discovery. Meanwhile, Kendall Smith, a young professor at Dartmouth, started to follow up Morgan’s finding. Over the next four years, the Dartmouth lab isolated IL-2, the molecule responsible for the growth that Morgan had observed, and began to determine its role in the immune system. By then Gallo had finally been forced to understand the importance of Morgan’s discovery. Ever since, he has claimed credit not only for Morgan and Ruscetti’s result (the long-term growth off cells) but also for the Dartmouth discovery. In the early 1980s Gallo went to a meeting in France where he was asked, “Are you still working with Ruscetti on IL-2?” Gallo reportedly answered that Ruscetti worked for him and that he, not Ruscetti, was the brains behind the project. When he returned to Bethesda, Gallo was so angry over this imagined slight that he didn’t speak to Ruscetti for months.

What a sweetheart that Bob Gallo is, and such honesty and integrity!

Posted by: Michael | August 5, 2007 11:27 PM

Chris,

You said, “…several live vaccines are stored as lyophilised powders exactly becuase the process does not destroy these viruses. Simply add water and you have live virus.”

Really? Wow! How come this sounds like science fiction or the other thing that comes to mind…….

“Grows SIX TIMES (600% !) it’s size in water! Having a hard time finding the perfect girlfriend?! Hey – we totally understand that frustration! Here’s your answer… grow your own! Find “true love” in just 72 hours away – simply place Miss Right (or is she Miss Right Now?) in water. Within 2 hours, she will begin to grow and will be her full size within 72 hours. (When removed from water, she will slowly shrink back to her original size… hey! Okay… girls don’t do that in real life, but we all wish they did!) Seriously, she will shrink back to her original size and you can grow her again and again.”

Posted by: carter | August 6, 2007 12:03 AM

Bob Gallo is a very respected man a great scientist.

BTW, please don’t say bad things about Gallo. He found HIV in that many of his first AIDS patients because he didn’t have what we have now. He did an amazing thing back then. If we test those people today 100% gauranteed.

I thought Gallo worship ended 15 years ago, when he was mercifully drummed out of the NCI. The guy’s a fake, a crook and a liar.

Posted by: Philly Boy | August 6, 2007 12:04 AM

The website Science Fictions has everything you need to know about Dr. Gallo. Check out “Cited Documents” link — great nasty grams back and forth between Gallo and Montagnier.

From the NY Times:

The tale of Dr. Robert Gallo’s role in the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS is one of those stories that wouldn’t be believable as fiction…Science Fictions is bursting with allegations leveled at Dr. Gallo, his associates, rivals and enemies, that include deception, misconduct, incompetence, fraud, sabotage, back-stabbing, double-dealing, overstatements, half-truths, outright lies, a clandestine affair with a co-worker, a bribery attempt, denials, evasions, coverups and serial rewritings of history.’

Posted by: Philly Boy | August 6, 2007 12:18 AM

Really? Wow! How come this sounds like science fiction or the other thing that comes to mind…….

Ummm, because you’re scientifically illiterate?

The MMR vaccine for example is distributed as a lyophilised preparation.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 6, 2007 12:19 AM

Chris,

I wasn’t Questioning “lyophilised preparation,” just your make-believe ‘HIV’ particle. What’s the standard?

WHAT’S THE STANDARD YOU ARE USING TO CLAIM YOU HAVE ANYTHING PARTICULAR THERE IN YOUR PREPARATION AT ALL?

Please do tell!

Posted by: carter | August 6, 2007 2:24 AM

Dear DT.

I didn’t say anything about emotions and AIDS. If you look carefully, the posts in this blog are followed by a person’s name. That was Michael’s enlightened and remarkable post you refer to, who indeed made a very good point about long-term emotional stress on the immune system, or what has been called “bone-pointing” by Michael Ellner for example, is a known real phenomenon. You ought to read about how stress causes immune depression and many other serious syndromes. Are you aware that approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of the stress of loss and death? It is frequently written about in the Grief/Death/Dying literature.

Dear Chris,

Please write to my molecular pathologists and ask them to please accept “HIV” samples from patients here if they are allowed to sit around for 1/2 hour at room temp. They won’t do it because they know their PCR readings will be thrown off completely because they tell me that unless blood is IMMEDIATELY frozen in the proper tubes,they get all kinds of “false readings” (I have told them why but they just won’t listen).

Now let’s you and I do an experiment since Adele won’t relate to me what relevance her mutant virus’s lack of radioactive signal have in her assays, to the hypersuperdrugevading Y181C and K103N mutations that are exhibited in all those “HIV-positive” patients who die on the “life-saving” meds because their virus is said to “mutate” *(41.7% of black mother-infant pairs for instance in Africa put on the US withdrawn severely toxic drug Nevirapine whose safety data was lost in “the flood.”

Let’s put some “HIV-positive blood on your kitchen table and let the drop dry up (evaportate), and then re-suspend the dried spot in human plasma, and ask my boys to test it (we are the largest medical school in the nation and our molecular labs were inspected recently and CAP (College of American Pathologists). They not only gave us a thumbs up, but said we should be an example for others in the nation they inspect).

Also, the CDC determined, if you recall, early on when the mosquito possibility was still a threat for “HIV” and when hepatitis B was thought to be the best surrogate marker of “HIV” infection (Martin Deleney, Project Inform, Personal communication) in some of the first cohorts of U.S. and Scottish AIDS patients that:

“Hepatitis B virus is found in 90% of drug addicts positive for antibody to AIDS virus” (Peutherer et al., HTLV-III antibody in Edinburgh drug addicts. The Lancet 2: 1129-1130, 1985),

it was concluded by the CDC that “HIV” wasn’t transmitted casually, by contact with peoples lips, skin, etc., and they did table-top experiments much like this one I describe above and concluded that “HIV” is so inefficient at transmission that you need 1000 or more sexual contacts (on average) (now that’s a whole lot of foreign antigens being presented to non-self if you are the recipient of thousands of perhaps tablespoons full of stranger’s foreign proteins), and then presto, you get “HIV” disease (