Science Guardian/New AIDS Review/Damned Heretics » Tara Smith’s “Mbeki: Still In Denial” Thread

Tara Smith’s “Mbeki: Still In Denial” Thread

November 21st, 2007

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Tara Smith ran a post on her SEED Magazine Science Blogs blog Aetiology at November 6, 2007 1:45 PM, insulting Thabo Mbeki President of South Africa as a “denialist”. Mbeki’s new biography, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred was published recently and revealed that Mbeki had never abandoned his skepticism on the claims of HIV=AIDS to be a good analysis of South African health problems, but retreated from making official statements on the topic only because of political pressure from the activists in South Africa, and other baying hyenas of ignorance that seem impelled to seek revenge for his independent thinking on the matter,

The resulting comment thread has now (Jan 11 2008) reached 1771 comments – two books! -and we thought it appropos quickly to record its current stage in case it provokes editing or even erasure from Tara or her new HIV=AIDS friends, such as John P. Moore of Weill-Cornell, whose replies – till he abandoned ship – like those of other defenders of the faith were so ad hominem and scientifically evasive and/or misleading that they provide strong evidence that John is a good enough scientist to be well aware of how weak they are. In other words, further proof that the chief public defender of the paradigm is actually a closet dissident, his conscience apparently still working and in need of balm despite his armored shield of self-deception and denial, according to our psychoanalysis. His papers confirm this impression, and how they do so will be noted in an imminent post.

Here for permanent reference is a take out as of Jan 11, 2008 when it appears that it finally ground to a halt.

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Tara C. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. Additionally, she is the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and also writes for The Panda’s Thumb. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith’s alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.
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Mbeki: still in denial

Category: AIDS/HIV â€¢ Politics â€¢ Public health
Posted on: November 6, 2007 1:45 PM, by Tara C. Smith

In our paper on HIV denial, Steven and I started the introduction off with a note about South African president Thabo Mbeki:

This denial was highlighted on an international level in 2000, when South African president Thabo Mbeki convened a group of panelists to discuss the cause of AIDS, acknowledging that he remained unconvinced that HIV was the cause. His ideas were derived at least partly from material he found on the Internet. Though Mbeki agreed later that year to step back from the debate, he subsequently suggested a re-analysis of health spending with a decreased emphasis on HIV/AIDS.

Though he’s not been publicly vocal about his views in recent years, it has been suggested that they’ve not changed–that he still remains unconvinced, at best, of HIV causation of AIDS. An article in today’s Guardian suggests he’s ready to start speaking on it again–and it’s the same old schtick:

President Thabo Mbeki remains an “Aids dissident” who has told a biographer that he regrets bowing to pressure from his cabinet to “withdraw from the debate” over the disease ravaging South Africa.

***

Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred describes how the president contacted the author earlier this year to reiterate some of the views that caused uproar in the medical community before Mr Mbeki stopped talking publicly about Aids several years ago. Mr Gevisser also describes how the president’s view of the disease was shaped by an obsession with race, the legacy of colonialism and “sexual shame”.

The book will reinforce the view of Mr Mbeki’s critics who say his unorthodox opinions have cost hundreds of thousands of lives by delaying the distribution of medicines, and that the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has continued these views.

This may sound familiar to those who’ve read our PLoS Medicine paper (or who’ve simply dealt with pharma-phobic deniers) as well:

The president said he was seeking an open debate but portrayed those who disagreed with him – who include Nelson Mandela, trade union leaders whose members were dying in large numbers and Aids activists – as in the pay of the drug companies.

And while Mbeki attributes much power to “drug companies,” it sounds like many who’ve disagreed with his stance on AIDS have been fearful to tell him as much:

Mr Gevisser says that while Mr Mbeki has never explicitly denied the link between HIV and Aids, he is a “profound sceptic”. The issue came to a head in the cabinet in 2002 after Mr Mbeki’s political advisers and some ministers told him it was running out of control and damaging South Africa’s reputation, which had been so high under Mr Mandela’s leadership.

“What happened was not, quite, a rebellion,” writes Mr Gevisser. “Only one elected ANC representative, Pregs Govender, the chair of a parliamentary committee on the status of women, resigned and publicly criticised Mbeki. And even behind closed doors only one or two people actually had the courage to tell Mbeki they thought he was wrong.”

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Comments

Any quality political leader worth his salt will go out of way just to make sure there are people close to him that will disagree with him sometimes. Sadly, there are few political leaders anywhere like that any more.

Posted by: Dave S. | November 6, 2007 2:54 PM

Stand by for the deluge of denialists hijacking this thread. I’ll bet the first one will appear within the first 10 posts.

Mbeki is stubborn. Perhaps he is unwilling to admit he was wrong, or unwilling to admit others may be right. Either way, he is not helping the situation in the RSA at all, and should shut the hell up about AIDS.

Posted by: wheatdogg | November 6, 2007 6:29 PM

I take it that Mr Mbeki is willing to be injected with HIV to prove his point? I understand that, after the demonstration, he can heal himself with traditional medicines. No? Not stepping forward, sir?

Posted by: Ex-drone | November 6, 2007 7:27 PM

I am interested in hearing Dr. Braganza’s take on this story, since he seems well-informed on SA politics and also stated that Mbeki had forsaken Duesberg’s denialism.

Sometimes I try to decide which is better: a “stupid” leader who delegates to experts or a brilliant leader, full of ideas (like Mbeki), who insists on making his or her own decisions against conventional wisdom? Of course there are dangers in both. Why do we so rarely find a brilliant leader who is willing to take advice from brilliant experts?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 6, 2007 7:58 PM

This is bizarre.

Mbeki’s official biographer claimed that Mbkei was never a Denialist!

Now in fiction: the president on Aids

Is Mbeki now denying that he denied that he was a Denialist?

Does Mbeki still claim that he doesn’t know anybody who died from AIDS?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 6, 2007 8:59 PM

“Stand by for the deluge of denialists hijacking this thread. I’ll bet the first one will appear within the first 10 posts.

Posted by: wheatdogg | November 6, 2007 6:29 PM”

“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”

“Once again, I wonder how long it will take for the HIV/AIDS deniers to hijack this thread. Counting one, two, three, …

Posted by: SLC | October 10, 2007 5:12 PM”

“The AIDS/HIV denialist whackjobs whould be hijacking this thread any time now.

Posted by: SLC | October 25, 2007 5:50 PM”

“I wonder how long it will take for the HIV/AIDS denialists to pollute this thread with their bogus claims?

Posted by: SLC | September 14, 2007 9:23 AM”

Posted by: pat | November 6, 2007 9:32 PM

You have actually found something you can predict! congratulations!

Posted by: pat | November 6, 2007 9:36 PM

Chris,

I think it comes down to the technicality:

In the Guardian article:

Mr Gevisser says that while Mr Mbeki has never explicitly denied the link between HIV and Aids, he is a “profound sceptic”.

and in Nicoli’s article:

Claiming that Mbeki was not an Aids denialist because he “never said that HIV does not cause Aids” is a red herring.

Mbeki can claim he was never a “denier” because he never explicitly said (to my knowledge) that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS–though policies he implemented and invitations he made to deniers shows otherwise.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 6, 2007 9:42 PM

President Mbeki is a bona fide hero. He prevented the pharmaceutical cabal from polluting the country with toxic AZT. Probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Glad he got re-elected in a landslide.

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 6, 2007 11:18 PM

Sigh…
As someone who has held a child that died because of Mbeki’s denialism, Mountain Man makes me sick. Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT. Fascinating coincidence? No, Mbeki is guilty of negligent homicide, if not worse.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 6, 2007 11:30 PM

bdkeller,

Hey moron — do you really think giving cancer chemo (AZT) to pregnant woman is a good thing?

If so, that is why you are a loser on the internet, while Mbeki worked tirelessly at Mandela’s side to smash apartheid and now runs a country of millions.

Go crawl under your rock — or better yet, take some AZT for 30 days and tell us what it does to you.

Mbeki is a hero — I hope upon his retirement they make him General Secretary of the UN.

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 6, 2007 11:41 PM

You do realize that insulting me for using the internet is rather ironic, eh?

The question of whether or not giving AZT to pregnant women is a good thing is answered by research, not by your rantings. Because women treated with AZT reduce the likelihood of their children getting HIV (which leads to AIDS and eventual death without treatment), yes, I think it’s a very good thing.

Mbeki’s admirable work against apartheid does not make his views on HIV/AIDS correct. If it did, by that logic Mandela’s even greater work against apartheid would justify his stance (which happens to be correct) that HIV does cause AIDS.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 6, 2007 11:49 PM

Jeez, bkeller, you’re like a trained seal. Good at regurgitating a narrative, terrible at any real thought. You sound like one of those gullible assholes who thought it was a good idea to invade Iraq or that driving a Prius somehow makes a difference in the environment.

Here, Moron, is some research on AZT, a deadly cancer chemo drug:

Within 48 weeks on AZT, 172 (56%) out of 308 Australian AIDS patients developed one or more new AIDS diseases, including pneumonia and candidiasis [1]. This indicates that AZT induces AIDS diseases with less than 1 year and thus much faster than the 10 years HIV is said to need to cause AIDS [2]. Likewise, no therapeutic benefits were observed in a study of 365 AIDS patients from France after six months on AZT, but new AIDS diseases and approximately 50% leukopenias and 20% deaths occurred within nine months on AZT, Further, no therapeutic benefits were observed in four Norwegian AIDS patients after six months on AZT [3].

The annual lymphoma incidence of AZT-treated AIDS patients was reported to be 9% by the National Cancer Institute and was calculated to be 50% over 3 years [4]. The lymphoma incidence of untreated HIV-positive AIDS risk groups is 0.3% per year and 0.9% per 3 years, derived from the putative average progression rate of 10 years from HIV to AIDS [2,5,6] and the 3% incidence of lymphoma in AIDS patients [7]. Thus the lymphoma incidence is 30 to 50 times higher in AZT-treated than in untreated HIV-positive counterparts. In addition, “during the past three years [of AZT therapy] a progressive increase in the number of [AIDS] patients dying from lymphoma…”, to a current total of 16%, was noted in 1991 in a group of 346 AIDS patients in London, most of whom were on AZT.

Citations:

1. Swanson et al,(1990) Factors influencing outcome of treatment with zidovudine of patients with AIDS in Australia. AIDS 4, 749.

2. Lemp et al, (1990) Projections of AIDS morbidity and mortality in San Francisco. J Am Med Assoc 263, 1497

3. Reinvang et al, (1991) Only temporary improvement in imparied neuropsychological function in AIDS patients treated with zidovudine. AIDS 5, 228

4. Pluda et al,(1990) Development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in a cohort of patients with immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on long-term antiretroviral therapy. Ann Int Med 113, 276.

5. Duesberg (1991) AIDS epidemiology: inconsistencies with human immunodeficiency virus and with infectious disease. PNAS 88, 1575

6. Moss et al, (1988) The cause of AIDS. Science 242, 997

7. Centers for Disease Control (1991) HIV/AIDS Surveillance. (January) US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GA

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 7, 2007 12:12 AM

Glad he got re-elected in a landslide.

My impression was that the ANC did their best to eliminate HIV/AIDS as an election issue at the previous election.

They agreed to start distributing ARVs and Mbeki shut up. The silence was deafening. He stopped making any Denialist statements and the official ANC policy was that HIV causes AIDS and that ARVs are the appropriate treatment.

If Mbeki had any guts he would have taken his HIV denialism to the election.

Why didn’t he come out and say what he apparently thinks? He’s obviously a clever politician and knew that he would lose votes from many of the voters who had lost family members to AIDS. Much better to keep quiet and instead do your best to slow down the distribution of ARVs.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 12:20 AM

Trained seals must bark loudest at other seals. You say that I regurgitate a narrative (my personal story of involvement with children with HIV/AIDS is original, as were my comments on Mbeki and Mandela), and then you copy and past large sections of research from virusmyth.net. This is called irony.

As I am not a trained seal, I will however read the articles (not just the conclusions) you cited when I get the chance. It may take me a day or two to do them justice as I have a genetics test coming up soon. (Ie., I need to go memorize some more of that baseless Mendelian dogma.)

Your characterization is again, rather inaccurate. I think invading Iraq was a terrible idea and driving a Prius is more about impressing the Joneses than having an appreciable impact on the environment. You’re right on one count; I do have an anus. I’m sure you’ll find a way to sprinkle any future responses with more invective, and I look forward to it. It’s one of the main reasons I respond.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 7, 2007 1:37 AM

In the first study all patients had already been diagnosed with AIDS and had opportunistic infections.

Figure 2 shows the survival of people in this category in the period before AZT and the survival when given AZT. I can’t imagine what happens when “Mountain Man” looks at this figure. Do his frontal lobes shut down? Do his magical denialist spectacles turn opaque?

In the period before AZT only about half of the patients were alive 1 year after diagnosis with AIDS. To claim that this paper demonstrates that AZT causes AIDS is monumentally stupid. AZT increased the survival rate.

The Concorde study gave 1000mg per day of AZT to the immediate group and a placebo to the deferred group. During in 55 weeks only 24 out of 505 in the immediate group developed advanced ARC or AIDS.

The Concorde study completely refutes the idea that AZT causes AIDS. If AZT caused AIDS you would expect that the immediate group would get AIDS at a higher rate than the deferred group who received a placebo. This was not observed. “Mountain Man”’s assertion that AZT caused AIDS within a year is also refuted.

The only question that I have is why does “Mountain Man” provide citations when they contradict his claims? Does he think that people won’t read them? Does he think everybody else is stupid? Is he so blinded by his own stupidity that he can’t comprehend these studies?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 1:37 AM

Good at regurgitating a narrative,…

I should have checked before I assumed that you had the mental capacity to compose the pseudoscientific nonsense you posted.

There is a quaint scientific custom whereby text is attributed to the original authors. If you copy and paste text without attribution it is called plagiarism. I doubt that Duesberg is going to complain but it is still plagiarism. Changing the reference numbers to hide this fact suggests that it was deliberate.

That explains why you cited this paper

1. Swanson et al,(1990) Factors influencing outcome of treatment with zidovudine of patients with AIDS in Australia. AIDS 4, 749.

You haven’t read it. You are just relying on Duesberg’s misinterpretation.

Go to the library. Get the paper. Read all of it. Look at figure 2.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 2:00 AM

President Mbeki is a bona fide hero. He prevented the pharmaceutical cabal from polluting the country with toxic AZT. Probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

How Mbeki wanted to poison his people with Virodene(TM)

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 3:29 AM

Mbeki’s South Africa is the only government in the world to reject the HIV causes AIDS toxic drug propaganda. They recognize it for what it really is. In a phrase so aptly coined by Rebecca Culshaw, HIV drugs for Africa is a form of genocide masquerading as philanthropy. South Africa is a test case scenario for the political battle between big pharma paid activists who harass government officials, and the a democratically elected government opposed to iatragenocide.

South Africa has had its long years of suffering under apartheid and colonial racist rule which have made it wary of further oppression at the hands of a western medical system which has blundered itself into the untenable and fraudulent hypothesis that toxic drugs should be given to Africans suffering from chronic medical problems of poverty, malnutrition, tuberculosis, contaminated water.

Mbeki and his colleagues have tremendous courage and wisdom to lead their people away from the corruption of Big Pharma money and toxic drugs. For the benefit of their people, may these great leaders continue in strength and health for many years.

Posted by: Neverapeen | November 7, 2007 4:57 AM

Mbeki is a hero — I hope upon his retirement they make him General Secretary of the UN.

Being a hero and being infallible is not the same thing.

How old are you not to have noticed that…?

Posted by: David MarjanoviÄ‡ | November 7, 2007 7:42 AM

For years South Africa fought for it’s right to acquire inexpensive generic ARV’s for its people. For years the HIV team has DENIED them this right.

United Press International – November 1, 2001

Activists: Poor countries need AIDS meds
Kelly Hearn

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Under heavy security, activists converged Thursday on the office of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, calling for a relaxation of drug patents, a move that would let Third World countries produce generic medicines for millions of impoverished AIDS sufferers.

The protests, organized by the AIDS activist group ACTUP based in Philadelphia, comes a week before a key World Trade Organization meeting in Doha, Qatar, and days after U.S. officials threatened to break a patent for the antibiotic Cipro, forcing German drug maker Bayer Corp. to lower its prices.

“(President) Bush talks of breaking the Cipro patent after four people died (of anthrax). But he refused to extend AIDS drugs to 30 million AIDS suffers, most of whom are black,” said Asia Russell of Health Gap, an HIV/AIDS drug activist organization. “It is a racist policy.”

Btw: we still hear this one thrown about wildly:

“South Africa is currently experiencing one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world. By the end of 2005, there were five and a half million people living with HIV in South Africa, and almost 1,000 AIDS deaths occurring every day.1″ -avert.org

according to Statistics SA-www.statssa.gov.za

Table 4.4:
The ten leading underlying natural causes of death, 2004

10. Human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] disease
total deaths: (hold tight) 14′532 or 2,5%

Ok, who the f..k is pulling my leg?
And people wonder why Mbeki is skeptical about the “Aids world”

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 8:20 AM

I think Tara incessantly posts a blog entry about AIDS denial to get into that TOP FIVE / MOST EMAILED list as often as possible.

Well, who cares. I think these are great threads, it’s a real treat. Once you’ve unraveled the HIV=Aids nonsense, discussing with any member of the Scientific Community defending the equation is like playing soccer with guys who have only one leg but who nevertheless boast about being the only people in the world to know how to play that ball. What did I say? One leg? No legs at all, that’s closer to reality. And drunk!
No wonder the denialist camp is leading about 98757 to 0.
No, 98757 to 1. I once scored against my own camp when I wrote amoebea instead of Plasmodium spp.

Posted by: jspreen | November 7, 2007 8:26 AM

Tara omitted the claim in the article I found even more disturbing (emphasis added):

[A] 100-page paper secretly authored by Mr Mbeki and distributed anonymously among the ANC leadership six years ago â€¦ compared Aids scientists to latter-day Nazi concentration camp doctors and portrayed black people who accepted orthodox Aids science as “self-repressed” victims of a slave mentality. It describes the “HIV/Aids thesis” as entrenched in “centuries-old white racist beliefs and concepts about Africans”.

That he’s still some sort of denier is a “dog bites man” story. Not a big surprise.

It’s the claim he apparently thought, and may still think, that HIV/AIDS researchers are “Nazi concentration camp doctors” is what astonished me. That’s seriously muddled “thinking”. I’m sure Orac could expand on this point!

Posted by: blf | November 7, 2007 8:39 AM

Can we see this secrtely authored paper or should we just blow wind around as usual.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 9:00 AM

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/life/life_expectancy.txt

Note South Africa life expectancy:

1960:49
1970:53
1980:57
1990:62
1999:48

Is there a denier explanation for this? Why is it that the following countries (and ONLY the following countries) see double digit life expectancy drops from 1990 to 1999?

Botswana
Lesotho
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Posted by: Andrew Dodds | November 7, 2007 9:35 AM

Can we see this secrtely [sic] authored paper or should we just blow wind around as usual.

The Guardian’s article reports Mr Gevisser (authour of Mr Mbeki’s biography) has two copies of this paper, an older one and a updated one. The updated one was sent to him by Mr Mbeki (according to the article).

It would indeed be useful to see the paper (either, and ideally both, versions). Based on the information in the article, four possible sources to ask for a copy spring to mind: Mr Mbeki, the ANC, Mr Gevisser, and The Guardian. Also, I assume the bibliography Mr Gevisser is writing(? has written?) will include more details.

I do not understand what “we should just blow wind around as usual” means. Please explain.

Posted by: blf | November 7, 2007 9:38 AM

“blowing wind around” is just another way to say “throwing gossip around” like the 1000 S Africans that die daily due to AIDS. In other words, we should wait to see if such a paper even exists before we opine about Mbeki’s statec of “denial”.

PS: [sic] looks ridiculous on a blog thread.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 9:51 AM

Just in case anyone was fooled by a denialist’s (Michael’s?) use of the name “Mountain Man,” I did not make the disgusting comments about genocide and AZT above.

Of course, if I were Michael, I wouldn’t want to take credit for my own drivel, either.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 7, 2007 10:01 AM

Andrew, no one is deniying that death in SA and Africa is HIGH. It is much higher than it probably ever was. To think this supports AIDS is ludicrous. Only a reality denialist would think that poverty and health has improved an inch these last couple of decades. The high death rate in Africa can easily be explained by the western world’s behavior towards that continent. African’s are poorer today than they were ever before and not because of AIDS but because of another epidemic, namely the epidemic economic plunder of that continent. Dare investigate what it is the World bank does there and you will find wholesale theft taking place. AIDS is just what we say so we don’t have to blame ourselves for it. With AIDS we can blame the lusting masses of Africans.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 10:01 AM

I think Tara incessantly posts a blog entry about AIDS denial to get into that TOP FIVE / MOST EMAILED list as often as possible.

Incessantly? Typically I do one or two posts on HIV a month–and it’s not always denial. Y’all are the ones who keep them running for months at a time.

It’s the claim he apparently thought, and may still think, that HIV/AIDS researchers are “Nazi concentration camp doctors” is what astonished me.

Mbeki has a flair for that. There was another one we included in our PLoS paper, where he compared scientists to those facilitating witch hunts: “In an earlier period in human history, these [dissidents] would be heretics that would be burnt at the stake!”

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 7, 2007 10:07 AM

Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT.

Hey! Come over here, put your name on the bible, swear upon what’s dearest to you that you’ll speak the truth and nothing but the truth, look me straight in the eyes and repeat that The children suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT.
If you dare do that, then it must be true that the kids stopped dying. In which case it’s certainly not because of AZT but because caring and well equiped people in a well equiped health care center started to look after them. So then, continue with the good care, cut out the AZT and your results will improve tenfold.

Posted by: jspreen | November 7, 2007 10:34 AM

Whats the problem, mbeki, like most intelligent people sees flaws in the hiv hypothesis. The more you use the term “denialist” the more it shows how little you know about science.

150 chimps injected not one has died of aids after 20 years
no explanation how a infection thats in 1/1000 blood tcells destroys the immune system
MOst viruses wreak havok before antibodies, not 10 years later, thats why we get vaccines.
NO study to see if people with this species specific microbe who dont have any other risk factors such as AZT, mycoplasmas, severe stress/drug abuse even get AIDS.

NO original scientific papers published in between 1983-85 that prove the hypothesis using kochs postulates, or a rigorous matched controlled long term study. What are you left with, the cherry picked NIH fact sheet released years later!

NO wonder you guys rely on censorship, if intelligent people heard of these arguments they’d dump the hiv dogma overnight.

Posted by: cooler | November 7, 2007 10:42 AM

Slightly OT, but Mbeki “being re-elected in a landslide” has very little to do with his actions as president. In present-day South Africa, the ANC always wins in a landslide.

Posted by: Chris Rowan | November 7, 2007 11:04 AM

“Mbeki has a flair for that. There was another one we included in our PLoS paper, where he compared scientists to those facilitating witch hunts: “In an earlier period in human history, these [dissidents] would be heretics that would be burnt at the stake!”

But Tara, you’re in denial. It is a fair comparison that some scientists facilitate which hunts.
To quote THE eminent HIV scientist-come-witch hunter JP Moore:

“This IS a war, there ARE no rules, and we WILL crush you, one at a time, completely and utterly (at least the more influential ones; foot-soldiers like you aren’t worth bothering with).”

We just don’t use “witch” any more but the equally obscure “denialist” and we don’t burn them anymore; just sabotage their careers.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 11:26 AM

AIDS researchers are “Nazis”? What do we call vitamin quacks who experiment on people with AIDS?

Guardian, 2005:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1483821,00.html

“Dr [Mathias] Rath denounces Aids drugs and claims that all those who promote them are the paid lackeys of western drug companies. Vitamins, not drugs, are the cure for Aids – and cancer and diabetes too for that matter – he says, and there are those in the South African government who appear to give him credence. …

Supporting him are some of the maverick US scientists whose argument that HIV was not the cause of Aids found favour with the South African president, Thabo Mbeki some years ago. They, too, said the drugs made people ill. David Rasnick, one of those scientists, has now joined Dr Rath in Cape Town. Both names appear in one of the New York Times adverts which details a “clinical pilot study” of 18 people with Aids in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha who were said to improve after four weeks on the supplements.

According to the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, which has cajoled and fought with the government for access to treatment for some of the 5 million now infected with HIV there, Dr Rath’s experiments with vitamins in Khayelitsha are probably illegal because he did not have approval to open clinics and offer any kind of therapy. Furthermore, the levels of vitamin C in the supplements were far beyond the 200mg a day recommended as safe by the US National Institutes of Health, says TAC, and could cause diarrhoea, which could kill somebody with Aids.”

Posted by: Colugo | November 7, 2007 11:44 AM

Pat,

I appreciate the comments on poverty, but how do you explain that (in South Africa, as in others parts of the world) lifespan of HIV+s is smaller than the one of HIV-s.

And has poverty just increased in South Africa now that the Apartheid has finished ? This would be anyway a proof that something is wrong in South Africa.

————

On the patent thing, anyone can patent anything if he can provide proof of an innovative step. Therefore an opiate antagonist which would behave a bit better than LDN and would have a different structure is likely to be patentable. Big companies have databanks of products and can have easy access to databases of natural products that they can screen against a biological test, therefore find new chemical structures that can be optimised and could theoretically provide a new LDN.

Is this likely ? If LDN can be used to control HIV/AIDS, everything would depend on the economics.

Posted by: Braganza | November 7, 2007 12:05 PM

“AIDS researchers are “Nazis”?

I don’t know about all researches but some like JP Moore, Bermann and Weinberg definitly have fascist tendencies:

“This IS a war, there ARE no rules, and we WILL crush you, one at a time, completely and utterly (at least the more influential ones; foot-soldiers like you aren’t worth bothering with).”

this is not what we would expect from a “curious” mind.

Also, I agree that anything that causes diarrhoea doesn’t make sense for people already suffering from AIDS BUT I must add that giving anything that causes bone marrow destruction to AIDS patients is equally stupid.
David Rasnik may be wrong about HIV/AIDS and vitamins but he designs protease inhibitors for a living. He knows a thing or two about them no?

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 12:14 PM

Thank God scientists can’t make all the laws yet

“Sigh…
As someone who has held a child that died because of Mbeki’s denialism, Mountain Man makes me sick. Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT. Fascinating coincidence? No, Mbeki is guilty of negligent homicide, if not worse.”

Those children died of disease. Why isn’t Tara calling the pharmaceuticals and their political sheep murderers? They are the ones who for years REFUSED to let S. Africa get affordable ARV’s in effect FORCING Mbeki to wonder outload what the hell is going on and seek ALTERNATIVES. That is what I call “Denialism”: they forget! Anyone who blames Mbeki is in denial of historical FACTS!

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 12:21 PM

Thank you for your comments Braganza. S. Africa’s “explosive” death rate perhaps is best explained by the fact that black African’s were not allowed to die in white hospitals. No one kept a record of how and when they died so, of course, when Apartheid ended there was a very nasty surprise for the world. Poverty is not anything new to black S. African’s only what we let them die of…

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 12:36 PM

” how do you explain that (in South Africa, as in others parts of the world) lifespan of HIV+s is smaller than the one of HIV-s.” – Braganza

I can’t explain that. I also can’t explain the following:

SA: 5.5 million HIV+ and 14′000 HIV related deaths

N. America and central Europe: 2.1 million HIV+ and 30′000 HIV related deaths.-UNAIDS

Uganda: From a high of 35% infection rate to less than 7% in ten years. It is touted as an AIDS prevention success yet no one can find out where the 35% went. They did not die, so much is certain.

etc..

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 12:46 PM

Other things I can’t explain:

-Why some people still believe thoughts are dangerous.(fascist ideology)
-Why some scientists abandon the field of education.
(deriliction of duty)

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 2:09 PM

Pat, you are not taking into account the fact that those annual prevalences in Uganda are measured in specific at-risk populations, such as antenatal clinics and sexually transmitted infection clinics, so each measurement is of a different population walking in the door. It’s not that there was a measurement of the whole population, and a subset of people died, moved away, or cleared the virus – it’s that people coming in to be treated for their STIs in 1990 had lower seroprevalence than the ones coming in in 2000.

The evidence that Uganda is doing something different from its neighbors is reflected in the risk behavior data, too – kids are delaying their sexual debut, condom use is on the rise especially among teens, folks are reporting fewer casual partners, and STI rates are dropping.

Posted by: jen_m | November 7, 2007 2:10 PM

Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT.

Hey, bdkeller! Will you answer my previous post please and tell me whether yes or no you are willing to repeat the above phrase in the conditions I mentioned?

Posted by: jspreen | November 7, 2007 2:43 PM

Why do the deniers hate AZT? Did AZT once insult your mother? What the hell, I just don’t get it. Of all the things in life to wage a war against, why AZT?

Posted by: J | November 7, 2007 2:44 PM

bc its a chemotherapy in a pill that kills dividing cells, being on chemo for years can kill you.

See hiv fact or fraud, read project day lily. google them for some real science, not eternal woo.

Posted by: cooler | November 7, 2007 2:47 PM

For more information on the situation in Uganda, see (and the pages it links to):

http://www.avert.org/aidsuganda.htm

There is also a discussion of the difference between “incidence” and “prevalence”, which may help in understanding the statistics. The possible reasons for the drop in prevalence (from c.35% to c.7%) is discussed:

Why might HIV prevalence have declined?

According to the best statistics available, HIV prevalence in Uganda fell dramatically during the 1990s. Such a steep reduction in HIV prevalence has not been seen in countries neighbouring Uganda, and is something that many would like to emulate. The debate is – why did HIV prevalence in Uganda decline? And how can this decline be replicated?

A declining prevalence indicates a lower proportion of positive people in the population. This could result from a fall in the number of new infections (incidence) or from a rise in the death rate among HIV-positive people, or from a combination of both factors.

New infections

It is likely that the number of new infections peaked in the late 1980s, and then fell sharply until the mid 1990s. This is generally thought to have been the result of behaviour change. …

Deaths

There is no precise data on the number of AIDS-related deaths that have taken place. The reasons for this are several, and include lack of healthcare facilities able to diagnose either HIV or AIDS cases in patients, and many deaths having gone unrecorded, or recorded as the results of opportunistic infections.

It has been suggested that an increase in the AIDS death rate may have been largely responsible for the drop in the number of people living with HIV that occurred in the late 1990s (though not for earlier declines). Such a rise in deaths would be a natural consequence of the earlier rise in HIV incidence. In the absence of widespread antiretroviral treatment, any rise in the number of new infections will almost inevitably result in an increase in the death rate a few years later, as people reach the end of their survival period.

It is clear that a huge number of HIV+ people have died in Uganda since the epidemic began, and a sufficiently high number of deaths could certainly result in a decrease in HIV prevalence figures. However, it should be noted that many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa experienced rapid increases in HIV incidence at the same time as Uganda, and, although they are similarly likely to have experienced large numbers of AIDS deaths, have not yet seen any substantial decline in prevalence. This suggests that the decline seen in Uganda wasn’t a natural occurrence, but rather that it was the result of something that was done differently in Uganda.

Or in short, an unknown and probably unknowable number of HIV infected people did die, and those deaths, combined with the lower incidence, is why the prevalence has dropped. Furthermore, the neighbouring areas did not show a drop in prevalence or incidence, strongly suggesting the decreases in Uganda are the result of something peculiar to Uganda. The policies used in Uganda, including free ARV medication to people living with HIV (ARVs are now used by c.40% of the infected), is an obvious suspect (i.e., what at least part of the peculiarity is).

Posted by: blf | November 7, 2007 2:52 PM

I have read Day Lily and HIV fact or fraud. They’re on par with stuff like “9/11 was an inside job” and “Moon landing was a hoax”. I looked into it, and found their arguments to be not so good.

I have a pretty good understanding of HIV & AIDS and the treatments. What I don’t understand is what motivates those who deny the obvious — what do you get out of it?

Posted by: J | November 7, 2007 2:53 PM

What would swearing on the bible (or whatever the challenge was) make the slightest bit of difference? Assuming an oral oath, then at best all it’d show is the person not mute. Geesh…

Posted by: blf | November 7, 2007 2:59 PM

150 architects have just come out to say that the explosives were used to bring down the towers, google architects for truth.

Project Day lily is based on the work of military scientist shyh ching lo, mycoplasma incognitus, the only microbe discovered that kills/sickens every animal inoclated, unlike hiv, hpv and hep c.

personally superior arguments in the film hiv fact or fraud is what swayed me, trust me before i thought it was nuts as well. We have all argued this to death, I just beleive people should have informed consent when it comes to these issues, once they do certain myths evaporate.

God damn robert Baer former cia officer and writer of award winning movie “syriania” just
came out for 9/11 truth.

You people are “government atrocity apologists” ie its impossible for the govenrnment, CDC, NIH to possibly lie or be incompetent.

Yeah I know you guys are going to respond and say im a nut, like I care, millions of americans think 9/11 was a false flag operation, look at the movie Loose change, its gotten like 50 million views, I think you guys are nuts.

Posted by: cooler | November 7, 2007 3:10 PM

jesus, I mean your governemnt killed like 3 million in vietnam, millions in Iraq, the tuskegee experiment and you say im a nut? god i swore i would stay away from you government atrocity apologists, no more posts for the next 24 hours

Posted by: cooler | November 7, 2007 3:15 PM

Pat,

You wrote:

“Thank you for your comments Braganza. S. Africa’s “explosive” death rate perhaps is best explained by the fact that black African’s were not allowed to die in white hospitals. No one kept a record of how and when they died so, of course, when Apartheid ended there was a very nasty surprise for the world. Poverty is not anything new to black S. African’s only what we let them die of…”

This is not correct,

Even during the Apartheid time, mainly in the last years, black have access to hospitals (for black people, it is true), and had death registrated. I just know that because in the 80’s I was, as a child, living in the border Mozambic-South Africa.

Even during the war that Apartheid forces funded in Mozambic, people from Mozambic (who are mainly blacks) use to go to South Africa for more complicated treatments.

You also wrote:

(…)
I also can’t explain the following:

SA: 5.5 million HIV+ and 14′000 HIV related deaths

N. America and central Europe: 2.1 million HIV+ and 30′000 HIV related deaths.-UNAIDS

(…)

This is easy to answer, the point is that statistics are not made using the same standards, a person who died with tuberculosis and HIV may be registrated as dead by tuberculosis or dead by HIV.

Posted by: Braganza | November 7, 2007 3:33 PM

jen_m,

How are the risk specific groups identified?
What’s an “at risk” population?. The way you explain takes me to a different view of this. If they take measurements from antenatal clinics and STI clinics I come to the conclusion that the “risk group” identified is the sexually active Ugandan population in general. The only thing specific about this risk group walking in the door is that they are specifically Ugandans. This is what some allude to when they says that there are no “risk groups” in Africa. “African” IS the risk group.

this is helpful
www.iavireport.org/Issues/Issue11-4/Prevalence.asp

I may be misunderstanding but this:

“It’s not that there was a measurement of the whole population,…,it’s that people coming in to be treated for their STIs in 1990 had lower seroprevalence than the ones coming in in 2000″

means more HIV today than in 1990 which is contrary to the Ugandan experience. Any thoughts on SA?

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 3:54 PM

jesus, I mean your governemnt [sic] killed like 3 million in vietnam, millions in Iraq, the tuskegee experiment and you say im a nut? god i swore i would stay away from you government atrocity apologists, no more posts for the next 24 hours

Actually, at the moment, that sounds like drunk-talk. Sleep it off.

I’m sortof interested in knowing what the connection is between the currently estimated (an extrapolation from the second Lancet study) c.1M excess Iraqi deaths (with which I am not disagreeing) and whether or not the commenter is a “nut”. I don’t see any connection at all, excepting that making an absurd claim like a billion dead (or something similarly impossible) would be a bit, ah, “nutty”. But since the actual claim of a million or so is not absurd, and is broadly in line with the best available reports, that exception does not apply. So what is the connection? What does the number of Iraqi deaths have to do with the “nuttiness” of the commenter?

Posted by: blf | November 7, 2007 4:04 PM

Braganza,
I am sure black Africans had “hospitals”. I am also sure they were nowhere near the shabby standards still encountered in other places in Africa today.

“and had death registrated”.

How many did they register? Is there evidence of a massive emerging plague?

“statistics are not made using the same standards, a person who died with tuberculosis and HIV may be registrated as dead by tuberculosis or dead by HIV.”

I knew that. They can also be dead of Tuberculosis due to AIDS without a known HIV status. Do you think this is a likely source of misleading data? In SA 14′000 are listed as HIV-related deaths. It is very likely that many died without the benefit of knowing their HIV status and thus became “mondaine” deaths but do you think they missed 350′000 as UNAIDS claims is the estimated total?
When I take the UNAIDS estimates and super-impose them on actual counts, I see HUGE discrepencies that cannot be explained through different data collecting techniques. If this were so then I must say that the techniques and results should be handled with extreme care if not outright ditched. The total death rate of SAfrica can barely accomodate UNAIDS predictions. How can 2004 UNAIDS estimates (for example) declare 250-350′000 HIV related deaths for SA when the total body count hits a high water mark of 460′000 and a low of 420′000? For how many years now have “up to a thousand” died everyday? I want to joke that if AIDS were cured then the S. Africans would enjoy a lower mortality rate than the Swiss but I can’t; it’s too darn depressing.

First Apartheid. Then AIDS hysteria. Then the denial of affordable life-saving medicine on financial grounds. We then manage to delude ourselves with the idea that the refusal by western nations to relax patent rules is actually “blood on Mbeki’s hands”. When Mbeki went out searching for alternatives high and low (literally) he was not prepared for the political shit storm ahead.
We have lavish conventions where we jet people around, house them in top hotels and demonstrate our disdain for garlic and lemons by having activist goons squash them with their feet. They should try that on the field in S. Africa and see how their life expectancy suddenly takes a dive too.
We talk of Dooms-day scenarios but we bring NO solutions that are compatible with the reality in S Africa but we do feel very strongly, whatever is really going on, that it is blood on Mbeki’s hands. A 1000 a day are now blamed on Mbeki/AIDS. I am amazed at how far some will go with their fiction for political gain but I am truely speechless at how others will swallow it “hook,line and sinker”.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 5:06 PM

With regard to AIDS in S. Africa, Pat asks:

Is there evidence of a massive emerging plague?

Only if you are willing to pull your head out of the sand.

Posted by: franklin | November 7, 2007 5:10 PM

Pat, I misstated! I meant to say “higher seroprevalence in 1990″. I am sorry to have muddied matters.

Of course the risk group is intended to be sexually active Ugandans, but we can’t capture the whole denominator. So STI and antenatal clinics provide populations presumed to be sexually active without condoms, and for the most part already having blood drawn.

Posted by: jen_m | November 7, 2007 5:43 PM

“It has been suggested that an increase in the AIDS death rate may have been largely responsible for the drop in the number of people living with HIV that occurred in the late 1990s (though not for earlier declines). Such a rise in deaths would be a natural consequence of the earlier rise in HIV incidence. In the absence of widespread antiretroviral treatment, any rise in the number of new infections will almost inevitably result in an increase in the death rate a few years later, as people reach the end of their survival period.

The problem with this text is that “it becomes clear that many HIV+ people died” is justified based on assumptions of a disease that itself is largely based on assumptions.

According to statistics Uganda
Population growth total:
1969. 9.5 million
1980 12.6 (+32%)
1991 16.7 (+32%)
2002 24.4 (+47%)
2005 26.8 (est)

Note the decade 1991-2002 when these people supposedly were dying. This means one of several possibilities:

-There was no high prevalence of HIV to begin with

-The 65% That were not infected successfully remained so and brought not only very low prevalence but also simultanuously drove Ugandas largest population leap on record inspite of being “short manned”.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 5:56 PM

“With regard to AIDS in S. Africa, Pat asks:

Is there evidence of a massive emerging plague?
Only if you are willing to pull your head out of the sand.

Posted by: franklin | November 7, 2007 5:10 PM”

I knew it was only a matter of minutes for the first sly remark. I was asking if there is evidence for this emerging disease during Apartheid; I’d love to learn more about it. My fault, I should have clarified for the ADD ones amongst us. You apparently “believe” 1000 die every day in S Africa? You have found a way to fit that number in S. Africas total mortality rate? Please, continue…

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 6:08 PM

“Pat, I misstated! I meant to say “higher seroprevalence in 1990″. I am sorry to have muddied matters.

Give me some more of your thoughts. If Aids Awareness- as defined by abstinence, condom use and less partners- has helped reduce prevalence doesn’t it also simultanuously clash with the data on population growth in Uganda today? It only follows logic that more condoms equals less incidence but… more babies? What are your thoughts on that?

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 6:21 PM

less die in infancy I hope is the answer.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 6:24 PM

Can we see this secrtely authored paper or should we just blow wind around as usual.

CASTRO HLONGWANE, CARAVANS, CATS, GEESE, FOOT & MOUTH AND STATISTICS

If Mbeki was such a hero why didn’t he come out and openly state his beliefs? Why the subterfuge?

Why did he claim not to know anyone who had AIDS when it is clear from this document that Parks Mankahlana had AIDS?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 6:24 PM

Pat (or Christine),

we have seen this conversation many times on this blog, most recently in the “Introduction to HIV Denial” thread.

You may wish to re-read the comments there before you repeat the mistakes of your friends (or other pseudonyms). Here is adele’s response to Kyle, who uses the same statistics and makes the same points as you have:

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/06/introduction_to_hiv_and_hiv_de.php#comment-536445

If you read the comments there, and view the actual South African statistics (to which some of the writers link), you will learn that the official statistics give a mortality figure of almost 600,000 in 2005. Not all deaths are recorded, so the true mortality is closer to 700,000 (and I am rounding the numbers, so please forgive me). The total yearly deaths in South Africa quite easily accomodate the estimated AIDS toll.

Also in the Introduction thread, we learn that numerous separate studies, including those funded by the South African government, arrive at roughly the same figures for AIDS mortality: over 300,000 per year. These numbers mean almost 1000 deaths per day. If your point, Pat (Christine?), is that an estimated 947 deaths per day (ASSA for 2006) or 921 deaths per day (from the Medical Research Council of South Africa for 05/06) should not be rounded to 1000 per day, then I hope you won’t get upset if someone accuses you of pedantry.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 7, 2007 6:39 PM

Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT.

The above lie is typical of the AIDS apologists who actually believe their own propaganda. AZT is a highly toxic poison that essentially kills the user. To even remotely suggest that AZT prolongs or extends life is so contrary to our collective knowledge of its biological activity, that it is amazing that anyone could possibly believe this, except of coure, paid political activists and drug company shills.

AIDS researchers are “Nazis”? What do we call vitamin quacks who experiment on people with AIDS?

In a valid clinical trial, a vitamin or even a placebo would be more effective than AZT, or even the whole filthy mess of HIV drugs. That’s because placebos and vitamins don’t kill people. HIV drugs are deadly toxins that kill the user. In addition, starving Africans suffering from malnutrition and contaminated water need nutrition, protein, and yes also vitamins.

If offering vitamins is quackery, then the US government is a quack government because they recommend vitamins for pregnancy and for anyone over the age of 50. And what about the quacks who put vitamins in all the cereals at the grocery store, or the vitamins placed into the flour sent to our fighting GI’s overseas during the wars. If offering vitamins is quackery, then the American Society of Pediatrics is a quack organization because there are vitamins in the infant formula they prescribe. Would you deny the same vitamins for Africans that your own government has arranged for you ? That is the height of hypocrisy. The REAL quacks are eating the vitamin enriched food with one hand, and the other hand applying the false label “vitamin quack” to those honorable and just health workers who offer the same benefits to Africans.

If these are experiments, then the entire US population, which is eating vitamin enriched foods at the grocery store, is also the victim of a government quack experiment, a proposition as to be so ridiculous as to be laughed out of town. Only a paid political activist or drug company shill could propose this absurdity.

Posted by: Never-a-peen | November 7, 2007 7:10 PM

“Give me some more of your thoughts. If Aids Awareness- as defined by abstinence, condom use and less partners- has helped reduce prevalence doesn’t it also simultanuously clash with the data on population growth in Uganda today? It only follows logic that more condoms equals less incidence but… more babies? What are your thoughts on that?”

Not necessarily. If you think about how sexually transmitted infections spread among heterosexuals, it requires more than just penile-vaginal intercourse – it requires unprotected sexual contact between partners with disease and partners without. Conception, though, requires just the unprotected sex. If two people without disease come together (er, as it were), they can have as much unprotected sex as they like, and they won’t acquire an STI.

If people are, generally speaking, having unprotected sex with fewer partners, and young people who are just becoming sexually active are having unprotected sex with fewer partners over their lifetimes, and curable STIs are being treated, the number of new STIs can drop, and the number of babies can go up at the same time. If uncurable STIs (like herpes, HPV, and HIV) are prevented from spreading by universal use of condoms by those who know themselves to be infected, a drop in the rates of new infections with those STIs can still happen while the whole population is growing. Finally, if the growth rate of the population at risk is higher than the incidence of new infections, then the prevalence will drop, assuming unknowns are held reasonably constant. (Such unknowns could include host susceptibility, changes in viral pathogenicity, changes in carrier health that might alter likelihood of transmission…I can think of a lot of other variables, but relatively few that are going to be common enough to affect the population dynamic that didn’t also pertain in the early years of the epidemic.)

I do also hope that infant mortality is dropping. (And that perinatal HIV transmission is being reduced.)

I doubt you’ll find many STI epidemiologists, much less AIDS epidemiologists, who disagree that there are horrifying disparities in not only HIV and STI treatment between poor and wealthy countries, but in basic health care, education, nutrition, and infrastructure.

Posted by: jen_m | November 7, 2007 8:01 PM

jspreen,
Certainly I swear that I speak the truth and nothing but the truth. I would look you in the eyes, but we’re both on computers.
The children were getting excellent palliative care a the hospital before ARV’s were available. They got great nutrition, love, and affection from the caretakers. They were even getting treatment for opportunistic infection. They were still dying, because the underlying cause of their illness wasn’t being addressed (HIV). The children were put on ARV’s and the mortality rate dropped hugely. I would swear on the bible, but as a nonbeliever I find that exercise rather silly.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 7, 2007 8:18 PM

Quick correction from my previous post. Hospital= hospice. Their primary treatment was provided by physicians who visit the combined hospice & orphanage where the children and many of their parents live. The children do go to local hospitals (including Baragwanath and Coronation hospitals in the Jo’burg area) to see specialists for OI’s.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 7, 2007 8:20 PM

If offering vitamins is quackery, then the US government is a quack government because they recommend vitamins for pregnancy and for anyone over the age of 50.

This is a strawman argument. Everybody including the evil orthodoxy are in favour of good nutrition and vitamins.

Howvever good nutrition and vitamins alone do not prevent AIDS. To give vitamins in place of antiretrovirals is quackery.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 8:48 PM

Yes, good nutrition and vitamins would prevent AIDS defining diseases as then one’s immunity would be up to par and these wouldn’t occur in the first place. But then, there isn’t any money to be made in selling supplements comapared to antiretrovirals. One way that I have managed to prevent O.I.’s is by substituting supplements for antiretrovirals along with LDN. This would work for most diseases, not just AIDS. Many studies over the years have been done on the effects of malnutrition on human health. Many diseases are due to deficiencies and when they are corrected, the patien’t health returns. Hey, this isn’t rocket science just good 0ld-fashioned common sense that many are lacking.

Posted by: Noreen | November 7, 2007 9:06 PM

But then, there isn’t any money to be made in selling supplements comapared to antiretrovirals.

Pharmaceutical companies would tend to disagree with you there. Supplements are very good earners for these companies.

Matthias Rath didn’t become a millionaire by giving away his supplements.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 9:23 PM

It’s typical of Denialists to deny any evidence that contradicts their dogmatically held beliefs.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 9:26 PM

Quoth Noreen, “But then, there isn’t any money to be made in selling supplements comapared to antiretrovirals.”

Not compared to antiretrovirals, true, but there’s certainly still a tidy profit to be made in selling supplements. (My daily multivitamin is nothing fancy, but it still runs me 13 cents a tablet, which is more than Advil runs, and billions of dollars are spent advertising Advil a year.)

However, we’re not talking about selling either class of item at a profit – if we’re talking about providing medication or nutrition to poor countries, where there is no money to be made selling either, because there is no money period, we need to ask wealthier countries to pony up, because the manufacturers don’t make anything for free.

Posted by: jen_m | November 7, 2007 9:29 PM

ElkMountainMan,

Pat, not Christine. don’t let that old fool Moore confuse you. Those are 2001 estimates and not 2004 as I stated and not 2005 as you suggest.

Even 2005 numbers say 590′000. The desperate upward nudge to 800′000 is quite arbitrary but yes 356′000 is fitting better today than it did back in 2001.

you write arrogantly:

“You may wish to re-read the comments there before you repeat the mistakes of your friends (or other pseudonyms). Here is adele’s response to Kyle, who uses the same statistics and makes the same points as you have”

First off Adele’s answer is less than convincing. Here it is:

“So anyway I hope those estimates are all wrong and way too high. If they are, those people who estimate are using bad methods and they need new ones. Thing is, those methods are actually good and another thing is, if their not they don’t say yes HIV causes AIDS or no HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. So if the epidemiologists are all drunk off their ass and getting everything wrong and really there’s only 50,000 people dying of AIDS in south Africa every year well that’s still too many people dying of AIDS.”-Adele

Blablabla…IF these figures are wrong then blabla…but they are not wrong and even If they were wrong they don’t say HIV does or doesn’t blablablabla

I have seen that very same paper thank you. Scroll down to figure 4.4 and look at where HIV disease ranks on the top ten list. It ranks as ten with a total of 14′532. Can you explain this and why Adele’s blather is more accurate?

Jen_m,

” If two people without disease come together (er, as it were), they can have as much unprotected sex as they like, and they won’t acquire an STI.”

That would all make sense but consider that most Ugandans do not have the benefit of knowing their hiv status prior to conception.

“I do also hope that infant mortality is dropping. (And that perinatal HIV transmission is being reduced.)”

Rest assured. You don’t have to “hope” anymore! you can now “know” that they have been going down steadily since at least 1960 with a slight bump in 1980. Right back down through the peak of Ugandas AIDS epidemic in the 1990’s.
(globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=25&Country=UG)

Chris Noble:
“If Mbeki was such a hero why didn’t he come out and openly state his beliefs? Why the subterfuge?”

He is a politician and he is eyeing the AIDS cash cow like everybody else. He also knows that creatures like you lurk under the surface. Subterfuge?..what country are you from?

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 10:47 PM

He is a politician and he is eyeing the AIDS cash cow like everybody else. He also knows that creatures like you lurk under the surface. Subterfuge?..what country are you from?

Of course he’s a politician. If he really believes that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS then why didn’t he make it an election issue. If South Africans aren’t dying from HIV/AIDS then he should have gotten lots of votes. The reality is that although Mbeki claims he doesn’t know anybody that has AIDS most citizens of his country have a different experience.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 11:15 PM

Again, I’m just very thankful that President Mbeki had the courage and intellectual honesty to stand up to the AIDS/Pharma cabal, and refuse to let his people wreck their collective health on toxic junk.

Mbeki is as an important figure as Nelson Mandela. God Bless them both.

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 7, 2007 11:18 PM

“no explanation how a infection thats in 1/1000 blood tcells destroys the immune system”

There absolutely is, cooler. Papers linked by myself and also braganza give two different explanations for how a low level of infection results in the destruction of the immune system. Don’t confuse you not knowing about them and them not existing.

Posted by: Jim | November 7, 2007 11:21 PM

Chris,

“If South Africans aren’t dying from HIV/AIDS then he should have gotten lots of votes. The reality is that although Mbeki claims he doesn’t know anybody that has AIDS most citizens of his country have a different experience.”

He got lots of votes. Maybe they don’t apreciate the hysteria after all. Most S. African share a very similar experience. S. Africa reached out for help with AIDS and it wasnt forthcoming. Is there any wonder they are feeling cheated again? Is there any wonder they circle the wagons? Is there any wonder that some might wonder? This is a case of a smear campaign against Mbeki having back-fired.

Posted by: pat | November 7, 2007 11:37 PM

If he is so courageous and honest then why didn’t he take his Denialism to the last election? Before the last election the official ANC policy switched to HIV causes AIDS and they promised to roll-out antiretrovirals for everybody. These are the policies that they took to the election. These were the policies for which the people voted.

Now we find out that in secret Mbeki never gave up his Denialism. Instead of openly stating his beliefs he just set about doing his best to obstruct and delay the roll-out of antiretrovirals.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 11:49 PM

Here’s an interview with the SA Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang where she is asked whether HIV causes AIDS.

‘Don’t call me Manto’

So much for courage and honesty!

The official policy at that stage was that HIV causes AIDs and a fullscale roll-out of ARVs had been promised.

Manto could not answer a straight question honestly.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 7, 2007 11:57 PM

Did you read how Mbeki wanted to poison his people with toxic Virodene(TM)

Illegal unethical drug trials. Secret transfers of ANC money. Courageous and honest? Not really.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 12:01 AM

mbekis got the big balls and the big heart, he should win the noble prize for the size of his balls

Posted by: cooler | November 8, 2007 12:04 AM

mbekis got the big balls and the big heart, he should win the noble prize for the size of his balls

If Mbeki has got such big balls then why didn’t he stand up in front of the South African public and say that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 12:48 AM

If Mbeki has such big balls why didn’t he put his name on this document?

CASTRO HLONGWANE, CARAVANS, CATS, GEESE, FOOT & MOUTH AND STATISTICS

Why distribute it anonymously?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 2:01 AM

Let’s see what we could do with $1,200 dollars a month the cost of the average antiretrovirals and give it to HIV+’s in Africa. Maybe we could give them vitamins, food and even have some left over towards thier medical care but then that would make too much sense and also take away from the profit to be made there by shoveling down HIV medicines into them that they may not need in the first place. Yeah, I see the light and what is really happening here.

Posted by: Noreen | November 8, 2007 6:20 AM

If Mbeki has got such big balls then why didn’t he stand up in front of the South African public and say that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS?

Why? Well, if you don’t understand that, you’re even worse than I already thought. Have a look at the way “denialism” is treated on this non-sense blog, extrapolate, and, if you do have some working brain cells left, you might have some better insight at how a denialist president would be treated by the totally indoctrinated population of his country.

The children were put on ARV’s and the mortality rate dropped hugely.

OK, bdkeller, I take your word for it that you really noticed exactly that. Now, is there any denialist around who also works in SA and has something to answer to the above affirmation? What else did happen to the children at the same time they were put on the drugs?

Posted by: jspreen | November 8, 2007 6:49 AM

Certainly I swear that I speak the truth and nothing but the truth. I would look you in the eyes, but we’re both on computers. The children were getting excellent palliative care a the hospital before ARV’s were available. They got great nutrition, love, and affection from the caretakers. They were even getting treatment for opportunistic infection. They were still dying, because the underlying cause of their illness wasn’t being addressed (HIV). The children were put on ARV’s and the mortality rate dropped hugely. I would swear on the bible, but as a nonbeliever I find that exercise rather silly.

A few questions about the author of the above anecdote:

Any information as to method of documentation of HIV status? the exact drugs used ? dosage? route of administration? adverse side effects? duration of treatment? underlying OI’s, drugs used for OI’s, nutritional status and age of the kids, any vitamin mineral supplementation, any other changes in treatment or care during the time periods?

It’s typical of Denialists to deny any evidence that contradicts their dogmatically held beliefs.

If the above anecdotal story about the “miraculous” recovery of kids in an African orphanage after HIV drugs is called EVIDENCE, then we must also call EVIDENCE, the well documented inside story of the ICC orphans (Incarnation Catholic Charity) by Liam Scheff and the interviews with the doctors, nurses and aids. Also see the BBC documentary Guinea Pig Kids. That story was quite different. The kids got very sick and some died after the “life saving ” deadly drugs. The kids who refused the drugs were tortured with gastrostomy tube placement and forced fed the drugs, amounting to an ethics violation on par with nazi concentration camp medical experiments.

The standard operating procedure of the AIDS apologists is to either (a) believe their own propaganda or (b) make up lies which they later delude themselves into believing. Don’t forget, paid drug company shills and mercenary political activists will lie about anything, or (c) accept flimsy anecdotes as EVIDENCE when it supports their case and reject similar information when is does not.

However good nutrition and vitamins alone do not prevent AIDS. To give vitamins in place of antiretrovirals is quackery.

Noreen has just testified from her own experience that good nutrition and vitamins DOES prevent AIDS. Typical of AIDS apologists to deny the evidence in front of their noses.

As mentioned above, western governments have mandated vitamin supplements to be added to the food supply, yet the above AIDS apologist labels the same practice in Africa as quackery. This is absurd.

Opportunistic infectious diseases in Africans caused by poverty, malnutrition and contaminated water should be treated with 1) vitamin enriched nutrition 2) standard medical treatment of the oppotunistic infection 3) and not the quackery of deadly HIV drugs which will kill the patient. The real quack here is the paid drug company shill chris (the quack) noble who advocates deadly hiv drugs for diseases of malnutriton and poverty.

If Mbeki has got such big balls then why didn’t he stand up in front of the South African public and say that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS?

Why should Mbeki do any such thing? The drug companies are just waiting for an excuse to send out their paid activist cronies to harrass the government. By playing along, he got them off his back. Playing along is an old and well used political trick which works every time. It takes more than bravado to be successful at politics.

Why distribute it anonymously?

A quote from the anonymous document attributed to ANC member:

No longer will the Africans accept as the unalterable truth that they are victim to a self-inflicted “disease” called HIV/AIDS. For centuries we have carried the burden of the crimes and falsities of ’scientific’ Eurocentrism, its dogmas imposed upon our being as a definitive, ‘universal’ truth.

Posted by: Never-a-peen | November 8, 2007 7:17 AM

Pat,

You wrote,

Even 2005 numbers say 590′000. The desperate upward nudge to 800′000 is quite arbitrary but yes 356′000 is fitting better today than it did back in 2001.

700,000, Pat, not 800,000, but I’ll assume you missed the proper key. Since you have read the South African government publication, you know that under 90% of deaths are estimated to have been reported for that year. Adjusting reported death number for under-reporting results in a total mortality estimate of between 650,000 and 700,000 (as I mentioned earlier this morning, I rounded to 700,000 in my comment).

Concerning the reported “14,000″ deaths from HIV infection, Braganza explained the disparity, and you agreed. Tuberculosis deaths are classified as TB deaths, pneumonia deaths as pneumonia, and so on. Trace the rise in deaths in these categories in recent years, and you will see the effects of HIV infection on mortality.

Should you agree with a South African government organization, a SA gov’t-funded organization, and the UN, who all arrive at AIDS mortality figures in the range of 320,000 to 360,000? Perhaps you should not. An estimate is only as good as its methodology and the input data. If you have better data or better methods, Pat, please share them with us.

In the absence of new and improved estimates, we would all be interested if you could divulge the reasoning behind your apparent need to minimize the human costs of AIDS in South Africa.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 8, 2007 8:46 AM

In the absence of new and improved estimates, we would all be interested if you could divulge the reasoning behind your apparent need to minimize the human costs of AIDS in South Africa.

AIDS in Africa is a the same old collection of diseases of poverty, malnutrition, slim disease and contaminated water renamed “AIDS”. There is little money for HIV testing, so AIDS is merely a convenient label applied to the unfortunate Africans who succumb to malnutrition, slim disease, wasting and other diseases of poverty.

The distribution of deadly HIV drugs in this setting is genocide masquerading as philanthropy.

The distribution of money in the form of charity in the name of “AIDS Programs” is a welcome cash cow for an impoverished people. Keep up with the money, forget the drugs. The government death rates and stats are all bogus, and can be used either way.

Posted by: Never-a-peen | November 8, 2007 9:30 AM

“Now, is there any denialist around who also works in SA and has something to answer to the above affirmation? What else did happen to the children at the same time they were put on the drugs?”
jspreen,
I’m not sure if your question is addressed to me or others. However, I think the answer should be obvious: Of course, none of the staff/family/doctors I met who are involved with this clinic are denialists because they’ve seen the wonderful effects that ARV’s have on children and adults with HIV. Do you ever think that, since people without ARV treatment die of HIV at much higher rates than those who receive treatment, maybe it’s the HIV/AIDS that’s to blame and not the drugs? Or is that too far outside the realm of possibility because of how much energy you’ve invested into denial?

Posted by: bdkeller | November 8, 2007 9:31 AM

Dear Never-a-peen,

Why should HIV test in US/EU be an indicator of probability to have AIDS and not in Africa.

Would this be a bit of …. racism ?

Posted by: Braganza | November 8, 2007 9:51 AM

Dear Pat,

It may be true that numbers of HIV+ deaths are not totally correct. But this is not the critical question referent to HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

I have seen that you agree that HIV+s have higher mortality than HIV-s. I assume that you agree that many of them would have immune dysfunction, gradual reduction of CD4+, and if left without treatment, they would have OIs, and ultimately would die from what is known as AIDS.

The critical question is: do these persons, in South Africa or elsewhere, have the right to have access to medical treatments or no ?

Posted by: Braganza | November 8, 2007 10:02 AM

Those who question whether HIV/AIDS is a devastating epidemic in Africa should read Ron Bayer and Gerald Oppenheimer’s new book, Shattered Dreams, a history of the epidemic in South Africa from interviews with front-line doctors and nurses. The difference between AIDS and the patterns of diseases that health care workers dealt with before AIDS is profound, absolute, and agonizing. The book also addresses how HIV/AIDS–and Mbeki’s (and Mandela’s) failure to confront it immediately and with comprehensive prevention and treatment initiatives–has undermined the promises of liberation in South Africa.

Posted by: Redeye | November 8, 2007 10:11 AM

Elk,
Yes I kinda agreed. This then means that only 15′000 died with the benefit of knowing their status which in turn means that we are not only witholding the medicines but also the kits they need to get a clearer picture of this disease.

“In the absence of new and improved estimates, we would all be interested if you could divulge the reasoning behind your apparent need to minimize the human costs of AIDS in South Africa.”

I do not have a “need”. Why you think it is “apparent” is beyond me. I am merely suspicious and, again, don’t let that drooling fool Moore tell you otherwise. I do however see why some may have a “need” to inflate them: up the hype, up the pressure and shake them down and call them murderers if they balk.

Braganza,
“The critical question is: do these persons, in South Africa or elsewhere, have the right to have access to medical treatments or no ?”

Good question and I am glad you asked. These people have the right to access medicines. The west has no moral right to withold them any longer. It has been over twenty years and the squabble around the patent rules has killed enough as it is. It escapes me how people can sit at their pooters and call Mbeki the murderer when the real ones in fact sit in their glass towers in the wealthiest countries. It is time for this blog and all other “anti-denialist” crusaders to start voicing their anger at those who hold the power to change things. Everything else is pissing against the wind.

Posted by: pat | November 8, 2007 10:25 AM

Do you ever think that, since people without ARV treatment die of HIV at much higher rates than those who receive treatment, maybe it’s the HIV/AIDS that’s to blame and not the drugs?

Of course, of course. That’s why I wrote my question.

My question addresses any of the readers of this forum, who works like you in South Africa and who may have an opinion different from yours and which is also exclusively based on practical experience. You know, I think the quality of the ever lasting and leading nowhere discussions on this blog would greatly increase if practical experience meets practical experience eye to eye in the presence of well informed witnesses.

You speak of wonderful effects that ARV’s have on children and adults with HIV. I have read and heard exactly the opposite in many places but, personally, I have never witnessed or experienced neither wonderful nor terrible effects and I think that at least 95% of the active big mouthed visitors, apologist or denialist, of this blog can’t say any better than that.

Hence my attempt to get away from the opinion battle and provoke a life discussion between people who see it happen all the time.

Posted by: jspreen | November 8, 2007 10:43 AM

“Mr Gevisser says that while Mr Mbeki has never explicitly denied the link between HIV and Aids, he is a “profound sceptic”.

Tara, when will you stop trying to reduce a complex geopolitical issue to name-calling and rhetoric? It doesn’t matter whether you have good intentions or not, it’s not productive. The only purpose sensationalism serves is to bring people to your website. Can’t bloggers just leave the oversimplified propaganda to the mainstream media?

Posted by: bayman | November 8, 2007 11:25 AM

Bayman,

Those aren’t my words–that’s a quote from the article. As I noted in my response to Chris, it’s a nitpicky technicality regarding whether one can refer to Mbeki as a “denier” or not (one which I’m not really concerned about, quite frankly). The issue isn’t what label to attach to Mbeki, but rather his backwards views on HIV that continue to harm his country, and by virtue of his status and perceived authority, harm others around the world.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 8, 2007 12:19 PM

Tara,

It appear from the paper that you quote, that because Mbeki was in minority in his own government, he abdicated from taking positions on HIV/AIDS questions, and therefore he had no major say in the present governamental HIV/AIDS say in South Africa/ and his views on this matter could not be translated in policies.

So how could it be that “his views on HIV continue to harm his country (..) ?”.

Posted by: Braganza | November 8, 2007 12:39 PM

Tara, when will you stop trying to reduce a complex geopolitical issue to name-calling and rhetoric?

It’s really important, after all, that we consider both sides of the complex geopolitical issue of whether or not HIV causes AIDS and not take hasty action that might save lives. Mbeki is quite progressive and informed in his decision to teach both sides of the argument and let the dying decide.

That’s a quote worthy of jspreen — so I’m going to call Mbeki exactly what he is: an HIV denialist. It’s worth calling him out on this because he is in a position where his failure to act costs lives and spreads disease. If you’re interested, I’ve also stooped so far in my rhetoric that I’ve called Jeffrey Dahmer a cannibal. I once, though I will admit I may have been a little less composed than I should have been at the time, also suggested that the sky is blue and that the earth is round. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the nuances of those complex geopolitical issues before shooting my mouth off.

Posted by: Dustin | November 8, 2007 12:40 PM

Nattrass N. 2007. Mortal Combat: AIDS Denialism and the Fight for Antiretrovirals in South Africa, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg.

“The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS” by Helen Epstein, which I recently reviewed in the J Clin Invest, is also excellent source material.

Posted by: John Moore | November 8, 2007 12:47 PM

Hi Braganza Mbeki brought in duesberg. He said it was poverty not HIV causing aids. So they dragged thier feet on meds. So in 2005 Uganda had a third of people getting HAART who needed it South Africa like 10 or 12%. More people with high viral load, more infections more people with AIDS. So Mbeki’s policy still effects people it will for a long time.

Posted by: Adele | November 8, 2007 1:00 PM

“(at least since Harvey Bialy wandered off the scene to die of his kidney cancer)” John moore

John has probably lost all credibility in the scientific community with this quote, mocking another scientist while he is dying of cancer.

Not only that, the government could never tell a lie trolls on this blog that have not condemened his statement, including Tara, have lost all credibility for standing by silently.

Bialy started slinging insults at Moore AFTER Moore declined a civil debate with Bialy calling him a charlatan etc.

To quote the sanctimonious hypocrite Tara
“Ya’ll are a real classy bunch”

Posted by: cooler | November 8, 2007 1:09 PM

Here is his disgusting post, filled with ad hominem attacks as usual, but mocking people who are dying or possibly dying of Cancer?…………

OK, now I’m really confused….. Pat, who its been obvious for days now is Christine Maggiore writing under a pseudonym, is attacked by fellow AIDS denialist Claus Jensen, writing as Molecular Entry Claw (why and why?), then admits in a fit of temper that she (Pat) is indeed Christine Maggiore, but next Molecular Entry Claw (Jensen) denies it was him who attacked her/Pat/Christine Maggiore, and then Christine Maggiore (writing under her own name or, as ElkMountainMan suggests, perhaps someone else pretending to be Christine Maggiore) denies being Pat after all, and also denies admitting that she (Pat?) admitted to being Christine Maggiore (have I missed any link in the bizarre chain of events?).

But then, thinking about, what else should one expect from AIDS denialists? They’ve never been known for clarity of expression, telling the truth, integrity, logic, etc. So the above events are entirely within their standard modus operandi, and no doubt they either see some perverse logic to it all, or else it’s another manifestation of the internecine splits within the ranks of denialism that occur now and then, to the amusement of the rest of us (e.g., Perth Group vs Duesberg).

I’m also still confused about cooler, who appears to occupy this site principally to boast about his alleged sexual conquests, which presumably explains why his typing appears to be carried out using only one hand. But is cooler really a sophisticated plant, a parody of an AIDS denialist, created by AIDS professionals to make the world of denialism look worse than it already is, as has been suggested earlier on this string? It’s an interesting theory. But to invent cooler would be overkill, as Jan Spreen is the living embodiment of the AIDS denialist parody, the arch conspiracy theorist and nihilist who already serves as AIDS science’s best exemplar of the madness of AIDS denialism (at least since Harvey Bialy wandered off the scene to die of his kidney cancer). So, with Spreen already posting on this Blog, would anyone actually NEED to invent cooler? I doubt it, so cooler probably is real; sad, lonely, foolish, mono-dimensional, Dr.Lo-obsessed but real.

And who the heck is BuffaloValleyWoman?

Ah well, it’s all too puzzling, and rather a waste of time, so I don’t think I’ll bother looking at this thread again. But do take a look at AIDS Truth’s next posting, on how the denialists use fake identities and commit cybercrimes, to get some insights into just who some of these various people truly are, and how they operate on the internet.

John Moore (aka Moore, John; John P. Moore)

Posted by: John Moore | November 3, 2007 1:38 AM

Posted by: cooler | November 8, 2007 1:20 PM

Well Steve cooler Billingham slash harvey bialy hows it insulting to say some one is dying of cancer.

Oh and I didn’t hear you condem your Arizona buddy Rob who says alot worse things like it’s fun to expirement with Jewish kids. You say you don’t know Rob so its ok. Rob made you administrator on his site but you don’t know him, right.

Your the person that lost all credibility for standing by silently.

Posted by: Adele | November 8, 2007 1:23 PM

I condemn that statement, I dont even know the guy, he made me an admin bc i just updated a link, your turn to condemn his statement

Posted by: cooler | November 8, 2007 1:26 PM

Thank you cooler I to condemn Rob on his racist joke. Genocide, its not funny to joke about it. Rob is a despicable hater, he doesn’t know any thing about HIV or AIDS either.

OK cooler back to you will you condemn the 911 twoofers who say evil Jews blew up the towers. We can go back and forth, condemn racists or homophobes on your side all day until I get bored which is now.

Posted by: Adele | November 8, 2007 2:04 PM

“The issue isn’t what label to attach to Mbeki, but rather his backwards views on HIV that continue to harm his country, and by virtue of his status and perceived authority, harm others around the world.”

Maybe you can try to work with him instead of against him. It usually achieves better results. The dithering on patent rules and the attack style AIDS propaganda led by JP Moore have done way more harm to anyone than any single individual with “doubts”.

Posted by: pat | November 8, 2007 2:09 PM

good if youre bored dont talk to me and stop stalking me

Posted by: cooler | November 8, 2007 2:09 PM

jspreen said:
“…I think that at least 95% of the active big mouthed visitors, apologist or denialist, of this blog can’t say any better than that.”

I’ve only ever heard the denialist position supported online, or by people who came across the arguments online and latched onto them for whatever reason (Mbeki being a great example). I would caution that while my reaction is tempered by my personal experience (knowing that ARV’s have saved the lives of countless people with HIV can lead one to react rather viscerally against denialists who seek to keep those treatments away from people) I wouldn’t say it is wholly based on personal experience. There is, of course, the huge body of research supporting the facts that HIV causes AIDS, and that ARV’s are a vital component of our response to HIV/AIDS (along with treatment of OI’s, good nutrition, prevention strategies, etc.).

The body of research that can be misconstrued to back the denialist position is so narrow that anonymous posters such as MountainMan resort to coping and pasting from websites with references that don’t support his case when you actual read the files. An actual reading of that scientific literature reveals that many of those articles disprove denialist theories.

That said, I’ve also interacted with quite a few medical doctors in the US and in Africa (Ghana, Zambia, and South Africa) involved in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Far from being the murderous cabal the denialist crowd makes them out to be, the ones I’ve met have been deeply compassionate and base their support of ARV’s on both the scientific research and the results they have personally seen in treatment.

The only way the denialist perspective makes sense is if all of these doctors are in on some sort of murderous conspiracy where they are purposefully silent about ARV’s dire results, and where they repeatedly fabricate stories about their success. It should come as no surprise that these theories find their strongest support online and in communities where the long unavailability of treatment has driven the HIV+ to fatalistic despair. Denialist theories do not hold up to the rigor of scientific research or the reality of the effects of ARV treatment. I imagine the denialist movement will stay strong for many decades because it is in no way dependent on external facts.

jspreen–thanks for your honest questions. I think you might learn the most from contacting some doctors who treat HIV/AIDS in your area and asking to sit down and talk with them about their experiences. I’m sure they would oblige you.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 8, 2007 3:21 PM

Anyone capable of understanding science and the truth (i.e., posters other than the AIDS denialist trolls who are sadly a dime a dozen on this site), and who is genuinely interested in what’s happened in South Africa over the past decade, should read the following book: Nattrass N. 2007. Mortal Combat: AIDS Denialism and the Fight for Antiretrovirals in South Africa, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. “The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS” by Helen Epstein, which I recently reviewed in the J Clin Invest, is also excellent source material.

For those interested in an excellent source of reading material here is the short list:

The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory (ISBN 0786430486) is a 2007 book by Henry Bauer.

Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS? (ISBN 1556436424) is a 2007 book by Rebecca Culshaw.

A Critical Reappraisal of African AIDS Research and Western Sexual Stereotypes by Charles Geshekter May 1999

DEBATING AZT MBEKI AND THE AIDS DRUG CONTROVERSY Anthony Brink Foreword by Martin Welz

SCIENCE FICTIONS: A SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY, A Massive Cover-Up, and The Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo by John Crewdson (2002)

Posted by: Pro-tea-hays-inhibi-door | November 8, 2007 4:53 PM

As someone who has held a child that died because of Mbeki’s denialism, Mountain Man makes me sick. Of course, the children at the same orphanage suddenly stopped dying when they were put on antiretrovirals like AZT.

That’s what you wrote, bdkeller. And after that you wrote that you’re willing to swear upon what’s dearest to you that it is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now, after reading that I figured you were a nurse or a doctor who has really gone through holding dying children in her/his arms and who thereafter has personally experienced huge progress once ARVs became available and that the kids stopped dying right then.
Now, I’m not like all those guys here who massively try to make a person like Noreen, who’s talking from personal experience, change her mind and I said to myself: Hey, that bdkeller, that’s an interesting person I want to listen to. And also, I’d like to put him on stage with other health care workers, apologists and denialists, and see what comes out of their opposing experience.
But just now I have started to doubt your experience and find it difficult not to see just another dogmatic HIV=Aids believer preaching for his church. Your post reminds me of that interview where ambassador Dybul, when questioned about EM pictures of HIV starts to boast about the pictures being all around and actually says: “I have one in my office”. It’s plain stupid, even HIV apologists agree that such picture does not exist, adding immediately, I admit, that it’s of no importance because today other scientific techniques supply work around methods.

I think you’re basically wrong, bdkeller, when you write that There is, of course, the huge body of research supporting the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that the ratio first _hand_ HIV-researchers : second_hand_I_read_about_HIV-research_researchers is at best 1:1000, 1:10000 being probably much closer to reality.
In other words, the huge body only seems to be huge. Which gives us an opportunity to put things quite differently than you express here: The only way the denialist perspective makes sense is if all of these doctors are in on some sort of murderous conspiracy. Its not at all the only way to see things, bdkeller, not at all. I don’t need to think of any conspiracy at all: all these doctors simply do the best they can with the knowledge they have and they all simply think that their knowledge can’t be wrong because so many share the same believes. But when it really comes to it, bdkeller, that’s all they share: believes. No one really knows from personal experience.

But that is theorization. I want to see/read a discussion between in the field health care workers who speak out of personal experience. Cut out the bits about interaction with quite a few medical doctors, I know quite a few to.

Posted by: jspreen | November 8, 2007 6:12 PM

Tara,
Sorry I should have been more clear. My question was why do you continue to write posts with titles clearly calling Mbeki a denialist and make similar claims in your academic publications when you now acknowledge sources who state that he is not?

There is indeed a big difference between calling someone a denialist and a skeptic. One implies irrationality and the other implies balanced thinking and careful consideration. I wish you were concerned about the precision of the terminology you use when writing about important issues, as a fair number of people seem to read what you have to say. As you must surely be aware, inflammatory language tends to polarize people, which might explain why the discussion comments inspired by your posts seem to so rapidly decline into name-calling and e-shouting matches. Maybe if you didn’t resort to such sensationalism and good-guy/bad-guy characterizations, the tone of ensuing discussion might follow suit and maybe even encourage people to think.

Until then, you will remain my favorite corporatist/anti-skepticist/westerncentristic/Puritanist crusader. Or we could just drop the labels and try and get along.

Posted by: bayman | November 8, 2007 6:29 PM

So how could it be that “his views on HIV continue to harm his country (..) ?”.

I think it is obvious that the only reason that the health minister remains the health minister is that she has Mbeki’s support. Together, although they have given lip service to the official ANC policy that HIV causes AIDS, they have done their best to delay and undermine the response to HIV/AIDS.

Before the last election they announced targets for the distribution of antiretrovirals that they have consistently failed to meet. Remember the policies that they were elected upon included well defined targets for the distribution of the se drugs.

When the deputy minister had a chance to actually do something it was not long before Mbeki sacked her.

Meanwhile, they have let fraudsters prey upon vulnerable people by offering fake cures such as Ubhejane.

They let Matthias Rath conduct illegal trials in South Africa with no consequences.

If you read the articles on Virodene that I have linked to you can see how they sought to override their own health institutions.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 7:15 PM

Bayman,

I wish I could be as optimistic as you, but I’ve just been around the block too many times. Look at jspreen’s reaction to bdkeller above. Jan has no history with bd, and bd gave him a sincere and polite answer to Jan’s question, and even thanked him for asking honest questions. jspreen’s response? To “doubt his experience” and reiterate what he’s already said. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Additionally, I think it is pretty clear from Mbeki’s writings that he’s in denial about how bad HIV has affected his country. His “I’ve never known anyone who died from AIDS” is in pretty stark contrast to the death of his spokesman.

I understand very well the distinction between a “skeptic” and a denialist, and I also understand how those who vocally *deny* HIV as the causative agent of AIDS want people like me and others to lend respectability to their positions by calling them “skeptics” or “dissidents.” While Mbeki may not be as far on the denial scale as the Perth group or Duesberg, his refusal to believe the impact AIDS has had on his country, despite appeals from scientists, despite even appeals from hundreds of doctors in South Africa, surely makes him akin to a child putting their fingers in their ears and saying, “la la la la, I can’t hear you” and hoping the problem will go away. In other words, in denial.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 8, 2007 7:29 PM

Sorry I should have been more clear. My question was why do you continue to write posts with titles clearly calling Mbeki a denialist and make similar claims in your academic publications when you now acknowledge sources who state that he is not?

Mbeki is a true politician. He has rarely made any definite statements about HIV and AIDS. If you read the Castro Hlongwane document it is fairly clear that he is a denialist. He tries to create doubt where there shouldn’t be any.

When he makes statements such as “A virus cannot cause a syndrome” what is he trying to say?

Did you read the set of articles on his involvement with the Virodene scandal?

The Virodene Affair

If it’s all about finding an African solution rather than relying on evil colonial western science then Mbeki just looks ridiculous.

Mbeki ignored the South African scientists. Instead he brought in people like Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick and Matthias Rath. Not much of an African solution.

Virodene which was supposed to be an African solution turned out to be a complete disaster.

It appears to be Mbeki that has turned the issue into one of race and colonialism and not the scientists.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 7:32 PM

While Mbeki may not be as far on the denial scale as the Perth group…

Even the Perth Group attempt to nuance their position by not saying directly that HIV doesn’t exist but rather that they have not seen the evidence that HIV exists. Instead of openly stating their position they pretend to be skeptics.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 7:39 PM

Gosh Tara! You said in regards to Mbeki:

His “I’ve never known anyone who died from AIDS” is in pretty stark contrast to the death of his spokesman.

Well girl, I am a gay man who has lived smack dab in the middle of a gay community since long before the word “HIV” or “AIDS” even existed. In this community where more than 5000 perished, including close friends and loved ones during the “AIDS” years, AND YET I HAVE NEVER KNOWN ANYONE THAT DIED OF AIDS EITHER!

I have known some who died of pneumonia, some of liver failure, some of heart failure, some of kidney failure, some of systemic candida, some of tuberculosis, some of other things, BUT NOT A SINGLE ONE OF ANY OF THESE SO-CALLED “AIDS CASES” EVER DIED OF AIDS!

The reason is simple, dear Tara. AIDS is a SYNDROME, and NOT A DISEASE!

Thought you were smarter than that, Tara, but I suppose not!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 7:43 PM

Tara said:

I also understand how those who vocally *deny* HIV as the causative agent of AIDS want people like me and others to lend respectability to their positions by calling them “skeptics” or “dissidents.”

No Tara, not true. We couldn’t give a flying f**k what you think or what you call us, though your choice shows you to be an mean, petty, immature, belligerant, disrespectful, and fully biased individual, who in return warrants no respect from others.

But no, Tara, we do not care less about any of this “lend respectability” shit. For we fully have our own self respect quite intact, thank you. But what we would like, Tara, is for you to show us that YOUR BELIEF has any respectability, and put the scientific citations where your mouth is and show us the scientific study citations that shows HIV, all by its wee little self, causes immune depression in human beings with any high degree of probability.

Say what, says you! You, Tara, claim there is a “mountain of evidence”?

Then PROVE IT TARA the TART! and show us FIVE, or even THREE, of EVEN JUST A SINGLE Citation out of your “mountain of evidence” that proves HIV causes immune suppression with a high degree of probability, to prove your beloved beliefs!

Should be easy for you to find one or three or five citations to prove your position out of those big old mountains of evidence, Tara!

And be sure the cites are not simply filled with individuals who are emotionally stressed, or lacking nutrition, or strung out on illicit drugs or AZT, or suffering from transfusions of factor VIII, or you will have not proved a thing at all to us, except that WE DENIALISTS ARE COMPLETELY CORRECT, AND HAVE BEEN FOR TWENTY YEARS!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 8:05 PM

Bayman: there’s not that much name-calling. It’s mostly a few bad actors calling names. However, feelings do run high around this issue, on all sides. But Dr. Smith isn’t obliged to maintain a cool neutrality on topics that mean a great deal to her, just for the sake of providing an example for her commenters, either.

If it would make you feel any better about the Westerncentrism and Puritanism pieces, I betcha that Dr. Smith harbors very few kind memories of President Ronald Reagan’s protracted silence concerning HIV/AIDS, and probably could drum up some downright vitriolic language around that.

Posted by: jen_m | November 8, 2007 8:07 PM

Thank you for illustrating exactly why Mbeki is referred to as a Denialist.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 8:08 PM

Thanks for proving my point, Michael.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 8, 2007 8:11 PM

No Tara, THANK YOU FOR PROVING MY POINT!.

You have no evidence. Yet you blow your mouth off like an all knowing high priestess of virology!

Thank you, Tara, for proving my own point that you are indeed a mean, belligerant, biased, EMPRESS OF HIV with NO CLOTHES AND NO PROOF FOR YOUR POSITION!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 8:22 PM

Dr. Smith, you have been called a “Puritanist” and a “tart” (in all caps, no less) within two hours. Being a female scientist sure is glamorous.

Posted by: jen_m | November 8, 2007 8:23 PM

Jen-m,

Seeing as “tara the tart” (she does not deserve caps) is unable to supply us the cites that prove HIV as the cause of AIDS with any high degree of probability, then perhaps you would be so kind as to present us with these citations.

After all, Jen-m, you said in a former thread that you “are not one of those denialists”.

So why don’t YOU show all of us dingy denialists the scientific evidence for your belief, so we can rejoin civilized society again as card carrying members and believers of “the faith” of HIV=AIDS!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 8:37 PM

Michael Geiger February 20, 2007 11:22 PM

I will agree to shut up eternally on the dissident issue and I will refrain from ever again posting any dissident beliefs on this or any other site, and furthermore, I will take up arms with the opposing side, and I will henceforward be twice as determined to espouse only the establishment views.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 8:39 PM

jspreen,
I see from your response and those of others that any amount of arguing will not persuade you of the truth because, as I said, the denialist position is not based on research but on a desire to believe an already-arrived-at position. Of course, you will say the same about so-called “apologists.” It is unfortunate for your argument that the evidence (both scientific and anecdotal) ultimately rests in our favor. But why should I give you a full explanation if you’ve already shown an unwillingness to even trust the few things I have said? Doesn’t sound like a worthwhile proposition.

For the record, I am a real person and all of my statements were accurate. I have helped take care of children with HIV in Johannesburg,
But again, it is not the anecdotal experiences I (and the doctors and others I’ve worked with) could tell you that prove that HIV causes AIDS and that ARVs prevent countless, needless death, it’s the research. It’s out their for your own perusal. The only reason I am concerned that you and your friends deny HIV as the cause of AIDS and ARVs as appropriate treatment is that I’ve seen the effect that public policy based on such nonsense can have.

I’m going to go back to my studies now so I can learn how to prevent, treat, and cure disease. I’m going to be basing my studies soundly on the data, and hope you aren’t bothered too much by that. Cheers,
Brett Keller

Posted by: bdkeller | November 8, 2007 8:43 PM

Hey Brett, thanks for your own anecdotal evidence, which certainly does not prove HIV causes anything. But you, ahhhemmmm, claim to “base your studies soundly on the data”.

So present us “denialists”, as you enjoy calling us, THE DATA

Please show us the scientific cites and studies that you hold so highly in regard, that clearly show HIV is the cause of AIDS with any high degree of probability. Until you do, you are just another of the brainwashed fools who think anecdotal experiences constitute verified reality!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 8:48 PM

Hey Chris, it seems the post you refer to above is authored by an incarnation of Abraham Lincoln, as it is not signed with my own name.

Chris, seeing as “tara the tart” (she does not deserve caps), jen-m, and Brett are unable to supply us the cites that prove HIV as the cause of AIDS with any high degree of probability, then perhaps you would be so kind as to present us with these citations.

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 8:50 PM

Because Michael, you’re probably insane…

Doesn’t matter how often Chris, adele, Tara, ElkMountainMan and others present evidence for HIV being the causative agent of AIDS, you wont accept it and probably never will. Why? Because in your mind, you’re right and everyone else who doesn’t agree with you on this is wrong. Oh and the constant use of capitals is a slight give away.

Posted by: Nick Sullivan | November 8, 2007 8:52 PM

Note to self, AND to all other “denialists”.

Continue to demand of each and every one of the avid faithful believers in HIV that they show us “denialists” five, or three, or even just a single scientific citation out of their “mountains of evidence” to substantiate that HIV causes immune suppression with any high degree of probability, to prove their beloved beliefs.

Should be VERY easy for them after 25 years of this nonsense!

And be sure that any of the cites they may present are not simply filled with individuals who are emotionally stressed, or lacking nutrition, or strung out on illicit drugs or AZT, or suffering from transfusions of factor VIII.

Until they present such evidence, they are all simply full of shit, and this simple point proves it!

Do NOT let them off the hook on supplying this evidence!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 9:02 PM

Hey Nick!

Cut the shit and cut the mumbling and present the scientific proof that has NOT ONCE IN 25 YEARS been presented, let alone on any of these threads!

Until you do, you are just one more brainwashed goon!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 9:05 PM

Hey Nick! Wake up!

Chris, adele, Tara, ElkMountainMan and others HAVE NEVER presented any evidence for HIV being the causative agent of AIDS. Not even in a year and a half of tara’s threads on hiv/aids. If you have some evidence of any posts that they posted with this evidence, then please do present it!

And make sure that any of the cites they supposedly presented are not simply filled with individuals who are emotionally stressed, or lacking nutrition, or strung out on illicit drugs or AZT, or suffering from transfusions of factor VIII.

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 9:11 PM

Here is the evidence that HIV causes AIDS for all of you dingy denialists, but sorry, even if you accept this government dogma, you guys are still rejected from rejoining civilized society because after all, lets face it, you are the very same undesirable gay drug addicts that we were trying to get rid of with the HIV drugs.

Posted by: Eva_Dance | November 8, 2007 9:19 PM

Eva, baby, you are cracking me up! Give me a good swig of that AZT and let me outa this nut house!

Eva, darling. Can you present something that has at least been peer reviewed, instead of a page full of Bob Gallo and company’s swerving and dodging that was posted to hopefully counter Peter Duesberg’s accusations of “scientists gone wild”? The Niaids page is obviously Fauci and Gallo et al’s unsubstantiated non peer reviewed wishful thinking and anecdotals and ramblings including the laughable bit about some supposed but never verified or documented lab assistants?

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 9:30 PM

not peer reviewed? what do you consider journals like Current Opinion in Immunology and Journal of Infectious Diseases? the NIH document contains information taken from the peer-reviewed literature. i’m confused as to what your objection is.

Posted by: golden boy | November 8, 2007 9:50 PM

“Houston, we have a problem”

There is a Rebuttal to The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS, NIAID Fact Sheet

Who to believe now? We need a rebuttal to the rebuttal.

Posted by: Eva_Dance | November 8, 2007 10:00 PM

Hey goldie.

Take a good look at the niaids piece and check out any of the studies presented. You will find there is NO study there at all, that evidences HIV as the cause of AIDS with even a moderate degree of probability. It is just an asundry collection of biased studies that did not control for other factors, such as drug abuse or malnutrition, plus bits of this and bits of that with anecdotes thrown in. Plus, the part about SIV being used as evidence for HIV is completely laughable, as SIV is most definitely NOT HIV. It is a much larger organism.

Please note, goldie, that the die hard HIVologists that post on this thread are all dead silent or turning tails and running off when asked for their evidence that HIV causes AIDS with any high probability. The reason is, there ISN’T ANY!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 10:01 PM

I’m afraid Nick called this one…

…and Michael really needs to be banned.

Posted by: Dustin | November 8, 2007 10:11 PM

Dustin, put your money where your mouth is, and show us denialists any peer reviewed studies that show HIV causes AIDS with any high probability. And make sure it is not just a study done on a bunch of emaciated worn down drug addicts with a hundred other cofactors please.

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 10:20 PM

Unless tara presents the requested evidence to back her bias, tara needs to start a new thread, entitled:

tara the terrible tart still in denial!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 10:26 PM

Unless tara presents the requested evidence to back her bias, tara needs to start a new thread, entitled:

tara the terrible tart still in denial!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 10:32 PM

Dear Michael and your many pseudonyms,

Let’s try to remember the subject of this thread: not calling Tara names, not regaling us with your entertaining but empty prose, but rather Mbeki, denial, and the consequences for South Africans.

Dear Pat,

This is how I understand your position on South Africa and AIDS; please correct me where I’ve got you wrong:

According to you, scientists have a need to exaggerate South African AIDS deaths (rounding an estimated 950 or so per day to 1000 per day). They have this need because they:
1) wish to make a case for more funding of their work (”the AIDS cash cow,” as you wrote)
2) want to profit from the sale of toxic antiretrovirals to people who don’t need them (more milk from the cash cow)
3) have a need to blame on a phantom syndrome the many deaths resulting from the poverty they (or their governments) caused through racist, colonialist policies.

So far, so good? If so, I partly disagree with you, but at least I understand your position. You lose me entirely when you switch gears and criticize scientists for supposedly withholding antiretrovirals from South Africans with AIDS over the objections of Thabo Mbeki.

If you believe that antiretrovirals are toxic and that AIDS is just a new name for poverty, then should you not applaud any attempts to withhold ARVs from Africans?

Not that those attempts had anything to do with science… can you really believe that scientists wish to withhold treatment from South Africans?

If Thabo Mbeki has been pleading for ARVs and truly wants them for the people of SA, then why did he and his associates repeatedly attempt to slow their approval and distribution?

Assuming that Mbeki has always wanted to bring in the drugs, how do you explain the disparities pointed out above (by bdkeller, I believe?) in the percentage of ARV-requiring patients in various African countries who receive the drugs? South Africa is near the bottom of the list; in some countries (Uganda was mentioned already), the percentage of patients recieving ARVs is three times higher than in SA.

Pat, if you think me “arrogant,” I apologize. I ask these questions because I want to understand your position on Mbeki, South Africa, and ARVs. Do you have a position, or are you simply trying to ask provocative questions without regard to consistency?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 8, 2007 10:38 PM

I am completely opposed to banning Michael, if only for gems such as this one, which give us a chance to correct some misconceptions about virology:

SIV is most definitely NOT HIV. It is a much larger organism

SIV and HIV are the same “size.” They have essentially the same genomic structure and proteins. Without care, one could be mistaken easily for the other. Some parts of HIV-1 are more closely related with SIV sequences than with HIV-2 sequences. Also a virus is not really an organism

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 8, 2007 10:50 PM

My dearest friend, Elkmountain,

I will certainly try to stay on topic, providing you can do the same. The topic here is Mbeki and his denialism, I gather, as such is the title of the piece.

Now, Elkie, we first must ascertain whether Mbeki is actually in denial, don’t you think?. Prove to us that Mbeki is actually in denial by presenting us the scientific cites that show with any high probability that HIV causes immune suppression!

For God’s sake, man, you are a long standing HIV researcher receiving tax payer funds for this issue! This should be but a 1 minute task for someone such as yourself! There should be hundreds of such cites in the “mountain of HIV studies”. Your claims and beliefs about HIV and AIDS should are based on their even existing such evidence! You should know of at least one such citation by rote, without even having to look it up. It would be the very foundation for all of your damned research!

Try to stay on subject here Elkie, and refrain from your attempts to avoid or change the subject! Show us the cites and I, and undoubtedly Mbeki and his Manto, his Minister of Health, will undoubtedly cease from our denialist beliefs!

After all, Elkmountainman, it is for lack of a single such citation, that I, as well as Mbeki himself, and his minister of health, and hundreds of thousands of others, are now labeled by tara, and you and yours as crackpots and “denialists”! Please show us why we are mistaken!

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 11:09 PM

Even if I came to this “debate” with absolutely no prior knowledge of the specific subject matter of HIV and AIDS, the behavior of the deniers on this thread would instantly skew me to strong skepticism towards their position. Just the conspiracy theories that dismiss most epidemiologists and doctors around the world as “big pharma” shills, rubbing their hands and cackling gleefully as they contemplate the deliberate genocide of Africans, would be enough. Add in the sexist name-calling (”Tara the Tart”? Really? Seriously? And you’re not a ringer for Tara’s side, deliberately trying to lose the argument?). The ALL CAPS shouting. The playground-level strawmen (”of course you believe in HIV – you think the government is always right”). And I can’t even make sense of the posts quoting those paragraphs about HIV/AIDS activists trying to force price drops in anti-HIV drugs. They’re trying to lower drug prices and push governments to break patents because… they’re shills for big pharma?

I get a kick out of observing and occasionally encouraging the goofy ramblings of evolution deniers. HIV deniers are too scary/scuzzy to even be funny. No wonder I tend to avoid these threads now – I feel like I need a shower.

Posted by: MPW | November 8, 2007 11:33 PM

Hey Chris, it seems the post you refer to above is authored by an incarnation of Abraham Lincoln, as it is not signed with my own name.

I somehow doubt that Abraham Lincoln posted that message. Abraham Lincoln had a reputation for not lying. You don’t.

You promised to stop posting here. You lied.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 8, 2007 11:56 PM

I concur with ElkMountainMan that “Michael” should be allowed to continue posting so long as this thread continues. To the few people on this site who might be unaware of who “Michael” is, he is Michael Geiger of San Diego, HEAL, a one-man-and-a-rather-smarter-dog AIDS denialist group. His stunning ignorance of the virology, epidemiology and immunology of HIV infection is extreme even by the standards of AIDS denialists in general. Thus, his recent comment “SIV is a much larger organism than HIV” ranks with Jan Spreen’s classically idiotic posting that TB is nothing other than “the recovery phase of lung cancer” among the all-time scientific howlers. Ignorance like this is very useful to AIDS scientists in their fight to destroy AIDS denialism, as it nicely exposes the foolishness of our enemies. We archive comments such as Geiger’s and Spreen’s, to demonstrate to journalists and neutrals just what type of people we are dealing with. The only pity is that Geiger is too insignificant a denialist for his comments to be really useful, as nobody takes him seriously in the real world.

It is also worth noting that as well as calling female scientists “Tarts”, Geiger is prone to using this Blog to issue threats of violence against those whom he does not like. He also sends letters to senior university officials that are full of scatological references to feces, toilet paper, as well as being riddled with epithets and general abuse (but of course with no scientific content). Such activities of course reveal AIDS denialism for what it truly is – the province of twisted minds, sick and puerile personas and the scientifically ignorant.

So, Tara, please do let Michael Geiger carry on posting. We have not such a useful set of written material for our archives since Harvey Bialy stopped writing his own Blog.

MPW is also correct. Reading scuzzy postings like “Michael”’s is a rather nasty experience. Politically useful, but nasty nonetheless.

John Moore

Posted by: John Moore | November 8, 2007 11:58 PM

Elkie, nice try at avoidance again, but you are still full of shit. You claimed:

SIV and HIV are the same “size.” They have essentially the same genomic structure and proteins.

Simply stated, HIV-1 is claimed to consist of 15 proteins and 9.1 kb of RNA, and SIV is claimed to have nearer to 10 kb. That alone is NEARLY A TEN PERCENT DIFFERENCE!

TEN PERCENT difference is about the same difference of ten percent DNA difference between a clam and a primate! Obviously HIV and SIV are not the same the same and are not interchangeable.

SIV is NOT HIV, no matter how hard you and yours try to spin it!

Furthermore, HIV/SIV (SHIV) where parts of HIV are spliced to parts of SIV, and that was used as an animal model for supposedly proving HIV causes AIDS, was a completely different size from both SIV and HIV and is not even found anywhere in nature, and therefore, neither SIV NOR SHIV can possibly be used to prove HIV causes AIDS in humans.

They are NOT the same and are NOT interchangeable.

Posted by: Michael | November 8, 2007 11:59 PM

“While Mbeki may not be as far on the denial scale as the Perth group or Duesberg, his refusal to believe the impact AIDS has had on his country, despite appeals from scientists, despite even appeals from hundreds of doctors in South Africa, surely makes him akin to a child putting their fingers in their ears and saying, “la la la la, I can’t hear you” and hoping the problem will go away. In other words, in denial.” — Tara Smith

“The experience of AIDS medicine tends to confirm that the origin of human suffering is anxiety of death. Its vision of calamity was not confected from the morbid anxieties of those sick to death, nor from the depths of extreme pain, but sprang from the minds of well medical scientists. The vision of mass death expresses, I have argued,

—> the trauma of a profession that has assumed responsibilities beyond its capacity to deliver

The inflation of a small number of sick persons into an imaginary gigantic pool of suffering, and the urgency of ’saving lives’ from an unknown virus, started an odyssey that courses through fraud in Dr. Gallo’s laboratory, the helplessness of accountability systems to detect and penalise the fraud, and the haunting curse of Kimberly Bergalis…. Presently we travel down the fork in the road that leads to Kimberly’s curse. There are many Kimberlys among us. But we can retrace our steps, scale down our expectations of medicine, and travel the alternative path on which suffering is transfigured by its meaning.

—> In the case of AIDS, retracing the steps places the burden of suffering on the medical profession’s recognition that a phantom epidemic symbolises its misconception of the aims of medicine.

– Hiram Caton

“Even if you don’t get AIDS, YOU STILL DIE” — Zen master

The reason the apologists can’t see the evidence against HIV is not because of some grand conspiracy. It’s because to admit as much would mean giving up their role as saviors of the world. If you don’t believe me, just look at the transhuman movement, that recent field of science and culture where scientists are honestly speaking of making people immortal and doing away with “unfavorable” aspects of being human. Their position is simply the most perverted form of this affliction. But make no mistake, it is PRECISELY the same intellectual foundation behind the HIV apologists.

However, the world will go on with or without their struggle. People have been living and breathing and having sex and dying for millions of years. The world is not “dying of AIDS”. We’ll survive.

Even if you don’t get AIDS, you STILL die.

Posted by: Zen master | November 9, 2007 12:02 AM

Chris Noble et al.,
I really want to join the anti-denialist camp. You guys seem pretty intelligent, fairly reasonable, but most of all, some of the people arguing against you seem really crazy. But I still have trouble understanding what seems to be one of your main arguments:

“Mbeki ignored the South African scientists. Instead he brought in people like Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick and Matthias Rath. Not much of an African solution.”

So the argument as I understand it is that Mbeki entertained Duesberg at a summit. Duesberg is a denialist, Mbeki listened to his words, therefore Mbeki is a denialist. However, Luc Montagnier, one of the co-discoverers of HIV as the cause of AIDS, was also in attendance. So were other scientists with views more compatible to your own. So following you own logic, Luc Montagnier discovered HIV, Mbeki heard him speak, so Mbeki knows HIV is the cause of AIDS…wait, I guess he can’t be a denialist and a truthist…maybe we’re using some faulty logic here? Or do you have some reason to believe that given equal opportunity to be heard, Duesberg somehow argued his beliefs more effectively than a real-deal HIV scientist? Or, maybe we should blame Robert Gallo for Mbeki’s denialism, since he is the world’s foremost authority on HIV and declined the invite to participate in Mbeki’s summit and influence his policy. Oh well, maybe he heard from Tara that Mbeki was a denialist so there wasn’t even any point trying…

Here’s the summary of what went down at Mbeki’s AIDS advisory panel.

http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2001/aidspanelpdf.pdf

Chris, do you believe that hosting an open discussion between scientists representing a diverse range of viewpoints on AIDS constitutes denialism?

Posted by: bayman | November 9, 2007 12:04 AM

Michael,
“And make sure it is not just a study done on a bunch of emaciated worn down drug addicts with a hundred other cofactors please.”

why don’t you provide us the study where a cohort of individuals that meet the criteria above are HIV- and exhibit symptoms of AIDS. This should be easy considering the vast amount of research you denialists do.

“I have known some who died of pneumonia, some of liver failure, some of heart failure, some of kidney failure, some of systemic candida, some of tuberculosis, some of other things, BUT NOT A SINGLE ONE OF ANY OF THESE SO-CALLED “AIDS CASES” EVER DIED OF AIDS!”

Are you purposefully this obtuse or is this a serious comment? I remember feeling clever when I thought this way back in elementary school.

Posted by: Jim | November 9, 2007 12:14 AM

JP Moore said:

Geiger is prone to using this Blog to issue threats of violence against those whom he does not like.

Well, hell, JP! You should know all about threats of violence, seeing as I have an email directly from you to me, saying, and I quote:

This IS a war, there ARE no rules, and we WILL crush you, one at a time, completely and utterly

And undoubtedly, either you yourself or one of your mooron buddies are the ones who sent me an anonymous email greeting card from “Encircling Pistol” with the sole word “BANG” in the letter body a few months ago!

OOOHHHHH JP! I am soooooo scared!

And don’t worry, JP, I am sure the FBI can figure out which of you moorons sent it to me! And hopefully such threats will be enough to have you deported back to UKiland, JP!

So do bring it on JP! Get to crushing! And I even have a couple of buddies right here in my desk drawer for just such an occasion!

But as I know you yourself have no balls to back your own threats of violence, perhaps you would be so kind as to just stay on the subject of this thread, and show us “denialists” five, or three, or even just a single scientific citation out of your “mountains of evidence” to substantiate that HIV causes immune suppression with any high degree of probability, to prove your beloved beliefs.

Particularly as there is no such evidence on your propaganda riddled, laughably called AIDSunTRUTH website that nobody but you and your assistant monkeys ever read!

And be sure that any of the cites you may present are not simply filled with individuals who are emotionally stressed, or lacking nutrition, or strung out on illicit drugs or AZT, or suffering from transfusions of factor VIII.

And undoubtedly JP, you will post no such study because none exists, and you will either run away and hide or scream out more of your very dignified ad hom attacks, just like the yappy little monkey that you have always been!

PS: JP, You and your ego are an abomination not just to science, but to all of mankind!

Posted by: Michael | November 9, 2007 12:27 AM

Chris, do you believe that hosting an open discussion between scientists representing a diverse range of viewpoints on AIDS constitutes denialism

Just as in the “debate” over evolution there are not two sides with two equally valid viewpoints. When people argue for an open discussion about evolution they are really arguing for ID and creationism.

Mbeki was looking for justification to avoid doing anything. The costs of tackling HIV/AIDS was going to be large. The attraction of scientists that argue that HIV does not exist or if it does exist it doesn’t cause AIDS is obvious. All you have to do is create enough doubt and then you don’t have to do anything.

What would people think if Bush ignores the IPCC and holds his own conference with an equal number of AGW “skeptics” and real cliumate scientists? If that happened I would make the conclusion that Bush was doing his best to create doubt about AGW so he doesn’t have to do anything.

I am judging Mbeki not just on the Presidential AIDS panel but on his other comments and actions.

He claimed not have known anybody that died from AIDS despite the the death of his spokesman Parks Mankahlana who had died euphemistically after a long illness. Parks Mankahlana died from AIDS.

His actions that undermined the rollout of antiretrovirals after the pharmaceutical companies reduced prices is undeniable.

If Mbeki’s point was the cost of the antiretrovirals then why did he go to the lengths he did to sow doubts and denial about HIV?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 9, 2007 12:38 AM

Particularly as there is no such evidence on your propaganda riddled, laughably called AIDSunTRUTH website that nobody but you and your assistant monkeys ever read!

If nobody reads the website then how do you know that it contains no evidence? You are simply confirming what is extremely obvious that you are at all interested in the evidence. You have already made your mind up and nothing will change your mind.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 9, 2007 12:52 AM

Hey Chris, you said: Parks Mankahlana died from AIDS.

That is another total lie Chris. AIDS is a definition of a syndrome, it is not a disease nor a cause of death, therefore Parks could NOT have died from AIDS. He may have died from liver failure after taking AZT, or he may have died from TB, or any one of hundreds of other things, but he surely did NOT die from AIDS.

As I said, I am a gay man who has lived in the middle of the 6th largest gay community for the last 30 years, and I have had lovers and friends diagnosed as HIV and as AIDS

So Chris, perhaps you would stay on topic and present the study or studies that show HIV is the cause of the state of immune suppression called AIDS, as I have been asking you for this evidence for at least a couple of years now. You certainly should have found it after all this time! OR BEEN MAN ENOUGH TO ADMIT THAT SUCH EVIDENCE DOES INDEED NOT EXIST!

But Chris, as you have shown us time and again, you are indeed a liar, and are most dishonest, and you have no integrity, and you are incapable of admitting when you are mistaken, and, you are full of bullshit!

Posted by: Michael | November 9, 2007 1:03 AM

Let me be very, very clear here:

AIDS science is indeed in a war with the AIDS denialists, and the denialist leadership is indeed being targeted, not by violence or by threats of violence, but by legal and moral methods intended to destroy their ability to influence vulnerable people who have been persuaded to make choices that damage their health and the health of others. It will take time to defeat all the denialist leadership, but it’s being done (as some of them have already found out) and, in the end, science and morality will crush pseudoscience and evil.

That a war must be fought and will be won is sadly necessary as a life-saving measure. The time for scientific debate and discourse has long passed; the debate was held, and won by AIDS scientists, via the peer-reviewed literature over a 25-year period. The denialists refuse to accept their defeat, and continue to act against the best interests of public health. Hence the gloves came off, and it became necessary to move to a new phase – the destruction of AIDS denialism as a movement. However, I say again: this ongoing fight does not involve the use of violence against its leadership, or the issuing of threats of violence, and it never has. Geiger’s comments on this point are as foolish, inaccurate and misguided as his opinions on the relative sizes of SIV and HIV. And as he well knows, he himself is not being targeted as he’s not a leader of the AIDS denialist movement; we only go after the organ-grinders. Moreover, we consider Geiger’s craziness as advantageous to our side, so see no reason to hinder his actions.

AIDS denialism kills people. It has killed tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people in South Africa as a result of Mbeki’s personal denialism and dangerous public policies; it has killed very many individuals in the western world, including, ironically, many AIDS denialists who themselves died of AIDS (see the postings on AIDSTruth.org); it killed Eliza Jane Scovill. These sad, unnecessary and utterly avoidable deaths represent the casus bellum for the battle between AIDS science and AIDS denialism. We make no apologies for this war; it was thrust upon us.

Freedom of speech has acknowledged limits when it comes to public health and safety. It is not legal to promote cigarette smoking by children; it is not legal to shout “Fire” in a crowded cinema; it is not legal to tell a drunk or a mentally impaired person to consume a bottle of bleach. At present, it is, unfortunately, still legal to deny that HIV causes AIDS and to oppose the use of antiretroviral drugs to treat or prevent HIV infection. Because the denialists do still have that legal right, there is a moral imperative to fight them, using whatever tactics are legally and ethically permissible.

Geiger refers to my British origins (although as I am now an American citizen, his reference to having me deported is as misguided as the rest of his posting). A rather greater and better known Briton once said:

we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender.

This was a reference by Winston Churchill to the fight against the Nazis.

It seems rather appropriate as a statement of AIDS sciences’ intent to defeat the AIDS denialists.

John Moore

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 1:25 AM

That is another total lie Chris. AIDS is a definition of a syndrome, it is not a disease nor a cause of death, therefore Parks could NOT have died from AIDS.

That is a silly semantic game. Mankahlana was infected with HIV. The HIV caused immune suppression which lead to opportunistic infections. He died from these opportunistic infections.

You have been given the evidence time and time again. The fact that you do not accept the evidence has little to do with the quality or quantity of the evidence and everything to do with your psychological state of mind.

Your response to the Ascher et al paper is indicative of you capabilities of understanding and debating the scientific studies.

Everyone knows that Ascher was Tony Fauci’s well paid buttboy and pet lapdog…

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 9, 2007 1:26 AM

These viral loads sounds so scary!, hundereds of thousands of virus particles in the blood! Got any electron microscope pictures from patients blood confirming this?
Or is this just another act of hiv
Woo created on a labratory bench?

“if you make a thousand copies of a dollar bill how much money do you have?” kary mullis hiv skeptic nobel prize winning inventor of the PCR

NO animal model, tons of animals injected, nothing happened.
no explanation how a virus thats in 1 in thousand cells destroys the immune system

not one study that shows that people without any risk factors such as drug abuse, mycoplasmas, AZT severe mental illness even get AIDS vs matched controls. Just extend the window period by to 10 years to buy time to save Gallo’s hypothesis!

Cant wait for the vaccine, because well all test positive then! Becuase most every other virus causes disease before antibodies, thats why we get vaccines!

see hiv fact or fraud.

Posted by: cooler | November 9, 2007 1:46 AM

Wow, this Michael person really puts the demented in demented fuckwit.

Posted by: BG | November 9, 2007 1:57 AM

Bayman writes:

I really want to join the anti-denialist camp. You guys seem pretty intelligent, fairly reasonable, but most of all, some of the people arguing against you seem really crazy. But I still have trouble understanding what seems to be one of your main arguments:

I have trouble understanding what your point is. Are you saying that the evidence that HIV exists is lacking? Or that HIV causes AIDS? Or that antiretrovirals are effective in reducing mother-to-child-transmission of HIV? Or that antiretrovirals are effective at reducing mortality and morbidity?

I also wonder what you think a responsible response from a leader of a country that is threatened by HIV/AIDS should be.

a) Fight with the pharmaceutical companies to make antiretroviral drugs affordable.

b) Launch education campaigns to try to reduce the spread of HIV

c) Invite cranks from Australia who will tell you that HIV doesn’t exist.

d) Pretend that nobody dies from AIDS because it is a syndrome

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 9, 2007 2:43 AM

Hi all, I know this comment is a change of gear as I can see it has been severely troll-jacked. It seems to be common here although I don’t read this blog daily (I’ll try to change that Tara, I do like your posts). I am not interested in getting into the above exchanges as it is a waste to me.

I’m an American who has been living here in South Africa for over 9 years. I have seen a lot of the developments first hand. I have even been to a government hospital in Soweto (quite an experience).
I do believe Mbeki is a denialist. The uproar he caused in 2000 was palpable here. There are excellent doctors and other medical personnel in SA. Now, for the government to put those professionals on the same level as an old fart sitting in front of hut out in the contryside with a loin cloth and headress who will give you “muti”, disgusts me.
Mbeki did basically shut up because of pressure from the ANC. However, his support of Tshabalala-Msimang shows his mindset. Tshabalala-Msimang is probably the worst health minister this country could possibly have. She has stated before that olive oil and garlic is a treatment for HIV. Earlier this year, she received a liver transplant, and it came out that she had forced hospital staff to run out to fetch her booze (during an earlier non-related stay in hospital). She was fired in Botswana earlier in her career for stealing from the hospital at which she worked. And, there are lots of other things. I think she is vile, and damages this country immensly.
One of the deputy ministers was dismissed a couple of months ago because she would not toe the party line. She was vocal about the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and Tshabalala-Msimang and Mbeki did not like it.

Now here’s an important point, Tara: You may have even worse stories to post about in the future related to SA and HIV/AIDS. As we speak, the succession race for the ANC leadership is brewing. One of the candidates who is near the top of the pile for the ANC is Jacob Zuma. Zuma has a lot of support from some areas. This guy is a slimy, crook in my opinion but I digress. Last year, he went on trial for rape. Without getting into the specifics of the rape case itself, several things came out during the trial. Zuma is married, but claims that in his “culture” (he is a Zulu, and I put the quotes around culture, because I have personally asked other Zulus who say this is not the case, and he is using culture as an excuse to be a pig), it is acceptable to basically bang anybody you want. If you think you might like it more than a couple of times, then pay your lebola and marry however many women you want (note these are tribal marriages, so not the same as an official state-recognised marriage).
But here is the kicker: He stated during the trial that he had consentual sex with the accuser, knowing that she was HIV positive (he knew very well), without a condom, and that after the sex he had a shower to cut down his risk of infection.
Folks if this man succeeds Mbeki for the ANC leadership, he WILL be the next president of South Africa. The mind boggles.
Fortunately, he is now up on corruption charges, and it does not look like he will be able to easily shake them. Also the Xosa population really don’t want the guy leading them, so there may be pressure to avoid Zuma in order to avoid a split within the ANC (and it is not just the Xosas, the party is complicated, but I simplified).
The only problem is that while this should effectively nix his chances, the ANC seems to consider changing the constitution so that Mbeki can serve another term as their other option.

Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | November 9, 2007 2:47 AM

Dear bdkeller, scienceteacherinexile, John Moore,

I appreciate your comments and the fact that you have field experience.

Do you think that engaging with the RSA government (instead of moving an hostile campaign against Mbeki) could be useful to solve HIV/AIDS problems in Southern Africa or no ?

For example, last week I have been in a meeting with the officer in charge of HIV/AIDS (in the Commonwealth offices in London) and he told that there is no compreensive national plan to tackle the epidemy in Swaziland, despite the high infection rate in this country.I understand that some pressure should be done on the Swazi government to control its own epidemics of HIV/AIDS, otherwise not only HIV crisis in Swaziland will grow but also it will be a focus of continuous reinfection in the Natal border. South African government with internationla help, may be the partner of choice to exercise such pressure.

I ask all this because I thought that contructive engagement is a good political concept, I understand that Mbeki have no real say in HIV/AIDS in SouthAfrican policies, but others members of the government/ANC are really be worry on the AIDS questions.

Impression that I have is that in AIDS/HIV questions, and as confirmed by the Guardian paper above reported, Mbeki is just a figurehead. Criticizing him now does not help to tackle the problems.

Am I correct ?

Posted by: Braganza | November 9, 2007 6:03 AM

But again, it is not the anecdotal experiences I (and the doctors and others I’ve worked with) could tell you

Holding babies in your arms who suddenly stop dying the day you administer a new drug is far from anecdotal experience in my book and when you wrote your first message I’m quite sure you had the feeling that your experience itself could blow denialism to smithereens. Which is perfectly the case if what you write is exactly what happened. That’s why I wanted yo know more. You don’t have to thank me for my questioning, because there’s absolutely no kindness or honesty in it, only eagerness to know more about it and an attempt to get these agressive going nowhere discussions moving somewhere.
You wrote yourself I wouldn’t say it is wholly based on personal experience which means, the way I see it, that you cannot possibly swear that your statements about kids who suddenly stopping dying are absolutely accurate.

Your reaction, as well as Tara’s, to my previous post is rediculous. True, I don’t know you, so why should I not trust what you write? But give me one reason why I should? Trusting each other has nothing to do here. I want plain, indeniable facts.

My statement about the 1:1000 or even 1:10000 ratio, where’s your reaction? Do you agree with me?
My statement about the ambassador boasting about non-existing EM pictures being all around and even in his office: where’s your reaction? Do you agree with me?

Apologists, they always start with a big mouth about overwhelming evidence but when it comes to it, there’s no evidence nowhere.
I myself, on the other hand, am constantly providing, may be not evidence but at least very clear and logical reasoning, but all you people can come up with are phrases about how stupid I really am.
My statement about lung TB always being preceded by lung cancer and always accompagnied by an oedema in the brain stem, hence the head aches, together with the reasoning that lung cancer is caused by a traumatic moment of fear of death and that that is exactly the reason why terminally ill people always have breating problems, you can’t get away from that with name calling and some stupid declaration of war on denialism.

BTW, J. Pee Moore, your Churchill quote sounds nice, but it doesn’t hold because it’s not his side you’re on.

Posted by: jspreen | November 9, 2007 6:56 AM

Braganza,
I do think extensive engagement with the SA government by the UN would be very beneficial, but, I think to be effective, there would still have to be heavy pressure on SA to carry through with the plans.
There are many in government who work extremely hard to fight this pandemic, and would do well with the constructive approach you suggest. Businesses here as well are spending much money on different programs and are attempting to be proactive not only within their own business, but also the community at large to combat the pandemic.
I think the damage that Mbeki is doing is through not making HIV/AIDS a more urgent issue. And, as I mentioned before, keeping a horrible, horrible health minister who he so staunchly supports. The messages coming from the top are not appropriate.
Having said that, western nations could do much to help in the battle, but it does not help when the US say that they will give millions, but you can only use it on abstinence only education programs. If those programs are a flop in the US, they are a nightmare here and I think have gone the way of the Dodo. At my previous workplace, and in many public buildings, and at any clinic, you can get free condoms.
I forgot to mention earlier another thing that I found disgusting. The government would not supply Nivirapin (someone help me if that is incorrect) to HIV+ pregnant women which greatly reduces mother to child transmission. They eventually did because of pressure from various places, but many children are now sitting here with HIV that should have been born free of the infection because the government was dragging it’s feet.

Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | November 9, 2007 6:57 AM

Brazanga,
Constructive engagement with RSA’s government is of course the way to go, and nothing will get accomplished if the South African government (and Swaziland’s and other governments) aren’t behind the plans. In expressing my earlier disgust with Mbeki I was making a personal statement, not a statement on the best policy approach. Mbeki may only be a figurehead, but the difference between a figurehead who pushes strongly for the right approach and one who dithers around and makes unfounded excuses when decisive action is needed is important.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 9, 2007 7:53 AM

jspreen,
I think personal experience is by definition anecdotal when I’m telling you about it online. What else does anecdotal mean to you? And yes, my experience–and that of the patients saved by ARVs–does of course blow denialism to smithereens.

The children I worked with were dying because they were born with HIV in a window of time when SA could have implemented programs to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child, but had not at least in part because of Mbeki’s flirtation with the denialists. It seems that Mbeki found denialism desirable because he was faced with a political dilemma (providing treatment to millions of South Africans) that he could not resolve. The overpricing of the ARVs by drug companies certainly also played a role in that situation, so the South African activists who helped drive down the prices are to be commended.

At the time I was there ARV treatment was being phased in, and both adult and childhood death rates from HIV/AIDS were dropping. For those who were already at an advanced stage of HIV/AIDS (with their status established by ELISA, and disease progression by low CD4 counts, high viral load, and the presence of characteristic opportunistic infections) the ARV treatment was being made available too late, so some adults and children were still dying. Since I left the hospice/orphanage (in 2004) I have been in touch with people who have worked at the hospice about how the kids were doing. One year later (summer 2005) all of the children who I had worked with (who were on ARVs) were still alive and much healthier. That is a dramatic turnaround for a place where they usually only lived several months or years from admission to the hospice, despite getting incredible care and nutrition. I am not as familiar with the adult situation simply because most of the work I did while there was with children, though I understand it parallels the children’s experiences.
One of the people who kept me updated on the situation was there doing her masters dissertation research in medical anthropology. Her research largely resolved around the so-called “Lazarus syndrome,” which is basically how people who have long expected to die and had been progressing toward that end, and are now put on ARV treatment and regain their weight, their health, and their hope, deal with their new situation.

Will answer the rest later.

Posted by: bdkeller | November 9, 2007 8:12 AM

Apologies; this is an off-topic response to Michael’s comments about HIV and SIV.

Michael wrote that,

Simply stated, HIV-1 is claimed to consist of 15 proteins and 9.1 kb of RNA, and SIV is claimed to have nearer to 10 kb. That alone is NEARLY A TEN PERCENT DIFFERENCE!

The protein-coding portions of HIV-1 and SIV are almost identical in length, around 8500 nt. Slight length differences between reported sequences of HIV and SIV strains are due to differences in the non-coding terminal regions (or to how much of the non-coding terminal regions is cloned and sequenced).

For example, “HXB2,” a commonly-used HIV-1 reference: 9719 nt, and NC_001549 (SIV): 9623 nt.

Of course, the close relationship between HIV-1 and SIV is best established by comparing the organization and sequences of their genomes, not the sizes, as Michael’s next comment demonstrates.

TEN PERCENT difference is about the same difference of ten percent DNA difference between a clam and a primate!

The clam and human genomes are almost equal in size. Compared with these two, the chicken genome is less than half as large, while the frog has more than double the genetic material. The lungfish genome is about 30 times as large. By Michael’s reasoning, humans must be much more closely related to clams than to chickens, frogs, or lungfish. When we examine genetic sequences from these five organisms, we find that he is wrong.

Sequences from HIV and SIV are more closely related to each other than to any other known sequences. No, HIV is not SIV, but these two lentiviruses have very close ties.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 9, 2007 9:11 AM

JP Moore,

You ceased being a scientist long ago and have now become a general complete with foot soldiers.

“using whatever tactics are legally and ethically permissible.”

On the internet I can understand this but when it comes to political leaders and such then your approach is far from sane and will cause further “stone-walling” and foot dragging.

War on poverty didn’t work
War on drugs didn’t work
War on war isn’t woring either.
Why you think your “war” is going to work escapes me.

But it is your war, you fight it on the beaches if you like.

Stell Dir vor es ist Krieg und keiner geht hin!

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 9:16 AM

To our racist americam friend who has been living in SA for 9 years.

“Now, for the government to put those professionals on the same level as an old fart sitting in front of hut out in the contryside with a loin cloth and headress who will give you “muti”, disgusts me.”

You take to some of the locals very well. Have you also called people ragheads by any chance?

You say:

“Earlier this year, she received a liver transplant, and it came out that she had forced hospital staff to run out to fetch her booze (during an earlier non-related stay in hospital)”

and

“She was fired in Botswana earlier in her career for stealing from the hospital at which she worked.”

Mbeki writes these lines:

“However, the hospitalisation of our Minister of Health will have taught us
that our value system is changing towards an ugly and inhumane direction. In
this regard, views were expressed and a campaign waged essentially to convey
the brutal message that everybody concerned, including the doctors who
treated her, should have allowed Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to die.

Various propositions were advanced in this regard by and through the media.
One of these was that the Donald Gordon Medical Centre carried out the liver
transplant when it did because I, as President of the Republic, had obliged
the medical centre to do so. Alternatively, the medical centre had treated
her as a priority patient, because she is the Minister of Health.

Consequently, as another proposition, allegedly the doctors at the medical
centre had compromised all ethical medical principles to enable Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang to jump the queue, displacing other patients who should
have been treated first.

The unadorned truth is that the allegation about our intervention with the
medical centre was entirely false. Similarly, the accusation that the
doctors at this centre had given preference to the Minister of Health, ahead
of other and waiting patients, responding to our pressure, was also a
complete fabrication. Equally, the suggestion that, unprompted, the medical
centre unethically broke some rules, to enable itself to admit the Minister
of Health as a priority patient, is an unadulterated concoction.

It is obvious that those who deliberately manufactured and peddled these
lies did so to argue that Manto Tshabalala-Msimang should not have been
treated, and should have been allowed to suffer and die. They were enraged
that the Donald Gordon Medical Centre saved her life, whereas they wished
and wish that her health condition should and could have been allowed to
kill her.”

The following is an interesting read and puts this sentence of JP Moore into perspective “Because the denialists do still have that legal right, there is a moral imperative to fight them, using whatever tactics are legally and ethically permissible.”.

Here they discuss exactly what JP Moore thinks is legally and ethically permissible.
www.journalism.co.za/insight/time-for-some-soul-searching-2.html

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 10:52 AM

Very funny pat I guess everyone is racist except you with your little german sayings. what is german your second language you have to brag about. Sheesh.

Dont disagree with pat or know more about South Africa then her or god forbid GO to South Africa and live bc that makes you racist!!

Oh and SO SHAWCKING Mbeki doesn’t think his minister got special treatment!! Will you tell us next Bush thinks there’s WMDs in Iraq, I guess it must be true then!!

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 11:24 AM

Braganza, I don’t have “field experience” of the political scene in SA. My knowledge is second-hand, based on what I read in various newspapers and on input from several friends who do live and work in SA. Would engaging Mbeki work? Well, engagement is a two-way thing, and there’s no evidence he has any interest in discussing anything relating to HIV/AIDS nowadays. He’s received a great deal of input on HIV/AIDS over the years from AIDS professionals within and outside SA, and from other governments, but his mind is as closed as the denialists’ who post here. Mbeki’s interests nowadays are in anything that will enable him to cling to power after his Presidential term expires, at which time the Constitution requires him to stand down. He therefore seeks to become the power behind the throne, to control his successor, and maintain his position as ANC leader. That’s all that matters to him right now, because he’s a politician, and politicians need power the way normal humans need oxygen. He supports Manto because Manto, and her husband, support him, whereas Madlala-Routledge and her husband are political rivals within the ANC. I suspect that, irrespective of his and their views on HIV/AIDS, he would have found a way, any way, to remove his opponents from power, and support his supporters – that kind of behavior is endemic to politicans worldwide, paricular when power struggles are going on. For all these reasons, I doubt that Mbeki has the slightest interest in any further discussions about HIV/AIDS with anyone. For one thing, he could never afford to now change his position, whatever the facts, as to do so would be a sign of weakness at a time when he needs to appear strong and resolute (to his supporters). The loss of face involved in a volte-face would cripple him within the ANC.

Unfortunately, as has been noted on this string, one of his possible successors, Zuma, is a deeply-flawed man who would also be a problematic leader of SA. The only reason to support Zuma is because he’s not Mbeki, and that’s never a good reason.

Quite how all this will shake out over the coming months is impossible for anyone to predict. Once the politics of succession are in play, anything and everything could happen. All that outside observers can do is watch with crossed fingers, hoping that SA eventually finds a political leader that can help the country and not harm it. The best hope is that Nelson Mandela finds a way, behind the scenes, to ensure that his political legacy is not destroyed and that the new nation he built does not descend into anarchy, or become a second Zimbabwe.

So, no, I don’t see any way for anyone to have a meaningful dialog with the Mbeki regime, although I’m sure that some people in SA are still trying to do that.

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 11:27 AM

Ya know pat for a guy you said stopped being a scientist long ago JP Moores doing some damn fine science this month!!

Shan M, Klasse PJ, Banerjee K, Dey AK, Iyer SP, Dionisio R, Charles D, Campbell-Gardener L, Olson WC, Sanders RW, Moore JP.
HIV-1 gp120 Mannoses Induce Immunosuppressive Responses from Dendritic Cells.
PLoS Pathog. 2007 Nov 2;3(11):e169 [Epub ahead of print]

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 11:32 AM

We archive comments such as Geiger’s and Spreen’s, to demonstrate to journalists and neutrals just what type of people we are dealing with.

You’re very welcome, Mr Moore. I don’t know how Michael takes this, but I am very happy to know that my comments are passed on to the masses. A day will come when all the insanities I have written here and elsewhere will finally be recognized by mankind for what they are, and I sincerely hope that you’ll be around long enough to live that day, a day which will also be the day Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer obtains the Nobel Prize for medicine.
All diseases come by the pair, my friends. Lung cancer is followed by lung-TB (that is if koch bacilli are present and if the patient has solved the biological “Fear of death” conflict), leukemia is without exception preceded by bone cancer (osteo-porosis).

I see Tara has posted an entry about TB. All nonsense, Tara. Just as wheels are not the cause of speed, germs don’t cause TB. They’re simply part a an overall process you have not recognized at all yet. And that is why you have to bother about so many exceptions and are forced to try to pass a critical examination of your hypotheses with silly phrases like … Though most infections are asymptomatic,…
Bloody nonsense, Tara, comparable to the long-term non-progressor concept designed to get away with HIV+ people who stubbornly stay alive while refusing the life saving killer drugs.

Posted by: jspreen | November 9, 2007 11:50 AM

Bdkeller,

I thank you for you answer, and I hope that JPMoore and his friends at AIDSTRUTH could learn that there is no solution of the problems of HIV/AIDS in the region without constructive engagement with the RSA government.
———————————————————–

There are many anecdotes of babies or adults living/or dying after receiving HAART in Africa. Question should be seen in the context of large cohort studies. I suggest to read the following meta study which show that even with HAART, DEATH is still a major risk of HIV+ patients in Subsaharian Africa !:

“ART programs in Africa have retained about 60% of their patients at the end of 2 y. Loss to follow-up is the major cause of attrition, followed by DEATH.”

Fom Sydney Rosen, Matthew P. Fox, Christopher J. Gill “Patient Retention in Antiretroviral Therapy Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review”, PLoS Medicine, Oct 2007, available online at:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040298

In addition with the need of prevention, and providing affordable treatment to everybody, the problem of toxicity of the drugs, which is also acute in Africa, is one of the variable that need to be seen in detail to solve HIV/AIDS in the region.

Posted by: Braganza | November 9, 2007 11:52 AM

“You have actually found something you can predict! congratulations!”

Posted by: pat | November 6, 2007 9:36 PM

____________________________________________________________

Adele and all the other real denialists on this blog are exceedingly astute with their predictions. How could you have missed that, Pat? All one has to do is look at the post history here at Aetiology to discern just how accurate and honest these bozos are, right?

For example, several months ago I attempted to have an intelligent discussion here at the Aetiology blog regarding the dire effects that the culture of corruption in the housing market would have on the US economy, even comparing that culture to the obvious culture of corruption that now defines most all scientific research that deals with human health. Of course, none of the hacks here were capable of discussing such a matter intelligently, but they were certainly quick to call me “paranoid” and/or a “conspiracy theorist”:

Kevin your paranoia is still expanding isn’t it? Like a bubble I think. Here’s a hint though to make your rants more believable. A “Ponzi scheme” is not the same thing as a bubble. The current housing market has been at a stand still for a few years slightly higher in some markets lower in others. If it crashes like if everyone loses half their value then we had a bubble. If it doesn’t its not even a bubble. And no way is it a Ponzi scheme even if it’s a bubble which is doubtful.

Kevin you’ve convinced everyone here you don’t know anything about HIV and you’re not interested in learning anything about it. Now your busy convincing us you’re a ignorant in other areas. If you make some better analogies though maybe you could get someone to take you seriously. Maybe but I doubt it. Good luck!

Good thing, I had Adele to set me straight on how I’m “ignorant in other areas”. How’s the housing market doing, Adele? Am I still a paranoid denialist? My predictions about the housing market and its effect on the US economy were way off, right guys?

Of course, Adele is one the dumber members of the pathetic collection of regular posters here, but the claims are always the same no matter which real denialist is making them. Rather than dealing with the facts, name-calling takes precedence over actual intelligent discussion. Instead, we, “denialists”, are all “paranoid” and “ignorant” and incapable of making sense of anything about the real world– all because we refuse to accept the HIV dogma that is masquerading as Science. Bullshit.

Before I return to the real “real” world, I’d like to make another book recommendation, in the off-chance that there actually are a few participants and/or readers here who are interested and concerned with the unfortunate direction that our country is taking. While I certainly still highly recommend “Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine”–particularly to those who remain incredulous as to how a “mistake” the caliber of HIV/AIDS could occur–I also highly recommend a more recent release that deals with America’s current problems with corruption. It is entitled “Are We Rome: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America”. While the title is a bit cliche, the book’s content is quite insightful. On point, the author notes that one of the most important similarities between Ancient Rome (the Empire, not the Republic) and the US is the rapid privatization of public institutions and how that precipitated the rapid decline of democratic institutions within the empire. America is headed to a similar end if our citizens continue to sell our collective interests to the highest bidder. For those of you working within biomedicine, if you open your eyes and assess the matter objectively, you cannot help but to see that pharmaceutical companies have way too much control over the direction of public health, and that the privatization of human health concerns have not been good for society, nor for Science. No matter how “advanced” our technology becomes, the impartial and objective use of that technology will remain a mirage, unless the extensive privatization of research is curtailed.

Lastly, here’s a look at my own attempt at making predictions copied verbatim from my posts earlier this summer. Unfortunately (for our country), unless you’ve all been living in a cave (Adele?) I think you’ll find that it’s hard to disagree with its accuracy; however, if someone here wants to disagree, I’d be happy to engage you as long as you leave the name-calling to hacks like Adele and Chris Noble…anyway, here was my prediction:

With that in mind, in an earlier thread, Adele, among others, accused me of being a wackjob for comparing the corruption responsible for the presently unwinding real estate bubble to the corruption responsible for the poor-quality health care available in the US. However, I have come to realize that Adele has plenty of company for most on this blog are far too meek to acknowledge any such similarities, even though they are easily identified. Like HIV, the recent “ponzi scheme” culture within real estate was a devastating mistake, primarily due to scale. Like HIV, it was all based on an illusion that the fundamentals no longer applied. Coming to terms with the truth will be very painful. This housing correction will jeopardize the stability of the entire global economy and the US economy will not be spared. In fact, we will suffer the most as the middle class has been virtually annihilated by the creation of this perverted “ownership society.” As the foreclosures mount, people will go from being homeowners to indentured servants, which perhaps will serve as a final wakeup call to all you with your heads in the sand (hello, Harold). However, I fear that it is too little too late to lessen the blow. Is it any wonder that our country’s future is indeed bleak when so many are so willing to accept lies as truth and profiteering as “science”. We are heading for a very deep bottom if we continue to ignore the importance of accountability in this age of unparalleled greed.

Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | November 9, 2007 12:07 PM

This is why the study going on in Africa is so important because LDN is not toxic and certainly is not expensive. This could solve many of their problems due to the effect upon the immune system, thus eliminating the need for antiretrovirals.

Posted by: Noreen | November 9, 2007 12:09 PM

Braganza, I don’t disagree with you when you say: “there is no solution of the problems of HIV/AIDS in the region without constructive engagement with the RSA government”.

What I said was: “So, no, I don’t see any way for anyone to have a meaningful dialog with the Mbeki regime, although I’m sure that some people in SA are still trying to do that.”

That statement is not inconsistent with yours; it simply expresses the difficulties in making what you want to happen actually happen. Dialog is, by definition, a two-way interchange. If you know of a way to persuade Mbeki to engage in a genuine dialog with AIDS professionals when his mind is focused on ensuring he clings to power after his Presidential term expires, then it would be good for you to act on your knowledge and make it happen.

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 12:09 PM

John,

I just have read your answer seconds ago (after writing my previous post) so thank you for your explanation.

I should say I dont have understood you before.

I still think that, if at the present moment you dont have channel to speak with Mbeki, you may have discussions with others people at others levels, and gradually have Mbeki support (he is, after all, endorsing the HIV/AIDS programme of his government) or the support of the future RSA president, whoever he is.

I also personally hope that Mandela may have a say in all this question, for the future of the region.

Posted by: Braganza | November 9, 2007 12:14 PM

Thanks, Adele, for your citation of our latest paper. I hope you found it of interest. If the trolls read it, I expect that will lead to the same kind of laughably inept deconstruction of its contents that happened when Anthony Liversidge attempted to interpret the meaning of one of my earlier papers on his Blog. All that proved to me was that the denialists were even more ignorant of the meaning of peer-reviewed science than I had ever suspected (in other words, I had been giving them way too much credit). Scientific ignorance underpins AIDS denialism, and is exemplified by the quality of the denialists’ postings on this site. It’s no wonder they ask the same questions over and over again, and then ignore the answers they don’t like – the reason is that they don’t understand the science, never have and never will. One might as well answer them in Swahili…….

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 12:35 PM

Braganza, if you know of a way to bring Mbeki to a serious discussion with serious people, I’m sure serious people would talk to him. Personally, I know of no way to accomplish this. But then I don’t live in South Africa, and really, that’s a task for those who do, or who have high level contacts there.
John

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 12:39 PM

Adele,
Talking to you is like getting involved in a cat fight during recess. I put that one there just for you.

“Oh and SO SHAWCKING Mbeki doesn’t think his minister got special treatment!! Will you tell us next Bush thinks there’s WMDs in Iraq, I guess it must be true then!!”

Relax. Read some editorials in SA, one of which I linked to. If you are going to make such sweaping allegations, please don’t be offended if someone might want to know more about it than you before building a guillotine. The problem with this is that there is no evidence for her jumping cue an thus this can only be slung around as heresay for political gain. Also, I am not denying her drinking, it is just that some seem to be under the impression it is the problem of a deranged person when in reality the alcohol problem affects people across the spectrum in SA. Do you think her drinking is the reason for her controvertial stances on HIV/AIDS? If you are going to drag someone’s private life into the limelight you better be able to make a connection with her professional performance otherwise you are nothing but a heckler throwing rotten vegetables from the cheapest seats in the house. Also you must take into consideration that the privacy of her medical records that are protected by law were violated and that someone is walking around SA going unpunished for it. So if you want to make illegal and unethical behavior stick…it better stick!

Besides, your commander in Chief said, “using whatever tactics are legally and ethically permissible.”

Was stealing her medical files legal? was spilling it out in public ethical?

“Ya know pat for a guy you said stopped being a scientist long ago JP Moores doing some damn fine science this month!!”

He should stick to what he knows best. He’s sure no fucking diplomat.

Moore:

“So, no, I don’t see any way for anyone to have a meaningful dialog with the Mbeki regime, although I’m sure that some people in SA are still trying to do that.”

As I implied. Some never give up the good fight while the rest go home and sulk and behave like general pests and spoilers. Yes, he is a politician and you dive into it like a bloody beginner; alot like Bush. He also likes to declare “war” on problems. Maybe we should be thankful that you don’t command actual weapons. People like you don’t help. People like you are polarizers, not rainmakers.

“AIDS science is indeed in a war with the AIDS denialists, and the denialist leadership is indeed being targeted, not by violence or by threats of violence, but by legal and moral methods intended to destroy their ability to influence vulnerable people who have been persuaded to make choices that damage their health and the health of others. It will take time to defeat all the denialist leadership, but it’s being done (as some of them have already found out) and, in the end, science and morality will crush pseudoscience and evil.”

- the rantings of a deluded soul.

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 12:53 PM

“Personally, I know of no way to accomplish this. But then I don’t live in South Africa, and really, that’s a task for those who do, or who have high level contacts there.
John”

I know of one way to begin. Perhaps you can simply be quiet and do your research and stop spoiling the work of those who are still trying to build dialogue. Sound ok with you?

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 1:01 PM

I am not sure who it was who came up with this objection, but someone was saying there were no elecron micrographs of HIV in human blood, I think? A Google Images search of “HIV electron micrograph” got me hundreds of images, most of which were HIV on the surface of blood cells or budding from T-cells.

Posted by: jen_m | November 9, 2007 1:07 PM

I am actually spoiling Braganza’s fine work.

motus et bouche cousue. A.

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 1:11 PM

“The meeting was led by Dr. Joel B. Baseman, a mycoplasma expert at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. He said the participants were ”very impressed with the quality of science that Dr. Lo’s group displayed.”

”The pathology data was solid and convinced us that the agent is in the tissues,” Dr. Baseman said. The ability of M. incognitus to cause a fatal wasting disease in monkeys and mice persuaded most participants that the microbe ”has the potential to cause disease in humans,”
Dr. joel Baseman new york times 1990

Thanks Aids establishment hacks for letting this microbe spread through the population, ruining my life, good work Tara and john, keep it up. Funny how hiv , hpv etc does zilch in animals, Kochs postulates turned upside down.

Read project day lily to find out how mycoplasma was part of the bioweapons program. True story slightly fictionilized, rave reviews from several scientists including a nobel laurete. What a nightmare, hiv might be harmless and this mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans is the only microbe to worry about………….

http://www.projectdaylily.com/

Posted by: cooler | November 9, 2007 1:11 PM

Braganza, I’m following your dialogue with John Moore but I’m not very familiar with AIDS in South Africa only to state that as a young child in the sixties, we all watched sick, thin and dying children from Africa on our tv sets. My question for you would be has anything really changed?

Several years ago I was diagnosed with AIDS, took the meds and had some side effects so I stopped them and found a better immune medicine. Since stopping the antiretrovirals, my viral load is high and CD4’s are low eighties yet I haven’t any AIDS defining diseases or opportunistic infections. I’m over 50, have a normal sex life and my husband is extremely healthy. MY VA doctors try to push drugs to me based on their test results but seem to be perplexed that I am doing so well. Clearly my symptoms are a much better indicator of my overall health then these test results. What do you think is going on?

Posted by: Noreen | November 9, 2007 1:17 PM

1) Are these from patients or from lab cultures? 2) Is there a study where a patient with a very high plasma viral load gets his/her blood looked under an electron microscope and you can actually see/corroborate the millions of viremia in the plasma? I really dont know and would like to see that experiment done to confirm this.

Or is duesberg correct when he says the viral load is created on a labratory bench?

Posted by: cooler | November 9, 2007 1:20 PM

Cooler, I too would like to know the answer to this. At my next appointment, I’m going to request that HIV be cultured and see how far I get with this request. It certainly would go farther to present their case than viral load tests. If HIV is in my body, then I would like to see it. Medical tests can be flawed. I have been told three different times that I have antibodies to Hep and at the last testing last month, the tests showed no antibodies to Hep B or Hep C. With unreliable tests, what is the patient to believe?

Posted by: Noreen | November 9, 2007 1:40 PM

Pat arguing with you is like cleaning up mercury with your fingers. It doesn’t work and it makes you stupid.

You say Moore isn’t a scientist. I show you his latest paper. Then you say science is what he does best. Sheesh.

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 1:42 PM

“You say Moore isn’t a scientist. I show you his latest paper. Then you say science is what he does best. Sheesh.”

Everything flies above your head. Is it because you are sitting down? He has to decide what he wants and he admits himself that he doesn’t know what to do with Mbeki so he shouldn’t try because he is no fucking diplomat. He is a trained scientist and so should do what he “does best”. Got that? This “war on denial” is all in his head. He even imagines camps and “the” leadership. He needs chill pills.

Posted by: pat | November 9, 2007 1:48 PM

Noreen
as a young child in the sixties, we all watched sick, thin and dying children from Africa on our tv sets. My question for you would be has anything really changed?

As a young child in the seventies I saw pictures of people killed in Vietnam. In drivers ed we saw pictures of people killed in car accidents. The bodies looked the same. So vietnam war never happened there was just alot of car crashes?

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 1:55 PM

Noreen, I think you probably won’t get very far asking your providers to furnish electromicrographs of HIV in your blood, just because most care settings aren’t equipped to send samples for EM (that is particularly true of VA, which is pretty restricted in terms of testing.) But it can’t hurt to ask, and probably you are overdue to have a conversation with your health care providers about how the tests they use actually work, and what the drawbacks and advantages are. (My experience with VA healthcare suggests that providers are pretty rushed, especially in the clinics. But stand on your rights as a patient, and make them take the time you need.)

Cooler and Noreen: no, to the best of my knowledge there isn’t a side-by-side comparison of viral load to electron micrograph (EM) visualization of HIV particles. That’s probably because EM isn’t the standard to determine the presence of HIV.

I’m no expert in nucleic acid amplification testing (a family of tests including HIV-1 viral load tests) but my understanding is that the calibration of the test is based on titrated samples of HIV DNA (and negative controls containing test reagents without HIV DNA). So there’s a direct comparison between a known quantity of viral DNA and the sample extracted from the patient’s blood.

Posted by: jen_m | November 9, 2007 2:35 PM

Adele, I wouldn’t bother trying to hold any form of interchange with “pat”. He or she is a fool who isn’t even able to read what another poster writes without misunderstanding the words and drawing wild and inaccurate conclusions. The only difference between pat and the other trolls on this site (cooler, michael, jspreen) is that Pat can type and spell with at least moderate competence; otherwise the mindset is the same. Your mercury allusion is rather good.

John

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 3:02 PM

Whatever john, you cant even spell correctly, you make fun of other scientists while they die of cancer, and you deny people informed consent when it comes to their health. You can’t defend a single one of your zany views publicly, I mean look at what a fool Ive made of you guys, there isnt one EM picture from a patient’s plasma confirming these high viral loads.

Funny how Dr. Joel Baseman was so impressed with shyh ching Lo’s work, and his ability for mycoplasma incognitus to produce a fatal wasting disease in mice and monkeys, he reccomended further funding, and your hiv hack pals like Fauci sabotoged it and almost killed me and many others. Hiv, hpv etc does zilch in animals

Project day lily google it. True story slightly fictionilized, written by 2 of the top cancer reserachers, Garth and Nancy Nicolson phds rave reviews from several scientists, including a nobel laurete. Part of the bioweapons program, thats why a military scientist Lo knew so much about it.

Posted by: cooler | November 9, 2007 3:19 PM

The latest edition of the International AIDS Society Newsletter contains a feature article entitled “AIDS in South Africa”, as well as a short review of Nicoli Nattrass’s book “Mortal Combat”. The Newsletter can be downloaded via:

http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/Newsletters/2007_11_IAS_Newsletter.pdf

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 3:37 PM

Ya know pat for a guy you said stopped being a scientist long ago JP Moores doing some damn fine science this month!!

Correction: somebody added Moore’s name to the list. Ye know, if a publication is not subscribed by at least 6 peer revewiers (read inbred critics), it is not science today. But if you ask for my opinion, I think that all J. Pee Moore has achieved this month is write silly messages on the web and declare war on people who still own something like a working brain. What kind of professor is that, anyway? A “Holy Inquisition” lackey, that’s what he is.

You know, Copernicus was not opposed to by the clergy, as many people think, but by scientists. By the JPeeMoore kind of scientists. I know exactly how Copernicus must have felt: like I do myself when I read “professor” Moore’s contributions to health care.

Posted by: jspreen | November 9, 2007 3:59 PM

Noreen -

You should be able to request HIV cultures in some form, such as phenotypic drug resistance testing for example. HIV culture is sometimes performed for difficult diagnoses (e.g. indeterminate WB results, neonatal infection etc).

You are unlikely to find a center able or willing to culture and then do an HIV EM however, if you want to “see” the virus.

The fact that you appear to have lost antibody responses to a virus is actually kinda worrying. It has been known for some time that loss of pre-existing antibody responses is a sign of end-stage AIDS, and your CD4 counts fit with that. It’s not the test that is unreliable, but rather your immune system…

I would recommend seeing an HIV doc for therapy, or PCP prophylaxis at least, as well as for your concerns about culture.

Good luck, all the best.

Bennett

Posted by: Bennett | November 9, 2007 4:23 PM

Bennett, I must respectfully disagree with you as for almost 1 1/2 years my cd4’s have been low yet I do not have one disease that is commont to AIDS persons. In other words, if I were HIV- then the doctors would think that I”m in great shape. Think about this, we HIV+’s have antibodies to HIV, which according to classic medicine is a wonderful thing to have. Antibodies means the virus has long come and gone and is nowhere to be found as is my illusive Hepatitis antibodies.

Posted by: Noreen | November 9, 2007 4:48 PM

antibodies to HIV, which according to classic medicine is a wonderful thing to have.

You mean according to Peter Duesberg. Good news I guess my antibodies to Varicella mean I don’t ever get shingles?? Great!! Nothing to worry about!!

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 5:11 PM

Noreen,

I only wish what you said about antibodies were true. Unfortunately, Duesberg stated it to be true many years ago (despite all the evidence to the contrary) and the myth has persisted since. Speaking as someone trained in “classic medicine” I can tell that that I was never told that antibodies were “wonderful things to have”, nor that they meant a pathogen had come and gone. I don’t know who told you that, but they were either mistaken or deliberately lying to you. I can’t put it any plainer than that.

All antibodies have ever meant (and I’m not talking about IgM classes here, to clarify) is exposure to an antigen – be it a pathogen, an allergen or whatever. For pathogens that are acutely cleared (e.g. bacterial infections, the common cold) antibodies mean exposure and cure. For pathogens that are chronic (herpes, mono, HIV) antibodies mean life-long infection. It has always been the case, and Duesberg should have known better. I find it incredibly sad that people, such as yourself, are being told these things by Duesberg’s followers decades after the mistake was pointed out (and it was, in public) and should have been retracted.

Low CD4 counts are a RISK for opportunistic infections, in the same way as if you roll dice there is a RISK of rolling snake-eyes. If you don’t get exposed to them, you’ll do fine, and if the average time to get sick from an OI even with low CD4 counts is around a year or two then of course there will be people who do it quicker and slower. You’re not unusual in that respect, and I hope you stay that way!!

My concern would be that if you have recently got documented loss of antibody responses to one infection, it is likely that you may have undocumented loss of responses to other infections that you were exposed to (say, as a kid or through vaccinations). That means that should you get exposed to the pathogen, you are more likely to get sick. Of all the OI’s that can get you really sick, PCP is one that is relatively preventable with prophylaxis – which is why I would recommend talking to your doctor about it. HIV be damned, in any person with a vulnerable immune system (e.g. high-dose long-term steroids, anti-cancer therapy etc) PCP is worth trying to prevent. Your CD4 count is about 10% of the normal, which by any stretch of the imagination can’t be a good thing to be wandering around with (it would be similar to having a platelet count of 20 for example, or a hemoglobin of 1.4….)

The question you have to ask yourself is “why are my CD4 T cell 10% of normal?” Either you were born that way (in which case you deserve to be written up as someone who has remarkably managed to survive with what looks like a crippled immune system, on paper) or it was acquired. An Acquired Immune Deficiency. Hmm.

Anyhow, if I can’t convince you, that’s your choice. But I beg you to think about what I’ve said, and the fact that what you are describing is ENTIRELY consistent with “classic medicine” (whatever that may be and the understanding we have of HIV and AIDS. I don’t debate one-on-one with AIDS dissidents any more, but I am concerned about an individual person who appears to be at risk of getting sick, and is listening to AIDS denialism. That’s why I’m posting, for what its worth.

Stay well

Cheers

Bennett

Posted by: Bennett | November 9, 2007 5:33 PM

Noreen, Your comment “Antibodies means the virus has long come and gone and is nowhere to be found” is simply untrue. The antibody response to HIV infection does very little to control HIV replication once the virus has become established in the body post transmission. Once infection is established, the virus is present in the immune system’s cells for the rest of your life. What the denialists have persuaded you to believe is simply nonsense, and its very, very dangerous to your survival. Your reference to “classic medicine” is disturbing. HIV causes persistent infection, and that differs from many (but not all) viruses that “classic medicine” is familiar with. The fact is that you have ongoing, high level HIV replication taking place in your body right now, and it is causing inexorable and progressive immune system destruction. Bennett is correct: the loss of your antibody responses to HCV and HBV is a very disturbing sign of how your immune system is being destroyed by HIV. You may well also be losing your immune responses to other pathogens, leaving you at increased risk of opportunistic infections (antibodies to some pathogens can prevent the establishment of new infections). You are healthy now, but it’s just a matter of time before the degradation of your immune system will cause you very, very serious health problems. The survival time for people with HIV infection and CD4 counts below 100 is limited; it varies from person to person, but you are in grave danger of death during the coming year.

You need to get better health care advice than you have received in the past. I could probably arrange for you to be seen by top HIV specialists at a leading medical center (depending on where you live). Tara can put you in direct touch with me. I urge you to do that, as that phone call could literally save your life.

I’m going to ignore every (and predictable) denialist response to this posting; this is about saving someone’s life, not about a Blog.

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 5:44 PM

Noreen like pat says we fight like cats some times but I’m worried about you too and I hope you take dr. moore and dr. bennett’s advice. They know alot more about HIV then Peter Duesberg. We all want you to have a good long life not be a victim from a stupid virus they control with good treatments now.

Posted by: Adele | November 9, 2007 6:06 PM

Bennett and John, First I really wanted to hear from Braganza, who seemed like a voice of reason on this blog. I can’t stand how you people throw the word “denalist” around. Am I a denialist, just because my health is fine by quitting the antiretrovirals more than 21 months ago? I don’t think it’s written in stone that we should have one-size-fits all in medicine. Perhaps, the antiretrovirals work for some people, that’s fine. But they don’t work for me – other than causing pain, symptoms, abnormal lab work and discomfort.
As for antibodies, I always thought that when measles, mumps, hepatits, etc. has come and gone, odds were that I would never have them again, only the antibodies. Also, low CD4’s seem to be meaningless. I would think that you would concede this point as myself and many others are living this truth. Again, regardless of test results, I am in good health. I’m not too keen on changing my routines. Maybe you would admit that there is something to LDN, a cheap drug , which is helping to modualte the immune system. My blood and liver enzymes are now normal and I am no longer anemic after stopping the AIDS drugs. How do you explain this?

As for John’s offer to refer me to the top so-called AIDS specialist, you know I am more than willing to accept. I’ll talk to anyone about this. I’m pretty open-minded. But I would like an AIDS doctor to explain why my health is good inspite of all these terrible numbers. John says I’m in grave danger of death the coming year. But, they’ver been saying this for nearly a couple of years and I’m still fine. So is my husband. I still would like to hear Brazanza’s opinion.

Posted by: noreen | November 9, 2007 7:55 PM

I dont understand jp moores philosophy, he beleives people like Noreen and I are despicable scum for believing some of Duesberg’s arguments, were stupid, worthless, crazy, so why is extending so much compassion for someone who is in a group he has deemed worthless to society?

Maybe if you didnt have such hatred for people who have different views than you, they would listen to you more, why would anybody listen to someone who calls you a “denialist” “loon” etc. Looks like JP moores name calling has come back to slap him in the face. If hiv does cause aids there is a much more civil way to express it, and don’t try and be someones savior when youve insulted the group their in repeatedly, even if you’re right, its not an effective way to convince others.

Posted by: cooler | November 9, 2007 8:10 PM

Bennett, if you are a M.D. then I would encourage you to investigate LDN at the lowdosenaltrexone.org website or better yet talk with Dr. Gluck, Bihari or Zagon. You might even listen to those who take this wonder drug. You and others have the power to change lives for the better. I have found a better way to health, regardless of where you all stand on what causes AIDS.

John, since I have had the following I don’t think that you can put any fear into my brain: cancer and its terrible treatments, hepatitis, bladder damage causing cystitis, allergic reactions, cellulitis(twice), welts, pinched nerves, herniated discs, GERD, osteoporosis, diarrhea, memory loss, night sweats, unsteady gait, cold sores, dizziness, weight loss, hair loss, Epstein Barr, abnormal grey matter in brain (PML or encephalitis),lymphadenopathy causing severe breathing problems, tachycardia, high chloesterol, two hypodensities in the liver, dilated bile duct, fatty deplaced liver, anemia, low platelets, mono, kidney stone, tinnitis, mercury and lead toxicity, pain issues and chronic fatigue.

I have been prescribed over 25 drugs in a two year period. I have had a lifetime of conditions, which had caused my poor health. Finally, I received a proper diagnosis of what has been causing the majority of my problems, which is fibromyalgia not HIV. All things considered, either I am a walking miracle or the LDN has been my lifesaver.

Posted by: Noreen | November 9, 2007 9:33 PM

Apparently Tara closed the “Denialism they don’t remember” thread, so I must resort to putting a response to other posts here.

Thank you Chris Noble for at least having the courtesy of responding to my lengthy post from a couple weeks ago.

Chris Noble said:

“As usual Drain [sic] Brown totally misunderstands the nature of the problem. It is encumbent upon the Denialists to demonstrate to the scientific community that any of their theories have any merit.”

What a load of horseshit. YOU’RE the ones spending billions of dollars. YOU’RE the ones pumping people full of highly toxic ARVs. YOU’RE the ones instilling terror in people. YOU’RE the ones calling on people to be fired and hoping their careers be ruined. What a load of horseshit.

I’ve been looking for ELEVEN years to find ANY justification for what you people are doing. I haven’t found an acceptable answer yet. Yes, it’s true I’ve been supplied with a few papers ON OCCASION such as Chris Noble did above, but none of these even come close to establishing causation. Apologists would say it’s because I “don’t understand the science” or “don’t understand the papers”. I say it’s because the papers don’t prove what you say they do. And I’m willing to put my reputation and career on the line to take it to the people to let them decide for themselves and let them take away power away from the establishment which is the only way this entire affair will ever end. This is a political problem, 100%, and political revolution is the only solution.

“Denialists suffer from the delusion that the world revolves around them.”

I don’t think the world revolves around ANYone.

“There are plenty of cranks on the internet demanding that people prove Einstein’s relativity to them.”

Which is entirely irrelevant to this.

“Duesberg and Bialy have demonstrated that they will ignore any evidence presented to them.”

What evidence?? For gods sake don’t say Ascher or Schecter or Darby. Really, Chris, you’re like a friggin broken record.

In my estimation, apologists have demonstrated that THEY will ignore any evidence presented to THEM: Piatak, Padian, Rodriguez, and so on. Yes, I know there are “responses” to each of these (usually some form of childish taunting on AIDStruth or somewhere else, the equivalent of “nanny-nanny-nanny, YES SO YES SO YES SO, well I triple-dog-dare you, what about that??”), eventually it will be left both to those scientists who work outside HIV or aren’t emotionally attached to it, or finally to the general public to recognize how shitty and pathetic the orthodox responses to them have been. As I’ve pointed out before, the main reasons there is such a consensus at the moment are:

1. Financial (money at stake)
2. Cultural (science is as much a society/culture as anything else, you’re brought up into it)
3. Political (pressure to conform, with severe consequences for those who don’t)
4. Emotional/Social (doctors can’t give up HIV because it would diminish the priestly role over life and death they’ve acquired in the past several decades)
5. Saving face (self-explanatory)

There are cases in the literature where scientists and doctors literally HALLUCINATED evidence for disease causation. They were certain at the time that they were seeing “evidence” for such causation, but in time, it was shown their notions were completely wrong and their interpretations and observations entirely a product of their mental state and loss of touch with reality.

As long as these forces are in place among those in power in science and medicine, HIV will continue to mesmerize the minds of medical scientists just as ecclesiastic and religious debates about angels on the head of a pin and requirements for salvation mesmerized the religious elite for centuries, and they will be powerless to see reality in front of their face.

It will also continue to hold political sway. The HIV hypothesis is purely, 100% a POLITICAL problem, NOT a scientific problem. The evidence was non-existent 20-25 years ago, and it’s even less existent now.

Since the HIV hypothesis is purely a political problem, POLITICAL INTERFERENCE is the ONLY solution to this problem. The people MUST take power away from those holding this PHENOMENON in place. This is why this issue MUST be taken to the PEOPLE. The people are not emotionally wed to the hypothesis, and they will recognize the enormous chasm between the hypothesis and reality sooner than anyone else.

“I could go through and find some of these key papers, for instance Jay Levy’s isolation of ARV in 1984 that replicated Gallo’s and Montagniers work, Weiss’s demonstration that HIV binds to receptors on CD4+ cells. There are several other key papers published in this time period. These are what convinced the scientific community.”

Let it be written for posterity that Chris Noble offered the following papers published between May 1984 and October 1986 as proof of the HIV hypothesis:

1. Montagnier’s paper — a paper which even Montagnier at the time didn’t think proved anything re: causation

2. Gallo’s 4 Science papers — where HIV could only be “isolated” in 26 of 72 “AIDS” patients, and in which HIV could only be “isolated” by stimulating cell cultures with IL-2 and PHA and detecting certain phenomena ASSUMED to be proof of the presence of a retrovirus, hardly proof of anything

3. Levy’s “isolation” of ARV — again, HIV could only be “isolated” in 22 of 45 patients with AIDS, only marginally more “frequent” (!) than Gallo’s attempt

These 3 papers are completely laughable in establishing causation. The best that can be said is that after taking cells from AIDS patients and subjecting them to enormous mitogenic stimulation, SOME of them began producing effects INTERPRETED by SOME as evidence of an infectious exogenous retrovirus.

How on earth this proves ANYthing is beyond me. All it’s saying is [assuming "isolation" is really "isolation"], “Look! We ‘isolated’ HIV from a fraction of ‘AIDS’ patients! It must be the cause!!”

What a friggin joke. If this is your idea of the foundation upon which to devote $2 US billion per annum and a massive educational campaign, you’ve got one more screw loose than I thought.

4. Weiss demonstration that HIV binds to receptors on CD4 cells — despite the fact we now know that almost all “HIV particles” lack the gp120 spikes supposedly necessary to “bind” to CD4 cells, rendering them essentially non-infectious and therefore pathogenically irrelevant

Nice try, Chris. But I have to at least give you enormous credit for offering a response at all.

“Dairn [sic] also ignores several papers such as those by Ascher et al, Schechter et al and Darby et al that have specifically dealt with and refuted Duesberg’s claims.”

Oh, give me a break. Duesberg’s responses to all 3 of these are out there for anyone to read on the internet and make up their own mind. Schechter, if I recall, wouldn’t even share his god-damn data, rendering the entire study completely worthless on that point alone.

Even if one grants the studies prove what they say (and I’m not granting that), all 3 of these are purely epidemiological studies. All they prove is a correlation at best. Alone, they don’t prove the HIV hypothesis at all. I’m almost embarrassed explaining this to you.

It all comes down to what I wrote almost 2 years ago in the magnificent pipedream (a document that is still extremely instructive and would be to relative newcomers to this blog, simply go to Harvey’s page and scroll down to “a magnificent pipedream” under “insurgency blogging”):

“The epidemiology is supposedly used to justify the biological ‘quest’ for how HIV kills T cells or causes ‘AIDS’, yet at the same time, the epidemiology REQUIRES some kind of biological justification to move itself from beyond the realm of epidemiological surveillance tool and into the realm of gestalt diagnosis. The biology is supposed to justify the epidemiology, yet at the same time, the epidemiology is supposed to justify the biology. Another example of the ubiquitous circular logic of ‘AIDS science’. Caveat emptor.”

All of your “epidemiological” (I put that word in parentheses given in my own experience — granted, primarily with HIV/AIDS — that its illogical practices strain the label of “scientific discipline” to its limits) “evidence” is based on WHAT?? HIV ANTIBODY TESTS?? And what are the antibody tests based upon? Proof that the HIV tests are sensitive and specific for HIV. Which is itself based upon some clear knowledge of what the hell “HIV” is in the first place. If your BIOLOGICAL understanding of the nature of “HIV” is all screwed up, then all the epidemiological evidence in the world is just being misinterpreted at best or contrived at worst. It all comes down to what I was taught as a mathematician — YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND YOUR BASIC DEFINITIONS AND NOTIONS FIRST or else all the rest of your thinking will be completely nonsensical.

Likewise, the biological “evidence” in these early papers is entirely based on the notion that HIV is sexually transmitted and that “AIDS” is a coherent infectious disease. Who in their right MIND — without ALREADY accepting the notion that HIV and AIDS are both infectious and sexually transmitted would for a second consider Montagnier, Gallo, and Levy’s papers as proof of JACK SQUAT???

“If science worked the way that Denialists pretend then we would still be trying to convince phogiston proponents that oxygen exists.”

What a load of crap. The problem is not that science “works a certain way”, it’s that scientists are human like everyone else, and once the scientific process gets off on false branch of reasoning (which it inevitably will at times), the process of science itself will force science down that false branch of reasoning unless some external force is applied to make it conform more to reality. The process of hypothesis generation, experimentation, observation, and modification only works if all agents are allowed to pursue all avenues of investigation. When one narrow branch is pursued and all others completely cut off, IF that branch happens to be wrong, then the scientific process will continue working away and away, generating ad hoc hypotheses and further explanations and more and more branches in all and every conceivable direction will shoot off, desperately trying to “find” the branch of reality that has been cut off. As Feyerabend said, “VARIETY OF OPINION IS NECESSARY FOR OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE.” And the variety of opinion was certainly cut off prematurely in 1984-86, and the result has been predictable.

Trrll offered the following in response to my question (again, such response is appreciated):

“It is likely that much of the work that convinced people in the field was not actually published by that time. What typically occurs when a hot result is published is that labs all over the world jump on it and start trying to replicate it and extend it. After a year and a half, little of that work will have been published, but scientists in the field will be talking to one another about it, and will have a good idea of whether other labs are able to confirm it. So all of the people actually working in the field will know if the ‘buzz’ is favorable or unfavorable, and this is one point at which a new theory can collapse. So it is hardly surprising that after 17 months there was general agreement among virologists that the evidence for the virus was strong enough to support a major effort. Then there is a second phase in which those results are published, and begin to convince clinicians and scientists who are working on other aspects of the disease. [Followed by a link to the ever-popular NIAID/NIH "factsheet"]”

and later

“By ‘buzz,’ I am referring to the less formal communications between scientists that precede formal publication. Scientists in a field generally have a good idea whether a research direction is proving fruitful before the papers come out. Considering the potential importance of the discovery, everybody jumped on it, trying to reproduce and extend the results. This often happens in science when there is a possible breathrough. If the follow-up studies fail, then everybody drops that direction en masse, and the blip in funding dies out quickly. It is not a matter of faith — it is a matter of following up a potentially important result to find out whether it is valid or a blind alley as quickly as possible. And as we know, the follow-up studies supported the initial findings, and the rest is history.”

and from another post:

“There are many points at which the HIV hypothesis could have faltered based on subsequent work: if Duesberg’s original claims that HIV was not present in many AIDS patients had been confirmed once sensitive PCR tests had become available, if people had been found to mount an effective immune response to HIV as Duesberg claimed, if anti-HIV drugs had not been found to postpone the onset of AIDS in clinical trials and in the practical experience of AIDS doctors, if a plausible mechanism for HIV infection of cells of the immune system had not been found, etc., etc.”

This forms the ENTIRE extent (unless I’ve missed something, do point out) of Trrll’s “response” to my query for what convinced the IOM to devote $2 US billion per annum in the name of the HIV hypothesis.

WHAT A LOAD OF ****ING HORSESHIT.

REALLY, HOW CAN ANY OF YOU PEOPLE READ THIS ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC CRAP WITH A STRAIGHT FACE?? WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE READING THIS BLOG?????????

Meanwhile, “ElkMountain” (whoever he/she is) offers the following wonderfully insightful commentary on the nature of scientific process:

“Think about the denialist fantasy of what really happened in the 1980s. What if it were true that two or three labs misled the entire world with nothing more than correlations? What if your IOM was premature with its statement? What if?… Answer: everyone involved in the scam would have been sliced to pieces, their careers ruined, mercilessly and within a few years, by hordes of skeptical scientists. And if there was a ‘gravy train’ in play, then doubly. With nothing more than correlation supporting HIV and AIDS, rival scientists would have found a more plausible explanation, double-time, and steered all the money into their own labs…. Instead, the hordes of skeptical scientists, to the disappointment of many of them, could only confirm the HIV link to AIDS again and again. Thousands of experiments later, there still is no alternative explanation for AIDS that holds up in the lab… If any rethinker reading this has a better explanation for AIDS, don’t keep it to yourself. Experiment, support, and publish, and you will become the most famous scientist of our time.”

And then we have “Dr. Duke” from the complete outer edges of the universe, claiming Callen and Ashe never took recreational or pharmaceutical drugs (WTFF???) or that they claimed this themselves (WRONG on both counts, as anyone even REMOTELY familiar with ANYthing knows):

“HIV-infected people such as Michael Callen and Arthur Ashe who lead very ‘clean’ and healthy lives, died of AIDS… My point was that…denialists simply ‘rethink’ the issue and declare that Michael Callen must have been lying about his healthy lifestyle”

Then the Small Inquisitor proceeds to offer the following VIRTUOSIC double-talk and side-stepping that would make even Bill “it depends what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” Clinton proud as a peacock:

“That NY Press article was published BEFORE the LA Coroner’s report into the death of Ms Maggiore’s daughter became publicly available. That report proves that MS Maggiore is HIV-infected because it shows that her daughter died of AIDS, with p24 antigens detected in her brain tissues (I think it is safe to discount the incredibly unlikely possibility that the daughter acquired her HIV infection from any source other than her mother). Once the LA Coroner’s report became available, it therefore provided solid medical evidence on the HIV infection status of Ms Maggiore, evidence that outweighs Ms Maggiore’s own, and conflicting public statements on the issue.”

And Chris again:

“How can you ignore the natural history studies that show a much higher mortality in people that are infected with HIV?”

as if Chris has never even HEARD of the perth group

Really, I’m serious. I don’t know WHAT the **** is the problem with you people.

The posts on this blog have gone beyond attempts at scientific discussions or even political rantings or even ill-mannered personal attacks, and have entered the realm of HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS for future generations to ponder over the absolutely stunningly pathetic statements made here.

darin

Posted by: Darin Brown | November 9, 2007 10:20 PM

Hi Noreen,

The word “denialist” is used to describe what used to be called AIDS dissidents – I personally use the terms interchangeably having been following this whole sad debacle for so long. The change I think came about because after a decade or more of trying to educate the dissidents, they continued to refuse to accept the science – they denied the evidence.

I would make a great distinction between someone like yourself who is living with HIV seeking answers, and someone trying to GIVE you the wrong answers.

I think your opinions of medicine are skewed – no-one I know in medicine thinks “one size fits all”, least of all in HIV. It is unfortunate that you’ve suffered from the meds without any apparent benefit. The overall evidence for groups of thousands of patients is that antiretroviral therapy prolongs life, prevents OI’s and death. Among that group some will do spectacularly well, some will do badly. At the outset it’s impossible to predict with certainty who will fall into what category – although you can make educated guesses based upon more data as you go. For example, after HAART was introduced evidence accumulated that starting meds too late (e.g. counts under 200) resulted in less recovery of the immune system (as measured by CD4 counts, antibody responses, killer T cell responses etc). However, evidence also accumulated that starting at higher counts (e.g. 500) didn’t result in much benefit either, as those people weren’t at a significantly increased risk of OI’s in the first place. This is why guidelines currently recommend starting somewhere around 350.

Regarding antibodies – mumps and measles are the classic acute infections that have life-long immunity. RSV or rotavirus on the other hand are acute infections that don’t induce life-long immunity. Hepatitis A is an acute infection, but hepatitis B and C are chronic infections in some instances. Even that can change – 90% of neonatally infected kids with hep B become chronic, whereas the same is true of only 10% of adults. About 50% of hep C infections become chronic. In these situations other tests are required to check for ongoing infection (antigen testing, PCR etc). In infections like EBV (mono) the antibody pattern can be used to distinguish between acute, chronic and latent infection. None of this is new, or high tech, and all of it was known when Duesberg make his stupid statements. He had this pointed out to him and STILL continued to say the same things. Saying something that is untrue repeatedly doesn’t make it true, but it does convince and confuse a lot of people.

CD4 counts are not meaningless because the evidence shows the increased risk (NOT CERTAINTY REMEMBER!) of getting sick. Here’s a good bit of evidence:

http://www.retroconference.org/2001/posters/203.pdf

Figure 4 shows the following: in the people they studied with counts over 350 there were 2 deaths per 100 person-years. In people with 50-100 CD4 T cells per ul there were 15 deaths per 100 person-years (so, out of 100 people 15 would die in a single year). With counts under 25 half of the group died each year. That still means that half survived, but it doesn’t mean that the counts were “meaningless” in those people, and in the same way your count isn’t meaningless in you – it means you’re at a much higher risk than I am. How you play those odds is up to you.

Evidence from non-HIV related PCP also shows a relationship with low CD4 counts.

http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/3/712

The abstract ends with “These data suggest that for immunosuppressed persons without HIV infection (especially in low or undefined PCP risk groups), CD4 + counts may be a useful clinical marker to identify specific individuals at particularly high clinical risk for PCP and may help to guide chemoprophylaxis.”

This makes sense biologically. CD4 cells are the lynchpins of the immune system – they act as the go-between for antigen-presenting cells (that tell the immune system something is there) and antibody producing B cells and CD8 killer T cells. This is why in HIV infection there are dysfunctions seen in both B cell and killer T cell responses.

A very interesting, but long, study is at:

http://www.statepi.jhsph.edu/macs/dossier/MACS%20Dossier.pdf

Page 59 is interesting. It shows the percentage of people who died over time from various timepoints – it clearly shows improved survival in the HAART era. This study, the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, has over a million blood samples from men and women enrolled prospectively from the 1980’s. Some were already HIV+, some became HIV+ over time. Some were of course untreated, some were partially treated, some got HAART. Contrary to EVERYTHING the dissidents argue, antiretroviral therapy is associated with a lower risk of death.

This is why John and I are hoping you’ll get help, because of evidence like this. You tell your own story, but we’re telling the story of tens of thousands of similar people. If you’ve had serious issues with the meds, you need to talk options over with someone who can offer options that might alleviate these problems.

I can’t speak on behalf of John, but from the interactions I’ve had with him he is terribly upset at the AIDS denialists, the core denialsts, who have promoted this BS and continue to do so. It’s hard to find a reason why some of these people are doing it without attributing either willful ignorance (i.e. they are choosing not to be educated) or some kind of weird agenda. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, but from my personal interactions with people like Duesberg and the Perth Group I find it difficult to comprehend why they ignore the evidence that contradicts them and misrepresent the evidence that is supposed to support their case. Cherry-picking and lying are the actions needed to support AIDS denialism. The antibody story is an example of both:

e.g. “Mumps, measles etc all are cured with antibody production and I’m going to ignore the example of herpes, mono, hepatitis B etc[cherry picking], so all viruses are cured with antibody production [lying]” That is EXACTLY what Duesberg did, and no-one can argue it any other way. The same pattern is used through EVERY AIDS denialist argument. I have no idea why – I’m not in their heads. All I can do is point out the errors, the cherry-picking and the lying, and let the readers such as yourself make up your minds.

I’m happy to answer any further questions – probably easier to go to email. njb35@cantab.net.

Cheers

Bennett

Posted by: Bennett | November 9, 2007 10:46 PM

Cooler, your assessment of what I think of you is the first accurate thing you have ever said on this Blog. However, your assessment of what I think of Noreen is as inaccurate and foolish as every other post that you ever made here.

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 11:36 PM

Noreen, my offer to try to find an HIV specialist physician for you to consult still stands. Tara knows my contact details and I have asked her to pass them to you upon request. I feel sure that if you ask him to, Bennett would also talk to you one on one.
John

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 11:40 PM

A recent article in Science about HIV vaccines

The failure of a promising AIDS vaccine in a large human trial, dubbed STEP, has stunned researchers and raised concerns about the broader T-cell vaccine concept and the future of AIDS vaccine research and development.

It certainly didn’t “stun” me. The quest for a vaccine is a FAILURE.

Do microbicides fare any better?

Here’s an article from July this year

Investigators remain puzzled about why a supposedly safe anti-HIV microbicidal gel turned out to increase the risk of HIV in women who used it.

Using the microbicide increased, not decreased, the risk of HIV. The quest for a microbicide is a FAILURE.

John Moore explains it nicely in Seed Magazine.

You always have to plan for failure in the HIV game,” said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University.

Vaccines & Microbicides: Failure
Wasting Tax-payer money: Success

Posted by: John Givens | November 9, 2007 11:44 PM

Moore, I’m sorry you lack critical thinking skills and are too stupid to understand your own dogma. Noreen is a denialist, she has repeatedly doubted the hiv hypothesis, so by your definition she is worthless to society, as am I.
Dont create desultory sanctimonious excuses to dig yourself out of your lies and double standards. (”All denialists are stupid and worthless, but when it suits me and makes me look good then they are not.”)

Is everybody at Cornell as dumb as you are?

Posted by: cooler | November 10, 2007 12:08 AM

great post Darin, these people are mad. They tried to kill me and countless others by ignoring the military’s cheif infectious disease pathologist shyh ching lo’s md phd mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans.

Every animal he inoculated it with died, and he found in no healthy controls. He found it to be the cause of death in 6 people that died of mysterious infections. I was sick for years without a diagnosis, and am on the mend. (refrences in lonliness causes aids thread)

These people are enemies of informed consent and want people to to only hear views that are endorsed by drug companies or crooked politicians like Fauci.

Posted by: cooler | November 10, 2007 12:27 AM

1987: New York Times — AIDS Vaccine: Relentless Questions

EVEN as scientific understanding of the AIDS virus advances, researchers working to develop an AIDS vaccine continue to be plagued by severe practical and ethical dilemmas.

1993: New York Times –Little Progress Seen in Effort to Crack AIDS Puzzle.

“Our progress seems desperately slow,” Dr. Michael H. Merson, the director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS program, said at the close of the weeklong meeting.

2007: New York Times — In Tests, AIDS Vaccine Seems to Increase Risk

“The new analyses are both disappointing and puzzling” because they offer no explanation for the vaccine’s failure, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a partner in the vaccine trial.

After Billions spent in research, we have more than 2 decades of utter failure. Anyone seeing a pattern?

Posted by: John Givens | November 10, 2007 12:29 AM

You are healthy now, but it’s just a matter of time before the degradation of your immune system will cause you very, very serious health problems. The survival time for people with HIV infection and CD4 counts below 100 is limited; it varies from person to person, but you are in grave danger of death during the coming year.

Hey Johnny Wishbone Moore MD(?), was that a threat or just an expression of your pious hopes?

I need to know because I have archived this statement along with your many other abuses of freedom of speech. Expect another letter to your university about these issues very soon.

In the meantime, I suppose you consider yourself a ranking scientist, somebody who has a superior obligation not to disseminate misleading information regarding clinical conditions, so can you tell me the basis for your statement; did you consult Noreen’s medical records, viral load-HIV correlation, your Tarot deck? Tea leaves? macaque familiar?

PS, I liked your “this war was thrust upon us”, and “we don’t negotiate with anybody except the terms of their surrender” speeches. Have you ever thought of becoming foreign policy advisor? Maybe speech writer for Dick Cheney? Your self-important rethoric and idolization of Churchill, dragging the poor dead man, rest his soul, into all kinds of ridiculous contexts to support your hyperbole, would fit right i with all the other neo-con chickenshits who always find a way of staying well behind the front lines.

You are willing to fight in the hills, on the beaches and what not, eh brave Sir John? Whenever you have a minute to spare from all your hairy chest thumping, perhaps you could slot in a fight with Christine Maggiore in a geographical location of your choice – face to face for once?

Dr. Bennet, who has just graced these pages, has also retired himself from the active duty of engaging dissidents personally he tells us. Actually it was Jeffrey Dach who retired Dr. Bennett after this public humiliation – cheers indeed:

Which brings me [Jeffrey Dach] to the point of my descent, that began after I read the Sept 27 JAMA 2006 article by Rodriguez et al. showing essentially no correlation between CD4 cell count and HIV viral load – indicating that unchecked virus replication is not killing the CD4 cells. On the same day, I posted this information at the misc.health.aids newsgroup and quickly realized that I had entered the proverbial snake pit.
My posted message was almost a direct quote from the JAMA authors: “The noncorrelation in the Figure 3 (click on the miniature to the left) scattergram on page 1504 is the finding which indicates that HIV plasma RNA level (HIV viral load) is not a reliable predictor of CD4 cell loss in HIV infection and challenges the concept that the magnitude of viral replication is the main determinant of the speed of CD4 cell loss at the individual level.”
I promptly received a reply from a Nick Bennett, who turns out to be an MD /PhD from Cambridge (UK), currently a pediatric infectious disease resident trainee in NY, and a self appointed guardian of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. He explained to me in a condescending and extremely arrogant manner that, “No, I am mistaken, the JAMA article actually confirms a correlation between CD4 cell count and HIV viral load. There is indeed a linear trend in Figure 3, because the R-squared Coefficient of Correlation is not zero.”
This absurdity revealed the lie behind the credentials, as clearly the man knows nothing about linear regression analysis. The Figure 3 R-squared is actually 0.04, which for statistical purposes is just slightly above zero. R-squared values range from zero to 1.0, with 1.0 indicating a straight line and zero indicating a random pattern of dots very much like Figure 3.
Bennett continued his post by questioning my training and background and ability to read and interpret the medical literature.
“I find it astonishing that you somehow think yourself better qualified to analyse (sic) the results of a paper than the authors themselves or indeed anyone else with specialist qualifications in the relevant field. Where’s your research background in HIV (or even microbiology in general)? Why should I trust what you say versus what every microbiologist/epidemiologist/clinician and researcher I’ve ever met tells me about how to analyse (sic) a paper and judge and interpret the evidence? I would say you had no relevant experience upon which to base your views and are incapable of correctly interpreting scientific evidence in context!”
I barely controlled myself in reply: “The JAMA, as you know, Dr. Bennett, is the Journal of the American Medical Association and is written specifically for the members of that organization. I have been a member of the American Medical Association and have been reading JAMA since 1976, which is probably before you were born. I was certainly reading it when you were still in knickers, my youthful but arrogant correspondent. I’ve had thirty years of experience reading and interpreting this journal. How many years have you had? “(I neglected to mention my own publication in 1983).
Bennett must have gone back to read his math book, because he finally agreed an R squared of 0.04 indicates non-correlation, and excuses his ignorance of linear regression analysis by telling me in his PhD thesis research he used PCR and did Western blots. He nonetheless continues in the same self-important manner, and then, with his new found mastery of linear regression, calculates his own R-squared value, which does not appear anywhere in the paper, from the data in the paper’s Fig. 1 (click on the miniature to the right). This turns out to be a much more acceptable 0.9776. It is also in total error. If we assume Bennett’s PhD is not a completely fraudulent document, this is either an intentional deception designed to fool the few gullible who are persuaded that this man is some kind of authority, or yet another example of the Orwellian Doublethink characteristic of the AIDS church. Bennett’s Oct 6 blog posts his deceptive graph with the sham R-squared value of 0.9351.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/10/by_jeffrey_dach.html

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 10, 2007 5:11 AM

I meant viral load-CD4 correlation, although I could just as well have asked for the viral load-HIV correlation.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 10, 2007 5:19 AM

For a truthful read about HIV testing and it flaws, I would recommend the following site:

http://breakfornews.com/aidsmyth/report/articles/051501mattirwinproblemshivantitest.htm

Posted by: Noreen | November 10, 2007 7:54 AM

I have been told three different times that I have antibodies to Hep and at the last testing last month, the tests showed no antibodies to Hep B or Hep C.

Think about this, we HIV+’s have antibodies to HIV, which according to classic medicine is a wonderful thing to have. Antibodies means the virus has long come and gone and is nowhere to be found as is my illusive Hepatitis antibodies.

Noreen,

When your physicians told you about the decline in your antibodies to Hepatitis B Virus and Hepatitis C Virus, did they indicate that the decline in your antibody response is a worrisome sign that most likely indicates that your immune function continues to progressively deteriorate, as Bennett and John Moore have suggested?

Given that you believe antibodies to a virus are “wonderful things to have,” whay are you so pleased that your body has stopped making the protective antibodies to Hepatitis B Virus and Hepatitis C Virus?

Did your physicians tell you that this decline in antibody titer was good news, or did they agree with the assessment of Bennett and Moore?

Posted by: franklin | November 10, 2007 10:19 AM

Mr. Moore thinks it is appropriate to hand out medical advice when I doubt he even has a license to do so. I have studied your prediction of Noreens imminent death and wondered if actual doctors spoke like that so I asked around a bit. Apparently “real” doctors don’t do that. TV doctors, on the other hand…”real” doctors don’t think of themselves as prophets and they generally refrain from your kind of garbage because there is really no way of telling unless the patients are in very poor health or very good health in which case predictions are more like foregone conclusions. You have never met Noreen and by making an online diagnosis based on nothing but a few clues and predicting her death you are overstepping major ethical boundaries. Your attempts to diagnose death online should be reported.

Posted by: pat | November 10, 2007 10:39 AM

You are healthy now, but it’s just a matter of time before the degradation of your immune system will cause you very, very serious health problems.

This is by far the most stupid, rediculous, self-sufficient, ugly, ….. sorry, I don’t have the vocabulary to write my feelings down accurately ….. and you should be chased out of your office forever. Shame on you, “professor” John P. Moore.

I must admit, right now my anger is not really genuin. I’ve called you bad names in the past, John Moore, but I have the strange feeling right now that I was wrong. Maybe I should think of you as a very lost and lonely man who is simply ready to go to any length to find some human warmth somewhere. Anywhere.

…

I love you, John…

…

How does that feel, huh?

Posted by: jspreen | November 10, 2007 11:10 AM

JMoore,
Sorry, it is hard to have an exchange here in the troll garden, but I want to disagree with you on a point. Well not really disagree with you because it was not stated as your opinion, but the vote for Zuma is much more than not a vote for Mbeki.
There are diehard supporters for Zuma here. I am still trying to figure that out because he is so obviously a horribly poor choice for the leader of this country.
Anyway, he suffered a real blow two days ago when he lost an important appeal in his corruption trial which has been expanded to fraud and money laundering.
The problem is that there is not a really good possibility within the ANC for president. That is why, as I stated earlier, that the ANC is seriously considering altering the constitution to allow Mbeki a third term.
There are a few others I think would make decent leaders, but they are not in the ANC.

Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | November 10, 2007 11:12 AM

Hi Noreen,

I would make a great distinction between someone like yourself who is living with HIV seeking answers, and someone trying to GIVE you the wrong answers.

CD4 counts are not meaningless because the evidence shows the increased risk (NOT CERTAINTY REMEMBER!) of getting sick. Here’s a good bit of evidence:

http://www.retroconference.org/2001/posters/203.pdf

Evidence from non-HIV related PCP also shows a relationship with low CD4 counts.

http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/3/712

A very interesting, but long, study is at:

http://www.statepi.jhsph.edu/macs/dossier/MACS%20Dossier.pdf

I’m happy to answer any further questions – probably easier to go to email. njb35@cantab.net.

Cheers

Bennett

Posted by: Bennett | November 10, 2007 11:18 AM

wheatdog:
Are you still here?
You are the prognosticator from comment 2. But, you did not predict the magnitude…

Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | November 10, 2007 1:52 PM

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

This is the microbe mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans that is slowly spreading through the population, any professional scientist that ignores this is guilty of torture and genocide. the only microbe that kills/sickens every animal inoculated, Google project day lily to find out how it was part of the bioweapons program

Posted by: cooler | November 10, 2007 1:52 PM

I do not have an active case of hepatitis nor do I have antibodies, so let’s put that to rest. My only complaints have to do with fibromyalgia and not with any AIDS defining diseases. All of you naysayers to mine or to Harvey’s health, shame on you. Believe me, when I was at death’s door and managed to survive months without mainstream’s medicines, I am certainly fine now with a wonderful, immune-enhancing drug on my side, irregardless of not-so-important viral load and CD4 tests. The key here is good old-fashioned “symptoms” and the complete blood counts, nothing else!

Posted by: Noreen | November 10, 2007 4:10 PM

So then why were you tested for antobodies to HBV and HCV last month?

What did your physicians tell you about their interpretation of the decline in your antibodies to these viruses?

Posted by: franklin | November 10, 2007 4:27 PM

I was tested because I was curious. This physician was not a VA doctor but he stated and I have the paper from the lab, which shows no antibodies to Hepatitis whatsoever. I questioned the doctor if one loses them and he stated no. He had no other explanation. Someone’s tests must be in error.

Posted by: Noreen | November 10, 2007 4:44 PM

Well, as Bennett and Moore have stated, with advanced immune deficiency one can “lose” antibodies.

As an immune deficiency gets more severe, one’s immune system can stop producing protective antibodies that it used to make.

Think about it, Noreen.

You pointed out that “classic medicine” says that antibodies to infectious agents are a wonderful thing to have. Your body used to make them and now it has stopped making them.

I recommend that you take up Professor Moore’s offer to refer you to an AIDS specialist in your area. Ask about these issues and about having the virus cultured from your blood.

At the very least, you can hear about the options available to you in terms of PCP prophylaxis and other possible therapies.

Just make sure that the physician knows how strongly you feel about avoiding drug toxicities. Perhaps they can find a treatment regimen that will help restore your immune system without causing the toxic effects that you find unacceptable.

Posted by: franklin | November 10, 2007 5:49 PM

First, if Bennett and Moore were right, then maybe I don’t have antibodies to HIV, wouldn’t that be great! I may have the VA retest for Hepatitis and then we will see whose tests are inaccurate. My immune system is fine. If HIV is harming me then explain why my blood counts and liver enzymes are now normal. I have an AIDS specialist who I see every three months. They know that LDN is helping me, I go for their sake, not mine. They need to see how someone does off of their antiretrovirals!

Posted by: Noreen | November 10, 2007 6:54 PM

Noreen,

The looks of amazement that you think you detect on your physicians faces may not indicate that they are amazed at “how well you are doing.”

They may be amazed at how you keep ignoring their advice despite the evidence that your immune system continues to progressively worsen.

Posted by: franklin | November 10, 2007 7:20 PM

The doctor was wrong – you can lose antibodies. Out of interest, which antibodies did he test for out of the following battery – HepA IgG, HepA IgM; HBsAg, HBsAb, HBsAb titres, HBcAb, HBcIgM, HBeAb, HBeAg, HCV Ab? You have the results so it would be instructive to know, as these may have different interpretations.

Posted by: DT | November 10, 2007 7:40 PM

Franklin, I think that I know my physicains much better than you do. We have been through a lot together and yes, at first, they were very concerned and just like many on this blog they tried to get me back on the meds. However, after almost two years of great lab reports and not one opportunistic infections, they do not pressure me into taking their drugs. They want me to contiune to see them, you must remember the choice is mine. Maybe the old sayings is wrong, maybe you can teach old dogs new tricks! Contrary to popular belief, we get along great!

Posted by: noreeen | November 10, 2007 7:40 PM

So your physicians consider high viral loads, declining CD4 T-cell counts, and the loss of previous antibody responses to be “great lab reports?”

Posted by: franklin | November 10, 2007 7:46 PM

First you are mixing apples with oranges. Two different clinics were involved with the tests and the VA doctors do not know the results of the other clinic as yet. They consider normal CBC, no anemia and great liver enzymes to be fine. They do not in regards to the viral load or the CD4. However, they see me in the flesh, which is something that you folks do not and they see a non-symptomatic AIDS patient in regards to HIV.

Like many here, as individuals, they are fine people but they believe everything about HIV without looking further into it. They think that the proof that HIV causes AIDS is “somewhere” in PubMeb yet they can’t give me the reference. Doctors are too busy treating patients to get into the politics, etc. of AIDS. Besides, they pretty much have to go by what the AMA, CDC says to do or they will have the wrath of these organizations upon them not to forget law suits. So until things officially change, I wouldn’t expect them to spout anything other than the official party line. Nevertheless, they are human and can see the results of LDN and good health habits for themseleves.

Posted by: noreen | November 10, 2007 8:00 PM

Darin wrote:

Darin, if you demonstrated that you understood what these papers show and what they don’t show then people would take you seriously. As it is you just appear to be yet another internet loon demanding that the scientists prove the germ theory of disease, Einsteins relativity or that Al-Quaida was really behind 911.

The issue is only political in the same way that the evolution debate is political. Duesberg and the other assorted flavours of denial lost the scientific debate 20 years ago. The “debate” about HIV exists only in popular books directed to lay audiences and in the lysenkoism of Mbeki’s government.

If you want a real example of political interference in science then you can’t go past Mbeki’s dismal record. He ignored his own scientists. He brought in crank scientists from the USA and Australia. He gave the crank scientists who told him what he wanted to hear undue credibility. He interfered with the runnings of the MRC. He sacked health officials that did not follow his lysenkoism. He supported illegal trials involving Virodene and Matthias Rath’s vitamins.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 10, 2007 8:05 PM

Noreen, as much as I don’t wish to derail this thread from the topic of Mbeki’s denialism, I ask if you might tell us the results of your lab markers for hepatitis (both the current ones and the previous ones) so that someone experienced in the interpretation of these can do so for you, rather than relying on a doctor who says “you can’t lose antibodies”.

Posted by: DT | November 10, 2007 8:12 PM

And Darin I still haven’t received an explanation of why Duesberg and the Perth Group have after 20 years failed to convince one another as to whether HIV exists or doesn’t.

The Perth Group state If one accepts that “HIV” and “HIV” antibodies exist, then one has no choice but to also accept that Koch’s postulates have been fulfilled which means that HIV is the cause of AIDS.. THis cannot be reconciled with Duesberg’s views.

If, as you appear to claim, “dissidents” are guided by evidence and are willing to modify their opinions upon evidence then why haven’t they managed to convince each other?

I don’t know about you but I think that both Duesberg and the Perth Group have committed so much of their lives and have sacrificed promising careers (at least for Duesberg) that they will never, ever admit to being wrong. No amount of evidence will ever convince them.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 10, 2007 8:21 PM

@scienceteacher

One of the candidates who is near the top of the pile for the ANC is Jacob Zuma. Zuma has a lot of support from some areas. This guy is a slimy, crook in my opinion but I digress. Last year, he went on trial for rape. /snip/
But here is the kicker: He stated during the trial that he had consentual sex with the accuser, knowing that she was HIV positive (he knew very well), without a condom, and that after the sex he had a shower to cut down his risk of infection.

He may yet get a nasty shock….
New Ugandan research says that washing the penis after sex increases the risks of acquiring HIV, not lessens it.
http://www.ias2007.org/pag/Abstracts.aspx?SID=55&AID=5536

Posted by: DT | November 10, 2007 8:27 PM

Alright DT but I will have to go through some records for your request as these tests have been ran several times. If you contact me, we can go through this off the blog. But I will add, that not all physicians are up to par. One doctor wanted to give me life-time steriods for fibromylagia, which is not a very good call for an AIDS person. Bottomline, it pays to stay on top of one’s medical tests and to do research for oneself and don’t believe everything that a doctor says because he or she has M.D. behind their name.

Posted by: noreeen | November 10, 2007 8:33 PM

“Noreen, as much as I don’t wish to derail this thread from the topic of Mbeki’s denialism, I ask if you might tell us the results of your lab markers for hepatitis (both the current ones and the previous ones) so that someone experienced in the interpretation of these can do so for you, rather than relying on a doctor who says “you can’t lose antibodies”.

Ok, I MUST say this. Noreen, take your doctors advice and your own; not the advice of webjockeys. You’ll be fine.

Posted by: pat | November 10, 2007 9:26 PM

“He may yet get a nasty shock….
New Ugandan research says that washing the penis after sex increases the risks of acquiring HIV, not lessens it.
http://www.ias2007.org/pag/Abstracts.aspx?SID=55&AID=5536″

“Post-coital penile cleaning is common in this rural population”

Eithher way you pull this wool; it’s a crock of SHIT.hahahahaha! I will stop washing.

Posted by: pat | November 10, 2007 9:38 PM

Ok, I MUST say this. Noreen, take your doctors advice and your own; not the advice of webjockeys. You’ll be fine.

A webjockey giving advice saying not to take advice frpm webjockeys? A bit oxymoronic.

Posted by: apy | November 10, 2007 9:56 PM

looks like Noreen’s gonna follow the advice of idiot webjockeys like pat and make bad choices that will kill her. In a couple of years time she’ll be just another entry on AIDS truths dead denialists page http://www.aidstruth.org/aids-denialists-who-have-died.php. Pretty sad or what? Another victim of Duesberg. http://www.aidstruth.org/malignant-narcissism.pdf. How much blood is that monster going to have on his hands when he dies then? Noreen’s for sure unless she starts ignoring the trolls on this site.

So pat feels he’s qualified to hand out medical advice to Noreen over the internet then? How does that fit with MEC’s threat to report Moore to the Cornell Dean for allegedly doing the same then? Some hypocrisy here or what? How would that letter go?

“Dear Dean, I want to report Dr JP Moore, PhD for advising a person to consult a specialist physician and obtain professional advice on her health. This is unethical because Dr Moore is not a physician.”

How fucking stupid is that then? It’s unethical to advise someone to consult a physician??? So the next time my wife says she’s got a nasty cold, and I say “you had better go see the doctor, dear”, I’m going to be hauled up by MEC on ethics charges???? You guys are totally fucking insane!!! Do you ever stop to read anything you write or comment on? No, of course you don’t.

And why is that the likes of MEC and pat are so gutless that they have to appear here using a moniker? Cowardly, just chickenshit. At least Moore and Bennett have the guts to post under their own names and take the hits and threats. What does that say about them and you, MEC and pat?

Yeah, I’m not using my own name here. With gun toting psychos like Michael reading this site, I’m not gonna expose my wife and kids to the kind of threats that are handed out by the Michael and his buddies.

MEC, pat and the other trolls on this site are disgusting, gutless shits who are driving Noreen to her death. Rot in hell you evil scum!

Posted by: notchef | November 10, 2007 11:05 PM

NOtchef,
please take a chill pill and bow your head to your master shyh ching lo md phd, the military’s highest ranking infectious disease pathologist, hes a real scientist, not a fraud that murders innocents like Tara, fauci, jp moore who have unleashed mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans on the population to destroy people’s lives and torture them.

Shyh lo, the only scientist to discover a microbe that sickened and killed every animal inoculated, why do you people enjoy destroying people’s lives with this infection?

Posted by: cooler | November 10, 2007 11:21 PM

Noreen,

Thanks for sharing your history. I hope you do well, you seem like a kind, inquisitive person, who makes up her own mind.

Anyone who would presume to give medical advice over the internet on a blog is, obviously, not someone worthy of listening to. So, feel free to ignore these guys.

Posted by: John Givens | November 11, 2007 12:08 AM

Notchef, you haven’t been following my webjockey medical advice have you? Perhaps my instructions were not clear enough last time:

Purchase, or better find for yourselves since they are unpatentable, 16 smooth round pebbles, preferably white of colour.

Distribute evenly in 4 pockets, two on the left, two on the right, then circulate by putting one of the 4 in your top right hand pocket in your mouth and suck on it for a minute or two. Put it back in the top left hand pocket, which will now contain 5 pebbles. Place one of the original 4 (not the one you just sucked) in the lower left pocket, which now will be the pocket to contain 5 pebbles. Take one of the original 4 pebbles (not the one you just shuffled from the top left hand pocket)and move to the lower right hand pocket. Now this is the pocket with 5 pebbles. Shift one of the original 4 (not the one you just moved there from your lower left hand pocket) to the upper right hand pocket, which will now contain 4 pebbles, which was the original number but with one new pebble. From here you are ready to repeat the sucking procedure.

If you suck on each stone for 2 minutes, you should be able to suck and shuffle all the stones in about 35-40 minutes, by which time you should have regained your mental equilibrium assuming there was one to begin with.

Repeat procedure as often as necessary – there are no toxic side effects – and let me know how you’re getting on in a couple of days.

Please feel free to contact me personally if you need me to refer to you to a professional stone sucker therapist in your area. Tara will guaranteed give you all my contact info seeing that you’re a patriot.

Get well soon and cheers.

MEC

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 11, 2007 12:10 AM

“A webjockey giving advice saying not to take advice frpm webjockeys? A bit oxymoronic.”

Not really. Noreen takes the advice from her doctors and herself. Not you webjockeys, not me webjockey. No one cares about your death predictions.

“looks like Noreen’s gonna follow the advice of idiot webjockeys like pat and make bad choices that will kill her.”

What was my idiotic advice? Ah, to listen to her doctor and herself and not assholes making death predictions. Dumb advice?

“So pat feels he’s qualified to hand out medical advice to Noreen over the internet then?”

What was my medical advice? I’m waiting for you to explain.

“MEC, pat and the other trolls on this site are disgusting, gutless shits who are driving Noreen to her death. Rot in hell you evil scum”

How am I driving her to her death? I am waiting for you to explain you gutless piece of shit!

“How fucking stupid is that then? It’s unethical to advise someone to consult a physician?”

No, it is unethical to tell someone they will DIE WITHIN THE YEAR. Can’t you guys tell the fucking difference?

“And why is that the likes of MEC and pat are so gutless that they have to appear here using a moniker? Cowardly, just chickenshit. At least Moore and Bennett have the guts to post under their own names and take the hits and threats. What does that say about them and you, MEC and pat? ”

Patrick Moore, I already said it. you cowardly moniker yourself!

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 7:48 AM

“Anyone who would presume to give medical advice over the internet on a blog is, obviously, not someone worthy of listening to. So, feel free to ignore these guys”

Well put John.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 7:52 AM

Let’s move one. Obviously we all have differing medical opinions. I’m sure that I will contiune to listen to that “inner voice” that has guided me successfully along this far. Maybe Tara will start a treatment dialogue then we can all feel free to comment without being attacked.

Posted by: noreeen | November 11, 2007 7:59 AM

This blog has gone from being a good debate and source of information to mud slinging, name-calling and dodging bullets in the trenches. Good, cheap entertainment though!

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 11, 2007 8:08 AM

I got to quote this again. It is pure gold.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 8:10 AM

Cooler,

Can you direct us to the organizational chart for Infectious Disease Pathology in the Military?

I’d like to know if your claim that Dr. Lo is “the military’s highest ranking infectious disease pathologist” is based in reality or if it’s just part of your fantasy life.

Please don’t back up your claim by directing us to a work of fiction.

Posted by: franklin | November 11, 2007 10:47 AM

“According to Dr Shyh-Ching Lo, senior researcher at The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and one of America’s top mycoplasma researchers…”

he does exist. Does he need to be an admiral ?

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 11:07 AM

“Shyh-Ching Lo, MD, PhD, chief,. Division of Molecular Pathobiology,. Department of Infectious and Parasitic. Diseases Pathology”
from AFIP newsletter.

Dr Joel Basemen from the NIH on Lo’s work.
“The meeting was led by Dr. Joel B. Baseman, a mycoplasma expert at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. He said the participants were ”very impressed with the quality of science that Dr. Lo’s group displayed.”

Franklin, your scientific delusions dont really add up, like HPV causing cancer 40 years later, no animal model, just straight dru company propaganda.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 11:21 AM

Shyh-Ching Lo, MD, PhD, chief,. Division of Molecular Pathobiology,. Department of Infectious and Parasitic. Diseases Pathology

from afip news letter

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 11:23 AM

Inoculated mice monkeys, embryos, chimps all sickened and died with mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans, refrences posted in this and other threads. Not found in one healthy control

Im sorry you live in a delusional drug company induced world where you think microbes like hpv with no animal model and a 40 year window period cause disease.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 11:30 AM

yeah pat, like there’s a real chance that you and mec are gonna be stalked by pyscho Michael when you’re on the same side, sure! The AIDS denialists threaten violence on this site, not the scientists. You’re a total fuckin moron.

And yeah pat, you, mec and the other denialist trolls on this site are driving Noreen to her death by making her belive HIV is harmless. A CD4 count below 100 is a terrible prognostic marker for an HIV-infected person. She needs proper help, away from disgusting killer scumbags like you.

Posted by: notchef | November 11, 2007 11:45 AM

Franklin, why do you bother asking cooler any questions? Read this post of his again.

please take a chill pill and bow your head to your master shyh ching lo md phd, the military’s highest ranking infectious disease pathologist, hes a real scientist, not a fraud that murders innocents like Tara, fauci, jp moore who have unleashed mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans on the population to destroy people’s lives and torture them.

Shyh lo, the only scientist to discover a microbe that sickened and killed every animal inoculated, why do you people enjoy destroying people’s lives with this infection?

This nutjob is saying that Tara Smith and Shyh Lo (his hero for fuck’s sake) are involved in a criminal conspiaracy with Moore and Fauci to wipe out the human race with mycoplasma. Of course he’s living in a fantasy world – he’s totally fucking insane for christs sake!!! Why bother asking him what Dr Lo’s position or rank is? Dr Lo would be embarassed if he knew his name was being used by a lunatic like cooler.

Posted by: notchef | November 11, 2007 11:54 AM

I never said they were directly involved in any conspiracy, I said by them being professional scientists it is very unethical(to say the least) for them not to raise more awareness about this infection thats ruined the best years of my life, and the lives of thousands of other people (At least).

So in a sick kind of way, if you are a bonafide scientist, and you ignore an impending epidemic because you only listen to drug companies and Crooked politicians like heckler and Fauci, you are directly or inderectly engaging in genocide and torture.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 12:05 PM

Hold up Notchef, you cannot blame them for my beliefs. It’s easy for both sides to argue back and forth because you don’t have a horse in this race. Some of us have to weed through the bs and try to determine who makes the most sense to us. Granted I will admit that both sides make some valid points and there are flaws in both ways of thinking. So, this leaves some of us in the middle then we have to rely upon our inner gut as we all know studies can be flawed or not all studies, which show contrary points of view, ever get published.

So I personally take them with a grain of salt. I go more on what I see and how I feel. If I listened to some, I would be scared ****less, panic and go back on drugs that I might not need. Then my normal blood counts would take a dive and I would be anemic again and surely this is not good. If LDN works for me and it does, then why not back off and rejoice that a better way has been found. Let those who have to deal with this make up their own mind and use whatever works for them. It’s not our place to tell another to stop or to take these drugs for that is one’s own decision. I only state what has worked for me.

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 11, 2007 12:11 PM

Lo would proabaly agree with me. His whole hypothesis was that this novel strain was pathenogenic in humans, and the NIH team headed by Dr. Joel Baseman agreed and was very impressed by his work. “the documentation was absolutely solid”

Impressed by his ability to induce a fatal wasting disease in mice and monkeys. To see it by EM in sick AIDS patients rotting organs. Found it to be the cause of death in 6 people that died of mysterious infections.

And this was 1990, imagine how many people it has spread to now, a microbe that can easily masquerade and be misdiagnosed as many other illnesses like CFS/Depression.

Very sad that some “professional scientists” like to see people suffer.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 12:19 PM

I’m sorry Cooler, I still don’t quite understand the organizationsl chart.

Is Dr. Lo really “the military’s highest ranking infectious disease pathologist”?

You sure he isn’t outranked by Dr. Wear?

Posted by: franklin | November 11, 2007 12:25 PM

Cooler, what were the symptoms of the six deaths and was there any connection to each other?

Posted by: noreeen | November 11, 2007 12:27 PM

Noreen, here is what happened to these 6 patients,and some more info. These are probably extreme cases, similar to hiv rapid progressors, most with this infection probably have a slower disabling course.

EXAMPLE 20

Vaccine Containing Cells Infected by M. fermentans incognitus

Sixteen chimpanzees are divided into four groups. Group A is inoculated
intravenously with 1 ml of the novel M. fermentans incognitus. Group B is
inoculated with 1 ml of fluid containing 10.sup.6 M. fermentans
incognitus-infected NIH/3T3 cells. Group C is inoculated with 1 ml of fluid
containing 10.sup.6 inactivated M. fermentans incognitus-infected NIH/3T3

cells, and Group D is the control group and did not receive an inoculation.

All chimpanzees in Groups A and B developed symptoms of AIDS. However, none
of the chimpanzees in Groups C and D developed the symptoms of AIDS. The
chimpanzees of Group C are rendered immune to subsequent challenge of
intravenous inoculation with 1 ml of M. fermentans incognitus or 1 ml
containing 10.sup.6 M. fermentans incognitus-infected NIH/3T3 cells.

EXAMPLE 21

M. fermentans incognitus Identified In Non-AIDS Patients

Six patients from six different geographic areas who presented with acute
flu-like ilnesses were studied. The patients developed persistent fevers,
lymphadenopathy or diarrhea, pneumonia, and/or heart, liver, or adrenal
failure. They all died in 1-7 weeks.

These patients had no serological evidence of HIV infection and could not
be classified as AIDS patients according to CDC criteria. The clinical
signs as well as laboratory and pathological studies of these patients
suggested an active infectious process, although no etiological agent was
found despite extensive infectious disease work-ups during their
hospitalization.

Post-mortem examinations showed histopathological lesions of fulminant
necrosis involving the lymph nodes, spleen, lungs, liver, adrenal glands,
heart, and/or brain. No viral inclusion cells, bacteria, fungi, or
parasites could be identified in these tissues using special tissue stains.
However, the use of rabbit antiserum and the monoclonal antibodies raised
against M. fermentans incognitus (Example 8), the pathogen shown to cause
fatal systemic infection in primates (Example 10), revealed M. fermentans
incognitus antigens in these necrotizing lesions. In situ hybridization
using a .sup.35 S labeled M. fermentans incognitus-specific DNA probe
(Example 18) also detected M. fermentans incognitus genetic material in the
areas of necrosis.

Furthermore, M. fermentans incognitus particles were identified
ultrastructurally in these histopathological lesions. M. fermentans
incognitus was associated with the systemic necrotizing lesions in these
previously healthly non-AIDS patients with an acute fatal disease.

Typical areas of necrosis due to the M. fermentans incognitus infection of
these patients are shown in FIG. 21. Most of the tissues which had massive
necrosis showed only minimal lymphocytic or histiocytic response and few
neutrophils (FIGS. 21A, B and C). FIG. 21A is a photomicrograph of splenic
tissue (x 30.5). FIG. 21B shows the peripheral margin of necrosis of 21A (x
153). FIG. 21C is a photomicrograph of lymph node tissue (x 15.25).
Occasionally, a chronic or acute inflammatory reaction could be identified
in the areas of necrosis (FIG. 21D). FIG. 21D is a photomicrograph of
adrenal gland tissue (x 153).

Representative samples of the immunostained tissues of these patients are
shown in FIGS. 22A-D. FIG. 22A is a photomicrograph of spleen tissue (x
80). FIG. 22B is a higher magnification of the margin of necrosis of 22A (x
353). FIG. 22C is a photomicrograph of lymph node tissue (x 257). FIG. 22D
is a higher magnification of cells with positive cytoplasmic staining of
22C (x 706). FIG. 22E is a photomicrograph of hemorrhagic necrosis in
adrenal gland tissue (x 706). The areas which displayed the highest
concentration of M. fermentans incognitus related antigens were often at
the margin of necrosis.

However, the necrotic center and peripheral unaffected areas had relatively
low reactivity. Most of the positively stained cells were identified as
lymphocytes or histiocytes in the lymph nodes and spleen, or reactive
mononuclear cells in the liver, lungs, adrenal glands and heart.

Immunostaining of control tissues with necrotizing lesions from patients
with cat scratch disease, Hodgkin’s disease, malignant lymphoma,
cryptococcal fungal infections and hemorrhagic splenic tissues of Hairy
cell leukemia did not display a positive reaction. Serum obtained from the
same rabbit before immunizaiton with M. fermentans incognitus antigens also
failed to display a positive immunoreaction in the necrotizing lesions of
the six patients.

Using a .sup.35 S radiolabeled psb-2.2 M. fermentans incognitus DNA probe
(Example 18), strong labeling of clusters of cells at the margins of
necrosis of the affected tissues was observed. The affected tissues tested
were formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded spleen, lung, lymph node, adrenal
gland liver and bone marrow. The intensity of the labeling, or the number
of grains localized in the cells at the margin of necrosis was well above
the level present at either the necrosis (FIGS. 23A and B). However, there
were also clusters of apparently viable cells in the necrosis which were
also strongly labeled (FIG. 23C). FIG. 23A shows strong labeling of cells
at the peripheral zone of necrosis (x 76.5). FIG. 23B is a higher
magnification of 23A (x 422). FIG. 23C shows the occasional positive
labeling in an area of diffuse necrosis in the spleen (x 150). The inset of
23C is a higher magnification (x 422).

Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded liver and spleen tissues from a patient
with pancreatic carcinoma were used as negative controls, and showed no
labeling above background levels. A control probe of .sup.35 S labeled
cloning vector DNA, not containing psb-2.2 M. fermentans incognitus DNA did
not label any of the tested tissues (FIG. 23D). FIG. 23D is the same area

of FIG. 23C in the consecutive tissue section, hybridized with .sup.35 S
labeled cloning vector DNA not containing psb-2.2 M. fermentans incognitus
DNA (x 150) (i.e., control for 23C).

Areas of the necrotizing lesions which immunostained most positively for M.
fermentans incognitus specific antigens were examined by electromicroscopy.

Particles with characteristic ultrastructural features of M. fermentans
incognitus were directly identified in all the lesions. These particles in
the areas of necrosis, morphologically resembled M. fermentans incognitus
previously identified in Sb51 cells (Example 4) and in the tissues of
experimentally inoculated monkeys (Example 10). The particles were
heterogeneous in size and shape, with most particles being spherical and
about 140 to 280 nm in diameter. At the margin of necrosis, the M.
fermentans incognitus particles were located in the cytoplasm of cells with
apparently no cytopathic changes, or in fragments of cytoplasm from
completely disrupted cells (FIG. 24). FIG. 24 shows electron mircographs of
tissues derived from areas highly positive for M. fermentans
incognitus-specific antigens. FIG. 24A is an electron micrograph at a
margin of necrosis in adrenal gland tissues (Bar=1,000 nm). FIG. 24A.sub.2
is a higher magnification of 24A (Bar=100 nm). FIGS. 24B.sub.1, and B.sub.2
are electron micrographs of the peripheral zone of necrosis in lymph node
tissue (Bar=1,000 nm). FIG. 24B.sub.3 is a higher magnification of
24B.sub.2 (Bar=100 nm).

Table 5, below, summarizes the profiles and histopathological findings for
each of the six patients.

TABLE 5
__________________________________________________________________________
Summary of Patient’s Profiles and Histopathological Findings
Tissue with necrotic

Duration
lesions identified
Personal

Salient clinical of illness by biopsy or at Patient
Profiles presentation (weeks) autopsy
__________________________________________________________________________
1 29-year old
arthralgia, myalgia, conjunc-
4.5 spleen, lung
black man
tivitis, persistent fever,
hypercalcemia, liver failure
(late), ARDs* (late)
2 33-year old
persistent fever, diarrhea,
7 lymph nodes, liver,
white woman
generalized lymphadenopathy,
spleen, kidneys
abnormal liver functions,
seizure (late)
3 40-year old
arthralgia, myalgia, sore
3.5 adrenal glands
white man
throat, chest pain, persis-
(bilateral), heart,
tent fever, malaise, diarrhea,
brain
finger numbness, comatose
(late)
4 31-year old
vomiting and diarrhea, tremor,
1.5 liver, spleen
black woman
fever, epigastric and chest
pain, abnormal liver functions,
headache
5 23-year old
Watery diarrhea, vomiting,
3 liver, heart
white man
jaundice, arthralgia, myalgia
6 33-year old
fever, malaise, nausea and
1 spleen, liver
black man
vomiting, myalgia and weakness,
liver failure and jaundice,
confusion and hallucinations
(late)
__________________________________________________________________________
*ARDS Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome

17 Lo, S.-C., Dawson, M.S., Newton, P.B., Sonoda, A.A., Shih, W.-K., Engler, W.F., Wang, R.Y.-H. and Wear, D.J. Association of the virus-like infectious agent originally reported in patients with AIDS with acute fatal disease in previously healthy non-AIDS patients. Amer. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1989; 41: 364-376.

18 Lo, S.-C., Wear, D.J., Shih, W.-K., Wang, R.Y.-H., Newton, P.B. and Rodriguez, J.F. Fatal systemic infections of nonhuman primates by Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus strain). Clin. Infect. Diseases 1993; 17(Suppl 1): S283-S288.

19 Lo, S.-C., Buchholz, C.L., Wear, D.J., Hohm, R.C. and Marty, A.M. Histopathology and doxycycline treatment in a previously healthy non-AIDS patient systemically infected by Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus strain). Mod. Pathol. 1991; 6: 750-754.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 12:45 PM

Cooler, what cities and dates did these deaths occur? I don’t doubt that some of the manmade mycoplasmas have been patented and are probably locked away for experimentation or possible wartime use. Did these individuals have any connections to each other?

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 11, 2007 1:08 PM

“yeah pat, like there’s a real chance that you and mec are gonna be stalked by pyscho Michael when you’re on the same side, sure! The AIDS denialists threaten violence on this site, not the scientists. You’re a total fuckin moron.”

I have never threatened violence. Why you think I am a denialist escapes me, maybe you don’t know the meaning of the word. What am I in denial of? I am not Michel, I don’t give a flying fuck about that guy. You are bigger than a fucking moron. You are a fucking simpleton with too few shoeboxes at home to fit us all in.

“And yeah pat, you, mec and the other denialist trolls on this site are driving Noreen to her death by making her belive HIV is harmless. A CD4 count below 100 is a terrible prognostic marker for an HIV-infected person. She needs proper help, away from disgusting killer scumbags like you.”

Listen here, you fucking illiterate bozo: I never said HIV was harmless so how am I driving her to her death? I merely pointed out that JP Moore’s behavior by prognosticating her imminent “death within the year” based on nothing but a few clues, is unethical. It is fucking BIG TIME UNETHICAL, you twit! Why I can’t say that without being called a “denialist” and a murderous scumbag is beyond me. Schubladedenken is common to all people, even I do it but considering the venom you throw at me that is completely inconsistant with what I wrote, I can only deduce that it has become habitual with you.

Your reasoning on why you are allowed to be a chickenshit is hilarious though.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 1:11 PM

notchef,

make a note on your fridge: “buy more shoeboxes!”

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 1:19 PM

no idea, but garth nicolsons finding this microbe by PCR in many CFS patients etc, too bad armed defense intelligence agents threatened him to stop his research when he was at the md cancer center, I doubt he would lie about that.

Seems it was part of the biological weapons program, which is why a military scientist knew so much about it. Google Project day lily to read nicolsons new book , true story slightly fictionilized, rave reviews from real scientists.

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 1:30 PM

Notchef,

If you don’t feel you are achieving the expected results from your sucking stone therapy, likely because of mental resistance, here’s some trouble shooting advice given by the inventor. The remarkable thing about this I’m sure will not escape you: This brave scientists is testing his revolutionary remedy on himself before attempting it on macaques and Africans. I hope his example will inspire you to work with your own problems in an equally noble and disciplined manner. As before, let me… let us all know how you are getting on. Please don’t be shy when expressing
yourself; we’re all laughing with you, not at you:

I distributed the sucking stones equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the four stones circulating thus might always be the same four. In which case, far from sucking the sixteen stones turn and turn about, I was really only sucking four, always the same, turn and turn about. But I shuffled them well in my pockets, before I began to suck, and again, while I sucked, before
transferring them, in the hope of obtaining a more general circulation of the stones from pocket to pocket.

I realize the hazard of sucking the same four stones over and over may seem like an unacceptable side-effect of the therapy to you, Notchef, but I wanted you to know there are ways of minimizing the risk.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 11, 2007 1:46 PM

Noreen, I am serious about my offer of trying to arrange for you to see a specialist HIV/AIDS physician in a leading medical center. If you live in or near a major city, particularly one in which the university has a Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), it should be possible. I’m not willing to post my contact details on this site, as I already get quite enough threatening and offensive emails and phone calls from AIDS denialists, but I have asked Tara to put you in touch me if you ask her to.
John Moore

Posted by: John Moore | November 11, 2007 2:31 PM

More failure from the AIDS establishment.

NEW YORK TIMES, 11/08/07

In a puzzling and potentially troubling development, an AIDS vaccine tested in a closely watched trial might have increased the risk among vaccine recipients of becoming infected with H.I.V., researchers reported yesterday at a scientific meeting in Seattle.

It’s only puzzling, if AIDS is your religion as well as your professional meal-ticket. Most normal people understand that it’s B.S.

But the new analysis looked at all the trial participants and found a wider difference — 49 in the vaccinated group compared with 33 in the placebo group. Further analysis showed that the imbalance was much more apparent among those who had the highest level of pre-existing immunity to the cold virus used in the vaccine.

Read that again: 33 in the placebo group developed HIV, while 49 in the vaccinated group developed HIV. In other words, doing nothing was much safer, than taking the vaccine.

The beat goes on and on and on and on and on.

Posted by: John Givens | November 11, 2007 3:24 PM

I’m not willing to post my contact details on this site

You should, John, you should. If you did put your email here, firstly you wouldn’t get more mails at all, because a person who wants to send you lover letters or hate mails can easily find information about how to contact you since it’s smeared all over the web. Secondly, if people found your email address here, they maybe wouldn’t think of Googling for example “john p moore” email and stumble upon all kinds of information about you and about what a lackey you really are.

I personnaly don’t think much of the OPV theory either but the way you treat any person who doesn’t easily kneel fore the nonsense you defend, man, it’s pathetic!!

Posted by: jspreen | November 11, 2007 4:09 PM

Noreen, I am serious about my offer of trying to arrange for you to see a specialist HIV/AIDS physician in a leading medical center.

Why? Are you calling Noreen’s present “AIDS doctor” incompetent Prof. Johnny Wishbone?

I’m not willing to post my contact details on this site, as I already get quite enough threatening and offensive emails and phone calls from AIDS denialists

Since, like every other neo-con chickenshit who declares himself always ready and willing to fight, you are in reality a coward through and through, physically as well as intellectually, perhaps we cold persuade your university
to assemble a team of bodyguards for you, Prof. Moore, and arrange that you receive confidence boosting self defence lessons.

In this as well as your intelligence gathering and literary
efforts I fancy I could be of great use to you.

Again my services come cheaply.

Yours truly

MEC

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 11, 2007 4:53 PM

John, there is a medical training university in my town and my AIDS doctor has been treating AIDS patients and training doctors for many, many years. So in that regard, I feel that he is as competent as any that you might know. He has been with me through thick and thin and he knows my medical history quite well. I like him and give him a Christmas present each year. You see, we have come to have respect for each other and for each other’s position. At this point in time, I don’t think there is anything to gain by switching or seeing another doctor. But if you know a good fibromyalgia doctor, then send him or her on.

Posted by: noreeen | November 11, 2007 6:12 PM

This is from that article linked above NEW YORK TIMES, 11/08/07

“Researchers told reporters by telephone that when such an analysis is performed after a trial is stopped, defining what is statistically significant is difficult.”

this reminds me of the countless other trials cut short due to “overwhealming success”: defining what is statistically significant is difficult.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 6:38 PM

Noreen, maybe you could see Dr. Lo, he will show you the light, and is far more competent, intelligent and better looking than jp moore. But before you see him you must stay silent for 15 minutes and bow your head in eternal awe. This is no ordinary mediocre scientist like moore.
eternal hugs,
cooler

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 6:39 PM

In all seriousness, was your tcell count always this low, did it increase with arv therapy? Did your tcell count slowly decline or was it always at 50?

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 6:50 PM

According to Stats South Africa October 2007 publication The Community Survey 2007:

“The population of South Africa has increased by nearly 8 million between 1996 and 2007, a nearly 20% jump over 10 years.”

Any AIDS Truthies want to come to Los Angeles–all expenses paid–and engage in a public discussion on Mbeki, South Africa and “denialism?”

Posted by: Christine Maggiore | November 11, 2007 7:00 PM

Yes, mine have stayed in the mid-eighties and they did increase with HAART. When I stopped the HAART, it reverted back to what they were orignally. Cooler, this is why I don’t get bothered by T-cell counts as they have been low when I was sick and low when healthy. So, the mainstream can’t have it both ways.

Supposedly, this is a true story. Many were at an AIDS meeting and they were all comparing their T-cells. One persons were over 500 one 300, one under 100 and the one person sitting quietly in the back raised his hand and stated, I only have one T-cell left, but its a good one!This got a good laugh from the crowd. Numbers, numbers are not the key to all of this but “SYMPTOMS,” because one wiil not be sick without them. Some of you think that I am dying but there isn’t any evidence of this. I will probably outlive many of you long after you have argued about what causes AIDS.

Posted by: noreeen | November 11, 2007 7:10 PM

I’d love to be invited to one of those…as a listener, well understood.
I can only speculate as to why Chris won’t answer, he is here everyday. He is on all blogs all day.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 7:30 PM

From MedPage, July 27, 2007

SYDNEY, July 26 — Investigators remain puzzled about why a supposedly safe anti-HIV microbicidal gel turned out to increase the risk of HIV in women who used it.

So, again, like the vaccines, you take the microbicide, it INCREASES your risk of contracting HIV.

The AIDS establishment is “puzzled” about their vaccine failures, now they are, again, “puzzled”about their microbicide failures. Also, they are “shocked!”

We did not and do not have an explanation,” Dr. Van Damme told attendees at the International AIDS Society meeting here. “It was a shock to all of us.”

Most normal people are neither puzzled, nor shocked about these bumbling fools who have exploited the fears of this inert retrovirus, and made lots of money selling drugs — that spread the virus!

Posted by: John Givens | November 11, 2007 8:04 PM

“Christine Maggiore” says
According to Stats South Africa October 2007 publication The Community Survey 2007:”The population of South Africa has increased by nearly 8 million between 1996 and 2007, a nearly 20% jump over 10 years.”

Yeah toobad “christine maggiore” doesn’t know the real Christine Maggiore he would know how it’s crappy thinking. Population increase doesn’t say there’s no AIDS!! Real Christine knows a family who’s population had a 100% jump in less then 10 years. From two to four!! Then 25% of the population died of AIDS. One of four! Over all after the death there was a 50% jump in less then ten years. Two people to three people! Lots more grwoth than South Africa but lots more percentage death of AIDS.

!!
OK now Cooler. Says he’s Steve Billingham on those blogs where Arizona denialists says its fun to experiment on Jewish babies.

cooler take notes OK look up what I said October 15 at at Denialism they don’t remember,

Steve Billingham doesnt know Dr. Lo’s name its Shyh-Ching not shyh ching.
Steve thinks Dr. Lo has a military rank Dr. Lo is not in the military he does not have a rank. Hes a civilian federal employee.
Dr. Lo is not head of AFIP he is not Dr. Mullick is.
Dr. Lo is not head of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Dr. Wear is.
Dr. Lo is not head of a department in AFIP there are like 20 departments in AFIP he’s not head of one.
Dr. Lo is a chief of a molecular pathology lab like a P.I. in academics. That’s a great acheivement!! So don’t make him look silly lying about him.

Have some respect for Dr. Lo go play some video games with your sister steve.

Posted by: Adele | November 11, 2007 8:21 PM

Adele,
stop lying, you dont have masters and your no pcr tech, I looked all over facebook and couldnt find that quote by rob swartz, looks like your lying again. If it bothers you so much why dont you message him, I dont even know him.

Your whole life is a lie, where did you get your masters? you work in a lab all week, so youve got your wireless notebook with ya there right to post all day, yep, youre a joke.

This is his title at the AFIP

Shyh-Ching Lo, MD, PhD, chief,. Division of Molecular Pathobiology,. Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Pathology

dont be so insecure and sling insults when everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. Why do you post here all day, nobody values your opinion besides a couple of crackpacks, just spend time in your imaginary lab!

Oh and call people anti semites all week, well I think youre an arab hating racist, you think israel has the right to practice aparthied and take 85% of the water from the west bank for israeli use only? Damn racist.

Just a lying wannabe scientist. Im glad I irritate you, you damn loon, stalk me all over the internet because no one wants to be around you, so you make up a story that youre a lab tech! Who would ever suspect anyone lying about that! good one adele keep up the good work. LOL

Posted by: cooler | November 11, 2007 8:49 PM

“Yeah toobad “christine maggiore” doesn’t know the real Christine Maggiore he would know how it’s crappy thinking. Population increase doesn’t say there’s no AIDS!! Real Christine knows a family who’s population had a 100% jump in less then 10 years. From two to four!! Then 25% of the population died of AIDS. One of four! Over all after the death there was a 50% jump in less then ten years. Two people to three people! Lots more grwoth than South Africa but lots more percentage death of AIDS.”

Still having trouble making out who is who? Blame it on yourselves. Adele, I hope you never have kids and if you do I hope you never have to go through the grief of loosing one especially when the inconsiderate assholes start wheighing in.

Can you show us what S. Africa’s growth rate should be?

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 9:04 PM

“Steve Billingham doesnt know Dr. Lo’s name its Shyh-Ching not shyh ching”

I’m not really following your other catfights but this sherlock moment of yours just jumped out at me.

Posted by: pat | November 11, 2007 11:30 PM

Posted by: John Moore | November 9, 2007 12:35 PM

Good Lord. In view of our nomination of John (at New AIDS Review) for the Nobel for his early recognition in his own papers in peer-reviewed journals of weaknesses in the claim that HIV positivity leads to AIDS, this comment seems rather churlish.

As anyone can check, we recently posted lengthy appreciations of two of John’s seminal papers which have offered supportive analysis and data to dissenters, which don’t seem to have been accorded the prominence they deserve. In what regard is our analysis “inept”? And why has John failed to post a correction on Science Guardian/New AIDS Review? He knows he is always welcome there, since we love to deconstruct the scientific claims of paradigm defenders by quoting from their own mainstream literature, although regrettably even fully paid up members of the HIV defense squad such as Chris Noble don’t seem to survive very long.

We have praised John wholeheartedly for making the case against HIV/AIDS so clear by a) protesting far too much b) offering helpful evidence and analysis in his papers that the dissenters are exactly right c) drawing attention to the critics as loudly as possible d) showing he has no scientific answer to scientific criticism, and has only ad hominem attacks to offer, including appeals to universities to fire those who question the unlikely paradigm.

In the light of all this some may think that John’s political performance in defending the HIV/AIDS paradigm is inept, but we believe there is a different explanation. We are fairly sure that Moore is a closet dissident, or at the very least, preparing his way to survive the collapse of this murderous paradigm unscathed.

His consistent record shows us that while he may be perched on a high branch of the HIV/AIDS tree, he is driven by conscience to draw attention to the dissent and reinforce it with admissions in his papers. This is why we heartily approve of his helpful activities listed above and have nominated him for the top prize in science, which as you know reflects achievement in the cause of helping humanity.

Bob Gallo and Anthony Fauci have also been nominated in our posts at New AIDS Review for their own contributions in making it clear in their papers that HIV is not and cannot be the cause of AIDS, Gallo managing to do this in his very first four papers on the topic, even before Peter Duesberg’s Cancer Research rejection of this irrational claim.

We are just sorry that the Nobel committee can only include three names in any one prize, for it appears that John, for all his strenous efforts to bare the truth in this realm, will miss out on the grand prize. Gallo, Duesberg and Fauci have already beaten him to it.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 12, 2007 1:02 AM

I see my fellow commenters are soundly presenting their case against the insane arrogance and hostility of the AIDS activists. I am not going to bother much with you all. Anyone who propounds warfare and outright harm to their adversaries who only want to promote a reason that would explain the utter failure (and negligence) in confronting and ending the AIDS paradigm is clearly in the wrong. Just tell me, whose motivation is pure? You, who have a vested interest in promoting the unsupported medical science which has resulted in death to millions of victims? What a scam! You all should be ashamed of yourselves. I know many of us find you all deplorable. One day, the world will see your error.

Think about it. After 25 years of this construct of HIV/AIDS you have made no progress. No vaccines, no cure, only a lethal ARV’s treatment which has shown, decidedly, to do more harm than good, followed by excuses, false statistics, improper trial studies, blame and accusation. You even try to shift the blame on others. Looks to me like you are modern day “Reformers” reminiscent of the Dark Ages. If someone could give you the power, you would burn books and heretics a like. In your hateful zeal, you call your opponents “denialist” which is of course is inflammatory since you would try to link us in some perverted way with those who deny the holocaust. Everyone knows your yen for distorting the facts. Well for your information, we call ourselves dissidents, in the tradition of Copernicus, Galileo, and Duesberg.
You must know you are completely without merit. Not being able to prove that HIV causes AIDS by the rules and laws of science, you simply abandon those tried and true steps and have taken a leap of faith into the new science and techno babble of RNA, genes, cloning, what ever cover you can find that will confuse and divert people from catching on that your hypothesis of HIV>AIDS>Death is finished.
What have you to show for all the money and time spent? NOTHING! ZERO! SQUAT! NADA! ZIP! You are all a bunch of losers who are bolstered by the succe$$ of your failures. Your leaders Gallo and Fauci, both blow hards who tap dance around the facts and end up with nothing substantive, but dribble. I’ll stick with my leaders who have, first and foremost, a pure caring heart. Who out of their generosity and compassion for others, sacrificed their time and jeopardized their careers to make the truth known. These doctors, scientist, journalist and other professionals, numbering and recorded in the thousands, are from my experience, good natured and in the highest tiers of academic accomplishment.
Look at your sour pusses. Who is right and who has the high ground?
Oh yes, this thread was supposed to center on Mbeki. I am especially proud to have him on our side. He is a stellar human being with all attributes of greatness. He has demonstrated his courage and independent thinking on many occasions. He has successfully led his country of South Africa, for nearly a decade, out the grip of Apartheid. He is widely loved and respected by his country. I’m sure we will see much more of him on the world scene.

Posted by: Douglass | November 12, 2007 2:45 AM

Christine or not, here’s the numbers and the due credit. Now why hasn’t Tara done a post on these joyous tidings? hmmmm…

“Dear Guardian,

I would like to congratulate President Mbeki for being the courageous leader he is. He has not bowed to the nonsense of apartheid, and has not bowed to the nonsense coming out of the AIDS industry.

HE HAS BEEN VINDICATED. I quote from your article the following:

” Yet, as the book points out, the government’s own statistics show the effect of Aids in South Africa has been “catastrophic” with more than 2 million people already dead and one in eight of the working-age population infected with HIV. ”

This is simply not the truth, and I have the data to back me up.

Here are the projected population sizes by the US Census
Bureau (one model with aids, one model without aids) and
the population size from the latest Household Survey of
Statistics South Africa (2007).

43.9 million (US Census Bureau, with AIDS)
49.3 million (US Census Bureau, without AIDS)
48.5 million (Statistics South Africa, 2007 Household Survey)

As you can see, the population size from the latest Household Survey is a lot closer to the US Census Bureau model that projects no mortality from HIV/AIDS.

Not only that, but the model that takes into account mortality from HIV/AIDS *shows a declining population*.

Both the without AIDS model and the Household Survey show a *growing population*.

This is a vindication of President Mbeki, and a testimony
to his courage, for taking on the farmaceutical industry
and their lobby, TAC.

Seven years ago, when the President convened a conference
highlighting both AIDS believers and dissidents, we were told ‘there is no time’, ‘lives are being lost’, and therefore, there was no need for a debate, not only on the cause of HIV/AIDS, but on the nature of the epidemic itself, or the ways it is estimated using, and the tests, whichdo not work in the African context.

Well guess what – all the shrill, screaming voices
were wrong, and President Mbeki was and is right.

This is man of great intelligence and integrity,
a combination unique in the world’s leadership.

He is to be commended and congratulated.”

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 12, 2007 4:43 AM

“SYDNEY, July 26 — Investigators remain puzzled about why a supposedly safe anti-HIV microbicidal gel turned out to increase the risk of HIV in women who used it.

So, again, like the vaccines, you take the microbicide, it INCREASES your risk of contracting HIV.

The AIDS establishment is “puzzled” about their vaccine failures, now they are, again, “puzzled”about their microbicide failures. Also, they are “shocked!”

We did not and do not have an explanation,” Dr. Van Damme told attendees at the International AIDS Society meeting here. “It was a shock to all of us.”

Most normal people are neither puzzled, nor shocked about these bumbling fools who have exploited the fears of this inert retrovirus, and made lots of money selling drugs — that spread the virus!”

Let me add to the above from John Givens this excerpt from Washington Post:

“Among a group of nearly 700 subjects worldwide who received two doses of the vaccine, 19 became infected with HIV, compared with 11 for a similarly sized group that received placebos. The finding alarmed some scientists and underscored the tricky ethics of using human subjects to test potential remedies for incurable diseases.

South African researchers last week began warning hundreds of volunteer test subjects that the vaccine might actually have increased their risk of contracting HIV.

Two trials for microbicides — gels that women insert into their vaginas to prevent infections — also ended when more women using the experimental substance became infected with HIV than those using placebos. Scientists theorize that vaginal irritation caused by these products may have made it easier, not harder, for the virus to infect women. A study of whether diaphragms might inhibit HIV found that they were also ineffective.

“It’s been an appalling year for the biologists,” said Francois Venter, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society.

Technology vs. Reality

A technology that has worked in highly controlled settings often fails in the context of actual sexual behavior.

Hospitals routinely use antiretroviral drugs, for example, to prevent infections in doctors and nurses stuck by HIV-infected needles. But when researchers asked healthy West African women to take such medicine every day, the difference in infection rates was so small that scientists could not determine whether the medicine worked.”

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 12, 2007 4:54 AM

“Christine or not, here’s the numbers and the due credit.”

Thank you. Adele can stop googling now. Don’t call me christine, it will confuse Adele’s brain cell.

Pat

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 6:20 AM

Wow. This is my first direct exposure to HIV-deniers, and while fascinating–in a sick and demented way–all I can say is WOW. In some ways they are worse than creationists. I can only hope *their* memes aren’t contagious.:)

I don’t want to indulge in name-calling, so I’ll stop here.

Posted by: Jorg | November 12, 2007 7:36 AM

“Wow. This is my first direct exposure to HIV-deniers, and while fascinating–in a sick and demented way–all I can say is WOW. In some ways they are worse than creationists. I can only hope *their* memes aren’t contagious.:)”

Don’t worry, there is a pill on the way for people like you who are afraids of thought infection.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 7:54 AM

Jorg,
any thoughts of your own on S. Africa?

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 7:55 AM

Haha… Pat, Jorg is just looking for a few hits on his website. Make him happy and visit it. More than half his posts have zero comments and the record number is 3.

Wow indeed.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 12, 2007 9:13 AM

Ah, ok. I ckecked out your site Jorg and skimmed throught your “crank” post link. Some people, like you, love to spend their brain power on real trivial pursuits. Can you give me directions to the “crank” leadership JP Moore refers to? Do they have a “camp” and an anthem? Please tell me because I am itching to kick their butts, I just can’t seem to find the “camp”.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 9:27 AM

Maybe we, “rethinkers,” should get organized and have a rethinkers convention and elect a leader. Then Chris and John would have something to really worry about, the people hearing the truth!

Posted by: noreen | November 12, 2007 9:35 AM

For a while I was looking everywhere I saw a Jolly Rogers for that damn elusive denialist “camp” because I thought to myself: “well pirates are scumbags and so the scumbags I am looking for MUST be here too. All of them! The Holocaust deniers, the Evolution deniers etc..” but then I realized that the Jolly Rogers was already taken by AZT. I also realized that the human body doesn’t generate enough of a gravity force so the “scum of the world” couldn’t really “gravitate” to one another.

“In some ways they are worse than creationists.”

This nonsense about “a mixed bag of nuts” is so dense that if I were to put it in a sucrose density gradient and spin it through ultracentrifugation, the crap would be all over the walls.

“In some ways they are worse than creationists”

Tell me, what on earth can possibly be worse than creationists?

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 9:42 AM

John Givens and others unwittingly admit to us what they can’t or won’t consciously acknowledge to themselves: HIV exists, it is transmissible, and it is far from harmless. Zealously celebrating of the end of the Merck vaccine trial, they have apparently failed to keep up with the news…and to remain logically consistent.

“Failure of AIDS Shot linked to cold virus” by Craig Timberg, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, November 8, 2007; Page A24

This WaPo article reports an intriguing fact: the investigators found that only those trial participants who had immunity to the adenovirus (a cold virus) used to package the vaccine experienced higher rates of infection. Even so, the numbers are low, opening statistical analyses to potential criticism. In the much larger non-adenovirus-immune population, there was a statistical dead heat between vaccine and placebo. Did the vaccine work? Apparently not. Did it increase susceptibility to infection? Perhaps it did, in people with certain immunities. In the general population, it may not increase risk. The doubts were enough for the overseers to shut down the trial. That should tell us something about their ethics, something in opposition to what our denialist friends have been telling us.

But what is this entire conversation based upon? On infection rates. This vaccine (or that microbicide), the denialists gloat, is said to increase one’s risk of infection.

But according to Perth, HIV has never been proven to exist, which most Perth followers interpret as “HIV does not exist.” How can a non-existent virus infect anyone? Perth followers who point to a vaccine failure implicitly admit that HIV exists.

According to Duesberg, HIV exists but is a harmless passenger. It is spread perinatally, from mother to child. Sexual transmission is so unlikely according to Duesberg that if he is right, we would not necessarily expect ANY case of infection in the entire Merck vaccine trial. The virus is passed from mother to infant, and only adults are included in the trial. Duesberg followers who revel in the vaccine failure implicitly admit that HIV is sexually transmissible.

Denialists also claim that HIV is “inert,” harmless. Yet they point to vaccine trials as unethical, even Nazi-like, if the vaccine increases risk of infection. How can this be if HIV is inert? A harmless virus does not drive down CD4+ T-cell levels or otherwise disrupt the immune system, so no one with the inert virus will have to take “toxic” antiviral drugs unless he or she has some other, unrelated immune dysfunction. We have already learned that HIV positive patients WITH serious immune dysfunction (whether or not one ascribes the condition to HIV itself) have higher survival rates when taking antiretrovirals than when not taking antiretrovirals, even with all of the drug side effects included. Denialists who use the vaccine failure as an argument implicitly admit that HIV is harmful.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 12, 2007 9:43 AM

No, not at all. Some of us admit that HIV is a harmless “retrovirus.” We at least admit that it probably exists. We also admit that there are flaws in the HIV hypothesis that most accept as Moses accepted the Ten Commandents without question. This is where modern-day science has failed us. Instead of pursuing other avenues and having double-blinded studies, they jumped wholeheartedly on the HIV bandwagon and won’t get off. But then, there isn’t any funding available for other viewpoints. Look what happened to Duesberg, one of America’s greatest scientists and look what happened to Jonathan Fishbein for blowing the whistle at the NIH.

The Russian leader was correct when he stated that we will fall from within. Our politicians are a joke on both sides of the fence, our president, who knows what he is thinking. Lobbists and big corporation control our representatives. One just got caught with money stashed in his freezer but how much more in handled out in envelopes to vote for their causes that we never know about? In the meantime, the average citizen is stuck with the system of corruption and with governmental agencies that won’t do their job of public service. It is wise to question and keep on questioning because most are not looking out for our best interests but their own.

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 12, 2007 9:57 AM

Noreen,

You ask my non-medical doctor opinion.

As far as I understand from previous posts, you have decided to treat an HIV infection firstly with non-antiretrovirals because of their toxicity, as you believe that in a long term they cannot be beneficial to your health. You have trialled different options and are now using LDN.

My opinion is that you should discuss all the case with a medical doctor that 1) would have a confirmed record of treating HIV+ people, and 2) would have practice of using LDN.

It is important that the doctor would at least understand what LDN is, because most doctors would never have heard of it, they are just trained to do what the guidelines are saying, and LDN is not yet in these documents.

The doctor who developed LDN has indicated that it work only with patients that are responsive and manage to decrease the IFN-alpha to approx. 11 i.u. The decrease of the IFN was related with the probability to be free of OI’s. So I expect that you are controlling your IFN-alpha.

ElkMontainMan indicated that there are many IFN-alpha, so you should ask Dr. Bihari or one of his co-authors or the persons that are performing the LDN study in Mali, the exact procedure that they have used to measure the IFN-alpha and we may be able to deduce which one he was referring to.

My guess is that with LDN treatment, many others cytokines are down-(or up-) regulated and have not been measured.

You also write that your level of antibodies is decreasing. I have been thinking that your doctors are measuring your immunoglobulins Ig, which are high when you have an infection/ or an autoimmune disease.

I can remember that I have read a study of A methodology of treatment of an HIV+, using ARV and source of glutathione where the authors where following the increase in CD4 and the decrease of Ig.

I need to trace the document to post it, but if the authors are competents these would mean that it is good that the Ig is going down to normal values.

In Wikipedia, in “immunoglobulin”, it is reported that “in the case of Epstein-Barr or Lyme disease, (..)
If (..) antibodies are not present, (..) the infection occurred a very long time ago, and the B cells generating these specific antibodies have naturally decayed.(..)

So I think that Franklin and Prof. Moore should explain more why they are so worried, so we can all understand better.

P.S. Apparently there is no need to make PCP prevention with LDN. PCP would be another OI, and you are making prevention using LDN.

Medical doctors that dont have read anything about LDN and would just follow the guidelines would not know and may advice you wrongly.

Posted by: Braganza | November 12, 2007 10:24 AM

Thnaks Braganza, you speak the truth and with common sense. Something that is far too lacking nowdays. If LDN wasn’t working and I had O.I.’s then I would listen to what is being preached to me but this has never been the case. I don’t know the ends and outs of how it works but not being a doctor nor scientist, I don’t need to know all of the technical information. I just know that it works. I tell others about it because it could help so many with immune deaseses, not just AIDS.

The doctors, who prescribed it to me in the first place, are well versed in its use. Thankfully, they are ahead of their time and of many physicains. Nevertheless, the good news is that more and more patients are requesting it and more and more physicains are learning about it and prescribing it. Hopefully, in the near future, it will become a commonly prescribed drug. Miracles still do exist and this wonderful drug has been one for me!

Posted by: noreeen | November 12, 2007 10:36 AM

Noreen,

I have been reading the link that you provided:

http://breakfornews.com/aidsmyth/report/articles/051501mattirwinproblemshivantitest.htm

I arrived to the Giraldo experiment, and as a chemist, I have been thinking that his experiment was RIDICULOUS.

The purpose of the dilution is to increase the selectivity, no dilution = no selectivity, and therefore when the sample is not diluted the Elisa results are not valid.

You can trust me more on this question of dilutions than on all the deductions that I may do on LDN. The key of the Elisa is the reaction between the antibodies and the virus particules and I have done (in lab scale) plenty of reactions in all sort of substrates and all kind of concentrations !

Posted by: Braganza | November 12, 2007 10:56 AM

Noreen,

Could you ask your doctors if it is normal that after using LDN the Ig comes down ?

This would help to know if your case is a normal one or not.

We – the readers of your post- would also know more about LDN.

Posted by: Braganza | November 12, 2007 11:01 AM

Braganaz, since some think that I no longer show antibodies to Hepatitis, then by their logic, wouldn’t I no longer show antibodies to HIV? Do you think that this is due to an immune issue or to a faulty lab test?

Posted by: noreeen | November 12, 2007 11:03 AM

Noreen,

Which immunoglobulin is decreasing ? There are a number of them.

The study that I was refering is indicating IgE going down as the result of increasing glutahione in HIV+ patients.

See in the example 3 of the patent:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6262019.pdf

Posted by: Braganza | November 12, 2007 11:38 AM

Noreen, I am serious about my offer of trying to arrange for you to see a specialist HIV/AIDS physician in a leading medical center….but I have asked Tara to put you in touch me if you ask her to. John Moore

To recommend a physician from general knowledge or from personal experience is entirely OK and commonly done.

However, to “arrange to see specialist” enters an entirely diferent world.

Referral to a specialist is reserved for licensed physicians, and for others is illegally practicing medicine without a license, a felony in most states punishable by fines and imprisonment.

If John Moore PhD wants to play doctor, then let him go to school and get the proper credentials.

Posted by: felonyoffense | November 12, 2007 11:38 AM

In response to Braganza’s enquiry about antibody decay rates, there’s an article from Mark Slifka’s group in the latest New Engl J Med on the general subject, although it does not cover Abs to HIV.

One has to take into account here the interactions between the cellular and humoral immune systems. The B-cell responses that generate and sustain IgG production are usually, but not always, dependent on CD4+ T-helper cells. The loss of T-helper cells as a result of HIV infection can therefore compromise B cell function and the generation or maintenance of IgG production. This is a complex area of immunology, and the responses to different pathogencs (indeed different antigens from different pathogens) can differ. For example, during HIV disease progression, the antibody response to the HIV core antigens such as p24 tends to be lost much earlier than the response to the HIV envelope antogens such as gp120. The loss of the p24 antibody response reflects the loss of T-helper functions, and is a poor prognostic indicator of the progression to AIDS and death.

I remain concerned about Noreen’s apparent loss of antibody responses to several pathogen antigens. That’s likely to be an indication of progressive loss of immune function caused by her HIV infection. There may be other explanations, but loss of T help for B cell function is a reasonable one to consider, in the circumstances.

ElkMountainMan is of course quite correct. When the AIDS denialists criticize enhanced infection rates in vaccine or microbicide trials they are implicitly accepting that:

1) HIV exists.
2) HIV infection is dangerous to the recipient.
3) HIV infection can be accurately diagnosed by the use of PCR-based viral load assays.
4) (In the case of microbicide trials) that HIV can be vaginally transmitted by a man to woman, and in both Africa and elsewhere.

Of course logic and critical analysis of what they are actually saying has never been the AIDS denialists’ strength, so their actions here are not surprising.

Braganza, there’s an article on the http://www.AIDSTruth.org site under the “who are the denialists” section about Roberto Giraldo and his stunning inability to understand the basic principles behind ELISAs. It makes the same points you make. Giraldo used to work as a technician in a clinical diagnostics lab, despite his failure to understand the scientific basis of the assays he was supposed to use to test clinical samples. Fortunately, he no longer does. Unfortunately, Giraldo’s grasp of science is on a par with the AIDS denialists’ in general: utterly pitiful. It’s why we fight to oppose their influence on people like Noreen.

Posted by: John Moore | November 12, 2007 11:45 AM

Elkmountain Dude,

I may be able to help with your problem.

You say “denialists” do “this” and then they say “that” but then they also say “this” etc…The reason you are so confused about what “denialists” want or even say is that you too only have one shoebox at home. Everyone knows that Perth and Duesberg disagree but only you are confused about why. Those who say HIV is harmless will not say it doesn’t exist and vise versa. You take unconnected thoughts and group them into a boggeyman that you have named “denialist”.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 11:50 AM

Dear Molecular Entry Claw,

It does not look correct to say that TAC is “the lobby of the pharmaceutical industry”.

TAC may have some strategic alliance with some pharmaceutical companies, but you dont have proof that they are not honest people with STRONG convictions that ARV’s would help to treat low CD4 HIV+ people.

How can you explain that TAC struggled to have ARVs at the lowest cost possible, by buying generics…which would not be the interest of BIG PHARMACEUTICALS COMPANIES?

Posted by: Braganza | November 12, 2007 11:51 AM

I’m glad you bring up sexual transmission is Africa, Dr. Moore. What are we to conclude by all of this, that they are sex crazed in Africa? Don’t Americans and other nations of the world have as much sex? I have yet to hear a logical explanation of why the majority of AIDS (not HIV) cases are in the gay, male population? Why, even if you are allowed to include HIV cases, the numbers are low in America. A few thousand cases out of an population of 300 million. One would have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting AIDS.

This must be a very smart virus to not cause AIDS equally in the male and the female population even though, new, military recruits test 50% male to 50% female. Tell us Dr. Moore, why doesn’t the AIDS statistics reflect this dispargy?

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 12, 2007 12:00 PM

“trials they are implicitly accepting that:

Wow, I actually can agree on something with JP Moore but with one exception. From this this trial I can buy the following:
1) HIV exists
3) HIV can be measured
4) HIV is also sexually transmitted (although not as efficiently as say, HSV.)

but please explain how this trial shows that HIV is dangerous to the recipient. I think you made a mistake; I think that evidence is in a different paper altogether. right?

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 12:08 PM

“How can you explain that TAC struggled to have ARVs at the lowest cost possible, by buying generics…which would not be the interest of BIG PHARMACEUTICALS COMPANIES?”

I am glad you bring that up. TAC and Mbeki indeed make for strange bedfellows. In the years before, TAC and the SA government led a united front against oppressive and murderous patent rules. It is only after the west refused to budge on patent rules and Mbeki got suspicious of pharma behavior that this alliance started to desintegrate. As soon as this happened the door was open for the attack- divide and conquer. Mbeki’s main mistake was to voice his concerns out load because the second he did that it was all about HIM and not about the patent rules. Even without Mbeki the ARV “rollout” would be slow and financially crushing for the SA government because the west still won’t give them for free even though we can WELL afford it.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 12:50 PM

Noreen, almost everything you say in your last post about HIV transmission and prevalence statistics in the USA and Africa is factually flawed and has been rebutted ad nauseam in multiple postings on Blogs like these. I’m not going to waste my time repeating these posts.

If you want to read more about HIV infection in Africa, I refer you to an early posting I made alerting you to Helen Epstein’s recent book (The Invisible Cure) and Nicoli Nattrass’s book (Mortal Combat). I reviewed the Epstein book in J Clin Invest this month, and a review of the Nattrass book (by Mark Wainberg) is to be found in the latest IAS Newsletter, which you can access via the weblink I listed in an earlier posting.

Those books provide excellent coverage of this subject.

Posted by: John Moore | November 12, 2007 12:55 PM

MEC: Obviously, ad hominem is your preferred style of debate. Two can play this game, but for the nonce I’ll just say that your logic and arguments fail to impress me. I actually could not care less whether anyone visits or leaves comments on my blog; it is a rather small part of my life.

Pat: I don’t know if the asymmetric collapse of supernovae is a “trivial” pursuit; I have been known to do that, among other things. But that is neither here nor there. I have very few thoughts on South African situation since I am not a specialist in either epidemiology or politics of that area; my opinion of “deniers” is based solely on the internal logic (or lack of it) of their posts in this thread.

Oh, and also, we Pastafarians know pirates are not scumbags!

In the interest of fair disclosure, I must say that about 20 years ago, I *almost* believed that Duesberg could be right (it was a possibility at the time); I think that the weight of the evidence has shifted since then, and he has no leg to stand on anymore. The Perth group never impressed me much.

Posted by: Jorg | November 12, 2007 12:56 PM

What, John, you are avoiding the question but that’s standard policy just like the politicians when confronted with reality. Are you going to say that its a different strain that is infecting Africa. You don’t mind giving an opinion on my health, someone that you haven’t met nor seen medical records for. You won’t meet and debate Christine or any rethinker, yet we are all suppose to take John’s word for everything because he says its the truth. I have to agree with others, you are a chicken. The only thing that I will give you credit for is posting your real name.

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 12, 2007 1:02 PM

“Noreen – still standing”. AIDS scientists do not ever “debate” with AIDS denialists. We provide factual information, but we will never “debate” or “discuss” it, for reasons that the hard core denialists are well aware of. Besides, your mask is slipping and you are revealing your true nature/colors now, so I’ll not respond to any further posts of yours (or pat’s, mec’s and the other hard core denialists on this site).

Posted by: John Moore | November 12, 2007 1:14 PM

Whats the matter, are we are ganging-up on Homer Boy? Well, if you can’t take the heat then stay out of the Kitchen! When you mainstream thinkers can explain all of the following to me, then I will be happy to join your side:

1) why is HIV and AIDS cases disportionally in different
sexes and why has it not spread to the general
population?
2) where is the scientific proof that HIV causes AIDS?
3) If HIV is an STD, then why are the number so low and
not in the race, section of the country, age group and
even the sex that has the most in the first place?
4) why is the antibody test not specific to HIV?
5) On what scientific basis is it for saying antibodies to
HIV is equal to having an active infection?
6) why is Koch’s Prostulates being ignored?
7) Why hasn’t the HIV Antibody test ever been validated
with a control study?
Why aren’t the viral load probes and primers validated?
9) Why is kidney and liver failure and heart attacks now a
concern for AIDS patients, especially since they are
not AIDS-defining disease?
10)If HIV is so deadly, how is it destroying the immune
system and how are HIV+ living without antiretroviral
medicaitons?
11)Explain why a vaccination has failed after 25 years?

Posted by: noreeen | November 12, 2007 1:34 PM

Thanks Jorg,

Here is an interesting link on the current problems facing Africa as a whole. I link to a text from 2003 at random you can trailblaze from there.

www.africaaction.org/resources/index.php

This is more intended for Adele who seems to grasp the facts about Africa so well that she even uses them as a substitute to mock Maggiore’re desceased child. Now some would have me believe that Mbeki is the sole cause of AIDS in SA but when you consider the magnitude of the actual disaster in all of Africa, it becomes clear that Mbeki is just another fall guy, another distraction for the actual world bank’s and general foreign policy boondoggle of neglect and outright theft. Mbeki only satisfies the hunger of those obsessed with the “boggeyman theory” of human conflict. They fail to see that the boggeyman is a mechanism; not a particular dude or even a network of particular dudes.
Are these examples of the “internal logic (or lack of it)” you were talking about?

“The Perth group never impressed me much.”

me neither.

“I don’t know if the asymmetric collapse of supernovae is a “trivial” pursuit”

I said “I skimmed throught your “crank” post LINK”…you know, this obsession with labelling people cranks, putting them in ONE box and making a theory out of it is…a trivial pursuit. But it is ok, alot of folk here read something I didn’t write like the one where I am supposedly convincing Noreen that HIV is “harmless” and thus driving her to her death. Total fabrication but who gives a shit about accuracy on this blog, eh? I was labelled “denialist” here by some cellar-dwelling biped and since then I could be writing about my new CreaBeton floor and, as sure as the sun rises, there will be a troll saying something nasty about me being a “like” a creationist and how I perhaps could need concrete loafers instead. When I first mentioned the problems of Schubladendenken some while back I instantly had Adele on saying “that sounds Nazi like”. I hear Duesberg and Bialy are homophobes but apparently only because Bialy refers to JP Moore as a “faggot”. In England that is a burnt cigarette, I think but who cares. Moore replies “bigot” It is clear that neither one of them fits their given descriptions. They HATE eachother. Their animosity is well documented and runs very deep. Apparently this behavior is a common trait in many scientists and this blog is perhaps an extention of that animosity, played out mostly by the protagonists’ “lab dogs”. Tonight on Scienceblogs: “FlameWarriors” light wheight “lab dog” championships: Tara Smith versuuuus MAAAniiiiiiOOOtiiiiiiiiiiiisss! I have been fascinated by the trap ever since and I admit to sometimes poking just to provoke it so I can wonder at it in awe just one more time.

-”Will, how many times must I ask you to call me Elizabeth ?”
-”At least once more, Miss Swann , as always.”

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 2:34 PM

When the patient becomes the enemy…at the first hard ball.

Do you read this Jorg: “so I’ll not respond to any further posts of yours (or pat’s, mec’s and the other hard core denialists on this site).”

Now I am “hardcore denialist”. thats new. The invectives grow in direct relation to the number of objections.

I think four questions and a pouting lip gets you a “hardcore denialist” grade.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 3:00 PM

What I treat this thread is. The Scientific Community’s admiral ship Ms “Prof John Pee Moore” has been blown out of the water by Noreen still standing so fiercely upright. Some last bubbles surface where debris of the ship went under:

Besides, your mask is slipping and you are revealing your true nature/colors now, so I’ll not respond to any further posts of yours

Yeah, true colors. The colors of untouchable truth. Exit Pee Moore who “Will not respond anymore”. Some hours ago he was still fiercely playing the Newly Clothed Emperor. Now only his lackeys pretend they don’t see his naked ass.

Posted by: jspreen | November 12, 2007 3:43 PM

John Moore: “Noreen – still standing”. AIDS scientists do not ever “debate” with AIDS denialists. We provide factual information, but we will never “debate” or “discuss” it, for reasons that the hard core denialists are well aware of. Besides, your mask is slipping and you are revealing your true nature/colors now, so I’ll not respond to any further posts of yours (or pat’s, mec’s and the other hard core denialists on this site).

Translation: if you dont submit to death by toxic drugs, then I will take my basketaball and go home.

Noreen is standing testimony to the failure of a flawed HIV causes AIDS, toxic drug treatment dogma, which is no longer considered seriously by anyone with the ability to think. Dear john p moore and all the other doctor wannabees, please take your basketball, go home and fabricate some more “factual information”.

Posted by: takemybasketballandgohome | November 12, 2007 4:51 PM

Moore has no time for science! See the extraordinarily disenguous letter below. As Mr. Moore notes, “the number of hours in a day is finite and unchanging….”

Indeed. But Moore seems to have endless hours for blogging, emailing, and egging on AIDS “denialists”.

Good thing he has tenure.

Science 9 November 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5852, p. 913
DOI: 10.1126/science.318.5852.913b

Letters
Speaking Out About U.S. Science Output
I was amazed by J. Mervis’s News of the Week story “U.S. output flattens, and NSF wonders why” (3 August, p. 582). Not by the conclusion that U.S. science productivity is flattening out, but because apparently nobody interviewed by the NSF could identify the reason. Had the question been posed of almost any working scientist I know, the simple and accurate answer would have been that the number of papers that are written is diminishing because scientists are able to spend less time writing papers! Instead, we spend ever-more time on the increasingly burdensome administrative requirements of conducting science legally, and on writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting grant applications as the NIH’s pay line drops to catastrophically low levels. As the number of hours in a day is finite and unchanging, something has to give. If I didn’t have to spend the rest of this month ignoring various half-complete manuscripts and rewriting a grant application, I’d be able to explain in more detail.

John P. Moore
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Medical College
Cornell University
New York, NY 10065, USA

Posted by: A Carricci | November 12, 2007 4:52 PM

This level of denialism is painful to watch.

In other news, long-time evolution opponent Ray Bohlin is in Liberia, telling the Liberians they need to spray a lot more DDT around to get rid of malaria. Never mind that the war decimated the Liberian health care system,never mind that DDT doesn’t work, etc., etc., etc.

Posted by: Ed Darrell | November 12, 2007 5:23 PM

Jorg, Jorg, Jorg, you gave them a web site to piss all over? See, if you don’t get a lot of hits, it means that what you have to say has no merit, don’t you know.

BTW, is there independent verification of noreen’s claims of her condition? Could be made up; after all, she gets a lot of attention from both sides for it. I’m just sayin’…

Those of you who stay the course and try to argue the science; I admire your tenacity, and I guess someone has to do it. However, I don’t think it’s a matter of the science, but of the midndset that many people have.

Is it uniquely American to say “I’m no [specialist in this field], but…” and then have no compunctions arguing with the very specialists who spent years of study and research to become experts in these fields?

I follow science blogs and comment threads on AGW, 9/11, vaccines, and ID, among others. I don’t pretend to be a climatologist, immunologist, epidemiologist, structural engineer, biologist or any other expert you would need to be to be good at evaluating the studies and data presented for the theories proposed. However, I do have a science background, and I try to evaluate the information in terms of how the scientific method works.

So, I read for patterns, and trends. When I see that old data or studies are re-hashed, totally ignoring new data, when too much emphasis is placed on one study, or person, or when people start demanding certainties (”show me the one conclusive study…” or “I’ll wait until all the science is in…”,) then I know it’s not about science.

I have seen noreen post “… they are sex crazed in Africa? Don’t Americans and other nations of the world have as much sex? I have yet to hear a logical explanation of why the majority of AIDS (not HIV) cases are in the gay, male population?” or words to that effect many times, but never see her address the explanations when they are presented, and then I know it’s not about science.

Reminds me of “how could Arabs living in caves pull this off” argument from the 9/11 truth movement. Good sound bite, but means nothing. Like “sex-crazed” – makes somebody sound racist.

What is it about, then? Is it about fear? Is it about wanting to win the debate at all costs? Is it the anonymity of the internet? (Sort of like road rage?)

I don’t know, but I’ll keep reading…

Posted by: ildi | November 12, 2007 5:33 PM

ildi,
It is all about fear. People believe in HIV because they are socially self-hypnotized to do so.

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
-Jonathan Swift

Posted by: Carter | November 12, 2007 6:02 PM

It is not about the purity of the science, it is about the corruption that tags along. For this you need no certifications. This is something that concerns us all. Some just can’t seem to grasp that, when you are talking about Mbeki, you are talking politics but everytime the going gets rough some hide behind intelligible sciencespeak and tells the rest to shut up. If science wants to make policy then the onus is on the science to make itself understandable to those who make policy.

Posted by: pat | November 12, 2007 6:21 PM

“socially self-hypnotized”? WTF?

The Swift quote is perfect! It sums up one of the challenges that scientists face when communicating with the layperson, and what I mean about this debate not being about science. You should really take it to heart.

“believe in” is one of those buzz phrases I look for. (Like “do you believe in evolution”.)

Thanks for playing!

Posted by: ildi | November 12, 2007 6:31 PM

Carter says:

It is all about fear. People believe in HIV because they are socially self-hypnotized to do so.

No Carter, scientists believe that HIV causes AIDS because of the evidence.

On the other hand, many denialists believe that HIV is harmless because they or someone close to them is infected with HIV, and, faced with the frightening prospect of AIDS, they deal with their fear with a defense mechanism known as Denial.

Here’s Michael Geiger’s thoughts about how the prospect that his lover tested positive on a test for HIV infection “was certain proof that there was something wrong with HIV tests:”

However, it wasn’t until I was directly confronted with the HIV issue from my own lover in 2001, that I decided to fully educate myself and get to the bottom of it all and find out the truth. He was certain proof to me that there was absolutely something wrong with the HIV tests, and there was something wrong with the entire belief system.

His lover was found to be infected by HIV and he interprets that as “certain proof” that the HIV tests are invalid.

Sometimes it’s just easier to bury one’s head in the sand thatn to face reality.

Posted by: franklin | November 12, 2007 6:31 PM

I am real and I would give you my doctors names but they wouldn’t comment due to legal issue. However, I can link you to the following newpaper article, which was from last year and a story will probably run again this year. If Tara would permit, I would send a new picture so many of you can see if I am dying of AIDS. http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A20543

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 12, 2007 6:46 PM

Or in Mbeki’s case he was faced with a major health crisis with no easy or cheap solutions. Providing antiretrovirals to all HIV infected people who needed them was goping to be very, very expensive. Pretending that HIV wasn’t real and that it was all some racist CIA plot to destabilize South Africa was obviously very attractive.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 12, 2007 7:05 PM

ildi,
When someone is able to drown out the unbelieveable noise and chatter from the AIDS pulpit and start to think clearly and for themselves, meaning; Think outside that little box, which HIV causes AIDS, AIDS is always fatal, and poison can prolong your life, then one can truly see that there is a dyer need for a complete rethinking on the subject and an urgent need to stop people from marching right on up to take fradulent HIV tests. It’s not all about science, because if it was we’d have results from the likes of this failed camp, death and dying cult created by the likes of Gallo et al. onward called HIV/AIDS

Posted by: carter | November 12, 2007 8:43 PM

You’ve made it clear, carter, that for you it’s not about teh science.

I’ll put you down for one in the fear category.

Posted by: ildi | November 12, 2007 10:20 PM

I will join any of you, pat/christine included, in pointing fingers at those who try to keep medicine away from people who need it.

The stark reality is that South Africa ranks lower than many other countries in the world in terms of percentage of AIDS patients who receive antivirals. This cannot be due entirely to Western greed and evil pharmaceutical giants, since in some other African countries, ARVs are dispensed at three times the rate per AIDS patient in South Africa. Unless christine/pat can prove that pharma and Western governments reserve a special form of racism and colonialism for South Africa (over, say, Uganda), it follows that Mbeki and other elements of HIV/AIDS denial in SA government have contributed to the relative lack of access to drugs.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | November 12, 2007 10:53 PM

ildi,
What science what are you talking about?
hundereds of chimps infected not one has died after 20 years.
no original papers printed between 1983-1985 that prove hiv causes AIDS using kochs postulates.

the virus is only in 1/1000 blood tcells or so

Not one study seeing if people w/o any other risk factors such as azt, mycoplasmas, severe stress/fear of death/drug abuse get aids vs matched controls.

when no one got sick they extended the window period by years, up to 10-12 now.

Maybe hiv does cause AIDS but I need more evidence than people babbling about siv infected macaque monkeys and 3 random anecdotal lab workers we know nothing about. Its surely is a debatable issue, many experts will say anything like they did in germany and russia, they have a tendancy to be servents to power.

You guys just cant stand it when most intelligent people hear both sides of the argument they start having doubts, thats why moore inc love censorship.

Posted by: cooler | November 12, 2007 11:47 PM

cooler,

See, this is yet another shining example of your cherry-picking and eliminating large amounts of evidence you disagree with.

You first ask for a study…

…seeing if people w/o any other risk factors such as azt, mycoplasmas, severe stress/fear of death/drug abuse get aids vs matched controls.

Do you understand how this epidemiological research is carried out? We don’t travel around with the people we’re studying. We don’t document their every move to see if they’re lying to us. Research subjects fill out questionnaires, perhaps provide biological samples to be tested, and we largely take them at their word. So these studies you’re looking for use the same type of evidence you dismiss as:

3 random anecdotal lab workers we know nothing about.

–they’re just ramped up to collectively look at a hundred or a thousand “random” study subjects “we know nothing about” besides what they’ve told us–the same as the evidence about the lab workers which you dismiss. Why is one OK but not the other, cooler?

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 13, 2007 12:03 AM

Im not saying hiv does not cause aids, just that it is a debatable issue, and people who dissent are not “kool aid drinkers”

Im not aware of one study designed by independent scientists to see if hiv positive people with no risk factors I mentioned above even get aids, which is what you need when most every animal does not get aids. All the epidemilogical studies assumed hiv to be the cause of aids, which is the very question at issue, so they did little to control for confounding factors.

I never wanted to enter into this debate, I was a happy kid with my whole life ahead of me when I became sick with strange infectious like symptoms that slowly worsened over years, they included memory loss diarrea etc. Try living for years without a diagnosis and see how much you trust the medical establishment.

I find it totally disgusting that Fauci sabotaged shyh ching Lo’s research when he clearly proved that mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans was pathenogenic to humans. He inoculated mice /monkeys/chimps/embryos and they all sickened and died. He did not find it in one control, he ruled it to be the cause of death in 6 healthy people who died of mysterious infections within 1-7 weeks., he saw it by electron microscopy in sick patients tissues, what more can you do to prove pathenogenicity in humans? all references posted above.

Why was I not made aware of this when I saw the doctors for years? Why? because its all about money and politics and not science. HPV, Hep c do zilch in animals but they make big money for drug companies. Garth nicolson is finding this horrible microbe in many cfs patients etc. by pcr, antibody testing is unrelaible, when are you scientists going to stop this genocide from occuring? Its about informed consent, and as a scientist you seem to be completely obesqious to the CDC for forming your scientific beleifs, if its not supported by the CDC or big Pharma it cant be true, and anyone that digresses from thier dogma and propaganda is a “kool aid drinker.” Thats not science.

Posted by: cooler | November 13, 2007 12:28 AM

cooler, you didn’t answer my question. Why do you trust self reports in one type of study, but not another? Why do you lend weight to one over the other?

I don’t think you understand quite what you’re talking about here. The early studies–and even contemporary studies–do indeed control for just these confounders, and indeed, these things needed to be controlled for in order to bring the suggestion that HIV caused AIDS beyond more than just a speculation by one lab group. Additionally, while sure, it’s now common knowledge that HIV causes AIDS, the data are what they are, regardless of presumptions of the researchers. If, for example, AIDS cases sorted randomly amongst a population under study, rather than by HIV status, that would suggest something was wrong with the underlying assumption that HIV caused AIDS. That would have to be addressed by the researcher, regardless of his or her personal beliefs coming into the research. To believe that every AIDS researcher out there either is too stupid to recognize this or too incompetent to see such a gross anomaly in their data just strains the limits of my credulity, to put it mildly.

Additionally, you claim:

HPV, Hep c do zilch in animals but they make big money for drug companies.

cooler, after posting about how miserable you were and how your own doctors failed you, isn’t that rather callous of you to then write off viruses that kill thousands every year? If your beef is with doctors, the CDC, and pharmaceutical companies, why minimize the suffering of other patients who, like yourself, simply want an accurate diagnosis, and treatment for their infection?

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 13, 2007 1:11 AM

I’m not minimizing other people from recieving treatment, I want everybody to have informed consent, and that maybe young girls before they get knocked up with 3 hpv vaccines they hear from scientists like Duesberg and Maniotis to see how hpv flunks every one of kochs postulates.

They then can hear the other side of the story and go to the CDC’s website and then proceed with informed consent. Why do you want them not to not hear certain info that might make merck lose some money? Information that many intelligent people would find compelling?

Why do I trust self reports in some studies and not others, I really dont know what your talking about, its not that hard, in order to prove a species specific microbe is pathenogenic in humans, especially one with a decade long window period, you need a study that would read like this.

“because of the long window period with hiv and the lack of a reliable animal model we are going to follow hiv positive people with no other possible risk factors such as azt, mycoplasmas drug abuse stress etc to confirm Gallo’s preliminary hypothesis”

please send me the reference for this study if you claim it exists.

Your claim that scientists would blow the whistle if their unproperly designed studies didnt pan out, I doubt they would want to end up like Duesberg, secondly they are so heavily brainwashed by the propaganda campaign its much easier for them to make ad hoc conclusions to subconciously save the hypothesis thats deeply embedded in thier psyches. ie LNTP’ers have special genes, Theres no direct cell killing bc not enough cells are infected so it must be an immune reponse. etc etc

Its always been throughout history that free thinking scientific minorities have been the ones that were right, such as in nazi germany or Russia, where the majority of experts just went along with the governments propaganda, as they do now. Many experts have spoken out though like Margulis, Pollack, duesberg, strohman, rubin, Lo was a skeptic in 1990 who knows how many more there are who are on the verge of speaking out, who are getting tired of the intimidation. How many more experts are there that are not even aware of the dissidents arguments bc of the heavy censorship? Manufactured consent

Its all about informed consent, once people heard all the sides of the arguments they’d stop all this madness and start demanding some real evidence, not drug company and CDC propaganda.

Posted by: cooler | November 13, 2007 1:47 AM

ildi: yes, honesty does not seem to be the best of policies on occasion…;)

Pat: re the lack of logic in (some) comments on this thread, do I have to point out some of the offenders? I am not used to screaming loudly while clapping my ears shut like some “rethinkers” (I still say “denialists”) appear to do. All the classic signs of pseudo-science are here: persecution mania, wilful ignorance, utter contempt for any evidence that does not fit in with their preconceived notions…and they tell us we don’t understand scientific method? My creationist aside may have been a bit too strong, but only a bit: the similarity between thought processes (and debating styles) of some of these people is precisely the same as that of creationist bozos.

Oh well. It’s night time; I’ve got to get some work done…;)

Posted by: Jorg | November 13, 2007 4:04 AM

It’s curious, the comparison of Aids-denialism with creationism. The foundation of creationism is dogmatic reasoning like “The Bible is the Word of God thus everything written in the Bible is the Truth thus the Earth was created in six days.” Etc. Etc.
Now, if one thumbs through the uncountable pages of Aids apologist vs. denialist discussion with this in mind, where do we find dogma? You got it! Of course, on the apologists side exclusively, “professor” John Pee Moore being a great example of reincarnated Holy Inquisition fanatism.

*** HIV, the virus that causes Aids *** What does that phrase reflect? The result of years of scientific research? Not at all. Being formulated when it all began, some 25 years ago, this phrase is not a final result but an initial hypothesis. A hypothesis that has been promoted to absolute certainty through the years, not because of some scientific demonstration, but because the holy mantra has been recited 9876546546987654323213654654654 times.

- “HIV, the virus that causes Aids”

- What are you talking about, it’s nonsense!

- Repeat after me: “HIV, the virus that causes Aids”

- “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” …”HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” …”HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” …”HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” …”HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … .. .. Hey! I see the light. It’s true: “HIV, the virus that causes Aids” !!!!!! Halleluja, Halleluja …..

“HIV, the virus that causes Aids” … Hey, Mr Pee Moore, ever thought of composing a gospel song?

Posted by: jspreen | November 13, 2007 5:41 AM

Pat,

Your answer on TAC as “an agent for the pharmaceutical industry” was a distraction. How can you maintain that when you reported that they struggled for access to cheap/ generics drugs ?

You should be more balanced in your analysis, and dont figure the world only in black and white.

Posted by: Braganza | November 13, 2007 8:17 AM

“Pat,

Your answer on TAC as “an agent for the pharmaceutical industry” was a distraction. How can you maintain that when you reported that they struggled for access to cheap/ generics drugs ?”

I don’t remeber calling TAC an “agent” for the pharmaceuticals; that was maybe someone else?. I did say they formed a united front with SA until Mbeki started having doubts. Zachie achmat is a very militant character? I doesnt take much to get on his bad side and have him hanging from your ass.

To whoever wrote this:

“Unless christine/pat can prove that pharma and Western governments reserve a special form of racism and colonialism for South Africa (over, say, Uganda), it follows that Mbeki and other elements of HIV/AIDS denial in SA government have contributed to the relative lack of access to drugs.”

You do know that Uganda, although it dispenses ARV’s for free and only sisnce 2004, certainly doesn’t get them for free. Uganda simply went further into debt to pay for the scheme. And all this while the world babbles on incoherently about “debt relief”.
We attack one new disaster by exacerbating another very old one. Racist, colonialist? probably? Bullshit? most definitly.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 9:28 AM

“My creationist aside may have been a bit too strong, but only a bit: the similarity between thought processes (and debating styles) of some of these people is precisely the same as that of creationist bozos.”

I know what you are trying to say but it is not “the similarities with creationist arguments” that anoy you. What annoys you is the internet discussion. Go and see how egyptologists talk to eachother and you’ll find the same thing there.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 9:33 AM

“You should be more balanced in your analysis, and dont figure the world only in black and white.”

I don’t know whay you tell me that. That is advice for those who would like to pin it all on the “Mbeki boggeyman” theory. My world is plenty complex and this is what I wrote about it:

“SA but when you consider the magnitude of the actual disaster in all of Africa, it becomes clear that Mbeki is just another fall guy, another distraction for the actual world bank’s and general foreign policy boondoggle of neglect and outright theft. Mbeki only satisfies the hunger of those obsessed with the “boggeyman theory” of human conflict. They fail to see that the boggeyman is a mechanism; not a particular dude or even a network of particular ”

not as black and white as the “Mbeki/AIDS” theory.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 10:09 AM

Pat,

Sorry that I cannot understand you.

Can you translate this to simple, easy to grasp concepts, and related them to the AIDS in Africa problem ?

(..) actual world bank’s and general foreign policy boondoggle of neglect and outright theft. Mbeki only satisfies the hunger of those obsessed with the “boggeyman theory” of human conflict. They fail to see that the boggeyman is a mechanism; not a particular dude or even a network of particular (..) “.

What should have been the WB policies ? what are the critical aspects of the “mechanism” ?

Thanks for your time.

P.S. On the Uganda question dont worry about the debt, Ugandese government know that they are not going to pay anyway, as these are the new rules of the game. Debt is to be forgiven in the future.

Posted by: Braganza | November 13, 2007 12:34 PM

I have to think a lot of this behavior is due to the anonymity of the internet. Can you imagine jspreen going to Cornell and ranting in this bizarre fashion directly to Dr. Moore? Or, calling his phone and leaving a voice-mail like this? In any other venue it would be a sign of a fairly disturbed mind. Somehow in a comment thread this seems acceptable, however.

If you go to jspreen’s web page, you see that the commonality with Noreen and cooler is that they all appear to be people with no prior medical or scientific training who have become ill or had family become ill and been let down by the medical community in various ways. From jspreen’s web page:

“two dramatic events forced me to become aware of what badly ill people go through during classical cancer treatment. My confidence in the medical know-how used to be complete, but when things got worse for two very close family members, I started to ask the concerned specialists some basic questions like “What is cancer?” and “What are its causes?”. The bewildering answer was “We don’t really know, but it is not important. The only important thing is to strike fast.” It finally did not take long before the evidence hit me in the face: “They have really no idea of what they are doing!”

I guess this is a way of gaining back some measure of control.

Posted by: ildi | November 13, 2007 1:31 PM

Dear ildi. Re your comment:

Can you imagine jspreen going to Cornell and ranting in this bizarre fashion directly to Dr. Moore? Or, calling his phone and leaving a voice-mail like this?

Well, various AIDS denialists have indeed left rambling, disturbed and vaguely threatening voice mails on my phone, usually during the night when they know I won’t be there. I don’t think any of them are from jspreen as none of the speakers had a Dutch accent. Various denialists are also in the habit of sending abusive, almost invariably anonymous screeds (emails or letters) full of references to toilets, lavatory paper, monkey genitals and related irrelevancies to other scientists and administrators at the College, presumably in the belief that this sort of reasoned approach (sic) will cause me to be dismissed or disciplined. It’s the same kind of “thinking” that caused at least one AIDS denialist to write to the U of Iowa to try to get Tara fired for daring to operate this Aetiology site.

All I can say is that it takes a lot more than the abuse I receive from these people, on this Blog or elsewhere, to intidimate me.

Posted by: John Moore | November 13, 2007 1:59 PM

Braganza,

Africa as a whole is dealing with very complex problems and very little money. Alot of the reality on the field today is a direct result of European and American plunder and neglect over the centuries. These words are harsh but Africa IS harsh. To name a few:
Hundreds of years of slavetrade-related social and cultural destruction. Over a hundred years of colonial goverment exploitation of resourses and neglect of the people. After the end of colonialism we see nothing but the same plunder. The only difference is that it is done today by proxy and not by direct occupaton. The World Bank under the auspices of western nations led by the USA are the direct offenders.
These re-inforce poverty through unfair trade practices and the corruption of African governments to support them. The Blood that flowed (and still flows) is the red in the flag. The natural resources that were plundered (and are still plundered) is represented by the yellow in the flag. I am sorry if these sound commie or leftie or whatnot but this is what I see when I look closely. Look closely at the actions of the World Bank on the African continent and you will quickly see that something is going terribly wrong and you don’t need any kind of certification whatsoever to comprehend the sheer problem that Africa faces to this day.
A quick example off the top of my head would be Cameroon I believe. WB cleans up the books and effectively put them under supervision (WB calls the shots). The new policy was a drastic attempt at social engineering led by nothing more than a bunch of bean counters and one of their first ideas was to streamline the workforce. The moto was that “they should do what they do best and import the rest”. So they did away with rice farmers for example and took away some of that land to make way for foreign owned open pit mines. The idea was that the newly dispossessed rice farmers (and all kinds of other farmers) would then be employed at the mines and the rice would come from an “efficient” rice producing country such as …Thailand. In the meantime hardly any locals work at the mines, most moved to the cities in search of jobs further exacerbating the infrastructure and to top it all off the rice is imported from…the USA. I cant recall the price. This is a few years back; search the BBC archives, it is amazing what you will find there.
These are just a few examples of who is meddling in Africa nowadays, of the “mechanism”. The critical aspect of the mechanism is that although it has claimed the moral high ground, it does nothing to defend it, let alone promote it. So when I hear simplistic “lapdog” attacks on a single guy like Mbeki for causing a national health crises, I can’t help myself but to chuckle at the innocense of such a position. Of course it also enrages me because it is a good distraction from all those that are out there cashing in on African disarray. It also enrages me that people would usurp the moral high ground to launch cheap personal attacks based on half-truths and a reductionist revision of history. It is historical record that although the ability to deliver “life saving” drugs was always within the power and ability of western nations, the political will was never there to make it hapen and this well past that fatefull day in 2000 when Mbeki said “what the f..k?” It is clear though, as you say , that in the future debt relief will be a reality but not because of the generosity of the west but simply because of the sheer impossibility to ever recoup it. I do wonder what kind of obligations are going to be imposed on Uganda or Africa as a whole for the privilage of defaulting by reason of reality?

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 2:13 PM

“”Well, various AIDS denialists have indeed left rambling, disturbed and vaguely threatening voice mails on my phone, usually during…”

Maggiore appears to have a very similar personal tale of crank phone calls, abusive anonymous e-mails
and whatnot. You have more in common than you think.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 2:17 PM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKjgCYRHhzk
for example…as a starter.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 3:18 PM

All I can say is that it takes a lot more than the abuse I receive from these people, on this Blog or elsewhere, to intidimate me.

Dear John,

you may not be “intidimated” by this, but you know very well you’re intimidated by everything from bad typing to your own shadow, which seems to be one and the same thing in this case. But I do appreciate your machismo in the face of such fearsome odds: grieving mothers old gay hippies, people living on other continents…

Really Johnnie Who are you kidding? Nobody can be bothered calling you, night or day, because you’re a weirdo… one of those nerdy, unsexy weirdos. Nobody likes you, not even your pet macaque – you know the one out of the lot that survived all your vaginal challenges. But what the hell, since you have now shared your fantasies with us, I’ll help you with this as well as all your other shortcomings. Just publish your phone number and office hours, and I’ll arrange for some groaners to call you free of charge – yes I know you’re a cheap bugger too – and tell you how big and brave you are. State your preferences but please be advised we don’t do simians.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 13, 2007 3:21 PM

Can you imagine jspreen going to Cornell and ranting in this bizarre fashion directly to Dr. Moore? Or, calling his phone and leaving a voice-mail like this?

Why should I do that? I have nothing to say to Mr Pee Moore in private. If I send a contribution here every once in a while, it’s not to address naked assed Emperor Moore and his lackeys, but to attract some attention of people who are looking for a way to gain back some measure of control. Somebody gave me some new ideas a couple of years ago which set me on my way, now it is my duty to pass on the information.

You went over to my site and came back with some phrases you quoted here. I have good hope that someone, somewhere, reads that quote, starts to dig deeper and finally also gets away from the deadly “scientific community” indoctrination.

Posted by: jspreen | November 13, 2007 3:51 PM

Pat,

If the deaths in South Africa are unrelated to the policies of the Mbeki government but, instead, are due to the exploitation of Africa by the West–exploitation that has occurred for centuries–why did the epidemic of AIDS only take off in South Africa in the 1990’s?

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 4:37 PM

Tara, I appreciate your showing up at this stage of the thread.

Seriously love, this is not a denialist trick; there are published EM’s of mycoplasma that are indistinguishable from the particles in the Gallo EMs of May, 1984.

Gene

Posted by: Mr. Natural | November 13, 2007 5:10 PM

why did the epidemic of AIDS only take off in South Africa in the 1990’s?

Because that’s when the World Hype Organizations decided to count people who were ill (or sometimes not even) as Aids-patient according to all kinds of wild criteria.

Posted by: jspreen | November 13, 2007 5:14 PM

epidemic of AIDS only take off in South Africa in the 1990’s?

Hows about looking into massive expanse of malnutrition, hunger and poverty to begin with?

Mbeki wants something better than drug interventions based on a vague virus theroy. How about food?

Posted by: carter | November 13, 2007 5:20 PM

“If the deaths in South Africa are unrelated to the policies of the Mbeki government but, instead, are due to the exploitation of Africa by the West–exploitation that has occurred for centuries–why did the epidemic of AIDS only take off in South Africa in the 1990’s?”

Not an easy question to answer. You are trying to force a pick between two extremes. It is not either or. Mbeki may not be very helpful in your fight against HIV but nor is the international community very helpfull either. The deaths in S. Africa are related to complex political manoeuverings happening in every corner of the planet. One of which is the very real reluctance of the west to deliver medicines (that we can well afford) with or without Mbeki in power. And, besides, the deaths are all due to disease. Policies may exacerbate a disease but it is never the cause of disease. The political smear campaign against Mbeki exacerbates the situation for all S Africans. He is the elected leader of SA, it is WITH him the world should work, not against.

“why did the epidemic of AIDS only take off in South Africa in the 1990’s?”

That is a very interesting question. Maybe it is a new disease that just popped up. It is notable though that HIV had the decency to wait until the end of apartheid to wreak havoc there. It really is hard to support or refute the HIV numbers in SA due to the disinterest white SA showed towards their black fellow countrymen during their rule. But many studies (one noted above by MEC) show that the theoretical death toll of the HIV/AIDS epidemic taking place there is at odds with many counter observations. Like MEC pointed out: the population growth model of SA “without AIDS” is closer to the latest SA population estimates than the population model “with AIDS”. This leads me to wonder how high off the ground this epidemic really got and if all the hype and all the hate is rational.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 5:41 PM

What study did MEC cite?

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 6:05 PM

Don’t get me wrong, I am not denying that people are dying faster there today than ever before but this increased mortality also corrolates with the decaying economic situation on the continent, and some people, in my humble opinion, underestimate the significance of this and too readily interpret any deaths as AIDS deaths. It use to be that poverty was the greatest sourse of human distress and ill health and somewhere along the line it became obfuscated by the phenomena of HIV causing poverty and wreaking economic destruction. HIV may worsen an already dire situation but all the ARV’s sold on credit in the world will not ever change anything for those suffering until there is a real and functioning health care system set up. it is a sad reality though that Aid funds are incompetently allocated. ARV’s are not pills really, politically they are a “bandaid”. Uganda has 1 health worker for every 22′000 citizens. The 70′000′000 credit they were given for their free ARV project, to last them until 2010 or so, already suffered its first set-back 4 months into the roll-out. The set back was a disruption on the supply side of the deal. There were no ARV’s ready for Uganda. A perfect opportunity for that TeennageMutantNinjaVirus to “morph” into something deadlier. The money the west spends in a week of war could build a nice little health system there but that does not happen; there is no political will. Mbeki or not, ARV’s distribution is always going to be adhoc there, just like the health care system, at least until we change our political will and identify the true threat to international security- Poverty.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 6:13 PM

And economic inequality justifies the president of South Africa ignoring the evidence that HIV infection is a serious health problem facing his nation?

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 7:03 PM

he quoted the US sensus bureau and statistics SA

here’s the SA sensus 2007

www.statssa.gov.za/Publications/CS2007Basic/CS2007Basic.pdf

2007: 48′502′063

the following is an obviously outdated and mistaken page opining about the opposite.
http://www.prcdc.org/summaries/aidsinafrica/aidsinafrica.html

“By 2003, there will be negative population growth in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Negative population growth has never before been projected in a developing country; it is caused by a combination of high HIV prevalence and declining relatively low fertility.”

It is 2007 and they have seen a population growth of 8% since the last cencus of 2001.

ask MEC to dig out the US cencus bureau stuff..

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 7:07 PM

“And economic inequality justifies the president of South Africa ignoring the evidence that HIV infection is a serious health problem facing his nation?”

not economic inequality, economic inability perhaps, coupled with doubts about the west’s true intentions. We didn’t give them ARV’s when they were screaming for them, do remember that.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 7:17 PM

The CIA thinks S Africa has only 43,997,828 people as of 2007.
But we all know the CIA couldn’t tell a WMD if it hit them in the face.
They are off by 5′000′000 people. Maybe it is little wonder people think the country is being decimated.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 7:30 PM

Mbeki wants something better than drug interventions based on a vague virus theroy. How about food?

Over the last two decades the gross domestic product per capita has been steadily rising.

If poverty is increasing it is only because there is a growing inequality in the distribution of wealth that occurred during the ANC government.

Mbeki needs to find another scapegoat for the failure of their health system. Conspiracies involving the CIA and pharmaceutical companies are not credible.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 13, 2007 7:39 PM

“Over the last two decades the gross domestic product per capita has been steadily rising”

this flies right in the face of economic predictors when computing for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We are used to faulty HIV models in the meantime though.

“If poverty is increasing it is only because there is a growing inequality in the distribution of wealth that occurred during the ANC government.”

You have found a phenomena that is reproduced around the world and is not unique to ANC policies. We wont even mention the inequalities under apartheid, right.

“Mbeki needs to find another scapegoat for the failure of their health system”

No, you need to find another scapegoat for the failures of our AID programmes and lopsided trade rules.

“Conspiracies involving the CIA and pharmaceutical companies are not credible.”

Do you see that Jorg? I mention the CIA getting their data backwards and Chris Noble busts out with increadible CIA conspiracy theories. It is fascinating, Chris. You are like a pavlovian attack dog. I am starting to believe you are a spambot that reacts to specific letter combinations.

Posted by: pat | November 13, 2007 8:01 PM

Mbeki says CIA had role in HIV/AIDS conspiracy

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 13, 2007 8:33 PM

“If you go to jspreen’s web page, you see that the commonality with Noreen and cooler is that they all appear to be people with no prior medical or scientific training who have become ill or had family become ill and been let down by the medical community in various ways. From jspreen’s web page:”

Ildi,
Wrong, I cite experts all the time like Garth and nancy nicolson phd’s, Dr. joel baseman from the NIH and Dr. Shyh Ching Lo md phd from the Army, I mean I posted a long excerpt from Lo’s pathology study above thats more solid than anything Ive ever read proving a microbes pathenogenicity in humans.

Even after Baseman said how impressed they were with Lo’s work, inducing disease in mice/monkeys, seeing the mycoplasma in the tissues with the EM, and reccomended further funding, Fauci the murderer refused to provide a penny. Baseman said it could be involved in many other diseases. This was 1990, god knows how many people have it now and are being misdiagnosed with depression etc.

What about all the “deniers” that are not sick like math professsor and future noble laurete Darin Brown, Serge lange etc etc, your aims at psychoanylsis are pretty weak, stick to debating the science.

Posted by: cooler | November 13, 2007 9:26 PM

Pat,

Are you arguing that there is no AIDS crisis in S. Africa (only 14,000 deaths in 2004) or that the AIDS crisis is due to pharmaceutical companies setting antiretroviral prices out of reach of S. Africa’s health care budget (”the failures of our AID programmes and lopsided trade rules”).

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 10:29 PM

Cooler,

You mostly cite Project Day Lily–a work of fiction.

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 10:32 PM

its actually a true story thats slightly fictionilized to stay out of court, too bad so many scientists disagree with you, read the reviews, including a nobel laurete, its mostly based on Lo’s work that is far from fiction, the only microbe discovered to kill/sicken every animal injected

PRESS RELEASE
Huntington Beach, CA
May 27, 2006 http://www.projectdaylily.com/

The Institute for Molecular Medicine announces that its recently self-published book Project Day Lily, is already the No. 3 quarterly royalty earning book published by Xlibris Corporation, a subsidiary of Random House. Project Day Lily is based on the events surrounding “Gulf War Syndrome” suffered by over 150,000 veterans (and tens of thousands dead) without proper acknowledgment or treatment to keep secret the origin of their illnesses.

This is the true story of the discovery of a biological agent in veterans’ blood by two American scientists as part of a massive testing program in the military and prisons and how various academic and government employees did everything in their power to keep this information secret, including murder.

Their discovery has allowed patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis and other fatiguing and autoimmune diseases to finally find an effective treatment for their conditions.

The events described are true, and the scientific principles discussed in the book and have been documented in the authors’ publications, reports and sworn testimony to Presidential Commissions and committees of the U. S. Congress.

Some comments on the book:

Being a health professional for 40 years, I have always held scientific research and discovery in respect. However, since personally experiencing the ravages of a chronic Mycoplasma infection, receiving help and guidance from the Nicolsons over the past 10 years and in turn helping others, I now have a slightly different perspective. The Nicolsons are great storytellers of intrigue and menace in the scientific research world. Breaking the mold of traditional suspense novels, Project Day Lily is based on fact–many facts of which I can attest. The book is simultaneously intelligent and believable. It is intricately layered with remarkable research and detail from the opening pages to the conclusion. It is a fascinating, absorbing, eye-opening page-turner. Project Day Lily has alerted me of the danger that public policy could easily become the captive of the scientific technologically elite. I suspect that it may be happening more than any of us would want to know. And God help those of us who are unsuspecting victims!
Sharon Briggs, M.S.N., R.N., Mycoplasma Support, Shasta CFIDS

In “Project Day Lily” the Nicolsons tell their personal saga that is intertwined with major events and forces in recent American history. This linear narrative testifies about the strength of authors’ perceptions and convictions. It is also a story of transformation of a couple of scientists into advocates for causes that they believe in so deeply.
Stanimir Vuk-Pavlovic, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic Graduate School

This book is very compelling – pointing out the corruption of the university–governmental complex coupled with Mafia money. Every conscientious physician and scientist needs to know that following the “green” is essential to know in order to develop information that is reliable to help their research and in helping their patients.
William J. Rea, M.D., F.A.C.S., F.A.A.E.M., Environmental Health Center – Dallas

A great read, complex and convoluted but compulsive. Science and politics are intricately intertwined in this chonologue. The world of scientific research is shown in its reality: academic altruism and isolation of the scientists on the one hand and the political gamesmanship, enterprise and exploitiveness that is often used to achieve the funding to allow the work to continue on the other.
Tim Roberts, Ph.D., Acting ProVice-Chancellor, Assistant Dean International, Assistant Dean Postgraduate Coursework, Faculty of Science and Information Technology
University of Newcastle (Australia)

I received the very first draft and read it with increasing amazement as I was going along. I knew Garth Nicolson from his days at the Salk Institute and knew he was (is) of sound mind. The implications, medical and political, of what is revealed in “Project Day Lily” are major. If you are interested in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, or the problems of our Veterans with Gulf War Syndrome, you will want to read this book, think, and wonder.
Roger Guillemin, M.D., Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, Nobel Laureate in Medicine, The Salk Institute

This is a saga of two researchers in pursuit of the truth who were pulled into the black hole of treacherous global affairs and politics and their excruciating struggles for survival. How many more Galileos and Darwins will have to suffer? Their chronicle keeps a reader in suspense from the beginning to the end. I cannot wait for a film version of it.
Tae H. Ji, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Kentucky

Project Day Lily shatters the composed faÃ§ade of academic science, exposing societal turbulence as malevolent and violent as any time in the Cold War or since. The pages seem to turn themselves. This story illustrates a time of crisis and tragedy for individuals and country so thoroughly frightening despondency and despair seem the only refuge. Yet the evil is overshadowed by the transcendent courage and steadfast determination of the main characters to push forward. Their commitment to family and integrity is inspiring and makes the battle worth fighting.
John Casey, President and Co-Founder, Nutritional Therapeutics, Inc.

During the first Gulf Conflict, Operation Desert Storm, nearly every level of government, the military, and the American people assumed that Iraq had completely failed to deploy or initiate the use of biological weapons. Leading up to the war, I directed the military component of a joint biological detection project with scientists from Stanford Research Institute. At the conclusion of the combat, even after being presented with evidence that suggested biological agents had indeed found their way to the battlefield, I dismissed the reports of Gulf War Illness. That is, until soldiers in my command and their families developed illnesses that could only be attributed to their service in the Gulf or their association with people and material that had been returned from Iraq. In my search for the truth, I met Dr. Garth Nicolson. He was a lone, and much maligned, voice in the quest for a cure. Project Day Lily is a riveting and profound essay on what really happened. It’s time the public knew the truth.
Gerald Schumacher, Colonel, U.S. Army Special Forces (ret)

I received a draft of the book Project Day Lily, and I was deeply impressed by the courage of Professor Garth Nicolson and his wife Dr. Nancy Nicolson, who were determined to uncover the mystery of the “Gulf War Syndrome”. Professor Nicolson, who is a prominent scientist, provided evidence, that the “Syndrome”, was not due to psychological effects, which caused the suffering of more than 150,000 veterans, but was the result of infection with a Mycoplasma strain, which was apparently modified genetically. As this approach contradicted the official version, the two scientists were attacked mentally and physically and had to leave their positions and to establish a new Institute–The Institute for Molecular Medicine–where they could continue their studies without interference. This book provides an interesting insight into the relationship of science and politics in the United States. It describes the experience of two devoted scientists, who did not hesitate to tell the true story about the Gulf War Syndrome. I am sure that every reader will be deeply impressed.
Uriel Bachrach, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Hebrew Hadassah University, Jerusalem

Posted by: cooler | November 13, 2007 10:56 PM

So you think you’ve been debating the science, cooler? I don’t think that phrase means what you think it does. Citing experts all the time does not the scientific dialog make.

No, like I said in my first comment, I read all these fascinating threads to figure out what makes people like you tick. You get a lot of folk wasting quite a few brain cells on you on these threads (like poor franklin); that’s got to be a big motivation.

jspreen even admits to this: “I have nothing to say to Mr Pee Moore in private. If I send a contribution here every once in a while, it’s not to address naked assed Emperor Moore and his lackeys, but to attract some attention of people…”

[ok, ok, that was a spot of quote-mining. jspreen actually selflessly wants save others from the evil medical baby-killing cabal. Think of the children...!]

Posted by: ildi | November 13, 2007 11:02 PM

Pat,

One factor contributing to the remarkably low number of deaths attributed to HIV in the Stats South Africa report is discussed on page 5 of the report, under the heading: “Classification of the Causes of Death.”

In terms of the Stats SA coding procedures and guidelines, immunosuppression was not coded as HIV, but as immunodeficiency, which has a separate ICD-10 code. There is no code for immunosuppression in the ICD-10 manuals. However, certifying officials sometimes reported the underlying cause of death as ‘acquired immune suppression’. There is no code in the ICD-10 for ‘acquired immune suppression’. In terms of the Stats SA coding procedures, this term was interpreted as HIV disease and given an HIV code (group B20-B24). If HIV was written on the form this was also coded in the HIV group, as required by the ICD-10.

So if “immune suppression” was listed as the cause of death the case was listed as a primary immune disorder. This category of diseases includes things like congenital immune deficiencies, etc., and turns out to be the 7th leading cause of death in 2004 and 2005.

Hmmm, what do you think? An epidemic of Di George Syndrome or maybe Adenine Deaminase Deficiency?

Well, I guess not, because on page 45 they break down the 16,171 deaths due to “Certain Disorders Involving the Immune Mechanism,” and 98.8% are classified as “Other Immunodeficiencies” (with an additional 0.3% classified as “Other Disorders Involving the Immune Mechanism; Not Elsewhere Classified”).

Together, the categories of HIV plus “Certain Disorders Involving the Immune Mechanism” account for more than 30,000 deaths and would constitute the third leading cause of death in 2005.

And that still wouldn’t take into account the cases of TB in AIDS patients coded simply as TB.

The authors of the Statistics SA report recognize that HIV is under-reported on death registrations and in the Introduction (page 2) they state that:

This release covers mortality and causes of death broadly, and hence does not focus specifically on HIV and AIDS. It does, however, provide indirect evidence that HIV may be contributing to the increase in the level of mortality for prime-aged adults, given the increase in the number of deaths due to associated diseases.

Posted by: franklin | November 13, 2007 11:17 PM

November 13, 2007: U.S. Sets Record in Sexual Transmitted Diseases

This can’t be good.

ATLANTA (AP) – More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year – the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.

“A new U.S. record,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More bad news: Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a “superbug” version resistant to common antibiotics, federal officials said Tuesday.

Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis – which can deform or kill babies – rose for the first time in 15 years.

So, chlamydia is up
So, Gonorrhea is up
So, Syphilis is up

Record levels — germs are everywhere — kids are humping like rabbits.

And, yet, total, complete, deafening silence on ……HIV.

Not a solitary word. As if it didn’t exist.

Posted by: John Givens | November 13, 2007 11:30 PM

See, cooler, what franklin is doing is what debating the science looks like. Well organized, clearly makes the point, appears to be properly cited… in case you were wondering.

Posted by: ildi | November 13, 2007 11:31 PM

Really could have fooled me, scroll back and read Lo’s cited pathology studies and learn something, instead of being a crank. Learn from a real scientist, not a fraud like yourself.

Posted by: cooler | November 13, 2007 11:37 PM

Fraud? Now, that’s not nice, I’ve never said I was a real scientist, and I don’t even pretend to play one on TV, like you do. But back to franklin’s points; you don’t think that is debating the science? Pity, because I thought it was very cogent and made some excellent points.

Posted by: ildi | November 13, 2007 11:45 PM

Mbeki needs to find another scapegoat for the failure of their health system. Conspiracies involving the CIA and pharmaceutical companies are not credible.

Dr. Noble, you haven’t really answered the question, so one more time, Mr. Foreign Policy Expert: why would it be incredible that the CIA is/has been involved in undermining Thabo Mbeki? I’m not saying they are, but why would it be so incredible? If somebody were to say that Prof. Moore et al in concert with forces within South Africa are trying to undermine Mbeki is that also an incredible conspiracy theory? If so maybe you can explain why the good prof. himself believes he is part of covert activities that targets “framers and shapers of events”? Is it just the Thorazine kicking in you think?

…You’re a lightweight in the denialists’ ranks, a mere gadfly, a commentator on events, not a framer and shaper of them. We take others seriously, but not you – you, we just laugh at in your “retirement” (…)
… We don’t care; nobody who matters takes your site seriously. But note that the information flow is one way, we won’t be revealing our plans, targets and activities to you. You’ll find out after the fact. We don’t issue warnings…….. (John M007e)

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2007/03/the_sad_song_of.html

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 13, 2007 11:52 PM

Cooler,
what exactly are your credentials and why would they lead us to believe you have any competency in “debating” scientific matters?

Posted by: Jim | November 14, 2007 12:03 AM

The scientists supporting the HIV/AIDS paradigm have failed as scientists.
Here’s how…

The scientists supporting the paradigm have ignored their responsibility to
explain and demonstrate the theory to the those who question it. From day one
there were experts objecting to the theory. These issues were never settled.
Today, with an increasing number of experts who are not convinced, the
scientists still do not try to justify their theory.

Another point.

What is evidence? Data is not evidence. Evidence gives or suggests proof
of something. If experts are not convinced that certain data constitute
evidence then more work needs to be done. A scientist supporting a theory
must explain how the data makes something evident to other scientists. If
data is not evidence to other scientists and these scientists say so, they
are not deniers of evidence, rather they are scientists for saying so.

John MOORE-

I don’t understand why you do not try to convince people that the theory is
correct. Why not gather more data? For what reasons do you not gather data
that would convince nonconvinced experts, and then the public. I do not see
how you can claim that you care about people at large while you neglect this
important responsibility. I do not understand, for example, why you do not
continue to try to convince Duesberg or try to understand his reasoning
better. Can you explain? Given what you know how could you write to Noreen as
you did? There are people who are healthy, people who have not died, despite
the predictions of the model. Noreen went from sick to healthy. Here you
have an example that the model does not predict. So, how come then do you
forecast her future health with the predictions of a model that has already
failed to predict her current health? Rather than tell her that she is in
grave danger of death how come you did not tell her that there are others
who, inexplicably, too have become healthy and have remained so? You could
have wished her well yet you forecast her death and then you say that your
forecast is about saving a life. Do you realize the terrible psychological
impact these words could have on Noreen? That those words alone could cause
her health to go from good to bad? Please explain your thinking on these
points.

Posted by: notsofast | November 14, 2007 12:05 AM

John Givens quotes from an article on STD’s and says:

So, chlamydia is up So, Gonorrhea is up So, Syphilis is up

Record levels — germs are everywhere — kids are humping like rabbits.

And, yet, total, complete, deafening silence on ……HIV.

Not a solitary word. As if it didn’t exist.

Let’s see, why doesn’t the aticle mention HIV?

Oh, you fogot to quote this sentence:

The CDC releases a report each year on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, three diseases caused by sexually transmitted bacteria.

So the article doesn’t mention HIV because it’ based on a CDC report that covers chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

HIV get its own report, John. All to itself:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2005report

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 12:09 AM

Notsofast,

Do you have any evidence that John Moore’s “words alone could cause
her health to go from good to bad?”

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 12:13 AM

jim, its because I’ve got the big balls and the big heart. Experts will say anything, they used to say smoking was good for you. Besides, the science is so simple, kochs postulates etc, nevermind that many experts agree with me because I’ve got the big balls and the big heart.

How big are your balls?

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 12:15 AM

Dr. Noble, you haven’t really answered the question, so one more time, Mr. Foreign Policy Expert: why would it be incredible that the CIA is/has been involved in undermining Thabo Mbeki?

The idea that not only do the pharmceutical companies have a stranglehold on the goverment sposored research in every single country in the world (apart from South Africa) but they also control the CIA is ridiculous. Unless your name is Matthias Rath!

Why Sarkozy and Bush Need World War III

Nope, no frothing at the mouth conspiracy theorists!

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 12:19 AM

Cooler,
your answer stating “none” is noted.

Posted by: Jim | November 14, 2007 12:28 AM

youve just admitted you dont have any balls.

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 12:31 AM

“The scientists supporting the paradigm have ignored their responsibility to
explain and demonstrate the theory to the those who question it.”

No they haven’t, notsofast. Scientists have continued to research HIV and publish their results in the literature. They’ve continued to report their results at meetings and respond to criticisisms voices at said meetings and in said literature. It is not up to scientists to convince the few hold outs who cling to their own past glory. Once a person has proven themselves resistant to the conclusions reached through data collection without providing their own contradicting data, there is no longer an obligation to take those people seriously.

“From day one
there were experts objecting to the theory. These issues were never settled.
Today, with an increasing number of experts who are not convinced, the
scientists still do not try to justify their theory.”

Every paper published justifies and supports the theory. The issues were settled a long time ago and doubts settled by real scientists doing real research. Refuting an accepted theory requires contradictory data from those questioning the supporting data, a point that seems to be lost on denialists. I’d also like to know who’s joining the denialist’s ranks to make them continually say things like “an increasing number of experts who are not convinced” because I only see the same tired, refuted washed up “experts” cited time after time.

Posted by: Jim | November 14, 2007 12:42 AM

Ball size aside, cooler, the science is far from “simple.” Even Koch’s postulates aren’t as simple as you try to play them off as. Indeed, as I and others have pointed out to you multiple times, Koch himself realized his own examples couldn’t live up to his postulates 100% of the time, and cautioned that the totality of the evidence be considered, and not his postulates alone.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 14, 2007 12:43 AM

And does Mbeki say the pharmaceuticals control the CIA?

I don’t know why you feel you use such strong wording as “pharmceutical companies have a stranglehold on the goverment sposored research in every single country in the world”.

Do you not believe industries like medicine, oil, weapons have a lot of power to influence governments all over the world? Do you not believe hat if a number of these global players should happen to have shared interests it would be very difficult for any country to oppose them?

Do you not believe that foreign aid, including medical aid is tied to the donor country’s foreign policy aims?

Could I get a real analysis Dr. Foreign Policy Expert?

And would you like to explain why John Moore thinks he is part of something infinitely more powerful and influential than the so called denialists, or are you just going to keep dragging in more side issues you don’t understand? either?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 14, 2007 12:44 AM

How old are you Cooler, 15? I’m sure you giggled like a little girl the entire time it took you to typed that response. Again, your response stating “none” is noted.

Posted by: Jim | November 14, 2007 12:51 AM

And does Mbeki say the pharmaceuticals control the CIA?

He says the pharmacetical companies are behind the conspiracy and the CIA is involved. Maybe they are just subcontracted. Maybe both the CIA and the pharmaceutical companies are controlled by the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds as Matthias Rath thinks.

I don’t know why you feel you use such strong wording as “pharmceutical companies have a stranglehold on the goverment sposored research in every single country in the world”.

If HIV and AIDS is all just a plot by the pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs to poor Africans then they somehow managed to subvert government sponsored research in countries across the world including Russia and China.

That’s the problem with these conspiracy theories. You have to explain why government funded scientists all across the world are all in on it, even in China. If HIV and AIDS aren’t real then why did China eventually confront the crisis? Why not just ignore it? If it isn’t real then it should go away. Maybe China is controlled by the pharmaceutical companies too!

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 1:14 AM

From day one there were experts objecting to the theory. These issues were never settled. Today, with an increasing number of experts who are not convinced, the scientists still do not try to justify their theory

There isn’t an increasing number of experts who are not convinced. There is a inverse relationship between the number of people signing the denialist list and their relevant expertise in the field.

The list is padded out with quacks like Hulda Clark and homeopaths, acupuncturists and orgone therapists etc.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 1:19 AM

I’d also like to know who’s joining the denialist’s ranks to make them continually say things like “an increasing number of experts who are not convinced” because I only see the same tired, refuted washed up “experts” cited time after time.

They have their own list just like the scientists that dissent from Darwin, the scientists that think 911 was a conspiracy by the Bush government, the scientists that think that vaccines are evil etc.

Their latest addition is a videographer. Not exactly an expert! And by the sound of it he is a “wild-eyed conspiracy theorist” despite the claims on the website.

Like I told Stephen, what other lies have we been dealt???

9/11??? Probably. Apollo Moon Landings? Very possible. Hell even FDR knew that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor. But nothing was done. Now is our time to stand up and not only protect our future but protect our rights as a human being. We have the right to exist whenever, whenever and HOW EVER we choose.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 2:01 AM

the exceptions to Kochs postulates are quite easy to understand as well, some microbes can be species specific. I understand that, therefore the only way to make a distiction between a harmless passenger virus and a species specific pathenogenic microbe is a carefully controlled long term study that rules out confounding factors, for example with hepatitis C you would follow people with the virus with no other risk factors such as drugs and alcohol and see if this 1/1000 cell no animal model microbe can really do what Chiron said it could do, the drug company that gave us hepatitis C, or if it was just a money making scam they created, when the true cause of hep c is just drugs and alcohol.

If there is that long term study with hep c that rules out these confounding factors please let me know.

Another way to see if your species specific microbe is not a passenger virus is to see it in large quantities with the EM. etc etc.

Jim you see you can learn alot from me and my sidekick dr. shyh ching lo md phd, the military’s most decorated infectious disease pathologist, we dont need to do all these things, because mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans induces disease/ death in every animal inoculated, is visible in dying patients tissues by EM, and is found in no healthy controls. So please bow your head to your scientific elder, how many people lives have been ruined because of this microbe because of people like you, people with no balls and heart, who are mesmerized and stupified by drug company propaganda. Bow your head once again!
eternal hugs,
cooler

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 3:16 AM

noble,
theres margulis, pollack, maniotis, over 200 architects and engineers that are questioning 9/11 and hiv, perhaps you need to start BOWING YOUR HEAD TO YOUR SCIENTIFIC ELDERS.

Please visit the architects for truth site to get some real intelligence in your life, not eternal woo. Please start bowing your head to your elders, and stop believing in crazy conspiracies. Loony tune.

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 3:39 AM

“Pat,

Are you arguing that there is no AIDS crisis in S. Africa (only 14,000 deaths in 2004)”

No, 30′000 is still a far cry from 356′000 but I suppose 300′000 can still be squeezed in if I start making wilder assumptions too.

“or that the AIDS crisis is due to pharmaceutical companies setting antiretroviral prices out of reach of S. Africa’s health care budget (”the failures of our AID programmes and lopsided trade rules”). ”

Wether there is the crisis you are talking about or not, eitherway, yes. That has done more damage overall than Mbeki in his wildest dreams.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 4:04 AM

“JOHANNESBURG, Oct 6 (UPI) — South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being part of a “conspiracy to promote the view that HIV causes AIDS,” The Mail & Guardian reported Friday.”

I didn’t know about this but I do find it odd that the CIA would NOT update its website and undeercount SA population by 5 million.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 4:08 AM

cooler: I must say I am a bit surprised to see Lynn Margulis on that list, but, after all, nobody has a perfect record. The number of homeopaths and lawyers there is a bit bothersome; but I really enjoyed your reference to “architects and engineers”. Those are overrepresented on the dissent from Darwin lists, too. Back when I was an undergrad, architects were generally considered to be the second lowest form of life. Who were the lowest? Well….engineers! (My apologies to architects and engineers reading this: we all know that stereotypes do not apply to individuals…or do we?)

MEC: So far the only people I see screaming and insulting others here are the deniers. Perhaps the rest of us are holding on to a wrong opinion (I doubt it), but they haven’t provided any evidence for it and ignored any evidence undermining their views. That is precisely the behaviour of a quack.

I am sure that by saying this I open myself to a stream of invective, but whatever.

Pat: I am well familiar with the rules of internet debate (or lack of them), having cut my teeth in the various Usenet groups–what?–15 years ago or so. I hated the idiots then; I still do. I do not happen to believe that random insults are productive at all, and I do believe that politeness in a debate can carry you quite a long way. Besides which, the rude ones seldom provide any useful information; my humble opinion is that they disqualify themselves from the get-go: I have problems listening to somebody when they are shrilling incoherently, and that kind of behaviour does not inspire me with respect for them as individuals or their POVs.

That said, I have been known to tell miscellaneous assholes to fuck off–both online and in real life; but I would not do this in an online discussion unless I was ready to do so in reality. It takes quite a bit to piss me off. Creationists did it. Moon-landing hoaxers did it. American Maoists, global warming deniers, etc did it. HIV deniers are well on their way after my first encounter with them.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 4:19 AM

I must say I am a bit surprised to see Lynn Margulis on that list, but, after all, nobody has a perfect record. The number of homeopaths and lawyers there is a bit bothersome; but I really enjoyed your reference to “architects and engineers”. Those are overrepresented on the dissent from Darwin lists, too.

Margulis is also on the fluoride “rethinkers” list.

End Fluoridation

There is an amazing degree of overlap between the names on these various lists. I recognised several HIV “rethinkers” on the antifluoridation list.

Several people are on the HIV “rethinkers” and Dissent from Darwin list most notably Phillip Johnson, the father of ID, and Johnathon Wells.

Is there a scientists that dissent from vaccination list out there?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 4:47 AM

Is that your sophisticated analysis, Dr. Noble, of how colonialism, “free” market capitalism, multinational corp. incessant war etc. arise, interact and influence things globally?

If you’d rather want to talk about Matthias Rath than Mbeki, why don’t you ask Tara to do a Matthias Rath thread? I’m sure she’ll be happy to oblige since it’s well known that inspiration has a hard time striking her.

In the meantime, can I just get a straight answer without your rather pathetic attempts at squeezing the word “conspiracy theory” into every sentence; why is it incredible that CIA would be working to undermine Mbeki?

That’s the problem with these conspiracy theories. You have to explain why government funded scientists all across the world are all in on it, even in China.

No you’re the conspiracy theorist, Dr. Noble, not me. You have to explain why I need anymore than a few basic undisputed facts such as drug companies want to sell drugs, they’re not in the business of telling people to stay off the meds or spend the resources on sanitation and food.

likewise, since you’ve mentioned it, the Bush admin and its party is not in the business of telling us not to be afraid of terrorists and terroristic germs. Do you think every intelligence analyst, every member of congress, the media, the telecom industry, the weapons manufacturers, the vaccine producers, Halliburton and their ilk, the generals, the soldiers, the whole “coalition of the willing” have been working closely together on a conspiracy to lie about WMDs and make a mess of Iraq? – Did it happen anyway?

Do the vaccine producers get special legal exemptions and guaranteed profits under the new bio-terror laws and the on and off H5N1 fright? Do the tele companies get equally sweet deals and legal amnesty for breaking the law because of the war on terror? etc. etc. etc. etc….

Why would I need a “conspiracy theory” to explain what’s happening with HIV, when it’s plainly not needed to explain many similar and undisputed occurrences in the world of politics and business?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 14, 2007 4:57 AM

What Chris noble calls conspiracy theories other know as “business as usual”. For an indepth look at the magnitude of “business as usual” I recommend “The Assault on Reason” as a startig point.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:32 AM

“So far the only people I see screaming and insulting others here are the deniers.”

funny, I see way more. Maybe my screen resolution is better than yours.

“Perhaps the rest of us are holding on to a wrong opinion (I doubt it), but they haven’t provided any evidence for it and ignored any evidence undermining their views. That is precisely the behaviour of a quack.”

You doubt? That is good but why are other doubters quacks. I doubt and I am a quack. How does that work? You are actually defining quacks as “people I disagree with”. If this is your first brush with “denialists”; how much do you actually think you KNOW?
I venture you are picking sides by he arbitrary use of who’s a “denialist” and who isn’t. Like they even agree amongst themselves.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:45 AM

“There is an amazing degree of overlap between the names on these various lists. I recognised several HIV “rethinkers” on the antifluoridation list.

Several people are on the HIV “rethinkers” and Dissent from Darwin list most notably Phillip Johnson, the father of ID, and Johnathon Wells.

Is there a scientists that dissent from vaccination list out there?”

Chris has discovered “overlap”.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:54 AM

What is believable about the idea? Why would the CIA want to undermine Mbeki? To increase the profits of the pharmaceutical companies?

What connection is there between the CIA and the pharmaceutical companies?

Anthrax Attacks Linked to CIA and Drug Industry?

What exactly was the CIA supposed to have done anyway? Infected ANC members with HIV via stealth darts? Put mind control drugs in the water at the presidential office?

Mbeki never makes it clear exactly what the CIA was supposedly doing except that they were working together with the WTO, international financial organizations and the drug companies to undermine him. If this doesn’t sound like a classic paranoid conspiracy theory then I don’t know what does.

On a side note Rasnick apparently thinks that SARS was a Bush invention to tackle the growing Chinese economy.

SARS as economic warfare

Bush is preoccupied with war, terrorism, and getting re-elected. I don’t think he has either the inclination or the talent to deal with economic issues. Lacking the energy and imagination to rebuild the US economy, I think the Bush administration invented SARS in order to cool down the rapidly growing Asian economies–especially China.

But remember the HIV “rethinkers” are not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists!

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 7:24 AM

Dr. Tara Smith,

This particular thread caught my eye because in it I came to be aware of the so-called denialist movement. Until very recently, I never thought that such estabilished fact such as HIV being the cause of AIDS could be subject of so much dissent.
Being a chemist, and thus, a scientist, and thus, with a natural curiosity over all things amazing, I also read what the denialist has to say about this. Though you consistently accuse them of cherry-picking and denialism, they do raise some valid points. One of which is the usefulness of the highly sensitive HIV ELISA tests.
Being a layman in terms of medical science knowledge, say immunology, I don’t really know much about the technique of immunoassays, namely ELISA. So I used the quickest tool of readily-available source of knowledge: The WIKIPEDIA.
I searched ELISA and antibody definitions. This is what I found on how to perform such test.

“Performing an ELISA involves at least one antibody with specificity for a particular antigen. The sample with an unknown amount of antigen is immobilized on a solid support (usually a polystyrene microtiter plate) either non-specifically (via adsorption to the surface) or specifically (via capture by another antibody specific to the same antigen, in a “sandwich” ELISA). After the antigen is immobilized the detection antibody is added, forming a complex with the antigen. The detection antibody can be covalently linked to an enzyme, or can itself be detected by a secondary antibody which is linked to an enzyme through bioconjugation. Between each step the plate is typically washed with a mild detergent solution to remove any proteins or antibodies that are not specifically bound. After the final wash step the plate is developed by adding an enzymatic substrate to produce a visible signal, which indicates the quantity of antigen in the sample. Older ELISAs utilize chromogenic substrates, though newer assays employ fluorogenic substrates with much higher sensitivity.”
“Because the ELISA can be performed to evaluate either the presence of antigen or the presence of antibody in a sample, it is a useful tool both for determining serum antibody concentrations (such as with the HIV test[1] or West Nile Virus) and also for detecting the presence of antigen. It has also found applications in the food industry in detecting potential food allergens such as milk, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, and eggs. The ELISA test, or the enzyme immunoassay (EIA), was the first screening test commonly employed for HIV. It has a high sensitivity.In an ELISA test, a person’s serum is diluted 400-fold and applied to a plate to which HIV antigens have been attached. If antibodies to HIV are present in the serum, they may bind to these HIV antigens. The plate is then washed to remove all other components of the serum. A specially prepared “secondary antibody” — an antibody that binds to human antibodies — is then applied to the plate, followed by another wash. This secondary antibody is chemically linked in advance to an enzyme. Thus the plate will contain enzyme in proportion to the amount of secondary antibody bound to the plate. A substrate for the enzyme is applied, and catalysis by the enzyme leads to a change in color or fluorescence. ELISA results are reported as a number; the most controversial aspect of this test is determining the “cut-off” point between a positive and negative result.”

And now for the antibody definitions.

“Antibodies (also known as immunoglobulins) are proteins that are found in blood or other bodily fluids of vertebrates, and are used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects, such as bacteria and viruses. They are made of a few basic structural units called chains; each antibody has two large heavy chains and two small light chains. Antibodies are produced by a kind of white blood cell called a B cell. There are several different types of antibody heavy chain, and several different kinds of antibodies, which are grouped into different isotypes based on which heavy chain they possess. Five different antibody isotypes are known in mammals, which perform different roles, and help direct the appropriate immune response for each different type of foreign object they encounter.”

What I want is the composition of the binding section of the antibody:

“Although the general structure of all antibodies is very similar, a small region at the tip of the protein is extremely variable, allowing millions of antibodies with slightly different tip structures to exist. Each of these variants can bind to a different target, known as an antigen.”
“This region of the antibody is called the Fab (fragment, antigen binding) region. It is composed of one constant and one variable domain from each heavy and light chain of the antibody. The paratope is shaped at the amino terminal end of the antibody monomer by the variable domains from the heavy and light chains.”

And finally I searched for antigen:

“Antigens are usually proteins or polysaccharides. This includes parts (coats, capsules, cell walls, flagella, fimbrae, and toxins) of bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. Lipids and nucleic acids are antigenic only when combined with proteins and polysaccharides. Non-microbial exogenous (non-self) antigens can include pollen, egg white, and proteins from transplanted tissues and organs or on the surface of transfused blood cells.”

This is where I ask you, Dr. Smith, the following:

The technique:

(1)-”Between each step the plate is typically washed with a mild detergent solution to remove any proteins or antibodies that are not specifically bound. After the final wash step the plate is developed by adding an enzymatic substrate to produce a visible signal, which indicates the quantity of antigen in the sample.”

So this mild detergent recognizes the desired anti-hiv/hiv-antigen complex intact, and removes unwanted complexes like anti-flu/hiv-antigen for example? How is that possible?

(2)-”In an ELISA test, a person’s serum is diluted 400-fold and applied to a plate to which HIV antigens have been attached.”

To dilute 400-fold an already and naturally diluted sample is increasing the effect of associated error to any given reading. In such small concentrations, any contaminant can have a dramatic effect. And being a very sensitive technique doen’t help any further. It just just makes it a little too prone to erroneous readings, don’t you think? And who sets the limit for HIV-positive readings? Is it arbitrary? Or is there a single verified standard value?

As for the chemical aspect of selectivity:

(1)- “This region of the antibody is called the Fab (fragment, antigen binding) region. It is composed of one constant and one variable domain from each heavy and light chain of the antibody. The paratope is shaped at the amino terminal end of the antibody monomer by the variable domains from the heavy and light chains.”
“Antigens are usually proteins or polysaccharides.”

The amino terminal end is usually R-NH2. These can condense with terminal RCOOH of proteins, RCOH or RCOR’ of glycosides. Any organic chemist knows that primary and secondary amines react readily with aldehydes and ketones to yield schiff bases (RR’C=NR”R”’). In fact, this is why sugars are so damaging to diabetic people. Can you tell me then, how does an antibody tells the difference from flu or hiv antigen terminal ends? I know that there is some specificity to antibodies, this is why normal cells are safe. Mainly because they lack the terminal ends that react with home-made antibodies. But to which degree is there specificity to any given antigen?

(2)- Few simple questions really. If HIV evades the immune system (mutates and changes envelope), why are people tested with the same constant viral glycoproteins?
If HIV evades the immune system (mutates and changes envelope), shouldn’t all tests be negative in the first place (inability to recognize invader?).
If HIV evades the immune system (mutates and changes envelope), and a positive test means that not does only the virus maintains certain glycoproteins constants and the body is able to recognize the invader, shouldn’t it be considered a sign of protection, as in any other disease?
And being a recognizable invader ( thus disposable of) why does it still succeed in evading and destroying the immune system that can clearly see that hostile invader?

I thank you in advance for for explaining me these set of doubts.

Regards,
AdÃ£o (Rezaf).

Posted by: Rezaf | November 14, 2007 7:50 AM

“But remember the HIV “rethinkers” are not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists!”

We know by now that you are a simpleton and your modus is to find a real nut and superimpose them over everyone else.

“Mbeki never makes it clear exactly what the CIA was supposedly doing”

Only the CIA knows exactly what they are doing. Do you know what they are doing? You scoff at Mbeki but bring no evidence whatsoever. The CIA believes the population of SA stands today at 43 million. That is 5 million bellow fact. Somebody ought to correct those denialists. The CIA have given us plenty of insanity in the past. For you to brush all off as “nutty conspiracy” with a flick ouf your wrist demonstrates extreme naivete…but then again you are paid to spread such nonsense.

Do read “The Assault on Reason”. What you dismiss as unbelievable “conspiracy” theories is in fact business as usual. Read about Bush’s health plan and how the pharma industry designed it and then tell me they are not capable of wrongdoing in Africa and it is all unbelievable.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 8:56 AM

“What exactly was the CIA supposed to have done anyway? Infected ANC members with HIV via stealth darts? Put mind control drugs in the water at the presidential office?”

you read too much sci-fi. It takes much less to “undermine” Mbeki. All it takes is a few assholes like you and a propaganda machine and the rest is history. Sorry to bring this up but how do you think Nazis got the ball rolling? With mind control drugs or spiked umbrella tips? No, just one little lie after another. This is how easy a conspiracy is in Goerings own words

“It is natural for the common people to not want war but, after all, it is a country’s leaders who determine policy and it is an easy matter to convince the people. Whether they have a voice or not, the people can always be made to do what their rulers wish. It’s easy. All you have to do is tell them they are under attack and condemn the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and for exposing their country to danger”

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 9:14 AM

Unfortunately, the number one enemy to society is complaency. It is too easy to soak information in via our tv sets and newspapers without ever having to think for ourself. We listen to news organizations who are slanted to right and to the left, yet they skim over the real stories due to political correctness. I bet if a poll was taken about HIV, it would be sad what the average person on the street believes. They think that it is a boogyman dealing death at every turn. They invision the “look” of Rock Hudson and are scared of it, that’s why it has been so easy to sway people into believing HIV causes AIDS without one epidemiology study.

P.S. You might want to look up the health effects of fluoride.

Posted by: noreen | November 14, 2007 9:38 AM

I’m sure you can tell us all about how easy it is to soak up misinformation noreen. I do recall you pasting a whole ton of complete lies from denialist websites here under the assumption it was valid.

Bill Clinton pardoned Gallo
ARVs attack OIs

off the top of my head

Posted by: apy | November 14, 2007 10:45 AM

“that’s why it has been so easy to sway people into believing HIV causes AIDS without one epidemiology study.”

This is blatantly untrue Noreen. Numerous studies have been posted here studying a variety of cohorts in a variety of locations. Do you read them? Do you even read other peoples posts? Or do you just come here, type something (usually the same refuted lies over and over) and ignore the rest?

Posted by: Jim | November 14, 2007 12:04 PM

Pat wrote: ‘You are actually defining quacks as “people I disagree with”‘

Huh? I said those that ignore the evidence thrown at them and do not provide any of their own besides wild assertions. I am sorry, but all the points raised *against* HIV as the causative agent have been dealt with and refuted; the number of studies supporting the HIV “hypothesis” is quite large; and all the opponents can say about them is either that this isn’t “real” evidence or mutter darkly about conspiracies, conflicts of interest and such. That is exactly quackery, anti-science and precisely the tactics of creationists (and moon-landing, 9/11 etc hoaxers).

Granted, several of the “mainstream” people on this thread have not been exactly gracious. Is it because they have dealt with you before? As I have mentioned, eventually one gets tired of unrelenting illogic and lack of real argument. You may claim that that is exactly how you feel too, but I repeat, I haven’t seen anything that would support your point of view in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And none of the “mainstreamers’ even approach the levels of rhetoric and insult of the likes of Geiger or MEC.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 12:41 PM

Jorg, when you say re the denilaists “Is it because they (HIV/AIDS scientists) have dealt with you before? As I have mentioned, eventually one gets tired of unrelenting illogic and lack of real argument.” you summarize the situation very well.

The denialists invariably have no understanding whatsoever of the science on which they attempt to comment and question (one has only to go back through some of the howlers on this string, errors and misconceptions that would shame a High School student to see how laughable their knowledge is: “TB is the recovery phase of lung cancer”; SIV is a much larger organism than HIV”; an E.M. of mycoplasma looks exactly the same as one of a retrovirus, etc, etc).

Whenever properly scientists such as Chris Noble take the trouble to make informed postings on the underlying science, the denialists simply refuse to take what is said seriously. Instead, they dismiss the science as the product of a conspiracy, or they focus down and in on some trivial error in a paper, or a minor inconsistency with another study, and use their “discoveries” to assert that the entire peer-reviewed scientific literature on HIV/AIDS is flawed (and of course is part of a gigantic conspiracy). This is a tactic akin to saying that because Shakespeare made a spelling mistake in “As you like it”, the entire body of his collected works is meaningless rubbish that was paid for by Queen Elizabeth I as part of a system intended to control the peasantry and enrich her courtiers.

The denialists then ask the same questions over and over again, or repeat the same lies ad nauseam, in a parody of the classic “American in Paris” approach to communication. If you don’t understand, just shout louder.

The denialists are also absurdly over-simplistic. They invariably clog up strings like this with demands like: Tell me what single paper proves HIV causes AIDS. That would be akin to asking a NASA scientist for the “single paper that tells me how to make a space rocket that can fly me to the moon”.

The denialists then resort to abuse and threats, libels and general nastiness whenever anyone stands up to them.

Oh, and did I say they are all conspiracy theorists who believe that scientists and physicians are part of some gigantic governmental system aimed at controlling theor lives?

This would all be laughable, except for one central point: AIDS denialism does actually kill real people in the real world (see www.AIDSTruth.org for just a few examples). The moon-landing nuts, the 9/11 conspiracy loonies, the ID/creationism zealots differ from the AIDS denialists in this critical regard. This is why some of us fight AIDS denialists, not on the Blogs, but in the real world, to destroy their ability to cause yet more deaths in South Africa and elsewhere. And it’s why we never “debate” them, because to do so would acknowledge that their position has any intellectual or moral merit. It doesn’t, it’s merely ‘Deadly Quackery’, as my colleague Nicoli Nattrass and I wrote in the New York Times last year (of course, the denialists took the publication of that article as yet more evidence of a massive conspiracy, this one involving the media as well).

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 1:57 PM

Franklin, re your question about whether “Notsofast” has any evidence for his comment: “Do you realize the terrible psychological impact these words could have on Noreen? That those words alone could cause her health to go from good to bad?”

Note that this silly comment fits the denialists’ standard modus operandi of blaming every illness or death among them as being caused by something other than AIDS (see the dead denialists list on www.aidstruth.org for some classic examples of personal denial in practice). So I think we can expect to see the denialists ascribing any future decline in Noreen’s health to what was written on a Blog. In a similar vein, Celia Farber has written words to the effect that Christine Maggiore is now suffering from a voodoo hex put upon her by me and other AIDS professionals, so any future decline in her health will have that as its causation. This kind of nonsense is of course entirely consistent with Jan Spreen’s rejection of the germ theory of disease. There are no pathogenic organisms in the world of the AIDS denialists, disease and death is all down to AIDS scientists sticking pins in clay figurines and casting them into the stove.

Is it any wonder that AIDS professionals don’t take these people seriously, other than in our attempts to stop them killing other people via dissemination of their pseudoscientific, conspiracy theory-riddled nonsense?

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 2:11 PM

The turkey of the millenium is back,no evidence, just a pathetic attempt at psychoanaylisis as usual.

He claims to prove a microbe patheongenicity in humans you cant do it in a serious original papers, koch did it, Shyh ching Lo did it, and if you claim you microbe is species specific, not visible by EM, and want to keep extending your window period to 12 years when no one gets sick, you NEED conduct a long term study looking at people that rules out confounding factors such as drugs, alcohol, mycoplasmas, severe mental illness, azt. to see if they get sick, or else any harmless passenger virus can be said to cause disease.

Please send me these studies for hiv, hpv and heptitis c. I guess they dont exist, because I cant find it on AIDS truth.

The people that do this shouldnt be conspiracy wackjobs that think the government can’t tell a lie, but by independent scientists not tied to the industry. So Moore’s “rocket ship” analogy makes no sense, but what else would you expect from a scientific quackjob?

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 2:55 PM

“That is exactly quackery, anti-science and precisely the tactics of creationists (and moon-landing, 9/11 etc hoaxers).”

I am none of these things

“As I have mentioned, eventually one gets tired of unrelenting illogic and lack of real argument”

That I can understand coming from people who are not in the business of education but I regret that trait in scientists who practically all double as university professors. I can understand that Chris doesn’t believe he can convince Maggiore of anything but that is NOT THE POINT (and that is my point). In all debates, wether you’re tired of it or not, there is an audience waiting and the audience is never the same. I have never seen a math teacher flip out at his students for asking questions about formula that was settled 2000 years ago. They still patiently teach day in day out. I fear that with this attitude of “been there been that” doesn’t help anyone who is new to the problem. Someone has to step up and do the education. Maybe it is my fault and thought that Tara and the likes would be more interested on maintaining informative sites instead of sites where the only postings that gather interest are “denialist” threads that attack the integrity of individuals instead of their faulty ideas. Tara is a professor for god’s sake! oh, no, she’s “only” an assistant. Well, whatever. In the meantime Maggiore is out there in the public organizing meetings and whatnotelse and no one is offering counter evidence…because they are tired.

“Is it because they have dealt with you before? ”

Oh, yes they have. They even have names for me:

-Ueberpat (for saying “Schubladendenken”)
-fucking moron (for mistaking one of my posts for medical advice)
-scumbag (for supposedly murdering Noreen by thought infection)
-Christine Maggiore (JP Moore,or someone just as immature it appears, planted that bit of misinformation while posting under MEC’s moniker in the hopes of provoking more disgust towards me than would otherwise be the case).
-murderer (again for murdering Noreen by thought infection),
etc..

and finally the must have,

-denialist

“And none of the “mainstreamers’ even approach the levels of rhetoric and insult of the likes of Geiger or MEC.”

Perhaps but nasty-stupid-immature is not a beauty contest I want to see scientists getting down with. It belittles the trust we MUST have in them. I am one that bases most of his doubts on the behavior of our leading HIV/AIDS public relations officers, you know, Moore-Bergman-Weinberg etc… I don’t need to know anything about what’s going on beyond my door to worry about the following statements these three stooges made:

-Some AIDS denialists work in bona fide universities. Some even teach students. If this happens in your neighborhood ask the university authorities why they allow this and then write about it” (3).- Moore (chills questioning in all sciences)

-”Science and health journalists should talk to the editorial desk and letters editors and vice versa to ensure that AIDS denialist letters are spotted on arrival and spiked, not published” (3).- Moore (censorship; that Moore is insulting this Moore’s intelligence and that of everyone else in the public)

-”A few of the AIDS denialists are scientists whose careers fizzled out; but others are zealots with extreme political views (both on the far-right and the far-left) who find AIDS denialism politically convenient; and some are deeply troubled individuals with disturbing behavior patterns who deserve pity and professional help “-Moore (he means contempt. Again treating his audience as stupid goats).

-”AIDS science is indeed in a war with the AIDS denialists, and the denialist leadership is indeed being targeted, not by violence or by threats of violence, but by legal and moral methods intended to destroy their ability to influence vulnerable people who have been persuaded to make choices that damage their health and the health of others. It will take time to defeat all the denialist leadership, but it’s being done (as some of them have already found out) and, in the end, science and morality will crush pseudoscience and evil.”-Moore (there is just no taking this seriously. People who have never heard of “HIV deniers” will be baffled by the absurdity of this statement, with the exception of the white House War Mongers Club perhaps. Seriously.)

-”we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender.” (this he knows not to do. This belittles a real war)

-”Our lawmakers need to enact legislation to put appropriate limits on such irresponsible expression and to counter the ongoing damage perpetrated by denialists.”- Weinberg, Moore (again advocating vague but scary sensorship)

-”As far as I’m concerned, and I hope this view is adequately
represented, those who attempt to dispel the notion that HIV is the cause of AIDS
are perpetrators of death. And I would very much for one like to see the
Constitution of the United States and similar countries have some means in place
that we can charge people who are responsible for endangering public health
with charges of endangerment and bring them up on trial. I think that people like
Peter Duesberg belong in jail.”-Wainberg (self-explaning no-no)

-”This fact and all the other available evidence strongly indicate that Maggiore was never infected with HIV, and she herself emphasizes the term “positive” and avoids saying she is infected or has the virus, allowing others to draw that erroneous conclusion. Most people would be thrilled to learn they were uninfected, but Maggiore was unwilling to give up the spotlight. This HIV pretender twisted her good health and the marginal incidence of false positives into a lucrative new racket–selling HIV denialism and bragging about her good life “without pharmaceutical treatments or fear of AIDS.” But of course Maggiore has no “fear of AIDS”–she doesn’t have HIV.”
- Bergmann (obviously gratuitous slander in light of recent developments).

I don’t care how much venom, nonsense and out right fabrications come out of the mouths or off the keyboards of “trolls” or whatever they are called but I do very much mind when the people I should be differing to, make such obviously crazy, slanderous, and politically dangerous statements. My family comes from the craziest dictatorship the world has ever seen and I twitch in horror and anger when I hear people toss around such dangerous ideas so they can temporarily relieve their emotional imbalances and professional frustrations.

The funny thing is they can’t figure out what I am in denial of; they just hope people ASS-U-ME I am denying HIV/AIDS, gravity, creationism, holocaust…and therefore AM by default all those things listed.

Although I personally think it is lame, perhaps a disclaimer is in order.

…naaah, fukkit. I don’t have to prove that I am not in denial of whatever it is people want me to be in denial of.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 2:55 PM

“Oh, and did I say they are all conspiracy theorists who believe that scientists and physicians are part of some gigantic governmental system aimed at controlling theor lives?”- Moore

Funny you’d say that, I was just writing about your side-kick Wainberg. Here it is again:

“-”As far as I’m concerned, and I hope this view is adequately
represented, those who attempt to dispel the notion that HIV is the cause of AIDS
are perpetrators of death. And I would very much for one like to see the
Constitution of the United States and similar countries have some means in place
that we can charge people who are responsible for endangering public health
with charges of endangerment and bring them up on trial. I think that people like
Peter Duesberg belong in jail.”-Wainberg

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 2:59 PM

“And it’s why we never “debate” them, because to do so would acknowledge that their position has any intellectual or moral merit”

No, no, no Mr Moore. All this does is deny the audience any intellectual or moral merit.

And you teach…

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 3:04 PM

Funny you idiots mock Margulis for opposing fluoride, theres another science blogger named the angrytoxicologist that wrote me a long message what a sham flouride is, of all the bloggers, hes the most qualified on the subject, and as usual all you quacks do is resort to name calling, this is what he wrote me on his blog
Yes , I spent some time looking for the original scientific paper that said toothpaste w/ fluoride was much more effective than ordinary toothpaste w/o flouride, does this paper exist?

the lack of of original papers proving some things that everyone believes to be true is strange. Its like when nobel prize winner Kary Mullis Kept asking people for a reference for the statement “hiv causes aids” and no one could give it to him. Where are the original scientific papers from the 30’s that showed it was ok to take thimerosol?

Im not saying these things are not true, about hiv/fluoride/thimerosols safety but you have to wonder the reason everyone beleives something has much less to do with science and a lot more to do with groupthink and thought control.

Posted by: cooler | July 26, 2007 11:58 PM

Cooler, you hit upon a rather sensitive subject. The original trial is the Newburgh trial (1956 published in the Journal of the American Dental association). It has since been found to have many problems that largely make the trial invalid. More interesting about the history of that study was that many of the people involved with the study have some shady pasts (a lot of this was revealed in the 90s when a lot of DoD papers from the WWII period were released). A man largely behind it all Harold Hodge (generally considered the dean of toxicology in the US) was working with the Manhattan project to keep it going. A big problem with producing all the aluminum and the uranium that was needed for the war and the manhattan project was that it produced massive amounts of fluoride contamination. The first problems were in NJ where the peach crops starting dying and then the cows got crippled. The farmers starting getting sick and it turned out they had blood F levels about 31X what the average person has. They waited till the war was over (for patriotic reasons? I’m not sure), then they sued DuPont and the Manhattan project for the pollution. One of main things that they used as evidence was the mottling of their teeth (fluorosis). Hodge was dispatched by the Manhattan project to take care of it. He concluded that the mottleing could be due to natural fluoride in the water and therefore the farmers couldn’t say it was the war project. The FDA was about to ban food from NJ due to high fluoride content and DuPont and the DoD were very worried about the public realations problem this would cause (A manhattan project captian talked to the FDA food guy and nothing was banned). Not wrongly worried either, their ability to produce uranium would have been severly hampered if they had to make sure they weren’t spewing HF in the air (judge this how ever you like but during war time many decisions are made that may have seemed like good risk/benefit ratios that no longer applied once the war is over but it was too hard to back out and say this is no longer right). Hodge wrote a Colonel in the program “Would there be any use in making attempts to counter act the fear of fluoride…through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth heath?” This is darkly funny in a way since one of they main complaints was tooth mottleing (still under debate as to whether this can be called an ‘adverse’ effect; the NRC does not consider it to be adverse, only cosmetic).

The conference that thought up the study was supported by Manhattan Project (secretly at the time) money and concieved to see if there were non-dental health effects with the exposure to fluoride (participants were not told of the purpose). It has been suggested that they also censored the data but it’s hard to find out because a 1994 presidental commission couldn’t get the secret cold war documents (I know, crazy, huh?). Also interestingly, one of the Drs (Joe Howland) that drew the blood from the Rochester residents was a chief of Manhattan Project investigations for information on the health effects of bomb project materials. He had dosed at least one person with plutonium to see the effects (the guy was chosen at random in a Oak Ridge hospital – he had gotten in a car accident that landed him in the hospital and wasn’t told what was being done to him). This human experimentation also came out in the 90s papers.

Not that this says much about the science of the safety of fluoride but it does leave an awful bad taste in ones mouth.

How did Hodge get the idea to talk about the good effects of F on teeth? In 1948 a paper performed by the Manhattan project at the suggestion of Hodge was published in the Journal of the American Dental Association showing that workers who worked with fluoride had less cavaties. Original versions of the studies were found in the files of the Manhattan Project’s Medical Section concluded that fluoride did not prevent cavaties and in addition the “teeth seemed to be deteriorating”. A second study on workers in Cleveland (where two workers had died due to fluoride and the pollution was so bad the FBI was called in) was the one published. A look at the secret version shows how the paper could say there were less caries; the men exposed to fluoride hardly had any teeth. Almost sad enough to be funny.

Posted by: angrytoxicologist | July 27, 2007 9:52 AM

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 3:05 PM

I have never seen a math teacher flip out at his students for asking questions about formula that was settled 2000 years ago. They still patiently teach day in day out.

Not analagous. A better scene would be a student arguing with the teacher about a calculus problem that was settled years ago, when the student only has a 5th grade education in math and isn’t concerned about learning more–just asking for the “one paper” where this was all settled. Oh, and then telling the math teacher that there is a list of hundreds of others who disagree with him, even though many of those have no background in math either. And then calling the math teacher homophobic and racist because he teaches math the way he does. Oh, and then having that student call the principal and try to get the teacher fired.

Yes, I can’t imagine why such a person would ever lose patience.

I fear that with this attitude of “been there been that” doesn’t help anyone who is new to the problem. Someone has to step up and do the education.

pat, that’s been done. Again, a difference with your scenario is that the math teacher has a small classroom of students he’s responsible for, whereas you’re asking HIV researchers to be responsible for answering every question from, well, everyone everywhere. It’s not possible. That’s why they’ve put together fact sheets such as this one to answer the most basic questions people have–yet you get responses like Geiger’s arguing that it’s “not peer-reviewed” and therefore dismissing it with a wave.

As for me, I’m happy to discuss the issues with anyone, but I also wouldn’t take a stage with Maggiore (or Dembski, or Behe, etc.) to suggest to the audience there’s any “debate” about HIV science or evolutionary biology. If people really want answers, a debate format isn’t the way to get them.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 14, 2007 3:14 PM

Tar,

You run your blog the way you like and if readers here get their dose of crass commentary the need then fine. I just fear you end up insulting quite a few of your readers “in transit”.

“Oh, and then having that student call the principal and try to get the teacher fired.”

I know, Bialy tried that one with you and Moore tries that one on everyone as a matter of stated policy (see above). In the outside world we recognize that behavior as idiotic.

“And then calling the math teacher homophobic and racist because he teaches math the way he does”

I know what you mean, Moore was called a faggot and Moore wished Bialy a happy death.

In the outside world we call that babbling old fruit.

“That’s why they’ve put together fact sheets such as this one”

In the outside world we call that a flier.

“As for me, I’m happy to discuss the issues with anyone, but I also wouldn’t take a stage with Maggiore (or Dembski, or Behe, etc.) to suggest to the audience there’s any “debate” about HIV science or evolutionary biology. If people really want answers, a debate format isn’t the way to get them.”

I am afraid you don’t get it either. Would you take a stage with Duesberg? I am sorry but if Duesberg showed up and no one elde did on the grounds that there is “nothing to debate”, I would take personal offense at that and I would stick around and listen to the one guy who had the decency to stay and not devalue my “intellectual and moral merits”.

“If people really want answers, a debate format isn’t the way to get them.”

Are you implying the format is the flyer? That is fine by me but in the meantime these people are out there spreading their “misinformation” unchallenged. “War on Denial” is your baby not mine and it is dead on arrival just like “War on Drugs” was. Ditto “War on Poverty”, “War on Obesity”, “War on Crime” and the mother of all still-births “War on Terror”.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 3:54 PM

*TarA, typo…not stealth ad hominem

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 3:56 PM

“Yes, I can’t imagine why such a person would ever lose patience.”

The math scenario is stil salvagable. I would be sitting in the back of the class somewhere and I would be observing it all. I would see the retarded pupil and then watch in utter amazement as my professor self destructs in uncontrolable rage, screaming for security and a noose. I would go home and say: “dad, I want to go to another school, these people freak me out!”

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 4:05 PM

“Series of original papers”, mild correction to my brillaint post above

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 4:13 PM

Pat, as usual, has his facts wrong when he (or she) states: “Moore was called a faggot and Moore wished Bialy a happy death”. Neither sub-clause is true. Bialy never called me “a faggot” (at least I don’t think he did, he called me so many things that I may have forgotten some of the list of diatribes). What Bialy did do was call an HIV-infected gay man who disagreed with him on his Blog “a faggot” (inter alia). And I have never “wished Bialy a happy death”, I merely noted recently that his Blog went inactive soon after he announced to his fellow AIDS denialists that he had terminal kidney cancer (or words to that effect). Stating the facts is what scientists do; twisting them is what the denialists do.

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 4:28 PM

Pat,

I don’t see Chris Noble, John Moore, or anyone else self destructing in uncontrollable rage at one innocent question. Quite the contrary, they display unusual patience at refuting the same tired lies over and over.

Posted by: Brian Foley | November 14, 2007 4:41 PM

Sorry to keep on and on but it keeps on giving and giving.

“She [Maggiore] has since had two children, now three and seven years old, whom she boasted to Scheff “have never been tested. … They don’t take AIDS drugs. And they’re not in the least bit sick.” But of course Maggiore didn’t want them to be tested: she knows that they are not at risk and that their being uninfected would lead people to question her own status. And of course they don’t take “AIDS drugs”–they don’t have HIV or AIDS.
Christine Maggiore isn’t living proof that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS; she’s just another lying AIDS profiteer, exploiting the real fears of those who actually are infected with HIV and the real suffering of those living with AIDS to get public attention, sell books and pick up well-paid speaking gigs. This might matter less if she wasn’t telling parents and caregivers of children who really are HIV-infected to take the kids off difficult but life-saving antivirals. Maggiore has never had to make agonizing treatment decisions for herself or for her children.” -Bergman

Could a leading health advocate get it this ass-backwards and equally slanderous?

YES! She is co- editor of…hold tight…aidsTHRUTH!
Dr. Jeanne Bergman, The Center for HIV Law and Policy in New York City
www.aidstruth.org/about.php

It is insane the flip-flopping this Bergman gets away with and I am supposed to differ to this medical authority? I opt out. You can fight this insane denial war however you like. I for one won’t and cannot cover for it. Not at this cost. In the mean time I am only too happy supporting the individual rights of families like Maggiore’s against invasions orchestrated by such fanatical lunatics that would have us surrender our basic rights without a question allowed.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 4:55 PM

Brian Foley

You can keep bergman and moore and wainberg, they make you look real smart and “balanced”.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 4:57 PM

John Moore

It does NOT matter WHICH invectives are thrown about; you and your esteemed collegue Bialy, who blazed a similar professional trail online you have now embarked on, are “babbling old fruit”.

“Stating the facts is what scientists do; twisting them is what the denialists do.”

act your age

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:07 PM

Oh dear, oh dear, Pat has just displayed the classic “American in Paris” characteristic; i.e., if in doubt, shout the same thing only LOUDER. It’s already been stated on this and/or earlier threads that Jeanne Bergman made those comments at a time before Ms Maggiore’s daughter died of AIDS, thereby proving that Ms Maggiore is herself HIV-infected (unless Pat chooses to believe that the stork or the tooth fairy, and not the mother, infected the child). At the time of Jeanne’s comments, Ms Maggiore was in one of her periodic flip-flops in her public statements about her HIV-infection status, claiming (at that particular time) to be HIV-negative and a victim of the (allegedly) flawed HIV diagnostic assays (no doubt as a result of listening to her buddy, the technologically-challenged technologist Roberto Giraldo who has no understanding of how immunoassays work). The death of her daughter from AIDS provides the hard facts that reveal Ms Maggiore’s previous posturings for what they were; the politics of the AIDS denialist movement. Pat seems very keen to support the “rights” of Ms Maggiore’s family. Some might argue that the rights of her daughter to a prolonged and healthy life are also rather relevant here. Those basic human rights were taken away from her by her mother, who used AIDS denialist pseudoscience as a basis for her decisions to not protect her child from HIV-infection by using ARVs prophylactically, and to not have her daughter trtested and treated for HIV infection, actions that would have lengthened and improved her life substantially. This unnecessary death is yet another one that is attributable to the actions of the AIDS denialists en masse. It’s the need to protect other mothers from listening to Ms Maggiore and her AIDS denialist friends that underpins why AIDS scientists fight this fight. Pat will never understand this, he or she will merely now parrot what he or she has said before, only LOUDER.

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 5:16 PM

Brian,

I just showed you how Jeanne Bergman self destructed her credibility with her overly-emotional editorial rubbish and to top it off she was basing her conclusions on scientific “evidence”.

“False-negative HIV tests are extremely rare, while false positives are much more common, though infrequent. This fact and all the other available evidence strongly indicate that Maggiore was never infected with HIV, and she herself emphasizes the term “positive” and avoids saying she is infected or has the virus, allowing others to draw that erroneous conclusion”.

I’ll start caring again once the real quacks, decievers and fabricators are done away with.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:25 PM

John,

Each and ever word spewed from your above post is a complete and utter fucking lie and you know it.

Isn’t your time more valuable somewhere else. Why dont you make some more videos with you and Bergman saying HIV causes Aids. Those are always entertaining.

Posted by: carter | November 14, 2007 5:34 PM

“Maggiore’s daughter died of AIDS, thereby proving that Ms Maggiore is herself HIV-infected ”

Apparently the relevant documents are still not available and it appears the authorities are working with fake or missing slides and no one here, including yourself cares to inform them”. Obstruction of justice? no, hardly but perhaps a hint of dishonesty in the claim.

“At the time of Jeanne’s comments, Ms Maggiore was in one of her periodic flip-flops in her public statements about her HIV-infection status, claiming (at that particular time) to be HIV-negative and a victim of the (allegedly) flawed HIV diagnostic assays (no doubt as a result of listening to her buddy, the technologically-challenged technologist Roberto Giraldo who has no understanding of how immunoassays work).”

If the tests are highly specific, why the inconsistancies. You need to establish that she DIDN’T have conflicting tests results. Your claim that she is lying about the inconsistancies in the tests rests entirely on your word and if you are going to play reporter and make wild allegations, it usually is a good idea to check your FACTS. Did Bergman ever call Maggiore for an interview for the article? Did she ask to see the results? I doesn’t look like it but that didn’t stop her from opining loudly in the press for all to read about how ugly a woman Maggiore is and how she profiteers from lying about her HIV status. I don’t know if she is or isn’t but I won’t take your deranged word for it.

“The death of her daughter from AIDS provides the hard facts that reveal Ms Maggiore’s previous posturings for what they were; the politics of the AIDS denialist movement”

When she was negative she was a profiteer and now that she is positive she remains a profiteer. Go figure? Your accusations against Maggiore rest on nothing but heresay and slander because the one thing you cannot put into words is HOW Moggiore profits from all this?

Of course you are also the bottom feeder that would deny Maggiore any motherly instincts and claim that she would purposefully harm her kids for profit. You, the Gift from God, would have been a better parent to those kids. No “evidence” needed here. This is not science, this is politics and heresay is plenty fine for what you need her for , is that so? Is that your modus operandi. Don’t deny it John, you are one of those who would blame the victime. You do so very readily with Maggiore and have done the same now to Noreen. Both these people have been diagnosed with HIV…and not at times… If you can’t reach them, it is in my eyes a failure of medicine to persuade and that is all it ever will be. Stop dreaming of laws to pick up were you let off.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 5:52 PM

Thank you, Carter, for so clearly proving the point that underlies Jorg’s comment below

none of the “mainstreamers’ even approach the levels of rhetoric and insult of the likes of Geiger or MEC.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 12:41 PM

to which I responded earlier.

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 5:54 PM

Doesn’t matter professor Moore, a lie, is a lie, is a lie.

Posted by: carter | November 14, 2007 6:23 PM

Brian, I just showed you how Jeanne Bergman self destructed her credibility with her overly-emotional editorial rubbish and to top it off she was basing her conclusions on scientific “evidence”. “False-negative HIV tests are extremely rare, while false positives are much more common, though infrequent. This fact and all the other available evidence strongly indicate that Maggiore was never infected with HIV, and she herself emphasizes the term “positive” and avoids saying she is infected or has the virus, allowing others to draw that erroneous conclusion”.I’ll start caring again once the real quacks, deceivers and fabricators are done away with. carter

The really dangerous quacks are those, such as a well known cornel phd and his lawyer sidekick, who advocate deadly drugs based on a flawed hypothesis.

People now know the truth. A “positive for HIV antibodies” test (whatever that means) is regarded very differently from the automatic death sentence of two decades ago. In retrospect we now know that this death sentence was death by AZT.

People who know the adverse side effects of the toxic drug cocktails are avoiding them and living normal life spans.

There are many message boards and web sites on the internet where notes can be shared and information gathered.

The stranglehold of government censorship of the media has been broken by the free information of the internet. Our society will never be the same.

Our society WILL NEVER AGAIN allow domination by the oppressive lies of the science establishment or the political establishment. We have entered a new age of hope, liberty and freedom unprecedented in the history of mankind.

The death of the flawed “HIV causes AIDS hypothesis” after 20 years of lies, represents a giant step for one hiv man, and a giant leap for all mankind.

The truth has become obvious to the beholder.

HIV/AIDS is no longer recognized as science. It is, and always was, politics.

Posted by: nevere-a-peen | November 14, 2007 6:35 PM

What a sophisticated, analytical response that was from Carter, a well known and long standing AIDS denialist who epitomizes the entire, sad genre. Carter doesn’t like what he reads, so he simply states that the poster is “a liar”. This, of course, is precisely why scientists don’t “debate” or “discuss” science with AIDS denialists; the denialists don’t understand the science, and don’t like the facts, so they just say “you’re a liar” and go all pouty. It’s rather pathetic, but of course this Blog is full of such conduct, as Jorg and others have noticed.

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 6:43 PM

“Our society WILL NEVER AGAIN allow domination by the oppressive lies of the science establishment or the political establishment. We have entered a new age of hope, liberty and freedom unprecedented in the history of mankind.”

That sounds rather like something Hitler might have said at a Nuremberg rally. Typical AIDS denialist rhetoric.

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 6:48 PM

What is it that you fail to explain. The authorities are not working with fake or missing slides. The coroner has GMS stained slides of Eliza Jane’s lung tissue showing PC organisms in foamy exudates characteristic and diagnostic for PCP. Christine Maggiore was shown these slides on Primetime by Ribe. The authorities do not need to be informed of anything.

That Maggiore appears to believe that these slides are not important says more about her than the authorities.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 6:54 PM

Incidentally, why is it that Anthony “Tony Baloney” Liversidge of the New AIDS Review is so ashamed of what he writes on this Blog that he has to do so only under the disguise of the pseudonym “Pat”? He makes ridiculous postings under his own name on the NAR, so what’s stopping him from putting his name under the same quality of material here? I guess there’s no fool like an old, gutless fool.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 14, 2007 7:11 PM

John,

I see that you have posted a new article, written by Nicoli Nattrass ,on your Aidstruth website.
In the article she states, Gallo was the discoverer of retroviruses.Even you can’t claim that to be true.
So how many other blatant lies are in the article.

.Robert Gallo, the discoverer of retroviruses, devoted ten pages of his book on discovering HIV to demolishing Deusberg’s speculations. (AFP Photo/Roland Magunia [Photo via Newscom])

Posted by: kyle | November 14, 2007 7:14 PM

Pat,

When you claim that

Apparently the relevant documents are still not available and it appears the authorities are working with fake or missing slides and no one here, including yourself cares to inform them

you reveal just how full of it you really are.

The “authorities”–the Coroner’s Office for Los Angeles–sampled the dead child’s lungs for histology and demonstrated Pneumocystis pneumonia. Maggiore was shown the diagnostic material as part of an interview that was televised nationally.

She now claims that:

From what I understand, her lungs show no pneumonia of any kind

and supports this claim with photomicrographs posted on her web page.

Hmmmm, I wonder why she doesn’t post the photomicrographs taken by the Coroner. You know, the the ones that demonstrate the Pneumocystis pneumonia? The ones she viewed as part of a national television broadcast?

Do you really think that anyone has to inform the LA Coroner’s Office that they have slides demonstrating Pneumocystis and that the pictures Maggiore has posted on her web page are not representative of the lesions found in her daughter’s lungs?

You think the Coroner doesn’t already know that?

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 7:19 PM

Noble, Franklin and that other chickenshit who complains it’s unfair rethinkers write better than him – Moore or whatever his name is:

Please board he plane, all expenses paid, and show Maagiore and Al-Bayati where they are wrong about the “fake lung slides”. What’s the matter with all you he-men, is meeting Maggiore and exposing her directly thereby saving countless lives too scary a prospect for you?

Brave Sir John, how about it if we promise in advance we won’t use our superior rethoric against poor you? Wait I feel a song coming on. . .

Brave Sir John ran away – No!
Bravely ran away, away – I didn’t!
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled – No!
Yes, brave Sir John turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir John

Btw, Harvey Bialy called you a “maricone”, which is very close to “faggot”, which in turn means means someone who is bitchy, cowardly and overly theatrical, so Pat is right you were called by that name you have earned so well many times over.

Posted by: Moleclar Entry Claw | November 14, 2007 7:40 PM

“(at least since Harvey Bialy wandered off the scene to die of his kidney cancer)” John moore

Does sure sound like you got your jolly’s off a scientist who’s dying. But what else would you expect from someone that cant defend his views publicly and is losing more and more respect from the scientific community everyday.

Moore is an enemy of free speech and informed consent, he does not want any intelligent person to hear an argument they’d find compelling, just like a corrupt prosecutor would do everything to keep a jury from hearing a solid defense. He has hinted that he wants to abolish the first amendment, he’s really losing it now, having delusions of grandeur comparing himself to Churchill!

Rethinkers and real scientists want people to have informed consent when it comes to mercury, hiv, mycoplasma incognitus , fluoride etc.

Stalinist drug company hacks like Moore only want you to hear their propaganda, and we know its all propaganda because real scientists with good arguments dont care if people are exposed other arguments that are fallacious, they very fact that Moore is so scared about people learning about Duesberg’s argument says it all.

Imagine if a defense lawyer told a jury “you cant hear that argument because you might beleive it” You people are murderers and liars, start learning from real scientists like Shyh ching Lo, hacks like Moore are respsonsible for the spread of this microbe mycoplasma incognitus through the population, the only microbe that kills every animal inoculated. Good work John. Thanks for the genocide. Read Lo’s pathology studies above to really prove how a microbe is pathenogenic in humans, the militarys most distinguished infectious disease pathologist, shyh ching lo md phd, learn from a more competent and ethical scientist who doesnt name call and censor all day long.

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 7:42 PM

Please board he plane, all expenses paid, and show Maagiore and Al-Bayati where they are wrong about the “fake lung slides”.

I really have troouble deciding whether you are being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to provoke an angry response or whether you are as dense and incapable of reading as you appear.

The slides that Al-Bayati and Maggiore have been posting on the internet are not fake. However, they are not the GMS stained slides that provide incontrovertible evidence that Eliza Jane had PCP.

The only remaining question is why Maggiore and Al-Bayati do not post the GMS stained slides on the internet for everybody to see or at least show them to an independent anatomical pathologist for evaluation.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 7:48 PM

Chris,

Then I wonder why the henchmen are repeatedly jumping the gun when the investigation isn’t wrapped up. I wonder what you were opining before EJ died. Did you speculate about her lying about her positive status to cash in on the AIDS scare as well? That was a dumb question, you always believed that.

Nevere-a peen, you are quoting me not carter. These people are confused enough about who said what.

Truthseeker,

These people have dug themselves a hopelessly confusing hole here with who’s who. It started with a fake entry maliciously attributed to MEC. Since then I have been a few more things and reincarnations. J Moore thinks I am he/she/ Christine.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 7:51 PM

Then I wonder why the henchmen are repeatedly jumping the gun when the investigation isn’t wrapped up.

What do you mean the investigation isn’t wrapped up?
Do you mean that Maggiore and Al-Bayati are yet to be convinced?
In that case the investigation will never be wrapped up.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 7:58 PM

Sorry Pat,

I missed your response.

Do you really think we have a moral obligation to inform the Coroner about what his autopsy report says were found in the lung slides?

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 8:28 PM

This is the song that never ends
It just goes on and on my friends
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because -
This is the song that never ends…

(repeat ad nauseam, ad infinitum, forever and ever amen.)

Pat, I think the entries confusingly attributed to Mountain Man were muddying the waters at about the same time that things went astray with MEC.

Truthseeker, Pat is actually John Moore. Also, Chris Noble is bdkeller, franklin, and jspreen, cooler is Carter, I am Adele and Tara, and Christine Maggiore is Michael Geiger. We switch off who is Braganza on alternate Thursdays, and we rotate through different usernames like Molecular Entry Claw, kyle, and truthseeker to confuse matters further. Also, we are all Spartacus. Plus, Keyser Soze was Kane’s childhood sled and a symbol of innocence lost.

Posted by: jen_m | November 14, 2007 8:42 PM

“Hmmmm, I wonder why she doesn’t post the photomicrographs taken by the Coroner. You know, the the ones that demonstrate the Pneumocystis pneumonia? The ones she viewed as part of a national television broadcast?”

I wonder why I can’t find them anywhere in cyberspace. Were the ones on TV authentic? Tell me, I am wide open; where is this stuff? I don’t watch TV.
What was the result of Ribe’s latest trial? Is the verdict out yet?

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 8:48 PM

Dr. Robert Gallo is the acknowledged discoverer of human retroviruses, not retroviruses per se. If Kyle had any understanding of the publishing process, he, she or it would realize that single word errors and omissions often creep into articles undetected. The existence of a minor typographical error in an article does not mean that the entire article is flawed, except of course to people like Kyle who choose to focus on minutiae as they lack the ability to see the bigger picture. This was a stupid post from a stupid person, but pretty typical of what gets onto this Blog.

Posted by: Kyleresponder | November 14, 2007 8:48 PM

Thank you Dr Moore for responding so quickly.
That’s why Gallo won the Nobel prize or did he?
He must really hate being the discoverer of
the cause of the greatest plague known to man and not getting the Nobel prize for it.
I wonder why he was never given it , such a prestigious scientist, he should have won the prize hands down.

Posted by: kyle | November 14, 2007 9:03 PM

“Do you really think we have a moral obligation to inform the Coroner about what his autopsy report says were found in the lung slides?”

Thats funny..though I do think we have a moral obligation, in respect to human decency and dignity , to presume innocence until proof of guilt. Ribe is being sued and investigated it appears, and I wouldn’t put too much weight on him for the moment. You are welcome to put all your money on him and your TV show. I will wait.

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 9:19 PM

yep, the guy who said retroviruses cause cancer, well Gallo and levy, you idiots, Cancer isnt contagious, but then came AIDS, and a similar retrovirus jumped to be the cause of aids, jeez what a coincidence!

Gallo announced a plaugue to the world with no animal model, a partial correlation where he only found hiv in 1 of 1000 cells, didnt even publish till a week later, and to this day there isnt one long term study to confirm his hypothesis, not one study that dared question his hypothesis, for you had to beleive it or youd end up like duesberg. They just kept on extending the window period when no one got sick.

If there is a study that was designed to test his hypothesis, let me know, a long term study that controls for mycoplasmas, azt, drugs and severe stress by honest scientists, until then this hiv dissidency is going to get to be as big as the 9/11 conspiracy movement and you guys are going to have to debate the dissidents sooner or later, youve already lost South Africa.

Maybe hiv does cause AIDS but the case is far from closed.

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 9:21 PM

“Pat, I think the entries confusingly attributed to Mountain Man were muddying the waters at about the same time that things went astray with MEC.”

Well considering JP Moore re-wrote Bialy’s Wikipeadia entry once I think we both have our usual suspects. Those bloody old farts.

“Truthseeker, Pat is actually John Moore. Also, Chris Noble is bdkeller, franklin, and jspreen, cooler is Carter, I am Adele and Tara, and Christine Maggiore is Michael Geiger. We switch off who is Braganza on alternate Thursdays, and we rotate through different usernames like Molecular Entry Claw, kyle, and truthseeker to confuse matters further. Also, we are all Spartacus. Plus, Keyser Soze was Kane’s childhood sled and a symbol of innocence lost.”

I guess that means the fat lady is singing……….(no, not you)

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 9:36 PM

Funny how not one chimpanzee has died of AIDS after hundereds were inoculated 20 years ago, another act of hiv woo?

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 9:37 PM

Pat,

Maggiore claims that her lawyers “ordered” the autopsy slides from the Coroner.

If the Coroner was ordered to provide the autopsy slides as part of the discovery process in a legal action, all of the slides must be provided. They could probably also obtain any photomicrographs the Coroner has made of the slides, including the ones shown on PrimeTime.

I do not know of any site on the web that has these photos freely available.

You may be able to purchase a video of the PrimeTime episode from ABC.

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 9:56 PM

Tara wrote: “A better scene would be a student arguing with the teacher about a calculus problem that was settled years ago, when the student only has a 5th grade education in math and isn’t concerned about learning more–just asking for the “one paper” where this was all settled”

Thank you, just about the words I was looking for. We do not debate creationists for the same reason, and “teaching the controversy” is an idiotic nonstarter for the same reason.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 10:01 PM

Pat Says:

I do think we have a moral obligation, in respect to human decency and dignity , to presume innocence until proof of guilt. Ribe is being sued and investigated it appears, and I wouldn’t put too much weight on him for the moment.

You do understand that “presuming innocence” applies to the defendant–the one being sued–in this case, Dr. Ribe.

If you feel a moral obligation to presume innocence until proof of guilt, why does the lawsuit lead you to assume that the defendant’s word should carry little weight?

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 10:10 PM

As this string is clearly degenerating in the same way the previous one did, with claims and counter claims about who is what and why, it’s worth repeating the Spartacus post below.

Incidentally, for those posters on this thread who don’t actually know who Pat/Anthony Liversidge/Tony Baloney is, and why would you, he’s an elderly Englishman living in New York who runs a puerile Blog, New AIDS Review, devoted to AIDS denialism and other related conspiracy theories. His deadly rival, a person he loathes more than he hates any AIDS scientist, is Harvey Bialy, whose own Blog was much more popular and better written then his own. Pat/Liversidge/Baloney likes to think of himself as some kind of civilized, Anglo aristo type, but in reality he’s just Bialy-lite, posting the same material only with less humor and even sillier scientific content. He reserves a special place of hatred in his heart for the AIDS Truthies, because they listed Bialy and not him on their “Who are the denialists page”. He took this to be a huge personal slight. Pathetic when you stop to think about it – the price of a big ego attached to a small brain I guess.

I am Spartacus

Refers to a scene in the movie “Spartacus” starring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. After the army of former Roman slaves led by Spartacus is defeated in battle by legions of the Roman army, a Roman general stands before the captured surviving members of the slave army and demands that they turn over Spartacus, or else all of the former slaves will be executed. Upon hearing this and not wanting his friends to be executed, Spartacus stands up and says “I am Spartacus.” However, the loyalty of his friends is so great that each of them stands forward in succession, shouting “I am Spartacus!” until the shouts dissolve into a cacophony of thousands of former slaves each insisting “I am Spartacus!” Bewildered and still not knowing which of them is Spartacus, but impressed by the loyalty he inspires in his army, the Roman general has all of the slaves crucified in a miles-long display alongside the Appian Way leading back to Rome.

Thus the phrase “I am Spartacus!” is often used to humorously start a chorus of responses of “No, I am Spartacus” among a group.

Person enters chat room and types “I am Spartacus.”

100 other people in the chat room then respond with “No, I am Spartacus!”, “I am Spartacus!”, etc.

Posted by: Molecular Spartacus Claw | November 14, 2007 10:14 PM

cooler wrote: “Cancer isnt contagious”

Sorry to disappooint you, cooler, but there are indeed cancers that are quite contagious, even though that fact may have little to do with the conversation at hand.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 10:14 PM

I wonder why I can’t find them anywhere in cyberspace. Were the ones on TV authentic? Tell me, I am wide open; where is this stuff? I don’t watch TV.

well that proves it doesn’t it. If you can’t find it in cyberspace then it can’t be real!

You’d better inform the authorities that the GMS stained slides in the coroner’s report are fake – your proof being that you don’t watch TV and you can’t find them in cyberspace.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 10:30 PM

“You do understand that “presuming innocence” applies to the defendant–the one being sued–in this case, Dr. Ribe.”

Yes, thank you for reminding me of the obvious. I will wait for his day in court too but until that day I see no obligation to “take his word on anything” in Maggiore’s case. He does have a track record that should even make you wonder about him.

“If you feel a moral obligation to presume innocence until proof of guilt, why does the lawsuit lead you to assume that the defendant’s word should carry little weight?”

I am not assuming his word carries little weight in HIS defense case and you know damn well I am talking about the entire case mounted against Maggiore and it is HIS trial for professional sloppiness that throws the entire report on EJ’s autopsy in doubt. That shouldn’t be too much to understand? Where can I find the slides Ribe showed on “primetime”?

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 10:32 PM

Pat: “I would see the retarded pupil and then watch in utter amazement as my professor self destructs in uncontrolable rage, screaming for security and a noose.”

I love analogies!;)

But seriously, in real world, a mentally challenged student would be attending special classes, with instructors trained to deal with her specific requirements (here, read introductory biology and basics of scientific method). The situation on this thread is more akin to retarded (you used the word first; do you think it bodes well for deniers?;)) students crashing a university class and yelling at the top of their lungs that the teacher is wrong about everything, disrupting the debate and refusing to shut up until removed by force!
(Wait! Isn’t it what certain protesters did to E.O. Wilson back in the early ages of sociobiology?)

Hmmm, it seems to me that this isn’t an analogy per se, but a rather close and proper reading of the situation obtaining on this thread…
except for who is going to be the removing force? (In fact, I think Tara shows amazing restraint in not banning some people outright. Or was Geiger banned?) Of course I am sure that any attempt to disemvowel the more egregious idiots, PZ style, would result in howls decrying oppression and censorship.

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 10:53 PM

Where can I find the slides Ribe showed on “primetime”?

Ask Christine.

It’s been over two years since she was shown the slides on national TV. It beggars belief that she has shown no interest in this evidence.

From what I understand, these are more or less close ups of what the regular slides show and don’t offer much in the way of new evidence to consider. Do you think these special stains might reveal something not found in the regular slides? If so, could you please explain?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 14, 2007 10:53 PM

MSC wrote: “Thus the phrase “I am Spartacus!” is often used to humorously start a chorus of responses of “No, I am Spartacus” among a group”

I am sorry, but I am most definitely *not* Spartacus. I am Brian!:)

Posted by: Jorg | November 14, 2007 10:58 PM

“Thank you, just about the words I was looking for. We do not debate creationists for the same reason, and “teaching the controversy” is an idiotic nonstarter for the same reason.”

I guess then a hearty welcome to the “war” is in order jorg. You might as well dig a trench early and not budge either or maybe just stay home away from this truely idiotic “war”.

Tell me, what is the point in starting a political thread about Mbeki and then say “we don’t debate”?

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 11:00 PM

“Ask Christine.

It’s been over two years since she was shown the slides on national TV. It beggars belief that she has shown no interest in this evidence.”

Let’s recap, we have been waiting for 2 years for Christine to provide copies of slides she was shown on prime time by the coroner who is under investigation for professional sloppiness in similar cases involving infant death resulting in wrongful convictions, that prove EJ died of AIDS-related pneumonia.

Am I getting close?

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 11:14 PM

“Incidentally, for those posters on this thread who don’t actually know who Pat/Anthony Liversidge/Tony Baloney is, and why would you, he’s an elderly Englishman living in New York”

Now I am an Englishman in New York

Posted by: pat | November 14, 2007 11:22 PM

“Am I getting close?”

No, you are not.

It’s been almost 2 years since Ms. Maggiore appeared on national television reviewing the pathological slides that showed her daughter died of Pneumocystis pneumonia, but on August 10, 2007, she claimed the following:

from what I understand, her lungs show no pneumonia of any kind

Posted by: franklin | November 14, 2007 11:27 PM

Sorry jorg, but it seems as though your lack of scientific pedigree is showing. HPV fails all of kochs postulates, but you have to make money for merck, your master.

The real problem here is your lack you and your idols lack of balls, heart and scientific pedigree.

You dont have Maniotis’s balls heart or Harvard pedigree

you dont have shyh ching Lo’s md phd’s pedigree or balls either, he was considered a scientific genius in China, which is why he Army made him their lead pathologist to protect us in a war.

He’s the only scientist to discover a microbe that killed every animal inoculated, mycoplasma incognitus, read his pathology study above to get some balls, the Read Project Day lily to find out how it was part of the bioweapons program.

You dont have Duesbergs california scientist of the year national academy of science pedigree, or his balls and heart neither.

You lack margulis’s big heart etc etc. I could go on and and on about the lack of pedigree and balls in your science.

Instead of worshipping real scientists, you worship frauds like Gallo, gaduseck, and levy. Gaduseck was so desperate to have an animal model he drilled holes in monkeys head to make try and make them sick with his failed virus.

These fools gave us viruses with no animal models, that were in 1 in a thousand cells and caused no symptoms for 10 years, aka they had no balls, heart or pedigree, like you john and jim.

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 11:31 PM

I really have troouble deciding whether you are being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to provoke an angry response or whether you are as dense and incapable of reading as you appear.
The slides that Al-Bayati and Maggiore have been posting on the internet are not fake. However, they are not the GMS stained slides that provide incontrovertible evidence that Eliza Jane had PCP.
The only remaining question is why Maggiore and Al-Bayati do not post the GMS stained slides on the internet for everybody to see or at least show them to an independent anatomical pathologist for evaluation.

Ah, Dr. Noble at his very best, and this was just the beginning of his implosion.but The rest Pat has unravelled and summarized admirably just above.

Forunately, Dr. Noble, I don’t have to wonder if you are dense or obtuse on purpose since we all know that’s the qualities you’re being paid for. The only remaining question is when you or some other cyber chickenshit will bring along an “independent pathologist” of your choice to go and sort out the mess: provide the right section of the right slides at the right resolution at the right magnification and get paid for it to boot.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 14, 2007 11:33 PM

he drilled holes in monkeys heads to try and make them sick with his failed virus.

PS
get some balls

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 11:35 PM

With all the silliness that now pervades this thread, I feel the need to presage this post with the statement “I am John Moore and I endorse this message – on the grounds that I wrote it”.

Earlier today, in response to Jorg, I wrote that the denialists “focus down and in on some trivial error in a paper, or a minor inconsistency with another study, and use their “discoveries” to assert that the entire peer-reviewed scientific literature on HIV/AIDS is flawed”.

Within hours, mere hours, “Kyle” posted a classic example of exactly this point, by highlighting a single word omission in Nicoli Nattrass’s outstanding “Skeptical Enquirer” article on denialism, and then extrapolating from this editing error to say that the entire article must therefore be full of “lies” (or words to that effect; the intent of Kyle’s post is clear enough).

Wikipedia states “A lie is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement with the intention to deceive…”

An error is not a lie.

This is one of the several reasons why AIDS scientists don’t get into interchanges (debates/discussions) with the denialists concerning the scientific literature. The denialists don’t care about understanding the science, they seek only to reinforce their preconceived personal and political agendas. The finding of an error, a missing semi-colon, a misplaced superscript, whatever, anything, is considered sufficient of a triumphant discovery as to negate the entire body of peer-reviewed literature on HIV/AIDS.

How would it go in such a “debate”?

“Mr Scientist, you just mis-spoke. You are therefore a liar. Everything you have ever said therefore cannot be believed. This means that HIV does not exist. QED. We win”.

Sadly, this is not just an idle parody, it is how it goes with these people. There is no middle ground, there is science and pseudoscience, and ne’er the twain shall meet. The denialists believe what they believe as a quasi-religious dogma, akin to the Religious Right’s belief in creationism. And, as Tara has written, the AIDS denialists and the creationists use exactly the same anti-science tactics to promote their “arguments”.

On another subject, “Molecular Spartacus Claw” speculated about why Anthony Liversidge is not listed on AIDS Truth’s “Who are the denialists page”. We never for a moment considering adding him. Although he resembles Bialy in running a conspiracy theory/AIDS denialist Blog, it’s not particularly influential even in denialist circles. Moreover, Liversidge has no scientific training (accounting for the asinine content of what he posts), unlike Bialy who was able to use his degrees to persuade a few gullible journalists that he knew what he was talking about. Recording the reality about Bialy on AIDS Truth was therefore useful to show journalists who in fact they were dealing with; that situation would never arise with Liversidge. After all, if we listed Liversidge, we’d pretty much also have to list Michael Geiger…… One has to draw a line somewhere!

Posted by: John Moore | November 14, 2007 11:53 PM

john,
you need to get some balls big time, you also need to get laid, have you ever considered hiring a prositute?

Posted by: cooler | November 14, 2007 11:58 PM

john,
Would you buck a really hot girl that was a denialist? 100 bucks says you would.

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 12:01 AM

Oh, not again with the getting-laid thing. And now apparently only people with balls are real people. Nice.

Posted by: jen_m | November 15, 2007 12:03 AM

You don’t find it the least bit strange that Maggiore isn’t even interested in looking at the evidence?

from what I understand, her lungs show no pneumonia of any kind

This may be technically correct – it just places upper bounds on her understanding, or perhaps her willingness to understand.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 12:07 AM

Jen,
Balls are a metaphor for being a free thinker in a world of government run science gone out of control, For example Margulis has big balls for standing up for hiv and 9/11 truth.
your welcome,

cooler

see hiv fact or fraud
read project day lily

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 12:12 AM

Hey John Moore:

You ducked out of the last debate when I asked you to come to Los Angeles on my dime for a public discussion on where you see evidence of pneumonia in my daughter’s lung tissue slides. Now here you are on a new thread spouting off the same charges you apparently can’t substantiate.

Where do you see evidence of the AIDS-related pneumonia (or any kind of pneumonia) that supposedly took my daughter’s life in the photos of the slides from the coroner’s office?

On what basis do you claim to know my daughter’s HIV status when our family and our attorneys still have not received laboratory evidence of her HIV status from the coroner’s office? Or are you now taking the indirect evidence that she must be HIV positive because I test that way?

If that’s how you come to the conclusion about my daughter, using your same illogic, perhaps you can explain why my husband and partner of 11 years tests HIV negative, and why my son, conceived, born and raised in the exact same manner as Eliza Jane, tests HIV negative?

And what’s up with this new spin on your tall tales, trying to cover Jean Bergmann’s assanine remarks about me being “an HIV pretender” by claiming I “was in one of [my] periodic flip-flops…claiming (at that particular time) to be HIV-negative and a victim of the (allegedly) flawed HIV diagnostic assays?” Where is evidence for that ridiculous charge? You got a quote for that from somewhere other than your wishful thinking file?

You want to talk about me and my family? Come here to Los Angeles and let’s face off in public. Come here and show m the evidence for pneumonia other than in the claims of a mendacious coroner who, the year before my daughter died, falsely accused Jose and Rocio Gonzalez and another poor hispanic couple of starving their children to death only to admit he was wrong when confronted by outside medical experts.

The same coroner who concluded that Destiny Jacobo was sexually abused by her parents when there is no physical evidence for this in her autopsy report.

The same coroner who changed multiple autopsy conclusions to fit the forced murder confession of David Allen Jones, a mentally retarded black man found innocent on appeal after serving seven years of a life sentence for crimes he didn’t commit.

If this unethical, unprofessional coroner was atypically correct in our case, how come the Medical Board of California failed to charge Dr. Fleiss with gross negligence for EJ’s death? How come the Medical Board of Colorado just dropped their investigation into the last pediatrician to see her, Dr. Incao? And how come the board is now investigating the coroner?

Fulfill on your AIDS Truth superhero motto to do anything to stop denialism: Come here and show me the evidence for your claims.

Unless you’re willing to face off with me and cough up some answers, I suggest you find someone else’s dead child to pick on.

Awaiting you in Los Angeles,

Christine Maggiore

Posted by: Christine Maggiore | November 15, 2007 12:21 AM

cooler; I was going to bypass your whole tirade as being so asinine as not to even be wrong…you didn’t miss me, you were shooting at yourself, methinks. One remark of yours, however, deserves a little bit of attention.

You said, “Instead of worshipping real scientists, you worship
frauds…” (etc).

Sorry, bud. I do not worship anyone, scientists, actors, frauds, magicians, gods or politicians. I am a good atheist, and my area of training is not virology, but, rather, physical science and philosophy. As if that mattered…

In any case, i do keep an open mind; but just as I am not ready to keep it open to flat-Earthers and Moon landing deniers, I am not going to keep it open to other ridiculous ignorance.

“An open mind is a good thing, but if it is too open, your brains are going to fall out.”–was that Sagan? Memory fails right now…

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 12:54 AM

On what basis do you claim to know my daughter’s HIV status when our family and our attorneys still have not received laboratory evidence of her HIV status from the coroner’s office?

Ms. Maggiore,

While being interviewed for a nationally broadcast television show you were shown photomicrographs demonstrating HIV infection of your daughter’s brain.

Did your attorneys request those slides from the Coroner’s office?

If so, have they been received?

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 12:56 AM

Pat: We can argue and talk past each other, when the fit is on us and when we have time. I’ve been known to spend evenings over pints of beer arguing evolutionary theory with creationist nitwits who were probably lobotomized at birth, and I was only mildly pissed off (beer makes me benevolent). When I say “no to debating” I mean a public debate, an affair that legitimizes both points of view. i will point my finger and laugh at flat-earthers, but if they ask me for proofs that the earth is not flatâ€”in a private conversationâ€”I’ll be glad to proivide those (at least once or twice; my patience does have limits, after all). What I *will* not do is appear on public access TV channel (prime time is probably beyond my means…;)) and publicly debate with them as if their beliefs were not a bad joke they really are.

Of course, that said, I doubt I can have any real friends who are creationists or conspiracy theorists; just as I was never able to stay in a relationship with someone religious or, for lack of a better term, New-agey.

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 1:34 AM

Jorg, I’m intrigued and touched by your explanation for why you cannot be friends with a Flat Earther, although you don’t mind having a beer with him. I will therefore refrain from expressing my first impulse upon reading your composition – being “who gives a shit?” Suffice to say that we people from the Draft For The War On AIDS Resistance Movement have only friends and no enemies. To show that our hearts are in the right place, we’ll also dedicate the next song, originally an homage to Ronald Reagan, to John Moore, professor at Weill Medical College:

Drug Store Truck Driving Man

Chorus:
He’s a drug store truck drivin’ man
He’s the head of the Ku Klux Klan
When summer comes rollin’ around
We’ll be lucky to get out of town

Verse 1:
He’s been like a father to me
He’s like the only DJ you can hear after three
I’m an all night singer in a country band
And if he don’t like me he don’t understand

Chorus

Verse 2:
He’s got him a house on the hill
And he can play country records till you’ve had your fill
And he’s a law man’s friend he’s an all night DJ
Sure don’t think much like the records he plays

Chorus

Verse 3:
He don’t like resistance I know
And he said it last night on a big TV show
He’s got him a medal that he won in the war
Weighs 500 pounds and it sleeps by the door

Chorus e repete:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrI-HM
iZO8

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 15, 2007 2:37 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrI-HM-iZO8

Posted by: MEC | November 15, 2007 2:44 AM

“When I say “no to debating” I mean a public debate, an affair that legitimizes both points of view”

This is our main disagreement. I think debate legitimizes the audience not the speakers, but thats just me. Do you think Moore’s OpEd piece about Maggiore legitimizes the science behind AIDS? Do you think Bergman’s cruel and misleading writing legitimizes the science of AIDS? Do you think promoting the virtues of sensorship legitimizes the science of AIDS?

“(beer makes me benevolent)”.

drink more beer.

I have never met a flat earther.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 6:46 AM

from what I understand, her lungs show no pneumonia of any kind”

Slides from a pathologist facing accusations of being a pathological fudger. A TV show. The “evidence” is rock-solid.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 6:53 AM

Slides from a pathologist facing accusations of being a pathological fudger. A TV show. The “evidence” is rock-solid.

The major accusation against Ribe appears to be that he changes his opinion when new evidence is presented to him. I’m not sure whether this is a virtue or a fault. If he doesn’t obtain evidence when he should have then I would agree that it is a fault.

In this case the evidence has been obtained. There are GMS stained slides showing PC. If you have objections then attack the evidence not the person holding the slides.

Your jibe about a TV show is a red herring. The evidence doesn’t become tainted because it was shown on a TV show. The important thing is that we know Maggiore has been shown the evidence.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 7:18 AM

“The major accusation against Ribe appears to be that he changes his opinion when new evidence is presented to him. I’m not sure whether this is a virtue or a fault.”- Chris.

It is a fault. Either the coroner makes observations on a body or doesn’t.

“During cross-examination, Ribe admitted that he revised his opinion based on the courtroom testimony of another prosecution witness”

“Ribe disavowed his earlier testimony as “just ridiculous,” arguing “I had zero time to prepare.”"

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:34 AM

I have never met a flat earther.

Hehe… Pat, you obviously hang out with the wrong crowd. Perhaps Moore et al. can introduce you to a few of their drinking buddies.

Dr. Noble we are waiting for you to show the rest of us the evidence. Who is “we” btw? Are you also fantasizing about working for the CIA?

Your jibe about a TV show is a red herring. The evidence doesn’t become tainted because it was shown on a TV show. The important thing is that we know Maggiore has been shown the evidence. (Noble)

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 15, 2007 7:34 AM

“In this case the evidence has been obtained. There are GMS stained slides showing PC. If you have objections then attack the evidence not the person holding the slides.”

the evidence you brag about is not available, I attack the evidence; you attack Maggiore. It was seen once on low rez television. Everyone, including Maggiore and yourself are waiting for the release of this “evidence”. The lawyers asked for it and are waiting to this day for it. Stop parading american TV as “evidence”. You sound like a clown saying that.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:42 AM

On what basis do you assume that “the lawyers are waiting to this day” for the GMS-stained slides and the slides demonstrating the HIV infection of the brain?

To my knowledge Ms. Maggiore has never claimed that the GMS-stained slides wren’t provided to her lawyers, she just claims ignorance of their significance.

Ms. Maggiore claims that she wanted to get a second opinion on the cause of her daughter’s death, so to review the autopsy slides, she turns to a Toxicologist with no training, certification, or license to practice Anatomic Pathology–and you defend this approach.

Who looks like a clown?

If your car’s clutch was acting up, would you ask a Trek Mountain Bike Repairman to look under the hood?

Posted by: ranklin | November 15, 2007 8:32 AM

“On what basis do you assume that “the lawyers are waiting to this day” for the GMS-stained slides and the slides demonstrating the HIV infection of the brain?”

That is her claim and that of her lawyers. The claim she has them, is yours. The hIV test is also something they are waiting for.

Cosidering the lack of available evidence, the false reporting by Bergman, the threats of forced removal for the remaining child and documented testimonial flip-flopping by the coroner, I choose “in dubio pro reo”.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:54 AM

“Ms. Maggiore claims that she wanted to get a second opinion on the cause of her daughter’s death, so to review the autopsy slides, she turns to a Toxicologist with no training, certification, or license to practice Anatomic Pathology–and you defend this approach.”

apparently this man does review autopsy reports for a living and the courts in LA don’t seem to have a problem with his certification. Maybe you should point out to the courts that Al-Bayati is not qualified for what he has been retained for.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:58 AM

Franklin, we are still waiting for the AIDStruth Cyber Chickenshit Crusaders to bring along their own independent trained, certified and licensed anatomic pathologist to expose the denialist lung slide conspiracy.

All expenses will be paid.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 15, 2007 10:37 AM

Pat wrote: “I think debate legitimizes the audience not the speakers”

Firstly, I am not talking about legitimizing the speakers but their points of view. Your existence as an individual (not to mention as a speaker) is legitimate enough and needs no confirmation or approval from anyone.

Second, if “the people” are interested in learning the subject at hand they can take some classes, read some research (and yes, even consensus!) papers and generally make an effort to educate themselves. (And I by that I emphatically do *not* mean surfing the internet looking for pages that support their preconceptions. But judging by the tone of the conversation here, asking certain individuals to abide by scientific method would be too much, since they would not be able to recognize said method if it ran them over).
Debates are only fun if they are between two legitimate alternatives. Otherwise they are boring, misleading, and useless.

BTW, the ability to change one’s mind is a *great* quality in a scientist, something a lot of non-scientists do not realize. In a coronerâ€”I have to agree with Chris:mdash;I am not sure if it is a virtue or a fault. Perhaps a bit of both.

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 11:41 AM

Thank you Jorg,

It appears as usual as though everyone has lost track of the original topic. The original topic here is Mbeki. This requires no medical degree or any capacity to understand the scientific method or the science behind HIV. This is the politics of AIDS and if you think it is frustrated by people misconcepions then the onus is on science to be more understandable. It a failure of communication when scientists must resort cohersion to get their views across.

“BTW, the ability to change one’s mind is a *great* quality in a scientist, something a lot of non-scientists do not realize.”

Are you refering to Jeanne Bergman? Her great qualities as a scientist are shown in her ability to change her mind? That may be true of, say …Duesberg but Jeanne Bergman did not change her mind. Her agenda is still to discredit Maggiore. What did change however was the scientific evidence in support of her personal attacks against the integrity of Maggiore. Bergman, it is clear, does not care one iota about the emotional roller coaster people like Maggiore are thrust through. As someone who has never had to make tough personal descisions with regards to a positive HIV diagnosis, Bergman shows complete contempt for the reality of Maggiore’s very real dilemas.

“Maggiore has never had to make agonizing treatment decisions for herself or for her children.”

This must rank as one of the most pathetic attempts at assumption in the anals of AIDS politics.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 1:31 PM

oops…annals

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 1:33 PM

I have an idea on how JP Moore can win his “war” on denialism over night and it requires only one or two small redefinitions in the strategy.

He should stop defining “enemies” and stop defining “war” and the truth will be unmistakeable. Let the rock solid evidence speak for itself. Rock solid evidence does not need a guy with a paper hat on his head crusading around the world, playing Churchill and crushing the evil enemies of science. No truth and no righteous science ever needed to be delivered at gun point or with a threat of sanctions by a naked guy with a paper hat. JP Moore is a proponent of undemocratic tools and even a smuck like me knows where the moral highground truely lies. His behavior along with that of his buddies in ideology throw the entire integrity of science itself into disrepute. You need to back off or be replaced. You are a political menace.

My humble opinion.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 2:16 PM

One’s opinion on Mbeki’s actions is inextricably bound with one’s stance on HIV. If the scientific consensus is correct (and I, for one, am convinced of that), then Mbeki’s actions are simply criminal.

There is a problem with “making science more understandable”. Some aspects of it just do not lend themselves to an easy understanding. I am not saying that virology is necessarily one of them (although I think that biochemistry makes my inflationary cosmology seminars look like a piece of cake, but that’s just me), but there is only so much simplification a subject can take before losing all useful content. I firmly believe that in order to appreciate and understand a particular literature one must learn at least the rudiments of the language that literature is written in. Demanding easy, abriged translations just doesn’t work, and in order to appreciate the beauty of say, a Hamiltonian, and understanding how it applies to the world at large you must suffer through a bit of calculus…

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 2:56 PM

“One’s opinion on Mbeki’s actions is inextricably bound with one’s stance on HIV. If the scientific consensus is correct (and I, for one, am convinced of that), then Mbeki’s actions are simply criminal.”

You guys can keep that opinion in your very exclusive club if that is where you wish to keep it and I pray Moore, Wainberg and Co never make legislation. I can’t imagine them getting very far with their antics though; their ideology is not very popular.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 3:10 PM

Why? If a leader of a country denied antibiotics to her people for some ill-specified reason, and said people were dying because they did not have access to medicine, would that leader’s actions not be considered criminal? You may disagree with the premisses, but I see no logical way to disagree with the conclusions, given the premisses are correct. And that is what I mean by “inextricably bound”

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 3:16 PM

Just like other potentially terminal diseases (including TB and cancer)

I know that very few people today can listen to this, but one day it will be common knowledge that TB does not exist without a preceding cancer. That day the “potentially terminal” adjective will cease to be cast upon the millions by the armies of almighty yet totally ignorant medical doctors. Which day might that be? Easy! It will be the day when Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer’s New Medicine has finally reached the masses.

- Oh come on Jan, cut it out! Don’t you understand that you’re becoming one of the topmost trolls on the Internet?

- Yeah, I know. So what? Some people very much appreciate what I write and I have good hope that others will become curious little by little, start to read here and there and finally come to understand what Hamer’s New Medicine has to offer.

- You’re an incurable optimist! Nobody ever changed his mind on those Web logs and Internet forums. Just look at the everlasting discussions raging here.

- I don’t care a shit about big mouthed empty headed scientists and their yahoo lackeys who have nothing to do but do some herd-keeping on the Internet. I address the silent readers, the ones who are big enough to make up their own mind about what they read.

- (sigh)

Posted by: jspreen | November 15, 2007 3:31 PM

Hamer was a quack,I read up on a little, please in a few sentances if you can convince me otherwise, you like some of the other posters on this site need some shyh ching lo, duesberg, nicolsons, baseman in your life with some Project Day lily to boot, the greatest book and most shocking of all time, on the mycoplamsa incognitus biowarfare program, the only microbe to kill every animal inoculated as Lo showed, when is Tara going to do a blog on Lo’s and Nicolsons work?…………….waiting………Read Lo’s pathology above to see how to prove a microbe is pathenogenic in humans.

Afterall she does blogs on some pretty dumb topics, like chocolate and the gut, people are slowly dying, thank god Dr. maniotis is mentioning it in his new book, cares about humanity and wants people to have informed consent. After all its the only microbe out of hiv, hpv, hep c to cause death and disease in monkeys/mice, shouldnt people with mysterious infection like symptoms be tested and made aware of this?

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 3:43 PM

Looks like this thread has now completely degenerated into the random warblings of the crazy, sex-obsessed, conspiracy theorist, Lo-life cooler, the mad “there’s no such thing as a pathogen” Jan Spreen and Anthony (”call me Pat”) Liversidge, with only Jorg now posting as a voice of sanity and reason. What a waste of time it’s all become.

By the way, anyone doubting that Pat is Tony Baloney Liversidge should read what he posts on his own Blog, NAR, where he admits to posting on this Aetiology string using multiple pseudonyms. Gee, what a surprise.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 15, 2007 3:53 PM

too bad ive got the facts on my side, and the university of California pedigree, youre probably a janitor, or an online degree recipient, lol loser.

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 3:59 PM

the mad “there’s no such thing as a pathogen” Jan Spreen

Ha, Ha, Ha!!!! Show me where I wrote that! Pathogen simply means A disease producer. Nothing else. Disease exist, I wouldn’t deny that one can feel very “dis-eased” thus disease producers must also exist. So many things can produce disease!

What? That’s not what you meant? Ah, you were talking about germs! Okay then, true enough, the germ theory of diseases, of course, that all nonsense to me….

Posted by: jspreen | November 15, 2007 4:46 PM

Hamer was a quack, I read up on a little, please in a few sentances if you can convince me otherwise,

The core of Hamer’s New Medicine holds on half a page A4. But to grab it’s meaning, it takes a lot of time and unless you can see through the hate propaganda against Hamer, I think his findings are completely out of reach for you. For you and so many others who, when it comes to a different approach of something about which they already made up their mind, firmly stick to their ideas and try to beat the heretic with the stick of main stream propaganda.

Posted by: jspreen | November 15, 2007 5:05 PM

hamer beleives that all illneses are caused by a very stressful event in childhood, and that all illnesses like cancer, aids are the result?

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 5:09 PM

“Why? If a leader of a country denied antibiotics to her people for some ill-specified reason, and said people were dying because they did not have access to medicine, would that leader’s actions not be considered criminal? You may disagree with the premisses, but I see no logical way to disagree with the conclusions, given the premisses are correct. And that is what I mean by “inextricably bound”

Why do you use an antibiotic analogy when you can say ARV’s? Again. I thank the stars that scientists aren’t the only ones with a right to vote. Misguided? perhaps but criminal is to take the extrem position and most won’t follow you there. We can agree to disagree however.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 5:38 PM

“Looks like this thread has now completely degenerated into the random warblings of the crazy, sex-obsessed, conspiracy theorist, Lo-life cooler, the mad “there’s no such thing as a pathogen” Jan Spreen and Anthony (”call me Pat”) Liversidge, with only Jorg now posting as a voice of sanity and reason. What a waste of time it’s all become.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 15, 2007 3:53 PM”

Now I know this is not from Anthony Liversidge AKA “truthseeker”. Who could this well be…mmm

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 5:42 PM

“By the way, anyone doubting that Pat is Tony Baloney Liversidge should read what he posts on his own Blog, NAR, where he admits to posting on this Aetiology string using multiple pseudonyms. Gee, what a surprise.”

you are welcome to advertise your arch enemy.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 5:43 PM

hamer beleives that all illneses are caused by a very stressful event in childhood, and that all illnesses like cancer, aids are the result?

No, that’s not the right way to put it. Stressful event, yes, childhood, no. BTW, the actual concept of Aids is about the worst possible explanation of what really happens and as such Aids is merely the result of scientific nonsense thinking.

The major discovery of Hamer is not only the idea of a stressfull event provoking a biological conflict, but also the revolutionary notion that all diseases come by the pair. To which we must add the fabulous ontogenetic system of diseases and germs.

Posted by: jspreen | November 15, 2007 5:44 PM

I couldn’t very well use ARVs as an analogy to themselves, could I? Again, a leader that knowingly slaughters her people is criminal. i think we agree on that. A leader that is misguided may not be strictly speaking a criminal, but a.as we all know, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and b.when many have attempted to point out exactly where the leader’s point of view is wrong and s/he still ignores the evidence, her actions are beginning to cross the border of criminal behaviour.

We can only censure a (hypothetical?) leader like that; nobody is advocating invasion, war, assassination and/or prison. Unless the people of the country abused choose to do so, of course.

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 5:53 PM

Truthseeker:

Thanks for the kind words.

However, your comment made me realize that actually posting on this thread goes beyond the most liberal definition of sanity and reason, and I am doing that probably just to get the last word in…Screw it. I stop. Now!

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 6:49 PM

I suspect that Pat really is Pat. Some of the Denialists do use multiple pseudonyms but not all.

Liversidge posted under the pseudonym “Truthseeker” above in the thread. I don’t know if he has used other pseudonyms.

I gave up trying to guess who was who after making mistakes. In the end it doesn’t matter much.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 6:51 PM

“On what basis do you assume that “the lawyers are waiting to this day” for the GMS-stained slides and the slides demonstrating the HIV infection of the brain?”

That is her claim and that of her lawyers. The claim she has them, is yours. The hIV test is also something they are waiting for.

When did Ms. Maggiore claim that neither she nor her lawyers have received the GMS-stained slides or the brain slides from the Coroner’s Office?

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 6:52 PM

Why do you claim it is not available?
It was in the Coroner’s report. It was shown personally to Maggiore.
Are you telling me that Maggiore has requested the slides and has not received them?
That isn’t what she says.

Maggiore has been shown the evidence. We know this because it was broadcast on national television.

The television show is not the evidence. You are being deliberately obtuse by suggesting that this is the case. The slides are the evidence.

If you think the slides that Maggiore was shown are fakes then you had better inform the authorities.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 7:00 PM

“It’s been almost 2 years since Ms. Maggiore appeared on national television reviewing the pathological slides that showed her daughter died of Pneumocystis pneumonia, but on August 10, 2007, she claimed the following:from what I understand, her lungs show no pneumonia of any kind” Slides from a pathologist facing accusations of being a pathological fudger. A TV show. The “evidence” is rock-solid.

Take a look at the slides yourself. There is no pneumonia. The lung alveoli are clear.

Fig 1A page 6 Photograph of Eliza Jane Scovill’s H & E stained lung section shows normal structures of the lung. Note that the alveolar spaces are free of exudates and the alveolar walls are free of inflammation and fibrosis.

Posted by: no_new_moan_yeah | November 15, 2007 7:02 PM

Hey no_new_moan_yeah,

What makes you think that photomicrograph is representative of the pathological changes in Eliza Jane Scovill’s lungs?

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 7:07 PM

“I couldn’t very well use ARVs as an analogy to themselves, could I?”

no, that is contrary to the rules of the english language but you didn’t need an analogy.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:16 PM

“Again, a leader that knowingly slaughters her people is criminal.”

This is precisely the crux of it all. You cannot argue he is “slaughtering” his people without being histerical. You use the language of hysteria when you yourself, believably are not. Visit Rwanda or Theresienstadt and educate yourself as to the meaning of the word “slaughter”.
Mbeki is not a “slaughterer”. Orac calls it the Hitler Zombie. Making a wrong and hateful comparison in order to discredit. It is a weak intellectual fart.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:32 PM

Tara,
All Things aside, perhaps it is time for a web programme that limits Usernames to one per verifyiable e-mail address.

This would greatly reduce the mischievous activities of the less mature trolls on this and future threads.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:36 PM

“I suspect that Pat really is Pat. Some of the Denialists do use multiple pseudonyms but not all.

Thank you and I take you at noble value too but stop being so lop-sided in your views. You know damn well old farts across science extend to this day their stupid fraternity jokes like the one JP Moore pulled off on Bialy’s wiki entry and all the dumb shit Bialy pulled too.

Your world is so simple. I envy you.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 7:44 PM

Hey but Carter is Carter.

And Hilary mixes AIDS CHURCH religion and politics quite nicely. So now it’s not enough to spend the gazillions of taxpayers dollars – lets raid the church coiffeurs too.

click on carter —->

Posted by: Carter | November 15, 2007 7:50 PM

You know damn well old farts across science extend to this day their stupid fraternity jokes like the one JP Moore pulled off on Bialy’s wiki entry and all the dumb shit Bialy pulled too.

How do you know it was John that altered Bialy’s wiki entry. He’s hardly the only person in the world that Bialy has pissed off. From what I have seen John always uses his real name.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 7:52 PM

Pat, I suspect ScienceBlogs doesn’t want to require registration to comment, which is required to do the one-on-one mapping of username to e-mail. That decision might be the purview of the individual blogger, but I suspect not. Besides, it’s a hassle to have to register just because a few people are irritating, not to mention what the reaction would be from certain paranoids around here who think they’re being censored every time Dr. Smith takes a few hours to review the held-for-moderation queue.

Posted by: jen_m | November 15, 2007 7:58 PM

Excuse me,

I am the Rob you are referring to and for the record, I am Jewish. My last name is Schwartz which is a Jewish last name and if you had any sense of humor whatsoever or knew anything about being Jewish, you would realize that I was joking about that. In fact, I was the creator of the group exposing experimentation on children. The remark I made was in response to a joke my friend Seth had made on the wall of the group and playing along with the joke I made an antisemitic joke, knowing that anyone with half a brain knows that Schwartz is a Jewish last and therefore it was a joke. Sometimes people use humor to deal with tragedy, get over yourself.

Posted by: Rob Schwartz | November 15, 2007 8:05 PM

“When did Ms. Maggiore claim that neither she nor her lawyers have received the GMS-stained slides or the brain slides from the Coroner’s Office?”

She claims to have all the slides and the TV slides were not among them. She asks in her letters Chris links to what the significance of those slides are and there is no evidence that she recieved a reply. www.rethinkingaids.com/challenges/Maggiore-Flegg.html

I have no evidence of the existance of those slides outside the broadcast TV report Chris harps on about.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:14 PM

“Besides, it’s a hassle to have to register just because a few people are irritating, not to mention what the reaction would be from certain paranoids around here who think they’re being censored every time Dr. Smith takes a few hours to review the held-for-moderation queue.”

I understand the hassle but the reality is no one knows who’s who anymore and all those “fake” posts went unfiltered. Screw the paranoids, something needs tweaking to ensure at least a moderately meaningless flame “war”.

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:20 PM

“From what I have seen John always uses his real name.”

Maybe…we won’t as long as people can post as “whatever”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz7_3n7xyDg

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:26 PM

Rob, that was a week ago. It would have made your point more effectively if you’d actually linked to the relevant comment – most people around here have NO idea what you’re talking about. (It’s here: http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/11/mbeki_still_in_denial.php#comment-630748 )

Pat, sure it would make things more comprehensible, but if Dr. Smith was going to require registration, I think she would have done it around the time that people were threatening each other with bodily harm. Merely being unable to tell what the hell is going on in the comments is par for the course. For me, anyway. I don’t even try to guess who’s who, because it doesn’t really matter.

Posted by: jen_m | November 15, 2007 8:27 PM

It’s not. I could force everyone to use TypeKey, but that’s a real pain in the ass, and all anyone would have to do to get around it is register twice anyway as it doesn’t limit by IP address. I’ve asked people before to stick to one pseudonym but you can see how well they follow that.

Posted by: Tara C. Smith | November 15, 2007 8:32 PM

Hey rob,
its me from facebook, im the one that sent you that message, its a girl named Adele that accuses us and that whole group of being anti semitic, she usualy posts here everyday, she nuts! all she does is call people anti jewish all day, without any evidence

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 8:40 PM

I’m no authority on compoooters but I’ve seen plenty of websites with username reservation and it wasn’t a hassle to register

“I think she would have done it around the time that people were threatening each other with bodily harm.”

relax. It’s hysterical. But the verdict is in. These threads are not worth following for anyone and I concur.

“For me, anyway. I don’t even try to guess who’s who, because it doesn’t really matter.”.-jen_m

“I’ve asked people before to stick to one pseudonym but you can see how well they follow that.”-Tara

Chris,

“How do you know it was John that altered Bialy’s wiki entry. He’s hardly the only person in the world that Bialy has pissed off. From what I have seen John always uses his real name.”

How do you know that multiple-pseudonym syndrom is specific to “denialist” infection of thought?

Posted by: pat | November 15, 2007 8:53 PM

pat: (breaking my own word to myself! obviously, you cannot trust a scientist!)

Having grown up in the USSR, I am quite familiar with the meaning of the word “slaughter”, even though I am too young to have witnessed it myself. Memories run deep (or at least they used to; nowadays many of the school-kids do not know anything about the War or Stalin’s purges, etc…but I digress).

I used a hypothetical conditional, and therefore the word slaughter. The word “if” was very important in that context. However, if anybody even *contributes* to the deaths of thousands of people, is that person not responsible? I use criminal not in the legal sense of the word but rather in an ethical sense. In any case, as I have said above, the culpability depends on whether or not you accept the premisses. I happen to do so; I assume that you do not, hence charges of negligence contributing to (many) wrongful deaths do not apply and you can talk about the complexities of political settings.

I have no marshmallows in this fire in any case (besides thinking that denying the connection between HIV and AIDS is rather silly while not at all being funny), and originally posted only to comment on the particular behaviours of particular people in this particular thread, I am afraid.

Posted by: Jorg | November 15, 2007 9:10 PM

I have no evidence of the existance of those slides outside the broadcast TV report Chris harps on about.

Try reading the autopsy report (page 16 has the histology results).

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 10:17 PM

apparently this man does review autopsy reports for a living

I guess so:

Al-Bayati reviewed Eliza Jane’s medical records but did not perform an autopsy or look at the coroner’s pathology slides. He told The Times his customary charge for such a review is $22,000, but he probably would give Maggiore a discount and hadn’t yet sent her a bill. (Maggiore said she had expected the review would be free.)

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 10:31 PM

Look at you losers, weve got the best scientists on our side

World Renowned Scientist, Lynn Margulis, Ph.D.
National Academy of Sciences Member
Calls for New 9/11 Investigation
Official Explanation a Fraud
27aug2007

World renowned scientist, Lynn Margulis, Ph.D., today severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation, “I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be undertaken.”

One of America’s most prominent scientists, Dr. Margulis is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts – Amherst. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and served as Chairman of the Academy’s Space Science Board Committee on Planetary Biology and Chemical Evolution. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Dr. Margulis with the National Medal of Science, America’s highest honor for scientific achievement, “for her outstanding contributions to understanding of the development, structure, and evolution of living things, for inspiring new research in the biological, climatological, geological and planetary sciences, and for her extraordinary abilities as a teacher and communicator of science to the public.”

In her statement on PatriotsQuestion911.com [Below], Dr. Margulis referred to 9/11 as “this new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties”. She compared 9/11 to several self-inflicted attacks that had been used in the past to arouse people’s fear and hatred and justify war, including the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, the Reichstag Fire, and Operation Himmler, which Germany used to justify the invasion of Poland, the trigger for World War II.

Dr. Margulis credited “the research and clear writing by David Ray Griffin in his fabulous books about 9/11″ for providing much of the information that formed her opinion about 9/11. She specifically lauded The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, “which provides overwhelming evidence that the official story is contradictory, incomplete, and unbelievable.”

Internationally acclaimed for her ground-breaking scientific work, Dr. Margulis is an elected member of The World Academy of Art and Science, an organization of 500 of the worldÂ¹s leading thinkers, chosen for eminence in art, the natural and social sciences, and the humanities. And in 2006, she was selected as one of “The 20th Century’s 100 Most Important Inspirational Leaders” by the editors of Resurgence magazine.

source: email 26aug2007

——————————————————————————–

BIO

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 10:49 PM

Cooler says:

I tried to tell you back on October 10th that you were missing an opportunity to plug your favorite work of fiction:

I’m just letting you know that jspeen, who you totally agree with, doesn’t beleive that Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitius strain) causes disease. There may be a work of fiction that you might be interested in recommending to him.

Posted by: franklin | November 15, 2007 10:58 PM

Franklin, did you buy your degree at wal mart or target? damn loser barely passed high school, probably went to a ghetto college and flunked out, now hes a full time science blogger. I hate stupid uneducated people!

Posted by: cooler | November 15, 2007 11:09 PM

www.rethinkingaids.com/challenges/Maggiore-Flegg.html

No. She specifically states that she does not have the special [GMS] stained slides. Maggiore has been advised by Al-Bayati so I find it strange that she is still ignorant about the importance of the GMS stained slides. It’s a diagnostic test for PCP. How could they not be relevant to the issue.

I have no evidence of the existance of those slides outside the broadcast TV report Chris harps on about.

They are directly referred to in the Coroner’s report. If you think they don’t exist then you had better inform the authorities. Maggore has seen the slides. Does she claim they are fake?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 11:31 PM

“What makes you think that photomicrograph is representative of the pathological changes in Eliza Jane Scovill’s lungs?”

Posted by: franklin

Franklin, what’s wrong with you, apart from being a chickenshit who is scared to go directly to Christine Maggiore? How would Pat know all these things? He is not sitting with the slides in front of him; neither is he sitting inside Maggiore’s head in spite of what the idiots here who can’t recognize very characteristic writing styles may think.

The notion that you can show select sections of select slides to a lay person during a TV show and use this as proof that she has had a chance to examine the evidence is beyond desperate even for you guys.

Here’s what Maggiore has to say about that TV show and the presentation of the slides – and yes the top bozo of all you bozos in the war on Christine Maggiore, the one Niccoli Nattras references in his FINE Sceptical Enquirer article advertized by brave Sir John up above, DID declare the Maggiore slides fake. But they weren’t fake, which means that you guys’ hero paediatrican, molecular biologist, PhD, MD, was unable to make anything but the most moronic of statements on background of that TV show, and yet you keep referencing it as if it were the paper that proves HIV causes AIDS.

Nick Bennett complains the slides aren’t real because they don’t look like what he thinks he saw on the TV show. Boo hoo. What he saw on TV was an enlarged area of a slide and a mendacious coroner pointing to some black dots and making unsupportable claims.
If you and Bennet and all those who hopped on the Ribe bandwagon had seen the full Ribe interview for PrimeTime (the stuff they played for us on a monitor that we commented on), you’d be running as far as you could from this guy. He makes stuff up and gets caught doing it ALL THE TIME but thus far, has picked on poor Latinos, homeless black people, drug addicts and prostitutes–people who are unable to hold him accountable for his acts. He strayed outside the usual group in our case, hopefully to his severe detriment.

There you bave it chickenshits. Now take Bennett and whoever else makes you feels safe and brave with you, go to LA and explain to Christine Maggiore how those “black dots” in the “enlarged area” is so obviously PCP that Bennett was able to diagnose it from his intellectual jerk off couch with such certainty that he can even spot “fake” slides on this background.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 15, 2007 11:32 PM

How do you know that multiple-pseudonym syndrom is specific to “denialist” infection of thought?

I never said it was. I just missed the leap of logic where John Moore was identified as the person who altered Bialy’s wiki page. The only evidence appears to be Bialy’s paranoia.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 15, 2007 11:53 PM

Nick Bennett complains the slides aren’t real because they don’t look like what he thinks he saw on the TV show.

Nick has never claimed that any slides are fake. There is a very simple point. The slides that Maggiore was shown were the GMS stained slides. These are not the same slides that Al-Bayati used in his “report”.

The GMS stains are in the Coroner’s report. If you or anyone thinks that the GMS stains are fake or that they don’t really show PC organisms then you had better inform the authorities of these crimes.

All this blather about fake slides and television shows appears to be a pathetic attempt to avoid dealing with the evidence which is the GMS stained slides.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 16, 2007 12:07 AM

MEC writes in his or her post above:

“…. the one Niccoli Nattras references in his FINE Sceptical Enquirer article”

Nicoli Nattrass (not Niccoli Nattras) is in fact a woman. This is hardly a state secret, because the article in the Sceptical Enquirer contains a rather charming photograph of its author, the unquestionably female Dr. Nattrass.

It couldn’t possibly be the case that an AIDS denialist like MEC is commenting on an article’s contents without actually reading it, could it? Surely not, perish the thought, nobody would actually do anything like that, would they? Well, no scientist would, but of course the standards are rather different for the likes of MEC, hiding away under his pseudonym, along with “pat”.

This thread would indeed be easier to follow if everyone did what I’m doing by posting under my own name. But of course the standards are rather different for the likes of MEC, hiding away under his pseudonym, along with “pat” (oh, did I already say that….).

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 12:20 AM

Chris Noble is quite correct on two counts:

1) “I just missed the leap of logic where John Moore was identified as the person who altered Bialy’s wiki page. The only evidence appears to be Bialy’s paranoia.”

Bialy is indeed paranoid, amongst other things.

2) “Nick (Bennett) has never claimed that any slides are fake.”

To my knowledge, that is true. I have never heard or read Nick making that claim.

This issue of the pathology slides and what they allegedly do and do not show will not be settled by internet gossip. If Ms. Maggiore is foolish enough to continue with her legal action against the LA Coroner’s office, the truth will be revealed in a court of law (actually, it already has been, in the official Coroner’s report). Believing that Coroners fake documents like this report is akin to believing that the moon landings were filmed in New Mexico, or that 9/11 was an inside-job by the CIA (oh, hang on, a lot of the AIDS denialists do have those beliefs, silly me for forgetting!)

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 12:31 AM

I’m pretty sure that Pat really is Pat.

Claus Jensen referred to him in his rant email: SOME GUYS LIKE MICHAEL GEIGER AND PAT MANAGE THAT YOU KNOW, JUST BEING BROTHERS IN ARMS ,BROTHERS! WITHOUT LETTING THEIR ASSES TAKE OVER THEIR PERSONALITY.

Geiger and a couple of others appear to be behind most of the sock-puppetry.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 16, 2007 12:34 AM

John,
read lynn murgulis’s pedigree above, and compare it to yours………….(just collapsed in complete laughter)

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 12:37 AM

Margulis that is………………(just collapsed in complete laughter again)

Whats johns greatest scientific acomplishment,taking grants from drug company hacks, failed microbicides, maybe hell get the nobel prize for trying to get professors fired all day?

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 12:40 AM

Tara, this witless inanity is entirely false, if anyone cares. I have only posted once on this exciting thread.

Posted by: Truthsseker | November 16, 2007 12:46 AM

You guys need to listen to your scientific elder DR. richard Strohman, professor emeritus of MCB from Cal. Bow your head and learn moore.

“The last four pages of this review were devoted to HIV and its role in AIDS. It appeared to Peter that many of the same contradictions that appeared in the retrovirus/cancer hypothesis also appeared in the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. He systematically began to discuss the weaknesses in HIV as a retrovirus causing immunodeficiency. Included in his criticism back in 1987 were the following crucial points that stand against the hypothesis and that remain completely unanswered by the scientific orthodoxy in charge of AIDS research:

There is HIV infection and low or no risk of AIDS; therefore, something other than HIV must be involved.
The long latent period between infection and clinical disease is inconsistent with the short generation time of retroviruses which is only 24Â48 hours and with everything known about experimental retroviral disease. AIDS remains as the only claimed retroviral disease outside of the laboratory!
The levels of actual HIV found in the blood of AIDS patients is too low to account for observed loss of immune function.
There is no animal model for AIDS.
HIV is not directly cytocidal; it does not kill T cells.
All of these points were then, and are now, defended by a close analysis of available data, as you will see. As the reader goes through this collection, it will become clear how steady are these points and how they remain critical and unanswered. The last point is of special interest since, in 1995, eight years later, we find in Nature, arguably the leading science weekly journal in the world, the commentary that, at the same time (a) confirms Peter Duesbereg’s contention (point number 5, above) that the evidence could never have supported direct viral killing; and (b) shifts the standard hypothesis around 180 degrees. The Nature commentary, in an article dealing with HIV, said that: “… an intrinsic cytopathic effect of the virus is no longer credible.” (Wain-Hobson, S. Nature, 373: 102, 1995).

What very few people realize, including most professors of molecular biology that I know, is that this shift has occurred: that the orthodox view of HIV as a direct killer of human immune cells has been thrown out. This is a crucial issue since the experiments surrounding this new view, while they have received wide acclaim by the AIDS orthodoxy, are seen to be flawed by many other experts (see Nature, Scientific Correspondence 375: 193Â198, 1995).

The new view is that the source of trouble is not direct killing by HIV but rather a cell-mediated killing of HIV-infected cells by the immune system itself (Wei, et al., and Ho, et al. Nature 373: 117Â126, 1995). This turn-around was necessitated by the fact that Duesberg’s third point (above) was also true. How could HIV kill so many T cells if one could not detect significant numbers of free HIV in a patient’s blood? This question has remained unanswered until these recent reports. Using new amplification methods to detect HIV, Wei and Ho conclude that, indeed, free virus is found after all. However, as Duesberg and Bialy, have pointed out (see Chapter Twelve), the new method (PCR) does not measure free virus but only highly amplified amounts of viral RNA. This method amplifies an original HIV-RNA signal by many thousand times so that error becomes a major problem in quantitation. That is, it is extremely difficult to know with any precision exactly what the level of starting material might have been. It is one of the problems in HIV/AIDS and other disease research that highly sophisticated molecular measurements are used as surrogate markers for infectious virus units, the only significant units in biological measurements of this kind.

Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR, takes a dim view of using PCR in the above manner indicating that it is a very poor substitute for identifying “live” virus (replicating virus) in the blood of an AIDS patient. Most people, including most biologists, do not know that it is almost impossible to isolate live virus from AIDS patients; a crucial point that Duesberg has been making for almost ten years.

A careful reading of Dr. Duesberg’s criticisms, and the papers themselves, reveals that when one establishes standards to convert PCR results to actual viral numbers, those numbers reflect the same old low levels of infectious HIV (Duesberg and Bialy, see above). That is, there are still no valid measurements that lead one to the conclusion that AIDS patients have high levels even of infectious HIV. But let us suppose the PCR studies are correct and that AIDS patients actually harbor high levels of infectious HIV and that a war of attrition against the immune system, after ten years, finally takes its toll. But it is precisely because of the fact of latency-Duesberg’s second point, above-that such a war is so unlikely. With the high (PCR) viral numbers reported (100,000 HIV per ml blood) every cell in the body would soon be infected. But with this level of infection it becomes impossible to explain the lag period; such an infected person would surely be dead within days or weeks if HIV truly caused AIDS. This is just one of many contradictions present in the latest claims from Nature that the critics of the HIV hypothesis have finally been silenced. In fact, the editor of Nature has, in a flagrant act of censorship, called for Peter Duesberg to quit his role as critic, and he has stealthily used his power as editor to enforce Duesberg’s silence in the journal (”Has Duesberg a right of reply?,” Nature 363: 109, 1993)

This new research, together with its contradictions and false claims, are just surfacing as the Duesberg collection goes to press. But the reader will get some accurate sense of the state of confusion generated by this research from the recent “Scientific Correspondence” in Nature (375: 193Â198, 1995) and from a full discussion of the HIV numbers game by Duesberg and Bialy in Genetica (Supplement, in press,1995), reprinted in Chapter Twelve in this volume.

This change of purported mechanism of AIDS causality is just the latest example of flip-flopping by the HIV/AIDS research orthodoxy where the emphasis on direct HIV killing needs to be modified in order to accommodate the reality of AIDS natural history. The other most recent “shift” in emphasis involved discarding what was the earliest and most telling characteristic of AIDS, Kaposi’s sarcoma. Kaposi’s sarcoma is no longer considered to be caused by HIV (see Chapter Ten). But very few people take note. Few have the time to follow even the highlights of this enormous literature. Of course, we also are reminded by Dr. Duesberg that the definition of AIDS is completely circular and makes a mockery of its scientific pursuit. If you had Kaposi’s sarcoma, or any other AIDS disease, but no HIV, then you would not receive a diagnosis of AIDS. You would simply enter the hospital record book as a patient with Kaposi’s sarcoma, or with whatever other disease you actually had. No HIV, no AIDS … very simple, but also impossibly irrational since causality is built into the definition”

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 12:53 AM

The last four pages of this review were devoted to HIV and its role in AIDS. It appeared to Peter that many of the same contradictions that appeared in the retrovirus/cancer hypothesis also appeared in the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. He systematically began to discuss the weaknesses in HIV as a retrovirus causing immunodeficiency. Included in his criticism back in 1987 were the following crucial points that stand against the hypothesis and that remain completely unanswered by the scientific orthodoxy in charge of AIDS research:

Richard Strohman PHD UCB MCB professor emeritus, your scientific father

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 12:54 AM

Gramercy Sir John, you’re killing me!!

One thing can be said for you, when you do post, it is only the strongest and most pertinent arguments you select for publication.

If you’d care to scroll back to the last “denialist” thread in which you made such an illustrious appearance, you’ll see I have read that Nattrass article so well that I was the first to point out several errors and peculiarities in it and offer to edit it for you in the interest of AIDS Truth. I even tried to engage you in a chitchat about HIV specific reverse
transcriptase/transcription and Gallo’s Parenzee testimony on background of the Nattrass article, but that was apparently too scientific a topic for your taste.

When somebody else here repated one of the mistakes I had pointed out about Gallo being the discoverer of retroviruses, your answer, at great length and repetition, was that it was unscientifc to dismiss an article because of trivial errors in the text. You have now chosen to dodge my last post because you suspect I have omitted to look at the attached picture of the author of an article I refer to tangentially?! Well argued, Sir John. Well argued as always. Maybe Harvey, like yourself, is a bit of a looney, but he is still able to manage two consecutive arguments that don’t contradict each other.

Ok Dr. Noble, let me see you do what you do best, tell us in the face of direct evidence that this from Bennett is not either incoherent nonsense or a suggestion that the slides Al-Bayati “IS CLAIMING COME FROM EJ” aren’t from EJ. My interpretation is that it is an incoherent nonsensical suggestion that Bayati’s slides aren’t from EJ:

It’s ludicrous – on the Primetime live program with Ms Maggiore they showed the slides that Al-Bayati is claiming to have possession of, and they looked nothing like the slides he is claiming come from EJ. He is simply a brazen deluded fool for trying to convince anyone otherwise.

http://www.rethinkingaids.com/challenges/bennett-cohen-ejreport.html

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 1:03 AM

This issue of the pathology slides and what they allegedly do and do not show will not be settled by internet gossip (Moore)

Brave Sir Moore, you are killing me once again! That is a particularly rich coming from YOU of all people. can I have a buck for every time you’ve peddled internet gossip about Christine Maggiore?

Let me repeat,

“There you have it chickenshits. Now take Bennett and whoever else makes you feel safe and brave with you, go to LA and explain to Christine Maggiore how those “black dots” in the “enlarged area” is so obviously PCP”

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 1:30 AM

Nick Bennett was naturally very skeptical because for some reason that is still beyond comprehension Al-Bayati chose not to use the GMS stained slides. Nick is entirely correct. The slides that were shown to Maggiore on Primetime were not the same ones that appear in Al-Bayati’s reports.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 16, 2007 1:45 AM

Now take Bennett and whoever else makes you feel safe and brave with you, go to LA and explain to Christine Maggiore how those “black dots” in the “enlarged area” is so obviously PCP

If Maggiore were actually interested in the truth she would have shown the GMS stained slides to an independent certified human pathologist and asked for an opinion as to what they mean.

Al-Bayati and Maniotis are neither certified pathologists nor independent.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 16, 2007 1:56 AM

Dr. Noble, “Nick” is suggesting the slides are not from EJ at all. Is he entirely correct?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 4:34 AM

“This thread would indeed be easier to follow if everyone did what I’m doing by posting under my own name. But of course the standards are rather different for the likes of MEC, hiding away under his pseudonym, along with “pat” (oh, did I already say that….).”

It applies only to MEC and pat. All others excepted.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 5:07 AM

” I use criminal not in the legal sense of the word but rather in an ethical sense. In any case, as I have said above, the culpability depends on whether or not you accept the premisses.”

Obfuscation of language is very much part of the problem. If you want to use the word “criminal” in the ethical sense than the word you are looking for in UNETHICAL.

People are welcome to use any language they deem necessary but when people start making contrived connections with slaughter, murder and whatnot they loose a sizable chunk of their credibility.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 7:44 AM

Franklin,
which one of the slides listed in the autopsy report are the slides that were shown on prime time?

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 7:46 AM

From the autopsy report (page 16):

Slides RUL, RML, RLL , LUL, LLL show the formalin-inflated lungs sectioned lobe by lobe. All lobes show pink foamy casts in the alveoli with no inflammatory response. GMS stains show teacup-shaped microorganisms in the foamy material in the alveoli.

A GMS-stained slide of the lung was shown on PrimeTime.

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 9:17 AM

The slide issue is analagous to this:
I have agonizing pain in my left leg following a fall.
X-rays are taken of both lower legs.
One X-ray, of the left lower leg, clearly shows a spiral break in the tibia (that’s the shin bone, Cooler).
The other X-ray, of the right lower leg, shows perfectly intact tibia and fibula–no break.
My mom loves me and doesn’t want me to have a broken leg, so she hires a pathologist who looks at the X-rays and says the X-ray of the right leg proves I don’t have a broken leg.
My mom goes on TV and is shown the X-ray of the left lower leg with the clearly visible fracture, but she still insists that I don’t have a broken leg.
Both X-rays are really of my legs.
I am still really hurt and in need of treatment.

Posted by: Redeye | November 16, 2007 9:25 AM

Read the above post by duesberg and strohman, two UCB MCB professors to see the flaws in the hiv hypothesis, learn from your scientific masters.

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 9:30 AM

Hey MEC,

It seems that an another Anatomic Pathologist has reviewed the autopsy slides, although apparently not at the request of Ms. Maggiore.

On her web page, Ms. Maggiore quotes Benjamin Ryan as telling her:

Benjamin Ryan: “Dr Harry Vinters reviewed the autopsy and he told me that he found the pathological finding ‘very well described’ and that it was ‘a very thorough report.’ He also said ‘the HIV encephalitis was extremely severe and the PCP was extremely severe as well.’”

So according to MEC, Maggiore characterizes the histological evidence for Pneumocystis pneumonia as nothing more than “a mendacious coroner pointing to some black dots and making unsupportable claims,” but a well-respected Anatomic Pathologist characterizes the autopsy slides as showing that the Pneumocystis pneumonia “was extremely severe.”

If Maggiore is right, why doesn’t she seek the opinion of a licensed physician who is certified in Anatomic Pathology?

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 9:39 AM

But dearest Frankie, what IS wrong with you?! If you would but read on you will see that Christine Maggiore was very interested in the opinion of Dr. Harry Vinters. Unfortunately Dr. Harry Vinters was not the least bit interested in accounting for, expanding on, or explaining his opinion. For some reason his interest in a grieving mother’s search for answers seems to have vanished as soon as the interview with Benjamin Ryan was concluded:

“Dear Dr. Vinters,

I am contacting you with regard to an interview you gave to Benjamin Ryan of Gay.com this past December on the subject of the death of my daughter Eliza Jane Scovill.

I would very much appreciate clarification of some remarks attributed to you in that interview in order to better understand your interpretation of my daughter’s autopsy report.

Currently, a transcript of the interview is posted online and contains a note that I called your office back in December seeking clarification but to date have received no response. I’m hoping email is a more effective way to reach you and that you will take a moment to reply to the three questions below. The answers are of interest to me personally, and I would also like to post them online. Below please find your quotes and my questions.

Approximately how much time did you spent reviewing my daughter’s autopsy report?
To what do you refer as evidence of “extremely severe” PCP? My understanding of the autopsy report is that there was no inflammation of the lungs and there is only microscopic evidence of PC rather than evidence of a fulminate case of PC pneumonia, and no evidence of death by asphyxiation.
On the same topic, Benjamin Ryan states: “Vinters said it’s possible to have a low amount of inflammation but still have PCP.” In my daughter’s case, however there was *no* inflammation noted in the autopsy report. Were you correctly quoted by Ryan?

To what evidence do you refer in your statement that “the HIV encephalitis was extremely severe?” My daughter’s spinal fluid was clear at the ER and remained clear after many weeks of attempts to grow any microbe in culture. A CAT scan performed at the ER shows no swelling of her brain and medical records show no symptoms that would correspond with “extremely severe” encephalitis such as high fever, head pain, or loss of mental acuity.
I look forward to receiving your reply.

With appreciation for your time and cooperation,

Christine Maggiore

As of today, no reply has been received”

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 10:05 AM

Perhaps Vinters was listening that day in Medical School when they tuaght that it is impossible to talk someone out of a delusion by using logic

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 10:18 AM

“the autopsy slides as showing that the Pneumocystis pneumonia “was extremely severe.”

How could all the docs at the time have missed severed PCP? Why did it take Ribe 4 month to detect something “severe”

Flegg thinks it is not a “classical” case of PCP:

“EJs acute deterioration was not particularly typical of PCP and may have been caused by some other factor or intercurrent infection”.

this doesn’t sound like he is considering it “extremely severe”

How common is “severe PCP” with no inflamation?

Quick quote by JP Moore:

“I agree completely with Mark Wainberg, an outstanding scientist for whom I have immense personal respect for his stand against AIDS denialists. As you’re obviously one yourself, I have nothing further to say to you, other than to note that I very much hope that Maggiore is prosecuted, convicted and punished for her conduct over the death of her daughter.
John Moore”

Needless to say NO charges were ever filed.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 10:31 AM

“Perhaps Vinters was listening that day in Medical School when they tuaght that it is impossible to talk someone out of a delusion by using logic”

I doubt very much that that they teach “impossible”.

what logic are you referring to? The one which allows Maggiore to be HIV- poseur for profit one day and then an HIV+ profiteer and murderer of her daughter the next? The one that allows a highly specific test to contradict itself repeatedly? The one that allows a failed journalist and HIV authority, who never had to make agonizing treatment decisions for herself or her kids, to write the following tasteless lie: “Maggiore has never had to make agonizing treatment decisions for herself or for her children.”

What logic were you taught in medical school?

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 10:45 AM

How common is “severe PCP” with no inflamation?

As I’ve already explained on the Intro to HIV Denial Thread, although Al-Bayati and Ms. Maggiore interpret the Coroner’s report as indicating that no inflammation was present in the lungs, from the brief description of the lung histology in the report it seems that the lack of inflammation may refer to the foamy casts within the alveoli and not necessarily to the entire lung:

So is it the “foamy casts in the alveoli” that have no inflammatory response or is it “all lobes” that have no inflammaotry response?

Perhaps we will find out if the case ever comes to court, but the significance of noting that the casts found in the alveoli lack an inflammatory response is that it is a “pertinent negative”–the lack of intra-alveolar inflammation argues against the working clinical diagnosis at the time of death, namely of sepsis caused by a community-acquired pneumonia.

Such a pneumonia leading to sepsis would almost certainly be a bacterial pneumonia and the intra-alveolar exudates would be expected to contain numerous acute inflammatory cells.

Noting that those acute inflammatory cells are not present within the alveoli is what physicians do as part of a “differential diagnosis,” when they are showing that the initial diagnosis is not surported by the histolgical findings.

Instead the foamy casts that lack inflammation are typical for Pneumosystis pneumonia and the GMS stains confirm the diagnosis.

It sounds very straightforward.

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 11:00 AM

Perhaps Vinters was listening that day in Medical School when they tuaght that it is impossible to talk someone out of a delusion by using logic

Sometimes when you’re running out of things to say it’s better not to say anything Frankie. There is only one school that teaches its students to avoid any personal contact with the people it smears; that teaches its students not to answer any questions from the people it smears; that teaches its students to wish death and eternal hell on the people it smears rather than answer a few simple questions. That school is run by John Moore to disseminate the moral Truth of AIDS.

Christine Maggiore asked a few questions for the record. If Dr. Vinter’s felt confident, he could simply have answered her and let the people reading her website decide for themselves.

He turned out to be an irresponsible, heartless chickenshit like the rest of you.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 11:03 AM

“Dr Harry Vinters reviewed the autopsy and he told me that he found the pathological finding ‘very well described’ and that it was ‘a very thorough report” (Vinters)

“So is it the “foamy casts in the alveoli” that have no inflammatory response or is it “all lobes” that have no inflammaotry response?

Perhaps we will find out if the case ever comes to court”
(Franklin)

If it was so well described why do we have to wait for a court hearing to find out? If it was so well described, why didn’t it describe the inflamation elsewhere that would have supported the PCP diagnosis?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 11:11 AM

To MEC: My point was that “Kyle” made a post in which he or she stated that because the Nicoli Nattrass Skeptical Enquirer article contained a photograph caption from which a sub-editor had omitted the word “human” before “retroviruses”, then this meant that:

1) Nicoli Nattrass was “a liar”;
2) The entire article was “a lie”.

Yet when you made an error by stating that the author was a male, when the photographic evidence in the article shows her to be female, you say it’s just an error (or words to that effect).

By “Kyle’s” logic, then you are “a liar” and everything you have ever posted is “a lie”.

Of course I don’t personally agree with Kyle’s “logic”, but then I’m not an AIDS denialist.

And of course I won’t respond to any questions you pose. That would involve debating or discussing science with an AIDS denialist, and our policies on never doing that are widely known.

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 2:47 PM

Oh please. Can you guys get out of the mid 90s, yet?
cooler posts yet another old rant with info that was known wrong even then

“There is HIV infection and low or no risk of AIDS; therefore, something other than HIV must be involved.”
Many, many, many disease organisms have cases of infection with no clinical disease,a dn varaitin int eh degree. This is NORMAL for disease organisms. There is, among other things, genetic variability, and we are learning some of the genetic correlates and causative factors for LTNPs. By definition, a disease that make opportunistic infection possible, as HIV/AIDS does, has cofactors – those opportunistic infections. So what?

“The long latent period between infection and clinical disease is inconsistent with the short generation time of retroviruses which is only 24Â48 hours and with everything known about experimental retroviral disease. AIDS remains as the only claimed retroviral disease outside of the laboratory!”
oh, good crap!! In humans, there are four known retroviruses, HTLV1, which causes T-cell leukemias and lymphomas, HTLV-2, with no known pathology, the virus associated with human spastic paraparesis, and HIV1, and 2 which cause AIDS. In animals there are many known retroviral diseases, causing variously tumours, wasting and auto-immune diseases, immunodeficiency syndromes and aplastic and haemolytic anaemias.
HIV causes immediate disease symptoms – from flu-like symptoms with high blood-born viral levels on initial infection, to active lymph infection with low-level escape of virus into the blood through the so-called “latent phase’ with increase t-cell turnover and very often swollen glands, to final immune collapse. NOTHING in this is inconsistent with a rapid viral replication time.

“The levels of actual HIV found in the blood of AIDS patients is too low to account for observed loss of immune function.”
This is a straw man – during the so-called ‘latent phase’ the active infection is in the lymph nodes, not in the circulating blood. This has been known since the mid 1990s.

There is no animal model for AIDS.
So there is species-specificity in the ability of HIV to cause active disease. How on earth does this cast doubt on whether HIV can cause disease in the species where it causes disease?

HIV is not directly cytocidal; it does not kill T cells.
No, it is **indirectly** ‘cytocidal.’ It triggers a central and well-known function of the immune system – to destroy infected cells displaying foreign proteins. We learned that as we learned more about HIV and retroviruses. So what?

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 3:05 PM

“And of course I won’t respond to any questions you pose. That would involve debating or discussing science with an AIDS denialist, and our policies on never doing that are widely known.”

Would you answer questions relating to the POLITICS of AIDS.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 3:53 PM

Of course not, “pat”. We do not answer any questions posed by AIDS denialists like you, because that would be to dignify your position.

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 4:08 PM

These seemingly interminable discussions of the pathology slides all rather miss the point that there would not BE any pathology slides to discuss had the mother taken the correct steps to prevent the poor child from becoming HIV-infected and dying of AIDS three years later. Here’s two relevant papers from this week’s journals, additions to the hundreds/thousands of peer-reviewed papers in this subject area, dating back many years.

This was yet another preventable AIDS death, the central point.

Jourdain G, et al. 2007. Risk factors for in utero or intrapartum mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in Thailand. J Inf Dis 196, 1629-1636.

Chung MH, ……… John-Stewart GC. 2007. Independent effects of nevirapine prophylaxis and HIV-1 RNA suppression in breast milk on early perinatal HIV-1 transmission. J Acq Immune Def Synd 46, 472-478.

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 4:15 PM

“Of course not, “pat”. We do not answer any questions posed by AIDS denialists like you, because that would be to dignify your position.”

Who told you I deny AIDS??? My position is that your political views are undemocratic and somewhat fascist in nature. I understand that no one likes to be told that.

“These seemingly interminable discussions of the pathology slides all rather miss the point that there would not BE any pathology slides to discuss had the mother taken the correct steps to prevent the poor child from becoming HIV-infected and dying of AIDS three years later.”

But how could Maggiore know her status? Even leading AIDS activists thought that she was lying about her HIV+ status. If science can’t determine her health status, how can she make treatment decisions? You said it yourself, her HIV status is known only because EJ died, as you claim, from AIDS. Btw, Years of AIDS awareness has taught me that people don’t die of AIDS but of the opportunistic infections. Has something changed in the definition yet again?

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 5:06 PM

This was yet another preventable AIDS death, the central point.

Once again this goddamn mother sucker Pee Moore dares to write his shit arguments all over my screen.
He’s like the cancer cartel vultures, who never miss an occasion to spread the merits of their chemo poisoning and, when the patient finally dies after innumerable sufferings, blame some uncontrollable cell mutation for the fatal issue. However, in case the patient got away from his cancer without their mortal X-rays and chemicals, we’re told that the initial diagnose was wrong and that the mutated cells were in fact never really there. To top it all, if ever a patient, who, after having seen the light between two hospital torture sessions, has dared to turn his back on the troops of almighty oncologists & consorts to bravely bet on some alternative horse instead, if ever that patient dies, his case is immediately and invariably transferred to the preventable cancer deaths folder.

I’ve written it before, and I write it again because you keep asking for it: John Pee Moore, you’re a sucker of Satan’s cock and I sincerely hope that you’ll live to the day when some Devine inspiration will finally enable you to recognize the HIV=Aids=Death equation as a deadly scam, go down on your knees and beg Christine Maggiore for mercy.

Posted by: jspreen | November 16, 2007 5:14 PM

To MEC: My point was…

Yes thank you very much, I know what your point is; it is as you say “widely known”.

Nicoli Natrass IS a liar

Now grow up!

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 5:33 PM

“No, it is **indirectly** ‘cytocidal.’ It triggers a central and well-known function of the immune system – to destroy infected cells displaying foreign proteins. We learned that as we learned more about HIV and retroviruses. So what?”

You are welcome to ignore what I have to write; JP is convinced I deny AIDS but, in the off chance you choose not to:

Thank you for that ground-breaking observation on how the immune system functions but I do believe this phenomena was understood before the advent of HIV. I have a few more questions to which it is nigh impossible to find someone with knowledge who is also willing to the answers. So in the off-chance you might answer them.

You say HIV is “indirectly” cytocidal. I hear most of science is now on that same page because years of research have failed to find any “direct” mechanism. Science says only somewhere between 1-500 to 1-1000 cells are infected with HIV thus the “indirect cytocidal” thesis(do I have that right so far?) But then you explain the immune system does this:

“It triggers a central and well-known function of the immune system – to destroy infected cells displaying foreign proteins”

What do you mean by “infected”? If they are not infected with HIV, what are the cells “infected” with that would make them display foreign protein earmarkers?

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 5:39 PM

You’ve become so eloquent and mature in your old age jspreen.

Posted by: apy | November 16, 2007 5:52 PM

“Science says only somewhere between 1-500 to 1-1000 cells are infected with HIV ”
Which cells. Which kinds of cells. Where? Free in blood, lymph or in glands, or in tissues?

BTW, the fraction of cells that are infected is essentially irrelevant. The rate of loss of the cells is the relevant number – if infected cells are rapidly removed from the pool, there will only ever be a small percentage of extant cells that are infected, but the loss can still be substantial.

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 5:57 PM

BTW, pat,

We did not know that the mechanism by which HIV kills cells is indirectly through immune system targeting, before we knew about HIV. We learned the mechanisms by which HIV kills cells as we studied HIV, which kinda by definition was after we learned about HIV.

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 6:00 PM

I have a few more questions to which it is nigh impossible to find someone with knowledge who is also willing to the answers. So in the off-chance you might answer them. You say HIV is “indirectly” cytocidal. I hear most of science is now on that same page because years of research have failed to find any “direct” mechanism. Science says only somewhere between 1-500 to 1-1000 cells are infected with HIV thus the “indirect cytocidal” thesis(do I have that right so far?)

No, you don’t have that right.

I can understand how hard it is for you to find this information, since it is only available in immunology textbooks, medicine textbooks, pathology textbooks, and a freely accessible web-based resource that has been maintained by the NIH since September 1995.

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 6:02 PM

Actually I may have to retract that about Natrass being a liar. I guess she is no more a liar than Harvey Bialy’s parakeet, although even that bird brained creature hasn’t been reduced to quoting Bennett as the ultimate authority on the EJ case, Chris Noble and Peter Flegg as expert on “denialist debate tactics”, and George on the merits of Padian’s Waffle. “Info-ganda” btw was an original term used by my humble self, not “George” or Culshaw, to describe the Padian Waffle, but the Natrass piece is so riddled with error I couldn’t be bothered pointing it out earlier.

Although Natrass piece is shameless as well as brainless parroting of AIDStruth info-ganda, there is one waffling passage that you’d perhaps deign to discuss, Prof. Moore, seeing that your prime motivator is that lofty ideal, the “moral Truth” of Aids:

The pharmaceutical industry is, of course, far from angelic. There are documented cases where drug companies have designed trials in ways to promote sales of particular products rather than to test the best possible treatments; where clinical trials in poor countries have been unethical; where early research indicating dangerous side effects has been ignored for too long; where patent law has been abused to prevent low-cost competition; where too many resources have been spent on marketing “me-too” drugs (that is, drugs that are only marginally different from existing products) rather than investing in innovative drug development; and where unethical financial inducements have been made to doctors, researchers, and politicians (Goozner 2004; Angell 2005). However, what such cases suggest is that the pharmaceutical industry (and industry-funded research) needs to be carefully scrutinized and regulated. It does not imply that the entire industry and associated medical science are harmful to humans. As Cohen (2006) argues, the problem with the new pharmanoia is that it has put “Big Pharma” on a par with “Big Tobacco” and, through wild exaggeration, has turned “shades of moral grey into black.”

Could you, Prof. Mooral, whose world otherwise seems to be dominated by absolute polarity, explain to us what “shades of moral grey” means, and what place this concept has in the noble, disinterested, life saving science of medicine? cold you tell us, in your professorial opinion, at what point shades of grey turn into black?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 6:12 PM

and since pat doesn’t seem to be able to do basic research himself:

Curse of HIV disease – post “a” which is onset, with self-limiting mononucleosis-like symptoms in about 50% fo patients.

—
b) A strong cell-mediated and humoral anti-HIV immune defense

Cytotoxic B and T lymphocytes mount a strong defense and virus largely disappears from the circulation (figure 4). After the increased cell-mediated immune response, there is a rise in humoral antibodies. During this period of strong immune response to the virus, more than 10 billion new HIV particles are produced each day but they are rapidly cleared by the immune system and have a half life of only 5 to 6 hours (some estimates show a half life of minutes). Although there can be up to 108 virus particles per ml of blood, the number of infectious virus particles is much lower indicating that much of the plasma virus is defective or neutralized. At this stage, most of this virus is coming from recently infected proliferating CD4+ cells (figure 5). The infected cells that are producing this virus are destroyed either by the immune system or by the virus and have a half life about 1 day. However, the rate of production of CD4+ cells can compensate for the loss of cells and a steady state is set up in which most CD4 cells are uninfected. Although infected, activated T4 cells are destroyed by the immune system, a small fraction of the productively infected cells may survive long enough to revert back to the resting memory state (as do non-infected CD4+ memory cells). The resting memory cells do not express viral antigens but do carry a copy of the HIV genome which remains latent until the cells are reactivated by antigen. These memory cells may survive many years and constitute a reservoir that may be very important in drug-based therapy.

The virus disseminates to other regions including to lymphoid and nervous tissue. This is the most infectious phase of the disease.

c) A latent reservoir. As a result of the strong immune defense, the number of viral particles in the blood stream declines and the patient enters clinical latency (figure 4). Little virus can now be found in the bloodstream or in peripheral blood lymphocytes and, initially, the number of blood CD4+ cells is only slightly decreased. Nevertheless, the virus persists elsewhere, particularly in lymph nodes and here viral replication continues as follicular dendritic cells interact with more T4 cells that become infected. The virus is also replicated by macrophages.

Although the number of HIV particles in the bloodstream is much reduced during clinical latency, the virus is detectable. After the initial peak of virus, the virus reaches a “set point” during latency. This set point predicts the time of onset of clinical disease. With less than 1000 copies/ml of blood, disease will probably occur with a latency period of more than 10 years. With less than 200 copies/ml, disease does not appear to occur at all. Most patients with more than 100,000 copies per ml, lose their CD4+ cells more rapidly and progress to AIDS before 10 years. Most untreated patients have between 10,000 and 100,000 copies per ml in the clinical latency phase (See below).

d) Loss of CD4+ cells and abortion of the immune response. One reason that the immune system fails to control HIV infection is that the CD4+ T helper cells are the target of the virus. Also follicular dendritic cells can be infected with HIV and these also diminish in number over time. Moreover, dendritic cells present antigen to CD4+ cells and may bring the virus into contact with these cells at the time that they are stimulated to proliferate by antigen.

During the course of infection, there is a profound loss of the specific immune response to HIV because:

i) responding CD4+ cells become infected. Thus there is clonal deletion leading to tolerance. The cells that proliferate to respond to the virus are infected and killed by it;
ii) epitope variation (see below) can lead to escape of HIV from the immune response;
iii) activated T cells are susceptible to apoptosis. Spontaneous apoptosis of uninfected CD4+ and CD8+ T cells occurs in HIV-infected patients. Also there appears to be specific apoptosis of HIV-specific CD8+ cells;
iv) the number of follicular dendritic cells falls over time, resulting in diminished capacity to stimulate CD4+ cells

There is thus a relentless decline of CD4+ cells with especially a loss of those specific to HIV. This occurs from the very beginning of infection and is permanent (unless chemotherapy intervenes). Near the end stage of AIDS, CD8+ cells also decline precipitously. It is nevertheless the case that during the course of HIV infection, most CD4+ cells are never actually infected by the virus but die from some other means (see below).

e) Onset of AIDS. The period of clinical latency varies in length from as little as 1 to 2 years to more than 15 years. Onset of AIDS is rare in less than 3 years except in children. But, eventually, the virus can no longer be controlled as helper CD4+ (T4) cells are destroyed (figure 4). Ironically, the killer cells needed to control HIV also damage the helper T cells that they need to function efficiently. With the lack of CD4+ cells, new cytotoxic T cell responses cannot occur as helper cells are lacking and such new responses are required as the virus mutates. As the T4 cells fall below 200 per cu mm, virus titers rise rapidly and immune activity drops precipitously. It is the loss of immune competence that enables normally benign opportunistic parasites such as viruses, fungi or protozoa to cause infections (figure 6A and B). Once AIDS develops, patients rarely survive more than two years without chemotherapeutic intervention. (See anti-HIV chemotherapy section). There is considerable variability at this stage. Some patients with clinical AIDS do survive for several years while others who appear relatively healthy can suddenly succumb to a major opportunistic infection. It is the onset of HIV-associated neoplasms and opportunistic infections that defines AIDS proper. At this stage, also, syncytium-inducing HIV appear in many (about half) AIDS patients (see below). These are more CD4+ cell tropic than the initially infecting HIV and this contributes to the rapid loss of CD4+ cells in later stages of the disease.

http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/lecture/HIV3.htm

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 6:13 PM

reasons fro CD4-cell loss:

WHY IS THERE A PROGRESSIVE LOSS OF CD4+ HELPER T CELL?

WHY DO CD8+ KILLER T CELLS DISAPPEAR IN THE LATER STAGES OF THE DISEASE?

Why, when only 1 in 10,000 (early) or 1 in 40 (later) cells show productive infection, do all of the T4 cells disappear? It is still unclear why the CD4+ cells all disappear but there are a number of possibilities:

a) In an activated, infected CD4 cell, huge numbers of virions are synthesized. These bud from the cell and result in punctured membranes (figure 27). But the cell needs to be infected for this to happen and most CD4 cells are not infected.

b) Since the membrane of HIV fuses with the membrane of the cell to be infected by a pH-independent mechanism, syncytia formation can occur leading to the spread of virus to uninfected cells (figure 27). But syncytia are not very common.

c) Infected cells that are producing viral proteins (but not those in the latent state) will present those proteins on the cell surface in association with class I MHC histocompatibility antigens. The infected cell, like other virally-infected cells, will be destroyed by cytotoxic T cells (figure 27). Again this only happens in cells that are infected by HIV.

d) Gp120 is linked to the Gp41 on the virus surface by non-covalent interactions and is frequently shed from infected cells or from virus particles. This binds to uninfected cells via CD4 antigen. As a result, they appear to be infected and destroyed by the immune system.

e) There have been reports of AIDS-related cytotoxic antibodies in infected patients that may react with a specific antigen on the surface of activated but uninfected T4 cells.

apo1.jpg (184145 bytes) Binding of cytokine induces TNF alpha expression in macrophage and receptor expression in CD8+ T cell

apo2.jpg (158829 bytes) The cells contact one-another and TNF-alpha and the receptor interact. Apoptosis ensues

apo3.jpg (112831 bytes) Macrophages internalize T cell

Figure 28 – Induction of apoptosis in T8 cells

f) AIDS may have an auto-immune component. In a normal antigenic response carried out by T4 cells, CD4 antigen interacts with MHC type II histocompatibility antigens. Since Gp120 also binds to CD4, the Gp120 can mimic MHC class II antigens since both have a CD4-binding site; indeed, there appear to be regions of similar sequence in the two proteins. Thus anti-Gp120 antibodies may turn out to be anti-MHC antibodies as well. (This might spell trouble for vaccine production).

g) It is possible that HIV might infect a subset of T4 cells that is vital to propagation of entire population of T4 cells

h) HIV proteins may alter T4 cell function. There is some evidence for this.

i) Presently, the most actively studied possibility for the loss of the entire CD4+ and CD8+ cell population is that HIV initiates apoptosis in these cells (Such apoptosis is a normal process in T4 cells to overcome autoimmunity and to terminate an immune response) (figure 28). This is now thought to be a major factor in the loss of CD4 cells during the progression of the disease

http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/lecture/hiv10.htm

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 6:15 PM

Why do CD8+ cells die late in infection?

CD8+ cells are not infected by HIV (because they do not have the CD4 receptor) and their numbers remain high during the course of the disease for many years. And then, until recently inexplicably, they rapidly die off. It appears that some of the HIV subtypes that occur late in infection prompt a mass apoptosis of CD8 cells. Although CD8 cells are CD4-, they do have CXCR4 co-receptor and HIV can bind to this (only the later syncytium-inducing strains of HIV do this). Since no CD4 antigen is present there is no infection but binding to CXCR4 sends a signal to the cell, the signal for apoptosis and mass CD8+ cell suicide ensues. Interestingly, the CD8 cells only die when macrophages are present.

How does this happen? It is now known that binding of strains of HIV that arise later in infection to the CXCR4 receptor sets in motion the tumor necrosis-alpha death transducing pathway (figure 28). In macrophages, binding of a ligand to CXCR4 receptor on the cell surface induces the expression of TNF-alpha. In CD8+ T cells, the same binding triggers the expression of TNF-alpha receptor II.

When such a macrophage and CD8+ T cell come in contact, the TNF-alpha on the macrophage binds to the TNF-alpha receptor on the CD8+ T cell. This triggers an apoptosis signal in the CD8+ T cell resulting in the vesiculation of the CD8+ T cell (figure 28). Macrophages then phagocytose the remains of the T cell. This explains why macrophages have to be present for the CD8+ cells to die. Why would this happen naturally? Why do chemokines act as death signals for CD8+ T cells? These cells are killer cells and may cause serious trouble if they end up in the wrong place. It is thought that chemokines direct CD8+ T cells to the fate of macrophage-mediated death unless they reach their appropriate location.

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 6:17 PM

To MEC (who does not appear to be able to read and/or comprehend simple sentences), I repeat my earlier answer to “Pat”.

“We do not answer any questions posed by AIDS denialists like you, because that would be to dignify your position.”

For a fuller version of this answer, go to http://www.AIDSTruth.org, a website full of useful and accurate information on the science of HIV/AIDS, and on the denialists (at least, the ones we consider worth writing about).

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 6:38 PM

Franklin and Lee,

You are absolutely right, Pat is just silly and ignorant.
Here Pat let me help you understand:

HIV kills in vitro except for the immortal cell lines. Lentivirus systems may explain the progressive loss of CD4 cells. Evidence suggests. . . i n addition to direct mechanisms indirect mechanisms may result in the death of uninfected CD4+ T cells: Syncytia in vitro – free gp 120 likewise, although as the illustrious prof. Moore has pointed out in a review the in vitro effect is largely an artifact produced by ridiculoualy high amounts sprinkled onto cell soups with no immune system. A number of investigators have suggested that superantigens, either encoded by HIV or derived from unrelated agents, may trigger massive stimulation and expansion of CD4+ T cells, ultimately leading to depletion or anergy of these cells. The untimely induction of a form of programmed cell death called apoptosis has been proposed as an additional mechanism. It has also been observed that HIV infects precursors of CD4+ T cells in the bone marrow and thymus and damages the microenvironment of these organs necessary for the optimal sustenance and maturation of progenitor cells (Schnittman et al., 1990b; Stanley et al., 1992). These findings may help explain the lack of regeneration of the CD4+ T cell pool in patients with AIDS.
Other data suggest- although no mathematical model has been forthcoming that woul make sense of the suggestion – that HIV infection is sustained by a dynamic process involving continuous rounds of new viral infection and the destruction and replacement of over 1 billion CD4+ T cells per day.

So you see Pat, if we just lump all of the above together, “these studies strongly suggest that HIV has a central role in the pathogenesis of AIDS”. What’s so difficult to understand about all this hard science? Is it the fact that all these methods, and many more to come I’m sure, of cell killing were all invented and employed only by the uniquely cunning HIV?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 6:50 PM

Ah Prof. Moore, I see. If one has been labelled a “denialist” you will answer no questions at all, not only the one’s about science, none at all. Except you do nothing but come on here and repeat yourself every time
we yank your chain.

Grow up!

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 16, 2007 7:11 PM

Prof. Moore,

Don’t answer for me, please answer for everyone”

Why do you think the Merck v520 vaccine failed? You know the one which was so highly anticipated to be a huge success, now only to find the ones participating in the study are more likely to acquire HIV, the one dropped like a hot potato in the phase II trials…

Posted by: Carter | November 16, 2007 7:18 PM

Lee, I am a full-blown AIDS patient who is almost at the two year mark without antiretroviral drugs. I can assure you that HIV isn’t harming me. Other rethinkers have tossed thier drugs and are living normal lives too. You might want to read some of thier stories at livingwithouthivdrugs.com

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 16, 2007 7:30 PM

Wow it is amazing how one has to fight to get a simple answer to a simple question. What will always amaze me is how there is always a statement alluding to the obvious tagged as if it were an insult

“You are absolutely right, Pat is just silly and ignorant.
Here Pat let me help you understand”

Of course I am silly and ignorant at least in respect to HIV science. Just for your information Mr. Moore, I am not a scientist so of course I don’t understand the sciencespeak and that is what perhaps you can slowly start to understand yourself and realise where it is in the information chain you stand.

“Here Pat let me help you understand”

looks though as though the door has been opened a little tiny crack though. Thank you, I think it was well worth breaking my skull over.

“the killer cells needed to control HIV also damage the helper T cells that they need to function efficiently”

what does this mean? Thank you for your time.

PS: The only thing I deny is that you are aware of your autocratic impulses.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 8:44 PM

I noticed like MEC points out the many adjectives qualifying low probabilities.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 8:48 PM

verbal auxilary rather.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 9:08 PM

john, we dont want you to answer our questions, we dont respect you anyways as a scientist, why should we care what you think when far more credible scientists like Margulis, Duesberg and shyh ching Lo agree with us?

We dont care about a hack who hasnt accomplished one thing in his sorry scientific career. Sooner or later you guys will exposed for the frauds that you are, thats why censorship is your best friend, the sign of a coward is one who wants to prevent intelligent people from hearing a more compelling argument, just like a megalomanicial prosecuter would do everything to stop a a jury from hearing a compelling defense.

See hiv fact or fraud google it, hell go to the aidstruth site as well, its about informed consent, and you are an enemy of free speech and academic freedom.

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 9:12 PM

cooler, how in the hell does refusing to dignify your idiocy be responding to it, constitute censorship of your idiocy? I don’t see anyone stopping you from displaying your stupidity all over these threads.

But it’s of a piece: yelling ” you wont respond to me, and that is censorship” is perfectly in line with the logic you display in all your other writing.

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 9:30 PM

I posted an overview of the proposed mechanisms of CD4 depletion by HIV, and I note that you conspicuously avoided apoptosis in your response.
CD4 cells can be induced to “suicide” by binding of HIV GP120/GP4 to CD4 receptors. Thsi works even if the gp120/gp41 are free of the virus – free proteins from teh virus can kill CD44 cells.

The mechanism of CD4 depletion is not perfectly understood – its been a mystery for a while, and has been hard to solve. So what? WE know the depletion happens, we know that is is associated with HIV viral loads, we know that HIV kills Ã‡ÃŽ4 cells via several mechanisms, and we know that the mechanisms under consideration can account for the depletion. lack of full understanding is NOT evidence that HIV doesn’t kill CD4 cells – it certainly does not overturn all the observational evidence about HIV infection and CD4 depletion.

–

AIDS and Apoptosis
Infection of CD4+ T cell cultures with HIV is associated with a cytopathic effect of the virus, manifested by ballooning of cells and formation of syncytia leading to cell death by apoptosis of both infected and non-infected cells. CD4+ T cell destruction can be mediated directly by HIV replication as a consequence of viral gene expression, such as gp120-gp41, or indirectly through priming of uninfected cells to apoptosis.
Expression of the viral envelope gp120-gp41 complex in infected cells mediates onset of apoptosis of both infected and non-infected cells. Thus chronically HIV-infected cells can serve as effector cells to induce apoptosis in uninfected target CD4+ T cells.
Peripheral T lymphocytes from HIV-infected subjects are prematurely primed for apoptosis, this means that those cells are obviously more sensitive to the induction of apoptosis in response to various stimuli than T lymphocytes from uninfected controls. Interestingly, not only T cells of the CD4 subset but also of the CD8 subset are primed for apoptosis. It also was observed that not only T cells but all blood mononuclear cells, including B cells, T cells, NK cells, granulocytes and monocytes, show increased sensitivity to apoptosis.
The central paradox of HIV pathogenesis is that the viral burden, either free or cellular, seems too low to deplete the CD4+ population by direct killing. The observation that an important fraction of T cells are prematurely primed for apoptosis in HIV-infected subjects prompted the hypothesis that some indirect mechanisms are responsible for inappropriate cell death and significantly contribute to CD4+ T cell depletion as well as to CD8+ destruction in AIDS. Indeed, it has been observed that apoptotic T cells in lymph nodes of HIV-infected individuals contained many apoptotic but uninfected bystander cells whereas infected cells were not found to be apoptotic.
See review by Gougeon in “Apoptosis and its Modulation by Drugs”, Springer, 2000.

http://celldeath.de/encyclo/misc/immunol.htm

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 9:42 PM

noreen, you have previously said that your T count is very low. Your immune system is compromised – a critical component is severely depleted. Isn’t that harm?. HIV hasn’t killed you – that does not mean it has not harmed you. Yo keep talking about LDN as having kept yo alive – doesn’t that mean that something has harmed you to the point where you need therapy to stay alive?

Perhaps you are a rare variant who can live with low t cells and high viral load. Or perhaps you’re just lucky so far – I’ll pray that continues.

Posted by: Lee | November 16, 2007 9:47 PM

Perhaps you are a rare variant who can live with low t cells and high viral load.

What a typical nitwit. Let me give you a hint, Lee — symptoms, actual physical symptoms matter. All these bogus surrogate markers and inaccurate tests, don’t matter. Get a frickin’ clue.

Noreen, any bozo purporting to give you medical advice over the internet on a blog, no less, deserves to be ignored. They do not live in the real medical world.

Posted by: John Givens | November 16, 2007 11:01 PM

MEC has pointed out qualifiers used in the NIH summary for mechanisms of CD4 T-cell depletion. For the most part, these mechanisms of cell killing have been observed in cell culture experiments, and the qualifiers apply to what role(s) these mechanisms play in the patient.

To test the role of any of these mechanisms, one must perform an experiment that specifically interferes with that individual mechanism and not the others, and then determine the outcome for CD4 T-cell killing. Such experiments are very difficult to perform in human subjects, and they won’t necessarily lead to effective therapies.

The approach that has been successful has been to identify inhibitors of enzymes encoded by the virus that are necessary for the viral life cycle. By interfering with viral replication, these inhibitors interfere with essentially all of the proposed mechanisms for HIV-induced CD4 T-cell killing, and they have been shown to be effective at preventing CD4 T-cell loss in HIV-infected patients.

Likewise, they have been shown to be effective at preventing opportunistic infections and death in AIDS patients.

So therapies that inhibit HIV replication prevent CD4 T-cell loss and are of proven clinical benefit to HIV-infected patients, but this inhibition occurs at points of the viral life cycle that are fundamental to multiple proposed mechanisms of HIV-induced cell death.

So even though the therapeutic benefits of antiretroviral therapy show that HIV replication is important for CD4 T-cell killing, the therapies do not distinguish which of the proposed mechanisms of HIV pathogenesis are most important for the CD4 T-cell loss observed in patients..

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 11:09 PM

Dear Lee, Don’t be too hard on “cooler”. He’s done AIDS science/truth a very considerable service over the past few days, without of course intending to do so, and without knowing what he’s done and why it’s so useful to us. The situation’s a bit like how Dave Crowe’s idiotic press release helped us win the fight over the Liam Scheff-inspired BBC documentary on the ICC – the law of unanticipated consequences in action, driven by an unstructured, illogical mind. We may or may not eventually expose how and why “cooler” was so helpful, depending on how we feel about it at the right time. In the mean time, thanks “cooler”, keep those crazy posts coming!

Also, Lee, good luck with trying to explain the science of HIV/AIDS to the trolls on this site. They won’t, of course, understand a word of it in any meaningful way, because their attitude to real science is much the same as that of the ID/creationism believers to Darwinian evolution – it doesn’t fit into their faith/belief system, so they reject it automatically.

Posted by: John Moore | November 16, 2007 11:10 PM

yep I’ll keep those crazy posts coming

hundereds of chimps injected, all were supposed to die of AIDS , not one did. Lets make hiv species specific to save the hypothesis.

Most viruses cause disease before antibody protection, not ten years later, if theres ever a vaccine well all test positive!

The amount of blood tcell is so low, like 1 in a 1000 lets imagineer it with the PCR, got any EM pictures of these high viral Loads from patients? of course not.

Mycoplasma incognitus kills/sickens every animal inoculated, as shyh ching lo showed, lets just create genocide and forget about that and only worry about microbes that do zilch in animals, just keep extending the window period to 40 years, like with HPV, make some good money for merck.

Got a study by honest scientists that rules out other risk factors to see if hiv positive people without mycoplamas, AZT, severe drug abuse/stress get AIDS, which is the only way to prove a species specific microbe with such a long window period is pathenogenic?…………….of course not, any one that questions gallo’s cancer virus that turned into the aids virus overnight is a holocaust denier!

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 11:27 PM

Lee,
I suppose that lengthy post was a reply to me?

” I note that you conspicuously avoided apoptosis in your response.”

I “conspicuously” avoided? Am I by now at least “conspicuous” enough in my ignorance that it becomes self-evident that I am no scientist and make no claims as to what does or doesn’t cause your pet theory and therefore I possibly don’t know enough about apoptosis to even know WHY I should avoid it. But I understand why you’d think so. You think I deny AIDS or HIV or both and possibly even evolublahblahblah…and so you think all questions from me are roadside bombs. When you are at war for too long, you start to see enemies everywhere, so be careful, you don’t want to start gunning down people wildly; it makes for bad press. If I were you, I’d ditch the chief; it’s his war after all.
I am starting to understand now that the new politics of AIDS as defined by Mr Moore requires exclusive membership in order to argue, defend and/or strip individuals of their rights. The ordinary man and woman are now excluded from any social policy descision concerning HIV and what else in the future. If Mr. Moore had his way I perhaps would end up in prison. I certainly know Maggiore would, Moore said no less than exactly that.

Personally I don’t think I need to now diddly about HIV to know that what Moore proposes is naked zealotry and it is socially destructive madness. The clue was a very simple one: Moore shows no concerns for the future of a Charlie with parents in Jail. Moore shows a serious lack of understanding when it comes to the shortcomings and pitfalls of foster care. JPMoore shows serious disregard for the consequences his ideology would have. Imagine that! He hasn’t even considered Charlie!

“the killer cells needed to control HIV also damage the helper T cells that they need to function efficiently”

what does this mean? Thank you for your time.

“we know that HIV kills Ã‡ÃŽ4 cells via several mechanisms, and we know that the mechanisms under consideration can account for the depletion.”

Can?Ok but what if they don’t?

“lack of full understanding is NOT evidence that HIV doesn’t kill CD4 cells – it certainly does not overturn all the observational evidence about HIV infection and CD4 depletion.”

I never gave such evidence but to complete your exercise in logic: …nor is a lack of full understanding evidence that HIV does kill CD4 cells. I think we agree.

Posted by: pat | November 16, 2007 11:31 PM

“Ironically, the killer cells needed to control HIV also damage the helper T cells that they need to function efficiently. With the lack of CD4+ cells, new cytotoxic T cell responses cannot occur as helper cells are lacking and such new responses are required as the virus mutates.”

Pat asks about the meaning of the above.

It refers to one of the central problems of AIDS, namely that the primary cell target of the virus is a key cell type involved in the regulation of the immune response at multiple levels.

CD4 T-cells are important regulators of the cytotoxic CD8 T-cells that kill virally infected cells. As the CD4 T-cells die off, they become unavailable to regulate the CD8 T-cells needed to respond to the continuing viral infection.

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 11:35 PM

yeah john i know what your going to do, your going to take some joke I made about balls, ignore every other noble prize worthy prose ive written and put it on your stupid site, like I care, cherry pick statements and then ignore the science, just shows how desperate you are, you would never post everything I say entirely because your are that much of a mendacious hack. Dont cherry pick, thats the sign of a coward who cant defend his arguments.

As far as the stuff about balls and getting laid, I think its hilarious. This blog has gotten so pathetic with name calling, “denialists’ so I learned it from you idiots, none of whom have the university of california pedigree, or the big balls and the big heart! Why should i not joke around a little when you guys are such narrow minded idiotic hacks that are oblivious to reason and civil debate.

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 11:53 PM

Let me get this straight.

Against medical advice, the parents made a conscious choice to expose their children to the risk of HIV infection in utero and for several years of breast feeding while taking no steps to mitigate that risk because they have decided that HIV is harmless;

one of their children died of AIDS;

after the death of the child, the LA Times reported that the mother “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus;”(http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

and Pat is outraged because he feels that John Moore “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

Posted by: franklin | November 16, 2007 11:56 PM

by the way, this site is copywrited by seed, so you cant even cherry pick my john cleese/sacha baronesque cohen comic genius even if you wanted to! Fuck yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Posted by: cooler | November 16, 2007 11:59 PM

I’m wondering if the John Moore of this online diary at Salon is the same nutball posting here.

Well, being a scientist is a bit like being in the military. As one rises up the food chain, other people do one’s dirty work. There aren’t many generals who get strung out on the barbed wire in front of a machine-gun nest, are there? Rankwise, I am now somewhere around a colonel, judging from the uniforms my friends in the Army’s AIDS program sometimes wear (I always give them a vigorous salute, the nature of which is conditional upon the contents of their last research paper).

* * *

So, like many of my peer group, I am just an overpaid two-fingered typist, with no white coat but with acid-holed sweat shirts.

Man, this stuff is embarrassing and unreadable. Who are these delusional knuckleheads, and why is the NIH funding them?

Posted by: John Givens | November 17, 2007 12:02 AM

I have a feeling the seed execs are so impressed with my combination of delicious wit and solid science they are going to be offering me my own blog here, Im a hot commodity.

Posted by: cooler | November 17, 2007 12:12 AM

Cooler tells us “this site is copywrited by seed.”

Can someone please point that out to Andrew Maniotis.

Back in August he ended one of his typical blogarrhea posts on the Intro to Denial thread with the following threat:

It will need to be published in a book, which you guys have been helping me edit.

Maybe if his publisher finds out that Andrew has been “editing” his “book” by posting it on a blog that is owned by Seed they will have second thoughts and we can save several forests.

Posted by: franklin | November 17, 2007 12:17 AM

Sorry Pat, couldn’t help pulling another snowjob on you for fun. Of course it was all the “we’re groping in the dark” adjectives and adverbs that were the point. But hey, as Lee says, “So what? WE know the depletion happens”. The rest is just a matter of heaping “plausible mechanisms” on top of each other until the world of phenomena fits the phenomal microbe and our prophetic knowledge of it

Mr. Lee, I don’t know who you are talking about avoided anything, but heaping gobbledygook on gobbledygook doesn’t dignify anybody, so there at least you let action follow words.

The passage starts,

Expression of the viral envelope gp120-gp41 complex in infected cells mediates onset of apoptosis of both infected and non-infected cells. Thus chronically HIV-infected cells can serve as effector cells to induce apoptosis in uninfected target CD4+ T cells.

and ends,

Indeed, it has been observed that apoptotic T cells in lymph nodes of HIV-infected individuals contained many apoptotic but uninfected bystander cells whereas infected cells were not found to be apoptotic.

Thus elegant is the process of science: we start out with the problem that normally only infected cells kill themselves, and just a paragraph or two further down, via a simple process of introducing the notion of “priming” and repeating the word over and over, the problem has now been reversed and apparently fully solved. It is now the uninfected cells that get suicidal, “primed” by the infected but no longer suicidal cells. A single mystical word made he whole difference betweeen ignorance and knowledge.

It is thus the well known psychological mechanism of displacement or transference of the suicidal impulse which accounts for the anomaly – that and probably the fact that most infected cells are catholic and therefore not too happy about killing themselves, whereas the uninfected cells are mostly muslim which would account rather neatly for their tendency to blow themselves up.

As for free gp120 binding to receptors, closet denialist Prof. J.P. Moore has held it forth as a classic example of the dangers of drawing conclusions from in vitro
observations:

We do not argue that gp120 could never have a biological effect on cells in vivo via receptor-mediated interactions. Nor is it impossible that virions could influence cellular processes in vivo independently of receptor-mediated fusion events.
We do, however, argue that it is not an adequate mimic of in vivo biology simply to add free gp120 (or virions) to target cells in vitro in amounts that are apparently several orders of magnitude greater than in body fluids…(The two decade-old) papers are not consistent with each other, and the more frequently cited study, by Oh et al, has serious design flaws that may cast doubt on the gp120 concentrations it promulgates. The much lower gp120 concentrations recorded by Gilbert et al (2003) are likely to be closer to true levels. And the presence of plasma anti-gp120 Abs that block receptor binding should inform the design of in vitro experiments…. Some of these considerations apply, of course, to other studies of similar design that use high concentrations of other HIV-1 proteins, such as Tat and Vpr, in vitro, in the hope that this is relevant to pathogenesis.
Virology, 323 (2004) pp1-8

Relish if you will the eminent encapsulation of the essence of HIV research in those beautiful closing words,

in the hope that this is relevant to pathogenesis

It is the fact that Moore can write such reviews which wins him the respect as a solid scientist he may not have won for his human qualities, whereas you, Mr. Lee, have so far only shown yourself as another cut and paste parakeet, the very thing you loathe so much in the unscientific
“denialists”.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 12:17 AM

Good luck with that one franklin, his book is totally original, and the publisher agrees with the message, doubtful theyd be any copyright infringments so youll have to resort to debating him, instead of abolishing the first amendment.

Posted by: cooler | November 17, 2007 12:28 AM

But Cooler,

You just told us that Seed holds the copyright to the Blog. Maniotis indicated that he has been posting excerpts from his “book” on the Blog so that we would inadvertently edit it for him.

Doesn’t that cause a problem for the publisher, if Seed holds a copyright on the portions that Maniotis may have already published on Tara’s Blog?

Posted by: franklin | November 17, 2007 12:32 AM

Aha Frankie, so we’re back to “we don’t really know what the f… is happening but the drugs must be peddled so HIV causes AIDS.”

Cooler, sink me if Pater John has not just dignified you and exalted you above all other denialists! In terms of the AIDS colonel John Givens mentioned, it’s the military strategy of going for the soft targets when the harder ones are… well are too hard.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 12:35 AM

why dont you call a lawyer and ask him/her how far youd get with that…………

Posted by: cooler | November 17, 2007 12:36 AM

MEC,
I know I just finished college, and im already one of johns top targets, wow, all because i saw a video hiv fact or fraud in college and we all found it compelling!!! I must be put in a stalinist gulag, Im not allowed to think and speak, unless I think and speak only what john wants me to!

Posted by: cooler | November 17, 2007 12:41 AM

Cooler, I think it was all the talk about getting laid that made John take an interest in you.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 1:02 AM

Maybe Lonely Boy needs to get a life and learn all about it, then he would have better things to do than to argue with rethinkers on a blog.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 17, 2007 6:31 AM

“Let me get this straight.

You fail to grasp over and over the simple fact that she has conflicting HIV tests. What is the medical advice when this happens? What is the best course action? SHE had to make A descision. Not you, not Moore and certainly not Bergman who has never had to make tough health descisions for herself or her kids. I am disgusted at Moore’s and Bergman’s self-rightuous attitude that somehow they would be better parents.

Posted by: pat | November 17, 2007 7:19 AM

You fail to grasp over and over the simple fact that she has conflicting HIV tests. What is the medical advice when this happens?

From interviews that Maggiore has given over the years, it seems pretty clear what medical advice she received concerning the risk of transmitting HIV to her children.

From an interview Maggiore gave in 2001:

Chung [over footage of Scovill and Maggiore at baby shower]: They had made a decision to play Russian roulette with their own lives. But would they be willing to gamble with their baby’s life as well? Doctors warned that there was a 25 percent chance that Maggiore would transmit the deadly virus to her unborn child unless she took powerful anti-HIV drugs like AZT. Maggiore refused.

Maggiore [to Chung]: I did not want to expose my growing child to toxins during pregnancy.
ABC News 20/20 24 Aug. 2001

From an interview Maggiore gave in 2007:

Christine is married to award-winning filmmaker, Robin Scovill, who remains HIV negative after over ten years of latex-free sex. When she was pregnant with their first child, Charlie, now nine, she went to several OBs and was either turned away or told she had to take AZT and have a cesarean birth.

The Motherhood, Summer 2007, Issue #2.

Posted by: franklin | November 17, 2007 9:55 AM

So Frankie, was that advice given after the positive, negative or indeterminate test result?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 10:15 AM

It seems the advice was given during her pregnancy.

Posted by: franklin | November 17, 2007 10:56 AM

The OBs obviously don’t consider AZT russian roulette.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 11:13 AM

Interesting Q&A with U.S. AIDS Czar, Mark Dybul:

MARK DYBUL: I would be happy to answer any questions.

STAFF: Please identify yourself and your affiliation.

Q Lambros Papantoniou, Greek correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper, Elettheros Typos, Athens. Ambassador Dybul, have you seen the HIV virus in a laboratory?

MR. DYBUL: I’ve seen – under a microscope, yes, I’ve seen electron micrographs of the virus, yes.

Q Where and when?

MR. DYBUL: Oh, they’re all over the place. They’re published in virtually ever journal. I have a picture of one in my office.

Q Do you have to report any progress on cure of this deadly disease?

MR. DYBUL: Unfortunately not. Cure is a word we don’t use in HIV/AIDS. We use treatment, life-long treatment. Like many diseases, chronic diseases, we’re not able to cure, whether it’s diabetes, hypertension. This is a chronic infectious disease which we can treat. We hope life-long; we don’t know for sure yet, but we hope life-long so that people live normal life spans. And in the clinics I actually still attend up at our National Institutes of Health, we’re actually dealing with regular diseases now as people are living very long times, 10, 15 years with antiretroviral therapy, but we don’t have a cure.

When we have a cure for HIV, it is quite likely that we’ll cure cancer, because HIV is a retrovirus that puts itself into the – our own human cells. Many infectious diseases live outside of cells and so we can get – access them relatively easily. To get rid of HIV, you actually have to kill human cells, much like cancer. So when we cure HIV and when we – we will, at some point, have such a scientific advance – we’ll be able to cure a lot of other things as well.

Run that by me again? To get rid of HIV, you actually have to kill human cells, much like cancer.

You have to kill the cells to kill the virus? So, because HIV is deadly (it kills cd4 cells) we have to treat it with drugs that…..kill cd4 cells.

Does this sound a little bit like the debacle in Vietnam — in order to save the village from Communists, we had to burn the village.

Posted by: John Givens | November 17, 2007 12:14 PM

“It seems the advice was given during her pregnancy.”

Franklin-straight forward question- What was her known health status during her pregnancies? Was she KNOWN to be positive? was she KNOWN to be negative? or was she KNOWN to be indeterminate …or all three?

If I test pos, neg and indeterminate, What am I ? Am I a pickup truck or am I the victim of confusion?

Posted by: pat | November 17, 2007 12:40 PM

Pat,

Regarding what was known about her health status during her pregnancies:

“From an interview Maggiore gave in 2001:”
…
“Doctors warned that there was a 25 percent chance that Maggiore would transmit the deadly virus to her unborn child unless she took powerful anti-HIV drugs like AZT. Maggiore refused.”

How’d that work out for her? The child?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 17, 2007 2:14 PM

“cooler” writes:

“yeah john i know what your going to do, your going to take some joke I made about balls, ignore every other noble prize worthy prose ive written and put it on your stupid site,”

No “cooler”, you do not know what we’re going to do, but we are most certainly NOT going to post anything you have written on AIDS Truth. I’m afraid that, like Michael Geiger and Anthony Liversidge, you’re not significant enough to make it onto our site. So all your ramblings about “copyright” are completely irrelevant.

But I’ll think you again for the service you so unwittingly did us via one of your earlier posts. It really was very much appreciated!

Posted by: John Moore | November 17, 2007 2:40 PM

John,

Can you not just grow up?!

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 3:01 PM

pat says:
“You fail to grasp over and over the simple fact that she has conflicting HIV tests. What is the medical advice when this happens? What is the best course action? SHE had to make A descision. Not you, not Moore and certainly not Bergman who has never had to make tough health descisions for herself or her kids. I am disgusted at Moore’s and Bergman’s self-rightuous attitude that somehow they would be better parents.”

Pat… you fail to grasp the central argument. Maggiore continues to insist that HIV does not cause aids, despite the fact that she was told that if she did not accept treatment there was a chance that she would transmit HIV to her child and he would die of aids, and then subsequently she did transmit HIV to her child and that child died of AIDS.

For the HIV/AIDS point, it is irelevant what anyone thinks of her parenting decision. What rmatters is that this is an example OF transmission of HIV followed by a death from AIDS, precisely as predicted by her doctors. For people to use Maggiore as a case study for the argument against HIV causing AIDS is simply absurd.

Posted by: Lee | November 17, 2007 3:22 PM

Pat,

You originally asked what the medical advice would be in her situation.

I directed you to publicly available information–interviews in which Ms. Maggiore participated–that provide some insight into the medical advice her physicians provided.

You now ask me: “What was her known health status during her pregnancies? ”

If you would like more detailed information about Ms. Maggiore’s health status at any given point in time, I suggest you direct your questions to her.

Posted by: franklin | November 17, 2007 3:49 PM

Regarding what was known about her health status during her pregnancies:
“From an interview Maggiore gave in 2001:”
…
“Doctors warned that there was a 25 percent chance that Maggiore would transmit the deadly virus to her unborn child unless she took powerful anti-HIV drugs like AZT. Maggiore refused.”
How’d that work out for her? The child?

Roy, you are just a (aspiring) scientist, so maybe we shouldn’t expect too much of you, Franklin or Lee the parakeet, but try to grasp that restating the premise over and over will not yield the conclusion.

1. It is not Christine Maggiore neither her doctor speaking in these quotes. It is a narrator teling us the odds of transmission IF (the premise) the mother is positive. Nothing more. I would very much hope the doctors had more to say than that, and that the OBs did more than simply turn Maggiore away at sight.

This is one of the interviews Bergman would have read “researching” her article on Maggiore in which she concluded and publicly stated Maggiore was an HIV negative poseur. How is that possible?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 3:56 PM

“But I’ll think you again for the service you so unwittingly did us via one of your earlier posts. It really was very much appreciated!”

Seriously, youd think hed have something better to do than argue endlessly on a blog, Im slowly recovering from an illness, thats the only reason im here, hopefully ill be recovered soon and be able to stay away from these blogs for good.

Posted by: cooler | November 17, 2007 4:16 PM

Cooler,

“He” is not arguing. He is desperately trying to portray himself as a winner by resorting ot these mysterious unanswerable hints. Actually he is portraing himself as God, who in his wisdom and splendour makes everybody serve his unknowable purposes. It’s nothing new, I’ve got at least a dozen similar quotes from him directed at different people on YBYL. That’s why we call him johnnie One-Note. You’ll get used to it.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2007/03/the_sad_song_of.html

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 4:33 PM

MEC of course is being characteristically obtuse when trying to make the case that Maggiore is HIV-negative. As recorded in the LA Coroner’s report, her daughter died of AIDS (PCP pneumonia, HIV encephalitis) as a result of acquiring HIV-infection from her mother (unless MEC ascribes to the stork or tooth fairy model of HIV vertical transmission). This is the central fact of the case, as is the high probability that the infection of the daughter would have been avoided had the mother taken AZT or similar ARVs at around the time of delivery, and then avoided the additional risk factor of breast-feeding the child. MEC, “pat” and others can squirm all they like to try to find a way around those central verities, but their efforts on Maggiore’s behalf change absolutely nothing. The facts are the facts.

Posted by: John Moore | November 17, 2007 5:03 PM

MEC,

The prediction: “…25 percent chance that Maggiore would transmit the deadly virus to her unborn child…”

is born out by the child who died of the deadly virus, because her mother did nothing to protect her.

Look at the evidence, make a prediction, collect data, does the data support the hypothesis…

How am I doing so far MEC?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 17, 2007 5:08 PM

Dr Moore

Seeing you are so adamant that Eliza Jane died of a AIDS related illness, I presume that, when it is proven she did not, you will renounce your position as the self appointed HIV?AIDS defender, give up your job at Cornell and never be heard of in scientific circles again.

This would be the least you could do, because your credibility would be shot to pieces.

Kyle ( male by the way John)

Posted by: kyle | November 17, 2007 5:21 PM

Roy,

You and Prof. Moore are still doing splendidly so far as restating the premise (HIV infection) goes. We will have to wait and see, I guess, if it is identical with the conclusion. I do not pretend to hold the answer.

One thing is for sure, it will be the end of Johnnie One Note if the outcome should be different than anticipated. Tell me something Prof. Moore, do you have access to information regarding EJ’s HIV test that her mother doesn’t? Upon the answer depends whatever is left from the Guinea Pig Kids affair of your humanity.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 5:53 PM

It seems that an another Anatomic Pathologist has reviewed the autopsy slides, although apparently not at the request of Ms. Maggiore.

The LA Times and the ABC both consulted independent experts in anatomical pathology. They both agreed that the diagnosis of PCP was incontrovertible.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 17, 2007 7:05 PM

“They both agreed that the diagnosis of PCP was incontrovertible.”

Are the pathologists claiming PCP wasn’t present looking at slides showing healthy lung tissue and ignoring the rest? I’m not familiar with the case and am not a pathologist, so I don’t know what PCP tissue slides would look like. But it seems to me that there is either pathology or there isn’t and if not PCP than what are the others claiming as the cause of the pathology?

Posted by: Jim | November 17, 2007 7:26 PM

MEC,

Collecting evidence that confirms a hypothesis is not restating the premise.

You sound like a creationist spewing that “survival of the fittest is a tautology…” nonsense.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 17, 2007 7:32 PM

But Roy, you sound just like an AIDStruth Crusader, spewing that “you sound like a creationist” nonsense.

Maybe it’s just lack off scientific understanding on my part, but what is the “evidence” you have been collecting, and which hypothesis have you been confirming? Is it evidence that Christine Maggiore was not confused and thrown into agonizing doubt by her conflicting test results? Results that were apparently tricky enough to fool the astute Jeanne Bergman.

Or is it evidence that EJ really, really died of PCP? If that is the case, could Dr. Noble make the slides available that the LA Times’ and ABC’s experts were looking at; or failing that, their specific answers to Maggiore’s and AL-Bayati’s specific questions?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 17, 2007 10:59 PM

Are the pathologists claiming PCP wasn’t present looking at slides showing healthy lung tissue and ignoring the rest?

Franklin has already gone through the evidence here

I am also not a pathologist. My understanding is that the H&E stained slides are useful for demonstrating changes in the gross morphology of the tissue and an inflammatory response. Al-Bayati seems to have seized upun the words “no inflammatory” response and equated this to no pneumonia. As Franklin has shown above, in HIV infected immunosuppressed patients it is common if not expected that there is relatively little inflammatory response with PCP.

Al-Bayatis has largely side stepped the GMS stained slides. GMS is a stain commonly used for the detection of the PC organisms. According to the Coroner’s report and the description of the slides shown to Maggiore on national television these slides showed an abundance of PC organisms with their characteristic teacup morphology. This represents the direct detection of PC in a quantity that is consistent only with PC pneumonia.

I’ve heard some objections that PC is ubiquitous. That is true to the extent that somewhere of the order of 90% of the popualtion is exposed to the organism. PCR detection does not necessarily mean PCP. In this case it was not molecular evidence but direct visualization of the organism. It does not show up in stains unless there is a lot of it.

It is all really very bizarre considering the typical “rethinker” critiques of HIV. They want electron micrographs of HIV rather than antibody or molecular detection. They argue that HIV can’t possibly cause AIDS because it is not present in quantities that they believe are necessary to do anything. They argue that the only way that HIV can possibly cause disease is by direct cell killing and any mechanisms involving the host response to HIV cannot be important. Yet, here there is direct evidence for PC in a more than sufficient quantity and they ignore it. They seem to be fixated on the host response rather than the PC organism that causes the disease.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 18, 2007 12:19 AM

Haha, Dr Noble, that was one of your better spins in the last paragraph above, so I’ll let you have it to yourself for once while we focus on EJ.

Regardless of HIV cell killing methods, in EJ’s case we would of course like to see some “host response”. A “fulminate”, “severe”, deadly PCP is supposed to show equally severe and deadly damage. This is the same as with HIV; the mere presence of particles or its “molecular signature” is not sufficient to kill somebody.

I do not think the presence of PC is in dispute, only the evidence that it had developed into severe, or fulminate pneumonia (PCP). That evidence may or may not be there. Is it too much to ask to suspend judgment until we are able to see for ourselves?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 18, 2007 4:30 AM

I’m out, the level of the troll jacking has reached a ludicrous level.
On a good note, Nelson Mandela’s concert (the 46664 concert) which benefits HIV/AIDS programs is currently running adverts on TV and Radio. Madiba himself is on the ads saying that HIV/AIDS is no longer just a health issue, but is a human rights issue.
And Madiba still has a lot of influence here as well as the rest of the world, so this should help.

Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | November 18, 2007 5:33 AM

MEC,

If you weren’t arguing with scientists, and doctors, about terms and concepts you clearly don’t understand the meaning of, then you might not sound so much like a creationist.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 18, 2007 9:15 AM

What I really like is the argument that it wasn’t pneumonia because there was no evident inflammation associated with the PC-containing pink foamy casts in her edamatous lungs.

Posted by: Lee | November 18, 2007 10:25 AM

To remind everyone, this is a summary of Al-Bayati’s statements of what the coroner’s report says:

1. Pneumocystis carinii was found in Eliza Jane’s lungs by Gomori methenamine silver staining in association with pink foamy casts in the alveoli. The lungs were also edematous (water-logged).
2. Eliza Jane was mildly neutropenic (low neutrophil–a type of white blood cell–count) and profoundly anemic (low red blood cell count)
3. Eliza Jane’s brain contained throughout its white matter with relative sparing of cortex a number of variable-sized microglial nodules characterized by multinucleate giant cells associated with moderate pallor and myelination, occasional macrophages, and and angiocentric pattern. These lesions stained positive by immunohistochemistry (IHC) for the HIV core p24 protein, a finding consistent with HIV encephalitis.
4. There was atrophy of the spleen and thymus

5. There was enlargement of the liver with fatty infiltrate of the cells (steatosis) and ascites

Posted by: Lee | November 18, 2007 10:32 AM

“Pat… you fail to grasp the central argument. Maggiore continues to insist that HIV does not cause aids, despite the fact that she was told that if she did not accept treatment there was a chance that she would transmit HIV to her child and he would die of aids, and then subsequently she did transmit HIV to her child and that child died of
For the HIV/AIDS point, it is irelevant what anyone thinks of her parenting decision. What rmatters is that this is an example OF transmission of HIV followed by a death from AIDS, precisely as predicted by her doctors. For people to use Maggiore as a case study for the argument against HIV causing AIDS is simply absurd.”

Why are you trying to convince me of something I am not even arguing against. That is all ok wih me what you say but what I am discussing is Maggiore’s apparent “culpabitlity”. Moore and co here maintain that she is guilty of negligence and should go to jail inspite of the FACT the no chrages were ever filed. Should Maggiore have followed the advice of the doctor who gave her a positive diagnosis or the one that gave her the negative diagnosis? Considering the “fact” that HIV tests are highly specific and accurate she had to make a choice based on her highly specific and accurate status as HIV +-+ indeterminate and what not.
I am not discussing wether HIV causes AIDS or not so please stop telling me Maggiore is proof of it

“If you would like more detailed information about Ms. Maggiore’s health status at any given point in time, I suggest you direct your questions to her.”

But it is ok for YOU to speculate about it and insist she was negligent.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 11:22 AM

“Doctors warned that there was a 25 percent chance that Maggiore would transmit the deadly virus to her unborn child unless she took powerful anti-HIV drugs like AZT. Maggiore refused.”

How’d that work out for her? The child?”

Which doctor told her that? The one that found HIV or the one that didn’t or the one that just said “gee I donno”

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 11:25 AM

Which doctor told her that? The one that found HIV or the one that didn’t or the one that just said “gee I donno”

Apparently a doctor that was concerned for her child’s health.

Remember, you’re supposedly outraged at Moore because he “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

According to interviews given by Ms. Maggiore, the physicians she consulted when pregnant did consider her children–but she chose to ignore their advice.

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 11:48 AM

“Apparently a doctor that was concerned for her child’s health.”

That is the one who said she was dying, what about the one that said she was fine?
Jesus H Christ. Were you to test positive, negative, indeterminate, what would you do? Would you gobble pills “in the offchance”? Would you risk potentially serious side effects “just in case”?

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 11:54 AM

“According to interviews given by Ms. Maggiore, the physicians she consulted when pregnant did consider her children–but she chose to ignore their advice.”

When you have conflicting advice, WHAT DO YOU DO????

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 11:55 AM

Should Maggiore have followed the advice of the doctor who gave her a positive diagnosis or the one that gave her the negative diagnosis?

To what advice do you refer?

What advice are you claiming that Ms. Maggiore received from “the one that gave her the negative diagnosis”?

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 11:56 AM

“What advice are you claiming that Ms. Maggiore received from “the one that gave her the negative diagnosis”?

I suspect she got no advice from them. My last test was negative and there was no following advice. My doc just said: “you’re fine”

Are you suggesting Maggiore is lying to us about her conflicting test results? Do you have any evidence of this?

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 12:16 PM

pat, said:

“I am not discussing whether HIV causes AIDS or not so please stop telling me Maggiore is proof of it”

Maggiore is a prominent HIV denier, and the focus of this thread has become the denier ‘arguments.’ So, lets get this on the record, pat. Do you accept that HIV is the causative factor for AIDS? That is my only interest in this thread, and it seems to me that you are on the denier side. If not, if yo accept that HIV causes AIDS, could you please make that clear?

Posted by: Lee | November 18, 2007 12:17 PM

“When you have conflicting advice, WHAT DO YOU DO????”

If one side of that conflicting advice said I am at risk of dying, and perhaps more troubling, that actions I am contemplating put my children at risk of dying, then I certainly don’t simply pretend there is no risk and continue as usual.

Posted by: Lee | November 18, 2007 12:30 PM

“So, lets get this on the record, pat. Do you accept that HIV is the causative factor for AIDS?”

Thank you for finally asking and a penalty for JP Moore for foul language based on nothing but his very own prejudice.

Do I have a choice? Do you think I can falsify HIV/AIDS? I have to accept what I am told. I am told by some that HIV is the SOLE causative agent in AIDS while others are saying HIV is not sufficient and none of this comes from any “denialist” sources. If JP Moore says HIV causes AIDS than I must accept it but I do not understand why I MUST be an “AIDS denialist” for defending Maggiore’s rights as a parent. Do YOU understand that logic?

“That is my only interest in this thread, and it seems to me that you are on the denier side.”

If that is your sole interest than why are you writing to me? My sole interest is the POLITICS of AIDS and the gros misrepresentation of what constitutes “murder” and “crime”. I worry about legal “over-reach”. I worry about loosing my rights to question everything and anything I am fed. If people like Duesberg end up in jail for “scientific dissent” I also wonder where that leaves “the scientific method”. If Duesberg ends up in jail, he cannot contribute to cancer either and that would be stupid considering his already recognised contributions in that field. He denies HIV as a causative role in AIDS, so what? Why does JP Moore think he must protect me from Duesber’s ideas? Why does JP Moore insult me like that? Every great scientist dissents somewhere so if we were to put “dissenters” in jail there would be no more scientists and no more science. Also, who is going to protect me the day a liar comes around and sells me something I cannot legally say no to, what then?

If you do not want to discuss anything outside the “science of AIDS” than there is no point in talking to me because I am solely interested in the politics of it.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 12:45 PM

Pat says:

When you have conflicting advice, WHAT DO YOU DO????

When asked what advice she received that conflicted with the published interviews indicating that she was advised to take steps to prevent transmission of HIV to her children, Pat replies:

I suspect she got no advice from them

So, Pat has no evidence that she received conflicting advice regarding the management of her pregnancy.

In fact, Pat suspects that she received no such conflicting advice about the management of her pregnancy.

Let’s see if we understnd Pat’s position:

Pat suspects that the parents received no conflicting advice from their physicians regarding these risks;

one of their children died of AIDS;

and Pat is outraged because he feels that John Moore “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 12:50 PM

“If one side of that conflicting advice said I am at risk of dying, and perhaps more troubling, that actions I am contemplating put my children at risk of dying, then I certainly don’t simply pretend there is no risk and continue as usual.”

So you would take life long treatment for HIV “in the off chance” you might have it. I am not sure how smart that is considering I have a friend who is about to loose his liver due to the side effects of those drugs and that is the professional opinion of his AIDS doctor 12 years into his treatment. I also know someone who died 2 years ago of liver failure caused by too much medication (that was the opinion of the treating doctors at the hospital, not my observation)and it is not pretty at all either so I am not sure which is preferable.

Life long arv’s sounds very drastic for an “off-chance”.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 12:54 PM

“Pat suspects that the parents received no conflicting advice from their physicians regarding these risks”

That is incorrect. I strongly suspect she recieved conflicting advice seeing she recieved conflicting diagnoses

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 12:55 PM

“I suspect she got no advice from them. My last test was negative and there was no following advice. My doc just said: “you’re fine”

You copy and pate an incomplete sentence of mine. This is the complete sentence. The “no advice” I refer to is the advice that she must have gotten about being “fine”

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 12:58 PM

Here is the Analysis of causes that led to Eliza Jane Scovill’s cardiac arrest and death M.A. Al-Bayati/Medical Veritas 2 (2005) 567-581 567.

EJ had a cardiac arrest after the fourth dose of Amoxicillin. The autopsy showed acute pericardial effusion suggesting pericardial tamponade was the cause of the hypotension and cardiac arrest. This is not a typical clinical course for PCP pneumonia in an AIDS patient. PCP fungal pneumonia does not present with cardiac arrest, it has a fairly characteristic clinical course, and causes chronic hypoxia which presents gradually and is frequently treated with mechanical ventilation which keeps the patient alive for a while with a 50% chance of recovery with various treatments. Pericardial, and pleural fluid was present indicating an acute allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. PCP pneumonia produces pulmonary infiltrates, and does not cause pericardial and pleural effusions.

PCP pneumonia produces cysts in the lungs, hence the term pneumocystis. This was not a feature of EJ’s lungs as reported. In order to produce hypoxia, the alveoli must be made nonfunctional by filling up with exudate. No exudates were described in EJ’s reports.

In terms of the brain findings of Microglial nodules are not specific for HIV infection and may be present with neoplasia, traumatic focal necrosis, or infection from viral, protozoal or bacterial organisms.

Regarding the P24 in the post mortem brain tissue, Western blot positive requires detection of two or more antibodies to HIV; p24, Gp41, Gp 120/160. Presence of P24 only, without the Gp41 or Gp120/160 is a false positive. There were no western blot blood tests antemortem which is the usual method for diagnosis of HIV.

HIV encephalitis and Aids dementia is characterized by progressive cognitive dysfunction. None of these symptoms were present in EJ who had normal cognition, making the diagnosis of HIV encephalitis highly unlikely.

It is clear that the LA coroners delayed autopsy report was politically motivated and in error.

Needless to point out, this same LA coroner has been found guilty of errors and outright misconduct on other cases as well.

Posted by: never_a_peen | November 18, 2007 1:07 PM

Given the outstanding precision and sensitivity of HIV diagnostic assays, particularly since the later-generation tests were developed a few years after the first ones in the mid-1980’s (tests which were, quite literally, “emergency measures” that were adequate but not perfect), this entire issue could be resolved very easily. All Ms. Maggiore has to do is to have a comprehensive set of blood tests performed blind by independent, qualified diagnostic laboratories and then reveal the full results, with all relevant details, publicly. Tests could also be performed on any archival blood samples that remain.

It’s extremely rare for HIV-infected people not to seroconvert to HIV antigens, and those rare cases either involve people with genetic abnormalities in their humoral immune system, or people with highly aggressive HIV-infection that leads to death within a year or two. Clearly the latter scenario does not apply here.

So, let’s see the facts if Ms. Maggiore’s supporters truly do want to claim that she thought she was HIV-negative at the time when she made the critical decision (not to take preventive measures) that led to the death of her daughter from AIDS.

Posted by: John Moore | November 18, 2007 1:09 PM

“Let’s see if we understnd Pat’s position”

No, let me explain my position yet again.

She cannot determine her own status because the precise testing techniques categorically diagnosed her as +-+ indeterminate etc… She must now make a descision based on the rock solid evidence that she is all those things. She weighed the risks of side effects against the risks of infecting her children “with HIV” and “no HIV” and “maybe HIV but maybe not”. It appears she made the wrong descision and hindsight is always 20/20 so shame on all those who would say “I told you so” because nobody “knew so” at the time, not even Jeanne Bergman. Remember her? the HIV/AIDS authority trying to convince the world and Maggiore that she is HIV NEGATIVE!
I perhaps am the only person that doesn’t “deny anything” that can also support Maggiore and her rights and obligations to make the final health descisions for herself and her kids. Everybody got it wrong right up to the point EJ died. I perhaps am also the only person who can understand why she is totally confused about what probably does and doesn’t cause AIDS. If I had the testing history Maggiore has, I probably wouldn’t write a book about it but I certainly wouldn’t have a clue about my status and I would probably just walk home hopelessly confused and not really inclined to take lifelong chemotherapy.

To all those who WANT guilt and public executions; Good luck.

In dubio pro reo. end

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 1:33 PM

A challenge to Mr Moore

“And of course I won’t respond to any questions you pose. That would involve debating or discussing science with an AIDS denialist, and our policies on never doing that are widely known.” – John P. Moore, Weill Cornell HIV=AIDS microbicide researcher, recipient of handy $500,000 grant from a drug company, and frequent analyst of fundamental flaws and omissions in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis.

John, you seem blithely unaware of the fact that every time you make this avowal you are signalling that you lack answers. Is this wise?

Moreover, the irony is that you yourself have raised many of the most pertinent questions as to the sense and quality of the work of HIV=AIDS researchers.

Would you like us to give you a list of the papers in which you have made remarkable admissions of this kind?

We have already dealt with one (and will shortly add more) on our modest blog ScienceGuardian/New AIDS Review in the posts John P. Moore Brings Down The AIDS Paradigm (Part 2)

To quote from the introduction

“To put it bluntly, John P. Moore Ph.D. has written a paper which tears out the thumping heart of his entire campaign in defense of the beleaguered paradigm and throws it to the paradigm attack dogs he is usually occupied with trying to kick as hard as he possibly can.

The title of this quietly seminal work is a question: “Is there enough gp120 in the body fluids of HIV-1 infected individuals to have biologically significant effects?”

The minireview can be found in Virology, 323 (2004) pp1-8, and is written with P. J. Klasse, who is also at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 1300 York Avenue, W-805, New York NY 10021 (Fax 212 746 8340 jpm2003@med.cornell.edu).”

Perhaps you wish to claim this is misinterpreted, but there is no comment registered by you since it was put up on May 30th. Do you have some problem in contradicting yourself? Perhaps you should ask Nancy Padian for advice on this predicament.

Or possibly you wish to claim that your inability to reply is part of your policy of not replying to “denialists”, but again, this only signals to all thinking people that you are hiding.

So tell us, why should onlookers credit a scientist who declines to try and answer any questions about their work?

Can we credit him with confidence in his work?

Can we credit him with pride in his work?

Can we credit him with a sense of public responsibility?

Can we credit him with a sense of responsibility towards those affected by his work?

Sorry, we forgot that you refuse to respond to “denialists” (although as we have often pointed out to you we at Science Guardian/New AIDS Review are not suggesting any “conspiracy theory” and our role is merely to ask questions, as good journalists do, so that you may deny “denialists”, if you wish).

Alas! Given your silence, we will have to judge all these points for ourselves, it seems.

But will you accept our nomination for the Nobel, or at least the Lasker, for your many contributions to demonstrating the emptiness of the paradigm claim HIV=AIDS?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 18, 2007 1:41 PM

Remember that standard care after HIV diagnosis uses ongoing qPCR viral load analysis, which in itself constitutes an independent diagnostic test for HIV infection. To repeat, standard o care requires ongoing monitoring of HIV levels, via a test different from that used to diagnose.

Posted by: Lee | November 18, 2007 1:44 PM

“I think what a lot of people who post on this thread, particularly those who support Ms Maggiore, are forgetting (or deliberately overlooking) is that there is no available evidence that Ms Maggiore has a history of “indeterminate” or “contradictory” diagnostic tests for HIV infection; there is only her word for it, and her statements have not been consistent over the decade or more that she has been making them. Given what happened to her daughter, an awful lot of weight is being placed by her supporters nowadays on Ms. Maggiore’s uncorroborated statements.”

To argue she is concocting all of this so she could profit from AIDS denialism at the expense of her children’s health is simply too much of a stretch to explain her sudden shift. Remember that she was a good “trooper” at firt. Her health testimony is consistent with her sudden about face and nicely explains it too without having to strain the imagination with wild conspiracy theories.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 1:55 PM

“So, let’s see the facts if Ms. Maggiore’s supporters truly do want to claim that she thought she was HIV-negative at the time when she made the critical decision (not to take preventive measures) that led to the death of her daughter from AIDS.”

Mr Moore, you are the one who wants to put her in jail. You are the one portraying her as a predator. If you make wild conspiracy theories about Maggiore, is the onus not on you to bring evidence?

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 1:59 PM

Also, I never made the claim that she thought she was NEGATIVE during her pregnancies. I simply say I don’t BLAME her for the discisions she took. If her health statements are accurate than she must have thought she was pos, neg AND indeterminate during her pregnancies which translates into into english as…”not having a fucking clue”.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 2:04 PM

“However, given the known and unknown risks of antiretroviral use in pregnancy, the National Institutes of Health guidelines state that the final decision regarding their use “should be made by the woman after discussion with her health care provider about the known and unknown benefits and risks of therapy” in a “noncoercive” environment”

Is Moore not creating a coercive environmemt by demanding prison for Maggiore?
The law is clear and so are NIH guidelines.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 2:42 PM

Pat says that he strongly suspects that Ms. Maggiore received conflicting advice from her physicians regarding her risk of transmitting HIV to her children in utero or by breastfeeding “because she recieved conflicting diagnoses.”

He points to his own experience:

My last test was negative and there was no following advice. My doc just said: “you’re fine”

He seems to accept that some of Ms. Maggiore’s physicians counseled her that she was at risk of transmitting HIV to her children but he adds that this advice came from:

the one who said she was dying, what about the one that said she was fine?

Here’s what Ms. Maggiore reports about her HIV testing on the Alive and Well web page:

In 1992, I took what is commonly referred to as an HIV test. I had no symptoms of illness, no particular risks or fears, just a new doctor who insisted the test should be part of a regular medical exam. What began as a simple check up turned from routine to life altering when my results came back HIV positive.

Putting aside my shock and shame, I immediately sought out an AIDS specialist. This doctor declared that my test was not positive, not enough to be considered conclusive, anyway. Frightened and confused but hopeful, I followed his recommendations to take the test again along with other lab work to evaluate everything from my cholesterol to T cells.

According to the specialist, the results of this second HIV test were indisputably positive and my progression from somewhat positive to conclusively positive indicated a recent infection with HIV.

She continues:

But then a year or so into my diagnosis and public service, and after interviewing half a dozen AIDS doctors whose recommendations ranged from immediate drug therapy to world travel, I found an anomaly among AIDS specialists–a doctor who didn’t routinely fill people with toxic pharmaceuticals and lethal predictions. She treated me as an individual rather than an impending statistic, and in doing so noticed my good health. She said I didn’t fit the profile of an AIDS patient, and urged me to take another HIV test. Afraid to raise my hopes, at first I refused. When I finally found the courage to retest, the result was inconclusive. Further testing produced a series of unsettling, contradictory diagnoses: a positive, followed by a negative, followed by another positive.

I seem to have missed the part that Pat seems to assume must have occurred–the part where her physician told her “you’re fine.”

As far as I can tell, in or around 1992, two HIV tests in a row were reported as “positive,” and about a year later one test was reported as “inconclusive,” followed by a test that was reported as “positive,” followed by a test that was reported as “negative,” and a final test that was reported as “positive.”

Contrary to Pat’s assumption based upon his own experience, Ms. Maggiore provides no information indicating that any physician ever advised her that she “was fine” with respect to her HIV infection–and she reports consulting 9 physicians.

Instead, from her statement, it seems that her physicians went to great lengths to document her HIV infection.

Likewise, the interviews with Ms. Maggiore that we have already disussed indicate that when she was pregnant, the physicians she consulted advised her that she was at risk of transmitting HIV to her children and to take steps to mitigate that risk.

Ms. Maggiore chose to ignore that advice.

There is no evidence that I know of to indicate that Ms. Maggiore received contradictory advice from her physicians concerning the risks of HIV transmission to her children.

An autopsy has shown that one of her children died of AIDS, yet the LA Times reports that Ms. Maggiore “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus;” (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

But Pat is outraged because he feels that John Moore “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 3:28 PM

I think what a lot of people who post on this thread, particularly those who support Ms Maggiore, are forgetting (or deliberately overlooking) is that there is no available evidence that Ms Maggiore has a history of “indeterminate” or “contradictory” diagnostic tests for HIV infection; there is only her word for it, and her statements have not been consistent over the decade or more that she has been making them. Given what happened to her daughter, an awful lot of weight is being placed by her supporters nowadays on Ms. Maggiore’s uncorroborated statements.
Given the outstanding precision and sensitivity of HIV diagnostic assays, particularly since the later-generation tests were developed a few years after the first ones in the mid-1980’s (tests which were, quite
literally, “emergency measures” that were adequate but not perfect), this entire issue could be resolved very
easily

Of course the onus is on Prof Moore to bring evidence – Pat nails it once again.

May I remind you, Sir John of the Short Memory, that when it suited you and Bergie to call Christine Maggiore a false-positive profiteer, there was not a word out of you about the infallibility of the tests or the fallacy of taking Maggiore’s words about her test results at face value. Does the term “hoisted on your own petard” ring a bell? I am still waiting for you to make two consecutive arguments that don’t contradict each other, Prof Moore.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 18, 2007 3:36 PM

There is no evidence that I know of to indicate that Ms. Maggiore received contradictory advice from her physicians concerning the risks of HIV transmission to her children.

Franklin you are really getting tiresome now. The general advice about HIV transmission hopefully remained the same. The diagnosis didn’t. Doubt was sown in Maggiore’s mind about the validity of the diagnosis. Choices had to be made on that backgound.

There is no doubt most doctors will tell you to take the meds regardless; nobody is arguing otherwise. However, conversations with at least some doctors do still consist in more than “take the meds yes or no, tick the appropriate box”.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 18, 2007 3:48 PM

“There is no evidence that I know of to indicate that Ms. Maggiore received contradictory advice from her physicians concerning the risks of HIV transmission to her children. ”

But the one you cut and paste says:

“She treated me as an individual rather than an impending statistic, and in doing so noticed my GOOD HEALTH.”

Did this doctor counsel her to take ARV’s? Do doctors counsel their patients to take ARV’s and AZT “just in case”?

“But Pat is outraged because he feels that John Moore “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

Franklin feels Maggiore is guilty. Franklin would you put charlie’s mother in jail. Franklin also thinks putting mothers in jail for making the wrong descision is creating “an uncoercive evironment”.
Franklin thinks NIH guidelines are just for laughs.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 4:50 PM

“She treated me as an individual rather than an impending statistic, and in doing so noticed my GOOD HEALTH.”

Did this doctor counsel her to take ARV’s? Do doctors counsel their patients to take ARV’s and AZT “just in case”?

No, Ms Maggiore tells us that the doctor counseled her to repeat the testing.

She also tells us that the repeat test came back as “inconclusive,” and then additional repeat tests came back as “positive,” and then “negative,” and finally as “positive.”

Ms. Maggiore does not tell us what the physician counseled her to do when all of the test results were available.

Nor, indeed, does she tell us what types of tests were performed nor what the actual results of the testing were.

She only gives us her report of the interpretation of those results, but tells of nothing about the basis for that interpretation.

At any rate, those tests were apparently performed years before she became pregnant.

By the time she was pregnant, Ms. Maggiore tells us in her writings and interviews that she was unable to find a physician willing to attend at her delivery unless she agreed to take steps to mitigate the risk of transmission of HIV to the baby.

She ignored their advice and one of her children subsequently died of AIDS.

Pat keeps claiming that Ms. Maggiore made her choices because she was uncertain as to whether or not she was infected by HIV, but it appears that all of the physicians she consulted at the time she was pregnant counseled her otherwise.

Her own writings seem to indicate that the reason she took no steps to mitigate the risk of transmission of HIV to her children was not because of “conflicting advice” from her physicians about how best to manage her pregnancy, but that it was because she does not believe that HIV infection causes AIDS, :

If I thought for a moment that HIV caused AIDS and I would need to spend my life on harsh pharmaceuticals with toxicities incorporated into my DNA, that my own breast milk was lethal, and that I wouldn’t be around to see my children grow up, I never would have had a family. [http://www.awarenessmag.com/novdec2/ND2_QUESTIONING_AIDS.HTML]

There is no evidence that I know of to indicate that Ms. Maggiore received contradictory advice from her physicians concerning the risks of HIV transmission to her children.

Even after one of her children died of AIDS, the LA Times reports that Ms. Maggiore “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus.” (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

But Pat is outraged because he feels that John Moore “hasn’t even considered Charlie.”

Sorry if you find that information to be tiresome, MEC. I know how much energy you must need to expend to keep reading and posting on this blog while burying your head so deeply in the sand.

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 5:45 PM

MOORE is a “useful idiot” for the denialists

Mr. Moore, you do no one any favors by engaging these people.

The very fact that a scientist from a major U.S. university considers it worth responding (over and over and over) to denialist viewpoints gives them credibility they do not deserve.

You are just egging them on. And your hubris in quoting Churchill is beyond belief.

You, sir, have turned into an internet troll.

A. Carricci

Posted by: A Carricci | November 18, 2007 6:50 PM

Answer these questions if you please Franklin:

Do you believe that sentenses of jail for dissent, as advocated by Moore and Wainberg, are consistant with creating an “uncoercive environment” for the rest of us?

Do you believe Bergman’s wild and absurd opining about an “obvious” negative status and Maggiore’s “alleged” criminal motive’s is consistant with creating a “uncoercive environment” for the rest of us?

I feel these following questions are important to me and many others who are not “yet” affected by these policies. The consistant demonizing of a victim of HIV, the threats of profesional isolation towards academics for “dissent in science”, this absurd “war” on “denialists” where “they” are seen as “perpetrators of death” and every other stupid “war” tactic, do everything thing to waken the naturally skeptical mind of human beings and promotes nothing more than resistance, polarization and ultimately tragedy.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 7:13 PM

I second Carricci’s assesment of Mr. Moore

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 7:16 PM

Clearly John Moore is unaware of the literature on false positive HIV tests. Luckily I have prepared a detailed summary of the scientific literature at http://aras.ab.ca/test.html and especially at htthttp://aras.ab.ca/test-false-positive.html

Just one of the things Moore is forgetting is that factors that can cause a false positive test may vary over time. So someone might be tested 100 times at once and all tests be consistent, but a month or a year later, may have a different status.

He’s also forgetting that the status called ‘indeterminate’ exists, and what does that mean except that ELISA tests are flawed? And what if the WB was done first and ELISA used for confirmation? Then we’d have to consider ELISA tests perfect, operationally, because otherwise we might end up in an infinite loop of testing.

Furthermore, John Moore is forgetting that there are at least 10 documented different standards for interpretation of western blots, so it’s quite easy to be positive in one country and indeterminate in another, or even indeterminate based on testing in a different lab.

Furthermore, John Moore is ignoring the fact that prejudice plays a role, at least in some jurisdictions. In Ontario, for example, there is a different sequence of testing for someone in a ‘risk group’. And whether someone is in a risk group is prejudicial. Would Christine be considered to be in a risk group just because they’d like the test to stand a greater chance of being positive?

Posted by: David Crowe | November 18, 2007 7:28 PM

Never-a-brain writes:

No exudates were described in EJ’s reports.

It’s hard to no whether you are just an idiot, a liar or ignorant. Foamy casts are exudates and are detailed in the Coroner’s report.

All lobes show pink foamy casts in the alveoli with no inflammatory response.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 18, 2007 7:55 PM

Pat,

What do you believe scientists and physicians should do when individuals make pseudoscientific arguments to promote the points of view that HIV is harmless and that HIV-infected women should take no steps to prevent transmission to their children?

What responsibility do you believe scientists and physicians have to counter the misinformation promulgated by HIV-infected patients who have been seduced by the delusion that HIV is harmless?

. . . or to counter the misinformation promulgated by academics who distort the work of others to convince HIV-infected people that the virus is harmless?

Check out Tara’s thread on Smallpox and the Intro to Denial thread to see some of the lies and distortions posted by Maniotis and cited from Duesberg’s writings–lies and distortions pepetrated in an effort to convince the gullible that HIV is harmless.

Or check out the absurd lengths to which Michael Geiger will distort scientific findings which he seems completely incapable of understanding–all in an effort to convince the gullible that HIV is harmless.

The actions of these individuals is reprehensible.

Think about the effect these people have had on AIDS mortality in S. Africa.

Even after her child died of AIDS, the LA Times reports that Ms. Maggiore “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus.” (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

What do you think the role of scientists and physicians should be to counter these activities.

Posted by: franklin | November 18, 2007 9:42 PM

some ignoble hairbrain wrote: Foamy casts are exudates and are detailed in the Coroner’s report.

No, foamy casts are not exudates. AL Bayati’s report makes this distinction and mentions that the ME did not report exudates.

http://www.justiceforej.com/ej-medveritas.pdf

Pneumonia is a term that refers to inflammation and consolidation of the pulmonary parenchyma [3; pp566]. The microscopic examination of Eliza Jane’s lungs revealed no inflammation.

The ME did not observe any inflammatory response in the alveoli or in the interstitial tissue to justify a diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia (PCP) or any other form of pneumonia.

The lesions of PCP usually comprise an interstitial infiltrate of plasma cells and lymphocytes; an interstitial fibrosis; an interstitial diffuse alveolar damage; and hyperplasia of type II pneumocytes; the alveoli are filled with characteristic foamy exudates [3, 4].

For example, Chen et al. examined lung biopsies from twenty-three individuals who developed PCP using electron and light microscopes. Their examination showed alveolar exudate, inflammation in interstitium and alveolar space, interstitial fibrosis, and alveolar epithelial damage in all patients [4]. The ME observed none of these lesions in Eliza Jane’s case.

The presence of pericardial and pleural effusions suggests acute allergic reaction with pericardial tamponade as the cause of death. The HIV evidence was concocted after a delay of 4 months by a corrupt ME for political purposes.

Posted by: never_a_peen | November 18, 2007 9:52 PM

Never-a-brain writes

No, foamy casts are not exudates. AL Bayati’s report makes this distinction and mentions that the ME did not report exudates.

Now you have switched from ignorance to lying.

Foamy alveolar casts are exudates.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 18, 2007 10:29 PM

Pat, What do you believe scientists and physicians should do when individuals make pseudoscientific arguments to promote the points of view that HIV is harmless and that HIV-infected women should take no steps to prevent transmission to their children? What responsibility do you believe scientists and physicians have to counter the misinformation promulgated by HIV-infected patients who have been seduced by the delusion that HIV is harmless?
. . . or to counter the misinformation promulgated by academics who distort the work of others to convince HIV-infected people that the virus is harmless? Check out Tara’s thread on Smallpox and the Intro to Denial thread to see some of the lies and distortions posted by Maniotis and cited from Duesberg’s writings–lies and distortions pepetrated in an effort to convince the gullible that HIV is harmless. The actions of these individuals is reprehensible.What do you think the role of scientists and physicians should be to counter these activities.

The responsibility of scientists and physicians is to honestly inform the public that

1) toxic drugs can never eradicate a retrovirus encoded into the human genome.

2)HIV drugs have serious side effects including death.

3)The HIV patient has the final decision concerning what treatment they wish to use, whether toxic, nontoxic, or no treatment.

4) that the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis is in serious doubt 20 years after it was proposed with no animal model, no mechanism, no vaccine and no reasonable treatment. HIV science is actually pseudo-science and is in a shambles.

5) That the HIV/Aids is more a political issue than a medical science one.

6) That many HIV antibody positives do quite well for many years without toxic drugs

7)That AZT killed tens of thousands over a decade in the 1985-95 era. Why would anyone believe the medical system now?

useful books include:

Inventing the AIDs Virus by Peter Duesberg
Science Sold Out by Rebecca Culshaw
The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory by Henry Bauer

useful web site: reviewingaids dot org

Posted by: hazy_tea | November 18, 2007 10:42 PM

Can you please answer my questions too? While you formulate them
I will answer yours.

“What do you think the role of scientists and physicians should be to counter these activities.”

I can tell you what the role of scientists shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t attempt to usurp people’s right to make final medical descisions for themselves and their families no matter what scientific facts they may possess. So much is simply certain in my mind. There is no better and more efficient institution for such descision making than the “family”. To believe one can regulate to perfection the descision making precess must be one of the top 10 Utopias. To believe this is to believe in one’s own unique perfection and infalliability. If ordinary people can get it wrong so can science and I think it is beyond dispute that mistakes are human. You make far too much out of the “lies and distortions” and far too little of the intelligence of the general public. I am under the impression that you vastly under-estimate the dangers of a regulated descision making process. I would argue that history is full of examples of such legislated disasters.

One thing they CAN do is to continue cementing the foothills of that K-2 of medical evidence and let the damn thing stand on its own without the imaginary and polarizing crutches of a “war on denial”.

The NIH promotes and supports the principal of an “uncoercive environment”, alas it seems some are intent on operating outside this principle and on the outer fringes of ethical behavior by pretending there IS a “war” on thought infection and promoting a medical mini version of 1984 where all individual medical treatment can be dictated from outside the family by complete strangers.

Posted by: pat | November 18, 2007 10:49 PM

An ignoble hairbrain said Now you have switched from ignorance to lying. Foamy alveolar casts are exudates.

Cant you read?

Al Bayati’s report says ” PCP pneumonia produces alveolar exudate, inflammation in interstitium and alveolar space, interstitial fibrosis, and alveolar epithelial damage in all patients. The ME observed none of these lesions in Eliza Jane’s case.”

According to Al Bayati, although the ME reported foamy alveolar casts, they did not report “alveolar exudate, inflammation in interstitium and alveolar space, interstitial fibrosis, and alveolar epithelial damage” and therefore the pathology was unlikely to be indicative of PCP.

Posted by: never_a_peen | November 18, 2007 11:09 PM

But he’s a dog pathologist.

Posted by: Mckiernan | November 18, 2007 11:32 PM

Never-a-brain wrote:

Cant you read?

Yes, I can. Can you.

You said that the Coroner did not report exudates. He did.

Pink foamy alveolar casts are exudates that are characteristic for PCP. The GMS stained slides showed that these foamy exudates were full of PC organisms.

What Al-Bayati says is of little relevance. The man invents fantastic stories that confirm whatever his clients want to hear.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 18, 2007 11:45 PM

Correction.
Thank goodness no one ever let Al Bayati near a dog. Unfortnately, he has worked extensively with rats. I mean the little white guys in cages. Please, keep Al Bayati away from dogs!
I think I will go with the LA ME report on the Scovill baby.

Posted by: Seth Kalichman | November 18, 2007 11:49 PM

he’s a dog pathologist – which makes his title one word longer than yours.

And Noble, spare us your libelous shite, just for once will ya? Weall know who is on trial for inventing diagnoses to serve the shifting needs of the prosecutor and it ain’t Al-Bayati. No amount of AIDStruth spin can obscure that FACT!

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 19, 2007 2:08 AM

Sonce David Crowe’s fine Comment got held up in Tara’s denialist filterTM, I’ll post it once more for those in the back rows:

Posted by: David Crowe | November 18, 2007 7:28 PM

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 19, 2007 2:12 AM

And Noble, spare us your libelous shite, just for once will ya?

What happened to Al-Bayati’s fantastical parvovirus story? Where did he pull that one from? Any serology to back up his “differential diagnosis”?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 19, 2007 2:55 AM

Look at this fantastical story that Al-Bayati invented.

The inhalation of ‘poppers’ at sufficient amounts causes methemoglobinemia and severe headaches, which is then treated with aspirin. The heavy use of aspirin and alcohol cause thrombocytopenia. As well, AZT and proteases inhibitors also cause thrombocytopnea, peripheral neuropathy, and bone marrow depression. Thrombocytopenia, peripheral neuropathy are classified by the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an AIDS indicator, which is also treated with high doses of glucocorticoids that cause AIDS [1-4,7].

Poppers cause headaches. ->
Take aspirin for headaches ->
Aspirin cause thrombocytopenia. ->
Take glucocorticoids for thrombocytopenia ->
Glucocorticoids cause AIDS.

I’ve never heard such a convoluted and unbelieveable story.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 19, 2007 3:05 AM

What happened to Al-Bayati’s fantastical parvovirus story? Where did he pull that one from? Any serology to back up his “differential diagnosis”?

Fair question (for once). It looks like speculation to me as well. However, there wasn’t any serology simply because the ME wasn’t interested in pursuing this possibility, especuailly not when he had the equally fantastical HIV to blame for it all

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 19, 2007 3:29 AM

That’s what they forget, you say? Wrong, Johnny boy. The only people who forget something are you and your creepy little helpers. You all forget that a caring mother is infinitely more entitled to decide what’s good for her daughter and what not, than a bunch of drug pushers desperately trying to save their business from hell.

Let go John, don’t play that Faustian role. It may seem profitable right now, but after a while, you must pay back. Eternally. Eternity lasts a long time, broffer.

Posted by: jspreen | November 19, 2007 6:54 AM

Franklin,

Any thoughts on coercive environments?

Posted by: pat | November 19, 2007 9:22 AM

So, in summary: The denialists on this Blog accept as completely true and accurate Ms. Maggiore’s uncorroborated (and often contradictory) statements about her HIV-infection status, without having access to any evidence that her statements are true and accurate. But they will not accept that the hard, scientific facts in the LA Coroner’s report are true and accurate, despite the evidence being available for inspection. The reason for this dichotomy has nothing to do with science and medicine, it represents the denialists’ quasi-religious dogma about HIV/AIDS. The denialists operate a belief system (”Ms. Maggiore is our friend, so we believe her”), akin to the creationists in their rejection of Darwinian evolution (”God is our saviour, he speaks, we obey”), allied to conspiracy theories (”the LA Coroner works for ‘the system’, so he must be corrupt”). The absurdities of the denialists’ position is why HIV/AIDS scientists will never ‘debate’ them; it’s why our efforts go into minimizing the damage they cause to the lives and health of other people. Sometimes, the material posted on these Blogs can help in this regard.

Posted by: John Moore | November 19, 2007 12:18 PM

it represents the denialists’ quasi-religious dogma about HIV/AIDS

The fact that you have never ever showed even the slightest consideration for a mother who lost her child clearly indicates that the only religious dogma about HIV/Aids are in your own sick brain.

You and your goddamn war. Where did you get that idea in the first place, man? War? On what? For what? To serve whom? Who are you to think you have even the slightest clue about some absolute Truth?
Get away from that computer and all those people you call denialists and who keep you awake at night, John. Go for a walk in the woods, get some good fresh air and embrace a tree. That will make your day, I swear it will.

BTW, I think you respond far too much to the people you keep saying you don’t want to speak with.

Posted by: jspreen | November 19, 2007 12:50 PM

MOORE is a “useful idiot” for the denialists

Mr. Moore, you do no one any favors by engaging these people. The very fact that a scientist from a major U.S. university considers it worth responding (over and over and over) to denialist viewpoints gives them credibility they do not deserve. You are just egging them on. And your hubris in quoting Churchill is beyond belief. You, sir, have turned into an internet troll.

A. Carricci

Please. Do not discourage the incorrigible incredible Mr Moore from posting copiously here, since as noted in our challenge to him above (A Challenge to Mr Moore, held up by Tara for 12 hours till safely buried in the sequence) he has been most helpful in publishing many papers pointing out fatal flaws in the established HIV=AIDS paradigm.

We support Mr Moore fully in his strenuous publicizing of the fact that he not only has no answers to the “denialist” cliams but actually supports them in his papers.

Now that Harvey Bialy has retired from the fray, we count Mr Moore the leading denialist in HIV=AIDS. Not only does he deny that the “denialists” have a case, he denies that the paradigm makes sense.

In other words, Mr Moore is a brave man – a closet dissident who tells his secret in the light of day. That is why he deserves the Lasker, if not the Nobel.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 19, 2007 1:33 PM

> Stell dir vor es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin

Literally translates to: Imagine it is war and nobody shows up. This was the rallying cry of the German peace movement in the eighties.
The quote was often attributed to a poem written by Berthold Brecht, for Brecht was the most famous German poet of the 20th century, and dropping his name sounded important. In reality it is really a – rather vague – German translation of this sentence from Carl Sandburg’s epic poem “The People,Yes”:”Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.”

The real Brecht poem is very different:
Wer zu Hause bleibt, wenn der Kampf beginnt, und lÃ¤ÃŸt andere kÃ¤mpfen fÃ¼r seine Sache, der muÃŸ sich vorsehen: Denn wer den Kampf nicht geteilt hat, der wird teilen die Niederlage. Nicht einmal Kampf vermeidet, wer den Kampf vermeiden will, denn er wird kÃ¤mpfen fÃ¼r die Sache des Feindes, wer fÃ¼r seine eigene Sache nicht gekÃ¤mpft hat.”

Translation:
Who stays at home, when the fighting begins, and relies on others to fight for his cause, should beware: Because who has not shared the fight will share the defeat. The one who wants to avoid the fight will not even avoid fighting, because the one who doesn’t fight for his own cause will end up fighting for the enemy.
(Forgive my less than perfect translation; my English is not as good as Brecht’s German.)
This is the exact opposite of pacifism, it is a call to arms, an outcry against appeasement.

That the deniers (ab)use quotes by turning their meaning into its opposite and by manipulating a text by inserting false quotes says a lot about their mentality.

Posted by: johannes | November 19, 2007 1:46 PM

No Mr Moore,

Your quasi-religious dogma about who “denialists” are is at the root of your nonsensical tirades. Maggiore may very well have HIV, EJ may very well have died of AIDS but such is not MY point.

You dogmatically hold on to the belief that Maggiore is criminally profiting from HIV/AIDS at the expense of her children. You bring ZERO evidence of “profiteering” and you bring ZERO evidence that Maggiore even fits the profile of such a predator. You indeed deliver a perfect conspiracy theory yourself that strains belief.
Also you publicly stated Maggiore should go to jail for her descisions and you refuse to answer whether this lives up to the principal of an “uncoercive environment”.

Muttering such threats and fabricating webs of lies about a private individual’s integrity in effect nullify our perception of our freedom of choice by limiting the very definition of what we have a “right” to choose. Choose right or go straight to jail?

Inspite of all the evidence given by neighbours, community workers, teachers and health professionals attesting to her sterling qualifications as a caring mother and ignoring the fact that no charges of neglect ever materialised, you choose to continue peddling your half truths and discredited conspiracy theories for obvious political reasons. Maggiore is not proof HIV causes AIDS nor is it proof it doesn’t. Arguments along those lines are obviously pointless. Maggiore is living proof of the dangers of politico-scientific over-reach into the private lives and legal rights of individuals at large.

Your gratuitous definition of “denialist” is as accurate as the definition of “mother fucker”.

Posted by: pat | November 19, 2007 2:00 PM

Stell dir vor es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin.

Thank you Johannes for your insightfull historical presentation of the “origines” of “the quote”.

The problem is that looking too far for “meaning” will make one overlook the simple truth that is actualy delivered in the form of these very simple words as they are presented, “devoid” of constructed context.

“Stell dir vor es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin”

the peace cry is unmistakeable.

I am sorry you fell for the actual war cry though and inadvertantly (or not) fired a full broadside charge of “denialist” grape shot onto my decks without bothering to indentify who you are shooting at. What am I denying again?

Posted by: pat | November 19, 2007 2:25 PM

I can’t believe this thread is still active!

For those who are stilling following along with their score cards, here is a good summary of what constitutes pseudoscience:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

pat, jspreen MEC, any of those ring a bell?

Then, there are those who have big balls and are pedigreed! (You know who you are!)

Posted by: ildi | November 19, 2007 4:04 PM

But they will not accept that the hard, scientific facts in the LA Coroner’s report are true and accurate, despite the evidence being available for inspection.

Silly little and diminishing by the minute homunculus, what ARE you talking about? Who does not accept the hard facts in the coroner’s report? The hard facts are, presence of teacup shaped organisms, ZERO evidence of fulminating or severe pneumonia.

But if the evidence is available for inspection, maybe you, Prof. Moore, can provide a link to the GMS stained slides, which I’m sure you have examined minutely?

Btw. when are you going to write two consecutive sentences – forget about whole arguments – that don’t contradict each other, or at a minimum don’t contain at least one lie?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 19, 2007 4:36 PM

“For those who are stilling following along with their score cards, here is a good summary of what constitutes pseudoscience:

pat, jspreen MEC, any of those ring a bell?”

What pseudoscience are you talking about? Do you even know what my disagreement is?

Posted by: pat | November 19, 2007 6:01 PM

Pat,

You asked me if I feel that the response to Ms. Maggiore has led to a “coercive” environment for health care decisions.

To my knowledge, Ms. Maggiore has never sought medical care from Drs. Moore, Bergman, or Wainberg. I know of no Doctor-Patient Relationship that exists between any of these individuals and Ms. Maggiore.

To my knowledge, nothing that these individuals say publicly or privately about Ms. Maggiore can be construed as having anything to do with the relationships that exist between Ms. Maggiore and her chosen health care providers.

Whether the conditions under which Ms. Maggiore receives medical advice from her physicians are “coercive” or “non-coercive” has nothing to do with the publicly stated opinions of private citizens.

It’s not as if these individuals are picketing outside the clinic where Ms. Maggiore receives her health care.

Ms. Maggiore chose to publicly discuss her health issues and to promote the views that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and that antiretroviral therapies are ineffective and dangerous, especially with respect to preventing perinatal transmission of the infection.

As I previously explained to Cooler on another thread:

I am a firm believer in free speech. I think people should be free to speak their minds. But if individuals use lies and distortions rather than honest arguments based on sound logic, they shouldn’t scream censorship when mainstream society ignores them. And when they use their lies and distortions to attempt to influence important personal, financial, or medical decisions of others, they should expect to be harshly criticized.

Based upon your earlier post, you seem to think that the only appropriate response to AIDS denialism by scientists and physicians is to:

continue cementing the foothills of that K-2 of medical evidence and let the damn thing stand on its own without the imaginary and polarizing crutches of a “war on denial”.

Pat, no amount of scientific evidence will ever convince the HIV denialists to stop spreading their dangerous lies–their position is not based on scientific evidence nor is it subject to correction by experiment. To simply retreat to the lab or to the clinic would be to shirk our responsibility to counter the false information that HIV denialists are feeding to the public.

As Chomsky stated:

It is the responsibility of individuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.

You seem to think that because Ms. Maggiore is infected with HIV or because her daughter died of AIDS that physicians and scientists should turn a blind eye to her promotion of pseudoscientific views that endanger the public health. You imply that because it is unseemly to criticize a grieving mother, Ms. Maggiore’s views and actions should not be criticized.

I feel that Ms. Maggiore’s story is a prime example of why scientists and physicians need to counter the pseudoscientific advice of HIV denialists. I have read that Ms. Maggiore’s views were strongly influenced by a conversation she had with Dr. Duesberg in the mid-1990’s. The death of Ms. Maggiore’s daughter provides a graphic illustration of the duty physicians and scientists have to vigorously oppose the flawed and dangerous views of HIV denialists such as Dr. Duesberg.

According to the LA Times, even after her daughter died of AIDS, Ms. Maggiore “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus.” (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

You do not seem to have any issue with people counseling pregnant women that HIV is harmless and they shouldn’t worry about passing the infection on to their children.

I disagree. I disagree even when the advice is given by an HIV-infected woman whose daughter died of AIDS.

Posted by: franklin | November 19, 2007 6:58 PM

What exactly do you think “pink foamy alveolar casts” are?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 19, 2007 6:59 PM

Franklin,
You ask what are scientists to do but here you don’t even explain what it is you do. You vaguely describe your activities as “opposing dangerous views”.

“According to the LA Times, even after her daughter died of AIDS, Ms. Maggiore “said she continues to counsel HIV-positive parents around the country about how to keep from using anti-retroviral drugs during childbirth and from giving medications to children who have tested positive for the virus.” (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/2005/LT051205.html)

You do not seem to have any issue with people counseling pregnant women that HIV is harmless and they shouldn’t worry about passing the infection on to their children.”

Why do you quote the NY times so often when you can’t even discern from the text what it is she does (supposedly):
The NY times says she counsels on how to keep from using drugs. You translate that as counseling that HIV is harmless. That is a misrepresentation. I have never been to one of her meetings nor have you. There are many people who opt not to take the medicines and it is their right; it is enshrined in the law. It is their right to weight the known and unknown risks of side effects against the known and unknown risks of transmission and it is their right to recieve all information on all treatment options and non-treatment options in an uncoercive environment. These extra curricular activities that you so vaguely describe do nothing to instill a sense of professionalism and at their worst create the false impression that people do not have full discretion when weighing treatement “options” and that their descisions are somehow prescribed by law. This is false. It is implied coersion.

“I feel that Ms. Maggiore’s story is a prime example of why scientists and physicians need to counter the pseudoscientific advice of HIV denialists”

The only counter evidence needed is K-2. We don’t need fabrications about dark profit motives so obviously false.

why don’t you sneak into one of her meetings and catch her in flagranti giving medical advice. That should settle it.

Posted by: pat | November 19, 2007 8:45 PM

Pat,

Do you think that patients have a right to receive accurate information?

Or do you condone the practice of using false or misleading information to influence other people’s health decisions?

Posted by: franklin | November 19, 2007 10:37 PM

What exactly do you think “pink foamy alveolar casts” are?

I was rather hoping you would produce the evidence, which is freely available according to John Moore, and explain it to me.

Whether HIV+ people choose to follow the advice of their health care providers or not has nothing to do with the publicly stated opinions of private citizens such a Christine Maggiore, Pat or myself, so what’s your problem Franklin? Would it be the problem of stringing two arguments together that are not mutually contradicting?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 19, 2007 10:40 PM

Pat,

Here is a typical argument from Ms. Maggiore:

Prior to beginning AZT treatment, Kimberly [Bergalis] was not seriously ill. She had a yeast infection-a common occurrence possibly caused in her case by antibiotics taken after dental work, and pneumonia. Some 30,000 HIV negative Americans die each year from pneumonia-pneumonia happens and is not uncommon among college age people like Kimberly who often “burn the candle at both endsÃ“ through study, work, partying, lack of adequate sleep and nutrition.

Once Kimberly started taking daily doses of AZT chemotherapy, she wasted away like a typical chemotherapy recipient. She lost weight, muscle mass, her hair and her appetite; she developed rashes, acne and neuropathy to the degree she could hardly walk. If you check a medical dictionary or the Merck Manual, you will find Kimberly Bergalis suffering described most succinctly as side effects of DNA chain terminating chemotherapy treatment.
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/rethinking/rethinkfaqkimberg.html

Do you endorse that argument?

Do you think that physicians and scientists should remain silent when an individual makes such arguments in support of the thesis that HIV is harmless and that pregnant women should take no steps to prevent transmission of the virus to their babies?

Posted by: franklin | November 19, 2007 11:09 PM

Sorry MEC,

I don’t see what your argument has to do with mine:

Posted by: franklin | November 19, 2007 11:13 PM

Hey MEC,

I know it must be hard for you to read with your head buried so deeply in the sand, but if you’re interested in the relationship between the intra-alveolar exudates and intra-alveolar casts of PCP you might want to check out this site:

Respiratory Cytopathology–Infections (By: Mark Stevens CFIAC, Principal Medical Scientist,Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide, Australia 5000)

He shows some pictures illustrating the cytopathology of PCP, and describes the intra-alveolar exudate:

The intra-alveolar exudate associated with the organism is an important aid to diagnosis.
This exudate appears as a three dimensional cast with a honeycomb appearance. The casts have smooth borders and are usually packed with organisms.

So “exudates” and “casts” are synonyms for the hyaline intra-alveolar material that is characteristic of PCP, just like Chris Noble tried to explain to ne’er_a_peen.

He also mentions that the “cup-shaped cysts of P. carinii are best demonstrated with GMS,” precisely the stain used by the Coroner in the Scovill autopsy.

I know that you probably aren’t surprised by your own ignorance of this basic knowledge–but doesn’t it make you wonder about Al-Bayati, the so-called “expert” that Ms. Maggiore asked to review the pathology report and slides?

If the intra-alveolar exudate of PCP “appears as a three dimensional cast,” and the Coroner reported that “all lobes show pink foamy casts in the alveoli,” how could Al-Bayati report that the “the ME observed none of these lesions in Eliza Jane’s case?”

Could it be that he knows as little about the pathology of PCP as you do?

Perhaps he simply has his head buried as deeply in the sand as you do, although he may be more well-compensated for the inconvenience.

Maybe you could start charging $22,000 for reading an autopsy report.

Posted by: franklin | November 20, 2007 12:13 AM

He also mentions that the “cup-shaped cysts of P. carinii are best demonstrated with GMS,” precisely the stain used by the Coroner in the Scovill autopsy.

And more importantly he states Cysts and trophozoites are not demonstrated with the H & E or the PAP stain.

So when Al-Bayati shows the H&E stained slides and says there is no evidence of PCP he is being deliberately deceptive.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 20, 2007 12:29 AM

It should also be pointed out that th every reference textbook that Al-Bayati cites in his Medical UnVeritas article has nice micrographs of PC stained with an appropriate stain.

Pathology. Second edition, edited by Rubin E and Farber JL. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pensylvania, 1994.

It is hard to put down Al-Bayati’s errors to ignorance. It has to be willful deception.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 20, 2007 12:34 AM

No, they should not remain silent. They should very seriously take the arguments in account and, instead of behaving in some superior “You stupid denialist, I won’t neither listen nor talk to you because that would only dignify your position” manner, see if they hold. And of course they hold. So many patients have had the same reaction “Hey! I fell ill only after I started to take the drugs”, to remain silent and ignore them is plain stupid and even more: To do it now, in the year 2007, after twenty years of growing opposition to the official HIV=Aids version, is criminal.

Posted by: jspreen | November 20, 2007 2:26 AM

“Do you endorse that argument?

“Do you think that physicians and scientists should remain silent when an individual makes such arguments in support of the thesis that HIV is harmless and that pregnant women should take no steps to prevent transmission of the virus to their babies?”

Again Franklin, you cannot read the words presented to you; that is an argument in support of the argument that these drugs have toxic side effects. Is the war so close to being lost that you can’t counter with facts anymore? You need to counter with a fabricated charge of AIDS profiteering and child neglect, eh?

Posted by: pat | November 20, 2007 4:33 AM

“Pat,

Do you think that patients have a right to receive accurate information?”

Didn’t I just say so?

“Or do you condone the practice of using false or misleading information to influence other people’s health decisions?”

Do you have evidence Maggiore is coercing people into not getting a second opinion?

Posted by: pat | November 20, 2007 4:36 AM

While on the topic of African AIDS estimates…

U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic
Population With Virus Overstated by Millions

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 20, 2007; A01

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 19 — The United Nations’ top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement.

AIDS remains a devastating public health crisis in the most heavily affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. But the far-reaching revisions amount to at least a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long leveled by outside researchers who disputed the U.N. portrayal of an ever-expanding global epidemic.

The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Wednesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year’s estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV — estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising — now will be reported as 33 million.

Posted by: pat | November 20, 2007 5:00 AM

A. Carricci,

Your attack against Prof. Moore (and the readers of this blog) is unjustified. It just show that you are against public understanding of AIDS/HIV science.

To don’t have any more the disgust to see AIDS/HIV science explained to laymen, I strongly suggest that you switch off your computer and stay in your ivory tower.

Posted by: Braganza | November 20, 2007 5:23 AM

“exudates” and “casts” are synonyms for the hyaline intra-alveolar material that is characteristic of PCP, just like Chris Noble tried to explain to ne’er_a_peen . . . If the intra-alveolar exudate of PCP “appears as a three dimensional cast,” and the Coroner reported that “all lobes show pink foamy casts in the alveoli,” how could Al-Bayati report that the “the ME observed none of these lesions in Eliza Jane’s case?”
Could it be that he knows as little about the pathology of PCP as you do? (Franklin)

It is hard to put down Al-Bayati’s errors to ignorance. It has to be willful deception (Noble)

I can see you are mighty impressed with yourselves gentlemen. Unfortunately the distinction to be made is not between “cast” and “exudate” but between “foamy exudate” and “lesion”. In this case the simplest hypothesis – the one science teaches us to explore first – is that the problem arises as usual because of your exceptionally poor reading skills. Here is what Al-Bayati refers to as
“lesions”:

He speaks in the same context about the alveolar exudate separated from the enumeration of the (other) lesions lesion by a mere semicolon instead of a full stop, which might be sufficient to confuse inexpert readers such as yourselves. But elsewhere Al-Bayati clearly states that the ME DID find this, but ONLY this, indication of PCP:

The ME stated that all lobes show pink foamy casts in the alveoli with no inflammatory response. The ME’s observation clearly indicate that Eliza Jane did not suffer from pneumonia.

Al-Bayati very, very clearly does not contest the ME’s observations about the pink foamy casts, only his conclusions. Here again he states what was NOT found – note “foamy exudates” or “casts” are NOT among the things mentioned as NOT found:

The microscopic examination of Eliza Jane’s lungs revealed no inflammation. The ME did not observe any inflammatory response in the alveoli or in the interstitial tissue to justify a diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia (PCP) or any other form of pneumonia.

So to sum up what AL-Bayati calls “lesions” are those given in the first quote above, foamy exudate being excepted.

I am not going to accuse eiher of you of wilfully misleading us, though, since there’s plenty evidence you are simply illiterate morons.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 20, 2007 8:44 AM

Do you think that patients have a right to receive accurate information?

I think everybody agrees on that. The problem is though that the people who think they have accurate information more often than not know next to nothing about disease. Which is why the best thing they can do is just shut up, unless, of course, they have good news to share.

Posted by: jspreen | November 20, 2007 9:15 AM

I can see you are mighty impressed with yourselves gentlemen. Unfortunately the distinction to be made is not between “cast” and “exudate” but between “foamy exudate” and “lesion”.

Up above you (or whoever goes by the moniker Never-a-brain) said that the Coroner’s report did not mention exudates. You specifically referred to exudates. Now rather than admitting to being wrong you launch into another fruitless mindnumbing word game with logic that is only apparent to yourself.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 20, 2007 6:14 PM

Dr. Noble,

The fact that by your logic “denialists” are all the same doesn’t make me never-a-peen. Or expressed in a language you science geniuses might be able to read, there is no known homology between never-a-peen and myself, thus no basis for this illegitimate template switching in your attempts to cover up the fact you can’t read everyday prose.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 20, 2007 6:46 PM

Thank you MEC for clarifying the above description, elevating the discussion above the moronic level of the ignoble one (aka the illiterate moron). The clinical course decribed was that of sudden cardiac arrest after amoxicillin. The pulmonary findings were not sufficient to cause hypoxia and/or cardiac arrest. Rather the pericadial and pleural effusion represented a sudden fluid shift from an allergic reaction to the administered drug, as suggested by Al Bayati.

Posted by: nevere-a-peen | November 20, 2007 7:27 PM

What were those various comments from AIDS denialists like MEC and his/her buddies, earlier on the thread, criticizing non-physicians for allegedly offering medical advice to Noreen over the internet (advice like “consult a qualified physician”)? So now we have the sad and sorry spectacle of non-pathologists like MEC and never-a-brain offering their views over the internet on complex issues of medical science (pathology, and disease pathogenesis) on which they know nothing, and on which they are not qualified to have a meaningful opinion. That the likes of MEC and never-a-brain seem to think that they can second-guess a trained, qualified, government-certified pathologist and medical examiner (and his colleagues) who prepared the official Coroner’s report is hubris on a staggering scale. But of course AIDS denialists live in a fantasy world of conspiracy theories and cover-ups, a world in which they can pretend to be significant experts on important scientific issues. The REAL world, fortunately, is a very different place, and it is a world in which the AIDS denialists always lose what passes for their “arguments”. Which is what will happen, once again, when AIDS denialists appear in court in Ms. Maggiore’s legal action. Of course, this assume that the judge doesn’t just toss the lawsuit out at some stage, on the grounds of its inherent frivolity. This is what happened in the Silvah case, of course, a case in which I had the privilege of assisting the defense as an expert witness, and in which the ludicrous nature of Duesberg’s deposition was of great assistance to the judge in his decision to throw the case out before it went any further. Incidentally, the denialists might like to know that the legal fees paid to the defense’s expert witnesses were spent, in large part, on purchasing Nevirapine for distribution to South African, HIV-infected, pregnant women. Thus, something good did come of the Silvah case after all. If the same thing happens again, in the Maggiore case, it would provide the perfect, and notably ironic, closure – the AIDS death of one poor child helping to save many others from the same fate.

Posted by: John Moore | November 20, 2007 8:26 PM

LOL! Why am I not surprised the illustrious Prof Moore considers himself the distributor of Poetic Justice, a wholly theological concept?

I don’t now if even Chris Noble was fooled by Moore’s introduction: I am second-guessing neither Ribe nor Al-Bayati, merely helping those in sore need understand the plain words of the latter.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 20, 2007 8:46 PM

“criticizing non-physicians for allegedly offering medical advice to Noreen over the internet (advice like “consult a qualified physician”)?”

You were criticited for making death prophecies and you know that.

Why don’t you post Duesberg’s testimony?

“when AIDS denialists appear in court in Ms. Maggiore’s legal action.”

What legal action?

Posted by: pat | November 20, 2007 9:16 PM

Dr Moore,

I have just read your statement in the Silvah case.
In paragraph 7 you give the UN aids figs as an example of how destructive HIV?AIDS is , now that the UN has re stated those figs, I presume you will now retract that statement.

You have given a statement to the court that was obviously false.

Also you have not replied to my question of what you will do
when it his proven that Eliza did not die of an AIDS condiiton.

Posted by: kyle | November 20, 2007 9:52 PM

Dear Kylie Minogue, given the time difference between here and where you live in Australia, you must have missed my earlier general statement on this thread to the effect that I do not ever answer any questions asked of me by any AIDS denialist. That particularly applies to you, as your posts rank alongside “cooler’s’s in respect of their extreme silliness.

Posted by: John Moore | November 20, 2007 10:36 PM

at least I have big balls and the big heart.
John youve repeateatdly debated with denialists like Noreen on this blog so youve broken your oath, so youve lost your honor.

Duesberg , Lo, mullis, strohman, these are the real people history will anoint them as galileo’s, especially shyh ching Lo md phd the militarys most distingushed infectious disease pathologist, the only scientist since Koch to discover a microbe mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans that killed/sickened every animal injected (mice, monkeys, chimps embryos, and didnt find it in one healthy control. My question to you and Tara is why do you deny this and not raise more awareness about this infection that can masqeurade as many illnesses?

Dont tell me it was a contaminant, contaminents dont cause fatal wasting diseases in mice/monkeys and contaminents are not visible in patients tissues by the EM, as Lo saw it in tissues with the EM. Researchers at the university of alabama concluded it was a novel strain when they inoculated in the trachea of rats and found it to be very invasive vs the ordinary strain of MF.

Dont tell me about antibody testing either, the monkeys that died only had a weak antibody response when near death. Nicolson has found it by PCR in many cases misdiagnosed as CFS etc…………as you people always blame us for being denialists that cost lives, I hearby call out Tara and JP moore etc as denialists as well, for not raising more awareness of lo and nicolsons work, they are mycoplasma denialists that are costing peoples lives, all we rethinkers want is full informed consent for patients, not only hearing drug company and CDC propaganda.

All refrences provided above. Project day lily google it

Posted by: cooler | November 20, 2007 11:13 PM

Prof Moore,

I have noticed something rather disturbing: denialist status has nothing to do with one’s belief but solely with the subjects one asks questions about. Thus Kyle gets no answer about the revised UN stats simply because they are revised downwards.

Prof. Moore, my mum knows nothing about HIV/AIDS, doesn’t give shit one way or the other either. She is completely apolitical. If I get her to post my questions would she be a denialist as well?

Switching. . . .

Hi Prof Moore, I am Molecular Entry Claw’s mother. I don’t really understand what is going on but my son tells me it has long been well known that pregnancy is one of the main causes of false positive HIV tests and that you should know that. Why then are you lending your authority as a scientist to national statistics calculated on basis of test results from pregnant women:

India, once believed to have the largest HIV-positive population of any country in the world, today announced that new, more accurate surveillance data suggest India has about 2.5 million people living with HIV – about half the number estimated by UNAIDS based on previous surveys of HIV prevalence among pregnant women.

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/C216549D-65B8-483D-8C84-D513A22900B6.asp

PS. I see you react to a Commenter named Kyle by calling him Kylie Minogue, then announces that HE is silly. . .

Please grow up.

Best wishes

MEC’s Mum

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 21, 2007 4:01 AM

Dear MEC’s mother.

The denialists like to quote a letter from A. Voevodin Lancet. 1992;339:1548 as evidence that HIV tests are very inaccurate.

In 1991 29.4 million HIV tests were done of which approximately 7.4 million were pregant women. The number of false positives in pregant women from a single ELISA was 8000 (note none of these women were diagnosed HIV positive on the basis of a single ELISA). That still gives a specificity of about 99.89% compared to 99.90% for the general population. If pregnancy causes false positives it does so at a very low rate.

I would advise you to closely monitor your son’s internet activities. Perhaps you could install some netnanny software.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 21, 2007 6:24 AM

Dear Dr. Noble,

Is it just the case then that pregnant women are all HIV positive? I mean if they are positive, their husbands, boyfriends and children must be as well I should think. So how could the test results from this group cause such gigantic errors in the HIV stats?

In fact, and this goes to the nice Prof. Moore as well, I’ve been following Dr. Noble’s advice, and am shocked to see that I as a monogamous married woman am at greatest risk of all of acquiring HIV infection. I am quite shocked, so I hope you have advice for me. Should I go on chemo-prophylaxis?

“BANGKOK (AFP) – Married people accounted for more than 40 percent of all new cases of HIV/AIDS in Thailand last year, the country’s health ministry said Thursday, despite an overall decrease in infections” (Google Alert, 12 October 2007).

“UN warns of Thai housewife HIV/AIDS crisis”, Apiradee Treerutkuarkul www.bangkokpost.com/News/21Aug2007_news12.php
“In Thailand, up to 40% of the 18,000 new cases found each year are housewives, which was previously identified as a low-risk group. . . . The number was high compared to so-called high-risk groups, such as men having sex with men (28%) and sex workers (10%)…. the situation has worsened in Papua New Guinea, where half of new AIDS cases are housewives. Housewives also account for at least 46% of all new cases in Cambodia”

“Press Release: Secretariat of The Pacific Community – SPC
SPC headquarters, Noumea, New Caledonia, Thursday May 31, 2007: Women are most at risk of contracting HIV from the men they should trust the most – their husbands….
This was the sobering message delivered to delegates at the 10th Triennial of Pacific Women, being held at Secretariat of the Pacific Community headquarters in New Caledonia.”

“‘Uganda: Rising HIV infection – where did we lose it?’”, by Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, New Vision (Kampala), 12 December 2006; http://allafrica.com/stories/200612130724.html
[Earlier, government programs had led to] significant behaviour change, especially among the young generation, by delaying sex, reducing the number of sexual partners, using condoms, testing for their HIV status and seeking improved health services. . . . The 2005 HIV survey by the Ministry of Health shows . . . married couples and rich women . . . to be at high risk.”

“‘Married couples top HIV infection rates in Uganda’, Kampala, 4 December 2006 (Xinhua);
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-04 19:19:03
Apuuli Kihumuro, the director general of the Uganda AIDS Commission said . . . [that] between 1996 and 2005, 42 percent of the 130,000 HIV new infections occurred within wedlock. . . . [presumably] caused by unawareness of their HIV status, engaging in sex with multiple partners and their reluctance to use condoms. [Whereas] ‘The low rates of infection among the youth and unmarried people according to the findings are ascribed to their vigilance in having protected sex’”.

“New Vision (Kampala) 3 July 2007, reported by Fred Ouma
A detailed analysis of the 2004/05 Uganda HIV/AIDS Sero-Behaviourial Survey revealed the need to refocus HIV preventive measures to married people. . . . According to the survey, from an estimated 1.1 million Ugandans living with HIV/AIDS, married people were identified as the most risky group…. Contrary to the common perception that young people were at the greatest risk of HIV infection, the report shows an unprecedented shift, with 74% of new infection among people above 25 years of age. Only 10% of new infections were recorded among single people during the period of the study. New infections were highest (66%) among married, followed by 20% in widowed or divorced.”

” ‘A look at HIV – where are we now?’ Sabin Russell, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 August 2006;
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/13/MNGSNKHMRQ1.DTL
In India, for example, 80 percent of women infected with HIV are monogamous married women. ‘The fastest rates of infection are among housewives and young women, because the men who go to sex workers also go home’”

“For a growing number of women in rural Mexico – and around the world – marital sex represents their single greatest risk for HIV infection. . . . because marital infidelity by men is so deeply ingrained across many cultures . . . . These findings are published in the June 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. . . . The article’s lead author, Jennifer S. Hirsch, PhD, associate professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, is principal investigator on a large comparative study showing that the inevitability of men’s infidelity in marriage is true across cultures. . . . in rural Mexico . . . in rural New Guinea and southeastern Nigeria” (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/marital-sex-biggest-hiv-risk-women-around-world-13170.html)

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw’s Mum | November 21, 2007 7:02 AM

Dear Dr. Noble,

In fact, and this goes to the nice Prof. Moore as well, I’ve been following Dr. Noble’s advice and checked up on my useless son’s internet activities. I must say I was shocked when I found that I, as a monogamous married woman, am at greatest risk of all of acquiring HIV infection. I hope you have advice for me, Prof Moore. Should I go on chemoprophylaxis?

“UN warns of Thai housewife HIV/AIDS crisis”, Apiradee Treerutkuarkul “In Thailand, up to 40% of the 18,000 new cases found each year are housewives, which was previously identified as a low-risk group. . . . The number was high compared to so-called high-risk groups, such as men having sex with men (28%) and sex workers (10%)…. the situation has worsened in Papua New Guinea, where half of new AIDS cases are housewives. Housewives also account for at least 46% of all new cases in Cambodia”

“‘Uganda: Rising HIV infection – where did we lose it?’”, by Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, New Vision (Kampala), 12 December 2006; [Earlier, government programs had led to] significant behaviour change, especially among the young generation, by delaying sex, reducing the number of sexual partners, using condoms, testing for their HIV status and seeking improved health services. . . . The 2005 HIV survey by the Ministry of Health shows . . . married couples and rich women . . . to be at high risk.”

” ‘A look at HIV – where are we now?’ Sabin Russell, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 August 2006;

In India, for example, 80 percent of women infected with HIV are monogamous married women. ‘The fastest rates of infection are among housewives and young women, because the men who go to sex workers also go home’”

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw’s Mum | November 21, 2007 7:07 AM

“Dear Kylie Minogue, given the time difference between here and where you live in Australia, you must have missed my earlier general statement on this thread to the effect that I do not ever answer any questions asked of me by any AIDS denialist. That particularly applies to you, as your posts rank alongside “cooler’s’s in respect of their extreme silliness.

Posted by: John Moore | November 20, 2007 10:36 PM ”

Can someone count how often JP Moore came along just to repeat that he won’t explain himself?

Play it again Sam!

Posted by: pat | November 21, 2007 7:59 AM

My husband recently had his fourth HIV test, the last three were for insurance reasons and all of his tests are HIV-Negative. Surely, if I have 100,000 viral load then he in theory should be in danger. But in reality I don’t have anywhere near that number due to it being hyped-up by a math formula. Another attempt to “scare” the public into believing that HIV is deadly. John Boy, we rethinkers live in reality and to all of the inconsistencies of the HIV theory. We at least acknowledge them where most of you bury your head in the sand and try to beat your drums louder to drown us out.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 21, 2007 8:00 AM

Sexual mores are assumed based on HIV test results? Who woulda thunk!

Posted by: pat | November 21, 2007 8:10 AM

That the likes of MEC and never-a-brain seem to think that they can second-guess a trained, qualified, government-certified pathologist and medical examiner (and his colleagues) who prepared the offou areicial Coroner’s report is hubris on a staggering scale.

Dear who-ever-you-are,

The pericardial and pleural effusions were described by the ME, so there is no second guessing here. The clinical course was also described by the ME and Al Bayati. No second guessing here. The ME concluded PCP and HIV. Al Bayati concluded allergic reaction to Amoxicillin with shock and cardiovascular collapse.

The pleural and pericardial fluid described by the ME supports Al BAyati’s conclusion. Acute Pericardial Tamponade was probably the cause of hypotension and cardiac arrest. The pulmonary findings were insufficient to produce cardiovascular collapse. This is not wild speculation or conspiracy thoery. Its common sense.

Of course, the good professor has no medical training so cannot understand any of it.

By the way, you really hurt my feelings. My name is never-a-peen which rhymes with nevirapine, not never-a-brain which doesn’t rhyme with anything. Try something that rhymes with deadly toxic hiv drug.

If you want names, we can call you a few. But its already been done, and all the names are out there, so why bother?

Posted by: never_a_peen | November 21, 2007 8:19 AM

“You must have missed my earlier general statement on this thread to the effect that I do not ever answer any questions asked of me by any AIDS denialist.”

Professor Moore, you really are a lot of fun. I mean being so predictable and everything. As Truthseeker has so astutely pointed out, you’re the denialists’ best friend! And thanks to our gracious host Tara – who’s nice enough not to shut us down – we compile on the world wide web the substantive questions you refuse to answer.

Here’s another one from a student puzzled by a biochemical paradox. How can quasispecies hypercycles according to Eigen be reconciled with lentiviruses according to Foley?

Posted by: Mr. Natural | November 21, 2007 9:43 AM

From a letter to Clinton (4/3/00), we can see how Mbeki anticipated this very thread.

EXCERPTS: … It is obvious that whatever lessons we have to and may draw from the West about the grave issue of HIV/AIDS, a simple superimposition of Western experience on African reality would be absurd and illogical.

Such proceeding would constitute a criminal betrayal of our responsibility to our own people. It was for this reason that I spoke as I did in our parliament, in the manner in which I have indicated.

I am convinced that our urgent task is to respond to the specific threat that faces us as Africans. We will not eschew this obligation in favour of the comfort of the recitation of a catechism that may very well be a correct response to the specific manifestation of AIDS in the West.

We will not, ourselves, condemn our own people to death by giving up the search for specific and targeted responses to the specifically African incidence of HIV/AIDS.

I make these comments because our search for these specific and targeted responses is being stridently condemned by some in our country and the rest of the world as constituting a criminal abandonment of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Some elements of this orchestrated campaign of condemnation worry me very deeply.

It is suggested, for instance, that there are some scientists who are “dangerous and discredited” with whom nobody, including ourselves, should communicate or interact.

In an earlier period of human history, these would be burnt at the stake!

( . . . )

The scientists we are supposed to put into scientific quarantine include Nobel Prize winners, Members of Academies of Science and Emeritus Professors of various disciplines of medicine!

Scientists, in the name of science, are demanding that we should cooperate with them to freeze scientific discourse on HIV/AIDS at the specific point this discourse had reached in the West in 1984.

People who otherwise would fight very hard to defend the critically important rights of freedom of thought and speech occupy, with regard to the HIV/AIDS issue, the frontline in the campaign of intellectual intimidation and terrorism which argues that the only freedom we have is to agree with what they decree to be established scientific truths.

Some agitate for these extraordinary propositions with a religious fervor born by a degree of fanaticism, which is truly frightening.

( . . . )

It is most strange that all of us seem ready to serve the cause of the fanatics by deciding to stand and wait.

Posted by: Mr. Natural | November 21, 2007 9:52 AM

Master, Slave and Outlaw

Some time ago a person got very angry with me. My short story Twenty-first Century Love hadn’t pleased her at all and she had decided that I belonged to the very wrong, the very lost and the very dangerous. How dare I question the established Aids truth without ever questioning myself? A day or so later she allowed me to surface from the abyss of miserable shame and sent me the answer to her devastating question: I suffered from what is called in French a “dÃ©lire hyper-logique”. From her message I learned many things. For example, a “Hyper-logic delirium” is a systemized delirium, meaning that the fool’s craziness is not senseless but, on the contrary, very coherent and logical. It may even convince perfectly normal people. Which implies that today a person who provides formal proof for just about anything can be persecuted as a dangerous dissident for being too logical. The trick is just to consider the initial idea as delirious.

Dissidents of all sorts, behold! Say you watch a 9/11 video. You see a building with a very small hole caused by a very big aircraft. The aircraft has left no trace whatsoever. You want to say something to the person next to you. Like: “Hey! It’s insane! The approach is impossible! The hole is far too small! I can’t se no plane debris, it’s a lie, there never was a Boeing-752!” Don’t. Hyper-logic delirium. You’ll be called a conspiracy theorist and you may end up in an asylum.
Although, the conspiracy theorists item, if you really give it a closer look, you must admit that it’s not that simple. As a matter of fact, very few conspiracy theorists really end up in an asylum. Did you ever wonder why so few of them are ever severely persecuted? No? You should. You did? Never found an answer, did you? But I have figured it all out, listen.

HIV, the virus that causes Aids. The 9/11 commission report. The unavoidable “Don’t ask if, ask when” avian flu pandemic. The invasion of Iraq. The hype against Iran. You name it. Conspiracies? Let me laugh. They’re a joke compared to the one and only superior and ultimate conspiracy, code name GPS-GPS. Global Population Survey using the Global Positioning System. There you have the real thing.
But the guys behind the scene must be absolutely sure before they can pull the trigger. Sure of what? Sure not only of the fact that people will believe anything they’re told, but also that all subjects will unconditionally hang on to their beliefs and continue to listen to the same voices that taught them what to believe and what to do, whatever happens. Make people believe a lie is very simple. Make them believe the lie even when someone else tells them it is a lie is a lot trickier. But the real state of the art consists of anchoring the believe so thoroughly that the indoctrinated will treat dissidents as dangerous psychopaths.

Let me illustrate the basic idea with a small example. We need to stage three persons. One who teaches. One who learns. One who questions. Let’s call them the Master, the Slave and the Outlaw.

Step one: Will Slave believe Master?

Master — In Texas, where there’s much oil in the soil, frogs living underground developed small caps on their head.
Slave — Why did they develop caps, Master?
Master — So they don’t get oil in their eyes.
Slave — How intelligent nature is. And again we witness: Survival of the fittest! One more proof that Darwin was right.

Step two: Will Slave believe Master unconditionally?

Slave — In Texas, where there’s much oil in the soil, frogs living underground wear small caps on the head.
Outlaw — That’s not true at all. What a silly idea! I lived in Texas for twenty years and I can tell you that there’s nothing special with the frogs over there. AND that they don’t live underground.
Slave — I don’t believe you. My master knows.

Generally these two steps are enough to be pretty sure whether yes or no a slave will follow his master like a dog. But in certain extreme cases a third step is essential to be absolutely sure the slave will never ever even think of mutiny.

Step three: Will Slave stand up against Outlaw if needed?

Outlaw — If you have a master then you’re a slave. If you believe any joke your master tells you, then you belong to the herds of lazy brain cattle easily exploited by a greedy sheepherder.
Slave — Conspiracy theorist! Guru! Terrorist! Psychopath!

Now we are sure: this slave is ready to follow his master anywhere, whatever happens. Got the idea? OK. Now let’s see if the approach is applicable.

Step one: Will Slave believe Master?

Slave — There’s a starving man over there. Shall we provide him with food and water?
Master — That man is not starving. That would have been his condition 30 years ago. Today he has Aids.
Slave — What can we do to relieve his sufferings?
Master — Give him AZT and ARVs, our life-saving killer drugs. They are toxic and may not help much, but they are the best we have.

Step two: Will Slave believe Master unconditionally?

Outlaw — There’s a starving man over there. Let’s give him food and water.
Slave — That man is not starving. That would have been his condition 30 years ago. Today he has Aids.
Outlaw — What’s in a name? Call it what you want but I tell you, that man needs food and water.
Slave — No, we must give him those life-saving killer drugs. They are toxic and may not help much, but it’s the best we have. Food and water are not absolutely essential, life-saving drugs are.

Step three: Will Slave stand up against Outlaw if needed?

Outlaw — What are you, a dumb guy? I tell you that man is starving! Give him apples, rice, meat, bread and water. Poison is the last thing a starving man needs!
Slave — My master taught me our life-saving killer drugs are vital. He knows a thousand times better than you and me together.
Outlaw — Tell your master he’s a dirty scumbag to make money over the back of the starving poor.
Slave — Conspiracy theorist! Guru! Terrorist! Psychopath!

This slave will follow his master to hell and back.

Now, look around the world in which we live. What do we see? Hundreds of millions behave like the slave painted above, a handful of dissident outlaws here and there trying to convince the others they got it all wrong. But the slaves don’t listen and the masters are assured that the sheep will hang on to their beliefs whatever happens. Any topic, 9/11, Aids, the war on Iraq, the debate isn’t getting anywhere. For instance, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, they admitted it was all a lie, but the liars were reelected.

Today GPS phase one, the Global Population Survey, practically touches its end. The masters are perfectly sure now the slaves will blindly follow and pretty soon GPS phase two will be activated through the Global Positioning System.
Now you understand, don’t you? Beg your pardon? No, you still have no idea what I’m after… Sigh… Okay, I’ll tell you.

A guy is driving a car equipped with a GPS connected to an inboard computer system. A metal voice gives some indications.

“Turn left!” The driver turns left.
“Turn right!” The driver turns right.

Does the guy driving the car ever take an opposite turn to see what happens? No, never. He obeys. And always will.

There are too many of us. The poor will be taken care of with life-saving killer drugs against Aids, Avian flu and the like. They are of no concern, they don’t have access to the Internet and nobody will go to them and tell them it’s all a lie. And the rich, you ask? The rich drive their fancy cars. It’s only a question of time. The inboard computer knows. “Turn right!” The driver turns right. Straight into the ravine.

It’s all so logical. It’s hyper-logical.

Posted by: jspreen | November 21, 2007 10:16 AM

Tara, showing a typical disregard for the truth posters on your exciting thread here who support the orthodoxy (these two things go together, it seems) have added some shocking calumny which brings into disrepute my humble but accurate blog, Science Guardian/New AIDS Review, and besmirches my name with misleading statements.

I know you will allow factual correction of this small stain on your otherwise great blogging achievement of hosting a no-holds-barred debate on this vexed topic of whether AIDS is a retroviral disease or a drug/conventional disease/nutrition problem.:

Molecular Spartacus Claw

This is all subjective commentary (presumably by a Moore cohort, judging from the style) and not for us to contradict, but for the allegation that we detest the estimable Dr Harvey Bialy, when in fact we admire Harvey Bialy’s honesty, integrity, courage, intellectual acuity, careful vocabulary, scientific purity, and wicked sense of humor, including his explosive email hand grenades, as long as they are applied to other victims who deserve it, such as the incorrigibly disrespectful scientist, the self-celebrated John P. Moore, who by the way was eviscerated by Bialy’s dangerous literary antics only when he very rudely declined to debate Bialy in public, as is his evasive and telling wont (he also refused to have lunch with the enquiring editor from NAR, me, who applied to record his reasons for believing that HIV causes AIDS, which he has never dared detail, for some reason).

Our single disagreement was over whether we deserved it when Dr Bialy gave us the same treatment. We hold him in great esteem. If only the establishment truth-denialists had half his brainpower and zeal for truth.

John Moore

Contrary to his shortsighted expectations, we thank God and the distinguished John Moore for his kind decision not to include us on his misleading, shamefully disrespectful, emotionally grotesque, intellectually denialist and antisocial site AIDSTruth.org since we are not at all scientific denialists, as he is.

In fact we believe that the first principle of good science is that good scientists debate the truth with enthusiasm and respect for any person who raises a question in order to understand their science better, while politically driven and theoretically vulnerable scientists do neither.

We are however, proud to be linked to the inimitable Michael Geiger, whose unrestrained passion for the truth results in often glorious prose whose ringing tones are literary music compared to the raspberries visited upon all truthseekers by the renowned John P. Moore, whose refusal to enlighten all of us with debate with “denialists” is not very convincing when he comments on what they say so copiously and is their best publicist.

There is also the fact that he makes many of their points for them in his papers which as promised we will shortly be enumerating on the blog as a Thanksgiving present for the redoubtable Moore in exchange for his evident support of our position that the scientific literature of the field must remain the touchstone of truth for both scientists and laymen, including journalists.

As to Tony/baloney having no scientific training, that’s an advantage in many ways. Being an outsider to science is an excellent qualification for seeing the Emperor has no clothes. Many advances in specialist fields come from outsiders, because they take less for granted. Journalists are outsiders trained to ask good questions on behalf of the public, and review the answers. Does Mr Moore or his goon object to this process?

Let’s note that the flaws in HIV=AIDS are so obvious and clear that outsiders with no previous experience of science whatsoever can see through it, once they pay attention. Could this clarity be why Mr Moore prefers not to engage “denialists” directly? Surely not.

We also enjoy and admire “cooler’s” ability to give Moore more than a run for his money. Right on, dog!

By the way, Science Guardian is not a conspiracy theory blog, since we do not think there was ever an explicit plan to peddle the (even now still) unproven theory HIV=AIDS to government and public. But we have to say that the pr campaign to promote it and the behind the scenes bureaucratic response to dissent could count as a conspiracy, since it has been effectively coordinated by Fauci and his explicit censorship, according to memos that found their way into the public sphere.

But in general we don’t allege any conspiracy and to say that we do is just the usual Moore ploy, an attempt to stain our reputation by association with 9/11 nuts, just as the word “denialist” tries to imply that dissent is not rational and not based on the published, peer-reviewed literature, as all comment at New AIDS Review is.

Ands could it be that Mr Moore declines to publicise our humble blog for fear of what it says? Surely not.

But how odd that a scientist who pretends to have all the science on his side is reduced to ad hominem disrespect as his only reply to our writings. What does that tell you?

It tells us that the inarticulate Mr Moore is the dissenters’ best friend, a scientist who cannot lie, a secret ally to be cherished for his Fauci-flouting personal drive towards scientific reality which in this superb scientific mind cannot be gainsayed, even by 500,000 dollar bills.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 21, 2007 2:16 PM

As to Tony/baloney having no scientific training, that’s an advantage in many ways.

Ignorance is an advantage? How so?

Let’s note that the flaws in HIV=AIDS are so obvious and clear that outsiders with no previous experience of science whatsoever can see through it, once they pay attention.

It’s not so amazing that there is a very neat inverse relationship between the level of scientific training and the ability to find “flaws” in HIV/AIDS theory.

The same phenomenom is seen in evolution denial. The simple truth is that the people doing the “rethinking” do not understand the science that they are attempting to critique. The “flaws” that they find are simply reflections of their own ignorance and confusion.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 21, 2007 7:59 PM

“The same phenomenom is seen in evolution denial. The simple truth is that the people doing the “rethinking” do not understand the science that they are attempting to critique. The “flaws” that they find are simply reflections of their own ignorance and confusion.”

Chris Noble intellectually surrenders.

Posted by: pat | November 21, 2007 8:22 PM

Truthseeker, aka Anthony Liversedge, posts his usual pretentious drivel to try to advertize his own blog which is remarkable only for the stupidity of the discussions about science that take place there. But Truthseeker does make one interesting comment when he writes

” But in general we don’t allege any conspiracy and to say that we do is just the usual Moore ploy, an attempt to stain our reputation by association with 9/11 nuts”

It appears then that Truthseeker is condemning Andrew Maniotis, Lynn Margulis and Henry Bauer as “nuts”, because all of these AIDS denialists have also publicly joined the ranks of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. They are of course nuts, because the basis for 9/11 denial is as stupid and unscientific as the basis for denying that HIV causes AIDS. The statements made by Maniotis, Margulis and Bauer that they are both AIDS and 9/11 denialists therefore expose them to the world as cranks, cuckoos, flakes and nuts, and act to show AIDS denialism for the silliness that it truly is. It’s good to see that Anthony Truthseeker Liversidge is therefore of the same opinion – these people truly are “nuts”. Thanks Anthony for this little gem of wisdom among the dross of your postings here and on your own blog!

Posted by: Liedetector | November 21, 2007 9:16 PM

yep, the 911 truth community now includes over 200 architects and engineers, 2 swiss structural engineers that say building 7 collapsed with explosives, former CIA official and writer of the award winning movie “Syriana”
And millions of other highly educated people around the world.

Planes dont dissepear into thin air while terrorists passports and red bandanas survive like in shankesville

buildings dont have all 81 columns fail at the same time without explosives, fire and damage has never caused a rapid symetrical collpase, or even a collapse for that matter.

Please cite me evidence for your conspiracy theory? the fatty bin laden tape? Or the passport that flew on the streets of manhattan of satam al saqiumi, glad that passport survived, funny how they never found the black boxes at ground zero.

funny how dumb you people are, you claim to be scientists, but scientists dont dismiss theories out of hand, they discuss theories in terms of evidence, and the very fact they do dismiss these theories shows how ignorant they air. “oh my government could never do that WELL THEY KILLED 3 MILLION IN VIETNAM, IRAQ ARE YA STUPID? They put plans on paper to commit acts of terrorism agaisnt americans and blame it on Cuba, operation northwoods, but of course, government atrocity apologists dont even know this info, ie they are the same types of people in germany that could never belive hitler could do evil, or the people in russia that would never beileve that he would torture dissidents in gulags. Youd call those people conspiracy theorists as well if you lived in those societies

Architects for truth google it
loose change the most watched movie ever online, the final cut is even better. Buy it.

Posted by: cooler | November 21, 2007 9:49 PM

Here’s another one from a student puzzled by a biochemical paradox. How can quasispecies hypercycles according to Eigen be reconciled with lentiviruses according to Foley?

Are you pretending to be Duesberg’s grad student again Gene?

Your confusion is entirely of your own making and has nothing to do with any supposed paradoxes.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 21, 2007 10:42 PM

I’m grateful to Liedetecter for bring Liversidge’s post to my attention, as I never bothered reading what Liversidge wrote (for much the same reason as I don’t feel the need to stick my finger into a pile of manure to know what it is). So I would have missed that little gem in which he (rightly, for once) dismisses 9/11 conspiracy theorists as “nuts” (exemplified by the likes of “cooler”, who proves the point rather nicely above).

No scientist can be an AIDS denialist without automatically losing all his or her professional credibility, because to be an AIDS denialist is to display that one has no ability to properly understand and judge the contents of the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Similarly, no scientist/engineer can be a 9/11 conspiracy theorist without automatically losing all his or her professional credibility, for much the same reasons.

It therefore is no surprise that there is overlap between the AIDS denialists and the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since both groups attract people with much the same mindset, people who lack the judgement or insight to recognize the absurdity of what they believe in. The additional loss of scientific credibility incurred by being in both camps reflects synergy in action. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: “To believe in one conspiracy theory may be regarded as merely silly; to believe in both looks like insanity”.

It would not surprise me to learn that AIDS denialists also believe in the Loch Ness Monster and Alien-created Crop Circles (oh, hang on that’s exactly what Henry Bauer DOES believe in….). How long it will be before one or more AIDS denialist proposes that Elvis Presley is alive, busy filming the next installment of the re-enactment of the moon landings in the deserts of New Mexico, while discussing with Marilyn Monroe how they combined to shoot JFK from the Grassy Knoll? There’s no difference between the mindset required to believe that statement is true, that required to believe the CIA was responsible for 9/11, and that required to believe that HIV either does not exist or that it does not cause AIDS. Each of these views is equally absurd, and equally unjustified by the facts.

So, I for one welcome the linkage that’s becoming apparent now between AIDS denialists and 9/11 conspiracy theorists, as it shows up AIDS denialism for what it truly is – the realm of the “nuts”, to re-use Anthony Liversidge’s word.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the sensible, non-conspiracy-theorist people who have posted on this site (Chris Noble, Franklin, Lee, Braganza, Adele, Tara, ElkMountainMan and a few others). At these peoples’ Thanksgiving Dinners, the only turkeys present will be the ones on the plate.

Posted by: John Moore | November 22, 2007 12:10 AM

The statements made by Maniotis, Margulis and Bauer that they are both AIDS and 9/11 denialists therefore expose them to the world as cranks, cuckoos, flakes and nuts, and act to show AIDS denialism for the silliness that it truly is. It’s good to see that Anthony Truthseeker Liversidge is therefore of the same opinion – these people truly are “nuts”. Thanks Anthony for this little gem of wisdom among the dross of your postings here and on your own blog!

Posted by: Liedetector | November 21, 2007 9:16 PM

Thank you kindly, LieDetector//Moore-goony for your humorous opinion of what we wrote above, spelling and logic challenged though you appear to be in the post.

Apparently your litmus test as to whether what we wrote is “pretentious drivel” or “gems of wisdom” is whether it fits your fixed preconceptions. Is this enough? We daresay it is not, for reasons to do with scientific research on the framing of data as it enters what passes for your brain, a phenomenon which is fully explained on our humble blog, but seems to have passed right over your head.

Prising your death grip from what you think you already know may be impossible, but we are willing to give it a try. Perhaps you should mull over the following questions if you can spare any time from licking the distinguished Mr Moore’s polished boots:

1) Is saying that one feels stained by association with “9/11 nuts” the same thing as saying that all those who take a second look at the official story of 9/11 are nuts?

We support anyone who takes a second look at any notion which is supported automatically by the sheep of society who feel that in order to graze the meadow they have to all point in the same direction as the head sheep, apparently a tendency with which you are personally familiar.

2) Is it true that people who are wrong to question one notion are therefore wrong to question another, unrelated belief?

Skepticism is a useful frame of mind, but its results depend on studying the data, surely. In the case of HIV=AIDS only the irrational, uninformed, and scientifically illiterate still conclude that the paradigm is airborne. All intelligent observers whose minds are in gear and who read the scientific literature can see that, theoretically speaking, it long ago crashed into the trees at the end of the runway without ever lifting one inch into the air, in spite of having enormous afterburners attached fueled by billions of dollars worth of Federal funding since it started rolling 23 years ago.

Yes, at present the little I know of 9/11 conspiracy theory seems to me to be as prima facie silly as the current AIDS paradigm obviously is, but my opinion is as worthless as yours is in AIDS until I study the data and the reasoning of the people you mention, who have certainlly proved themselves worthy skeptics in HIV=AIDS, as you have not, it seems.

3) We both have a duty to respect judgements and conclusions different from ours until we have thoroughly studied the data and reasoning involved, do we not?

4)We both have a duty to respect those who have different opinions, also, do we not?

5) Is the phrasing (”drivel” “dross” etc) you use respectful?

6) If not, should we respect your opinion, since your ears are obviously closed to different views from people you do not respect, who have written extensive books about the topic, or in my case, a blog amounting to two books and counting?

Since you may lose your way in following these 6 questions, here are the answers: No. No. Yes. Yes. No. No.

For further assistance, please refer to Science Guardian, which exists to brief data challenged clever people at the top of science and society such as yourself.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 22, 2007 12:20 AM

200 architects, 100 million views on the internet of movies that are being beleived by millions of far more intelligent people than the drug company hacks on these blogs, movies like Loose change, 9/11 mysteries and Zeitgeist, Former cia officials like Ray Mcgovern, and robert baer, author of the award winning movie syriana.

Heres a message from robert baer for you conspiracy nuts, could you imagine fools like John moore/liedetector etc being able to author novels as compelling as his? Id be laughing my off………Maniotis bauer and Margulis have nothing to be ashamed of for exposing both the hiv fraud and 9/11. Just bc the government tells you something doesnt make it true, its about the evidence. Listen to your master Robert Baer, far more qualified than anyone else to show us the light.

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

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 12:21 AM

look at this idiot moore, as usual he offers no evidence, just psychoanylisis, but what else would you beleive from a government atrocity apoligist whod piss in his pants in fear if hed have to debate real scholars like Noam Chomsky or David Ray griffin. This troll psuedoscientist moore proably still beleives they are WMD’s in Iraq, but what else would you expect from a fool that offers zero evidence for his theories, just a pathetic attempt at being a psychologist.

Debunk this, back and to the left, idiot, the shot came from the front you idiot, even cyril wecht the worlds leading forensic scientists says so, you have to be an idiot to beleive the warren commision. Its so obvious that youre just a hack that doesnt believe your government can tell a lie. Its like living in Orwells 1984.

Sorry, one of the leading explosive experts in the world says world trade center 7 was brought down with explosives, here is testimony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgoSOQ2xrbI

See zeitgeist, loose change and 9/11 mysteries on google video now.

millions of views, people I know that are far more intelligent than moore, and have graduated from far better universities than moore inc are seeing the truth.

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 12:37 AM

Here’s another one from a student puzzled by a biochemical paradox. How can quasispecies hypercycles according to Eigen be reconciled with lentiviruses according to Foley?
Are you pretending to be Duesberg’s grad student again Gene?

Your confusion is entirely of your own making and has nothing to do with any supposed paradoxes.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 21, 2007 10:42 PM

Why Chris, I do believe you forgot to actually answer the question. What’s the matter, don’t you feel your science credentials are quite up to it? You were rather better in the BMJ debate. Maybe you could draw on some ofyour helpers from that occasion?

Ok, let me give you a softer one to warm up on: how do you distinguish a lentivirus from a “conventional” virus? Which genetic or biological characteristics make a virus “lenti”?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 22, 2007 12:37 AM

Here is the link for loose change, the most watched movie ever in the internet for those that want a primer on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 12:43 AM

Prof. Moore,

I have now read a little further on the internet as Dr. Noble advised I do. I’ved discovered you think my son is part of a worldwide AIDS Denialist Conspiracy. This has me worried my son might get in trouble. Could you please elaborate on your AIDS Denialist Conspiracy theories, so I can make an informed decision as to whether I have to confiscate MEC’s computer or possibly turn him over to the FBI?

Thank you for your reply

MEC’s Mum.

PS. Why didn’t you reply to my previous request? I’m still not sure if I should go on chemoprophylaxis since according to the infallible HIV tests, as a monogamous married woman I seem to be in greaster danger of contracting HIV than if I were an IV drug using prostitute.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/11/mbeki_still_in_denial.php#comment-646540

PPS. Prof. Moore, how have you discovered Prof. Bauer is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist? Could you plesae provide your references. I am interested in this topic but I could’t find anything written by Prof Bauer on it. So far the only conspiracy theories I have been able to find are your own. That’s why I lke reading your stuff, it’s not anything like the ususal dry and boring science.

Posted by: MEC’s Mum | November 22, 2007 1:02 AM

Darn it, we foolishly decided not to use the turkey crack in the screed we just posted, since it seemed too obvious, and here the wit challenged John “I am a secret HIV dissident” Moore uses it without any respect for the intelligence of his readers at all… wait! he is addressing his faithful following, so that would be appropriate after all.

Regarding the association of 9/11 nuts with AIDS critics, we agree with John “My support of HIV=AIDS is political and ad hominem, for the science please see my dissident papers in exclusive insider journals where I prepare my way for when the paradigm crumbles” Moore that this stains the reputation of HIV/AIDS critics.

But as noted above, when lives are at stake it behooves people to study the data and the reasoning involved, not to judge with prejudice, conformity or other lazy emotional motivations. These distort science, and there are plenty of them – in fact at Science Guardian our blog logo lists too many of them to count.

John deals in at least a dozen of them in defending his tattered pardigm against the debunking of critics who rather amazingly include himself, as our next post on New AIDS Review will show.

Exactly how this superb mind and sensitive psyche can live with this intellectual and emotional inner conflict is not for us to say, but it is kinda cute that it shows so explicitly, or would be if his style wasn’t so wearyingly nasty. Noblesse oblige, John! Graduates even of Downing College should have more gentlemanly manners in public debate. It is embarrassing for other English expats to read these excesses.

Substitute “believer” for “denialist” and this would be a very accurate statement, at least among the elite of the field. What readers must understand, however, is that it is very improbable that Moore doesn’t know this. Not only does he make many admissions to this effect in his papers, if you know where to find them (coming up, folks, when the more interesting side of life permits) but he is a smart cookie, as his brilliant posts on this thread show.

What elevated genius he shows in his wordplay in so brilliantly characterizing what we write as “manure”, especially when he never read it! This man is a genius, as well as too honest to conceal from his peers the flaws in his working (read ‘fundraising’) hypothesis.

Once again we nominate Moore for the Lasker, at least. Why is no one here supporting this?

By the way, John, since we at Science Guardian are not 9/11 conspiracy theorists, as you have now acknowledged, what remaining reason can you possibly have for ignoring our admiring posts on the subject of your brilliant scientific comments on the flaws in the paradigm?

Your desire to cannibalize turkey today is no excuse. Please let us know how you wish to disagree with your very own self.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 22, 2007 1:02 AM

moore does not understand that the official story about 9/11 is a conspiracy theory, so therefore he is a conspiracy theorist. He’s so ignorant the names he calls people can easily be applied to himself.

another great 9/11 film. 9/11 mysteries.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708190071483512003

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 1:03 AM

Â»Ein Narr fragt viel, worauf kein Weiser antwortet.Â«

Gene likes to use words that he doesn’t understand in a vain attempt to convince people that he really has a clue what he is talking about.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 22, 2007 2:37 AM

They are of course nuts, because the basis for 9/11 denial is as stupid and unscientific as the basis for denying that HIV causes AIDS.

Now, how stupid and unscientific is it to doubt that a Boeing completely disappeared through a hole some 20 feet across? What? The hole was in fact over 80 feet wide but large parts of it were hidden by smoke? LMAO !
What did you say? The B-757 body is only 12 feet 4inch wide and 13 feet 6inch high and thus perfectly fits in the small hole? Yeah, sure. The wings and engins and all were made of ice cream and candy sugar, and instantly evaporated at the impact.

Man, I swear that now I’ve seen the light, I truly can’t believe anymore how totaly unscientific I was when questionning the 9/11 commission report.

HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHA HA !!!!!!

Posted by: jspreen | November 22, 2007 4:11 AM

an attempt to stain our reputation by association with 9/11 nuts

Wake up, truthseeker. If you really seek what your name announces, you should open your eyes now to see that the only 9/11 nuts are the ones who swallowed the 9/11 commission report hook, line and sinker. Your reputation cannot be stained more than by being associated with them.

Posted by: jspreen | November 22, 2007 4:57 AM

“Â»Ein Narr fragt viel, worauf kein Weiser antwortet.Â«

Der Narr hÃ¤lt sich fÃ¼r weise, aber der Weise weiss, dass er ein Narr ist.

Posted by: pat | November 22, 2007 9:24 AM

Evolution is always brought up, and is a straw man argument. The language of science and the language of religion are describing quite different things in very different worlds. The major criticism of evolution is that it frequently serves as religion for the common man who is better served by some form of a real religion.

By now, after the discovery channel ran a debunking 9/11 conspiracy program which featured all the top 9/11 truth people presenting their arguments in a very convincing manner, everyone knows about it, and this is the major reason for the the demise of the repuglican party in every election since november. This is the reason why even mickey mouse, minnie mouse or donald duck can run for president on the dem ticket, and win. The dems will sweep it. The American people have wised up to the ways of the current admministration, ie pre-emptive warfare as an instrument of foreign policy, and curtailment of civil liberty at home, a formula we have seen in previous fascist governments thoughout history.

Ditto for the Hiv=Aids Fraud which is rapidly becoming common knowledge. This fraud was previously maintained by heavy govenment censorship of the media, and heavy drug advertising by big pharma. This is now ending thanks to openly available information on the internet at places like The New Aids Review, Barnes World You Bet Your Life, and Reviewing Aids.

The drug company shills and reps like moore et al who derive their income from HIV=Aids will moan and groan, but HIV gravy days are coming to an end, so enjoy your turkey day, your last HIV gravy could be on your turkey plate.

Posted by: never_a_peen | November 22, 2007 9:50 AM

“Â»Ein Narr fragt viel, worauf kein Weiser antwortet.Â«
(Noble)

Der Narr hÃ¤lt sich fÃ¼r weise, aber der Weise weiss, dass er ein Narr ist. (Pat)

And only a fool, Dr. Noble, answers when he doesn’t have an answer.

Posted by: Molecular Entry CLaw | November 22, 2007 10:14 AM

Oh please.

1) AIDS is caused by an infectious virus, and is not a relabeled drug/conventional disease/nutritional deficit problem. If you have antibodies to it as indicated by the “AIDS test” you will die very soon, unless you pay attention to John “I am not a macaque, I am a respected scientist” Moore and take expensive ARV’s.

2) The Pentagon and the WTC 7 were blown up by the Bushies in a plot to justify invading Iraq.

These two statements have the same probability.

Zero.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 22, 2007 12:20 PM

These two statements have the same probability.

I don’t recall having mentioned dummy “Double You” Bush anywhere…

The question to ask is, if you really insist upon using statistics and probability calculation:

What’s the probability a Boeing-757 completely disappeared into the Pentagon through a hole some 20 feet across and leaving no trace behind?

You really must wake up and open your eyes, truth seeker, or you won’t find anything at all.

Posted by: jspreen | November 22, 2007 12:37 PM

Nobody is saying “bush” knocked down the towers, it seems that these intelligence agencies that recieve millions in funding with no oversight need to be investigated.

Its now well known that the CIA overthrew democratically elected Mossedeq in 1953 because he wanted to throw out american/british oil companies, leading to chaos murder and death.

its maintream news that the joint cheifs of staff put plans on paper to commit acts of terrorism against americans and blame it on cuba, operation northwoods.

Its an established fact that the CIA instigated the war in vietnam, invaded and overthrew the regime in south vietnam and set up a puppett regime, an started commmiting acts of war against north vietnam, starting a conflict that killed 60k americans and 3 million vietnamese. This all happened before the staged gulf of tonkin. If these criminals would drag is into an illegal war that they started, why is so hard to believe they wouldnt kill 3,000 americans, when theyve killed millions of innocents before?

Anyone that doubts this should read up on noam chomsky

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 1:00 PM

Chomsky doesnt buy the 9-11 demolition conspiracy.

To put things back on track:

Mbeki is partially vindicated by the UN’s latest downward revision of the AIDS epidemic.

So far HIV/AIDS is about falsifying its own estimates.

Posted by: pat | November 22, 2007 1:11 PM

Yes , but equally or more distinguished scholars do, like david ray griffin phd, Howard zinn, Robert baer, like most they thought the idea was absurd at first, but once they looked into the evidence they concluded it surely was at least a viable lead that neeeded to be investigated.
over 200 architects, and engineers growing every day
http://www.ae911truth.org/

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 2:48 PM

Der Narr hÃ¤lt sich fÃ¼r weise, aber der Weise weiss, dass er ein Narr ist.

Another good citation but it is actaully applicable to Gene not me.

I am fully aware of the limits of my knowledge and understanding and I am careful not to overstep this boundary. Denialists on the other hand delude themselves that they understand complex scientific subjects better than the scientists that have spent decades studying this science.

Anthony Liversidge even goes so far to claim that his total lack of scientific training somehow puts him in a better position to understand the science than people who do have extensive training and research experience. Somehow ignorance becomes a virtue. The hubris is staggering.

This total inability to accurately judge ones own skills and understanding has come to be known as the Kruger-Dunning effect

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 22, 2007 5:41 PM

Denialists on the other hand delude themselves that they understand complex scientific subjects better than the scientists that have spent decades studying this science.

Wrong. HIV=Aids denialists have no pretention at all to understand complex scientific subjects. The only pretention they have is to look through the bullshit smoke screens caused by scientific nerd brains set on fire due to overheating while trying to find a way out of dogmatic thinking.

Posted by: jspreen | November 22, 2007 5:56 PM

Dear Chris, what a marvellous paper you’ve steered me to in that last link. The title says it all, and so much of the rest of it is directly applicable to the personal pathologies that underlie much of HIV/AIDS denialism (I exclude the minority subset who are nothing but shameless profiteers, seeking to peddle quack remedies in place of the prove, safe and effective use of ARVs). But the majority of the HIV/AIDS denialists are merely living embodiments of the old adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. They know a little about science (actually, in Liversidge’s case, next to nothing) and think that means they are qualified to understand research publications and comment on them. It’s ludicrous of course, pathetically so. But unlike the harmless buffoonery of the 9/11 conspiracy nutters, the dangerous consequence of the AIDS denialist conspiracy is that these people cause the death of innocent people. That’s an important difference, and it underlies why we must continue to fight the AIDS denialists (in the real world, of course). There’s not a credible scientist among the lot of them, essentially as a point of definition, and the non-scientists do not know that they do not know what they are talking about, the Kruger-Denning effect in action!

Posted by: John Moore | November 22, 2007 6:04 PM

“Another good citation but it is actaully applicable to Gene not me”

yawn

Posted by: pat | November 22, 2007 8:10 PM

“Somehow ignorance becomes a virtue. The hubris is staggering.” -Chris Nobleuh

It is far too obvious that this is too much for you to understand.

Some can’t see the forest for the trees
while others can’t see the trees for the forest:

“No one’s recollection about the first shot was more precise, though, than that of a ninth grader named Amos L. Euins. He told the Dallas County sheriff, “About the time the car got near the black and white sign, I heard a shot.”

www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/opinion/22holland.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

It is easy to dismiss ignorance as an invirtuous trait but was it not a child who said: “the Emperor has no clothes!”?

Posted by: pat | November 22, 2007 8:32 PM

“This total inability to accurately judge ones own skills and understanding has come to be known as the Kruger-Dunning effect”

Who needs skill to tell you it is hyped?:

www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-AIDS.html?n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,%20Conditions,%20and%20Health%20Topics/AIDS

www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/world/21aids.html?n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,%20Conditions,%20and%20Health%20Topics/AIDS

www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world/20aids.html?n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,%20Conditions,%20and%20Health%20Topics/AIDS

www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/health/08hiv.html?n=Top/News/Health/Diseases,%20Conditions,%20and%20Health%20Topics/AIDS

news nov. 8-22nd 2007

Posted by: pat | November 22, 2007 8:44 PM

I think that Dr. Kary Mullis is a very credible scientist. In fact, his comments are what pushed me over to the other side of AIDS and I am extremely happy that I did go there. Many, who I am in contact with, have given up the antiretrovirals or have never taken them in the first place and are alive and quite well without them. But that’s an unpleasant fact to some of you. One day you will be recognized for the closed-minded idiots, not scientists, that you really are.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 22, 2007 9:14 PM

Kary Mullis is most certainly not a credible scientist. He’s an AIDS denialist, which has caused him to lose all his professional credibility. It’s not possible to be both an AIDS denialist and a credible scientist; these two things are as incompatible as being a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and being taken seriously by anyone other than nuts, flakes and cranks. That Mullis fooled you, Noreen, merely speaks to the dangers caused to laypeople by scientists losing their credibility and becoming AIDS denialists. Those very few scientists who act that way thereby cause the death of many people as a result, which is why they have been ostracised by the scientific community (and, of course, for displaying an absurd lack of professional judgement about the science of HIV/AIDS).

Posted by: John Moore | November 22, 2007 10:51 PM

I will ask again Dr Moore

When it is proven that Eliza Jane did not die from an AIDS related illness ,will you get up and state the following.

I, Dr John Moore, having now been proven to be so wrong in the Eliza Jane Scovill case, my credibilty as a scientist
has been totally destroyed.

I hereby renounce every comment I have made about HIV?AIDS
and I will relinquish my post at Cornell and I will never comment on any scientific matter again.

Regards

John Moore (ex Phd)

Posted by: kyle | November 22, 2007 11:22 PM

kary mullis is a very credible scientist, a nobel prize winner, and he was supported by another nobel prize winner for a while, Walter gilbert, and by the military’s most distinguished infectious disease pathologist shyh ching Lo phd md. Not to mention Duesberg who gallo himself said was the worlds leading expert on retroviruses. NOt to mention other Cal mcb professors who found Duesbergs argument more compelling like strohman and rubin.

all these scientists brought up the same objections to the hiv hypothesis, the lack of an animal model, (tons of chimps injected not one has died of aids after 20 years) the extremely low % of t cell infection, (1/1000) or so etc etc, the……. mysterious ever extending latent period.

Are they right? maybe maybe not, but thats why you conduct further experiments, not name call and pretend to be a psychologist like the ignorant fool jp moore does all day.

Posted by: cooler | November 22, 2007 11:44 PM

“He’s an AIDS denialist, which has caused him to lose all his professional credibility.”

yawn.

Posted by: pat | November 23, 2007 12:15 AM

This total inability to accurately judge ones own skills and understanding has come to be known as the Kruger-Dunning effect

Exactly, Chris, including the inability to see that the Kruger-Dunning effect applies to oneself, especially if one is caught supporting a failed paradigm in an area outside one’s field of expertise and operating under the illusion that one is defending good science, when one is in fact supporting bad science, science so bad that John “Please do not make the mistake of thinking I am a macaque, I am a respected scientist as long as I avoid answering HIV critics and God forbid, having to say why I support the paradigm” Moore of Weill Cornell dare not speak in its favor except with ad hominem puerility and a grand imitation of a skunk that emits an insupportable stink if kicked.

Perhaps it is hard to operate from an obscure office in computing support in Australia, Chris, but has it not occurred to you yet that Moore is not 100% confident in his position and this accounts for his papers (so far we have counted five) freely admitting to insiders that the paradigm is built on quicksand?

How many times do we have to point this out before you get the message? We assume that with your 100% familiarity with the literature you know what we are talking about. Surely this is so? Do we really have to cite chapter and verse before we can rescue you from your predicament of seeking fame and fortune solely on the basis of defending John Moore’s fund raising paradigm on the Web, when your squad leader himself doesn’t actually believe in it and is taking care to prepare to jump ship early before it sinks?

We are trying to rescue you Chris but like a poor swimmer caught in an invisible undertow you fight off your lifeguard instead of keeping calm and relaxed so we can tow you to shore.

And do we really have to explain to you why outsiders often see things which people in a field do not? Are you really so naive in the sociology of science that you are not aware that in an age of increasingly narrow specialism, intensifying crowd politics in billion dollar fields, and Kuhnian paradigm entrenchment deeper than ever before, the perceptive outsider or the individualistic newcomer is often the one who best understands what is going on and makes the breakthrough to win the Nobel?

Contrast that type with the career shoelicker who rises by defending the status quo on the top of which his patrons sit. Which type would you rather imitate?

Contrast the type a) Mullis with the type b) Moore, and tell us which is which. if you want evidence, just examine this latest thought by John “That is one of my macaques, and that is me, please do not confuse the two” Moore:

But the majority of the HIV/AIDS denialists are merely living embodiments of the old adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. They know a little about science (actually, in Liversidge’s case, next to nothing) and think that means they are qualified to understand research publications and comment on them. It’s ludicrous of course, pathetically so. But unlike the harmless buffoonery of the 9/11 conspiracy nutters, the dangerous consequence of the AIDS denialist conspiracy is that these people cause the death of innocent people. That’s an important difference, and it underlies why we must continue to fight the AIDS denialists (in the real world, of course). There’s not a credible scientist among the lot of them, essentially as a point of definition, and the non-scientists do not know that they do not know what they are talking about, the Kruger-Denning effect in action!

followed by this (spelling corrected):

Kary Mullis is most certainly not a credible scientist. He’s an AIDS denialist, which has caused him to lose all his professional credibility. It’s not possible to be both an AIDS denialist and a credible scientist; these two things are as incompatible as being a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and being taken seriously by anyone other than nuts, flakes and cranks. That Mullis fooled you, Noreen, merely speaks to the dangers caused to laypeople by scientists losing their credibility and becoming AIDS denialists. Those very few scientists who act that way thereby cause the death of many people as a result, which is why they have been ostracized by the scientific community (and, of course, for displaying an absurd lack of professional judgement about the science of HIV/AIDS).

Mullis won the Nobel with one of the cleverest insights into how to achieve a technical breakthrough in science there has been in the last hundred years, an idea which won hundreds of millions of dollars for the company that employed him and which has resulted in over two hundred falsely convicted prisoners being released from Death Row so far.

The more pedestrian type b) Moore tends to criticize the type a) Mullis perhaps in envy at his enormous success is using his terrific imagination, and inevitably finds some excess of that attribute to complain about and try and bring the type a) Mullis down. Wouldn’t you know it, but Mullis has written an autobiography that reports seeing fairies at the bottom of his garden or somesuch, and type b) Moore feels vindicated.

But in fact as everybody looking on can see this is simply just another example of your Kruger-Denning effect at work, a classic example in fact where the critic is unaware of the fact he is blind to what is really going on. Mullis has imagination, Moore has not. Mullis has the Nobel, Moore has not, and at this rate never will, until he puts funding politics aside and used his brilliant mind for what God gave him it for, which is science, not serving as Fauci’s guard dog.

What is telling in all this is that Moore a) says his own papers refuting his beloved paradigm are misunderstood by the humble editor of New AIDS Review but cannot say how and b) never dares mention the scientist by name who so thoroughly refuted the HIV paradigm in 1986 that he, Peter Duesberg, undoubtedly one of the finest scientific minds engaged in productive science today, has never been answered in the same journals since, or indeed on any peer reviewed level, by any of the main players running this international con game.

By big players we do not mean Moore, of course, we mean Anthony Fauci, Director and chief censor of NIAID, and Bob Gallo, renowned non-discoverer of HIV, and first to demonstrate that HIV does not cause AIDS, and maybe the lesser David Ho, now leader of the doomed search for a vaccine whose research which won him the cover of Time magazine is now scorned and repudiated by even his closest friends in the field.

Ho of course is Moore’s patron, who recognized Moore’s special attributes and brought him over to the US from England to pursue his career role as a HIV barking guard dog who in partnership with Mark Wainberg of Montreal most viciously snarls at HIV critics as “denialists” without ever daring to try and refute their scientific points in any peer reviewed battle, just as he declined to contest publicly with Harvey Bialy, or even non-scientists such as my harmless self, whose study is the behavior of scientists rather than their work.

But this is the habit of paradigm defenders, for some reason they have a psychological bloc against meeting HIV critics in public debate. Bob Gallo used to mysteriously develop a sudden indisposition whenever he found out that he was about to run into Peter Duesberg at a conference, and would cancel his speech rather risk having to defend his absurd concept in public against a scientist he previously wrote he admired in the highest terms.

We admire Mr Moore as we have said before for his semi private acknowledgement of the great flaws in the paradigm, and feel he should be awarded the Lasker. The only reason we can think of why he has not already won it is that he is lacking in social graces, as indicated by this thread, where he spends virtually every work insulting those that ask him to justify what he says he thinks about his favorite paradigm.

This is where Chris comes out ahead, for he is much better mannered. Perhaps it is he should get the Lasker, after all. The problem is that he has proved entirely incapable of seeing a single flaw in the notion HIV=AIDS, after many, many years of instruction by HIV critics. This is the kind of blindness that Kruger and Denning were referring to in their paper, so I suppose he is thereby disqualified. Pity, because he is a gentleman, a rare breed in this dispute.

Oddly enough, it may be that our nomination will have to go to Tara, who is not only scrumptious according to her current blog photo but a good enough scientist to allow free and open debate, unlike John “I do not ever debate HIV denialists in public but am willing quietly to endorse their points in little publicized papers” Moore.

For her understanding of this basic principle of good science, which she observes despite so far being subject to the Kruger-Denning effect in automatically endorsing the wrong side, we nominate Tara for the Lasker next year.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 12:54 AM

The idea that John Moore secretly admits in his papers that “the paradigm is built on quicksand” is one of your delusions. How do you come to this amazing conclusion? Through some version of the bible-code? Take every 7 letter and write the result backwards?

The only thing that you demonstrate is that you are completely incapable of understanding the science and are apparently oblivious to this reality.

Take a trip to sci.physics.realtivity.
You’ll find a number of internet cranks that have the delusion that they have proven Einstein’s theory of relativity to be false. They too have no training in the field and regard that as a virtue. Apparently going to a university, studying the science and passing exams is just a form of indoctrination and is to be avoided at all costs. The layperson is unfettered by all these silly dogmatic ideas and can see the problems in Einstein’s theory of relativity with just their own “common sense”. They use this “common sense” to find “flaws” or “paradoxes” in modern physics that in reality reflect only their own ignorance and misunderstanding. They too are completely deluded about their own capabilities and skills. They believe they are correct and the vast majority of physicists are a) stupid b) afraid of losing their jobs or c) just blindly follow the dogma.

If you follow this newsgroup you will see that the same cranks come back time after time and never learn anything despite several people patiently explaining the science to them.

The parallels with HIV/AIDS cranks are perfect. The same delusions of competence. The same appeals to “common sense”. The same arguments about “paradoxes”. The same conspiracy theories about an “orthodoxy” that is afraid of the “truth”.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 23, 2007 1:28 AM

Really, Chris, you reveal how little you follow the discussion, and how unfamiliar you are with the literature. No wonder you got chased off at New AIDS Review so quickly.

Are you PubMed challenged? It is not difficult to find John “have some sympathy for my macaques, now that microbicide research has received such a huge setback” Moore’s papers under the search string John P Moore.

You’re a clever fellow, I am sure you can read and understand them if you go through them carefully.

However, since you may need some help, why not go to New AIDS Review where one of them was deconstructed in a recent post for your instruction?

Your response is so revealing of your lack of familiarity with the literature that I am quite discouraged in my admiration of your talents, and relieved that I switch to nominate Tara for the Lasker, and not you after all.

After all, the site you refer to may well describe the modus operandi of cranks who believe they can replace Einstein, and isn’t one of their characteristics that they are unfamiliar with the
literature?

Since you now demonstrate that you suffer from the same handicap, perhaps we have found the answer to the mystery of why such a clever fellow as yourself seems immune to the lesson taught by the 20,000 papers written in the field of AIDS on the premise that HIV is the cause of AIDS. That lesson, which has failed to penetrate your well fortified mind for so many years, is that every year without fail more and more assumptions tied to this notion are knocked over like skittles in a beer evening.

Yet year after year you have failed to see this, and ground your axe against HIV critics on and on and on, impervious to logic and data which is freely available if only you would read it.

Is this not the very definition of a crank?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 2:08 AM

Really, Chris, you reveal how little you follow the discussion, and how unfamiliar you are with the literature. No wonder you got chased off at New AIDS Review so quickly.

I have followed the perverted attempts at misinterpretation that you and other Denialists have offered. Literature misrepresentation is a defining characteristic of cranks. They take a paper that shows A and they try to make it show B. Duesberg is an expert at this. He took a paper by Pallela et al that demonstrated that ARVs dramatically decrease mortality and morbidity in HIV+ people and through some perversion of logic and truth tried to pretend that it showed the opposite. Ultimately the only thing he proved was his complete lack of honesty.

Your version of my foray into your webblog are as far from reality as your interpretation of the literature. It took several weeks of mind-numbing, excrutiatingly repetive, explanation for me to finally get you to understand a very simple but very stupid mathematical mistake in Duesberg’s anti-HIV scriptures. It is truly amazing that anybody can be so immune to reason and logic. The experience was about as pleasurable and rewarding as bashing my head against a brick wall for two weeks. In the end it doesn’t matter because nobody including other Denialists take you seriously.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 23, 2007 3:07 AM

To torture you further would be unkind, Chris, so we will leave you making your claims without even references to your supposed triumph at New AIDS Review.

Does it not occur to you that your victorious interpretation of the error that you suppose Duesberg made might not be another classic example of the Kruger-Denning effect?

No?

Well, that is what they predicted.

That it wouldn’t occur to you.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 3:25 AM

“The only thing that you demonstrate is that you are completely incapable of understanding the science and are apparently oblivious to this reality.”

how can you judge that when you are aware of your own limits?

“I am fully aware of the limits of my knowledge and understanding and I am careful not to overstep this boundary. Denialists on the other hand delude themselves that they understand complex scientific subjects better than the scientists that have spent decades studying this science.”

If it is too complex for others to criticise than it is too complex for you to defend, especially when blindfolded. You insist on your own stupidity and deny yourself any ability or privilage to question things beyond your paygrade and project that onto everybody else. You would be led off a cliff by credentials and you even defend your obligations as an “idiot” to do so.

Posted by: pat | November 23, 2007 5:19 AM

If it is too complex for others to criticise than it is too complex for you to defend, especially when blindfolded.

There is one thing that I do understand. If, for example, I am going to stand up at a conference and state that all of the other scientists present are wrong then I need to make absolutely sure that I understand the science better than them. I don’t pretend that being ignorant is an advantage. I don’t pretend that “common sense” is sufficient.

Yet this is exactly what Anthony Liversidge and other Denialists do. Liversidge even goes further to make the absurd and arrogant claim that he can understand a scientist’s papers better than the scientist himself. This represents a delusion of competence that is
inversely proportional to his actual level of understanding.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 23, 2007 7:19 AM

Dearest Dr. Noble, you are, as Truthseeker says, welcome to your own illusory victories, but for everybody else it was painfully obvious that you kept going on and on and on about Duesberg’s “very stupid [entirely trivial and unimportant] mathematical mistake” because you thought you had finally scored a point and didn’t want to let go of it ever. It’s just like this Palella thing you keep bringing up over and over because you want to divert attention from the illustrious closet denialist, Prof. Moore’s, papers showing that he agrees with Duesberg on several essential points regarding flaws in HIV theory and research.

… And possibly because you obviously do not feel qualified to engage in a debate about HIV as quasispecies and lentivirus – which I find very peculiar, Dr. Noble, since during the BMJ debate there was hardly a scientific topic you didn’t feel qualified to comment on, ranging between genomics, immunology, virology, molecular biology and pathology to name but a few. Now strangely you seem to have suddenly become aware of your shortcomings in these areas, whereas you and Prof Moore seem quite comfortable with regular forays into political science, psychoanalysis, structural engineering and moral philosophy on these pages.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 23, 2007 8:27 AM

If, for example, I am going to stand up at a conference and state that all of the other scientists present are wrong then I need to make absolutely sure that I understand the science better than them.

When will you learn to think correctly, Nobel? If weather forcast specialists with their fancy computers all say it snows where I live and I see for myself, simply by looking out of my window, that there’s not the smallest trace of snow anywhere to be seen, I can say they’re all wrong even if I know next to nothing about meteorology or computer programs.
Did Copernicus know the Bible by heart when he said the Archbishops were completely wrong with their geocentric universe ?

Starving people, you give’em eat, Noble, not AZT. No science needed, old chap. Common sense, that’s old we need here. And no bone in the fight, of course. Maybe that’s your problem, a hell of a big bone in the fight.

Posted by: jspreen | November 23, 2007 8:59 AM

It was painfully obvious that Denialist will go to incredible lengths to avoid admitting any mistake. Liversidge and fellow denialists fought tooth and nail before they, or at least a portion of them, finally admitted that Duesberg had made a mistake. Of course the mistake became “trivial” in the process of admitting the mistake.

It’s just like this Palella thing you keep bringing up over and over because you want to divert attention from the illustrious closet denialist, Prof. Moore’s, papers showing that he agrees with Duesberg on several essential points regarding flaws in HIV theory and research.

It’s hard to tell whether this is an attempt at comedy or whether you really believe this nonsense. Are you going to try to convince John that he is really a closet Denialist?

It’s not a question of my qualifications but the level of your and Gene’s understanding. Before you demand people to answer your questions it would be useful if you demonstrate that you have the capacity to understand your questions let alone the answers.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 23, 2007 9:58 AM

“There is one thing that I do understand. If, for example, I am going to stand up at a conference and state that all of the other scientists present are wrong then I need to make absolutely sure that I understand the science better than them. I don’t pretend that being ignorant is an advantage. I don’t pretend that “common sense” is sufficient.”

But somehow you are confident in calling Duesgerg and Margulis crackpots and “denialists” when you admit to knowing next to nothing. How is that possible? Do you look for the largest consencus and then bark madly from behind the protective skirts of the majority? Chris, fess up. If you know next to nothing yourself than your defense of the hypothesis is stricktly dogmatic; it is a BELIEF system.

“It was painfully obvious that Denialist will go to incredible lengths to avoid admitting any mistake.”

Now all we need to do is get that patato head Moore to admit his African AIDS hysteria was mostly just that…hysteria.

Posted by: pat | November 23, 2007 11:00 AM

Chris, I wouldn’t bother wasting my time in further discussions with Liversidge over my papers if I were you. I don’t read his Blog, but I was emailed his attempt to analyze the Klasse/Moore paper on gp120 concentrations in plasma, etc. It was pathetic. At one point I actually burst out laughing at the sheer stupidity of what passes for Liversidge’s “thinking” on the science that underlies this paper. A reasonable analogy would be if I attempted to deconstruct the meaning behind a poem written in Swahili, a language and a subject with which I have no familiarity at all. Of course I would never do that, because the Kruger-Denning effect doesn’t apply to me. As well as “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, another adage comes to mind: “There’s no fool like an old fool”.

Still, if the denialists and conspiracy theorists want to waste their time on attempts to understand my papers, it’s at least a harmless activity that doesn’t kill vulnerable people, so they’re welcome to continue.

I have to say, though, that all the denialist postings on scientific subjects that I’ve read on this string do confirm one thing: AIDS denialism is not rooted in science. It never has been, because when Duesberg first launched AIDS denialism, it was because of his jealousy at the professional success of Bob Gallo (just as his earlier attacks on oncogenes etc were based on his resentment of Bishop, Varmus, Baltimore et al.; there’s a nice essay on the subject on AIDS Truth). Duesberg’s “malignant narcissism” (as one of his peer group has put it) triggered all of this nonsense, and although he tried to put a veneer of science on it all, what he was up to was so obviously transparent that he was ostracized by the scientific community for putting his ego before his responsibility to the public (just as Mullis was, although for slightly different reasons). So AIDS denialism never had a basis in science, and it still doesn’t. Nowadays, it’s a quasi-religious operation based on faith, with elements of conspiracy theory, “pharmanoia”, anti-governmentalism, quack medicine profiteering and personal fear of a lethal virus all thrown into the pot. But science, no, it’s not science, as is borne out by the sub-High School quality of the scientific material posted on this thread by the denialists. It would be pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous to the health of people who actually believe this claptrap and make poor personal (or in the case of Mbeki, political) decisions as a result.

Posted by: John Moore | November 23, 2007 11:59 AM

Why do you care, you cant debate any of your views publicly, you claim to have a mountain of evidence but cant link people to the first 5 papers proving hiv causes AIDS. You say to prove a microbes pathenogenicity in humans you cant do it in a series of original papers, Koch did it, shyh ching Lo did it. Your rocket ship analogy is the biggest joke of them all!

You are against patients recieving informed consent, and are responsible for the epidimic of mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans induced complex multi organic illnesses often misdiagnosed as CFS/depression etc, the only microbe to kill and sicken every animal inocluated, thanks for the genocide, keep up the good work. If people had informed consent this genocide could have been prevented, Lo has already developed a vaccine.

You overdosed patients with AZT in the late eighties, might have killed them, and if the patients knew they were being on long term chemo they would hav never taken it, and might still be alive today.

There will always be scientists that have different viewpoints, thats just the way science works, its up to the patient to recieve full informed consent and then proceed with that knowledge. If somebody took the atkins diet, and died of a heart attack because many other doctors felt it was dangerous, it is really no one fault besides the patient, if the patient benifits from that diet than good for them, nobody is intentionally trying to murder anyone.

With hiv its the same thing if you or Duesberg is wrong and a certain patient takes that advice and is either benefitted or harmed by it, as long as he/she recieved informed consent it is no ones fault but thier own for their resulting good health or disease.

So stop pretending to save lives, youre not, if people make a choice based on informed consent, they have a right to control their own destiny, especially when you and your drug company hack pals could easily be wrong.

Posted by: cooler | November 23, 2007 12:29 PM

Yet this is exactly what Anthony Liversidge and other Denialists do. Liversidge even goes further to make the absurd and arrogant claim that he can understand a scientist’s papers better than the scientist himself. This represents a delusion of competence that is inversely proportional to his actual level of understanding.

Chris, you are an interesting psychological phenomenon all by your repetitive self. You deny the truth of incontrovertible statements automatically and without thought, either by rephrasing them inaccurately or by calling those who uselessly try and inform you better “Denialists”, a reversal now you have apparently now capitalized in your desperation to foist a label on others that you yourself deserve with every post you write.

Actually as you well know we didn’t say we understood their papers better than the scientists themselves who wrote them. We said that we read them with more care than you do, and that we found they contradicted the paradigm they used as a premise. In fact, Moore explicitly contradicts the authority of the HIV research he reviews. He condemns it as badly done and its conclusions as unacceptable. Are you not aware of this? Time for you to read New AIDS Review, Chris. As a fellow guardian of good science, you should enjoy it.

But will you? When will you learn anything new at all? Over years your only intellectual function is to deny. You are offered a Niagara of refutation of what you have attached yourself to like a barnacle to the side of a sinking ship. The ship that hit an iceberg in the form of Duesberg, one of the great scientists of the current era, whose name will still be up in lights a century from now while yours will be a footnote of obdurate denialism of good science in the history of this great affair. Yet you cannot seem to understand any of it, presumably because of the Kruger-Dunning effect.

You are indeed the great Denialist, Chris, a Denialist of such grand stature that we can only gasp in wonder at the uniqueness of your accomplishment. For unlike your betters you actually believe on what you are purveying, isn’t that right? You actually believe in the most obvious nonsense in science since Jacques Beneviste’s proof of homeopathy, which even Nature and John Maddox doubted.

But world beating barnacle or not, at least get your characterization of what you are denying straight. We have found a number of papers so far where your hero and mentor John “I love macaques even though I am not and never have been a macaque and am merely busy running through $500,000 kindly provided by the large drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb in painting their undersides with microbicides which enhance the passage of HIV for some reason on the basis of a paradigm whose flaws I can enumerate better than any denialist” Moore states quite clearly for all to see and comprehend the existence of fatal mistakes in the claims and research of his fellow HIV hunters, and there is already one of these papers deconstructed in detail for your delectation on New AIDS Review.com, where it lies for you to read and fail to understand as is your wont.

Why not use your index finger to trace the words and speak them out loud as you go along? Maybe that would help.

That’s what we do. In fact, that is how we got onto this whole thing. By examining their papers word for word, rather than skimming them as you apparently do and taking for granted that they only say whatever they say in the abstract, we found that Moore, Fauci etc were writing papers which included self condemnation.

Presumably this is the result of their inner conflict, unknown to your simpler self, which arises from the knowledge that they have built their careers on a) a fantasy which they know very well is scientifically absurd and which kills people, and b) on the misplaced trust of a large number of decent people from you to Bill Clinton.

Do you honestly think that any of these guys and their underlings would take ARVs if they discovered themselves to be HIV positive, which of course is impossible since they are not in a “risk group”? Would you, Mr Noble, take them? Or would you actually start reading the literature with a little more attention to the fine print for a change?

There’s a question for you to answer yes or no. Would you consider taking the test and if positive reading the literature of HIV=AIDS with more attention?

If so, go to New AIDS Review, where we will add another post especially for you on the topic of Moore and his covert leadership of Denialism in HIV=AIDS, denialism on both sides of the fence, denying that the “Denialists” have any points while at the same time denying that the paradigm he lives by and on makes any sense either.

It is becoming difficult to decide whether you or he are the greater Denialist, Chris. You have longevity on your side, and have taken your stand publicly without any equivocation of any kind, since any point that HIV critics make is hidden from you by the Kruger-Dunning effect.

But Moore has the authority of his Weill Cornell position on his side, and is flouting the interests of his patron Bristol-Myers, who awarded him his $500,000 prize for his so far unsuccessful microbicide research, and has written his Denialism up in peer reviewed papers in learned journals for all to peruse.

We’d say it was neck and neck right now.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 1:52 PM

In the interest of brevity, could the denialists agree to abbreviate their “I’m not a denialist, you are!” manifestos, like the above, to the traditional standby:

“I know you are, but what am I?”

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 23, 2007 2:14 PM

I quite agree, Roy. Although in Liversidge’s case, it would be easier if he just wrote “I am insane, and here’s the proof”. Incidentally, have you and Chris noted the delusion of grandeur associated with his use of “The Royal We” when referring to himself. There’s yet more personal pathology there to be deconstructed if anyone could be bothered……

Posted by: John Moore | November 23, 2007 3:13 PM

Gee, John, lured out of hiding again? What happened to your vow never to respond to Denialists? Are we getting under your skin with our promise to out you as a covert leader of dissidence in HIV=AIDS science?

Yes, your papers are written in the scientific equivalent of Swahili, ‘Ndio Bwana (Yes Sir), but unluckily for you, anyone willing to use their index finger to pore over the sentences word by word, as we do, mouthing them out loud and using three medical dictionaries and a TV tuned to TNT to avoid dying of boredom, can decipher the literacy-challenged content well enough to see you standing there as it were buck naked in your honesty, enumerating the deficits in the science of your bumbling colleagues well enough to bring into very severe question the creaking paradigm you are still standing on, supported as it is by the billions in tax payer and drug money of those who trust you.

Having deconstructed one of your papers at length in our post John P. Moore Brings down the AIDS Paradigm Part 1 and 2) (to be found at www.scienceguardian.com/blog/?p=495) and shown this to be nothing less than a fatal attack on the thinking of the faithful disguised as a call for better data we can understand your embarrassed laughter, since no doubt Anthony Fauci was not pleased, but we said we admired your honesty and integrity for doing it and cannot understand why you should persist in sniping at us for trying to expand the understanding of the science and politics of HIV=AIDS in the same spirit presumably as you wrote the paper explaining why HIV in the body has no “biologically significant effects”.

Is it possible that you aimed at making these points privately only to your insider colleagues and not to the world at large? A world which might be very interested to find that you stand by the result of your study that HIV has no effect in the body, and even try to claim priority for this finding in your paper, emphasizing that you found it out many years ago but were too discreet to publish it, presumably because the HIV Inquisition for which you are a leading prosecutor would have you upside down on a hook in no time if you did, judging from the way they trashed Peter Duesberg, a far greater scientist than yourself, all but yourself would agree.

The post is there for all to see and judge whether your laughing dismissal of it as scientifically misunderstood is valid or whether you are hung on your own yardarm.

I shouldn’t worry John you will be admired for your honesty even though for political reasons it has to be concealed beneath a cloak of rude disrespect and calumny about Peter Duesberg, when you are really on our side.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 3:18 PM

“The Royal We” ???

At least the world can see how little sense you make Moore. Stick around.

Posted by: pat | November 23, 2007 3:20 PM

Of course I would never do that, because the Kruger-Denning effect doesn’t apply to me.

Wonderful! The Kruger-Dunning effect in operation again!

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 3:46 PM

Ha, ha, ha ! Pee Moore doesn’t read this blog, he says. Yet I am quite sure it is among his principal activities. He reads this blog, eats his liver and hammers nervously away on his keyboard in some kind of heroic attempt to compose an answer that doesn’t get him further up shit creek.

Everthing you say is wrong, Johnny pee more. For instance, medicine is not a science. Fucking around with chemicals you inject into monkeys to record how many of them among how many die in how many hours, days or weeks may be scientific, medicine isn’t. And never has been. So cut out the bit out scientific knowledge, will ye? You may know a lot about animal mistreatment, but that’s all, okay?

Oh, I forgot. Scientific medicine does exist. It’s called the German New Medicine. The discoverer is called Ryke Geerd Hamer. Predictability. Reproductibility. Falsification criteria. Verification criteria. You name it, it’s all there. Dr Hamer is chased all over the globe like a criminal. At the same time his New Medicine is plundered by the greedy and cutely relooked to enable the chemo cartel crooks to continue their works in peace.

Posted by: jspreen | November 23, 2007 4:42 PM

John,

I did notice the Royal We, but with the mix of arrogance and mental illness prevalent among the denialists I wasn’t sure whether to attribute it to pure ostentatiosness, or split personality disorder.

Though, given their Highnesses latest post claiming to understand the intent of your papers better than you do, I think Mr. Liversedge suffers from such arrogance that not only have t(he)y convinced themselves their shit doesn’t stink, but apparently t(he)y thinks its really Creme Brulee.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 23, 2007 6:30 PM

Roy, In the interest of brevity, could you and John consider blowing each other in private henceforth? As fascinating as your agreements are in and of themselves,
the “don’t you agree with me Roy that. . . “yes, John I cetainly agree with you and I still love Big Brother”, exchanges are not really news.

How about it if we simply assume that you agree with each other until otherwise indicated. If you start feeling lonely and insecure you can always mail your mutual assurances directly?

At one point I actually burst out laughing at the sheer stupidity of what passes for Liversidge’s “thinking” on the science that underlies this paper. A reasonable analogy would be if I attempted to deconstruct the meaning behind a poem written in Swahili, a language and a subject with which I have no familiarity at all

First of all, John, you seem have such insurmountable problems with your mother tongue that I woudn’t advise you to attempt any foreign languages before you have learned that just because a poem is written in Swahili, it doesn’t make Swahili its subject, neither would “the meaning
behind(?) the poem” automatically relate to a subject you don’t understand – unless of course you consider Swahili speaking people so different from yourself that they are not real people to you but rather some sort of alien guinea pig race.

Someone as high and mighty as yourself, Prof Moore, should be excused for feeling that good old colonialist alienation towards the people you so nobly have set out to civilize, however, in this case the problem is not so much that you self-admittedly cannot find the point of shared humanity which is the subject-matter of all poetry, but that you understand nothing about the entire African continent. You should therefore stick to your revealing reviews of HIV science, making sure the slippers are by your bedside in the morning, and teaching your darling macaque (you know the only one that has survived al your vaginal challenges )to fetch the newspaper from the front lawn.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 23, 2007 8:13 PM

Gene and I presumably don’t understand Ascher or Palella either, but for some reason you don’t mind discussing those. On the other hand, I think the recent embarrasing revision of the African HIV stats is within most people’s intellectual grasp – excepting of course Prof. Moore who self-admittedly doesn’t understand anything about people who speak foreign languages and don’t keep slippers by their bedside – and yet you don’t wish to discuss that either. Heck, you don’t even want to tell my poor mum how she, as a monogamous, married woman, of a sudden is at high risk of AIDS.

Dr. Noble, are there any emerging aspects of the sinking HIV/AIDS paradigm you feel comfortable discussing? Vaccines, microbicides, chemoprophylaxis for healthy women (African naturally, although the study says nothing about their Swahili skills); anything at all you want to say before the growing waters drench you to the bone Dr. Noble? Or are the times really a-changing that fast? In that case, and if your time to you is worth saving, then you’d better start swimming.

Posted by: Molecular Enty Claw | November 23, 2007 8:38 PM

MEC,

Such arrogance from fools.

So MEC, when will the paradigm come crumbling down?

Please name a date by which a majority of scientists will side with you on HIV and AIDS.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 23, 2007 9:10 PM

Why not use your index finger to trace the words and speak them out loud as you go along? Maybe that would help.

That’s what we do. In fact, that is how we got onto this whole thing. By examining their papers word for word,… we found that Moore, Fauci etc were writing papers which included self condemnation.

There’s your problem right there, Truthseeker. By focusing on the words, you’re ignoring the most important part of every scientific paper. No wonder you don’t understand them.

Posted by: Dale | November 23, 2007 9:20 PM

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 23, 2007 6:30 PM

May we re-present this post by a fond supporter of John P. “I say leave my blasted bottom alone Hinkley, that is the macaque over there in the other cage fer Heaven’s sake!” Moore as a classic, in fact unique specimen of the befuddled and leaden wit of those who help John out in his rapid evasion moves when confronted by his own words, precious words spoken sotto voce backstage in specialist journals obscure to the average concerned citizen, HIV meme victim and macaque imprisoned at Weill-Cornell in Manhattan but now increasingly publicized in a spirit of admiring amazement by the critics of his paradigm platform who were under the impression that he was Ho’s lackey in insulting and jeering at them in a scientifically vacuous manner but now realize that he is their greatest supporter.

This post is so distinguished in three dimensions of inaccuracy and disrespect that we believe there should perhaps be an annual Hinkley Prize for distinction in mispelling (’ostentatiosness’ ‘Liversedge’), misunderstanding and illiteracy in reading posts before adding comment (”given their Highnesses latest post claiming to understand the intent of your papers better than you do”, ie Hinkley joins Noble in misreading what we wrote), and inability to come up with a non cliched metaphor that doesn’t disgust imaginative readers (”arrogance that not only have t(he)y convinced themselves their shit doesn’t stink, but apparently t(he)y thinks its really Creme Brulee.”

What kind of mind writes such a sentence in public? Only the kind of strong, unimaginative mind willing to face the fact that drugs kill AIDS patients with liver damage but are prescribed for a harmless virus, and do nothing at all about it. But then, lack of imagination is one of the chief handicaps of HIV apologists, as we have seen.

By the way, since Chris Noble admitted in public on New AIDS Review that he wouldn’t recommend taking the drugs himself and then, embarrassed at being taken to task by Michael Geiger over this stance, vanished from the site, perhaps we should also ask Roy whether if HIV positive he would do the same ie prefer not to take them?

Of course like Chris Noble he may have learned to avoid giving an answer to this question.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 23, 2007 10:02 PM

My,

The arrogance of a man who considers himself superior because he can spell his own name when others have never even heard of it. It staggers the imagination.

Please, do be careful if you decide to award a prize in my honor. I would hate for it to become confused with THE Hinkley Prize for HIV/AIDS denialism which was established on a freezing cold day in hell on July 14, 1993. This prize will be awarded to the first person to accurately predict the date upon which the HIV/AIDS paradigm would crumble. We’ve had over seventy thousand entries fail so far, new entries arrive, and fail, daily. The grand prize for predicting the precise date of “The Fall of the HIV/AIDS Paradigm!” is fifty thousand dollars held in ESCROW in a Swiss Bank. Registration is free, enter as many times as you like, just please put your prediction in writing and place your name on it so we can so we can observe a small ceremony, mostly snickering, as your date passes.

Oh! And Anthony?

Thanks for putting the U in ostentatiousness!

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 12:56 AM

Thanks for putting the U in ostentatiousness!

Ha, ha, ha! You left it out yourself to begin with, you dummy. Well, what the heck. If we start to focus on typos, we’re lost.

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 2:40 AM

Dear Prof. Moore,

As you know, I have been following your own and Dr. Noble’s advice and started spying on my son to find out more about the well coordinated worldwide web of denialist activities he is part of. I agree with you it’s shocking! Just shocking, and must be dealt with accordingly. First off I will do as you have recommended and use all my energy and authority to destroy his future career possibilities. But somehow this doesn’t seem harsh enough. Do you have any other ideas?

Prof. Moore I cannot tell you how exciting it is for me that I’m now working with you. I have learned so much. Take for example the HIV-herpes connection. The latest research shows that,

Treating herpes simplex virus type 2 appears to reduce HIV-1 plasma levels by more than 50% in men infected with both viruses

This means that Herpes Simplex accounts for almost as much HIV as HIV itself does, and that’s just ONE cofactor. . . Oh my golly!
That’s exactly like the new studies that show monogamous married women like myself account for 40%-70% of all new HIV infections, which means that our husbands andchildren would account for another minimum 90% of infecions, making the grand total of new HIV infections among married couples and their children 165 percent, give and take a few, of the total 100 percent of new HIV infections.

I think it’s a sign of good science when the basic numbers are kept thus consistent throughout the different disciplines making up the entire field. But I do find the science behind the virology particularly elegant: HIV activates Herpes, which activates HIV, which activates Herpes, which activates HIV… until in the end you a have a bona fide AIDS event. How can Leversedge, or whatever his name is, think this is complicated at all? Why anybody who understands the concept of a circle would have grasped the fundamentals of HIV science!

And just imagine – I like HIV science because I get to use my imagination right away – what would happen if we threw into the mix some of the other frequent coinfections like Hep C that also make the very HIV specific fractions of RNA detected by PCR soar in numbers… I think here we have the explanation to the pseudo-conundrum raised by that pseudo-virologist, Peter Duesberg, who says HIV is just too sleepy to cause any harm: HIV is the aristocrat among viruses, Prof. Dumberg, just as virologists are the aristocrats among scientists. It doesn’t need to do any of its own replication; it simply tells the other opportunistic infections to wake up and start replicating for it.

Yours admiringly
MEC’s Mum

PS. Prof Moore, Dale says that by focusing on the words, you’re ignoring the most important part of every scientific paper. I think that’s a very wise remark. As you pointed out yourself, my son made a terrible fool of himself by not studying Nicoli Nattras’ picture attached to her recent article, thus sowing serious doubs about whether he had actually read it. So I was wondering if you could put up a picture of yourself on your website wearing the white robes of your Calling? I’d like to be able to show to my friends the scientist with whom I have been corresponding the past couple of days.

PPS. Why are you not answering any of my questions Prof.Moore?

PPPS. There’s yet more personal pathology there to be deconstructed if anyone could be bothered……(Moore)

I gather from my son’s secret study notes (yes he keeps a file on you with a skull and crossbones logo on the cover) that since you don’t have a personal writing style or wit to speak of, you are understandably “borrowing” from your much more urbane fellow expat, Mr. Leversedge. I find it highly commendable that a man of your age and stature is still adding to your list of tricks, but I do think it would b better if you stuck with borrowing words whose meaning you actually understand. You can thus
“deconstruct” text, concepts, binary oppositions… but you cannot, I’m sad to say, deconstruct pathology – not even of the personal kind.

Posted by: MEC’s Mum | November 24, 2007 3:53 AM

PPPPS.

Roy, please grow up.

Posted by: MEC’s Mum | November 24, 2007 3:59 AM

This prize will be awarded to the first person to accurately predict the date upon which the HIV/AIDS paradigm would crumble.

What a joke! The HIV=Aids=Death equation has been a crumble pie from the beginning and weren’t it for the propaganda glue daily reinforced by Johnny pee more, whining Markus, galloping Robert and their creepy little helpers, the cake would have fallen apart into separate atoms ages ago.

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 6:00 AM

“Please name a date by which a majority of scientists will side with you on HIV and AIDS.”

You can now join the chorus and sign the lowered AIDS estimates for all of Africa.

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 6:07 AM

This prize will be awarded to the first person to accurately predict the date upon which the HIV/AIDS paradigm would crumble.

But Roy, you are not aware that the HIV/AIDS paradigm crumbled in 1984? That was the year when it was announced by Bob Gallo and Margaret Heckler to the stenographers of the world press on the basis of Bob’s four papers. These papers when examined by thinking people proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that HIV did not and could not cause AIDS, since his lab detected it in merely one third of the blood samples of AIDS patients.

You are not aware that Bob Gallo was the first person to prove that HIV does not cause AIDS? Where have you been in the last 23 years? Oh, making money out of the failed paradigm, pretending it is viable? I see. Now tell me, do you not feel any shame at exploiting a notion which puts so many innocent people in jeopardy from nasty poisons? Is there not a twinge of conscience occasionally at the end result of your efforts?

We are assuming of course that you are in the last analysis a fundamentally decent man, who certainly had a mother and may even have children of his own. And an intelligent one, which can be easily seen from your posts.

One always wonders how it is that fundamentally decent men can perpetrate a failed paradigm on the world simply because all their dimmer colleagues are going along with it.

One theory might be that the truth is so painful and shocking that it is simply too horrible to contemplate that one is participating in it, especially for a good scientist.

Of course, such inner conflict is the only way to account for John’s antics in writing such hate filled screeds against the “Denialists” while he himself quietly supports their main points in his hitherto unpublicized papers which Science Guardian is about to spotlight.

But a man who can so easily crack urbane jokes about spelling while profiting from science that Bob Gallo showed was nonsense in 1984, what can we say about him?

Only that the ways of the soul are deep and hidden in those who live by a system which attacks the health of women and children on the basis of science which they know in their hearts to be wrong.

Oh well, back to joking lightly about the fate of the unwashed, who cares about them, eh? After all, 25 books have been written exploding the paradigm, articles with 200 footnotes have been written all over showing it hasn’t a logical leg to stand on, and the correct view of the entire mess is freely available on the Web, with even John supporting it in the literature, along with Anthony, Bob, and other more senior AIDS generals, as we have shown in our little read blog.

The liberal flagship Harpers last year devoted 15 pages to exposing the scam. Yet the whole bandwagon rolls on undisturbed,

So when when it all end? Only God knows, but perhaps you can tell us, if you look into your own soul. Maybe the question should be, when will men like you crumble?

When at long last will conscience strike you?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 24, 2007 7:35 AM

Please name a date by which a majority of scientists will side with you on HIV and AIDS.

Scientists who side with us heretics on Aids are per John Pee Moore & Consort’s “Scientific Community” definition excluded from said community. Thus, you feel very safe from where you write your litle notes because, in your un-seeing eyes, the Aids denialists can never possibly become a “scientific” majority.

But this, I hope, is of no real importance. The foundations of Science itself are crumbling little by little and the day the herds of Aids drug pusher and pushers of all sorts will finally face their creator, maybe an new science will rise and shine and in which there will be no place for selfish, foolish and greedy naked assed emperors.

Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

What did you say? Me, angry? Yes, very.

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 8:27 AM

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9591224168%20

jspreen, you’re too kind, tell them to stick it and we all know where. The only ones who believe that HIV causes AIDS also believes in Santa’s little helpers.

Posted by: Noreen – Still Standing | November 24, 2007 9:19 AM

Of all the amateurish ignorant arguments the AIDS denialists make this one is probably the most buffoonish:

“the HIV/AIDS paradigm crumbled in 1984?”…”HIV did not and could not cause AIDS, since his lab detected it in merely one third of the blood samples of AIDS patients.”

Since you, and nearly all other denialists, are completely ignorant of experimental science, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Science is hard.

Things don’t always work perfectly. And the first time a difficult technique is developed, such as culturing a retrovirus from the preserved tissues of patients who died of AIDS, it doesn’t work in every single attempt. But, given time to improve the technique and gain experience in handling such unfamiliar entities as retroviruses and T-cells, (as well as using fresh samples from patients who are still suffering from the disease rather than improperly preserved specimens from some of the very first people to die of the disease), scientists can make great progress in the lab.

In fact, a mere 3-4 years after Gallo’s press conference, detecting the virus from the blood of infected individuals had become routine:

# Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 detected in all seropositive symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals.

“We isolated HIV-1 or detected HIV-1 DNA sequences from the PBMC of all 409 HIV-1 antibody-positive individuals. None of 131 healthy HIV-1 antibody-negative individuals were HIV-1 culture positive, nor were HIV-1 DNA sequences detected by PCR in the blood specimens of 43 seronegative individuals. In addition, HIV-1 PCR and HIV-1 culture were compared in testing the PBMC of 59 HIV-1 antibody-positive and 20 HIV-1 antibody-negative hemophiliacs. Both methods were found to have sensitivities and specificities of at least 97 and 100%, respectively.”

As for the rest of your post:
“One always wonders how it is that fundamentally decent men can perpetrate a failed paradigm on the world simply because all their dimmer colleagues are going along with it.

One theory might be that the truth is so painful and shocking that it is simply too horrible to contemplate that one is participating in it…”

Project much?

Since you recognize this possibility, that one could deny a fundamentally obvious truth as a mechanism to preserve and protect the psyche, perhaps you should consider your own position more closely? You know, just in case you and Cooler really aren’t smarter than 99.9999% of doctors and scientists who have made a career of understanding biology. Or, just in case Duesberg & Margulis are not the only 2 out of 2000+ members of the National Academy of Sciences smart enough to see a scientific fraud so obvious it has been exposed by laymen writing blogs.

As for THE Hinkley Prize, I’ll place you in the “indeterminate” category: “I know that “The Downfall of the Paradigm” is imminent, I’m just unable to predict it with less than a 23 year margin of error.”

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 11:02 AM

Roy, if Detecting HIV is such a fine art now, why did Gallo only acknowledge only 40% under oath? Surely, if it is so accurate he would have testified to this. If it were 100% accurate, this does not prove that HIV causes AIDS or anything else for that matter. My question to you is where are the double blind studies that prove all of this? Some of you harp about studies but the most important one, the one that proves HIV causes AIDS, doesn’t exist yet you wholeheartedly accept this hypothesis without proof.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 24, 2007 11:15 AM

“Since you recognize this possibility, that one could deny a fundamentally obvious truth as a mechanism to preserve and protect the psyche, perhaps you should consider your own position more closely?”

Sorry, this is not directed at me but…

I can understand that someone who is stricken with much grief could go into a denial mode but I must wonder what TS’ grief is that would cause him to go into his “denial” mode. What is his grief?
TS, what’s your grief that could cause so much denial?

“I know that “The Downfall of the Paradigm” is imminent, I’m just unable to predict it with less than a 23 year margin of error.”

It is strange that you should think this funy when it is AIDS science that has been unable to make any accurate prediction in 23 years.

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 11:28 AM

“the one that proves HIV causes AIDS, doesn’t exist yet you wholeheartedly accept this hypothesis without proof.”

Proof can be a long time in coming. Very few things have been “proven”. Science is falsified, not “proven” true (i.e. “We don’t know what it is but we know what it isn’t”). So don’t ask what HIV IS, ask what HIV isn’t. It is not an automobile, so much is certain. There are many diseases for which humanity needed decades to solve so 23 years in and of itself is not really exceptional. What IS exceptional with AIDS though is that the HIV/AIDS HYPOTHESIS is zealously defended as a “fact” proven true (???) and all other doors have been padlocked shut. It is alot like locking the emergency exits of a crowded cinema from the outside or steaming full speed ahead through the dark of night in 53′000 tons of “unsinkable” steel … recepies for disaster.

“trust me…it can sink!”

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 11:59 AM

Well, after wading through all the overnight postings from the AIDS denialists, it’s quite clear that all but one of them that post regularly on this site are certifiably insane, wackoes, nutters, loonie-toons and flakes – and the single one who isn’t mad has a very obvious agenda that is not very well hidden behind the pseudonym (I’ll leave it to the denialists to argue among themselves who is the sane one, which will no doubt degenerate into an “I am Spartacus”-style of debate).

I’ve gleaned a few useful items of political intelligence for the real-world war against HIV/AIDS denialism from these threads, but I don’t think there’s much more to be learned from this particular subset of loonies, so I’ll not be visiting this thread again.

I’ll leave by appending below the advie given to Josh Lyman by CJ Cregg, the Chief of Staff to President Bartlett in the sadly missed TV Show “The West Wing, concerning the crazies who post on Blogs…………. (Chris, Roy, Adele, Braganza, Tara et al. from the sane side of the above interchanges will, of course, fully understand that CJ’s words don’t apply to them, as they are so very obviously intelligent people).
—————————————————–

“You posted on a website?”
“. . .C.J., it a crazy place. It’s got this dictatorial leader. . .”
“What did you go there for in the first place?”
“It’s called LemonLyman.com.”
“Let me explain something to you, this is sort of my field. The people on these sites: they’re the cast of ‘One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest.’ . . . I’m telling you to open the ward room window and climb on out before they give you a pre-frontal lobotomy and I have to smother you with a pillow. . . .

Posted by: John Moore | November 24, 2007 1:03 PM

Of all the amateurish ignorant arguments the AIDS denialists make this one is probably the most buffoonish:

“the HIV/AIDS paradigm crumbled in 1984?”…”HIV did not and could not cause AIDS, since his lab detected it in merely one third of the blood samples of AIDS patients.”

Since you, and nearly all other denialists, are completely ignorant of experimental science, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Science is hard.

Can we quote you on this Roy? Well, no matter, don’t bother to reply, since you are obviously not a very bright scientist after all, since not only do you take refuge in political arguments but you can’t even read your own literature straight. Maybe you are not a scientist at all, at this rate. If you are not aware of the first enormous difficulty of peddling the HIV=AIDS hypothesis to any thinking person, which is the extreme difficulty of finding significant amounts of HIV in the blood of patients, a difficulty which has led to the “AIDS test” being one for antibodies, and not virus, then you are a scientific dunce, and should sit at the feet of John Moore, your tutor, for an hour and ket him explain.

Unfortunately it seems that you are one of the dimmer ones not even aware of the problems with your paradigm, let alone a solution to them, so one can’t even be sure that you know what you are doing visiting this claptrap and its consequences on hapless gays and blacks. No wonder your conscience doesn’t switch on. You actually believe what you say. Guess its the old Kruger-Dunning effect at work again.

But thank you to Pat for putting his/her finger on the crucial point here. The very fact that like Moore you answer doubts about your favorite funding hypothesis with belligerence and not ease tells all of us what is involved, and it ain’t science.

Let’s think what it is. Here are some possibilities:

“Why does an opponent scorn his critics? In this case, you can think of several reasons.

“1) He is defensive.
2) They are ignorant of the world (eg kids, 9/11 nutters, etc)
3) They have arguments he can’t afford to answer in public.
4) He is better paid ie funded and therefore wiser in the ways of the world than the naively idealistic critics
5) They have a conscience and he is determined to keep his switched off.
6) He suffers from inner turmoil and the very sight of a critic is a wound to his psyche
7) Terror at the paradigm collapsing under his feet leaving him exposed intellectually, emotionally, socially and financially.

You choose.”

Gee, I am quoting myself. Sorry about that. But one tires of writing it out all over again for the drivers in the slow lane. A scientist who doesn’t understand the meaning of having to find virus or virus parts with needle-in-a-haystack PCR is no quick mind, that’s for sure.

I guess there should be another factor in the list.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 24, 2007 1:30 PM

Noreen,

Perhaps you should take some time and (re)read Gallo’s testimony, the 1984 papers, and the reference I posted above.

As you read, keep in mind that the Gallo lab were developing a new technique for culturing a new virus. That virus, HIV, as you know has an RNA genome. RNA is a relatively unstable chemical compared to say DNA or proteins. It is degraded by enzymes called RNAses, present virtually everywhere, unless special precautions are taken in the the storage and care of samples. In particular, extreme cold and the additon of RNAse inhibitors delay the action of RNAses in degrading RNA molecules. In the early eighties it was still unknown that HIV was an RNA virus and so special care was not taken in preserving blood and tissue samples from people suffering from, or dead of AIDS. Thus, many of the original samples the Gallo lab worked with were not of suitable quality to isolate a replication competent virus from.

As techniques were refined and blood and tissue samples were handled appropriately for the recovery of virus a success rate of nearly 100% in recovering virus from patients has been achieved. See the above reference.

In the Parenzee case Gallo was asked about their original work in the early eighties. Work which has only been supported by later studies using improved techniques.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 2:42 PM

Roy, I still cannot believe that HIV can do all of the things that it is porported to do since I am fine and have the all of the criteria that is so important to AIDS. Many are in the same boat as me meaning many have stopped their drugs and some have never progressed to AIDS after twenty years. Obviously, there are some flaws to this theory. Why in the world wouldn’t those who profess to be interested in science, not do the required studies of various persons, on and off the drugs to establish the truth once and for all. When scientists state that they don’t debate us, well, it only makes us that much more convinced that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Why is everyone so afraid of the truth unless they have something to lose?

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 24, 2007 3:26 PM

I’ve gleaned a few useful items of political intelligence for the real-world war against HIV/AIDS denialism from these threads

Of course you have, John, of course you have. In your ver own reality this wasn’t an unbroken string of humiliating defeats, including this last pathetic attempt at putting a brave face on pure white flag waving, but a masterplan, masterfully laid and executed by you for lofty and hidden purposes that have now been achieved. You clever bugger you, for pure grandiosity of conception Churchill, never mind Napoleon, had nothing on you John. Not-a-thing!

I don’t think there’s much more to be learned from this particular subset of loonies, so I’ll not be visiting this thread again.

There are probably a few here, who are reading your umpteenth self-important parting speech with a shrug of the shoulders, mumbling “who does he think gives a shit?!” But I’ll have you know I’m not one of them, John. I’m your number one fan, your fondest admirer, your all night DJ. You’ll be sorely missed by me and my Mum, Mrs. Entry Claw, but we say thank you for all that’s been, your informative answers, your gentle ways and especially the nice words in parting.

The last song is for you as well. My Mum chose it for you:

Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please

He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say “I know you, you know me”
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me

He bag production he got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard he one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease
Come together right now over me

He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-looking ’cause he’s so hard to see
Come together right now over me

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw (and his Mum) | November 24, 2007 3:28 PM

“In the early eighties it was still unknown that HIV was an RNA virus”

Stupid question alert:

Isn’t “RNA virus” the same as a “retrovirus”?

Science, Vol 220, Issue 4599, 865-867
Copyright Â© 1983 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

——————————————————————————–

articles

Isolation of human T-cell leukemia virus in acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)
RC Gallo, PS Sarin, EP Gelmann, M Robert-Guroff, E Richardson, VS Kalyanaraman, D Mann, GD Sidhu, RE Stahl, S Zolla-Pazner, J Leibowitch, and M Popovic

Several isolates of a human type-C retrovirus belonging to one group, known as human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), have previously been obtained from patients with adult T-cell leukemia or lymphoma. The T-cell tropism of HTLV and its prevalence in the Caribbean basin prompted a search for it in patients with the epidemic T-cell immune deficiency disorder known as AIDS. Peripheral blood lymphocytes from one patient in the United States and two in France were cultured with T-cell growth factor (TCGF) an shown to express HTLV antigens. Virus from the U.S. patient was isolated and characterized and shown to be related to HTLV subgroup I. The virus was also transmitted into normal human T cells from umbilical cord blood of a newborn. Whether or not HTLV-I or other retroviruses of this family with T-cell tropism cause AIDS, it is possible that patients from whom the virus can be isolated can also transmit it to others. If the target cell of AIDS is the mature T cell as suspected, the methods used in these studies may prove useful for the long-term growth of these cells and for the identification of antigens specific for the etiological agent of AIDS.”

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 3:49 PM

Noreen,

Searching “long term nonprogressor” in google scholar returns 1020 hits.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=long+term+nonprogressor&btnG=Search

I think if you acquaint yourself with this literature you will find that only about 5% of HIV infected people go for prolonged periods without progressing to severe CD4 cell depletion and AIDS. These people are studied extensively when they can be identified and are willing to be involved in research.

As for scientists who refuse to debate denialists, I see their reasoning although I’m not sure I agree with it. It does seem that talking to denialists rarely produces results. For instance, will you read the Gallo paper, the relevant testimony from the Parenzee trial, or the reference I cited above?

Or will you falsely claim again next month that HIV can only be isolated from 40% of people who test HIV positive?

Until denialists demonstrate they give a damn about the truth, a debate does seem pointless at best.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 3:54 PM

No Pat, most RNA viruses are not retroviruses.

http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVFamilyGenome.html

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 4:04 PM

“No Pat, most RNA viruses are not retroviruses.”

thank you

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 4:11 PM

“No Pat, most RNA viruses are not retroviruses.”

- which is totally irrelevant in this context, since all retroviruses are RNA viruses.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 24, 2007 4:32 PM

So now the loser who wrote “I don’t read his Blog” some 24 hours ago, has been “wading through all the overnight postings from the AIDS denialists”

It’s pathetic but also, it’s so much fun to have such an opponent! Right here he’s just posted another great example of the kind of contributions I referred to above, the kind of mails which get him further and further up shit creek. And what does he write? “I’ve been wading” !!!

But the most hilarious part of his scribbling is of course the “I am Spartacus” bit! I assure you, Johnny pee more: the “certifiably insane, wackoes, nutters, loonie-toons and flakes” sticker you glue on the Aids denialists, I’m very proud to receive one. Man, the idea of getting into a contest of which the winner obtains an “I am found sane in the eyes of Johnny pee more” medal! Nobody can top that shit, Moore, nobody. You merit a medal, sure do!

I regret you’ll never read this post, since you’ll never be back on this thread. He he he… I bet you’ll be back before the night is over.

See you tomorrow after the wading, Johnny.

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 5:02 PM

2) They are ignorant of the world (eg kids, 9/1 nutters, etc)

Why do you incessantly bring up the term 9/11 nutters, as you call them, seeker of no truth? Why do you scorn them? Do you know that when it comes to 911, you behave exactly as silly as the Moore tribe does on the Aids topic? Cut it out man, you’ve nothing to gain there. Unless, of course, you are ready to answer the questions you’re asked. For instance (I repeat):

What’s the probability a Boeing-757 completely disappeared into the Pentagon through a hole some 20 feet across and leaving no trace behind?

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 5:21 PM

“As for scientists who refuse to debate denialists, I see their reasoning although I’m not sure I agree with it. It does seem that talking to denialists rarely produces results.”

The results of course are very hard to gage. Let me give an example unrelated to my field of ignorance or expertise.
Lets talk about crime prevention as opposed to law enforcement. In essence these two strategies go hand in hand and in effect make up the two edges of Justicia’s sword. Upon closer inspection of the blade you realize though that one edge is significantly sharper to the touch than the other.

Enforcement appeals to the lazy mind. an uninterested public.

It is budgetable like an war.
It is fightable like a war.
It is paradable like a war.

Prevention has no appeal to the lazy mind. There are no quick results and there is a boring and unsettling dearth of “evil villains”.

But it produces results!!! IT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!

sorry for cap-locks-ing but I am falling on blank screens. Let me cap-lock this just once

IT PAYS TO DEBATE!!!…
maybe not for Truthseekers sake, or Maggiore’s sake, or Duesbergs sake, or my sake (although I wish you would)

Do it for the sake of every other curious mind out there that is suddenly and unexpectadly confronted with this whole thing. Do it so they don’t come out bruised by Moore’s “war” concrete wall of “Guh’scheise” (thats for Adele, she enjoys it. It is Saexisch for “cow shit” or Schwabisch for “cast iron”)

“Until denialists demonstrate they give a damn about the truth, a debate does seem pointless at best.”

Mull this over one more time. You know this can hardly be true. Moore called me a denialist and that is fine if it turns his crank but don’t tell me I don’t care…don’t tell me you are the only one who does.

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 5:51 PM

“No Pat, most RNA viruses are not retroviruses.”

- which is totally irrelevant in this context, since all retroviruses are RNA viruses.”

I wouldn’t have caught that one. I’m a biology idiot (who’s partially right about Africa)
So if Gallo knew in 1983 he was dealing with a retrovirus would he have known it was also an RNA virus? What does this change?

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 6:02 PM

“It’s pathetic but also, it’s so much fun to have such an opponent! Right here he’s just posted another great example of the kind of contributions I referred to above, the kind of mails which get him further and further up shit creek. And what does he write? “I’ve been wading” !!!”

I donno ’bout djou mang, but that is funny indeed. Good observation about Moore’s nautical skills. Wherever you choose to paddle or swim, Mr. Moore, stay off my starboard tack!

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 6:13 PM

Until denialists demonstrate they give a damn about the truth, a debate does seem pointless at best.

Okay, for the sake of debate, I’ll demonstrate I give a damn.

You write:

Or will you falsely claim again next month that HIV can only be isolated from 40% of people who test HIV positive?

Now, which way must one interpret the adjective “falsely”? I guess that your truth would be something close to 100%, wouldn’t it? But my truth is: 0%. My truth up to today is Nobody has ever isolated HIV. People have done tricks with PCR and what not, but HIV isolation, nobody, nowhere, ever.

And thus, the question is not: Is it 0% or 40% or 100%? The question is: What is acceptable HIV isolation?

Posted by: jspreen | November 24, 2007 6:14 PM

Good comeback jspreen, until it has been properly isolated and cultured from we so-called HIV+s, what do they really have? The analogy that I gave in my book is that I have green eyes and if there is a test for green eyes, I would always come up “positive” because I DO have green eyes. But to say that because of this that I am sick or dying is ludicrous. When I make a video for YouTube, I will invite you over so you can see what a full-blown AIDS person, without any AIDS symptoms, looks like. Seeing is believing but I think that most of you will still ignore the truth!

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 24, 2007 6:33 PM

“wouldn’t have caught that one. I’m a biology idiot.”

Hehe, Pat, this is not biology but introductory logic.

If all A are B, does it follow all B are A?

The reason you didn’t catch it was that you asked a good faith question, and thought you would receive a good faith answer. But to Roy your admission of ignorance was a weakness that had to be exploited. Herein lies the real biology of the matter.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 24, 2007 7:11 PM

Roy Hinckley says: Of all the amateurish ignorant arguments the AIDS denialists make this one is probably the most buffoonish: “the HIV/AIDS paradigm crumbled in 1984?”…”HIV did not and could not cause AIDS, since his lab detected it in merely one third of the blood samples of AIDS patients.”

Roy then goes on the quote this article: J Clin Microbiol. 1990 January; 28(1): 16-19. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 detected in all seropositive symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. J B Jackson

Regarding this article, it was listed as the key article by Duesberg proving that HIV has been isolated and identified (reference 16 below), and Duesberg then claimed the continuum award.

DUESBERG CLAIMS CONTINUUM AWARD

(I) Isolation of HIV
The existence of the retrovirus HIV predicts that HIV DNA can be isolated from the chromosomal DNA of infected cells. This prediction has been confirmed as follows: Full-length HIV-1 and HIV-2 DNAs have been prepared from virus-infected cells and cloned in bacterial plasmids (13-15). Such clones are totally free of all viral and cellular proteins, and cellular contaminants that co-purify with virus. These clones produce infectious virus that is neutralized by specific antisera from AIDS patients. For example, virus produced by infectious HIV-2 DNA is neutralized by antiserum from HIV-2 but not from HIV-1-infected people (15).

Since infectious HIV DNA has been isolated from infected human cells that is free of HIV’s own proteins and RNA as well as from all cellular macromolecules, HIV isolation has passed the most vigorous standards available today. In other words these infectious DNA clones meet and exceed the isolation standards of the traditional “Pasteur rules”. Isolation of infectious HIV DNAs is theoretically the most absolute form of isolation – it is the equivalent of isolating the virus’ soul, its genetic code, from the virus’ body, the virus particle. Thus HIV isolation based on molecular cloning exceeds the old standards defined as “Pasteur rules” by Continuum.

(II) Identification of HIV
The existence of HIV predicts that infected cells contain a unique, virus-specific DNA of 9150 nucleotides that cannot be detected in DNA of uninfected human cells. The probabilities that cellular DNA and other viral DNAs would contain the same sequence of 9150 nucleotides is 1 in 4E9150, or 1 in 10E4500 – extremely close to zero! Since the odds that a given nucleotide of any DNA is either A, G, C or T are in 1 in 4, the odds that any DNA has the same sequence of 9150 nucleotides as HIV-1 or HIV-2 are only 1 in 4E9150.

Thanks to the outrageous interest in HIV as the hypothetical cause of AIDS, many investigators have sought specific HIV DNA in humans with and without AIDS in an effort to confirm that rather unreliable HIV antibody-test (1, 5).

But because only 1 in 100 T-cells are ever infected in humans, virtually all such studies use Kary Mullis’ polymerase chain reaction, a technique that is designed to amplify a DNA-needle into a DNA-haystack. Such efforts have confirmed the existence of HIV-specific DNA in most (not all) antibody-positive persons with and without AIDS – but not in the DNA of antibody-negative people. For example Jackson et al have tested blood of 409 antibody-posuitives including 144 AIDS patients and 265 healthy people. In addition 131 antibody-negatives were tested. HIV-specific DNA subsets – defined in size and sequence by HIV-specific primers (start signals for the selective amplification) – were found in 403 of the 409 antibody-positives, but in none of the 131 antibody-negative people (16).

The high sequence specificity of HIV DNAs is translated into the specificity of their proteins, eg. antibodies against HIV-1 do not neutralize HIV-1 (sic) and vice versa (15).

However, the paper (16) does not attempt to prove that HIV causes AIDS. This is assumed by the paper. The paper only says that when HIV proteins are found, HIV DNA by PCR can also be found. Not a very surprising finding.

Roy Hinkley says: Or will you falsely claim again next month that HIV can only be isolated from 40% of people who test HIV positive?

As we discussed above, even Duesberg admits this point. The issue is at question is quite different. Does HIV cause a disease, a disease which causes Kaposi’s sarcoma in gays but not in hemophiliacs? A syndrome which causes immune suppression by an unknown mechanism with no vaccine and no animal model?

Duesberg says that HIV is a harmless passenger retro-virus. And has said so for 20 years. I tend to think he is correct. After all he did all the original work on retroviruses and was awarded membership into the national academy of science.

Posted by: Each_Eye_Vee | November 24, 2007 7:23 PM

noreen still standing reminds me of the story bout the woman who jumps off a skyscraper. as she falls, she says to herself – just gone past the fiftieth floor, no problems, wonder what all the fuss about this falling shit is? fourtieth floor, hey all’s still fine. thirtieth floor, no problemo. twentieth floor, this is cool, i feel great, wind in my hair, you go girl! tenth floor – weehaaaa!!! and then, splat, she’s dead. what’s going to happen to noreen is no joke tho. she’s going to die of aids in a year or two, maybe only a few months. check out the stats on hiv+ people with high viral loads and very low cd4s – death is just a matter of time, and not very much time. noreen you need to tear yourself away from the ghouls who are making you commit suicide by telling you that it’s no problem to jump off a skyscraper and just carry on enjoying the fall. get on arvs before you run out of time. you don’t have much time left, you’re already falling past the tenth floor and the ground is hard when you hit it.

Posted by: rob | November 24, 2007 8:55 PM

Moore picks up his marbles (those that are left)

Wait! Come back! We need you John. You are the best living demonstration of the fact that HIV=AIDS apologists/exploiters/fanatics/ have absolutely no scientific reply to those who refute their absurd claim/23 year unproven hypothesis/massively silly theory/self-serving stupidity/dangerous rationale for killer drugs. None.

You are our Living Exhibit No. 1 of this overriding fact. Anyone who doubts HIV=AIDS just has to review your contributions to this thread to confirm their suspicions that it is bunk. You are the most public Denialist now, and you show us that the Denialists have empty hands when faced with sincere and knowledgeable complaints. All you fire back is insults, politics, and refusals to debate dangerous heresy in case starving blacks don’t take their life saving ARVs.

Now you are leaving us, What one wonders is how long do you think bad logic will last without your fierce counterattacks to protect it?

A claim a retrovirus is deadly for the first time in history, contrary to all known science about retroviruses (pace Gallo and his absurd HTLV-I), with no animal model, no modus operandi, no significant presence, no “significant biological effect” (your words), no discernible health effects until you catch some other plague or poison – are you really so cynical that you think the average concerned citizen will swallow this nonsense for long?

Well, we already know the answer to that. You have prepared your lifeboat in the form of the papers we are about to put stage center at Science Guardian.

The real 9/11

As a farewell present let’s acknowledge one thing. There certainly are one or two 9/11 gullibles around here. We welcome them for scoring some very good points in this debate. It doesn’t mean they are wrong about HIV=AIDS. Each case is separate. Humans being what they are it is quite hard to find anyone who is entirely sane, you and me excepted of course, and Kruger and Dunning.

So let’s respond to jspreen, who seems to have the right idea about HIV, but runs with the loonies on 9/11, JSpreen wrote that we had the wrong idea about 9/11, “no one mentioned the Bushies,” etc.

Well, OK, js, let’s define the terms then. What exactly is the right idea – your alternative explanation for 9/11? The Pentagon was blown up with explosives and not hit by an airplane? So where did the reported fourth hijacked airplane go? And what made the very large hole in Minnesota or wherever? Misplaced explosives?

I am already sorry I asked.

Henry Bauer speaks

Getting back to incorrect claims here that the inimitable Henry Bauer is a 9/11 flake/nut/screwball, he writes to us that:

“After a couple of brief visits, I stopped looking at Aetiology Blog because it lacks evidence-based discussion and seems just a forum for ranting. Now I find that the Comments here at Science Guardian bring some of that trash to my attention. Just for the record here, I do not now and never have given credence to 9/11 conspiracy theories or to alien-generated (or supernaturally generated or UFO-generated) crop circles. Nor do I “believe in” Loch Ness monsters, I just assert that there is strong evidence that large unidentified animals are extant in Loch Ness, see www.henryhbauer.homestead.com/LochNessFacts.html and writings cited (and some posted) there. For my approach to looking into scientific unorthodoxies and heresies, see my latest discussion in the 2001 book SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE: MAGNETIC HEALING, PSYCHIC PHENOMENA, AND OTHER HETERODOXIES (http://scienceorpseudoscience.homestead.com/ has bits from various gratifyingly positive reviews)”

Like the sound of that? All should read his latest book on the unlikely nature of the HIV=AIDS scheme Very nice academic tone, restrained and accurately phrased.

The bottom line is personal shame

Getting back to no more Moore, the prospect saddens us and we have lost the zestful sense of humor his antics always put us in,

So we have to be serious for a moment. Let’s face it, this is the most shameful scam in science and a disgrace to all competent scientists who claim authority in perpetuating it.

What would your mother say, John, if she understood what you were up to? What would your Downing College friends say? Isn’t there anybody in your life trying to put you back on the straight and narrow?

Are you the Lonely Guy of AIDS? Was cooler right in suggesting that you need the attention of a good woman? Or is your taste is the other direction? Would you at least consider attending a (secular) church tomorrow?

So many questions will now have to go unanswered, on top of the fifty HIV=AIDS ones you have failed to answer so far.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 24, 2007 9:19 PM

You folks shouldn’t worry about me, who is quite fine. You see, I have a wonderful parachute, LDN, and I am not afraid of heights. Maybe you are and maybe you can scare most from pursuing their dreams but not me! If I were like you, I would be scared to look over the edge and never leap into new things but playing it safe by the mainstream’s standards is by not taking any risks and like picking fruit, one has to go out on a limb to reap the best results!

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 24, 2007 10:22 PM

What happened to the science? The medical publications and reasoning? There never was any.

This verbiage is a modern day equivalent of a voodoo curse, or perhaps a witch doctor shaking a rattle while chanting a death song to the patient. It may have worked quite well from 1985-1995, driving thousands of drug abusing gays to their deaths by AZT. However, this is 20 years later and the fraud has been revealed for all to see. The witchdoctor has no teeth and is recognized as a clown. HIV is a harmless passenger virus, and those who wisely avoid the toxic drugs are labeled long term non-progressors. How many LTNPs are there? All of them who avoid the deadly drugs.

Posted by: Each_Eye_Vee | November 24, 2007 10:28 PM

the really sad thing is noreen that when you hit the ground and die of aids, all the ghouls on this site who advise you that all is ok and that you can just go on falling will then say you died of amoxicillin poisoning or something just as carzy. anything to try to cover the up the fact that you were yet another aids death. it won’t matter to you of course as youll already be dead, but there will be endless discussions about what your pathology slides show and whether the local coroner was a fraud. maybe those discussions will help stop someone else make the same mistakes you did, but it would still be a terrible thing if you died many years before you could if you took arv’s.

Posted by: rob | November 24, 2007 10:35 PM

Rob,
you are exactly the same kind of asshole that wonders along and makes great proclamations about Noreens health inspite of all her own very personal testimonials. Why don’t you just fuck off to whatever corner of the web you came from or offer something Noreen as a living testifying human being can actually use. How about: “thank the stars you’re alive!”

Your story about people falling off skyscrapers is of course nothing like people living with AIDS and you should be tarred, feathered and marched out of town for making such dubious and weak comparisons. Leap off a cliff and report back to us before describing the velocity and freedom of reflection allowed in actual freefall so we can take you for at least remotely believable. Better yet, why don’t you get yourself stuck with a health situation so you can make exactly the same agonizing health descisions Noreen has had to make for herself? or Maggiore for that matter!

“you don’t have much time left, you’re already falling past the tenth floor and the ground is hard when you hit it”

Like you have been there.

Posted by: pat | November 24, 2007 11:41 PM

Roy Hinkley, you need to be aware of who you are talking to on this site. Molecular Entry Claw is Peter Duesberg’s graduate student Gene. His agenda is to try to find even the slightest scientific error in anything you post and use it to try to humilate you. He will also archive it or post it somewhere else on the internet to try to make the case that all AIDS science is flawed just because you, an AIDS scientist, made a mistake. He has no interest in debating science with you or anyone else. He has taken part in many previous internet discussions with AIDS scientists or activists, asking the same questions he asks you and getting the same answers. He rejects the answers automatically. This is just a game to him, not an interest in science or debate.

Pat is a member of Christine Maggiore’s legal defense team of advisors. All the questions he asks are designed to obtain information that might be useful in Maggiore’s lawsuit against the Los Angeles Medical Examiner. If you respond to him you will not be debating someone with a genuine interest in science, you will be helping the wrong side in a lawsuit. Please be careful here, as things are often not what they might seem to be on this website.

Posted by: pk4 | November 24, 2007 11:57 PM

Molecular Entry Claw is Peter Duesberg’s graduate student Gene. – pk4

To my certain knowledge totally wrong. So pk4 is the best example of what he warns against, it seems.

The Web reveals the inner nature of so many people, it is a danger to the community.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 25, 2007 12:14 AM

That’s ok Truthseeker, Pat and I have already gleaned a few useful items of political intelligence for the real-world war against HIV/AIDS denialism from these pk4. His characteristically paranoid and ignorant post has been very useful to us in our battles and court cases, although he will never know exactly how he has helped us. The information flow is one way, we won’t be revealing our plans, targets and activities here. You’ll find out after the fact. We don’t issue warnings……..

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 25, 2007 6:59 AM

“Pat is a member of Christine Maggiore’s legal defense team of advisors. All the questions he asks are designed to obtain information that might be useful in Maggiore’s lawsuit against the Los Angeles Medical Examiner. If you respond to him you will not be debating someone with a genuine interest in science, you will be helping the wrong side in a lawsuit. Please be careful here, as things are often not what they might seem to be on this website.”

a tad paranoid?

Posted by: pat | November 25, 2007 7:58 AM

Rob, you are like the Monday morning quarterbacks. It’s easy for you to tell folks what they should do but wait until it’s your turn. After having 6 lymph node biopsies leaving a 5″ scar, numerous tissues biopsies, 22 radiation treatments, 2 radium implants, spinal taps, 2 extremely painful bone biopsies, IVP’s, CT Scans, MRI, arterial blood gas tests, tons of blood draws and abnormal blood and liver enzymes, I do think that I know what medical procedures and treatments are best for me.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 25, 2007 8:01 AM

I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob is actually Johnny pee more. Same bullshit and “you’re sonna die soon, it’s so sad” hypocrisy. They’re the people who couldn’t care less whether a person lives or dies, the only important things is: Does the patient stick to main stream propaganda and does he or she obediently swallow the life saving killer drugs?

____________________

Angry, me? Yes, very

Posted by: jspreen | November 25, 2007 10:00 AM

Well, OK, js, let’s define the terms then. What exactly is the right idea – your alternative explanation for 9/11?

How cute. Finder-of-no-truth playing the Johnny-pee-more-&-Co role.
Ask any Aids apologist a question, like “How can you know anything about HIV if you never isolated the virus?” The guy won’t answer because, if he gives an answer, he will thereafter immediately belong either to the denialists’ (he agrees HIV was never isolated indeed and that the question is a good one) or to the ignorant herds of nerds’ community (he starts to babble that, on the contrary, HIV has perfectly been isolated).
The Aids apologist simply cannot answer the question and instead switches to the name calling strategy.

Finder-of-no-truth does exactly this when it comes to 911. Ask any question, for instance: “What is the probability a Boeing-757 completely disappeared into the Pentagon through a hole some 20 feet across and leaving no trace behind?” He cannot answer the question because he’ll belong thereafter either to the 911-troofers (he agrees that indeed, the probability is as close as one can get to a big fat zero) or to the I-saw-it-on-TV-so-it’s-true hillbillies (a Boeing-757 is in fact a cylinder 20 feet across and thus the size of the hole is perfectly normal).

I won’t give you an alternative explanation for 9/11 because I don’t know for sure what the right idea might be. But I definitely know for sure what the wrong idea is. Answer my question above. Then you will know it for sure too.

Posted by: jspreen | November 25, 2007 10:46 AM

For those who would like to read the research of a “real” scientist, the following link provides over 200 articles authored and co-authored by Dr. Zagon, the father of LDN for immune conditions:
http://www.fred.psu.edu/ds/retrieve/fred/investigator/isz1/completepub

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 25, 2007 10:51 AM

Posted by: Each_Eye_Vee | November 24, 2007 10:28 PM

Well said, EEV. The phenomenon of a sufficiently widespread belief led by numbskulls and charlatans in authority and leadership positions being enthusiastically and witlessly promoted by crowds of automaton supporters is one of the most interesting if depressing facets of human social nature.

In this case the incantation of one of this species is so fatuous that it defeats itself, but the more subtle examples of this kind of witchdoctoring peddled by ignorant physicians who fail to inform themselves of the correct science they are failing to implement are even more egregious.

A visit a couple of years ago to an expensive Park Avenue doc who tried this on a friend in dealing with his request for a prescription for a harmless malady – suggesting an HIV test just to be sure it was n’t part of that umbrella syndrome – still has him brooding about suing the wretch for the return of his fee, given his incompetence at briefing himself properly on an important area of medicine and yet charging an arm and a leg for his incorrect advice.

No doubt if it had not been refused and by some chance was positive the guy would have been urged to take poisonous ARVs and if he refused he would have been pressured to the maximum in the ways described by some of the commentators on Science Guardian, which are so disgraceful they are hard to credit.

But then the censoring activity of the gatekeepers of mainstream science who edit the journals specialists skim but rarely read such as Nature, Science etc, JAMA, NEJ etc is to blame for all this, so one shouldn’t castigate them too much.

Ultimately it is Anthony Fauci of NIAID who imposed this censorship on the reporters of the major media explicitly in the first place twenty years ago who has to take responsibility for the HIV=AIDS information debacle, which leads so many people – almost everybody working in the field – to be entirely ignorant of any alternative explanation for the syndrome, as Fauci intended.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 25, 2007 11:45 AM

Truthseeker, those 9/11 “gullibles” include lynn margulis, heavily influenced by a renouned philosopher David Ray griffin phd, and possibly andrew maniotis,(he has hinted his skeptism to the OCT here) not to mention over 200 architects and engineers, former cia officials like Robert Baer, ray mcgovern, the head of the old star wars program Dr. robert bowman phd from cal tech, the father of regeanomics Paul craig roberts, members of parliament and congress like Micheal meacher and Cynthia mckinney.

Infact the author of the most well made pro dissident film hiv fact or fraud Stephen allen is a 9/11 truther. This single film has been the most effective meausure for raising awareness to the rethinkers views, giving them informed consent.

Not to mention 100 million or so intelligent people around the world who have seen compelling films like Loose change and 9/11 mysteries on google video.

Watch these films
architects for truth google it
Some people are not going to believe that planes vanish into thin air while passports and red bandanas survive like they did in Shankesville etc.

Posted by: cooler | November 25, 2007 12:43 PM

“What is the probability a Boeing-757 completely disappeared into the Pentagon through a hole some 20 feet across and leaving no trace behind?”

Zero. Happy now? Silly question. Doesn’t make me a 9/11 crazy, the answer is contained in the question as stated.

I was just trying to give you a chance to retain some shred of general credibility, Spreen, but you have failed me. Now Mr Moore is chortling, as you deserve, and the good points you have made on HIV=AIDS, where you are right, are blown away by your own breath.

Again my notice to onlookers is, it is possible for the logically handicapped to be right on one problem and wrong on another, though their credibility will be severely weakened by their mistakes.

Each case must be judged separately by listeners. In this case, 9/11 is a silly distraction, and an unfortunate blow to the credibility of more than one poster here, when they need all the credibility they can muster, with most of the world against them.

Those of us who see the correct conclusion in reviewing the HIV=AIDS literature, that it supports the answer that AIDS is a drug/conventional disease/nutritional deficit syndrome and not an infectious retrovirus syndrome, do not need their own credibility called into question by the partnership of 9/11 nutters.

We have answered. Now, with respect, if you wish to retain any shred of credibility yourself on this thread, and stop diminishing the credibility of others, then you should answer the question posed to you or stop mentioning 9/11, which as an unrelated, non scientific issue is not otherwise relevant in this context.

What is your alternative explanation for the news reports and extensive media and expert reviews of 9/11?

Those who question HIV=AIDS do provide an alternative interpretation, fully supported by the literature. AIDS is a drug/conventional disease/nutritional deficit syndrome.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 25, 2007 12:43 PM

What is your alternative explanation for the news reports and extensive media and expert reviews of 9/11?

Main stream news reports and expert reviews of 911 are total bullshit, exactly as is the case on main stream HIV=Aids reporting and expert knowledge.
What do you think, you dummy, that the HIV=Aids nonsense is just some detail bug in the Kingdom of the Just?
Come on, man! The Aids lie was possible, and has kept standing upright throughout the years, only because the whole system is biased. Not only Duesberg is cut out of the mass media all over the globe, every heretic is. In other words: Science and the whole fucking world press is sold out.

People are blind and cannot think. You, for instance, are unable to recognize that the answer “Zero” you just provided, makes you a perfect 911 nut, as you call it.
Because, if the probability is zero indeed, it means that there was no airplane in the Pentagone. Which implies that there’s a big lie going on somewhere the whole world press, or at least the part I can see of it, prefers to ignore.

I was just trying to give you a chance to retain some shred of general credibility, Spreen,

Do I deserve such kindness? Me thinks no. BTW, to enhance clarity, may I suggest His Majesty decides once and for all whether it’s I or We, my or Our?

Okay, this far and no further. This is hardly the place to get into a general fight over 911, is it? I just thought a small hint might come in handy for you to stop making an ass of yourself, but maybe it was not such a good idea after all.

____________________

Me, angry? Yes, very

Posted by: jspreen | November 25, 2007 3:35 PM

This is your best answer to my request for your alternative scenario to explain 9/11 data? No answer at all?

So what caused the hole in the Pentagone, Jspreen?

If CIA explosives, what happened to the fourth plane run by hijackers, tracked in air space to the Pentagone? Is it penta-gone from your radar?

And how about the large hole in middle American forest land? Was that a CIA explosives preparation cabin which inadvertently exploded as they were building a fuse? Or a plane?

If you cannot answer, could we at least arrange that you post with some alternative moniker when commenting on HIV=AIDS, on which you have the right idea, but only by reason of emotional attitude it appears, not intellectual.

Then Moore will stop crowing happily that only “cranks, cuckoos, flakes and nuts” support a revision of HIV=AIDS into drugs/conventional disease/nutritional deficit=AIDS.

This is not to devalue your perception that something is wrong in HIV=AIDS. Your antennae are probably extra sensitive to that kind of thing, for some reason, but you spread your suspicions over too wide an area, thoughtlessly.

But let us now agree tthat you simply fail to have any alternative coherent explanation for the 9/11 data, so all your suspicions amount to nothing but emotional attitude and the general theme “It ain’t true because I don’t believe mainstream sources”.

Sources such as the media, the official sources or experts who wrote extensive reports presented to a huge conference at Columbia which you didn’t attend, and long PBS investigative reports – all in the pocket of the CIA, you apparently believe.

But 200 architects and engineers have detected something wrong here, just like you and Howard Zinn!

In other words, just emotional guff, not much different from the crazies that support HIV=AIDS on the same deluded emotional basis and spout nonsensical imprecations against Noreen, who has more sense in her little finger than you have in your entire mind.

Use a different name, Jspreen, and stop embarrassing HIV critics and delighting John Moore and his friends.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 25, 2007 6:58 PM

Funny how the many 9/11 truth members when you mention the hiv does not cause AIDS, say the same thing, that youre tainting the movement with psuedoscience.

The 9/11 truth movement has managed to make films like zeitgeist, Loose change and 9/11 mysteries, that have gotten around 50-100 million views on the internet. Whether you agree or not this is an astounding feat, maybe the hiv rethinker movement should learn from them on how to file share, because the idea that hiv doesnt cause AIDS seems crazy to most, while the 9/11 truth movement has millions of beleivers, while the hiv doesnt cause aids is lagging behind it.

Posted by: cooler | November 25, 2007 8:10 PM

It is good to question whether it is AIDS, 9-11 or any other thing that we are “told” is the gospel truth. We know that all the general public is told to swallow is not always accurate information. One problem with the HIV theory is that it has been drilled into us for the past 25 years and the news reporters have not done their jobs properly. So naturally most just accept this because the government states that it is so. It is difficult to change opinions of others who have believed a certain way for a long period of time. Example, most of our lives we were thought that Pluto was a planet. Now, scientists tell us that it is not technically one. So how many of us are still going to consider it a planet? Probably most.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 25, 2007 8:39 PM

oh my God, this thread is hysterical. It’s now become nothing more than one lunatic arguing with another over who is the more crazy!

“I’m a bigger nut than you are!”.

“No you’re not, I’m the maddest!”

“Liar, liar pants on fire! It’s well known that I’m totally insane and you’re only mildly flaky!”

It’s no wonder jspreen, cooler, noreen, truthseeker, pat, molecular entry claw and their friends can’t get anyone in the mainstream world to pay any attention to what they think about HIV and AIDS. As soon as they open their mouths, it’s obvious that they’re totally deranged! Wonderful stuff to read. Keep it coming! Best laugh I’ve had in years of looking at science Blogs.

Posted by: HIVVER | November 25, 2007 10:35 PM

Look at this pathetic junior college flunkee, more ad hominem attacks, no evidence to back his zany theories, cant cite the first 5 papers that hiv causes AIDS, cant cite any evidence for the conspiracy theory of osama and his hijackers besides the fatty bin laden confession tape and that passport that flew out of the hijackers pocket and landed on the streets of Manhattan, strange how they never found the black boxes, thank god for that terrorists passport!

But what else would you expect from a junior college flunkee? total loser.

Posted by: cooler | November 25, 2007 10:47 PM

Any mainstream coverage? The same mainstream media that lied us into Iraq and Vietnam? Thats a really valid argument, dumb loser.

Posted by: cooler | November 25, 2007 10:51 PM

In the Parenzee case Gallo was asked about their original work in the early eighties. Work which has only been supported by later studies using improved techniques.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 24, 2007 2:42 PM

Well, thanks Roy, for confirming that you are aware that Gallo’s original work in 1984 proved nothing. Gee, that doesn’t cause you any tremors, we gather – that a rich paradigm was initiated by lab work without meaning, later castigated as fraudulent by officials whose punishment of him was only evaded by Gallo’s lawyers manging to get a rewriting of the rules.

On April 23, 1984 Margaret Heckler, with a concrete coiffure and severe laryngitis, croaked to a packed press conference in Washington DC that: “the probable cause of aids had been found”. This ill-looking US Secretary for Health and Human Services was flanked by gangster, Robert Gallo, somewhat apprehensive and creepy in tainted glasses, a Mafioso fearing being fingered and bumped-off.. Perhaps even then he was anticipating the inevitable ten years of sleaze and stinky revelations of scientific skulduggery that would entertain the cognoscenti. Heckler did not read her prepared statement in its entirety omitting a backhanded acknowledgement that Pasteur scientists had “previously identified a virus which they had linked to AIDS patients,” as well as the prediction that the alleged ‘French’ virus “will prove to be the same” as Gallo’s ‘HTLV-IIIB’. David Rasnick stated: “With that announcement, Gallo had publicly leapfrogged straight across the scientific process – across peer-review and analysis, across the very checks and balances of sciences. He made no attempt to demonstrate his claim but fed it straight to the global media, which broadcast it without hesitation” … Serge Lang was alarmed: “I was very upset. The cause of AIDS was discovered by government fiat…then that announcement was made at the press conference. As far as I’m concerned, from that point on AIDS research turned into seedy, criminal politics, and it remained that way.” …In a calculated pre-emptive strike, Gallo seized the initiative in establishing his discovery ‘HTLV-III’ as the cause of ‘AIDS’. It was pre-emptive because the scientific papers concerning its discovery had not yet been published and indeed, the necessary peer review process had not been completed and none of Gallo’s colleagues had a chance to assess the work or duplicate his results prior to the all important announcement. The US Government gave official backing to what would turn out to be deeply flawed, if not down right fraudulent research. The ‘HTLV-III’ (’HIV’) hypothesis of ‘AIDS’ causation was engraved in stone and the qualifying word ‘probable’ might never have been croaked. So the premature consensus of the press-conference (23 April, 1984) pre-empted the publication of the Gallo-Popovic four Science (4 May, 1984) papers! Had the four ’seminal’ Gallo-Popovic Science papers been subjected to rigorous and unbiased peer review they would never have been published and the press conference postponed. Regarding the four fake Science papers, The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) Reports, supported by HIH scientific advisers, found that Gallo and his lab engaged in a number of mal-practices: “lack of laboratory records…lack of attention to details which resulted in false representation…lack of scientific rigor…breached overall responsibility…to ensure the accuracy of the paper…created and fostered conditions that give rise to falsified/fabricated data and falsified scientific reports…” While in spring 1992, the press reported the OSI investigation had cleared Gallo of ‘misconduct’, criticism of the report soon surfaced and a special panel of consultants nominated by the NAS, at the request of HHS and HIH to oversee the investigation, actually charged Gallo with: “a pattern of behavior…that repeatedly misrepresents, suppresses, and distorts data and their interpretation…intellectual recklessness of a high degree – in essence intellectual appropriation of the French viral isolate…” In a written submission to the investigators, Popovic stated:”I did not agree with Dr. Gallo that the references to the work we did with the French virus should be omitted or even significantly minimized. I thought it was wrong not to credit Dr. Montagnier’s group’s contribution more clearly.” The [NIH] Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) “Final Report” concerning Gallo’s research was revealed in Science & Government Report (June 1, 1992) to be: “a deeply flawed document reflecting an incomplete investigation. The report has been substantially ‘watered down’ from the hard-hitting draft report. Material apparently damaging to Gallo, including some of his own testimony, has been deleted…” Dr. Sonnabend was sickened by Gallo’s dishonesty: “Gallo was certainly committing open fraud. But the point is not to focus on Gallo. It’s us – all of us in the scientific community, we let him get away with it. None of this was hidden…” (Spin, June, 1992)

Now Gallo says he was vindicated. Can you explain in what way?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 26, 2007 2:50 AM

HIVVER, perhaps you need a little more data as to why no one is paying much attention to any dissent in HIV=AIDS, however sound and scientific it might be:

“As AIDS grew in the 1980s into a global, multibillion-dollar juggernaut of diagnostics, drugs, and activist organizations, whose sole target in the fight against AIDS was HIV, condemning Duesberg became part of the moral crusade. Prior to that 1987 paper, Duesberg was one of a handful of the most highly funded and prized scientists in the country. Subsequently, his NIH funding was terminated and he has received not one single federal research dollar since his pre-1987 $350,000 Outstanding Investigator Grant ran out. Duesberg lost his lab facilities and had to move twice within a few years to smaller labs on the Berkeley campus, where he spent much of his time writing futile research grant proposals asking to test his hypothesis that AIDS is a chemical syndrome, caused by accumulated toxins from heavy drug use. He lost his graduate students, who were warned that to emerge from his lab would blight their careers. He was denied and had to fight for routine pay increases by his employers at UC Berkeley, where he has tenure and still teaches. He was “disinvited” from scientific conferences, and colleagues even declared that they would refuse to attend any conference that included him. Duesberg also was banished from publishing in scientific journals that previously had welcomed his contributions, most theatrically by the editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox, who wrote a bizarre editorial declaring that Duesberg would he denied the standard scientific “right of reply” in response to personal attacks that were frequently published in that journal. Prior to 1987, Peter Duesberg never had a single grant proposal rejected by the NIH. Since 1991 he has written a total of twenty-five research proposals, every single one of which has been rejected. “They took him out, just took him right out,” says Richard Strohman, an emeritus professor of biology at UC Berkeley. And what was it, exactly, that Peter Duesberg had done? He simply pointed out that no one had yet proven that HIV is capable of causing a single disease, much less the twenty-five diseases that are now part of the clinical definition of AIDS. He pointed to a number of paradoxes regarding HIV and argued that far from being evidence that HIV is “mysterious” or “enigmatic,” these paradoxes were evidence that HIV is a passenger virus. “- Celia Farber, Out of Control, AIDS and the corruption of medical science, Harpers, March 2006.

No wonder dissenters are mostly outside the field.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 26, 2007 3:13 AM

“It’s no wonder jspreen, cooler, noreen, truthseeker, pat, molecular entry claw and their friends can’t get anyone in the mainstream world to pay any attention to what they think about HIV and AIDS.
Posted by: HIVVER | November 25, 2007 10:35 PM”

You don’t even know what I think you stupid little spambot

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 4:05 AM

The problem with stupid spambot programms like HIVVER 0.1 is that they cannot tell the difference between the different points of view nor the people who hold them.

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 4:27 AM

“As soon as they open their mouths, it’s obvious that they’re totally deranged! Wonderful stuff to read. Keep it coming! Best laugh I’ve had in years of looking at science Blogs.”

I came with the specific claim that AIDS numbers are inflated in Africa. Halfway through the ad hominems about me being deranged, we had the UN support my assertion yet I remain deranged. I am happy that you find this whole discussion on Africa wonderful stuff to read and the best laugh you’ve had in years, now if only I can get you to READ…

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 5:32 AM

Use a different name, Jspreen, and stop embarrassing HIV critics and delighting John Moore and his friends.

Hey, Truthseeker! Now I understand why Johnny pee more esteems you so much and has no esteem for me at all: it’s because you don’t criticize 911!

But should I use a different pen name? What difference would that make? I mean, a guy who knows Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer’s New Medicine as well as I do plus perfectly recognizes the HIV=Aids lies plus clearly sees through the 911 smoke screens plus writes such witty and marvelous posts with so many typos: I’d be unmasked after two lines of writing. So, jspreen it is and jspreen it will stay.
Besides, I have nothing to hide and am proud of my heretic ideas. ALL of them.

Posted by: jspreen | November 26, 2007 6:03 AM

Truthseeker wrote:
Dr. Sonnabend was sickened by Gallo’s dishonesty: “Gallo was certainly committing open fraud. But the point is not to focus on Gallo. It’s us – all of us in the scientific community, we let him get away with it. None of this was hidden…” (Spin, June, 1992)

This is the same Dr. Sonnabend who later realized that he was wrong, and Gallo was correct. Dr. Sonnabend now recommends antiretroviral therapy for his patients who are progressing to AIDS because of their infection with HIV. See for example:
http://www.aegis.com/pubs/gmhc/2005/GM190903.html
and
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/16/18/News/feature.html

Posted by: Dr. Duke | November 26, 2007 2:56 PM

Besides, I have nothing to hide and am proud of my heretic ideas. ALL of them.

Apologies, Jspreen, this is a fine attitude and so is wholesale skepticism, far better than the kind of teacher’s pet automaton mental paralysis that typifies defenders of the status quo. And yes yours and coolers posts are often highly entertaining and even hilarious as they give the smug fellow travelers of power their come uppance. A danger to the keyboards of all coffee drinkers who read them!

You guys are live and kicking and entering into life with gusto and instead of buying everything you are sold you take a second look and kick the tires, and if anyone is in need of rescue you are the kind of guys that will strip off their coats and jump in to save them, while the human sheep baa in terrified unison on land as they get herded in for slaughter.

Good for you. I just hope that discovering the blatant corruption of HIV=AIDS hasn’t made you too cynical and distrustful about everything else, there are known to be good people in high positions who take responsibility for others and try to do the right thing, and not all of science, government and corporate leadership is corrupt and willing to sacrifice the health and lives of others for the sake of their pocketbooks.

The human race wouldn’t survive if we were all like that. Most of us are decent people who judge others by ourselves and get too easily suckered by charlatans, perhaps, so the tire kickers such as yourselves perform a vital service.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 26, 2007 3:10 PM

Yes, Dr Duke, what you say is true, Sonnabend bended, perhaps even broke, after a fine early history of looking askance at what he was asked to believe and comparing it with what he saw with his own eyes in his patients. He was one of the founders of AMFAR, I believe. But being ostracized for what he thought was an experience which was followed by a change in view. Whether the one followed from the other is hard to say, but each reader can make up their own minds on it.

I didn’t write that story, by the way, it was Celia Farber you were quoting I believe, or Alex Russell. But it rings true to me. The political pressure on dissent has been excruciating from the start, as the Duesberg saga shows.

Ever wonder why a valid paradigm would need an Inquisition? Maybe you should.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 26, 2007 3:17 PM

Ever wonder why a valid paradigm would need an Inquisition? Maybe you should.

How silly! The scientific opposition to people like Peter Duesberg is because he set in train a series of events that caused a lot of unnecessary deaths in South Africa and the USA. Sure, his career was ended as a result, he lost his grants and was ostracized. That always happens in science when you’re catastrophically and obviously wrong very publicly on something that has implications for public health. Galileo dissented and was right, so he was a scientific hero, but the big difference here is that Duesberg was wrong on the science. That doesn’t make him a Galileo, it just makes him a fool, and a fool whose foolish views ended up killing people.

Posted by: HIVVER | November 26, 2007 4:34 PM

The problem with stupid spambot programms like HIVVER 0.1 is that they cannot tell the difference between the different points of view nor the people who hold them.

It’s a bit hard telling Denialists apart because they rarely if ever state what their points of view are. The only thing that they have in common is that they deny some part or all of the science describing HIV’s role in AIDS

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 26, 2007 5:59 PM

Typical Denialist fantasies. Has it ever crossed your mind that just perhaps Sonnabend has personally seen the benefits of giving his own patients ARVs?

Does your Denialist filter ever allow evidence that contradicts your dogma to enter your brain?

Skeptics change their minds when presented with evidence. Denialists stick to their dogma despite the evidence.

This in short is the difference between skepticism and denialism. This is why it is not correct to refer to you and other demialists as “skeptics”, “rethinkers” or even “dissidents”. You are not the least bit skeptical, you are incapable of rethinking anything, and the only thing that you are dissenting from is reality.

Sonnabend on the other hand is a rethinker. He looked at the evidence and rethought his position. He was and probably still is a skeptic. He was skeptical about the longterm benefits of AZT monotherapy.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 26, 2007 6:13 PM

“It’s a bit hard telling Denialists apart because they rarely if ever state what their points of view are.”

Typical of someone who doesn’t give a shit who he is talking to.
My point of view: AIDS in Africa is overestimated …now UN confirmed. That you didn’t even get a remote drift of my point of view says how much you give a shit. You can’t tell us apart because it can all only be black and white for you. No disagreement possible. You are a spam bot too.

“The only thing that they have in common is that they deny some part or all of the science describing HIV’s role in AIDS”.

Well the disease is incontrovertible in description alone. No HIV, no AIDS. Immune supression without is called Idiopathic CD4-T-lymphocytopenia I believe. I wonder how much of that they have in Africa?

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 6:45 PM

“Sonnabend has personally seen the benefits of giving his own patients ARVs?”

Just because “it works” doesn’t maker it good or even smart. I think that was someone’s quip to Noreen here once and it didn’t come from a “denialist”.

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 6:48 PM

“How silly! The scientific opposition to people like Peter Duesberg is because he set in train a series of events that caused a lot of unnecessary deaths in South Africa and the USA.”

This is silly beyond belief. I understand human’s primal need to have a boogeyman to stone or burn or both or worse but you may now snap out of it and join the ranks of those who walk upright.

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 6:52 PM

My point of view: AIDS in Africa is overestimated …now UN confirmed. That you didn’t even get a remote drift of my point of view says how much you give a shit. You can’t tell us apart because it can all only be black and white for you. No disagreement possible. You are a spam bot too.

Your comments are entirely limited to picking flaws real or imagined in the science behind HIV and AIDS. It’s never about what you believe but about what you deny. It’s completely negative.

It’s not clear whether you are just denying that HIV causes AIDS or whether you also deny that HIV exists. Perhaps you also deny the whole germ theory of disease like Jan Spreen. At least he’s consistently nuts.

You could help by actually stating what you believe but this of course would mean that you would have to support your views with evidence. It is much easier to be a Denialist and expect everybody else to have to “prove” things to you.

You say that you believe that estimates of HIV infection have been inflated in the past. Does this mean that you accept the current estimate of 33 million? Is it less? Or do you think that HIV doesn’t actually exist? Go ahead tell us what your point of view is. Or are you just interested in denial?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 26, 2007 7:12 PM

Your comments are entirely limited to picking flaws real or imagined in the science behind HIV and AIDS. It’s never about what you believe but about what you deny. It’s completely negative

Dr. Noble, chill out bro. I’m sure Pat wasn’t out to offend your religious feelings.

Here, I believe in freedom of speech and choice, and in brotherhood of man. I don’t believe in the magic winter wonder virus.

I believe in a life after the tests, and in my own regenerative capacities. I don’t believe in AZT.

How was that for you, at leat two positives for every negative? Now get a grip, be a better loser than you were a winner once upon a time. Here review some expert medical advice and Let me know how it works for you:

I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 26, 2007 8:18 PM

“Your comments are entirely limited to picking flaws real or imagined in the science behind HIV and AIDS. It’s never about what you believe but about what you deny. It’s completely negative.”

It is always about the science with you even when it is blatantly about politics but when you screw it up you go scurry behind a pubmed paper that you yourself admit to not understanding. But at least you concede that some flaws are real. Also that you think less AIDS death is completely negative makes you indeed a sad man. Africa let off a collective sigh of relief and you call it “all negative” with me. I believe AIDS in Africa is overestimated; I deny that the estimates were right. The two describe the same opinion…and I was on the “righter” side of the argument than you..

“It’s not clear whether you are just denying that HIV causes AIDS or whether you also deny that HIV exists. Perhaps you also deny the whole germ theory of disease like Jan Spreen. At least he’s consistently nuts.”

I was asked uptop what I believe but of course you didn’t pick up on my answer because you are not paid or programmed to read.

here it is:
“So, lets get this on the record, pat. Do you accept that HIV is the causative factor for AIDS?”

Thank you for finally asking and a penalty for JP Moore for foul language based on nothing but his very own prejudice.

And of course you can’t tell whether I am also denying HIV’s existance because you have been “at war” for so long you can no longer tell friend from foe from passerby and that really is a big problem for you, Moore, HIVVER, and who-not-else who threw the “denialist weapon-of-every-convieniance” at me. Of course you are also an aggressive programm and find no breach in bitcode to strecht the hallucination into the “germ theory denier”…just like that, out of the blue… and I’m “inconsistantly nuts” for thinking there was less AIDS than you. Chris, you are missing a historic moment. AIDS seems to have peaked!!! They think it peaked in the late 90’s!!! even in Africa!!! to quote Churchill:

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

snap out of your depression.

“You say that you believe that estimates of HIV infection have been inflated in the past”.

I now KNOW they were inflated in the past.

“Does this mean that you accept the current estimate of 33 million?”

Time will tell. It is so difficult with AIDS, you know.

“Is it less?”

maybe, hopefully science got it all fucked up… More research and better tools will shed light on it anyway, won’t they?

“Or do you think that HIV doesn’t actually exist?”

This will never register because nobody need give a shit anyway what I believe, except for you. I accept it exists!!! fuuuuuuuk! you’re like a child and this AIDS thing is your lollipop. or is it a spambot access code? Is it an oath?

Go ahead tell us what your point of view is. Or are you just interested in denial?

I am just interested in “denial” what?
WTF does this mean? If I understand your question even only a small tiny little bit I’d say YOU’re OBSESSED with denial or are you paid for this crap?

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 8:29 PM

I can’t tell what your standpoint is because you never sate what it is. The only thing that you come up with is that you object to other people’s standpoints.

Debating denialists is like trying to nail jelly on a tree.

I know what John Moore’s standpoint is. I know what other scientist’s standpoints are. I don’t know what yours is because the only thing you do is take potshots at other people.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 26, 2007 8:52 PM

Dr. N,

You still don’t know Pat’s standpoint because you’re not paid for your reading skills. What do you want us to do about it? Pay more?

You’re now repeating the “you’ve got no standpoint” line over and over cuz that was today’s talking point upload and you guys will employ every silly little maneuver to avoid debating substance at the moment. Better start swimming, Dr. N, or you’ll sink like a stone.

John Moore’s standpoint is refusal to discuss his standpoint. Is that negative?

How about this, is this a standpoint? It’s from 1993 – was there some truth to it? Could Celia Farber’s journalistic instinct have been more accurate than John Moore’s scientific bloviating? Judge for yourself spambot:

“I also tried very hard to obtain these statistics. Finally. I was told they do not exist. Even in the relatively prosperous Cote d’lvoire, no actual death statistics are kept.

One hesitates to burst a bubble that may he helping people, however inadvertently but in this case, as in most situations like this, the money is being trapped at an administrative level, and hardly trickling down to the people who need it. It may well be that Â just as it is argued in the WestÂ figures had to be inflated or else nobody would care, but in Africa the consequence of this terror is far from innocuous. It has caused a deep psychological wound that one relief worker, Philippe Krynen, calls ,”AIDS brain,” in which people are so convinced they will die they actually get sick, so strong is the belief that a deadly virus has spread like wildfire, and that there is no escaping it.

When Krynen, a French nurse working with AIDS orphans in Kagera, a region of Tanzania near the Uganda border, first came to the area, he realized that the first thing he had to do was get a real answer to the question of how many people were “infected” with HIV, “When I came here,” he said, “people had completely given up. Nobody was interested in safe sex Â that’s only an option if you think you have a chance. So we decided to test everybody to find out who was not infected. I figured that those who were not infected could become leaders and inspire the others. We tested 150 Tanzanians. We were expecting to find up to 50 percent HIVÂpositive. We found 5 percent.”

But Krynen reasoned that the sample was not representative of the general population, that the age groups and levels of education were different. So he did another round of testing, this time of 842 people Â the entire adult population of a village. Of those, 116 were positive, or 13.5 percent. “We had people who were symptomatically AIDS patients:” Krynen said. “They were dying of AIDS, but when they were tested and found out they were negative they suddenly rebounded and are now perfectly healthy.” Krynen even came across an HIVÂpositive sixÂyearÂold, whose parents are both negative and who has never been to a hospital or received a transfusion. The only time she ever had an injection was as part of Unicef’s basic vaccine program.

“Everybody talks about development in Africa, but there is no such thing,” Krynen said. “There is only survival. And now survival is made more difficult because there is no hope for tomorrow. In the villages where I work, people are totally overwhelmed by the media campaign, which always repeats the same thing-that you’re dead. That everybody is infected. This is what they call awareness. We are paying a very high price for this gross exaggeration. The whole community is washed up, despondent, because of this psychological pressure.”

Krynen also did a rough count of how many orphans were in Kagera due to AIDS. In Africa, a child is considered an orphan if either or both parents die. Krynen surveyed 160 villages and arrived at a very rough estimate. “Nobody keeps track of the death toll here,” he said. “Maybe in some hospitals they do, but they’ll only keep the figures for two or three months and then they’ll scrap them because they need the paper.” He estimated that there would be some 17,500 AIDS orphans in Kagera. “These figures were virtually meaningless,” he said. “I made them up myself, but they wound up getting sent off to Kalizizo, and from there to Dar es Salaam, and then to the National AIDS Control Program. Then, to my amazement, they were published as official figures in the WHO 1990 book on African AIDS. After that, every six months the figure just kept jumping up. By now, the figure has more than doubled, based on I don’t know what evidence, since these people have never been here. Today they say that there are 50,000 AIDS orphans in Kagera.”

Mulondo agrees: “This safe sex business is not working. The rate of promiscuity is increasing because people don’t give a damn. They’ve been told that 80 percent are infected, that they’re going to die, there’s no way out, so people are trying to enjoy themselves. Many people have said to me, ‘What’s the point? We’re all gone anyway. We’re dead.’ This is the result of these exaggerated AIDS scare campaigns.”

“If people die of malaria, it is called AIDS,” Krynen said. “If they die of herpes, it is called AIDS. I’ve even seen people die in accidents and it’s been attributed to AIDS. The AIDS figures out of Africa are pure lies, pure estimate.”

“Out of Africa” (part 1) SPIN, 1993, C. Farber

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 26, 2007 9:21 PM

“I can’t tell what your standpoint is because you never sate what it is.”

never mind chris. it is beyond your programmed skills.

“The only thing that you come up with is that you object to other people’s standpoints.”

when I feel they are socially and politically rejectable, of course. Tara “meant” to talk about Mbeki btw.

“Debating denialists is like trying to nail jelly on a tree.”

you must be either a denialist or a jelly fish.

“I know what John Moore’s standpoint is.”

Yes, he made his position clear and he is pro sensorship, severe prison terms for scientific dissent and anti freedom of choice for the individual as it is written in the law of his adoptive land (still today despite much recent onslaught). He is a liar and a slanderer and is completely unsuited for the public’s trust. He should retreat to his lab and stay there unless he has something, ANYTHING to say other than “he won’t say”. He is a parody of himself and his political ranting are seriously extremist in nature and your blind support of it betrays your own inner convictions. If HIV/AIDS really is the big deal you say it is, it is people like you and Moore who need to be removed as the “unofficial” spokespeople for it because you two clowns cause way more polarization than the world cares for.
If there is anyone capable of convincing Noreen or anyone else that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS then it is Moore, Wainberg, Bergman, HIVVER, Rob, Noble, Smith, etc and co. A “denialist leadership” is superfluous to achieve your collective results. You are creating the fuel and momentum of your own “war”

Posted by: pat | November 26, 2007 9:46 PM

He told Lederer at POZ magazine in April 2006 that high initial AZT doses had killed thousands needlessly. At least he held to that. Given the fact that anyone at all who reads the literature over the last 20 years can see that the HIV as cause has failed, except you, it seems, we doubt if he has any genuine faith in it. But perhaps he is too busy seeing patients to study up.

So Chris, tell us, why wouldn’t you take the drugs if you are such a fervent believer in the dread fantasy of HIV causing death? We ask merely for information, since as an intelligent judgement it seems inconsistent with your loyalty to the cause of rank illiteracy in AIDS. Have the papers in the journals you are so familiar with revealed something to you which suggests they may be dangerous and give you a buffalo hump, and rot your liver fatally, as they do each year in half the US AIDS deaths?

Perhaps you should read the papers Mr Moore has written that remove four main pillars of the HIV unproven hypothesis, which we are about to write up on New AIDS Review. They would confirm what appears to be your niggling suspicion that something in wrong in AIDS, though like Moore you are reluctant to admit it publicly.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 26, 2007 10:25 PM

You could help by actually stating what you believe but this of course would mean that you would have to support your views with evidence

I can’t speak for Pat, but here’s what I believe:

1. A small group of young, gay men in NY and LA and SF were partying pretty hard in the 70’s, using way too many poppers at discos;

2. Several of them wrecked their immune systems and got sick, some got Kaposi Sarcoma;

3. Gallo and the virus hunters who had been toiling away for a decade trying to find a pet disease to attribute to their bogus leukemia retroviruses won a political power struggle at the NIH;

4. A scaremongering, propaganda campaign was unleashed (fatal virus will kill you thru icky sex) on the public.

5. Homophobic right-wingers like Anita Bryant and Jerry Fallwell tried to blame the disease on gays; this caused a backlash and push to falsely state that “we are all at risk”

6. For political reasons, the money finally started to flow from the NIH;

7. The tests, originally designed to screen the blood supply, were bogus and over-sensitive, giving fatal HIV stigmas on a lot of innocent, healthy people;

8. Failing to produce a vaccine, Sam Broder of NCI and Burroughs Wellcome, started making enormous amount of money selling AZT (toxic cancer chemotherapeutic DNA-chain terminators) to many AIDS patients (which further wrecked their immune systems by killing neutrophils and other white blood cells)

9. Big Pharma realized it could make fortunes off of AIDS patients by scaring them, testing them and selling them toxic drugs. Mediocre scientsts realized they could make careers out of valiantly fighting AIDS (to no good end).

10. The virus never spread into the general population. Magically, straight white men and heterosexual housewives almost never get the disease, so the AIDS cabal turned their attention from gays and blacks in USA, to a potentially huge market in Africa.

Here we are today.

Bogus science, fueled by corporate greed, cultural stigma and Macchiavellian politics.

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 27, 2007 12:04 AM

You are being deceptive again. As usual you take the “admission” that all antiretrovirals have toxicities and some more than other and run with it as far as you can. All the “orthodox” scientists are very upfront with detailing the known toxicities of these drugs. But denialists go to great lengths to exagerate these toxicities and to pretend that no benefits exist.

A reasonable decision on taking these drugs requires a balance of harm and benefits. Denialists dishonestly say that they are so incredibly toxic that they kill in months and have no benefit. They spend an inordinate amount of time “rethinking” studies that have evidence that contradicts their believes.

I can not honestly say what my personal decision would be in some ill-defined hypothetical case. What I do know is that I would not delude myself by pretending that HIV doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t cause AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 12:10 AM

The only thing that you demonstrate in these puerile exercises is that you are incapable of understanding the science that you criticise. Have you managed to convince John that he is really a closet Denialist? Who have you convinced?

Why don’t you get some of the Denialists with scientific training to help you?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 12:22 AM

Moore has no respect left anymore, after the way I humiliated him in our debate he ran away like a little frog whos lost his balls.

Scroll back and get your balls ready for the intellectual toure de force of humilation I gave moore. So he ran away, with his girlfriend jim. They couldnt handle my power.

Posted by: cooler | November 27, 2007 12:42 AM

What was it that we salute as the Kraft-Dunning effect, again? Let’s see… Oh yes, that the slow witted think they are in the fast lane. Right. How about, the earnest are unaware they lack a sense of humor? Or are those two ideas much the same?

Either way, Chris, you are the finest example extant of the Kraft-Dunning effect known to all of science, that has to be said. Perhaps this is the time to award the Kraft-Dunning prize for 2007, since the likelihood of there being a better candidate in the next five weeks seems non existent.

So what shall we say in our award speech. How about, To Chris, earnest duffer, sweet natured but confounded by the problem of combining the uphill task of defending the status quo in HIV=AIDS as if it actually benefited anybody, with reading the literature in the topic, even in easy spoonfuls in POZ magazine.

Ah well. We’ll have to help out. Chris, Joseph Sonnabend not only sadly evaluated the prime AZT era as iatrogenic murder – iatrogenic means physician perpetrated, Chris, as you know – but contrary to your unread assertion just a few comments back, he also compared the ARVs – which you imagine he respects as much as you do – with AZT.

“They are doing the same thing as with AZT. People who are not sick … are being placed on these drugs with no evidence whatsoever that they’re going to be helped by them. And those people may actually be hurt because of long term toxicity.”

What is there about these words that you do not understand, Chris? I even edited out a hard word (asymptomatic).

“No evidence whatsoever that they are going to be helped by them.”

What is there about these words that you do not understand, Chris?

What is it about the 10 points the Mountain Man listed above that you do not understand, Chris?

What is it about the twenty year critique of HIV=AIDS that you do not understand, Chris? Are 25 books not enough for you?

A multi weekend series in the Sunday Times of London? 15 pages last year in Harpers? Innumerable Words from the Front in SPIN over a decade? Challenges by Serge Lang? Harvey Bialy’s book Oncogenes, Aneuploidy and AIDS? Harvey Bialy’s blog, You Bet Your Life? Are not ten critical unrefuted peer reviewed articles by Duesberg in the top journals enough for you to get a glimmer of what is going on? At least FIVE articles by John Moore detailing the fundamental problems with HIV=AIDS that vitiate the paradigm and its research? The reviews by Fauci and others giving up on any sensible explanation of the “conundrum” of how HIV could possibly cause T cell decline except by some magic of indirection, mechanism unknown? The book by Montagnier saying that by itself HIV is a gambolling kitten, for only cofactors introduce illness? The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it?

Pat may have some excuse for not being entirely sure that HIV is not causing some part of AIDS but you?

So the question is, are YOU familiar with the literature, scientific and lay? Excuse us if we doubt you can truly understand any of it except as trees in a wood whose shape you still cannot discern after tramping it for two decades.

All that earnest effort and so little result. Chris, we feel genuinely sad, since we admire those who try so hard to inform themselves.

Any help we can offer, just ask. Try reading Science Guardian/New AIDS Review. We make a special effort to make what the literature says discernible to those who are… what shall we say?…science challenged. It’s our raison d’etre.

Working together, we can beat this thing. No charge. View it as our Christmas present to you, in recognition of all the effort you have put in so far.

Those that seek the truth shall find it.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 27, 2007 1:36 AM

I see you’re sticking to the “I know you are, but what am I?” level of rhetoric that most people above the age of 12 grow out of.

This quote is ten years old. There is now much more evidence both about the toxicities of PIs and the benefits including the reduction in morbidity and mortality.

The question, as always, is how to best balance the harm and benefits. The answer is definitely not to delude yourself that HIV does not exist or that HIV does not cause AIDS.

The only thing that somebody could learn from your fanciful misinterpretations of papers that you fully admit not to understanding are the inner workings of your deluded mind. This isn’t somewhere that I care to go.

The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it?

This is a perfect example where you are either blatantly lying or you completely incapable of understanding the paper that you purport to critique. The paper most definitely does not say that the human immune response is sufficient to defeat HIV. Karpas lists the mechanisms by which HIV evades the immune system leading to a persistent chronic infection. None of these mechanisms are in anyway unique to HIV.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 4:27 AM

“A reasonable decision on taking these drugs requires a balance of harm and benefits.”

Except for Maggiore, she’s denied such liberty.

“I can not honestly say what my personal decision would be in some ill-defined hypothetical case.”

But you can say, with the comfort of 20/20 hindsight, what Maggiore’s descision SHOULD have been in her “well defined” case.

Posted by: pat | November 27, 2007 4:49 AM

Except for Maggiore, she’s denied such liberty.

No, this liberty was denied to her daughter. Her mother had delusions about the risks of HIV infection.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 6:27 AM

I don’t know for sure if there’s a direct relation (but I think there is) with the heroic denialists’ postings over here, but since a few days I read all over the place that The Aids-epidemic is receding. Today’s headline in the French press: Â« Enfin, l’Ã©pidÃ©mie de sida reflue Â»

Why would the epidemic give in? Did I miss some recent scientific break-through? Some new vaccine they shot down the veins of everybody but me?
Wrong. The epidemic is receding because the Aids-apologists are getting aware that, as expressed above, they not only get further up shit creek each and every day, but also, that their paddle-less and leaking, heading the wrong way canoe also starts gaining speed. Me thinks they’re trying to get there noses away from the stench and their asses from the flames of hell by this rather coward attempt of backing out.

Posted by: jspreen | November 27, 2007 6:31 AM

Chris, Rob and a host of others have not had to make difficult choices when it comes to health care or they would not be so critical of others. Maybe if they had to do so they would be more open-minded and try other approaches instead of the poisons that are prescribed today and most of these drugs are supposed to be swallowed for the rest of one’s life, which makes no sense whatsoever. Personally, I would rather listen to someone who has been there as opposed to those who only read about it.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 27, 2007 6:38 AM

The following link has a nice ring to it, The Epidemic that Never Was… see what political correctness has helped to accomplishs:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=495515&in_page_id=1770

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 27, 2007 7:06 AM

“No, this liberty was denied to her daughter. Her mother had delusions about the risks of HIV infection.”

It is simple Chris, SHE had to make a final descision based on a very poorly defined personal diagnosis. You disagree with her but you are basing your opinions on hind-sight and that makes your opinion gratuitous and worthless. Before EJ died you were only too happy to tow Bergman’s line that she is an HIV negative liar and AIDS profiteur. EJ’s HIV test can determine if she died of AIDS pcp. Remember, no HIV, no AIDS! It is in the definition! and the coroner refuses to release it unless he is subpeana’d, what an asshole!

Posted by: pat | November 27, 2007 7:11 AM

I see you’re sticking to the “I know you are, but what am I?” level of rhetoric that most people above the age of 12 grow out of.

I see you’re sticking to your three favorite scientific arguments, Chris – that a statement you have no answer to is juvenile, and/or that it is lying, and/or that it is stupid.

To offer you the Kruger-Dunning prize for 2007 is juvenile humor if you like, but it arises from a genuine and very clear perception that you do not understand the lay of the land in HIV=AIDS, cannot see the overall shape of it, because you resolutely refuse to question the basic premise.

Yet that premise is exactly the point being discussed. You cannot manage a useful discussion because you do not address the key issue, the validity of your universal premise. You really are the center stage, classic example of a person invaded by the AIDS HIV meme. Post after post, you demonstrate that it has visibly taken over your brain, rendering you psychologically incapable of questioning the assumption we are questioning. You are a tennis player who cannot see the ball in play.

Only when you show you can do so, will your deadening inability to review your own thinking be removed as a constant signal of your duffer status, and allow us to take you seriously.

No we are not lying, that is the correct reading of what Karpas writes. HIV is put down by the natural antibodies produced by the immune system in response to it. Anyone who cannot see that, and that he is correct, is an example of Kruger-Dunning in action.

Where do you think the latent period comes from, by the way? Why do you think it extended with time, from what it was originally, two or three years, to ten, twelve or more? Do you really think it was the result of killer drugs, which even Sonnabend was able to see were lethal?

It was because HIV is put down by the ordinary response of the immune system. Any problem has to wait for a “co-factor”, ie some other factor, as Montagnier says in his book, which you haven’t read. Evidently among gays here in the US this was drugs, and those who enjoyed too many of these, or who took high doses of AZT, died young. Those who didn’t take so many died later. Those who didn’t take any didn’t die at all.

Reduce the impact of drugs = extend the latent period. Give the lower impact cocktail, not the high impact dose of AZT, and they last longer. Take drugs away, and any other “co-factor” which causes illness, and the patient remains healthy indefinitely.

Oh gawd, don’t tell us he has special genes which somehow counter HIV. Don’t try to escape the impact of simple sense because you are stuck on the very premise under review. Don’t be Ptolemaeic, Chris. Spare us the ellipses of your travels in outer space. You are merely imitating 9/11 conspiracy theorists, stuck on their own premise that the obvious cannot be accepted.

Perhaps we ought to stick to the only issue that counts, which is your only half way scientific claim in what you write, that those who don’t share your faith that HIV is a deadly virus and that ARVs rescue us from its depredations don’t understand the science and misinterpret the data.

To demonstrate that you have to be specific.

This quote is ten years old. There is now much more evidence both about the toxicities of PIs and the benefits including the reduction in morbidity and mortality.

Yes it’s from 1997. Yes like so many people Sonnabend may have given up the unequal struggle against group think and been overwhelmed by the Niagara of papers based on the unquestionable premise. He is not exactly the sharpest tack in the tin, to revert to your way of thinking. ARVs have short term benefits.

But to suggest that the papers of the last two years reflect reduced morbidity and mortality is to be as close to lying as anything you state, Chris, sorry to say it. Are you asleep? You dont read JAMA and NEJ?

The only historical improvement in the progress of AIDS patients proper ie US gays that there has ever been coincided very well with the reduction of the AZT dose, and its rep-lacement with a less damaging cocktail, which doesn’t seem to have borne any fruit in the last ten years.

Sonnabend from what one can judge without talking to him seems to be one of those who fall for the idea that because people perk up when given ARVs they must be showing the benefit of knocking down HIV.

There are much better reasons to account for the effect. Read New AIDS Review to see them. When people are ill in this way, poison can get rid of parasitic infestation of the digestive system and ARVs bump up nutritional absorption in other ways too, it appears from studies.

What is also clear is that those who leap out of bed and climb Table Mountain and join the herd in denouncing Duesberg and crying the blessings of these poisons also will relapse and die of liver rot unless they have drug “holidays”, which most are driven to do.

ARVs have short term benefits. Perk up and die.

Half the AIDS deaths in the US are due to drug symptoms of this kind which have squat to do with the claim that HIV wrecks the immune system in some unknown way, against all logic and science. None of these symptoms are on the HIV=AIDS list.

This is a perfect example where you are either blatantly lying or you completely incapable of understanding the paper that you purport to critique.

You often accuse people of lying, Chris. But the lying seems to be on the other side. How’s this statement in Wikipedia look to you? Did you write it?

Critics of the AIDS denialism movement question the qualifications of its proponents, including those with scientific credentials that have never worked with HIV. Nicoli Nattrass, writing in the Sept/Oct 2007 Skeptical Inquirer, points out that Peter Duesberg has never conducted any scientific research on HIV, and has never presented any evidence that support his claims to a peer-reviewed scientific journal. – Wikipedia

No evidence presented by Duesberg in a peer reviewed publication that supports his claim that the deadly effects of HIV are iatrogenic, not natural? What else have his papers consisted of? Movie reviews?

Who are the “liars”? Who are the “murderers”? But let’s stick to the science, shall we? That’s the science you insist we have wrong.

Odd how you haven’t contradicted it on the site. Did you get discouraged by your previous failure to peddle misleading interpretations?

It is true that bad arguments and data get short shrift at NAR. That’s what it exists for – to use the literature to check emoty claims.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 27, 2007 10:03 AM

> It’s called the German New Medicine. The discoverer

> is called Ryke Geerd Hamer. Predictability.
> Reproductibility. Falsification criteria. Verification
> criteria. You name it, it’s all there.

Neue germanische Medizin tranlates into Germanic New Medicine, not German New Medicine. The German word “germanisch” means either ancient tribes like Franks, Lombards, Goths and the like when used in a historical context, or all germanic languages, incuding English and scandinavian, when used in a linguistic context.The modern state of Germany is always called “Deutschland”.

Mr. Hamer uses the term “germanisch” because it sounds archaic and mythological, thus making his theories sounding deeper and more ancient. It also appeals to neo-nazis, of wich there are quite a few among Mr. Hamers new-age, neo heathen esoteric clientele (like all good crackpots, Mr. Hamer considers himself the victim of a jewish conspiracy).

Mr. Hamer himself has claimed that the secrets of his new medicine were told to him in a dream, by the ghost of his dead son (Hamer jr.
had the bad luck to be killed when the Italian crown pretender shot at him – accidentaly or otherwise). Very testable indeed!

Posted by: johannes | November 27, 2007 10:21 AM

Neue germanische Medizin tranlates into Germanic New Medicine, not German New Medicine.

Now that’s exciting knowledge, Johannes! Germanic New Medicine and not German New Medicine! I didn’t know, really, and I feel a much better man now I got away from that ignorance. You’re a linguisitic expert, aren’t you? That’s good. I’m a Germanic New Medicine expert so we can teach each other many things, I figure. You can teach me how we should call the thing, I can teach you what the thing really is.

I must admit that you also make me a happy man because now somebody else brought up Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer’s Germanic (thanks again!) New Medicine, inciting me to do some more writing about what an exciting revolution this Gemanic New Medicine really is. I felt a bit lonely here being the only one to mention Dr Hamer and his fantastic discoveries, but now you’ve joined the party I feel reborn and am ready to go for many other rounds.

You taught me something very helpful, so now I owe you a lesson! Let me tell you something about myocardial infarction ( better known by most people as heart attack) according to the GNM.
The myocardial infarction (MI) is not an independant stand-alone disease caused by some blocked blood vessels, but a very special part of the second phase of a two-phase disease, caused by a biological conflict of territory loss. This biological conflict causes, during the first phase, among other things, necrosis of the heart arteries and a socalled Hamer herd in the right cerebral cortex. During the second phase the reparation of the previous necrosis may be too luxurious and cause the plaques which are later interpreted as the cause of the attack ( !!! ). The Hamer herd in the brain is also repaired during the second phase and the water in the oedema is violently expelled by electric discharge during the socalled epileptical crisis of the repair phase. It’s exactly this crisis we better know as a myocardial infarction. And thus, as a matter of fact, the cause of MI is not in the blood vessels of the heart, but in the brain!

Oh, Johannes, BTW: If you want to use your linguistic capacities to word my description above much better: Go ahead, please! English is not my mother tongue and I experienced some major difficulties while writing down my first lesson to you.

It’s true that the dreams starring his son Dirk Hamer play a capital role in the discovery of the GNM, but should we judge that as something which automatically disqualifies Hamer? I mean, if I showed you that I could play the classic guitar like a wizzard, like say John Williams, and then told you that I learned to play in my dreams, would that make my playing inaudible? Of course not, the music would stay the same.

But… I just read your post again. Am I wrong or do I suddenly hear some hateful undertones in your message? A crackpot, Hamer? Mr. Hamers new-age, neo heathen esoteric clientele What are you talking about, Johannes? So many people got away from so-called severe diseases thanks to Hamer’s GNM, but I never thought of them as neo heathen esoteric

Uh uh…. Wait a minute… Ha, ha, ha, ha! Oh, sorry, couldn’t help laughing. I suddenly understood that I got your message all wrong. You didn’t write to teach me something, you wrote to spill your bile. Stupid silly me, always taking people on first sight for what they are not: kind.

Posted by: jspreen | November 27, 2007 1:19 PM

OK, you are not lying, you are just a scientifically illiterate and self-deluded idiot.

Here’s an idea for you. You could contact Karpas and ask him whether he agrees with your “interpretation” of his paper.

What do you think he would say? If he disagrees with you will you simply stick to your misinterpretation and claim that Karpas is a closet Denialist?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 7:38 PM

just keep asking these boneheads for the first 5 scientific papers that prove hiv causes aids, moore is such a retard, he talks about proving a microbes pathenogencity its like a rocket ship, sorry idiot, koch had original experiments that proved casuation, so did shyh ching lo.

Pretty simple, find a correlation, and inoculate animals, if they dont get sick, better have some long term studies that control for confounding factors such as azt mycoplasmas, drug use, etc especially when youve exteneded your window period from 1 year to 10 years.

I guess aids inc bypassed all these steps because heckler got desperate, needed a quick political answer, and had the power to create a self perpetuating industry that had no scientific standards whatsover, when of hundereds chimps inoculated didnt die, they just extended the goalposts and made hiv species specific, when the amount of tcell infection was discovered to be so low, 1/1000 or so they blamed the immune system, or they imagined it wth the pcr, get confused which one they beleive now, got any electron microscopy pics from a patient confirmimg these high plasma loads?………….of course not, the corrupt industry just carries on.

All the meanwhile Lo’s mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans that killed and sickened every animal inoculated is causing all kinds of chronic multi organic illnesses, people that are healthy are told they are going to die, people that are sick and misdiagnosed with Depression etc and really suffering from mycoplasma infection are told to take a Prozac. You guys are murderers, plain and simple. All rethinkers wantis patients to have informed consent and to proceed accordingly.

Like the former world champion boxer Tommy morrison, he read duesbergs book when he tested positive, and also was seeing world renoun hiv specialist Dr. ho, he found Duesbergs argument more compelling, dumped Ho and is still alive and totally healthy more than ten years later. Informed consent, stop denying us of it and destroying peoples lives.

Posted by: cooler | November 27, 2007 8:19 PM

Date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 1:15 PM ( 44 mins 31 secs ago ) Text view
Print view
From “Darin Brown”
To “J D” [Add]
Cc xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject RE: HCV isolation Show full header
JD,

You’ve got a LOT of nerve, you know. A LOT.

I AM *NOT* HANS. HOW *DARE* YOU ASSUME MY IDENTITY AND PRESUME TO RESPOND TO ME BASED ON SUCH AN ASSUMPTION. HOW *DARE* YOU??

You don’t even have the god-damn motivation or initiative to do a simple google search which takes less than 10 seconds:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=revolver%40fastmail.fm&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=darin+revolver&btnG=Search

And yet YOU (*YOU!*) have the audacity to say:

“However, the ability to admit to ourselves that we do not know it all is what enables us to learn. The disrespectful attitude (not just to myself but to the researchers in general) displayed on the board was another reason for leaving.”

You hypocritical little punk. You pathetic hypocritical punk.

I came to you with *SCIENTIFIC* questions, if you hadn’t noticed. Millions of people are being HCV antibody tests and told that they’re infected with a virus that causes hepatitis. Millions of people are given a diagnosis like that. Their lives are put in disarray and they are given a SENTENCE from the mouths of their doctors. They are scared shitless and persuaded into taking antiviral drugs into the bodies. Based on the QUESTIONS that *YOU* refuse to answer or even dignify with a response.

And YOU have the AUDACITY to get in a huff because you think people are rude, because people have a certain “tone of voice” in their postings, because they like to use CAPS or *BOLDFACE* or they swear occasionally or they even make accusations that other people don’t know what they’re talking about. “OH MY GOD!! I can’t take it any more! No, I can scare millions of people into taking antibodies tests and putting toxic drugs in their bodies, but I’m DEEPLY DEEPLY offended if someone god forbid uses the f-word or raises their voice or types in caps or uses sarcasm or literary allusions or says people are ‘lying’ or carrying out ‘fraud’. CRY CRY CRY.”

What the hell happened to the days of the 60s and 70s (not that I’d, know, but I’ve been told by others) when scientists were able to engage in free-wheeling good-natured discourse with each other, without fear that (god forbid!) SWEARING or (god forbid!) SARCASM or LITERARY ALLUSIONS would cause their opponent(s) to become faint of heart and cry “foul”??? Are you people really so THIN-SKINNED nowadays??

HOW DEEPLY HYPOCRITICAL AND PATHETIC.

You said: “Prevalence of viremia [sic] (viremia is in fact a correct word, by the way)”

THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF MY EMAIL, did you bother to even read it??

The whole point of the HCV antibody tests is that you say someone is infected when they have “viremia” and I am asking what you mean by this — if you had bothered to read what I wrote, I noted:

1. In one point of the paper, the authors clearly imply that they consider using RT-PCR as they did equivalent to proving HCV viremia.

2. In another point of the paper, they state that RT-PCR cannot be used to absolutely prove HCV viremia.

Thus, my use of the term “sic” above.

Saying things like:
> “Nevertheless, the authors continue, displaying the
> following dazzling display of footwork, which would make Bill Clinton or
> Tony the Paper Tyger proud:”
>
> Such attitude is one of the reasons
> I decided not to debate on the board anymore.

Why don’t stop addressing the ATTITUDE and start addressing the SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS?? Oh, that’s right, you have all the answers and I’m so ultimately misinformed or misguided or ignorant or stupid that you can’t even STOOP below your god-damn pedestal to even acknowledge such questions.

MAY I REMIND YOU, I ASKED YOU A QUESTION RELATED TO *MATHEMATICS*, (concerning the meanings of the words “sensitivity” and “specificity”), A SUBJECT I HAVE A FUCKING DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN.

And YOU sit up on your perch and REFUSE to answer a question in a domain I have Ph.D. in. You little SHIT.

You give absolutely no indication that you even grasp the faintest edges of my argument. You give no indication that you understand my point that the authors of the 1993 paper use the terms “sensitive” and “specific” (MATHEMATICAL terms) in a way which indicates they have absolutely no idea what the meaning of these words is.

“I will however inform you that the objections you have to the paper seem to be based on your misunderstanding of the material, not fraud on behalf of the researchers.”

Geez, you are one piece of work.

I NEVER ACCUSED THE AUTHORS OF FRAUD. SHOW ME EVEN ONCE (remember, I am not “Hans”) WHERE I ACCUSE THEM OF “FRAUD”.

I ACCUSED THEM OF STUPIDITY AND IDIOCY, NOT FRAUD. And if THEY’RE the researchers who are teaching the next generation, it’s no wonder pathetic pieces of shit like you are what’s being produced by modern biomedicine.

GOOD DAY.

darin

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:08:59 +0000, “J D” said:
>
>
> Darin,
>
> I read your e-mail. Unfortunately the “unpleasant” experience at
> AME was due to more than one person and was mainly because of people with
> little or
> no knowledge acting as if they knew everything but refusing to learn
> anything. I understand that not everyone will be at the
> same level of knowledge on any given topic. However, the ability to
> admit to ourselves that
> we do not know it all is what enables us to learn. The disrespectful
> attitude (not just to myself
> but to the researchers in general) displayed on the board was another
> reason
> for leaving. Accusing or implying fraud
> or lying is rarely productive in a debate, ESPECIALLY if it is based
> solely on
> the accuser’s lack of knowledge in the topic discussed. I will assume at
> this point
> by your writing style that you are Hans. Unfortunately the
> offer to continue this by e-mail was deliberately not directed towards
> you because
> you were one of those people as is further evidenced by your last e-mail.
> Saying things like:
>
> “Prevalence of viremia [sic]” (viremia is in fact a
> correct word, by the way)
>
> Or
>
> “Nevertheless, the authors continue, displaying the
> following dazzling display of footwork, which would make Bill Clinton or
> Tony the Paper Tyger proud:”
>
>
>
> Such attitude is one of the reasons
> I decided not to debate on the board anymore. I
> extended an invitation to RT to continue because, while he does not know
> everything about molecular biology (I am not claiming I do either), he
> admits
> this and is respectful both to myself and of the authors we are
> discussing. Despite disagreeing with Deusberg’s ideas, I
> have never insulted him or accused him of lying by e-mail or on the
> board. It was clear to me that you could not do this and this is why I
> did not invite you to continue this discussion by e-mail. I will however
> inform you that the objections
> you have to the paper seem to be based on your misunderstanding of the
> material, not fraud on behalf of the researchers. With that, good luck
> in your future learning.
>
>
>
> -BioLad
>
>
>
>
> > From: revolver@fastmail.fm
> > To: BioLad007@hotmail.com
> > CC: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: HCV isolation
> > Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:50:58 -0800
> >
> > Biolad,
> >
> > Sorry you have an unpleasant experience at AME recently. I’m afraid you
> > were on the receiving end of a lot of frustration caused by OTHER people
> > — namely, HIV researchers, from whom many of us have been trying for
> > 20+ years to get simple, straightforward answers — all to no avail.
> >
> > But let’s not talk about HIV now.
> >
> > I’ve been following the recent thread of HCV at AME, and although it’s
> > stretching the bounds of my genomic knowledge, I still have some pretty
> > straightforward questions that I’m curious to know your response.
> >
> > In “Prevalence and significance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) viremia in
> > HCV antibody-positive subjects from various populations.”, J Clin
> > Microbiol. 1993 May; 31(5): 1189-1193, M Francois et al stated:
> >
> > “However, in the absence of an in vitro system to isolate the virus, or
> > an immunoassay to identify HCV antigen in blood, an ongoing acute or
> > chronic HCV infection can be diagnosed only by detection of HCV RNA by
> > polymerase chain reaction.”
> >
> > This statement strikes me as rather curious, to say the least. In the
> > first part of the sentence, they admit that there is an ABSENCE of “an
> > in vitro system to isolate the virus”, nor does there exist any
> > immunoassay to identify HCV antigen (i.e. actual virus PARTICLES) in
> > plasma. Yet they go on in the next part of the sentence to use the term
> > “HCV RNA”, which implies the existence of “HCV antigen” (i.e. using the
> > term “HCV RNA” implies that the RNA is known to have originated in HCV
> > virus particles). Or is it possible to have “HCV RNA” without “HCV
> > antigen” or “HIV particles” in the first place???
> >
> > There exist antibody tests for “HCV infection”. It takes 5 seconds to
> > find dozens of papers on HCV antibody tests at Pubmed. Numbers are given
> > for “specificity” and “sensitivity”. Now, the use of the words
> > “specific” and “sensitive” starts to encroach on MY domain, namely
> > mathematics. These words have precise mathematical meaning. They
> > only make sense when a well-defined gold standard is used. In other
> > words, whenever one is trying to compute the “sensitivity” or
> > “specificity” of an antibody test, one must have a well-defined
> > procedure for determining whether the “HCV virus” is actually present or
> > absent. NOT to have such a gold standard would be as absurd as marketing
> > a pregnancy test without being able to tell whether a woman was 7 months
> > pregnant or not!!
> >
> > Now, I have a very (VERY, very, very) simple question for you:
> >
> > When testing (in Val Turner’s SECOND meaning of the term, i.e.
> > calculating the accuracy of an antibody test) the “HCV antibody” tests
> > (in Val’s FIRST meaning of the term, i.e. a binary classification test)
> > for specificity and sensitivity, what is used as the “gold standard” for
> > “HCV infection”?

> >
> > It appears that M Francois et al in the above 1993 paper are deeply

> > confused on this matter. I quote directly from the introduction of the
> > paper:
> >
> > “Patients infected with HCV develop antibodies to various structural and
> > nonstructural viral proteins. Detection of antibodies to HCV is the
> > easiest method to identify patients who are or have been infected.”
> >
> > So far, so good!! Let me note at this point, for future reference,
> > however, the authors imply that:
> >
> > 1. There is a well-defined method to determine which patients are
> > “infected with HCV” and which are “not infected with HCV”. After all,
> > without such a method, how could one possibly declare a certain subset
> > of patients “infected with HCV”??
> >
> > 2. Indeed, such a method is SO well-defined that one can even
> > differentiate “structural” from “nonstructural” viral proteins.
> >
> > 3. I will forgive the lapse of logic in the phrase “detection of
> > antibodies to HCV”. This is a gross abuse of language which
> > unfortunately has permeated medical discourse for many years. There is

> > no such thing as an “antibody to HCV”, or, equivalently, an
> > “HCV-specific antibody”. Specificity is a trait of a TEST, NOT of an
> > object. Nevertheless, I will forgive this common lapse and interpret the
> > statement by the authors in the most parsimonious way possible: that a
> > well-defined binary classification test has been set up, with a
> > well-defined gold standard (as alluded to in point #1 above), and that
> > such antibodies have been shown to be highly specific to the gold
> > standard.
> >
> > Continuing,
> >
> > “However, it is not possible to know whether an anti-HCV-positive
> > patient is a virus carrier or has recovered from a past infection.”
> >
> > Oh, no!!! SAY IT AIN’T SO, JOE!!!
> >
> > This is the precise point at which ALL confidence in this paper plummets
> > to zero. Because if a well-defined gold standard was actually available,
> > as implied by the authors above, it would be a trivial matter to
> > determine “whether an anti-HCV-positive patient is a virus carrier or
> > has recovered from a past infection”.
> >
> > IF, as the authors clearly state, it is “not possible” to know “whether
> > an anti-HCV-positive patient is a virus carrier or has recovered from a
> > past infection”, then “being a virus carrier” cannot possibly be the
> > afore-implied gold standard. I have to admit, at this point in the
> > paper, I feel left in the dark as to what exactly the gold standard
> > they’re implying must be.
> >
> > Nevertheless, the authors continue, displaying the following dazzling
> > display of footwork, which would make Bill Clinton or Tony the Paper
> > Tyger proud:
> >
> > “Lack of a convenient culture system for HCV implies the use of
> > molecular biology to assess viremia. Direct hybridization of serum
> > samples is possible but is hampered by the low virus concentration in
> > most patients. Amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a
> > HIGHLY SENSITIVE [my emphasis] and ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY INDEPENDENT METHOD
> > [my emphasis] to detect ongoing viral infection. Although a positive PCR
> > assay is not absolute proof of HCV viremia, it STRONGLY SUGGESTS [my
> > emphasis] active virus production within the body (numerous
> > references)”.
> >
> > A few points:
> >
> > 1. “but is hampered by the low virus concentratin in most patients”
> > seems to affirm Duesberg’s conclusion in his 1992 “Latent Viruses and
> > Mutated Oncogenes” paper in Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and
> > Molecular Biology, that the “viremia of HCV” is insufficient to account
> > for clinical hepatitis.
> >
> > 2. “Amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly
> > sensitive and antigen-antibody independent method to detect ongoing
> > viral infection.”
> >
> > Now, WAIT A ****ING MINUTE. CLEARLY, the authors of this paper have
> > ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the meanings of the terms “sensitive” and
> > “specific” mean.
> >
> > As a recap:
> >
> > “Specific” and “sensitive” are properties of a TEST. To say that
> > “amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly
> > sensitive… method to detect ongoing viral infection” IMPLIES THAT
> > AMPLIFICATION OF VIRAL NUCLEIC ACID BY PCR IS THE ***DIAGNOSTIC***,
> > ***NOT*** THE GOLD STANDARD!?!?!? Yet in the “results” section later,
> > the authors state:
> >
> > “Prevalence of viremia [sic] in HCV-seropositive patients: 58% of the 98
> > samples were positive by nested PCR… All 19 anti-HCV-negative patients
> > of the control group were negative for HCV RNA. The prevalence of HCV
> > viremia as assessed by RT-PCR ranged from 25.9% in blood donors to 92.0%
> > among hemophiliacs.”
> >
> > and in the “discussion” section even later, the authors state:
> >
> > “In the absence of an in vitro system to isolate the virus or an
> > immunoassay to identify HCV antigens in blood, HCV viremia can be
> > detected only by RT-PCR. The aims of the present work were (i) to
> > evaluate the presence of HCV viremia in HCV-antibody positive patients
> > belonging to different populations and (ii) to study the correlation
> > between HCV viremia, the immune response to various structural and
> > nonstructural HCV antigens, and elevation of ALT indicating hepatic
> > lesions.”
> >
> > IT IS CLEAR, FROM THE ABOVE TWO DIRECT QUOTES, THAT “HCV VIREMIA” =
> > “USING RT-PCR”.
> >
> > So, my question for you, Biolad, would be:
> >
> > IS RT-PCR AS USED IN THIS CASE, THE *DIAGNOSTIC*, (as indicated in the
> > quote “amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provices a highly
> > SENSITIVE [my emphasis]…”) OR IS IT THE *GOLD STANDARD* (as indicated
> > in the quote “In the absence of an in vitro system to isolate the virus
> > or an immunoassay to identify HCV antigens in blood, HCV viremia can be
> > detected only by RT-PCR.”)
> >
> > WHICH IS IT???????????????
> >
> > I await your response.
> >
> > darin
> >
> > –
> > Darin Brown
> > revolver@fastmail.fm
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we donate. Join
> in.
> www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline
–
Darin Brown
revolver@fastmail.fm

Posted by: Darin Brown | November 27, 2007 9:56 PM

Date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 1:15 PM ( 44 mins 31 secs ago ) Text view
Print view
From “Darin Brown”
To “J D” [Add]
Cc xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject RE: HCV isolation Show full header
JD,

You’ve got a LOT of nerve, you know. A LOT.

I AM *NOT* HANS. HOW *DARE* YOU ASSUME MY IDENTITY AND PRESUME TO RESPOND TO ME BASED ON SUCH AN ASSUMPTION. HOW *DARE* YOU??

You don’t even have the god-damn motivation or initiative to do a simple google search which takes less than 10 seconds:

[Google "revolver@fastmail.fm"]
[Google "darin and revolver"]

And yet YOU (*YOU!*) have the audacity to say:

You hypocritical little punk. You pathetic hypocritical punk.

HOW DEEPLY HYPOCRITICAL AND PATHETIC.

You said: “Prevalence of viremia [sic] (viremia is in fact a correct word, by the way)”

THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF MY EMAIL, did you bother to even read it??

The whole point of the HCV antibody tests is that you say someone is infected when they have “viremia” and I am asking what you mean by this — if you had bothered to read what I wrote, I noted:

1. In one point of the paper, the authors clearly imply that they consider using RT-PCR as they did equivalent to proving HCV viremia.

2. In another point of the paper, they state that RT-PCR cannot be used to absolutely prove HCV viremia.

Thus, my use of the term “sic” above.

And YOU sit up on your perch and REFUSE to answer a question in a domain I have Ph.D. in. You little SHIT.

“I will however inform you that the objections you have to the paper seem to be based on your misunderstanding of the material, not fraud on behalf of the researchers.”

Geez, you are one piece of work.

I NEVER ACCUSED THE AUTHORS OF FRAUD. SHOW ME EVEN ONCE (remember, I am not “Hans”) WHERE I ACCUSE THEM OF “FRAUD”.

GOOD DAY.

darin

> > nonstructural viral proteins. Detection of antibodies to HCV is the
> > easiest method to identify patients who are or have been infected.”
> >
> > So far, so good!! Let me note at this point, for future reference,
> > however, the authors imply that:
> >
> > 1. There is a well-defined method to determine which patients are
> > “infected with HCV” and which are “not infected with HCV”. After all,
> > without such a method, how could one possibly declare a certain subset
> > of patients “infected with HCV”??
> >
> > 2. Indeed, such a method is SO well-defined that one can even
> > differentiate “structural” from “nonstructural” viral proteins.
> >
> > 3. I will forgive the lapse of logic in the phrase “detection of
> > antibodies to HCV”. This is a gross abuse of language which
> > unfortunately has permeated medical discourse for many years. There is
> > no such thing as an “antibody to HCV”, or, equivalently, an
> > “HCV-specific antibody”. Specificity is a trait of a TEST, NOT of an
> > object. Nevertheless, I will forgive this common lapse and interpret the
> > statement by the authors in the most parsimonious way possible: that a
> > well-defined binary classification test has been set up, with a
> > well-defined gold standard (as alluded to in point #1 above), and that
> > such antibodies have been shown to be highly specific to the gold
> > standard.
> >
> > Continuing,
> >
> > “However, it is not possible to know whether an anti-HCV-positive
> > patient is a virus carrier or has recovered from a past infection.”
> >
> > Oh, no!!! SAY IT AIN’T SO, JOE!!!
> >
> > This is the precise point at which ALL confidence in this paper plummets
> > to zero. Because if a well-defined gold standard was actually available,
> > as implied by the authors above, it would be a trivial matter to
> > determine “whether an anti-HCV-positive patient is a virus carrier or
> > has recovered from a past infection”.
> >
> > IF, as the authors clearly state, it is “not possible” to know “whether
> > an anti-HCV-positive patient is a virus carrier or has recovered from a
> > past infection”, then “being a virus carrier” cannot possibly be the
> > afore-implied gold standard. I have to admit, at this point in the
> > paper, I feel left in the dark as to what exactly the gold standard

> > they’re implying must be.
> >
> > Nevertheless, the authors continue, displaying the following dazzling
> > display of footwork, which would make Bill Clinton or Tony the Paper
> > Tyger proud:
> >
> > “Lack of a convenient culture system for HCV implies the use of
> > molecular biology to assess viremia. Direct hybridization of serum
> > samples is possible but is hampered by the low virus concentration in
> > most patients. Amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a
> > HIGHLY SENSITIVE [my emphasis] and ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY INDEPENDENT METHOD
> > [my emphasis] to detect ongoing viral infection. Although a positive PCR
> > assay is not absolute proof of HCV viremia, it STRONGLY SUGGESTS [my
> > emphasis] active virus production within the body (numerous
> > references)”.
> >
> > A few points:
> >
> > 1. “but is hampered by the low virus concentratin in most patients”
> > seems to affirm Duesberg’s conclusion in his 1992 “Latent Viruses and
> > Mutated Oncogenes” paper in Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and
> > Molecular Biology, that the “viremia of HCV” is insufficient to account
> > for clinical hepatitis.
> >
> > 2. “Amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly
> > sensitive and antigen-antibody independent method to detect ongoing
> > viral infection.”
> >
> > Now, WAIT A ****ING MINUTE. CLEARLY, the authors of this paper have
> > ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the meanings of the terms “sensitive” and
> > “specific” mean.
> >
> > As a recap:
> >
> > “Specific” and “sensitive” are properties of a TEST. To say that
> > “amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly
> > sensitive… method to detect ongoing viral infection” IMPLIES THAT
> > AMPLIFICATION OF VIRAL NUCLEIC ACID BY PCR IS THE ***DIAGNOSTIC***,
> > ***NOT*** THE GOLD STANDARD!?!?!? Yet in the “results” section later,
> > the authors state:
> >
> > “Prevalence of viremia [sic] in HCV-seropositive patients: 58% of the 98
> > samples were positive by nested PCR… All 19 anti-HCV-negative patients
> > of the control group were negative for HCV RNA. The prevalence of HCV
> > viremia as assessed by RT-PCR ranged from 25.9% in blood donors to 92.0%
> > among hemophiliacs.”
> >
> > and in the “discussion” section even later, the authors state:
> >
> > “In the absence of an in vitro system to isolate the virus or an

> > immunoassay to identify HCV antigens in blood, HCV viremia can be
> > detected only by RT-PCR. The aims of the present work were (i) to
> > evaluate the presence of HCV viremia in HCV-antibody positive patients
> > belonging to different populations and (ii) to study the correlation
> > between HCV viremia, the immune response to various structural and
> > nonstructural HCV antigens, and elevation of ALT indicating hepatic
> > lesions.”
> >
> > IT IS CLEAR, FROM THE ABOVE TWO DIRECT QUOTES, THAT “HCV VIREMIA” =
> > “USING RT-PCR”.
> >
> > So, my question for you, Biolad, would be:
> >
> > IS RT-PCR AS USED IN THIS CASE, THE *DIAGNOSTIC*, (as indicated in the
> > quote “amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provices a highly
> > SENSITIVE [my emphasis]…”) OR IS IT THE *GOLD STANDARD* (as indicated
> > in the quote “In the absence of an in vitro system to isolate the virus
> > or an immunoassay to identify HCV antigens in blood, HCV viremia can be
> > detected only by RT-PCR.”)
> >
> > WHICH IS IT???????????????
> >
> > I await your response.
> >
> > darin
> >
> > –
> > Darin Brown
> > revolver@fastmail.fm
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we donate. Join
> in.
> www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline
–
Darin Brown
revolver@fastmail.fm

Posted by: Darin Brown | November 27, 2007 9:57 PM

OK, you are not lying, you are just a scientifically illiterate and self-deluded idiot.

Here’s an idea for you. You could contact Karpas and ask him whether he agrees with your “interpretation” of his paper.

What do you think he would say? If he disagrees with you will you simply stick to your misinterpretation and claim that Karpas is a closet Denialist?

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 27, 2007 7:38 PM

Ask Karpas, indeed… even you can imagine what he will say. Look what happened when we asked Nancy Padian what she meanst with her study showing that HIV positivity is not transmitted by heterosexuals. She retreated on AIDStruth to saying it happened 1 in 1000-10,000 ‘close encounters’.

Gee, that must have gone down well with John Moore. But we don’t think he has noticed, yet. It’s still there:

HIV is unquestionably transmitted through heterosexual intercourse. Indeed, heterosexual intercourse is now responsible for 70-80% of all HIV transmissions worldwide (2). The current likelihood of male to female infection after a single exposure to HIV is 0.01-0.32% (2, 3), and the current likelihood of female to male infection after a single exposure is 0.01-0.1% (2).

Check it out at http://aidstruth.org/nancy-padian.php. (Oh but it’s more in the developing world… 20%, even… Why we haven’t really worked out yet, though we have offered gruesome possibilities based on our reasonable assumption that black Africans as very different human beings from us…).

OK Chris, it is becoming clear that your insults reflect the frustration you have with catching up with what is really going on, and your dim and resentful awareness that perhaps you are not as scientifically and politically sophisticated as you need to be.

Look, we sympathize – it must be quite a prospect to face to realize that the axe you have ground so simplemindedly for so many years is liable to cut you instead of the your intended targets because you have it back to front and have been sharpening the wrong end. And all this in public, recorded for all time on the Web which never forgets, either through Google cache or Wayback Machine.

We want to help. First, we suggest a reading list. After all, if you don’t understand what is going on, why not just give up, and buy a good book on the topic? Have you ever read Bialy’s book? If you haven’t, that would certainly account for your resolute naivete in this discussion.

There really is no point in any discussion with you until you read it, twice. This is a field where politics has distorted what people say and what they write. That is why John has had to be subtle and quietly record his awareness of the problems that defeat HIV=AIDS in journals where nosy journalists (if there are any left in science) never go.

We were about to explain all this on New AIDS Review by examining his five unpublicised papers on the topic but you keep interrupting.

Apparently you are not aware of the political factor, and think papers can be read straight. So when you are told of the correct interpretation, you grow resentful and hurl insults such as “scientifically illiterate and self-deluded idiot”, without realizing that these apply to yourself, as host to the HIV-AIDS meme and Kraft-Dunning syndrome both.

The title of the book is Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, and AIDS: A Scientific Life and Times of Peter H. Duesberg, by Harvey Bialy, you can order it on Amazon for very little.

Perhaps it will be too subtle for you, though. Bialky does have a wicked sense of humor, one of the litmus tests of intelligence in this arena, we have noticed (floreat ‘cooler’!)

If so, we suggest Serge Lang’s Challenges. A bit more expensive, but well worth it as the finest and most revealing exposure of the egregious bending of information by academic and press poobahs in print today.

You need to get up to speed, Chris. Combining the HIV meme and the credulity of a down under ingenue won’t do it. This is the table where the big boys play for very high stakes.

That’s why Nancy Padian writes this for the Moore HIV defense site::

Finally, it is a complete fallacy to allege or insinuate that this work has been “suppressed” or “ignored” by the AIDS community or unsupported by UCSF or any other institution with which I have worked. To the contrary, these findings have been seen as central and seminal to the problem of heterosexual transmission rates and the development of interventions to lower the rate of transmission and infection worldwide, many of which are being conducted by my research group. The success of my working group has been fueled, not hindered, by our research on the heterosexual transmission of HIV, attested to by our long record of peer-reviewed publications.

You don’t admit the meaning of your paper in public if it challenges HIV, you add boiler plate every other paragraph saying it doesn’t.

You don’t realize this, Chris? You have us concerned. This is not subtle. This is science politics 101.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 27, 2007 10:27 PM

darin writes There is no such thing as an “antibody to HCV”, or, equivalently, an “HCV-specific antibody”. Specificity is a trait of a TEST, NOT of an object.

One is sorely tempted darin to just dismiss you as an idiot. However, in the spirit of the season, I will point out that in the language of immunology which is what one is speaking when one talks of antibodies, there is indeed such as thing as an antibody to HCV. Whether “HCV-specific antibodies” have any meaning in the language of mathematics is irrelevant.

Posted by: Dale | November 27, 2007 11:22 PM

Speaking of dazzling footwork, you’ve gotta admire Nancy’s combined escape clause and conflation of prevalent scientific belief and objective truth in the phrase,

The current likelihood. . .

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 27, 2007 11:30 PM

The tempest in a teacup today between Truthseeker of New Aids Review and Dr. Chris Noble could be easily resolved by calling in Prof. Abraham Karpas of Cambridge University to act as judge and tell us what he actually believes. Indeed, Dr. Noble has suggested that we do just that.

Let’s recall that Truthseeker had referred to “the paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it…”

Chris Noble responded, “This is a perfect example where you are either blatantly lying or you are completely incapable of understanding the paper that you purport to critique. The paper most definitely does not say that the human immune response is sufficient to defeat HIV.”

Are these learned disputants talking about the same paper? What does it actually say? In his review, “Human retroviruses in leukaemia and AIDS,” in Biology Reviews 79:911-933, 2004, Dr. Abraham Karpas states the following, which I believe was the basis for Truthseeker’s remark:

“The immune response to HIV can be compared to that of a live viral vaccine. It explains why most HIV-infected individuals remain well for many years.”

Karpas further notes that this response to HIV occurs “in nearly every infected individual” and describes it as “a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years.”

Any fair reader can see that Truthseeker’s interpretation was a reasonable reflection of what Karpas actually wrote. The conclusion by Karpas was based on the average 10-15 years sans AIDS after HIV infection.

Posted by: Robert Houston | November 27, 2007 11:45 PM

Dale,

One of Darin’s point was the unfathomable illiteracy of you guys: in the spirit of the season you immediately set out to confirm his observation.

Let me try to make it even simpler for you:

Darin was speaking about the word(s),

“specific”, “specificity”.

Darin was NOT speaking about the words,

“antibody”, “HCV”.

Now try again Dumbo.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 27, 2007 11:53 PM

A great new blog by Dr. Henry Bauer. Much better than this rat-hole of moronic, ass-kissing conformist AZT idealogues.

Posted by: Mountain Main | November 27, 2007 11:55 PM

A great new blog by Dr. Henry Bauer. Much better than this rat-hole of moronic, ass-kissing conformist AZT idealogues.

Posted by: Mountain Man | November 27, 2007 11:55 PM

Please, MM, do not put people off from reading this exciting thread carefully. How otherwise would they know the qualities and style of those infested with the HIV meme, which make it clear how seriously they should be taken (not).

Thank you Robert Houston for producing chapter and verse to show that we are right in being concerned for the mental health of Chris, who for so many years has been plagued with the HIV meme and the Kraft-Dunning syndrome, not to mention the Turett-like phenomenon of spouting powerful insults under the impression they are scientific arguments.

Apparently this powerful combination of mental handicaps has prevented him from actually reading the papers that he says we misinterpret, although this may be the path to a cure..

Since Moore also exhibits the latter habit of freely insulting HIV critics without actually debating any science with them (dissidents are “denialists” etc) perhaps it should be recognized as the third component of Mr Noble’s mental ailment, hereby named the Moore-Noble Syndrome.

Of course, this overwhelming combination of mental challenges is what leads to poor Chris’s habit of denouncing our interpretation of papers he has apparently not actually read, such as the Abraham Karpas acknowledgement of the suppression of HIV by the antibodies of any normally healthy person’s immune system.

Dare we predict that the reply to our rubbing in the total defeat he has just endured will result in another fireworks display of the Moore-Noble syndrome? Let’s hope not.

After all, if he takes our prescription of reading Bialy, Lang and the papers under discussion he can free himself of all these problems at once.

We love ya, Chris, you familiar mule, you – get better soon.

Here’s a definition of ‘obstinacy’ from Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary to solace you in yourr travail:

Obstinate: adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy. The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most intelligent animal.

See? He’s on your side.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 12:35 AM

Robert Houston has commented on the divergent interpretations of Karpas (2004) offered by Truthseeker and by Chris Noble.

Houston tries to resolve this dispute by quoting from the Karpas paper:

“The immune response to HIV can be compared to that of a live viral vaccine. It explains why most HIV-infected individuals remain well for many years.”

Karpas further notes that this response to HIV occurs

“in nearly every infected individual” and describes it as “a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years.”

But what does Karpas really say?

(1) in nearly every infected individual, despite a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years, eventually one or more mutants emerge that manage to evade the immune response and lead to disease progression and death

What happened Houston? Was your head buried too deeply in the sand to notice the last half of that sentence from which you quoted?

Did you miss the part of the sentence where Karpas stated that in nearly every infected individual HIV manages to evade the immune response and lead to death?

Or did you feel that “any fair reader” would simply ignore this part of the sentence?

Hmmmm. Let’s see. What were our choices to explain the Denialist interpretation of Karpas?

Oh yeah: “either blatantly lying” or “completely incapable of understanding the paper”.

Hmmmm. Which one????

Posted by: franklin | November 28, 2007 12:46 AM

Any “fair” reader?
HIV is not “defeated” by the human immune response.
The amount of viral replication declines after the initial infection period. However, HIV continues to replicate at all stages.

The “setpoint” which is attained after the initial acute infection is one factor that determines the time to progression to AIDS.

Liversidge, agrees above that Karpas would not agree with his characterisation. Go ahead and contact him if you want. Just try not to sound like a lunatic crank when you do so.

You could also try reading some of his other papers for clarification.

Molecular Medicine Today
Volume 4, Issue 6, 1 June 1998, Pages 244-249

This paper has a section titled 2.Why does the immune response to HIV eventually fail?

It details the main mechanisms whereby HIV evades the immune sytem.

The human immune response does not defeat HIV as the ironically selfnamed “truthseeker” claims.

Before anybody starts waffling about HIV breaking the laws of virology or any such nonsense you should do some research on other lentiviruses such as EIAV that also give rise to persistent infections.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 28, 2007 12:51 AM

Perhaps you should reread darin’s post, MEC. darin says that there can be no HCV-specific antibodies because only tests can have specificity, not antibodies. darin’s pronouncement not withstanding, in the world of immunology that antibodies inhabit, that is nonsense.

Posted by: Dale | November 28, 2007 12:58 AM

But what does Karpas really say?

Sorry, franklin, you are hung by your own yard arm. The “one or two mutants emerge” notion is pure imagination, just the usual conciliatory “We salute HIV=AIDS” behavior that keeps Weiss, Fauci et al out of your hair when you make a true observation that will upset them royally. You don’t see this?

Certainly sorry to hear it, then you have the HIV meme and the Kraft-Dunning glitch in situ as well, please look out for the Moore-Noble syndrome kicking in if you get too frustrated.

We speak with the utmost personal respect, of course.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 1:03 AM

Liversidge, agrees above that Karpas would not agree with his characterisation. Go ahead and contact him if you want. Just try not to sound like a lunatic crank when you do so.

I do not. He would not agree publicly. But what he thinks, is in the paper. Read it. Or is the HIV meme interfering with your ratiocination?

This paper has a section titled 2.Why does the immune response to HIV eventually fail?

It details the main mechanisms whereby HIV evades the immune sytem.

Not “it details…”. “It speculates as to…”.

The Kraft-Dunning syndrome is running riot here, while the meme cracks the whip.

The immune system defeats HIV. All intelligent and honest scientists have seen this from the start, which is why they are not surprised by the utter shambles of the hopeless vaccine effort.

Hey, but it needs more funds, right?

This is written for the benefit of the 80 out of 100 who read but do not post, so they can see how the 20 have no objective view of the politics, let alone the science.

Anyone who doesn’t have an objective understanding of the politics and how it affects the literature is disqualified from a proper assessment of the paradigm.

This is Kuhnian paradigm politics par excellence, the greatest example in all the world of science.

But invisible to the Kraft-Dunning sufferers, unfortunately.

So excuse, but have to pick up my marbles and go off to New AIDS Review to deal with Moore, who is refreshingly aware of the politics, as his every move shows.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 1:16 AM

Truthseeker (sic), are you denying that Karpas says that:

If so, you are becoming veritably Maniotisidian in your inability to quote from published works.

If you do not deny that the quote comes from Karpas, how do you reconcile this accurate quote with your characterization of the paper as:

The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it?

He says, that in nearly every infected person HIV is able to evade the immune response and lead to death.

You claim that he says that the “levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it”.

How deeply does your head have to be buried in the sand to be able to ignore the fact that those are mutually incompatible propositions.

Posted by: franklin | November 28, 2007 1:26 AM

Darin,

In addition to Dale’s comment, which is absolutely rightt, I’d like to address your question about the sensitivity of the assays.

“”amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly

> > sensitive… method to detect ongoing viral infection”"

Here, sensitivity is referring to sensitivity (in the mathematical sense) for detection of HCV RNA molecules.

The gold standard for these assays is simply to create a standard curve using serial dilutions of HCV RNA and to measure the sensitivity of the assay by amplifying DNA from a known initial quantity of template RNA or DNA.

Infection with HCV is a diagnosis. These tests detect the presence of Hep C RNA or antibodies to Hep C proteins; specifically, and with great sensitivity (both in the mathematical sense). Positive results on these tests are used to make a positive diagnosis.

The paper you cite makes the point that antibodies may be present even after an infection has been defeated. Therefore antibody tests alone are not sufficient to distinguish an active infection from a cleared infection. RT PCR can be used to make that distinction because there is no reasonable way viral RNA will be present in the absence of a replicating virus. In other words, in this sentence:

“Although a positive PCR assay is not absolute proof of HCV viremia, it STRONGLY SUGGESTS…”

the words “absolute proof” should be read as whatever the mathematical definition of “absolute proof” would be, and the words “strongly suggests” should be interpreted as the colloquial definition of absolute proof.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | November 28, 2007 2:02 AM

I do not. He would not agree publicly. But what he thinks, is in the paper. Read it. Or is the HIV meme interfering with your ratiocination?

I have read it. It does not support your preposterous misinterpretation. You expect everybody to believe that Karpas is a closet Denialist and that nothing that he says to the contrary will convince you otherwise.

The immune system defeats HIV. All intelligent and honest scientists have seen this from the start, which is why they are not surprised by the utter shambles of the hopeless vaccine effort.

“All intelligent and honest scientists”. For a scientifically illiterate idiot you do have a lot of arrogance. But anyway you have captured the essence of HIV Denialism. You are arguing that the vast majority of scientists are stupid or dishonest and that you somehow have a magical gift to see the truth despite your total lack of any scientific understanding.

Get a text book on virology. Read the section on persistent viral infections.

Here’s something available online.

Medical Microbiology Section 2. Virology 46. Persistent Viral Infections

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 28, 2007 2:51 AM

Sorry Chris, as we have repeated more than once, the HIV meme, the Kruger-Dunning effect and the Moore-Noble syndrome do not add up to any scientific or even political argument.

Good luck, though. Maybe some ARVs would help?

Posted by: Truth | November 28, 2007 3:19 AM

Sorry Chris, as we have repeated more than once, the HIV meme, the Kruger-Dunning effect and the Moore-Noble syndrome do not add up to any scientific or even political argument.

So, you will just keep on insisting that your bizarre misinterpretation is correct despite the text in the article, despite many other papers by Karpas on HIV.

Not even a public disavowal by Karpas himself would convince you otherwise.

What an insular fanatsy world you live in.

If you want to know what Karpas’ actual beliefs are you could read this letter.

AIDS plagued by journalists. A. Karpas. Nature 368, 387 (1994).

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 28, 2007 4:18 AM

Franklin, yes, that seems to me to be precisely what I was pointing out – that Karpas was confirming that natural antibodies to HIV-1 work very well for many years. The point is that this is what HIV vaccine researchers are always anxious not to have to admit. It makes the whole vaccine effort look idiotic, as Duesberg has long pointed out.

Why do you think that Gallo and Ho have been emphasizing for years that we cant be sure it won’t take many years to find a vaccine and may never happen? Because people vaccinate themsleves. They are already vaccinated. With HIV.

Of course if you are infested with the HIV meme this concept cannot find its way into your brain. But we are objective truthseekers, right? We are open minded, because we know that science can always be wrong, as Bill Clinton has remarked to me.

The global antibody epidemic

Lookit, Chris, lovable duffer. The immune system defeats HIV quickly and for many years, so that it is hard to find any at all and you have to “AIDS test” for antibodies, which are a trifle hard to pass on to someone else, wouldn’t you say?

Hey folks, you believe in an antibody epidemic! Maybe you would like to hit that Internet textbook, Chris, and tell us how that works.

Sure, Karpas tried to rescue the situation with the notion that HIV mutates successfully away from the immune system, but that imagined solution to the predicament of HIV=AIDS enthusiasts was defeated you will find by a large study on HIV mutation in vivo which noted that the vigorous immune response to HIV caused the mutation, of course, kept up with it, and had no trouble keeping HIV down. The mutated virus doesn’t survive antibodies any better than the original.

Someone else showed me the paper but cannot recall the title, sorry. Anyway Karpas himself in his review notes that mutation is an insufficient explanation for the virus suddenly becoming harmful in humans, when this doesn’t happen in monkeys. By definition there has to be some other factor involved.

You may also find that Moore himself has published a paper recently confirming that antibodies neutralize HIV for a long time.

Stop reading Internet textbooks Chris and catch up with what is happening.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 5:17 AM

Posted by: cooler | November 28, 2007 1:31 PM

So lets say your ye elderly English deniosaur. What to do, start a blog of course. Only three people read it Claus Heinrich and Gene. So you can’t show enough people how youre ignorant. So you come to Tara’s blog and annoy every body there to!! And then your three readers come here!! Yay for you tony tyger but please bring some one next time we can argue about science with.

Posted by: Adele | November 28, 2007 1:36 PM

That Karpas letter? here it is (we are not at the library)::

AIDS Plagued by Journalists

Nature (03/31/94) Vol. 368, No. 6470, P. 387 Karpas, A.

A. Karpas of the Hematology Department at the University of Cambridge finds it bewildering that journalist Simon Jenkins, in a Dec. 18 article in The Times, would challenge HIV as the cause of AIDS. Karpas is especially surprised that Jenkins would issue such a challenge when it is a known fact that AIDS develops in all recipients of contaminated blood or blood products who are not categorized as members of the “lifestyle high-risk group.” Scientists know that 90 percent of those in the high-risk group will, in fact, develop the disease within a decade of infection; however, Karpas says Jenkins fails to appreciate that more than 90 percent of the men and women around the world are not in this group because they contracted the virus via normal heterosexual activity. It is incomprehensible, says Karpas, that Jenkins can write that “no causal chain has been proved” between HIV and AIDS when it has been established for more than 10 years. Scientific and medical progress is based on earlier knowledge, and any claim to discovery must always be reproduced by others in the same field before it is accepted. Therefore, Karpas contends, it is absurd for Jenkins to assume that all AIDS researchers and scientists are wrong. Jenkins’ implications about the lack of a cure after a decade of intensive research is equally absurd, charges Karpas. Considerable progress, but no cure after many years of research is also true in the case of the common cold, various herpes infections, and some major cancers. The Times and Sunday Times, through irresponsible, misinformed journalism, could mislead readers about AIDS and encourage them to ignore risks. With no cure, prevention is the most effective tool against AIDS. Informed, responsible journalists can be crucial to reducing the spread of the disease, Karpas concludes.

Karpas is “bewildered” that anyone would question the meme, which took root in his brain the very instant he became the first Briton to isolate HIV. However, being at a premier university, the alma mater of no less a scientist than John “I am not a macaque, I am a very hard working microbicide researcher” Moore, Karpas retains some critical faculties. He was very unkind to Dr. Gallo, for instance, castigating the hero of AIDS science for his fraudulent lab work, which must have seemed exceedingly uncollegial in spirit for a man in the Club.

Now he is caught red handed saying that the immune system puts down HIV very well for 10-15 years, exactly what Duesberg has always said. Luckily he caught himself saying this before Fauci did, so he was able to speculate about how this desirable state of affairs somehow falls apart after a decade or more. This is in obeisance to the one overriding principle of HIV=AIDS, that no matter what, one cannot conceive of questioning the unproven hypothesis, that HIV is the sole cause. But right there he is saying that something else causes AIDS, since HIV by itself is not enough.

What could it be? How can we rescue the blind faith of Chris Noble, and prevent him as well as Karpas being humiliated by the collapse of this paradigm to which they have been married to for so many years? Must be a co factor! Yes! That’s what Montagnier has always said, and he discovered the little bug, as Dr Gallo finally was forced to admit only after official investigation and legal row including lawyers for two nations, the US and France. Karpas deals with all this exciting stuff about how shady Gallo is in his great review paper, the one we are talking about, which is enjoyably frank in that regard too.

Getting back to science. It’s a co-factor! But you won’t get any kudos from Bob Gallo for saying this. He has always known what is obvious, which is that if you need a co factor, it raises a question, do you need HIV, if the co factor can be shown to work all by itself? This is dangerous stuff, even if one co factor he liked to suggest was HTLV-I, his other pet non working retrovirus.

HIV is the sine qua non of the whole funding rationale off which everyone has been living for the last twenty years. It’s also the sole claim to fame of poor Chris Noble, who otherwise would be completely absent from public affairs of any kind as far as we know, though he has managed one or two papers on using computers to analyze chemistry, or somesuch. Maybe he will start a blog. We hope so. It is just that he seems to have such difficulty in discerning the politics of the science. You would think that he would somehow dimly perceive them. After all, John Moore now leads the Denialist movement, the one that Denies there is anything wrong about HIV=AIDS, even though taxi drivers can see it makes no sense at all, and John deals in nothing but the politics of his own Denialism.

This he perpetrates like Anthony Fauci at NIAID via the simple strategy of Denying the deniers a public voice, and trying to give the false impression that they include no scientists in their ranks, when the finest scientist in virology, Peter Duesberg, sacrificed his Club status in insisting on the truth of the matter, only to be beset by a horde of activists and paradigm defenders who say he is incorrect, but somehow never publish anything at the peer reviewed level to demonstrate why.

Till they do, one can only say to Mr Moore and Chris Noble both, Mr Moore, Mr Noble, you are no Peter Duesberg. And your claim to be defending good science and the health of AIDS patients is contradicted by the HIV=AIDS literature including the papers which you, Mr Moore, Fauci, and Karpas have written for your colleagues.

Let’s sum up and say quite it straightforwardly in honor of World AIDS Day, December 1. The entire HIV=AIDS facade is built on a literature which contradicts it, as Peter Duesberg has never stopped pointing out. But the answer to him has always been the same answer as the response to all critics of HIV=AIDS, the true crackpot paradigm absurdity built on the intellectual equivalent of quicksand.

It is “Stop that man! He is crying Fire! in a crowded theater!”

A theater filled with Moores all lining up to get their funding from NIAID and the drug companies who make expensive, useless and harmful drugs. But don’t mistake us. We approve of Moore, who is a hero of leaky dissent, like Karpas, even higher in our book, since he doesn’t bother to argue the science, knowing very well that he would have to talk nonsense to do so.

So yes we think that Moore is a closet dissident and we can show you why we think so, in the very papers he has written criticizing HIV research in core areas as worthless.

The other paper saying antibodies stop HIV

Here is the paper we referred to last night:

Rapid evolution of a neutralizing antibody response to HIV type 1 infection.

It is by Douglas Richman et al of the University of California at San Diego, in PNAS 100:4144-9 April 1 2003.

Here’s a quote:

“In most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants.”

The reason this is not well known to Chris Noble and his colleagues in purblind paradigm defense is that technical means needed to prepare stocks of HIV and variants from specific individuals were missing, which prevented us from estimating the effectiveness of a specific individual’s antibodies to particular HIV variants.

Nowadays, as the paper says, we know there is a

“rapidly evolving neutralizing antibody response”

which adapts to new mutations.

Let’s repeat the key word, Chris.

POTENT.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 3:33 PM

Posted by: Adele | November 28, 2007 1:36 PM

This is so cute! This is the reason why this thread is so entertaining. It is often sweetened by this kind of self revealing squeak from one of the field mice trying to avoid getting trod on by the deniosaurs.

We love field mice and will be more careful in the future, Adele, we promise. We are just sorry that we have to leave you, like Mr Moore did, to your own devices, because the real world calls.

Sometimes the Web redeems itself.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 4:11 PM

Your good sport tony I just wish you know something about science. BC then you can understand the DOUBLE HONEY BUN VIRAL SIGNATURE CHALLENGE DHBVSC means you win against Baeur and Semon and MAni-Otis. You can thank me for DHBVSC BC its defending you and your god Duesberg whose in the deniosaur minority about if HIV is real.

You figured out by now. Most deniosaurs think your’e wrong and Duesbergs wrong they most think there is no virus. A HIV test measures stress not a virus they say.

So I gave a challenge. That’s how deniosaurs prove stuff they have a dumb challenge and when no body takes it they win. right. When some one takes it they still win, they ignore the challengersaurus. like Perth ignores the Duesberdactyl. But my challenge is real and its a real experiment. http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/10/denialism_they_dont_remember.php#comment-609790
If its just stress makes HIV then stress on cells can make HIV so do the experiment!

I gave out the cahllenge again
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/10/denialism_they_dont_remember.php#comment-612087

Then I made it EASIER!!! AND I made it two honey bunns!!
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/10/denialism_they_dont_remember.php#comment-615268

A month ago! Still nothing! So their all wrong and you are Right HIV is a real virus. See come on were on the same side Tony Tyger!! HIV is real you know it I know it the age of the Perthy 9-11 Twoofersaurus is over.

right about virus, Sad you are wrong about neutralizing antibody. So there’s a neutralizing antibody response. Yay!! Hows it make moore deniosaur, it doesn’t Virus spreads any way. Know why, simple reason if you don’t know ask somebody here. Oh also Ask Tara may be she can make a page for donations to buy you a immunology book. And a biology book, biochemistry book to so you understand some words when you get to immunology.

Posted by: Adele | November 28, 2007 5:32 PM

It is by Douglas Richman et al of the University of California at San Diego, in PNAS 100:4144-9 April 1 2003.

Now you are arguing that Richman is a closet denialist too? Have you emailed him to ask if he agrees with your mis/interpretation.

Neutralization escape mutants of the animal lentiviruses such as equine infectious anemia virus, visna virus, and simian immunodeficiency virus evolve in infected horses, sheep, and rhesus monkeys, respectively (6-8).

Richman lists three other viruses that survive as persistent infections despite the generation of antibodies. All three totally destroy Duesberg’s dogmatic assertion that viruses cannot cause disease after an immune response has been mounted.

If you read more of the paper than the sentence that you quoted then it is obvious that it completely contradicts your mis/interpretation.

HIV continues to replicate despite the generation of antibodies. HIV is not defeated.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 28, 2007 8:55 PM

HIV continues to replicate despite the generation of antibodies. HIV is not defeated.

Not only is HIV notoriously defeated, but if you haven’t noticed this fundamental poblem of the paradigm in twenty years of discussion God help you, Chris, because only God can.

You are the 21st century equivalent of the Pisa professor who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 28, 2007 10:18 PM

You are the 21st century equivalent of the Pisa professor who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope.

The irony is killing me.

The very papers that you cite as evidence for your claim that “HV is defeated” show that HIV continues to replicate despite the production of neutralizing antibodies.

It is the Denialists who refuse to look through Galileo’s telescope.

They refuse to look at evidence that HIV exists.
They refuse to look at the evidence that it causes AID.
They refuse to look at the evidence that ARVs are effective in reducing mortality and morbidity caused by HIV disease.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 1:06 AM

The very papers that you cite as evidence for your claim that “HV is defeated” show that HIV continues to replicate despite the production of neutralizing antibodies.

Good heavens, Chris, did God tell you that we have overlooked this point for twenty years, and you are right all along?

OK we can’t argue with God and your faith in God, even if that God looks suspiciously like the HIV meme.

We sit at your feet, Show us, O scientific Moses, the parts in the paper which say that for 10-15 years HIV replication carries on without being slowed and stalled and in effect reduced to a replication rate slower than your neurons take to understand anything the “denialists” say.

So this doesn’t happen in three to six weeks and last for years? Abraham Karpas is quite wrong then? Maybe you woud like to write to HIM and tell him so. He would be mightily pleased to know your view on this. There could even be a correction credited to Chris Noble. That would be a fine thing, would it not, to cap your avocational career of standing up for HIV against the heinous denialists who threaten the superbug’s virtue?

We sit at your feet, Noble, to be instructed. Please proceed as we respectfully listen. The question is, is Karpas wrong, are we wrong, is everybody but you wrong, in claiming that HIV is put out of action by antibodies in three or four weeks maximum and becomes extremely hard to find in the body so that you have to find it with needle-in-the-haystack PCR, if you can at all?

What an excellent researcher you are. This is a headline finding, if you can back it up. Kindly wash your feet and put on clean socks since we will want to kiss your feet.

Wait! maybe that is going too far. But we will at least bow in admiration of your brilliance and dedication to sorting out the truth in this mess.

Please proceed.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 29, 2007 2:25 AM

This is a typical Denialist trick. You falsely claim that Karpas states that HIV is defeated and then pretend that I am disagreeing with Karpas. I am not disagreeing with Karpas. I am disagreeing with your blatant misinterpretation. Before you put words into somebodies mouth do the honourable thing and ask them whether they agree with your statements. Go ahead write to Karpas. Just don’t be surprised if he calls you a raving lunatic.

The rate of HIV replication falls after the initial acute infection stage but in the vast majority of people it does not fall to zero. It continues to replicate at all times. The “setpoint” that is reached plays a significant role in determining the time till progression to AIDS. On average, the higher the setpoint the faster the progression to AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 3:12 AM

Chris, when a >100,000 viral load does not progress to full-blown AIDS and CD4’s in the 80’s for going on two years now, how in the world do you stick to the claim that it is replicating and doing great harm. You folks have missed the true cause of AIDS years ago and continue down your dead end path. In the end, you will lose because more and more HIV+s are speaking out and learning the truth. You will have to find another cause to beat up on as this one has just about runs it course along with your gloom and doom scenario.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | November 29, 2007 3:23 AM

Dr. N. Relax get some new sucking stones,chill and take it step by step. I the end I’m sure you’ll understand. First of all, would it be this dogmatic statement, where Duesberg fully explains his position so even the biggest boneheads can understand it, that is being destroyed by Richman?

For a virus to be reactivated, the. immune system first must be destroyed by something else – the real cause of a disease. A reactivated virus would just contribute an opportunistic infection. Thus, there are no slow viruses, only slow virologists.
A conventional virus could, however, be slow acting in a defective immune system. Indeed, some exceptional victims suffer pre-existing health problems that prevent their immune systems from reacting decisively against the virus, allowing it to continue growing and damaging the host for a long period of time. This can happen with virtually any type of virus, but it is extremely rare. When such a chronic infection does occur, as with a small percentage of hepatitis cases whose immune system is damaged by alcoholism or intravenous drug addiction, the virus keeps growing abundantly in the body and can easily be found by experimental tests.
Other germs, like herpes viruses, can hide out in some recess of the body, breaking out periodically to strike again when the immune system passes a seasonal low. In both examples, only the weakened immune system of the host allows the infection to smolder or occasionally reappear from hibernation. By contrast, a slow virus is an invention credited with the natural ability to cause disease only years after infection – termed the latent period – in previously healthy persons, regardless of the state of their immunity. Such a concept allows scientists to blame a long-neutralized virus for any disease that appears decades after infection. The slow virus is the original sin against the laws of virology.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 29, 2007 4:06 AM

Duesberg is simply wrong as the examples given by Richman show. EIAV, Visna-maedi and SIV all cause disease after the initial acute infection despite the generation of antibodies. These are all persistent chronic infections and are not latent.

Simply open a virology book. Read the section on persistent viral infections. Contrast this with the Duesbergian dogma that you regurgitate.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 4:16 AM

Duesberg is simply wrong as the examples given by Richman show.

Dr. N,

You were supposed to read what I posted, not just reassert dogmatically. That’s not the way to go about showing Truhseeker is unscientific and you’re not.

You’re absolutely right, I can open any virology book, or google “lentivirus”, or what have you, and see that there’s a general belief in those things almost as feverishly fanatical as your own. But again Dr N, you don’t refute Duesberg’s critique of the textbook stuff by asserting that the stuff he criticizes is found in the textbooks. To the contrary.

Now steady your trembling hands, grab a beer and a sucking stone, contemplate the grandeur of the universe and your own insignificance for a while, then attempt to compose a real argument. This is not a race, it won’t lose you any points if you take a day or so to get back to us. Quality over haste is the rethinker motto.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 29, 2007 5:29 AM

This is a typical Denialist trick. You falsely claim that Karpas states that HIV is defeated and then pretend that I am disagreeing with Karpas. I am not disagreeing with Karpas. I am disagreeing with your blatant misinterpretation. Before you put words into somebody’s mouth do the honourable thing and ask them whether they agree with your statements. Go ahead write to Karpas. Just don’t be surprised if he calls you a raving lunatic. -Chris Noble

Please don’t capitalize Denialist when referring to those who deny that the paradigm makes scientific, logical or common sense. Denialist with a capital D refers to people who refuse to discuss the irrationality of the paradigm with its critics and who support the paradigm either through stupidity or venality and prolong its attack on the health of those who are mismedicated under its regime.

You at least have turned yourself into a professional apologist for HIV=AIDS and are willing to make a show of discussing it, even though you show no sign whatsoever of understanding any problem with the paradigm, let alone granting it, except for your one remarkable admission at Science Guardian/New AIDS Review that you would not take ARVs yourself.

Even so, in your case it is becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that you simply cannot hack it intellectually, Chris. Anyone who had the brains to understand that what he was saying was logically incompetent and only produced by the refusal ever to reexamine his constant and confounding premise would be too embarrassed to continue, surely. That is what Moore shows, after all. He doesn’t embarrass himself by arguing the science. He knows he would only look foolish.

Like Moore clever people would surely find some other way to peddle what in your case amounts to forty different ways to salute HIV=AIDS without the capacity to take both sides of the argument into account and compare them without prejudice. You are, mentally speaking, pure HIV meme. You have, in fact, become the meme, Chris. You are the HIV meme, embodied.

In a Kafka-esque transformation, you have turned into the intellectual equivalent of a giant insect, that is to say, a rationalizing machine which devours and digests and reinterprets every single facet of the AIDS data you contemplate as a support for HIV=AIDS. This is only what happens to everybody involved in this grand social illusion, of course, they rationalize and even reverse every mental input so they can put it all into the same box, labeled HIV=AIDS.

Now, HIV=AIDS critics do the same thing to a great extent, consistently viewing the data in their own frame and always proving to their own satisfaction they are always right. So how is an outsider to choose? They have to evaluate the style as much as the substance, I would say, unless they can follow every point. One telling indication however is how well each side shows that they read and understand the other. This is where you fail.

Here we have Karpas telling you one thing, and you claiming another, and by God you have made a sausage which contains both of them! Well, you may have to fry it and eat it yourself, Chris, because let’s face it, there really is very little point in anyone trying to enlighten you if you simply cannot ever examine your own premise.

Whether it is genuine stupidity, bad faith, blind faith, or even actual insanity only you know for sure. But with this current point under review I fear you are now revealed as a lost cause, incapable of having a productive discussion that can teach you anything. The point is just too clear, two top mainstream people are making it for us, yet you cannot see it.

However, I believe you can teach me and others something. There is not in all of HIV=AIDS a better example of the HIV meme in action than you. In this respect, you reign supreme.

If that is wrong, and you do have the power to examine your own premise, ever, then prove it now. Show us that you can do anything more than peddle your premise, and always refuse to acknowledge a better alternative.

Take the above statement by you, for example. There is no misinterpretation, is there? Come on. Karpas and Richman both have acknowledged that HIV is kept down for years by a potent counter attack from the immune system. Do you know even what they mean in ABC terms? The virus is prevented from entering cells by the action of antibodies and therefore cannot replicate, which it needs to be in a cell to do. After an initial burst almost all of it is inactivated in this manner and cleared from the system. You cannot find it very easily or at all for that reason. This becomes the steady state of the system, for years. It is entirely the normal process carried on by the body in such instances of encountering foreign elements. They are stopped at the border, and their passports taken away from them, and they are sent back whereever they came from, or killed.

Chris, it is hard to know what level of baby talk you can absorb. But here you are simply putting yourself in the position of arguing that because one or two spies or terrorists might evade the immigration inspectors, they can enter the US and blow up Congress and the White House. Retroviruses do not work that way. Viruses do not work that way. Yoiu need an army of them. If you keep almost all of them out, or kill them, they cannot do anything to Washington, New York and Los Angeles.

Having had to acknowledge this state of affairs, Karpas and Richman have to speculate with a sort of fairy tale that maybe after years the few terrorists who get into the US have married and had babies and somehow after generations they are numerous enough to wreak some serious havoc in some mysterious way we don’t yet understand because they all seem to be unarmed.

What Duesberg is saying is that this is a fairy tale and the only way you can get an army of foreign soldiers into the US is by weakening the INS so it can’t do its job at the borders. It is damage to the immune system which is the only means by which the simple process of effectively barring HIV in the first place can get compromised.

Since you cannot seem to understand this utterly simple concept, one can only conclude that you argue from your wish to your data, and not vice versa. Nothing new can enter your head. And that is the problem with the entire field, and always has been. As MEC points out the fact that this backwards thinking is now enshrined in textbooks is simply a consequence of this, not a proof that it is correct.

That you don’t and won’t understand this even after twenty years suggests the Kraft-Dunning effect where someone is not aware of their own inability to comprehend what they need to comprehend.

What possible point is there is engaging you then, other than to demonstrate this?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 29, 2007 11:56 AM

I don’t have the time to read the entire thread, so…

Mr. Noble, could you please answer me this:

You say that after the initial acute infection the remnants of the virus still cause disease because of their ability to mutate, evade and debilitate the immune system. If that is so, why are the serum samples tested with the same constant set of viral proteins, that are recognizable by the immune system?
Why is the immune system able to recognize these proteins in the first place?
Shouldn’t the inability to respond to these viral proteins be the basis for HIV evasion?
Why does the virus only attack T helper cells and cause inevitable and irreversible immune dysfunction?
Isn’t the bone marrow the heart and soul of the immune system and the birthplace of most white cells, including T helper lymphocites?
Where’s the damaged bone marrow in HIV positives and AIDS patients that explains the inevitable immune failure?

I have more questions that I wish to be answered. But these will suffice.

I thank you in advance.

Posted by: Rezaf | November 29, 2007 3:15 PM

Rezaf,

I am happy to see that you are interested in understanding the mechanisms by which HIV can evade the immune response as well as the mechanisms by which HIV infection leads to immune dysfuction.

I can also appreciate that your time is too short to be able to read this entire thread.

In fact, if you desire the answers to those questions, I would strongly recommend that you leave this thread and read an immunology textbook.

Such a textbook is freely available on the web through PubMed, and this link will take you to the chapter on AIDS:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?highlight=Acquired%20immune%20deficiency%20syndrome&rid=imm.section.1518

Many of your questions are addressed in this chapter, which is less than 7,000 words long. Please feel free to use the search function to fiind answers to your other questions.

I hope that you find reading this chapter to be an efficient use of your time.

Posted by: franklin | November 29, 2007 5:43 PM

On a positive note, perhaps those who wonder if the textbooks have it right, even though franklin appears to think they have biblical authority in an area (HIV=AIDS) where they are disputed by the finest scientific mind in the field, Peter Duesberg, might like to look again at this story from way back when the unproven hypothesis could still be called into question by upbeat stories like this:

BABIES GIVE LIE TO AFRICAN AIDS

Of course, they all probably died later, when they were taught the real effect of HIV from American health workers.

So franklin, since you cannot answer Rezaf’s questions yourself, perhaps you could tell us why such a report exists. What was the scientific mistake here? Were the HIV tests wrong? Is the reporter being misled?

He wrote a book too. Did you ever read that? Did you ever read any book challenging the orthodoxy? Did you ever read Bialy?

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 29, 2007 6:54 PM

Please do not use real scientists such as Karpas and Richman as hand-puppets. There is a major difference between a persistent chronic infection and “defeating HIV”. Neither Karpas nor Richman have stated that HIV is “defeated”. Both clearly state that although HIV is kept at bay for a variable anount of time that eventually HIV “wins”.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 8:32 PM

Proteins such as p24 are on the inside of the virus particle. Antibodies to HIV p24 are therfore not protective because the virus particle has to be already destroyed before the immune system can “see” the protein. There are many conserved epitopes in various HIV proteins but none of these are exposed on the outside of the virus particle. The greatest rate of evolution is seen on the regions of the surface proteins that are exposed. This demonstrates the selective pressure from the immune response that drives this evolution.

Why does the virus only attack T helper cells and cause inevitable and irreversible immune dysfunction?

Viruses such as influenza and HIV bind to particular receptor sites on specific host cells. If cells do not have these receptors then the virus cannot infect them.

Isn’t the bone marrow the heart and soul of the immune system and the birthplace of most white cells, including T helper lymphocites? Where’s the damaged bone marrow in HIV positives and AIDS patients that explains the inevitable immune failure?

You are mixing up B-cells and T-cells. The B stands for bone and the T stands for thymus.

There are characteristic changes that can be seen in lymph nodes. Seriously all you have to do is open a textbook and you would be able to find all of this by yourself.

Why do you come and demand that people answer your questions before you have done any research of your own.

You could have even just read this thread where many of your questions are already answered.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 8:49 PM

Open a textbook yourself, Chris Noble. You’ll find that Rezaf whom you criticized was correct: T cells as well as B cells have their “birthplace” in the bone marrow. The T cells are subsequently processed in the thymus. Moreover, lack of active thymic hormone (thymulin) due to deficiencies of vital trace nutrients, particularly zinc and selenium, has been shown to produce a decline of helper T cells and reversal of the helper/suppressor ratio, such as is seen in AIDS. By an odd coincidence, there have been repeated findings of zinc and selenium deficiencies in AIDS patients. Look it up.

Also, look up the definition of “defeat,” the word that has caused such outrage here since Truthseeker mentioned “the paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it.”

According to the American Heritage dictionary (at Answers.com), the verb “defeat” means: “1. to win victory over; best. 2. To prevent the success of; thwart.” It does not necessarily mean to triumph over permanently. When a native army is said to defeat an invading army in a battle, not all the enemy soldiers are necessarily killed – their efforts to conquer have simply been thwarted in that battle but they may come back to conquer later. In this sense, Truthseeker’s use of “defeat” is applicable to the decade on average for which Prof. Karpas asserts that the “immune response…is protective.”

In the same review paper in Biology Reviews. 79:911-33, 2004, Dr. Karpas, who is professor of virology at Cambridge University, further asserts that such natural immune control is preferable to HAART:

“In most HIV-infected individuals, the immune system manages to limit the damage caused by the virus for many years – far longer (on average nine years) than any drug cocktails available that have the added disadvantage of being toxic.”

No one has claimed that Karpas is an AIDS dissident. In fact he’s a believer that HIV causes AIDS and a pillar of AIDS research in Britain. On several issues, however his views have been remarkably similar to those of AIDS dissidents: Gallo’s research perfidy, AZT’s increase in death rates, and the effectiveness of the immune response in the prolonged control of HIV. Read his review!

Posted by: Robert Houston | November 30, 2007 12:15 AM

Robert is completely correct about the origin of T-cells. My mistake again.

Here is a book chapter on the
Immunopathogenesis of HIV Infection

It describes the reservoirs of HIV infection in lymphoid tissue and the inflammation and damage seen in these organs.

These silly word games are getting tiring. I know very well what “truthseeker” and Duesberg mean by “defeat”. They mean that HIV has been banished and cannot cause any disease. This is most definitely not the position of either Karpas or Richman.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 30, 2007 12:51 AM

Well, I trust everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday… As it seems the good ol’ Franklin/Noble pair are still up to the task of defending the prevailing yet failing paradigm.

But Chris, please – come on now, explain what “Duesbergian dogma” is. Or is that just another AIDS speak tactic devised to intimidate?

So now since this tread is supposedly about Mbeki and the African phenomenon – I’d like to get your guys take on the latest story of how UNAIDS revised downward the infection rates in Africa, you know, that little 7 million decrease in its estimate of the number of HIV-infected people? Go a head say what you will, I’m interested to hear, however deplorable they might be, what your explanations might be.

I’d say this new report just goes to show how stupid and retarded the whole idea that there’s such thing as the so called “AIDS Pandemic.” What Pandemic? There isn’t any! If there’s truly any pandemic in Africa, its the one instantiated by a series of re-labeling poverty to suite the needs of mainstream AIDS business as usual programs to push toxic money making therapies on to unknowing, uneducated and impoverished populations that are known best to test reactive on bogus HIV tests.

Posted by: Carter | November 30, 2007 1:14 AM

” Here we have Karpas telling you one thing, and you claiming another, and by God you have made a sausage which contains both of them! Well, you may have to fry it and eat it yourself, Chris, because let’s face it, there really is very little point in anyone trying to enlighten you if you simply cannot ever examine your own premise.”

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 29, 2007 8:32 PM

Nice phrasing, Noble. Like the Bone cells and the Thymus cells idea. So the thymus makes cells? Wow, we live and learn.

But Karpas and Richman are not puppets of mine, they are fully paid up members of the HIV=AIDS elite, who have made a concession of fact followed by a claim attended by speculation.

The concession is precisely what Duesberg, Bialy, Brown, Culshaw, Bauer, Maggiore and everyone down to your local taxi driver have quickly found out when they first smell a rat in the palace of HIV=AIDS.

The concession they have made to reality is that the healthy immune system gets rid of HIV in a few weeks so effectively that only the barest trace of it remains, so little that you have as much trouble finding it as finding a needle with a magnifying glass in a hayfield. Only Mullis’s great invention PCR can magnify into a significant amount what is a negligible amount to start with. No one has a test sensitive enough for it apart from PCR, which is why all the tests are for antibodies to it, antibodies which signal the body’s victory over the harmless little crittur, who has never bothered anybody, just like any other retrovirus to this day.

This near eradication of HIV to a negligible level where most of it is inert anyway – 9,999/10,000 – continues for years until the unfortunate patient falls ill from SOME OTHER CAUSE, and the weakened immune system is beset with opportunistic infections of which the residual HIV is one.

If you believe it causes the conditions for its own resurgence you are speaking with the voice of the HIV meme, and brazenly contradicting the blindingly obvious, for which you have no evidence other than the speculation of your valiant apologists Karpas and Richman, who have the scientific honor not to contradict the data but when given a chance to speculate will create castles in the air on the foundation of HIV=AIDS, because that is the motto of their elite club which has cornered all the funding for dealing with AIDS for 23 years and counting.

You have become a dedicated supporter of this imaginative and baseless claim, and so you hold some responsible for its consequences, wouldn’t you say? Yet your support of it is so uncritical that you dismiss the success of the immune system in dealing with HIV with a desperate sidestep to the speculation of Karpas and Richman as THEY try desperately to make sense out of what you and they are forced to claim, that somehow HIV comes back from nowhere to defeat a healthy body that has kicked its ass to the max and kept it on the ground with a foot on its neck for as long as twenty years.

You could explain this to a child of ten and it would laugh at you. Try it in the local schoolyard sometime. You’ll soon find them skipping round you chanting “Hello Mister Noble, Living in a bubble, Always causing trouble! Silly Mister Noble!”

It’s interesting how you quote textbooks as if they were gospel. When reassessing your silliness, if you ever do, why don’t you consider where the text in text books comes from?

Keep the salt cellar handy when reading texts where the sources are those championing the status quo, when there is an unsuccessful paradigm being explained. A pinch of salt is necessary.

Or maybe we should say in the case of HIV=AIDS, a pinch of smelling salts.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 30, 2007 1:36 AM

But Karpas and Richman are not puppets of mine, they are fully paid up members of the HIV=AIDS elite, who have made a concession of fact followed by a claim attended by speculation.

Well don’t try to use them as such. When you say “The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it” you are putting words in his mouth that he would not agree with.

Posted by: Chris Noble | November 30, 2007 2:31 AM

Dr. N, let me return if I may, to this statement, from Karpas I believe, valuable for its neat simplicity:

It seems to imply a stalemate between HIV and antibodies, until… until what exactly, Dr. N? What is it about these “one or more mutants” that so utterly
confounds the rapidly developing antibody reponses,
often after more than a decade of protective reponses?

The concept of naturally occurring “broadly neutralizing antibodies” is well known in the vaccine efforts. Why do these kinds of antibody responses start to fail all of a sudden?

We were told just above that the cunning virus, when presenting itself in the form of the hypothetical intact virion, hides all the conserved regions from the antibodies (but somehow not from the CD4 receptors). However, I was also under the impression that it’s been argued here recently that shedded proteins from defective viruses is one of the many cell killing mechanisms employed by HIV.

As the illustrious closet Denialist Prof. John P. Moore of Weill Cornell, has demonstrated, these are very effectively neutralized by antibodies – perhaps because they cannot, as you just suggested, turn their conserved parts away into the not present virion? Regardless, they are effectively neutralized.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 30, 2007 4:43 AM

Oops. Let me give you that again including the quote I was referring to:

Dr. N, let me return if I may, to this statement, from Karpas I believe, valuable for its neat simplicity:

in nearly every infected individual, despite a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years, eventually one or more mutants emerge that manage to evade the immune response and lead to disease progression and death

It seems to imply a stalemate between HIV and antibodies, until… until what exactly, Dr. N? What is it about these “one or more mutants” that so utterly
confounds the rapidly developing antibody reponses,often after more than a decade of protective reponses?

The concept of naturally occurring “broadly neutralizing antibodies” is well known in the vaccine efforts. Why do these kinds of antibody responses start to fail all of a sudden?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 30, 2007 4:48 AM

MEC,

Just give it up.

Read the immunology textbook.

Learn something, before trying to spout off scientific-sounding phrases.

Posted by: franklin | November 30, 2007 10:01 AM

Rezaf I will answer your questions we answer them every month but oh well

What? remnants of the virus? Its not remnants its real viruses!! You must be reading to much from lil becky. She knows less about viruses then I know about real estate market!! Ask kevin i dont know much about that!! I admit it!! Also you are confused on tests. ELISA and WEstern blot look for antibodies to virus proteins. Not virus proteins. So it detects antibody for virus. Oh and it doesn’t say the antibody works to stop a virus just it recognizes. May be it got made for a free protein from a virus but on a real virus its all sugarcoated and the antibody cant see it. It sees it in the test because its not all glycosilated like that. But a second thing theres regions of protein that are conserved or preserved like claus says if they mutate the virus is dead so that stuff is almost the same in viruses. And a third thing the tests don’t measure virus ability to evade immune system they just say if antibody is there. And a fourth thing there are tests for proteins, their getting common now and the protein is there not just antibody.

Why is the immune system able to recognize these proteins in the first place?

Umm just like it recognizes any thing else.

Shouldn’t the inability to respond to these viral proteins be the basis for HIV evasion?

Why’s that buddy? Go to a virology class some time. Every virus has ways it gets around immune systems. Your body recognizes herpes or varicella but they evade it right? Same thing on HIV.

Why does the virus only attack T helper cells and cause inevitable and irreversible immune dysfunction?

Who said that, your getting bad info dear! HIV infects lots of cells not just CD4 cells, it attacks more cells then it infects. BC it messes up immune system markers like cytokines and other cells get affected by that. Also put some tat or gp on some cells, see what happens. Not nice!

Wow. So people die, does that mean hospitals are all damaged. BC people are born in hospitals, so how do they die unless hospitals are damaged. Wow thats funny logic even in denialism.

Truthtwister says
He wrote a book too. Did you ever read that? Did you ever read any book challenging the orthodoxy? Did you ever read Bialy?

Umm, Noble and me read Duesberg his book and his other crap. We read bialy to. That stuffs real impressive for people who don’t know about biology like you and Rezaf and Robert Houston. You wanna believe and you find some nutjob who tells you stuff you like. For Noble and me its not so much impressive.

Posted by: Adele | November 30, 2007 12:02 PM

Umm, Noble and me read Duesberg his book and his other crap. We read bialy to.

Duesberg his book, huh? Well, if your reading is as illiterate as your writing, I figure you rarely understand much of what you read.
Must be nice for you folks to be on the side of John pee more. You can treat, per “Scientific Community” definition, any denialist as a no-brainer, thus promoting yourself to never dreamed of hights of intelligence. Peter Duesberg, Kary Mullis, Etienne de Harven and the like: just some low-lifes compared to yourself, aren’t they?

Why don’t you learn to write correctly instead of spreading dumb shit all over my screen, Adele?

Posted by: jspreen | November 30, 2007 12:27 PM

Adele,

nice flamejob. Just keep driving them away and into the hands of “denialists”.

HIP! HIP! HURRAY!

Posted by: pat | November 30, 2007 12:39 PM

“Wow. So people die, does that mean hospitals are all damaged. BC people are born in hospitals, so how do they die unless hospitals are damaged. Wow thats funny logic even in denialism.”

talking about damaged hospitals…

what does AZT and ARVs do to the “hospital” in the long run?

Posted by: pat | November 30, 2007 1:18 PM

LOL! Franklin,

Were my last questions too scientific sounding for you? Better not answer then, or JP might have you thrown out of the club.

But I must say your threshold is very low; that didn’t even look very scientific to me, and I thought you were an expert.

In fact Frankie darling, that was everyday prose right out of the virology textbook you gave me to read, with an absolute minimum of technical terminology, no convoluted arguments, and only two trick questions – and still you’re afraid to go down that road.

That speaks volumes.

Adele honey bun, please, it’s Noble and I, ok? Noble and I, not “Noble and me”. Move outta the sticks girl.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 30, 2007 2:07 PM

I’m going to say it again – not everyone here has English as a milk tongue. All of us have made grammar and spelling errors, and typos. It’s a very petty nit to pick with each other, and it makes the pickers look just as bad as the people who made the original mistake. It’s an ineffectual rhetorical tactic.

(Jspreen, I am surprised and disappointed by your picking, especially. You read and write at least three languages, but you still have trouble with “their,” “they’re,” and “there,” so you should know better than to associate someone’s reading comprehension with her typing and syntax.)

Posted by: jen_m | November 30, 2007 2:39 PM

Adele,

Thanks for answering me. Even though it’s the nth time you do answer this kind of questions. But then again, did you answer me at all?

Let me see…

“What? remnants of the virus? Its not remnants its real viruses!! You must be reading to much from lil becky. She knows less about viruses then I know about real estate market!! Ask kevin i dont know much about that!! I admit it!! Also you are confused on tests. ELISA and WEstern blot look for antibodies to virus proteins. Not virus proteins. So it detects antibody for virus. Oh and it doesn’t say the antibody works to stop a virus just it recognizes. May be it got made for a free protein from a virus but on a real virus its all sugarcoated and the antibody cant see it. It sees it in the test because its not all glycosilated like that. But a second thing theres regions of protein that are conserved or preserved like claus says if they mutate the virus is dead so that stuff is almost the same in viruses. And a third thing the tests don’t measure virus ability to evade immune system they just say if antibody is there. And a fourth thing there are tests for proteins, their getting common now and the protein is there not just antibody.”

When I meant remnants, I meant remaining viruses, not fragments. And yes, I know that ELISAS and WB just detect anti-HIV antibodies. BUT, these in order to react need the antigen, aka, the viral protein or glycoprotein (hence the constant set of recognizable viral (glyco)proteins).

“Oh and it doesn’t say the antibody works to stop a virus just it recognizes. May be it got made for a free protein from a virus but on a real virus its all sugarcoated and the antibody cant see it.”

“Maybe”? “free protein from a virus”? Which virus? Does it have to be just HIV? “sugarcoated and the antibody cant see it”? My point exactly. If the antibody can’t see it, then it cannot bind to it. So why is a positive HIV test bad? Oh, it’s because anti-HIV antibodies can see free proteins from A virus (any virus?) and not glycoproteins from REAL viruses. So a positive ELISA is not a proof of infection by a REAL virus, is it? Maybe? I don’t pay my doctor to give me “Maybes” and that kind of uncertainties, lady.

” It sees it in the test because its not all glycosilated like that”
What is the point of testing people with something that is not EXACTLY like the original? Shouldn’t the antigen set used in tests be exactly like the ones found in a REAL HIV virus?

“Why’s that buddy? Go to a virology class some time. Every virus has ways it gets around immune systems. Your body recognizes herpes or varicella but they evade it right? Same thing on HIV.”

But Herpes and varicella are caused by DNA viruses, not by retroviruses. and in case of Herpes, outbreaks only occur when the immune system is weakened by other factors. And by that, just because it is latent, does not mean it is invisible to the immune system and it is not being fought. It is reactivated when the immune system is weakened by other conditions. “Same thing in HIV”? How “same” is that? Oh, you mean, it remains in a latent state until the immune system is weakened by other factors, other than HIV. Weakened enough to be reactivated and do what it is supposed to do in the first place: destroy the immune system. So HIV needs a push. How big is that push?

“Wow. So people die, does that mean hospitals are all damaged. BC people are born in hospitals, so how do they die unless hospitals are damaged. Wow thats funny logic even in denialism.”

Actually, mothers give birth to people. If mothers are damaged, in the right way, they may not give birth to more babies. Dead mothers don’t give birth to also. Did a hospital give birth to you, Adele? Is a hospital a prerequesite to give birth? I know people that were born on the way to a hospital. Others, in other place that were not hospitals. But were all give birth to by a mother, which is an important prerequesite. Why did you think of an hospital, which neither gives birth or produces, and it is only a place that provides the conditions needed for proper care of the newborn and mother, during and after the labor? Hospitals don’t give birth or produce. They are ridden with doctors and nurses that take care of you and me when we get seriouly ill.

Which makes me return to my initial question, altough rephrased:
Isn’t the bone marrow the heart and soul of the immune system and the birthplace of most white cells, including T helper lymphocites? Where’s the damaged/altered bone marrow and/or thymus in HIV positives and AIDS patients that explains the inevitable immune failure?

I hope now you can properly enlighten me? I’m only asking…not demanding. With that kind of answers you give, no wonder people just keep asking.

I do know that ARVs kill mothers, though.

That could be your (n+1)th time you answer this. But don’t be afraid to get technical with me.
Oh, and your attitude doesn’t earn sympathies from innocent bystanders such as myself, who are just concerned and curious. It’s easy being tough behind a keyboard. Try behaving like that in front of a real and curious person or patient and see what happens.
Textbooks can only do so much. I prefer to hear it from the people in the field.

Don’t think I’m the only average Joe out there posing these kind of questions just because I want to know what the hell have people like you been doing in the past 23 years.

Posted by: Rezaf | November 30, 2007 2:50 PM

The textbooks are written by people in the field.

Posted by: franklin | November 30, 2007 3:00 PM

Whooa!! Stop hurtin’ me already Frankie! You’ve got me convinced.

Only one more question, what are you guys doing here in the first place? Why not just post a link to a virology textbook and repost it once at the start of every new thread?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 30, 2007 3:16 PM

Jspreen, I am surprised and disappointed by your picking, especially.

Given the general reactions on my “Long live the Germanic New Medicine” and other “fuck the germ theory” prose, I am very surprised I can still surprise someone. But I agree, I should have left out the first phrase or two of my previous message. That was silly. I’ll never do that again, promise.

Now, that said, anybody interested in transforming this thread in some exciting discussion, leave the “Yes/No ; You asshole/No, you’re the asshole yourself” mud and access the extremely exciting world of Ryke Geerd Hamer’s Germanic New Medicine? No, really? Is that nobody, at all?

…sigh…

Okay, I’ve tried. Be back another time, I guess, maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight. See you later then…

…snif…

Posted by: jspreen | November 30, 2007 3:20 PM

Why not just post a link to a virology textbook and repost it once at the start of every new thread?

Why not just read a virology textbook and then we wouldn’t have to argue at all??

Rezaf says
But Herpes and varicella are caused by DNA viruses, not by retroviruses. and in case of Herpes, outbreaks only occur when the immune system is weakened by other factors.

Right actually varicella is a herpes, but why’s it so important if it’s a RNA or DNA virus? HIV, herpes they’re all kind of parasites, they all hide out in the body try to get to new hosts. They evade immune system. Immune system declines, they go crazy. HIV herpes what ever.

Actually, mothers give birth to people.

Right again I made a dumb analagy. So mother is thymus, offspring is T-cell. You can kill a person without killing their mom. You can kill a T-cell without killing the Thymus.

Posted by: Adele | November 30, 2007 3:40 PM

Three BIG KISSES to Adele X-X-X.

She has just agreed wih Rezaf that HIV logically must be an opportunistic infection. No need for the metaphysical concept of lentiviruses

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | November 30, 2007 3:49 PM

“Oh, and your attitude doesn’t earn sympathies from innocent bystanders such as myself”

These Blackwater “monkey poop” grub miners don’t give a shit about innocent bystanders like you, razaf. They only need a place to vent their professional frustrations. The reason why they do this online is because they would get a fistfull out in the real world, as you suggest.

Congratulations, Adele. Keep them coming!

Posted by: pat | November 30, 2007 3:57 PM

“So mother is thymus, offspring is T-cell” -Adele

Wait, I thought bone marrow was mother…now I’m confused.

Posted by: pat | November 30, 2007 4:02 PM

MEC, Just give it up. Read the immunology textbook. Learn something, before trying to spout off scientific-sounding phrases.
Posted by: franklin | November 30, 2007 10:01 AM

So cute. Love these displays of illiteracy. So revealing. There must be a new name for these little field mice. How about weebies?

Here’s another weebie:

Truthtwister says
He wrote a book too. Did you ever read that? Did you ever read any book challenging the orthodoxy? Did you ever read Bialy?
Umm, Noble and me read Duesberg his book and his other crap. We read bialy to. That stuffs real impressive for people who don’t know about biology like you and Rezaf and Robert Houston. You wanna believe and you find some nutjob who tells you stuff you like. For Noble and me its not so much impressive. Posted by: Adele | November 30, 2007 12:02 PM

So CUTE. Like icing on this otherwise not always sweet cake. Of course, who’s to say this is a real female know-nothing, and not just some gay activist who likes to get a kick out of a female name? My bet would be 20/80 on that one.

Poor John Moore, he must be embarrassed by the devotees he has attracted. No wonder he fled. Well, he might like to put his ear plugs in for the bunkerbuster about to be dropped on him at www.Science Guardian.com.

Needless poison

Oops, maybe we shouldn’t be so easily amused when people health and lives are at stake. Read that Karpas’ review for the really gruesome truth about AZT. This stuff not only gave them AIDS, it gave them superAIDS, since it knocks out the production of blood cells from the marrow.

Top virologist – one of two leading in England, one of most respected in world – Karpas’ admissions are a revelation of how vicious the result of eg Chris Noble’s misleading support of HIV=AIDS can really be.

And by the way, Chris, he notes that live HIV is entirely eradicated from the system. Your viral load is all dead HIV in healthy asymptomatic patients – not a trace of infectious HIV in the blood even though substantial PCR readings of viral rna load. Complete immune control.

VIRUS DEFEATED, as I said.

PCR cannot distinguish between live and dead virus. H E L L O…? PCR cannot distinguish between live and dead virus. All that latent virus in the serum is dead. The viral load is thus meaningless as any indication whatsoever in asymptomatic patients of any threat to their welfare. Even John claims only 1 in 10,000/10 million in the lab stock of cloned virus he used was infectious.

The active virus inside cells can’t do any permanent damage – only 1 in 1000 to 10,000 helper T cells harbor virus, Fauci tells us – because the immune system can replenish much faster – 500x – than the infection rate, and any new virus generated will be zapped by the immune system and is mostly defective, as Moore has shown.

If you drug healthy patients you are using your chemical flamethrowers on dead mice and burning the barn down.

REPEAT

If you drug healthy patients you are using your chemical flamethrowers on dead mice and burning the barn down.

Well done, Chris, quite a few lives, not to mention buffalo humps and shot livers, on your account balance. Try a little MRI on yourself, and see if your conscience shows any sign of activity at all, why don’t you? It may be a dead zone, like your heart and brain.

Read Karpas through if you don’t know what I am talking about.

Bad science in this arena is not morally free of blame, don’t you know? You are ruining people’s lives, people’s health, and killing them, whether out of stupidity or unwillingness to doublecheck what you think.

Impossible to read Karpas and not make that point against you.

His prescription was to use somebody else’s antibodies against live virus in vivo. Works very well. But oh no, drug companies cant package it into a drug. Sorry, folks, have to take your AZT cocktails.

Courtesy of Chris Noble, for one.

Posted by: Truthseeker | November 30, 2007 4:15 PM

Truthseeker (sic) attempts to “summarize” Karpas’s position:

VIRUS DEFEATED, as I said. [Truthseeker's (sic) emphasis]

Here is what the Karpas review paper actually says:

In man infection with HIV is probably never latent, because the virus appears to mutate continuously in every infected individual due to its highly error-prone reverse transcriptase (RT) which lacks the proofreading capabilities of other DNA polymerases. This has two consequences: (1) in nearly every infected individual, despite a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years, eventually one or more mutants emerge that manage to evade the immune response and lead to disease progression and death;

So he not only fails to claim that HIV is defeated by the immune response, he says that HIV is probably never even latent!

He says HIV just keeps replicating along, evading the immune response, until it eventually leads to death!

Somehow Truthseeker (sic) fails to see that Karpas’s words directly contradict Truthseeker’s (sic) interpretation.

But what about the PCR results? Viral load vs. infectious virus? Do these establish the immune control of the HIV that Truthseeker (sic) claims?

Truthseeker’s (sic) remarks on viral load vs. infectious virus appear to reflect statements Karpas makes not about “defeat” of HIV by the immune system but about the effect of anti-retroviral therapy on the level of infectious virus isolated from plasma:

After varied periods of HAART treatment in many patients there is a significant increase in the PCR plasma viral load without a decrease in the CD4+T-cell count and without clinical deterioration. We assayed for infectious HIV-1 in the plasma from such patients but failed to detect any infectious virus. In order to try to explain this observation we undertook the molecular characterisation of the plasma HIV-1 genes of such patients. Our molecular studies revealed signficiant deletions in several of the viral genes which could explain why the plasma HIV-1 is not infectious (Saurya, Lichtenstein & Karpas, 2002a, b, 2003a, b).

So Karpas is discussing the effectiveness of HAART in reducing production of infectious virus, and Truthseeker (sic) pretends that Karpas is referring to the effect of the immune system on HIV!

I guess there still might be two possibilities to explain Truthseeker’s (sic) inaccurate description of Karpas’s essay, although one of them seems much more likely:

“either blatantly lying” or “completely incapable of understanding the paper”

Posted by: franklin | November 30, 2007 5:44 PM

Webbie attack! Webbie attack! Incoming from franklin!

Here is what the Karpas review paper actually says:….I guess there still might be two possibilities to explain Truthseeker’s (sic) inaccurate description of Karpas’s essay, although one of them seems much more likely:

“either blatantly lying” or “completely incapable of understanding the paper”

Posted by: franklin | November 30, 2007 5:44 PM

Hey franklin, thanks for lobbing back the grenade we flung into your bunker. But what’s with the “lying”? Where’s the dignified confidence of those who know that they are right? Why “lying” anyway? Do you mean we purposely misstated a fact and misled the audience? Where would you get such ideas from? Surely not from your own example?

We wouldn’t know, of course. We cannot see inside you. But where else do you get such ideas from? We ask merely for information, as Oscar Wilde wrote. Such calumny wouldn’t occur to us. We respect your honor.

Nor do we think it is the second factor you mentioned that handicaps you. We just think you read everything with the HIV meme sitting on top of your head like some monkey. Any contradiction of the meme and when you start reading it the monkey puts it hands over your eyes.

Anyhow, the first point has already been worked over, and we stand with Karpas:

As to the second quote

2) After varied periods of HAART treatment in many patients there is a significant increase in the PCR plasma viral load without a decrease in the CD4+T-cell count and without clinical deterioration. We assayed for infectious HIV-1 in the plasma from such patients but failed to detect any infectious virus. In order to try to explain this observation we undertook the molecular characterisation of the plasma HIV-1 genes of such patients. Our molecular studies revealed signficiant deletions in several of the viral genes which could explain why the plasma HIV-1 is not infectious (Saurya, Lichtenstein & Karpas, 2002a, b, 2003a, b).

we suggest that perhaps you should go back and check the Karpas review we are referring to, Human retroviruses in leukaemia and AIDS: reflections on their discovery, biology and epidemiology in Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2004 Nov;79(4):911-33. We will give you the answer quote when we get to the library tomorrow, the full paper is not with us.

If we can’t, and we screwed up, we will admit it as handsomely as Chris Noble admitted his error just now. We hope you will do the same.

It really makes no difference to the analysis anyway – there is negligible HIV in the system of healthy HIV+s however you look at it. Since this lasts for up to twenty years, the likelihood of any sudden decline in health being triggered by the teeny 9 kilobase HIV in the face of a healthy immune system that has kept it down to vanishing point for two decades is nil.

Which gene would you say harbors the incubating breakout and its timing whereby the teeny virus suddenly gains the power to overcome its suppressor, the immune system that has knocked it to the ground and kept its foot on its neck for up to two decades?

Any change is OBVIOUSLY due to other factors.

No healthy person has any real reason for concern if he is HIV+ unless he is trapped in this group iatrogenic fantasy and succumbs to the huge pressure on him/her from the propaganda, social attitudes and insistence from the misinformed medical community that it proves he/she will die from HIV’s sudden attack on the immune system up to 20 years after he was exposed to it, and therefore taking dangerous and certainly heavily damaging drugs early is wise.

No proof of this from any angle has yet been produced in the scientific literature, despite the imaginative statements of Karpas who is as we have agreed is a beribboned, meme controlled general of this global attack on the well being of all patients labeled as suffering from “AIDS”.

The UN cures AIDS

Here to celebrate World AIDS Day tomorrow is a quote you will like from the abstract of Karpas’s paper:

Sexual intercourse has now spread the virus around the World; and there are probably some 70 million infected. 90% of those infected with HIV develop the deadly disease of AIDS within ten years of infection: the death toll from the disease has been enormous.

70 million infected. Now the UN says sorry, everybody, only 33 million infected.

Gee, seems that 37 million have been cured since 2004 November, the date of publication of Human retroviruses in leukaemia and AIDS: reflections on their discovery, biology and epidemiology in Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2004 Nov;79(4):911-33.

That’s pretty good! By 2010 we will have have cured them all! Well done, the UN.

Of course, that means a nice chunk of the $30 billion Bush is trying to hand out now will go straight into the pockets of the likes of you and Chris Noble, is that right, now that it is no longer needed to combat the dread fairy tale Virus?

Don’t tell us that Moore will forget your deserving pockets in the excitement of this triumph.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 1, 2007 12:12 AM

If Karpas’s essay means “VIRUS DEFEATED” (as you said), why does he say that the virus eventually kills most infected individuals?

Somewhere in that contradiction is either a blatant lie or a complete inability to understand the essay.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 12:23 AM

Franklin, the passage you quoted from Prof. Karpas regarding PCR in HAART was not the one relevant to Truthseeker’s remarks. You’ll find such on the preceding page of the Abraham Karpas review in Biology Reviews 79:911-33, 2004:

“We have assayed for the presence of neutralising antibodies in over 100 healthy HIV-1 infected individuals and without exception found that the sera contained significant levles of such antibodies… Our sudies have demonstrated that healthy HIV-1 infected individuals who were not viraemic had high levels of neutralising antibodies against the virus…

“Studies from the USA of long-term survivors have also found high levels of neutralising antibodies… Although PCR assays for the presence of HIV-1 RNA in the plasma revealed significant levels of RNA in some individuals, the biological assay for viral infectivity failed to reveal the presence of infectious virus, suggesting that the HIV-1 in the bloodstream had been inactivated by the neutralising antibodies. In addition, this indicates that PCR does not distinguish between infectious (live) and neutralised (killed) virus.”

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 1, 2007 12:37 AM

Somewhere in that contradiction is either a blatant lie or a complete inability to understand the essay.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 12:23 AM

Exactly, franklin, you have as usual hit the nail straight on the head. We now have a choice. Is Dr Karpas’ statement a self-contradiction? Yes. It is. Is it a lie? Well, franklin, you used that word, not us. We don’t think so. Not quite.

Oh, we see that you look as baffled as usual, so I suppose we have to explain.

First, Karpas and all of us all except you and the monkey meme on your head and Chris and his monkey meme agree with the first part of his statement, that the healthy immune system knocks the virus out of the ring, flat, unconscious, inert for as long as twenty years. For some reason you don’t want us to use the word “defeated” for this setback for your much loved, billion dollar virus, reduced to total inactivity, so use whatever word you like. Karpas was unable to find any virus in a healthy HIV+ that wasn’t dead, ie inactivated. Your supervirus turned out to be a dead mouse. Dead mice everywhere he looked in more than a 100 patients, as Robert Houston posts above.

VIRUS DEFEATED. That’s part 1.

How about part 2? Virus resurges and kills the host:

If Karpas’s essay means “VIRUS DEFEATED” (as you said), why does he say that the virus eventually kills most infected individuals?

Why indeed. Yes, the virus rises up from the dead and smites the immune system with some mysterious power as yet not ascertained, according to Karpas’s imagination, and yours. Is this a contradiction of his finding that the immune system effectively stops every virus dead? Yes.

So, yes, you have a contradiction.

Now franklin, you used the word “lie” again. Please, franklin, have some respect. We must respect Abraham Karpas as one of the most distinguished scientists in the world of HIV=AIDS, a fully beribboned general of the movement to which you and Noble subscribe with such enthusiasm.

It is not right for you to intoduce the word “lie” anywhere near Dr Karpas. This is not the kind of civility and manners we are used to at the top of the HIV club, especially in Cambridge.

Poor Dr Karpas is merely feeling a sense of collegial responsibility and anxious to fit in with their scheme, once he has had his say as a decent scientist and acknowledged that the MOST LETHAL VIRUS IN HISTORY (according to the Council of Foreign Relations expert Laurie “The Coming Plague” Garrett) gets its ass kicked by any healthy immune system so badly that he could not find any still active in any patient he sampled..

Therefore he imagines that something or other in the dead virus gives it new life, and it rises up and beats the immune system that inactivated every last one he inspected.

Of course, he and everybody else knows perfectly well that it is the decline in the immune system from some other cause of sickness that allows the virus to finally make only the feeblest sort of reappearance in sick and dying people, which forms no parallel whatsoever with a resurgence powerful enough to defeat an immune system that already proved it could easily overcome the virus.

Is Karpas a liar?

So is Karpas lying when he embarks on this approach to the phenomenon of people with HIV falling sick after years and years of hraboring nothing but dead virus that he could find? Saying that it is the virus turning from a lamb into a lion, and not feebly resurging with help from some other factor which radically weakens and finally kills (with the help of the doctors you peddle this stuff to, franklin) its host? Like drugs, say, of the recreational kind, or multiple infections, or nutritional deficits of a key kind?

No, sir, he is not lying, per se. He is merely a man with a monkey on his shoulder, the HIV meme, like the monkey on your head, franklin.

Apologize to the man.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 1, 2007 2:23 AM

TS,

Perhaps your inability to find the truth you seek is rooted in your complete lack of objectivity?

Consider the quote you just gave us from Karpas:

“90% of those infected with HIV develop the deadly disease of AIDS within ten years of infection”

Lets repeat: “90%…deadly…10 years”

You DO realize the statements about being unable to find live virus in Karpas’ paper that you are abusing concern a specific subset of HIV infected individuals? Those who go an extended period without illness? Less than 10% of those infected with the virus. The other 90% having been dead over ten years by your 20 year time point.

Taking data from this small subset and trying to claim that it is representative of HIV infected individuals generally is called, if one is being very charitable, selection bias. Karpas is not the one who does this. It is you.

Are you lying to us? Misreading? Misunderstanding? Or merely, as Adele suggests, a twister of the truth?

Seek Objectivity. Once you find that, you may have some chance of seeing the truth.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 6:32 AM

By the way,

“Where’s the dignified confidence of those who know that they are right?”

Is that how you would describe Darin Brown’s screeching above?

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/11/mbeki_still_in_denial.php#comment-653191

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 6:39 AM

The confidence of us who know we are right is mainly in the fact that we get up and live to fact another day even after this HIV diagnosis. Unfortunately, there isn’t any studies about us or the most important study was never done in the first place. What have you great scientists been doing with all of the AIDS funds?
To borrow from the Beatles or Paul, I believe:

So it’s World AIDS day and what have we done
to feed the world’s hungry, the old and the young.
So it’s World AIDS day, and its our greatest sin
instead of wearing red ribbons, when will the feeding begin?

So here’s to happy AIDS Day, be of good cheer
while others are starving, pass the pretzels and the beer.

So it is AIDS day, now what have we done
25 years later, not a cure for a one.
So keep on sending money for a magical cure
When good food and a home-life would grant one for sure!

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 7:59 AM

The credit for the above tune goes to John Lennon.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 9:54 AM

“What have you great scientists been doing with all of the AIDS funds?”

Gee Noreen, for someone whom I’ve seen, on multiple occasions, attribute her survival to the use of ARVs to recover from a period of severe illness; I would think you would be more aware of the benefits created by HIV research.

Also, as I mentioned to you above, If you are truly interested in the body of literature on Long term non-progressors, to which group you do not belong, you might benefit from reading some of that literature, or at least counting it.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 11:51 AM

There is not much knowledge on long term non progressors. We dont know much about ltnp’ers bc there hasnt been one study done by independent scientists that look at people recently infected with hiv with no other risk factors such as mycoplasmas, AZT, Severe stress/drug abuse get aids, which is what you need to prove a specied specific microbes pathenogenicity in humans, when most every animal inoculated, such as the hundereds of chimps, dont die of AIDS after 20 years.

For all we know everyone with HIV without other risk factors could be a LNTP, or on the other hand maybe most will progress to AIDS. So no one knows these answers, including the hacks on these blogs, which means more studies by normal scientists, not defend the paridigm at all cost maniacs that troll these blogs, are needed.

Posted by: cooler | December 1, 2007 1:16 PM

If Karpas’s essay means “VIRUS DEFEATED” (as you said), why does he say that the virus eventually kills most infected individuals?

Somewhere in that contradiction is either a blatant lie or a complete inability to understand the essay.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 12:23 AM

Posted By: Truthseeker (sic) December 1, 2007 2:23 AM

Truthseeker (sic), Dr. Karpas’s statement that the virus eventually kills most infected individuals despite the host’s immune response is not self-contradictory.

But it does contradict your characterization of his essay as:

The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it

In that contradiction between Karpas’s essay and your characterization of his position resides either (1) the lie that you are perpretrating about Karpas’s essay or (2) your inability to understand his essay (or both).

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 1:40 PM

Robert,

You may be correct that Truthseeker (sic) was referring to Karpas’s descritpion of the work of Cao (1995) and Pantaleo (1995) rather than the studies of patients receiving HAART.

Studies from the USA of long-term survivors have also found high levels of neutralising antibodies (Cao et al., 1995; Pantaleo et al., 1995).

However, if Truthseeker (sic) was referring to these papers, then his statement is even more decieving, because while he characterizes Karpas paper as:

The paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it

the papers by Cao and Pantaleo are about long-term nonprogressors, a group of people who are far from representative of “any healthy person exposed to HIV.”

Both of these papers explicitly describe this group of patients as a small fraction of HIV-infected patients, and Karpas provides no indication that he considers the findings in these patients to represent what would happen in “any healthy person exposed to HIV.”

Cao et al. (1995) N Engl J Med. 332: 201-8:

In most subjects infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), clinical or laboratory evidence of immunodeficiency develops within 10 years of seroconversion, but a few infected people remain healthy and immunologically normal for more than a decade.

Pantaleo et al. (1995) N Engl J Med. 332: 209-16:

In a small percentage of persons infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), there is no progression of disease and CD4 T-cell counts remain stable for many years.

Karpas (2004) Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 79: 911-33:

So, if these are the studies to which Truthseeker (sic) is referring to, he must either (1) be lying or (2) have no scientific understanding of these papers.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 2:11 PM

Dale wrote:

“darin writes There is no such thing as an “antibody to HCV”, or, equivalently, an “HCV-specific antibody”. Specificity is a trait of a TEST, NOT of an object.

THANK YOU, DALE, for speaking so openly and directly on this issue. You have helped me to reveal that the problem is a lot beyond just HIV or HCV but is a fundamental problem with immunology in general. The entire field of immunology has made great strides in technical development and empirical description of phenomena, but it is nevertheless marked by imprecision, fuzzy thinking, unwarranted assumptions, gross abuse of language, and invalid logic. Appealing to the entire field of immunology as justification for its own practices is circular, and one should expect that an outsider pointing out these flaws would be dismissed an an “idiot”.

“I will point out that in the language of immunology which is what one is speaking when one talks of antibodies, there is indeed such as thing as an antibody to HCV.”

There is no such thing as the “language of immunology”. There is only language, per se. If language is used properly, it does not need to justify itself by recourse to subject-specific self-labelling.

Let’s examine this phrase “antibody to HCV”. First, however, I want to quote directly from an undergraduate immunology textbook, that category of discourse so highly prized by many of the contributors here. Normally, I don’t find textbook writing very eloquent or worth reproducing, but these passages are true exceptions:

“The serum antibodies produced in response to a particular antigen are heterogeneous. Because most antigens are complex and contain many different antigenic determinants [epitopes], the immune system usually responds by producing antibodies to several of them. This response requires the recruitment of several clones of B cells. Their outputs are monoclonal antibodies, each of which specifically binds a single antigenic determinant. Together, these monoclonal antibodies make up the polyclonal and heterogeneous serum antibody response to an immunizing antigen. Although the polyclonal antibody produced in vivo is beneficial to the organism, IT HAS NUMEROUS DISADVANTAGES FOR IMMUNOLOGIC RESEARCH AND CLINICAL APPLICATIONS THAT DEMAND PRECISE CONTROL OF ANTIBODY QUANTITY, PROPERTIES, AND SPECIFICITY [my emphasis].”

– Kuby’s “Immunology”, 2001, p 83, chapter 4, “Immunoglobulins: Structure and Function”

“Antigens, which are generally very large and complex, ARE NOT RECOGNIZED IN THEIR ENTIRETY BY LYMPHOCYTES [my emphasis]. Instead, both B and T lymphocytes recognize discrete sites on the antigen called antigen determinants or epitopes. Epitopes are the immunologically active regions on a complex antigen, the regions that actually bind to B-cell or T-cell receptors… The humoral branch (B cells) recognizes an enormous variety of epitopes… The cell-mediated branch (T cells) recognizes protein epitopes displayed together with MHC molecules on self-cells, including altered self-cells such as virus-infected self-cells and cancerous cells… The antibody on a B cell can recognize epitopes on macromolecules with incredible precision.”

– Ibid., p 14, chapter 1, “Overview of the Immune System”

There is NO SUCH THING as an “antibody to HCV”, nor is there any such thing at all as “antibody to XXX”, where you can replace “XXX” with your favorite antigen. If there is such a thing as an “antibody to XXX”, the “XXX” is an EPITOPE, not an antigen. This failure to remember that antibodies are produced in response to EPITOPES, NOT WHOLE ANTIGENS, is perhaps the most common mistake made by immunologists.

This fact has been yelled and screamed about by Val Turner for years and years, when he notes that EVEN MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING CROSS-REACTIONS.

“Whether “HCV-specific antibodies” have any meaning in the language of mathematics is irrelevant.”"

Again, there is no such thing as “the language of mathematics”. There is only language, per se. If language is used properly, it does not need to justify legitimate arguments against itself by recourse to subject-specific labelling. (In other words, valid arguments against “immunological language” cannot be dismissed because the arguments are put in the terms of “mathematical language”.)

What immunologists and you Dale do not seem to understand is that PRECISE usage of the terms “sensitive”, “specific”, and so on, in the “mathematical” sense, is EXACTLY what is needed to have clear ideas about immunological phenomena, PRECISELY because of the fact that I mentioned above, that antibodies are produced in response to epitopes, not whole antigens. Because antibodies do not have any “antigenic essence”, so to speak, the precise language of binary classification testing is NECESSARY to state these relationships clearly.

Unfortunately, immunologists, and as far as I can gather, most working biologists in general, have absolutely no conception what the meaning of words like “specific”, “sensitive”, and “gold standard” mean. They throw around these words and terminology without any regard for what they are actually saying.

Roy Hinkley said,

“Darin,

In addition to Dale’s comment, which is absolutely rightt, I’d like to address your question about the sensitivity of the assays.

“”amplification of viral nucleic acid by PCR provides a highly
> > sensitive… method to detect ongoing viral infection”"

Here, sensitivity is referring to sensitivity (in the mathematical sense) for detection of HCV RNA molecules.

Roy, you have just demonstrated that you have absolutely no conception what the meaning of the word “sensitive” means. Nevertheless, you have brought such a misconceived understanding into full light, and for that I thank you.

Sensitivity does NOT mean: “We could find something that we couldn’t find before.” (i.e. a test is not more “sensitive” because it finds something new or postulated to be new.)

Sensitivity does NOT mean: “We could find something smaller than we found before.” (i.e. a test is not more “sensitive” because it detects bits of nucleic acid, which are smaller than antibodies.)

Sensitivity does NOT mean: “We could find something more often than we found before.” (i.e. a test is not more “sensitive” because it reports a positive finding more often than previously.)

And MOST importantly, sensitivity MOST CERTAINLY does NOT mean: “We could find something in smaller quantities than we found it before.” (i.e. a test is not more “sensitive” because it can detect 5 to 10 units instead of 50 to 100 units.) SENSITIVITY IS NOT DETERMINED BY QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS.

“Infection with HCV is a diagnosis. These tests detect the presence of Hep C RNA or antibodies to Hep C proteins; specifically, and with great sensitivity (both in the mathematical sense). Positive results on these tests are used to make a positive diagnosis.”

If “detect the presence of Hep C RNA” is “used to make a positive diagnosis”, (i.e. if “detect the presence of Hep C RNA” is the gold standard), THEN IT IS ABSOLUTELY NONSENSICAL AND ABSURD TO SPEAK OF “HCV RNA” AS A “SENSITIVE” DETECTION OF HCV.

If “HCV RNA” really is a gold standard for “HCV infection” or “infection with HCV”, then BY DEFINITION such detection has 100% sensitivity, not some alleged “high sensitivity”. EVERY gold standard has 100% sensitivity by definition. You know the sensitivity of a gold standard without performing a single experiment, you already KNOW that.

“The paper you cite makes the point that antibodies may be present even after an infection has been defeated. Therefore antibody tests alone are not sufficient to distinguish an active infection from a cleared infection. RT PCR can be used to make that distinction because there is no reasonable way viral RNA will be present in the absence of a replicating virus.”

ALRIGHT, so now we come to the fundamental predicament and difference of opinion. I want to thank both Dale and Roy for articulating (albeit inadvertently) so overtly the fundamental disagreements between opposing camps here.

YOU REGARD THE PRESENCE OF ANY NUCLEIC ACID WHICH IS DETERMINED BY YOU TO BE “FOREIGN” (whatever that means) AS ORIGINATING IN AN EXOGENOUS VIRUS.

Regardless of whether you can actually SEE such a virus, regardless of whether you have a way of detecting virus particles or even “virus-like particles” (whatever THAT means!!!, I read some papers from just a few years ago on “HCV-virus-like particles” being FINALLY (finally!!!) detected, 20 years on now…)

THE NUCLEIC ACID SEQUENCE IS YOUR GOD-KING, YOUR DEITY, YOUR SOVEREIGN. YOU WORSHIP IT.

“In other words, in this sentence:

“Although a positive PCR assay is not absolute proof of HCV viremia, it STRONGLY SUGGESTS…”

I know what mathematical proof is. It ain’t perfect, it’s subject to human error, it’s subject to all the other things that make the human race fallible and forever falling short of Platonic ideals. But at least we mathematicians have a notion of what “proof” is for us — however imperfect, we use it, we live by it, we produce a body work that has lasted for centuries by it.

But I’m not sure what immunologists or biologists in general mean by “proof”. It goes beyond human error or fallibility. You guys don’t even seem to have a real notion of what you mean by “proof” in your own minds. And that’s what bothers me.

It’s one thing to set a Platonic ideal and fall short of it in the real world. It’s another thing never to have such a Platonic ideal in the first place.

The situation is made even more pathetic by the fact that such ambiguities and unresolved concerns over “proof” are not academic — this is not some existential argument or debate being conducted in the confines of a monastery somewhere. You are telling MILLIONS of people they are “infected” with a lethal virus (HCV) and then giving them antiviral drugs with known toxicities, drugs that interfere with the basic life processes and are teratogenic.

“By the way,

“Where’s the dignified confidence of those who know that they are right?”

Is that how you would describe Darin Brown’s screeching above?”

HOW ELSE WOULD YOU RESPOND TO SOMEONE LIKE THAT? Someone whose actions are so totally in conflict with his statements??????

darin

Posted by: Darin Brown | December 1, 2007 3:43 PM

darin:

There is no such thing as an “antibody to HCV”, or, equivalently, an “HCV-specific antibody”. Specificity is a trait of a TEST, NOT of an object.

Dale:

I will point out that in the language of immunology which is what one is speaking when one talks of antibodies, there is indeed such as thing as an antibody to HCV.

darin:

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd Ed. (1992) Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston. p 173:

specific 6. Immunology. Having an affinity limited to a particular antigen or antibody.

Posted by: Franklin | December 1, 2007 4:09 PM

Yes, antiretrovirals did help me when I had symptoms but probably any combination of drugs would have helped, which I was not immediately given. My question to you is this, if HIV is so deadly then how have I managed to survive for almost two years with a high viral load and low CD4’s and without antiretrovirals? Is HIV on holiday?

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 5:17 PM

Darin,

You’re dismissed.

Idiot.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 5:27 PM

Noreen,

With all do respect, as well as wishes for your continued good health:

Since stopping antiretrovirals your CD4 cells have been in continuous decline to the point where they are now in the double digits. At the same time your viral load has continually climbed to what now? 250,000 copies per ml?

As you’ve pointed out in the past, low CD4 cells do not mean instant infection and death, so at this point your situation is following exactly the path one would predict based on the conventional understanding of HIV/AIDS.

That same conventional understanding of HIV/AIDS tells me that if you do nothing to arrest the decline in your CD4 cell count, you will become ill.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 6:06 PM

My CD4’s stay around 100,000 and secondly why do you place so much stock in a CD4’s when “symptoms” are the key here? Why would you even give any importance to viral loads and CD4’s, which according to the medical journal, are only 6 to 9% accurated in the first place? Even if I believed in HIV, wouldn’t a normal complete blood count, liver enzyme test and good-old fashioned symptoms be a better yarstick to gauge one’s health?

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 6:21 PM

Correction:

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd Ed. (1992) Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston. p 1730:

specific 6. Immunology. Having an affinity limited to a particular antigen or antibody.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 6:52 PM

Noreen,

Surely you must recognize that you are confused about some of the things you just wrote?

Have you actually read the Rodriguez paper in its entirety? Do you honestly feel that you understand and can interpret what the Rodriguez paper says?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 1, 2007 7:46 PM

Roy, once again you are placing to much stock in a study. The medium term baseline was a poor predictor to AIDS – 2.9%, half of the CD4 decline measured were >130 cells and CD4 only predicted 7.1% of subsequent CD4 decline. My CD4’s have stayed consistent, mid 80’s, for almost two years except one time climbed around 50 points. Mine are holding their own and have stablized and are not declining. I will let you know on Wednesday the latest count.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 9:07 PM

I would like to add that I haven’t had any opportunistic infections at all, no AIDS symptoms whatsoever, irregardless of what my CD4’s may be.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 9:11 PM

Noreen Reports:

I would like to add that I haven’t had any opportunistic infections at all, no AIDS symptoms whatsoever, irregardless of what my CD4’s may be.

Somehow she doesn’t count December 2003, a period in which she has previously reported that:

I had in fact several of the AIDS, defining diseases and my CD4 count were at 78.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 9:50 PM

It is not right for you to intoduce the word “lie” anywhere near Dr Karpas. This is not the kind of civility and manners we are used to at the top of the HIV club, especially in Cambridge.

Are you still prolonging this stupid charade. Nobody is accusing Karpas of being a liar. I am saying that you are either deliberately misinterpretting Karpa’s paper or you are so completely incapable opf understanding it that you do not realise you are misinterpretting it.

Do not try to enlist Karpas as a Denialist. You know that he does not support your claims. No amount of obfuscation will change this.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 1, 2007 10:01 PM

This fact has been yelled and screamed about by Val Turner for years and years, when he notes that EVEN MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING CROSS-REACTIONS.

This, of course, is one of the reasons why Roberto Giraldo’s efforts at stuffing up antibody tests stuffed up so well. He omitted the step that involving the BSA blocking agent.

There are antibodies that are specific for HCV antigens. They have high binding affinities to certain epitopes on the protein.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 1, 2007 10:17 PM

So, if these are the studies to which Truthseeker (sic) is referring to, he must either (1) be lying or (2) have no scientific understanding of these papers.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 2:11 PM

So what happened to our deal, franklin, that if you were wrong, you would offer a handsome apology to me, and vice versa?

You were shown exactly what I claimed was asserted by Abraham Karpas in the paper under discussion.

Instead of apologizing like a man, you simply show you are suffering from the Moore-Noble syndrome, which results in an effusion of insults instead of the gentlemanly concession which is normal between respectable members of the civil community.

This is disappointing. In fact, it is very disappointing. There is in fact very little which will excuse it. Does your mother know?

On the other hand, I suppose you like Noble cannot afford to be detected in such a fatuous error, one that indicates you never read the paper we were talking about.

Then you have the effrontery to try and weasel out of your fix by quoting from other papers that back up precisely what we said.

HIV+ people are healthy for years, until SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS OTHER THAN A MIRACULOUS RESURGENCE OF HIV, according to all reports, studies, and discussion except that which goes on in your brain, the one with the monkey sitting on top of it and pulling your hair out when it isn’t clapping its paws over your eyes whenever enlightenment is offered by your betters.

John Moore is proud of you and grateful, I am sure. After all, he has received our heartiest congratulations over at www.Science Guardian.com today for fooling the entire world with his absurd meme. You and other foolish people who seem unable to understand plain English are a pillar of his accomplishment, so you are to be congratulated too.

However, since your nature and upbringing precludes you from offering the handsome apology due to all here for your error, we will restrain ourselves from giving you the acknowledgement you deserve until you rise to the occasion, and behave properly.

Otherwise we shall tell your mother, if we ever meet her.

Meanwhile your privileges are revoked and we will not be able to respond to your need for enlightenment on the science of HIV?AIDS until you snap to, shape up, and get rid of the monkey on the top of your skull.

Sorry, but some standards have to be maintained here in honor of the blog owner, the delectable Tara, who for some reason has removed her lovely photo from the blog.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 1, 2007 10:19 PM

Noreen Asks:

My question to you is this, if HIV is so deadly then how have I managed to survive for almost two years with a high viral load and low CD4’s and without antiretrovirals? Is HIV on holiday?

And:

Perhaps Table 5 from an essay by C. Bradley Hare, MD, University of California San Francisco, might help you understand why physicians place importance on measurements of CD4 T-cell numbers and HIV viral loads. (The Table comes from a section entitled Natural History of Untreated HIV Infection)

Please notice the strong relationships between initial CD4 T-cell counts, initial viral load, and progression to an AIDS-defining illness.

According to these data, the greatest risk of developing an AIDS-defining illness over a three year or nine year period was for patients who had CD4 T-cell counts less than 200 cells/microliter and viral loads greater than 30,000 copies/ml (86% over 3 years and 100% over 9 years).

This can be contrasted with patients who had CD4 T-cell counts less than 200 cells/microliter but viral loads less than 10,000 copies/ml (14% over 3 years and 64% over 9 years).

It can also be contrasted with patients who had viral loads greater than 30,000 copies/ml but CD4 T-cell counts greater than 350 cells/microliter (40% over 3 years and 85% over 9 years).

The group with the most favorable outcome included those with CD4 T-cell counts greater than 350 cells/microliter and viral loads less than 10,000 copies/ml (7% over 3 years and 54% over 9 years)

Noreen, as you may be able to see, viral load and CD4 T-cell counts both provide important prognostic information with respect to progression to an AIDS-defining illness.

Likewise, you may be able to see that the situation that you report with respect to your own health over the past two years is far from unique.

86% of patients with CD4 T-cell counts less than 200 cells/microliter and viral loads greater than 30,000 copies/ml suffered an AIDS-defining illness over a three year period.

This, of course, means that 14% of such patients did not suffer an AIDS-defining illness in that time frame.

On the other hand, 93% of patients who had CD4 T-cell counts greater than 350 cells/microliter and viral loads less than 10,000 copies/ml did not develop an AIDS-defining illness over a 3 year period.

Your experience in no way establishes that CD4 T-cell counts and HIV viral loads are unimportant for AIDS prognosis.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 10:40 PM

Do not try to enlist Karpas as a Denialist. You know that he does not support your claims. No amount of obfuscation will change this.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 1, 2007 10:01 PM

So you still argue with Karpas himself, or cannot bear to read what he writes?

Chris, there is a monkey sitting on top of your head, the spit image of the monkey sitting on top of franklin’s nut.

Can you explain? It seems to prevent you from understanding any point that undermines the HIV meme.

Your demonstration that you, supposedly a reasoning being with some training in science, or at least computers, cannot see what Karpas is saying, and only accuse others of misinterpretation when it is brought to your attention, leaves us with one sad conclusion only: you identify with the HIV meme.

You and the monkey are brothers, it seems. No wonder it likes sitting on your head.

Unfortunately, we agree with Karpas, a good enough scientist to know when there is a flaw to be explained away in the HIV meme, instead of thinking it has none.

Sorry you are not a good enough scientist, or even logician, to deal with the point he tries to explain away, or even see it.

However, please curb your tendency to burst out in insults to our intelligence when you are exposing yourself in this manner.

Take a tip from Karpas and cover up. It is rather embarrassing to see a grown man naked of all camouflage in mixed company, and stand revealed to all the world as incapable of understanding what is going on in a paper under discussion, even when it is quoted to him.

Perhaps you could go over the posts and the paper speaking the words out loud one by one and using your finger to keep your place?

This is what we do, and we find it helps a lot, especially if we keep a dictionary handy for all the long words.

Try it, Chris, you might yet catch up with the rest of the world in understanding that HIV=AIDS needs to be explained if people with HIV do not fall ill unless some other attack on their immune system takes place.

You weren’t aware that this is the fundamental difficulty?

Karpas does, and that is why he speculates in his paper.

But you can’t see that, right?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 1, 2007 10:41 PM

Truthseeker (sic):

So what happened to our deal, franklin, that if you were wrong, you would offer a handsome apology to me, and vice versa?

You were shown exactly what I claimed was asserted by Abraham Karpas in the paper under discussion.

I missed that. Exactly what did you claim was asserted by Abraham Karpas in the paper under discussion?

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 10:46 PM

Truthseeker (sic),

My understanding is that you asserted the following:

Robert Houston suggested that you based this assertion on the following quote:

Studies from the USA of long-term survivors have also found high levels of neutralising antibodies (Cao et al., 1995; Pantaleo et al., 1995). Although PCR assays for the presence of HIV-1 RNA in the plasma revealed significant levels of RNA in some individuals, the biological assay for viral infectivity failed to reveal the presence of infectious virus, suggesting that the HIV-1 in the bloodstream had been inactivated by the neutralising antibodies. In addition, this indicates that PCR does not distinguish between infectious (live) and neutralised (killed) virus.

As I already pointed out, for you to extrapolate from these statements about long-term non-progressors to all asymptomatic patients can only be explained by (1) you telling a blatant lie, (2) your inability to understand the essay, or (3) both.

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 10:59 PM

Duhhhh. Another concept for you is “affinity”. It isn’t a black and white distinction between binding and not binding. Large amounts of non-specific antibodies with a low affinity for the antigens can cause cross reactions. Amazingly, scientists are actually very well aware of this and they design tests to minimize this – by using blocking agents such as Bovine Serum Albumin for instance.
This, of course, is one of the reasons why Roberto Giraldo’s efforts at stuffing up antibody tests stuffed up so well. He omitted the step that involving the BSA blocking agent.

Dr N, this is intriguing. Are you talking about Giraldo’s experiments with less than 400 fold dilutions of the ELISA?How do you know he omitted other crucial steps in the procedure?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 1, 2007 11:08 PM

“Although the polyclonal antibody produced in vivo is beneficial to the organism, IT HAS NUMEROUS DISADVANTAGES FOR IMMUNOLOGIC RESEARCH AND CLINICAL APPLICATIONS THAT DEMAND PRECISE CONTROL OF ANTIBODY QUANTITY, PROPERTIES, AND SPECIFICITY [my emphasis].”

You are aware of the fact that highly specific antibodies can be produced against any antigen of interest, both polyclonal and monoclonal right? Also there is this thing called controls that all experiments have to have. Considering these two points, I’m not really sure why you think the above sentence was worth emphasizing.

“If there is such a thing as an “antibody to XXX”, the “XXX” is an EPITOPE, not an antigen. This failure to remember that antibodies are produced in response to EPITOPES, NOT WHOLE ANTIGENS, is perhaps the most common mistake made by immunologists.”

Hold on now, bear with me as this is a very difficult concept to grasp. Epitopes are part of antigens. Get it? There are even different types of epitopes, linear, which recognize a specific amino acid sequence, and conformational, which recognize certain amino acids within the context of the proteins tertiary structure. How would you expect a protein as small as an antibody to recognize the entirety of a protein many times its size? It can’t due to the limitation of the size of its recognition domains.

And do you actually know enough immunologists to even remotely back up the final statement above? Immunologists remember it well, they just don’t play childish word games.

“when he notes that EVEN MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING CROSS-REACTIONS.”

What’s your point? Again, controls.

Posted by: Jim | December 1, 2007 11:18 PM

Franklin,

I’m intrigued once more. Are you saying that in some HIV+ persons, notably LTNPs, viral load testing is admittedly meaningless, whereas in others it is a correct measure of infectious virus and predictor of progression to AIDS and death? I’ll be darned if they didn’t forget to mention that on the kit inserts I’ve seen.

So if the person has not yet progressed to AIDS or death, and since the viral load – CD4 decline correlation is not ermm… nearly as reliable as we would all like it to be, how can you tell in each case if the viral load is meaningful? – and how meaningful it is exactly?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 1, 2007 11:22 PM

Franklin, I am not denying that I had many AIDS-defining diseases but the point that I am making is that when I had these diseases my viral load was high and CD4’s were low, just like now but I presently have no symptoms whatsoever and without antiretrovirals! So these viral loads and CD4’s must work only somtime to harm the patient? Most inconsistant, wouldn’t you say?

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 1, 2007 11:31 PM

Dr N, this is intriguing. Are you talking about Giraldo’s experiments with less than 400 fold dilutions of the ELISA?How do you know he omitted other crucial steps in the procedure?

The blocking agent (Bovine and Goat Sera) is in the diluent. If you don’t use the diluent you don’t use the blocking agent.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 1, 2007 11:57 PM

So you still argue with Karpas himself, or cannot bear to read what he writes?

This silly game only demonstrates your dishoensty. Karpas does not say that the human immune system defeats HIV. HIV continues to replicate after the initial acute infection. After a period of time HIV causes CD4+ cell depletion, immune suppression, and AIDS.

There is nothing in Karpas’ writings that suggests otherwise. If you really think that Karpas believes that HIV is defeated then please write to him and ask him this question. Until then stop putting words into his mouth.

I suspect that you know very well that you are wrong and that you are just afraid to admit it.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 12:12 AM

Posted by: franklin | December 1, 2007 10:59 PM

Franklin, I am not your mother, fortunately, so I have no personal stake in your ineffectual disrespect. Not that I wouldn’t applaud if she spanked your tiny botty for your behavior, and that of the monkey jumping on your scalp.

The point which you miss, just as you miss the scientific point we are discussing, is that people who accuse others of “lying” when they make counter assertions in a scientific discussion suggest that they occupy a lower plane.

It makes you seem unsuitable to partner in any friendly intellectual effort to work things out, for the following reasons:

a) It suggests you don’t really aim at working things out

b) It suggests you have no sensitivity to language.

c) It suggests – in fact pretty much proves – that you learned your science at an inferior college, if any college at all. Was it a correspondence course?

All this makes one realize that probably nothing can be accomplished, however hard one tries.

But this is not the fundamental reason why one gives up. It is simply that “lying” is a stupid accusation which doesn’t make any sense.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 1:08 AM

The blocking agent (Bovine and Goat Sera) is in the diluent. If you don’t use the diluent you don’t use the blocking agent.

Ah ok, we’re talking about the different implications of omitting that one and same step. Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 2, 2007 1:23 AM

Jim, franklin, noble etc
You guys have no balls and no expertise whatsoever, you guys are no different than those idiotic experts that said said “scurvy” was caused by a virus for decades, a few “herectic” scientists and independent researchers like myself said it was cause by a vitamic c deficiancy and were called “loons”, so I would suggest you clowns stop defending viruses that do zilch in animals, have 40 year window periods and are in one in a thousand cells.

Aka get some balls heart and courage. Let me guess franklin the broken record is going talk about “works of fiction” not knowiing himself that his stupidity should be a work of fiction, but sadly its not.

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 1:27 AM

It is simply that “lying” is a stupid accusation which doesn’t make any sense.

While you continue to claim against all evidence that Karpas states that HIV is defeated there is no other way to explain your behaviour.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 1:38 AM

You guys have no balls and no expertise whatsoever, you guys are no different than those idiotic experts that said said “scurvy” was caused by a virus for decades, a few “herectic” scientists and independent researchers like myself said it was cause by a vitamic c deficiancy and were called “loons”, so I would suggest you clowns stop defending viruses that do zilch in animals, have 40 year window periods and are in one in a thousand cells.

Is this supposed to be satire? How old are you? When was scurvy thought to be caused by a virus? You are an independent researcher? Of what?

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 1:42 AM

And cooler chimes in with his stock answer indicating that, as usual, the discussion is beyond his comprehension. While others discuss science, cooler is off thinking about balls and courage and some reference to scurvy. I am flattered though that you included me.

Posted by: Jim | December 2, 2007 1:56 AM

This silly game only demonstrates your dishonesty. Karpas does not say that the human immune system defeats HIV. HIV continues to replicate after the initial acute infection. After a period of time HIV causes CD4+ cell depletion, immune suppression, and AIDS.

Well, Chris, it seems that you share with franklin not only a pet monkey but also your self-condemning habit of charging dishonesty in a context in which it makes no sense whatsoever.

Thank you for repeating the HIV meme once again as some kind of incantation, which you seem to find a pacifier, but there is nothing in your attempt to evade the meaning of the simple words that Karpas writes.

You have exposed yourself Chris in your usual attempt to claim that others have misinterpreted whatever you think contradicts the meme.

When will you wake up, throw off the monkey and understand that everything contradicts the meme? – except the evasive claims of those who cling to the paradigm as if it was their lifeboat.

Which it is. There ain’t nothing else for them to cling to, since AIDS decline has zip to do with retroviruses of any kind as a cause, as the literature constantly confirms.

HIV just a harmless passenger, dummy. Wake up and smell the coffee. Muttering mantra won’t change anything. The party line that antibodies don’t neutralise is bunk. Fauci agrees – read his textbook chapter in Fundamental Immunology edited by Willam Paul.

Stop supporting dangerous and useless drugs which you would refuse yourself.

That’s known as hypocrisy.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 1:58 AM

“There ain’t nothing else for them to cling to, since AIDS decline has zip to do with retroviruses of any kind as a cause, as the literature constantly confirms.”

What literature are you reading?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17494085&ordinalpos=11&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Care to tell me how this show HIV is a passenger virus?

Posted by: Jim | December 2, 2007 2:04 AM

Im an independent researcher of idiotic frauds of the century for my balls are big. It was the prevailing hypothesis that some type of virus caused scurvy and pellegra were caused by infections. Duesbergs book is my source, for HE IS OUR GOD DAMN FUCKING MASTER.

DUESBERGS BALLS ARE ONLY OUTSHINED BY ONLY ONE OTHER MANS BALLS, SHYH CHING LO’S MD PHD ARMY’S LEADING PATHOLOGIS, THE ONLY SCIENTIST TO DISCOVER A MICROBE THAT KILLED EVERY ANIMAL INJECTED, MYCOPLASMA INCOGNITUS/PENETRANS. BOW YOUR GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING HEAD IN AWE OF YOUR FATHER LO! TEN HUT!

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 2:05 AM

patholgist. I meant to say, perhaps you people need a touch of Lily in your life. PROJECT DAY LILY SON, TRUE STORY ABOUT THE MYCOPLASMA BIOWARFARE PROGRAM, SLIGHTLY FICTIONILIZED TO STAY OUT OF COURT. RAVE REVIEWS FROM REAL SCIENTISTS LIKE ROGER GUILEMANN MD PHD NOBEL PRIZE WINNER, NOT FRAUDS LIKE FRANKILN/JIM/NOBLE ETC.
http://www.projectdaylily.com/

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 2:11 AM

about the mycoplasma biowarfare program, rave reviews from real scientists like nobel prize winner roger guilemann md phd., not frauds like you fools, true story slightly fictionilized
http://www.projectdaylily.com/

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 2:13 AM

It is simply that “lying” is a stupid accusation which doesn’t make any sense.

While you continue to claim against all evidence that Karpas states that HIV is defeated there is no other way to explain your behaviour.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 1:38 AM

“Defeated” “kept at bay” “vanquished” “kicked its little ass” you choose.

It doesn’t make a comeback of its own accord with a healthy system.

Antibodies neutralize.

Drugs damage uselessly.

Drugs kill.

You wouldn’t take them.

Hypocrite.

By the way, Fauci says HIV makes T cells proliferate.

Stick that in your monkey and smack it.

Low enough style for you, Chris.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 2:13 AM

yeah jim, whatever you useless hack, your no expert at anything, guarenteed you got rejected from your schools of choice, and your girls of choice if you know what I mean.

Expert wannabe hacks like yourself will say anything, like before the war expert poser hacks like you said saddam was gonna nuke us with WMD’ds, ignorant poseurs like yourself are no replacement for real experts like lo, duesberg, strohman, margulis, gilbert maniotis, etc thats why your sorry asses wouldnt debate them in public cause your a god damn fraud.

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 2:19 AM

Stick that in your monkey and smack it.

I spent yesterday with a three-year-old. His use of the rhetorical “Nyaaaahh” surpassed yours, but only marginally.

No matter how much you spin Karpas’ review it does not mean what you claim it means. HIV is not defeated. It is not conquered. It is not vanquished. It continues to replicate. It is not latent. It is a chronic infection.

Fauci agrees – read his textbook chapter in Fundamental Immunology edited by Willam Paul.

He does not. You are simply incapable of understanding the text.

I have read the chapter and it most definitely does not support your bizarre interpretations. It describes several of the mechanisms by which HIV can cause immune suppression.

The relevant passage that you refer to is

Several investigators have demonstrated that there is an increase in CD4+ T cellproliferation in both HIV and SIV infection.In certain studies, the enhanced T cell proliferation that was observed during active disease was significantly decreased following the initiation of anti-retroviral therapy, and proliferation increased again in parallel with plasma viremia following the cessation of treatment in these individuals.

Mathematical models of lymphocyte turnover derived through analysis of immediate changes in circulating CD4+ T-cell counts in individuals following the initiation of HAART led to estimates that approximately 2 Ã— 109 CD4+ T cells are destroyed, and replenished, each day (21,288). However, studies utilizing a variety of techniques to measure lymphocyte proliferationdincluding Ki-67, BrdUrd, and 2H-glucosedto evaluate the effects of HIV on T-cell turnover have yielded mixed results. Several investigators have demonstrated that there is an increase in CD4+ T-cell proliferation in both HIV and SIV infections (289-297). In certain studies, the enhanced T-cell proliferation that was observed during active disease was significantly decreased following the initiation of antiretroviral therapy (289,291,295), and proliferation increased again in parallel with plasma viremia following the cessation of treatment in these individuals (289). These data suggest that HIV infection results in a high turnover of CD4+ T cells, perhaps as a consequence of destruction of CD4+ T cells through certain of the mechanisms reviewed above. However, several investigators have had contrary results and have suggested that HIV replication blocks the ability of new CD4+ T cells to regenerate (294,296-298).

289. Lempicki RA, Kovacs JA, Baseler MW, et al. Impact of HIV-1 infection and highly active antiretroviral therapy on the kinetics of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell turnover in HIV-infected patients. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2000; 97: 13778 – 13783

290. Mohri H, Bonhoeffer S, Monard S, et al. Rapid Turnover of T Lymphocytes in SIV-Infected Rhesus Macaques. Science 1998; 279: 1223 – 1227

291. Zhang ZQ, Notermans DW, Sedgewick G, et al. Kinetics of CD4+ T cell repopulation of lymphoid tissues after treatment of HIV-1 infection. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1998; 95: 1154 – 1159

292. Sachsenberg N, Perelson AS, Yerly S, et al. Turnover of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes in HIV-1 infection as measured by Ki-67 antigen. J Exp Med 1998; 187: 1295 – 1303

293. Rosenzweig M, DeMaria MA, Harper DM, et al. Increased rates of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T lymphocyte turnover in simian immunodeficiency virus-infected macaques. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1998; 95: 6388 – 6393

294. Hellerstein M, Hanley MB, Cesar D, et al. Directly measured kinetics of circulating T lymphocytes in normal and HIV-1-infected humans. Nat Med 1999; 5: 83 – 89

295. Hazenberg MD, Stuart JW, Otto SA, et al. T-cell division in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection is mainly due to immune activation: a longitudinal analysis in patients before and during highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Blood 2000; 95: 249 – 255

296. McCune JM, Hanley MB, Cesar D, et al. Factors influencing T-cell turnover in HIV-1-seropositive patients. J Clin Invest 2000; 105: R1 – R8

297. Fleury S, Rizzardi GP, Chapuis A, et al. Long-term kinetics of T cell production in HIV-infected subjects treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2000; 97: 5393 – 5398

298. Fleury S, de Boer RJ, Rizzardi GP, et al. Limited CD4+ T-cell renewal in early HIV-1 infection: effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Nat Med 1998; 4: 794 – 801

299. Folks TM, Kessler SW, Orenstein JM, et al. Infection and replication of HIV-1 in purified progenitor cells of normal human bone marrow. Science 1988; 242: 919 – 922

It does not support your fanciful fictions.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 3:02 AM

DUESBERGS BALLS ARE ONLY OUTSHINED BY ONLY ONE OTHER MANS BALLS..

Duesberg’s balls glow in the dark? I am awestruck, but I don’t think I’ll be bowing my head.

PS. scurvy has been known to be caused by nutritional deficiencies for over 200 years – long before viruses were discovered.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 3:09 AM

Truthseeker (sic),

You continue to defend your claim that Karpas’s paper can be accurately described as:

the paper of Abraham Karpas of Cambridge agreeing that ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it…”

However, in his paper, Karpas flatly states that HIV infection leads to disease progression and death in nearly every infected person.

A scientific discussion does not require politeness, but it does require honesty.

There is no scientific discussion taking place between us, because you continue to misrepresent Karpas’s paper–even though anyone can obtain the paper and see for himself that your characterization in no way reflects Karpas’ views on the lethality of HIV infection.

Your continued misrepresentation of Karpas prevents you from engaging in any meaningful intellectual discussion, scientific or otherwise.

Your need to misrepresent the views of other people in an attempt to support your own flawed positions only serves to emphasize the irony of your Blog Handle.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 3:23 AM

Noreen says:

Noreen, how long did it take for you to develop an opportunistic infection the first time your CD4 T-cell counts consistently stayed below 200?

I guess we would need to know this information to determine if your asymptomatic period is longer, shorter, or the same this time around.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 3:31 AM

Franklin, my original CD4’s were 78 and I don’t have any idea when or for how long before that first meassuremt of them. However, since stopping the meds, nearly two years ago, they have stayed under 200 and without any incidents.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 2, 2007 6:58 AM

Truthtwister,

You might consider that some people consider lying to be rude. Whether its lying about the paper directly or whether its lying about having read and understood the paper.

Beyond that, it is also considered rude, by many, to put your lies in the mouth of the author of the paper. That you are doing this is clear to anyone who has bothered to read your needlessly verbose comments.

“90%…deadly…10 years” Who is stupid enough to consider a virus that ends the lives of 90% of those infected within 10 years defeated?

You’re worse than the tobacco company execs Truthtwister. You are the Public Relations Officer for death. And you are a fool if you believe anyone should take you seriously.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 2, 2007 9:41 AM

” Fauci agrees – read his textbook chapter in Fundamental Immunology edited by Willam Paul.”

He does not. You are simply incapable of understanding the text.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 3:02 AM

Chris, there is no point in continuing to trade counter assertions, which is your only style of argument. Let the intelligent reader decide what is going on, on and between the lines, even if it is too subtle for you to appreciate. The text is there for all to see.

It is disappointing however to try and meet you on your own three year old level and find that you disown it, Isn’t that what you enjoy? If not, why do you do it?

Surely there is only one reason why those who are challenged reply with noxious crudities. Their intellectual position is too weak.

Your continued misrepresentation of Karpas prevents you from engaging in any meaningful intellectual discussion, scientific or otherwise.
Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 3:23 AM

The readers can easily decide who is right, Franklin. All your claim repetition adds up to is your own certainty that you know what is going on. That is what is known as the Kraft-Dunning effect.

“90%…deadly…10 years” Who is stupid enough to consider a virus that ends the lives of 90% of those infected within 10 years defeated?

You’re worse than the tobacco company execs Truthtwister. You are the Public Relations Officer for death. And you are a fool if you believe anyone should take you seriously.
Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 2, 2007 9:41 AM

The Kraft-Dunning effect in glorious technicolor, Roy, thanks for the demo. Maybe you should ask yourself if you understand why the texts we have in hand are being written, not just what they claim..

Thanks again to Tara for hosting three supposedly competent people who when disturbed in their complacency emit such incivilities that decent people cannot abide being in the same room.

Probably the only thing that keeps most good people here is a sense of public responsibility that impels them to contradict supposely intelligent people who distort science and condemn so many to lethal medications.

Of course, the misleading claims and self-contradictory assertions are worth teasing out so that they can be exposed for what they are: management of data and logic to fit a monkey meme. Forewarned is forearmed, and the list of false counters to the debunking of HIV=AIDS is always useful.

Shame on you three for the insulting tone of your posts, though, which don’t even deserve humorous tolerance, let alone satire. But the posts are now on the record for all to see and judge.

1016 comments and what have you learned? Absolutely nothing, it seems. And that’s your most effective argument, isn’t it?

Exactly like the professor in Pisa, who refused to look through the telescope, because he thought it was a trick.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 12:21 PM

Noreen,

From the information you provide, you have no way of knowing how long your CD4 counts had been below 200 cells/microliter before developing your fitrst opportunistic infection. They may have been below 200 for 2 years or more before your illness manifested itself.

If that is the case, your current clinical condition would be entirely consistent with your original clinical presentation.

In the table that I brought to your attention, 14% of individuals with CD4 counts below 200 cells/microliter and viral loads greater than 30,000 copies/ml did not develop an opportunistic infection over a 3 year period.

From what I can tell, there is nothing about the course of your disease that contradicts the importance of CD4 T-cell counts and viral load testing for prognosis of HIV-infected patients.

You have made choice that avoiding potential toxicities of anti-retroviral medications is of utmost importance to you. That is a perfectly valid choice, and I am glad that you are so pleased with the outcome of your choice over the past two years.

But for you to claim that your condition disproves the relationship between HIV infection, decline of CD4 T-cells, and immune deficiency is fallacious.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 12:34 PM

Precisely Truthseeker, these staunch defenders of failed science, refuse to learn anything let alone have any semblance of logical thought. Sad but true.

Posted by: carter | December 2, 2007 12:36 PM

Truthseeker (sic),

If my posts seem repetitive to you, it is because you have yet to respond to the criticisms of your position.

I explained my understanding of your assertions about Karpas’s essay, why they are wrong, how your continued defense of these assertions can only be explained by lying or a lack of comprehension, and your response has been merely to fantasize about my mommy spanking my tiny botty.

Your incompetence even extends to your insults.

You have accused Chris, Roy, and myself of demonstrating the “Kraft-Dunning Effect.”

I believe you mean the Kruger-Dunning Effect, the phenomenon wherein “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it).”

That you are ignorant of the scientific context of the Kruger-Dunning Effect, yet continue to confidently assert it in your rhetorical arguments, provides an ironically satisfying illustration of your ignorance, incmompetence, and intellectual puffery.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 1:01 PM

By staying here and as more and more time goes by and my levels are public knowledge, we will all see what the outcome will be. I am not afraid to post levels, etc. as I have great confidence in the fact that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 2, 2007 3:42 PM

I believe you mean the Kruger-Dunning Effect, the phenomenon wherein “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it).”

That you are ignorant of the fact that Chris mentioned this paper here first in this thread, and that I have mentioned it since many times, provides an ironically not very satisfying example of how silly you are, franklin.

It doesn’t let you off the hook for misleading readers by claiming that an inert virus causes the immune system catastrophe which you want to medicate with DNA chain terminators, though.

It doesn’t let you off the hook for supporting this monstrous iatrogenic evil when you claim to be able to understand the science, and read the criticism of it carefully.

It doesn’t let you off the hook when people sicken and die, half of them in this country from the drugs you support, and which may support you, is that right?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 3:49 PM

Noreeen, if I may you ask out of curiosity, what changes you made in your lifestyle (namely nutrition) since you stopped with the ARVs and/or recovered from those AIDS defining symptoms? And what kind of ARVs (name/class) you were taking?

Posted by: Rezaf | December 2, 2007 4:40 PM

Rezaf, basically, I eat a low fat diet with some carbs diet. Very little sugar, sodas and not much junk food, except I do like chocolate. To answer your second question, they initially started me Sustiva, Viread and lamivudine. I stopped these meds for six weeks and then was placed on truvada, atazanavir and lamivudine. I was very allergic to atazanavir meaning my skin, including my eyes and inside mouth turned green along with very high liver enzymes. Then I was placed on a third set, which was Truvada, Ritonavir and I think lexvia is an antiviral.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 2, 2007 5:04 PM

” Very little sugar, sodas and not much junk food, except I do like chocolate”

chocolote is VERY good for you (in moderation, of course)

A square a day keeps the doctor away!

try the belgian chocolates, they are better than the Swiss (I just commited treason!). I recommend Mont d’Or- more cocoa….mmmmmm yummy!

Posted by: patrick moore | December 2, 2007 5:55 PM

The cure for scurvy was proposed by average laypeople, indigenous tribesman, who reccomeneded tree bark, fruits, high in vitamin c, it was ignored for decades, they were called “cranks” patients were denied informed consent and thousands died needlessly, sounds like what is going on now.

and idiotic experts pursued thier stupid theories such as infections etc. for decades ignoring hypothesis bc of scientific arrogance, murdering hundereds of thousands when the cure was already proposed and ignored by hacks like you guys. Not only that the sailors were not made aware of this easy cure, if they did they would have tried it and lived instead of dying a miserable death, ie Shows you how dumb experts can be, pathetic sycophants sheep that classic examples of groupthink at its worst, denying patients informed consent (for if they were made aware of the tribespeople reccomendation they would have tried and lived, but no, the experts said it was crankery! and they should not be able to hear such a thing, just shutup and take your medicine like nurse ratched said) You guys are pathetic.

Same thing now with your no animal model 1/1000 cell slow viruses. See hiv fact or fraud.

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 6:01 PM

Franklin:

Your incompetence even extends to your insults.

You have accused Chris, Roy, and myself of demonstrating the “Kraft-Dunning Effect.”

I believe you mean the Kruger-Dunning Effect, the phenomenon wherein “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it).”

Truthseeker (sic):

I believe you mean the Kruger-Dunning Effect, the phenomenon wherein “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it).”

The irony arises not from having referred to it first nor even from mentioning many times.

The irony arises from repeatedly referring to it as the Kraft-Dunning Effect, illustrating the overconfidence fueled by ignorance that lies at the heart of the effect.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 6:02 PM

Noreen,
From the information you provide, you have no way of knowing how long your CD4 counts had been below 200 cells/microliter before developing your fitrst opportunistic infection. They may have been below 200 for 2 years or more before your illness manifested itself.
If that is the case, your current clinical condition would be entirely consistent with your original clinical presentation.
In the table that I brought to your attention, 14% of individuals with CD4 counts below 200 cells/microliter and viral loads greater than 30,000 copies/ml did not develop an opportunistic infection over a 3 year period.
From what I can tell, there is nothing about the course of your disease that contradicts the importance of CD4 T-cell counts and viral load testing for prognosis of HIV-infected patients. (Franklin)

Franklin,

You never answer questions on substance, so I don’t suppose you’re gonna answer this one either since you’re basically a chickenshit:

What if Noreen had an intitial CD4 count, before any (other) AIDS defining clinical symptoms, of less than 200 for 5 years; would that “contradict the importance of CD4 T-cell counts and viral load testing for prognosis of HIV-infected patients”?

Would anything contradict the Fiat of your mono-causal god?

How about 8 years? 10 years? 20 years?

You wanna play chicken? Franklin Maybe, just maybe, I have before me a couple of old CD4 counts from Noreen. Remember she has a long history of health problems. Are you on? Name the stakes.

How about meeting Christine Maggiore in LA

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 2, 2007 6:05 PM

The Kraft-Dunning effect in glorious technicolor, Roy, thanks for the demo. Maybe you should ask yourself if you understand why the texts we have in hand are being written, not just what they claim..

Truthtwister, you are sounding more an more like a three year old. A typical three year old will try to talk back by parroting the language that it hears. Accusing me of demonstrating the Kraft-Dunning(sic) effect is a good example of simply parroting such a criticism.

You give me no reason tyo believe that you have read and understood the paper by Kruger and Dunning or the articles by Karpas, Richman and Fauci.

You keep on vainly claiming that Karpas says something that he doesn’t. He categorically does not say that the human immune system defeats HIV. The only way that youi can come to the conclusion that he does is through ignornace, wishful thinking and self-delusion.

The reason why Denialists perform this charade is extremely obvious. Denialists do no actual research on HIV or AIDS of their own. Zero. They are then limited to misinterpretting the results of others and trying to pretend that these scientists really agree with the Denialists. Maniotis has already shown the way.

Pubjacking howto

The only thing that Maniotis demonstrated was that he is incapable of accurately and honestly quoting from papers and that he can’t read and understand lab manuals.

This behaviour is not limited to HIV denialism. The ID proponents do the same thing with “orthodox” papers. They selectively and dishonestly quote “orthodox” papers out of context and then go through the charade of claiming that scientists are closet Intelligent Design proponents.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 8:26 PM

Noble and the rest of you wackjobs, if you are so sure that hiv is the cause of aids, please send us links from pub med for the 3-4 first scientific papers that prove hiv causes AIDS, Koch had orginal expiriments that proved causality, so did shyh ching lo……..so your Idol moores rocket ship analalogy is the biggest joke of them all. Waiting…………………………….

Posted by: cooler | December 2, 2007 9:05 PM

The irony arises from repeatedly referring to it as the Kraft-Dunning Effect, illustrating the overconfidence fueled by ignorance that lies at the heart of the effect.
Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 6:02 PM

In a classic example of the Kruger-Dunning effect, the better irony arises, franklin, from your inability to appreciate wordplay. Perhaps one should call it the Kruger-Ebbing effect, to make it clearer through the fog that obscures your brain, the one that the monkey meme sits on, invisible to you but visible to all who read what you write. But then you would complain that I spelled it wrong…sheez.

Anyhow the corpus of Krafft-Ebing is what one keeps thinking of in observing your behavior, and that of your fellow trio members, here. In fact, there seem to be five influences at work at once: 1) Kruger-Dunning 2) Krafft-Ebing 3) Moore-Noble 4) HIV meme 5) The Duesberg-Bialy litmus test for scientific intelligence, or its absence.

In case you didn’t know the Duesberg-Bialy effect (discovered at New AIDS Review, as it happens by the humble blogger) is the following:

The absence of a sense of humor correlates very highly – 99.9999% – with the inability to percieve the Grand Canyon sized flaws in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis.

It is not yet known why this is, but the favored theory is that those brilliant fellows such as yourself who lack the wit and mastery of the topic that allows one to see what is really going on are distracted by the monkey meme jumping up and down on their head.

HIV blocked from T cells

By the way, franklin, if you guys are so familiar with the literature that you know our interpretation is wrong when we see Fauci, Karpas and other commentators of irreproachable mainstream authority acknowledge that HIV is a pussy which the immune system chases up a tree and keeps it there, how about this quote (you recognize it, I hope, and who wrote it):

“However, quantitative studies of the frequency of HIV-infected cells in vivo suggest that single cell killing by direct infection with HIV may not be the predominant mechanism of CD4+ T-cell depletion. In this regard, the proportion of HIV-infected, peripheral blood CD4+ T cells in individuals in the early asymptomatic stage of HIV infection is typically in the range of 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10,10,000 (Pantaleo et al) Although this frequency increases with disease progression,the proportion of HIV infected peripheral blood CD4+ T cells rarely exceeds 1 in 100 even in patients with advanced HIV disease….the data illustrate the difficulty in accounting for CD4+ T-cell depletion solely by direct mechanisms.”

Gee. No direct cell killing by HIV. Parade past us all the excuses and imaginative claims offered to fill this Grand Canyon of contradiction of the first mechanism assumed by the HIV brigade, then read Zvi Grossman on how none of them have the slightest data to back them up and how exactly how HIV kills T cells remains a “conundrum”.

Neutralizing antibodies

Meanwhile try contradicting my description of the overcoming of HIV by the healthy immune system as “DEFEAT” again, when Rochman’s paper is NAMED Rapid evolution of the neutralizing response to HIV type 1 infection. What do you think neutralizing means?

“During the natural course of early HIV infection, fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge and compete for outgrowth in a RAPIDLY EVOLVING NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODY RESPONSE.”

Gallo himself saluted neutralizing antibodies to HIV in 1985 in Nature (Jul 4-10;316 (6023):72-4,

“Natural antibodies capable of neutralizing HTLV-III infection of H9 cells were detected in most adults AIDS and ARC patients but in no normal heterosexual controls.”

The only way HIV escapes these antibodies is to retreat to some hiding place protected from the antibodies in the bloodstream, folks. It doesn’t make any kind of comeback until the antibodies army is weakened by some other sickness, which HIV doesn’t have a chance to cause.

Karpas explains

Why the established paradigm exploiters insist on maintaining that the defeated HIV is the threat is a scientific mystery, but it may have something to do with money After all, even Abraham Karpas, professor of virology at Cambridge and one of the generals of the campaign to support HIV to the tune of $30 billion even though it doesn’t do anything, has this to say about the credentials of his colleagues:

“The history of AIDS research involves huge rewards, unscrupulous ambition, disregard for common principles of scientific conduct, battles over priority leaving injustice uncorrected, and terrible consequences in the wider world.”

Written about Gallo’s record in the early stage of HIV research, from which the asinine theory emerged, but also applicable to the whole crowd of scientific deceivers and their hangers on such as the trio here in the years since.

A sad reflection on human motivations to peddle murder rather than medicine.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 9:27 PM

darin writes YOU REGARD THE PRESENCE OF ANY NUCLEIC ACID WHICH IS DETERMINED BY YOU TO BE “FOREIGN” (whatever that means) AS ORIGINATING IN AN EXOGENOUS VIRUS.

THE NUCLEIC ACID SEQUENCE IS YOUR GOD-KING, YOUR DEITY, YOUR SOVEREIGN. YOU WORSHIP IT.

Once again you appear to have completely misinterpreted reality. “Any” nucleic acid sequence? Hardly. A nucleic acid sequence contains genetic information. If that information is not consistent with a virus that nucleic acid won’t be labelled viral.

Posted by: Dale | December 2, 2007 10:12 PM

In a classic example of the Kruger-Dunning effect, the better irony arises, franklin, from your inability to appreciate wordplay.

Your efforts at argumentation consist entirely of wordplay. You know fully well that Karpas, Richman and Fauci do not support your interpretations and yet you continue to argue about this.

This complete and utter disregard for the truth only demonstrates your dishonesty. It is difficult to tell whether your chosen moniker of “truthseeker” is meant to be an ironic wordplay or youreally are self-deluded.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 10:20 PM

Your efforts at argumentation consist entirely of wordplay. You know fully well that Karpas, Richman and Fauci do not support your interpretations and yet you continue to argue about this.

Don’t be silly, Chris. They agree with what they wrote.

Is that a machine you crank out this repetition on?

Face up to the simple truth that the bigger men in HIV=AIDS have made clear to us:

HIV+ people have vaccinated themselves.

Repeat:

HIV+ people have vaccinated themselves.

Still can’t get it? Let’s leave you forever with a quote:

It takes two to speak the truth. One to speak, and another to hear. – Henry David Thoreau.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 2, 2007 10:31 PM

Truthseeker (sic),

Again you demonstrate that you can only support your erroneous conclusions about HIV by misrepresenting the scientific work of others, either because you are lying or because you are unable to understand the science.

You quote from a paper:

…the data illustrate the difficulty in accounting for CD4+ T-cell depletion solely by direct mechanisms.

Then draw the following conclusion:

Gee. No direct cell killing by HIV.

Perhaps you should look up non sequitur.

Posted by: franklin | December 2, 2007 10:37 PM

Don’t be silly, Chris. They agree with what they wrote.

Don’t be disengenous. You know fully well that they do not agree with your interpretations and extrapolations of what they wrote.

I am not disagreeing with what Karpas, Richman and Fauci have written. I am disagreeing with your interpretations such as

…ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it.

You are playing a juvenile game whereby you are pretending that I am disagreeing with Karpas, Richman and Fauci. I am not.

I have stated exactly why you are wrong. You continue to fill this webblog with overly verbose empty rhetoric.

Grow up!

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 11:00 PM

“During the natural course of early HIV infection, fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge and compete for outgrowth in a RAPIDLY EVOLVING NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODY RESPONSE.”

I acn only think of the term cognitive dissonance at this point although I suspect that Truthtwister will simply parrot this criticism back.

Somehow Truthtwister manages to avoid the part of this sentence which states that fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge. An honest person would not equate this to “defeat”. What does “fully functional” mean? What does “continuously emerge” mean?

As another example of cognitive dissonance Truthtwister failes to quote this sentence

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy.

Richman is saying that ART is better at reducing viral replication than the normal human immune response.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 11:15 PM

What does “fully functional” mean? What does
“continuously emerge” mean?

Dr. N

What does “early HIV infection” mean? As stated here the quote is a perfect tautology within the HIV belief system. If no “fully fuctional”, envelope variants emerged during “early infection”, it wouldn’t be much of an “infection” would it now?

Karpas then hypothesizes that HIV, AFTER EARLY INFECTION, never becomes completely latent (never fully “defeated”, just resorting to scattered, ineffectual for years, guerilla warfare) because the explanatory lentivirus model demands it or the HIV construct would merge into the “ordinary” opportunistic infection scenario, as Adele in one of her few bright moments has told us it is.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 2, 2007 11:54 PM

What does “early HIV infection” mean?

The paper by Richman covered the time period of 0-39 months post infection.

HIV is never latent except perhaps in a small percentage of elite controllers. It is a persistent chronic infection as distinct from viruses such as herpes simplex that form persistent latent infections.

Stop trying to put words into Karpas’ mouth. The only thing you are demonstrating is your dishonesty.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 12:10 AM

Truthseeker (sic),

Maybe you’re not lying, after all.

At least not on all of the points you argue.

When it comes to Richman et al. (2003) it seems just as likely to me that you simply do not understand the paper, because the passages you quote disprove your thesis that HIV is defeated by the immune response in “any healthy person exposed to HIV” (free full text available here).

As Chris has already pointed out, the second passage you quoted indicates that despite the neutralizing antibodies made by the infected patients, “fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge.”

Even in the patients with the greatest production of neutralizing antibodies, the virus is not defeated, but instead continuously evades the immune response via evolution of resistant mutants.

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy. During the course of HIV evolution, the envelope protein has acquired the ability to retain function (i.e., bind receptors) while tolerating multiple and repeated changes in several highly variable regions containing numerous glycosylation sites (32). Although drug-resistance mutations confer much greater fitness in the presence of antiretroviral drugs, they typically do not exist as common polymorphisms in untreated patients because they impair the replication of wild-type viruses. In contrast, during the natural course of early HIV infection, fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge and compete for outgrowth in the presence of a rapidly evolving neutralizing antibody response.

The antibody response evolves rapidly, but the authors show that the virus evolves even more rapidly.

They demonstrate the more rapid evolution of the virus by studying virus and antibodies isolated from the same blood sample.

The patients’ antibodies are less effective at neutralization of the virus present in the blood sample from which the antibody was derived than virus present in earlier blood samples from the same patient.

Because the evolution of the antibody response does not keep up with the evolution of the virus, the antibody response “fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication” and fails to defeat the virus.

I certainly hope that you wouldn’t lie about such an elegant experiment.

Somehow, I would prefer to believe that you simply don’t understand it.

For, in my opinion, to purposely lie about this work is to besmirch a thing of beauty.

Posted by: franklin | December 3, 2007 12:11 AM

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy.

“Richman is saying that ART is better at reducing viral replication than the normal human immune response” (Dr. N)

What Richman does, Dr. N, is point to one of the many paradoxes raised by an explanatory model which is forced to assume that HIV is mutating furiously as answer to “strong selective pressure”, aka known as a potent antibody response.

The paradox is, as stated, that an antibody response which is so powerful that it forces HIV to perform evolutionary acrobatics which outpace many times over in a single infected person the worldwide evolution of an average influenza strain during the course of an entire year is supposedly still not potent enough to dent the viral load.

That is like carpet bombing an Iraqi village all night only to discover in the morning that all major structures are still intact and Al-Qaeda holding a soccer tournament in the town square.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 3, 2007 12:22 AM

Why do HIV enthusiasts pretend that they don’t know the obvious? Antibodies afftect what’s accessible in the blood and may have little effect on virus in the lymph nodes or inside cells, where replication could continue.

This does not mean that an antibody response is without benefit. The low rate of infected T-cells, “1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000″ acccording to Dr. Fauci in his chapter from Fundamental Immunology (2003, p. 1294) that Truthseeker quoted above, indicates that the immune response is doing an effective job in curbing the virus in the blood. Or as a Cambridge virology professor put it:

“The immune response to HIV can be compared to that of a live viral vaccine. It explains why most HIV-infected patients remain well for many years.” – Abraham Karpas

In his review (Biology Reviews 79:911-933, 2004), Karpas mentioned the hypothesis that “mutants emerge that manage to evade the immune response and lead to disease progression and death…” He quickly noted, however, that “this cannot be the only reason” for AIDS mortality. As D.D. Richman et al. note in their paper, “Rapid evolution of the neutralizing antibody response to HIV type 1 infection” (PNAS, April 1, 2003), in a third of the HIV patients they studied the neutralizing antibody response was actrally stronger against the mutant variant than against the original strain of HIV.

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 3, 2007 12:23 AM

Robert Houston:

No Robert. Richman et al. are not forced to assume that “HIV is mutating furiously.”

Richman et al. experimentally demostrate that the antibody response does not neutralize the virus present in the same plasma sample from which the antibodies are derived as effectively as it can neutralize virus isolated from earlier plasma samples from the same patient.

They experimentally demonstrate that the virus evolves in such a way that it escapes from the neutralizing anitbody response of the host.

This is known as the scientific method.

Posted by: franklin | December 3, 2007 12:33 AM

Robodoc N,

I think we’ve all got today’s talking point upload. Words are being put in Karpa’s mouth. Now I may have confused Richman and Karpas at somepoint, though I doubt it, but apart from that show me you pathetic overpaid, whatever you’re paid, spambot where I put words in Karpa’s mouth.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 3, 2007 12:39 AM

My apologies Robert.

MEC stated:

No MEC. Richman et al. are not “forced to assume that HIV is mutating furiously.”

They experimentally demonstrate that the virus evolves in such a way that it escapes from the neutralizing anitbody response of the host.

This is known as the scientific method.

Somehow, it seems less surprising that MEC would not recognize the scientific method.

Again, my apologies, Robert.

Posted by: franklin | December 3, 2007 12:45 AM

Here’s your scientific method Frankie,

As D.D. Richman et al. note in their paper, “Rapid evolution of the neutralizing antibody response to HIV type 1 infection” (PNAS, April 1, 2003), in a third of the HIV patients they studied the neutralizing antibody response was actually stronger against the mutant variant than against the original strain of HIV.

And THAT quote was brought us by the real Robert Houston

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 3, 2007 12:46 AM

MEC,

Try bringing your head far enough out from under the sand to look not just at “quotes” but at the actual data:

Posted by: franklin | December 3, 2007 12:50 AM

I have stated exactly why you are wrong. You continue to fill this webblog with overly verbose empty rhetoric. Grow up! Posted by: Chris Noble | December 2, 2007 11:00 PM

You are always ready to stop people enlightening you and other HIV loyalists with your wearying, pedestrian, heavy footed, mechanical, predictable, monkey meme repetitive and insulting responses, Chris, which do certainly convince one you are incapable of seeing beyond your own nose, yes.

OK how’s this for brevity:

HIV+ people have vaccinated themselves.

Period.

Just in case you crank your meme machine again, let’s say it slightly longer, so readers can see it clearly.

After several weeks at most, all HIV+ people have vaccinated themselves against HIV, period, because antibody neutralization is completely effective, reducing virus presence and activity to a vanishing point, where it stays for as many years as you otherwise stay healthy, and even if you fall fatally sick will barely manage a resurgence from negligible reservoirs outside the bloodstream.

Once they are self-vaccinated, HIV will never trouble them in any way that paradigm partners such as yourself can justify from the published literature, even though you read it through paradigm loyalist spectacles with the HIV meme monkey tying your optic nerve into a knot.

Karpas wrote it, I quoted it, your posts have confirmed it, your friends also confirm it, so I bid you Goodbye, since the case is proved.

It would be appreciated if you would now kindly switch off your repetition/red herring/contradiction/contempt/accusation Kruger-Dunning-Moore-Noble-Krafft-Ebing meme machine and not have the monkey crank out yet another “you misinterpret/you lie/you misinterpret/you lie/you misinterpret/you lie/you misinterpret/you lie” post so that we don’t have to deal with your uniform autoreplies again.

We all understand that you three don’t understand, Chris. The only objective is to help readers understand that.

You have been a big help, thanks.

“Antibodies neutralize HIV” – Abraham Karpas, Anthony Fauci, Douglas Richman, Robert Gallo, Margaret Johnson, David Ho, Nancy Padian, John P. Moore, Peter Duesberg, Harvey Bialy, Henry Bauer, Gordon Stewart, Rebecca Culshaw, Darin Brown, Robert Houston, Claus Jensen, in fact every intelligent student of HIV?AIDS except Chris Noble and his acolytes here.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 1:19 AM

This does not mean that an antibody response is without benefit.

Nobody is saying otherwise. There is, however, a large gap between that and HIV being “defeated”. You appear to be going to a great deal of effort to confuse the issue. The evidence shows that HIV viral titres rise to a high during the acute infection stage and then fall to a non-zero “set-point”. At no stage is HIV “defeated”. It is never latent.

HIV continues to replicate after the acute infection period and continues to cause CD4+ cell depletion.

A large proportion of the damage is done in the initial acute infection stage.

HIV pathogenesis: the first cut is the deepest

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 1:25 AM

Karpas wrote it, I quoted it, your posts have confirmed it, your friends also confirm it, so I bid you Goodbye, since the case is proved.

Karpas most definitely did not write: “ordinary levels of antibodies seen in any healthy person exposed to HIV are sufficient to defeat it” and he most definitely did not write “because antibody neutralization is completely effective”

You know perfectly well that Karpas does not agree with you and yet you continue to claim that he does.

The only things that you have proven are your powers of self-delusion and your inability to admit to a mistake.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 1:36 AM

At no stage is HIV “defeated”. It is never latent.

It is “never latent”? A mistyping, Chris?

You still are missing the fundamental distinction between the factual concession Karpas makes (HIV is neutralized by antibodies) and the imaginary claim he tries to make (it makes a comeback against a healthy immune system and defeats it after all):

Factual concession:

“This does not mean that an antibody response is without benefit.” Nobody is saying otherwise. There is, however, a large gap between that and HIV being “defeated”. You appear to be going to a great deal of effort to confuse the issue. The evidence shows that HIV viral titres rise to a high during the acute infection stage and then fall to a non-zero “set-point”. – Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 1:25 AM

Imaginary claim:

At no stage is HIV “defeated”. It is never latent. HIV continues to replicate after the acute infection period and continues to cause CD4+ cell depletion.

A large proportion of the damage is done in the initial acute infection stage.- Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 1:25 AM

Inadvertent factual concession:

HIV pathogenesis: the first cut is the deepest. -Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 1:25 AM

Yes. After the initial multiplication of HIV before the immune system gears up, HIV is quickly put down.and there is no further revival. But there is no “cut” before, during or after.

HIV does nothing except vaccinate you against HIV.

You are vaccinated by harmless HIV. Period.

Chris, you seem to be unaware that the vaccine project is planning to spend billions, and here you are being told that the best vaccination against HIV is HIV itself.

Why don’t you just believe what Karpas tells you, claim some of the money for yourself, take a holiday, and stop annoying everybody with misleading objections to good science?

Just a suggestion.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 1:59 AM

Truthseeker (sic):

Why do you maintain that the continued replication of HIV in the face of the neutralizing immune response is imaginary, given that Richman has provided experimental verification of the virus eluding even the most potent immune responses that they observed?

Richman demonstrates a neutralizing antibody response and the evolution of the virus to escape the response. Neither is imaginary. Both have been empirically demonstrated.

You simply choose to bury your head in the sand and ignore the data that you so helpfully brought to our attention.

Posted by: franklin | December 3, 2007 2:15 AM

It is “never latent”? A mistyping, Chris?

Unlike you I write what I mean and I mean what I type.

At no stage is HIV latent. It seems that at this stage of the conversation you are still not aware of the distinction between latent and chronic infection.

Natural history of acute and persistent human infections

Inadvertent factual concession:

It was neither inadvertent nor a concession. Why do you play these silly word games?

Why don’t you just believe what Karpas tells you, claim some of the money for yourself, take a holiday, and stop annoying everybody with misleading objections to good science?

I am not objecting to anything Karpas has written but rather your persistent misinterpretations.

Your rhetorical attempt to pit me against Karpas is simply pathetic. You know perfectly well that Karpas does not agree with you.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 2:52 AM

Because my wits have not been frightened out of me by the story of the nightmare Virus, which allows me to see that whatever life the virus might still manage to have coaxed out of it by Richman matters not a jot, because the Virus is so effectively neutralized by antibodies that it couldn’t overcome the healthy immune system which imprisoned it safely away from the bloodstream and which keeps it locked up safely for the duration.

In biology quantity rules. As Moore points out in one of his sadly neglected masterpieces, they chuck 40-500 times as much Virus at cells to prove it is toxic as occurs in vivo. Naturally it proves toxic.

Franklin you underestimately the level of rationalizing BS going on even though you do it yourself!

Franklin, a word in your ear. Here’s a plan. Forget about Chris and John Moore, and repeat fine times after me:

Harmless HIV does nothing but vaccinate you against harmless HIV.

See if it fits the scientific literature, which it will, without exception, except that part of the literature which consists of data management, paradigm imposed misinterpretation and so forth.

Then have lunch at Nello’s with Anthony Fauci and David Ho, and tell them that you have a short cut to the HIV vaccine. HIV itself.

Show them Karpas’ paper as evidence you know what you are talking about.

Anthony Fauci will say something like, “Franklin, who have you told about this? Anybody else?” He will look at David Ho meaningfully.

You should reply, “I have put it in a sealed bank box to be opened at my death.”

Fauci will suddenly become very friendly, swear you to secrecy, and give you a check for $500 million.

If you don’t bother to mention this to Chris Noble, no one will blame you. However, it might be as well to give him and Hinckley $100 million just in case they start investigating why Fauci didn’t respond to THEIR phone calls on the same topic.

My commission is merely $10 million, since it is your status as family that will get you the lunch with Fauci and Ho. They probably wouldn’t see me at all.

Good luck!

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 2:58 AM

This sentence highlights the fundamental dishonesty of Denialists. They cherry pick isolated bits of papers that they falsely believe support their position and ignore the rest that refutes that position.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 2:59 AM

This is a classic Duesbergian misdirection. The vast majority of CD4+ cells are in lymphoid tissue and not in circulating blood. Not coincidentally this lymphoid tissue is the major reservoir for HIV and it is where it is doing its damage. Far from being locked up safely HIV is continuously replicating in lymphoid tissue at all stages of infection.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 3:19 AM

At no stage is HIV latent. It seems that at this stage of the conversation you are still not aware of the distinction between latent and chronic infection.- Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 2:52 AM,/i>

Neither statement is true.

The above statement reflects the foolishness of those who cannot see what part of a paper is based on data and what part based on imaginative argument, which doesn’t refute anything, especially the data in the other part of the paper.

The foolishness arises from the HIV meme which monkeys about with the already strained reasoning powers of those whose only scientific role is teacher’s pet.

Sorry Chris but you are trying to manoever your next roadblock into our path when we are already gone.

There is a limit to which one can carry on dancing with a monkey with a wooden leg, even if it is a meme.

Adieu!

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 3:19 AM

No, it demonstrates that the sole criterion you use to decide which part of a paper to cite is whether you can spin it to support your position. You are quite happy to cite Karpas as an authority when a sentence can be twisted to mean something that appears to support your claim but you have no trouble dismissing every thing else he says that clearly refutes your position.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. This schizophrenic attitude to the literature is characteristic fro Denialists.

The paper by Richman et al that you cited is a classic example. It details direct experimental evidence that HIV continues to replicate despite the antibody response.

Even the title should give you a few clues: Rapid evolution of the neutralizing antibody response to HIV type 1 infection.

Why would the antibody response continue to evolve over a period of 39 months if HIV has been put out of action?

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 3:34 AM

Neither statement is true.

I can only conclude once again that you are either knowingly lying or are too stupid to have a clue what you are talking about.

The very paper by Richman et al that you yourself cited demonstrates that HIV is never latent.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 3:55 AM

Baghdad Bob (AKA Truthtwister) said:

“Karpas wrote it, I quoted it, your posts have confirmed it, your friends also confirm it, so I bid you Goodbye, since the case is proved.”

Now TS, if only you would read it:

“90%…deadly…10 years” – A. Karpas

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 3, 2007 7:44 AM

“Truthseeker” or, more aptly, truthtwister (with props to Hinkley),

Your insistence on calling yourself a seeker of truth is irking me out of my silence of several weeks. You and your fellow “journalist,” Robert Houston, pretend to objectivity. Yet you both keep yourselves as far from facts as you can, and the extent of your “objectivity” is revealed in most of what you write, including Robert Houston’s reference to scientists as “HIV enthusiasts.” Anyone who can call a Joseph Sonnabend or any prominent AIDS doc or researcher an “HIV enthusiast” has never spent enough time with such people to learn of their passion and compassion and hatred of the virus.

Until you have some basic knowledge of biology, chemistry, mathematics, etc., it is pointless to argue with you about science. Nothing lost there, since science is clearly not the sticking point with you. Your objection is to facts or authority in general, it seems.

Is that perhaps why you try to provoke others with your self-consciously un-PC remarks?

Such as calling Tara “delectable” above (i.e. delicious, for cooler’s benefit)?

Or writing that jen is just another “female know-nothing”?

Or questioning Adele’s gender, deciding she must be a (male) “gay activist,” a term you use with the utmost of disgust?

Your apparent problems with society’s acceptance (relatively speaking, of course) of women as more than vacuous eye candy for British “gentlemen” who use the royal “we” and of gay people as worthy of something more than dismissal as “activists” would be a good place for you to start in assessing your unwillingness to be objective re science.

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | December 3, 2007 11:51 AM

Now TS, if only you would read it:
“90%…deadly…10 years” – A. Karpas
Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 3, 2007 7:44 AM

Why do you truncate this quote till it its absurdity is unrecognisable, Roy? It reads in full:

You do know the date this was written, and examined, and revised, till Karpas and the peer reviewers and editors of Bio. Rev. were satisfied it was accurate? 2004, in case you overlooked it.

So we have them all agreeing that 90% of those infected with HIV develop AIDS within ten years.

How does this jibe with the current claim that the mean latent period of HIV is ten years or more? That would indicate that 50% or fewer would be showing AIDS symptoms by the ten year mark, wouldn’t it? Indeed that is the case – fewer, in fact, as the predictions fail and fail, kept up only by the medications being applied earlier.

Now the UN has corrected the 70 million guess, which was pessimistic to say the least in 2004, to 33 million today.

Don’t you recognise what is happening? These guys go overboard in pushing the view of AIDS towards the doomsday scenario of maximum sick and dead people, as they make as many claims as they can in that direction to keep the disbursements from the public purse flowing in an era where you have to compete for every penny, especially when you already have more than your fair share.

It is almost childishly transparent in this case.

Yes, Karpas is an honest man when contemplating facts. When trying to keep his fellow Fauci Club members happy, however, having burst their balloon with his observations of how HIV gets stopped and rolled back to a negligible set point by any healthy person’s antibodies (pace the three HIV meme monkeys sharing silently in this thread), he rushes to prove he is a fully paid up loyal member of the HIV=AIDS Maximum Funding Regardless of Absurd Hypothesis Killing Gays and Blacks Club, and talks nonsense about 90% being ill in ten years, and 70 million infected.

Roy, as the only bright and creative and somewhat careful and thoughtful person here defending the absurd paradigm, at least unleash your sophisticated reading of journal review texts and in this case see the blindingly apparent.

Harmless HIV vaccinates against harmless HIV.

That is the only conclusion for which we have any data for this exceptionally rewarding but otherwise overwhelmingly inert retrovirus.

Perhaps you are a physicist who doesn’t understand what is going on in biology as far as funding pressures warping common sense goes, but just as an example from another field, why not skim that Kruger-Dunning paper just for laughs?

Its brilliant topic of study which it proves several different ways is that dim people do not realize how dim they are. The funding is from the NIMH. Yes, the review committee sat around one day contemplating this proposal and funded it. In other words, public money was spent proving that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

This is the pretty pass we have reached in the semi-sciences of psychology and disease study. You may be shocked to hear me label disease study a semi science, and claim that disease is an active arena for such collegial boondoggles. But that is what appears to be the case, from SARS to bird flu. The outstanding example of jobs-for-the-boys peer review is HIV=AIDS, and it has encouraged all kinds of imitation, it appears.

Of course, I am writing this in the fond belief that you are not a player in this sphere who is well aware of what I say, but an unwitting fellow traveler from a cleaner arena such as physics.

Your friend,

Baghdad Bob II

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 12:06 PM

I must say that this amusing (and quite tedious) thread has showed a few glimmers of solid reasoning. I salute Truthseeker for actually engaging some of these AIDS knuckleheads, who really don’t think about these issues (let alone falsify them), but merely close ranks with their better paid brethren of the orthodoxy to recapitulate standard, scientific-sounding garbage.

HIV develops its own vaccine!

SARS is bullshit, so is avian bird flu, so is west nile, so is the dreaded swine flu of the 70’s, .. the list endless, and in a few years we may just have to add HIV to it.

Posted by: Barney | December 3, 2007 1:27 PM

Barney,
The fact of the matter is HIV is on the list of dead virus campaigns, except that the great protectors and purveyors of the paradigm wish to keep the status quo because God forbid they should loose their funding. Want to stop HIV AIDS? – drop the funding.

Posted by: Carter | December 3, 2007 2:22 PM

“Truthseeker” or, more aptly, truthtwister (with props to Hinkley),…etc etc etc. Posted by: ElkMountainMan | December 3, 2007 11:51 AM

By the mighty Virus you cannot even read the posts properly, Mr Elk, so you really don’t deserve a reply to this series of rank misstatements and misreadings, almost one per sentence. We would sympathie with you if any were true, but none of them are.

One might observe, however, that you fit neatly into the Duesberg-Bialy litmus test of intelligence in this affair, being somewhat humorless in your perceptions of what we wrote. That’s one cause of what “irks” you, it is clear, in this very inaccurate reading of posts you have skimmed on return from your holiday.

The absence of a sense of humor correlates very highly – 99.9999% – with the inability to perceive the Grand Canyon sized flaws in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis.

But just for the record, who said Joseph Sonnabend lacked compassion? The problem is that he loves the Virus nearly as much as all its other scientific husbands, who we observe married to it for its money. He may not be thinking straight because he is a doctor in the midst of dealing with the tortures visited upon the HIV congregation by its priests, but he knew enough to resist until he was threatened with being cut off by the powers that be, when he compromised.

We cannot see into his soul and cannot say why it happened, but it looks suspect to us, since nothing had changed in the data to make HIV any more likely a candidate for causing the effects of drugs, conventional illness and nutritional deficit, which are obviously the real causes of AIDS illness and deaths to anyone who reads the literature with any objectivity.

Oh sorry, are we talking to someone with the HIV meme sitting in his brain? Then you believe that he just grew more enlightened, right, as “overwhelming evidence” accumulated?

OK we’ll have to leave it at that, though referring you to the recent posts recording the rout of Christopher Noble et al trying to maintain that HIV is not powerfully neutralized by the immune system of any healthy person in a manner equivalent to any good vaccine.

But kindly do not babble about how we don’t credit data and good scientific reasoning, that we scorn authority, etc when we don’t. We recognize the authority of good scientists who are not politically influenced to skew their judgement away from what good data and precise reasoning indicate.

Nor accuse us of scorning gays when we only scorn the ignorance and prejudice of gay activists who profit from the monetary disbursement of drug companies into their organisations and then by some remarkable coincidence reliably agitate on behalf of the HIV paradigm and the drugs sold on that rationale which injure and eventually kill them and their friends.

Sorry, but that is the height of non-science to us, since the reasoning and objective data of good science as found in the literature is our touchstone in viewing events in this catastrophically misunderstood plague. You imply this measure is yours also. Then what a pity you don’t feel responsible enough to get yourself together and get a proper grasp on events and what we are saying, instead of firing off objections to statements we didn’t make and attitudes we don’t have. So typical of the masochistic self injury of the gay activists in this field to be so righteous when wrongly informed. Do you really want to mimic them?

And by the way we don’t have any problem whatsoever with society’s acceptance of women as more than eye candy, we support it totally, in fact unlike you we accept it as going without saying. In any circles we have anything to do with there is no mention of color or sex as affecting credentials in any public role, polticial or academic.

Sorry that you still seem to feel this is an issue, so when we delight in Tara’s superattractive image as posted by herself proudly on her site you start worrying about whether we take her mind seriously or not, when it has nothing to do with that. We would take her mind more seriously if it showed a more critical and independent scrutiny of HIV=AIDS, but that has nothing to do with her appearance.

Are you suggesting that attractive people are dumber than plain people? Why would that be? Is that what you think, since it occurs to you and not to us? If anything we imagine that they would be brighter, since they would get more attention and support in life.

While we are repeating quotes, let’s just repeat this one from Houston for the third time:

“The immune response to HIV can be compared to that of a live viral vaccine. It explains why most HIV-infected patients remain well for many years.” – Abraham Karpas

Let’s see how Chris Noble’s hand cranked autoresponse you liar/you misinterpret/you liar/you misinterpret/you liar Krafft-Dunning-Kruger-Ebing-Moore-Noble-HIV meme machine deals with that one.

Guess it lacks a reverse gear, so we can’t expect much except the same old same old, a pattern which suggests to us he is not even there half the time, he has just set the meme machine to respond automatically to certain posters while he is off somewhere else entirely doing something useful in his life down under..

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 2:47 PM

Meanwhile back at the ranch…

“Investigators found that Brodie [Scott J. Brodie] falsified data in 15 instances — in published and unpublished journal articles, and grant proposals. The research in question included cellular responses to the HIV virus.”

Kinda make one think what kind of science Tara et al. are really supporting, doesnt it?

Click on my name for Seattle Times article by Nick Perry and Carol M. Ostrom

Posted by: carter | December 3, 2007 3:05 PM

Thanks Carter. From that news story:

“It was a very traumatic investigation to be involved with,” Liggitt said. “We got to look at the underbelly of science.”….

He said medical research and HIV research in particular is highly competitive, with the National Institutes of Health making cutbacks and many researchers competing for limited funding. Getting published can help bolster a researcher’s push to land the next grant, he added.

“It’s ugly out there,” Liggitt said. “There are a lot more desperate people because of the cutbacks.”

Oh dear, it seems that Fauci didn’t manage to keep funding up as high as he promised his faithful at last year’s HIVNET meeting after all.

I dont have any sympathy for these guys working on a false and murderous premise which takes a disproportionate amount of funding anyway, so much of it wasted on examining an innocent retrovirus.

They shouldn’t go into science unless they have something to offer science in genuine passion and talent. Find something else which suits you, for God’s Sake, instead of trying to live off deceit in an area which professes truthseeking.

Once in though, I can see they become trapped, what with wives and children and all.

This HIV=AIDS scam that Gallo launched without knowing it would grow so big can be viewed as a trap for all the people involved, with no one able to come clean now without being ruined. How Science, Nature, the Academy of Sciences, the NIH, the NSF, the New York Times, Harvard, etc etc etc can survive any correction is problematical, to say the least. That is why I posted on Saturday that the dissenters may as well give up.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 3:45 PM

Tuthseeker, ElkMountainMan is on old friend, who, like the paper tyger virus, should have remained in the aloof scientific recesses where he is no doubt germinating. However, since by his own words he has been coaxed out of his 6 foot deep chromatin slumber as a reincarnated authority on Political Correctness, moral philosophy, and the satiric genre, maybe he would now like to elaborate, in his own name, on his comments about Christine Maggiore, Al-Bayati and the baby killer connection?

How about it Mr. PC Elk, were your statements concerning those matters just for fun? There’s a free trip to LA and instant fame for you if you can explain to Al-Bayati face to face in a public, non-anonymous venue why you find his work distasteful and his conclusions strange.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 3, 2007 4:19 PM

“There are a lot more desperate people because of the cutbacks.”

Um, well Truthseeker, you know as well as I do it ain’ just cutbacks. The whole freakin ordeal with HIV is just plain desperate!

Each and every post by the apologists here has a very strong and distinct smell of desperation!

Posted by: Carter | December 3, 2007 5:01 PM

MEC,

Did you perhaps mean “ruminating,” not “germinating?” Your would-be linguistic master, the twister of truth, would not be pleased. But no matter; whatever I am doing in my “scientific recesses” is of little importance alongside the situation I read about this morning on the blog of Mark and Chris Hoofnagle.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/12/hivaids_denialism_is_deadly_th.php#more

It seems that the Liversidge-emulating “gatekeepers” at the MSN Aids Myth Exposed board are encouraging an HIV-positive mother to avoid any medical care for herself and her infant. Chiming in is one “rebecca veronica,” whom several denialists in the past have identified as Rebecca Veronica Culshaw. (Truthtwister, you may not be familiar with this minor denialist but cooler has vouched for her “hotness,” so you can safely listen to her. To use your words, Culshaw is a real female know-nothing, and not just some gay activist who likes to get a kick out of a female name.)

Culshaw and sidekick former academic Darin Brown tell the young mother to continue breastfeeding her baby, since there is nothing healthier and the “orthodoxy” doubt that mother to child transmission ever happens.

Lies, stupidity, and ignorance conspiring against an innocent mother and her child: a sad and lamentable state of affairs. How do these denialists sleep at night?

Posted by: ElkMountainMan | December 3, 2007 7:30 PM

HIV Is Not the Cause of AIDS
By Peter H. Duesberg

Science, Vol. 241, pp. 514-517, July 29, 1988.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not the cause of AIDS because it fails to meet the postulates of Koch and Henle, as well as six cardinal rules of virology.
1) HIV is in violation of Koch’s first postulate because it is not possible to detect free virus (1, 2), provirus (3-5), or viral RNA (4, 6, 7) in all cases of AIDS. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has established guidelines to diagnose AIDS when all laboratory evidence for HIV is negative (8).
2) In violation of Koch’s second postulate, HIV cannot be isolated from 20 to 50% of AIDS cases (1, 9-11). Moreover, “isolation” is very indirect. It depends on activating dormant provirus in millions of susceptible cells propagated in vitro away from the suppressive immune system of the host.
3) In violation of Koch’s third postulate, pure HIV does not reproduce AIDS when inoculated into chimpanzees or accidentally into healthy humans (9, 12, 13).
4) In contrast to all pathogenic viruses that cause degenerative diseases, HIV is not biochemically active in the disease syndrome it is named for (14). It actively infects only 1 in 104 to > 105 T cells (4, 6, 7, 15). Under these conditions, HIV cannot account for the loss of T cells, the hallmark of AIDS, even if all infected cells died. This is because during the 2 days it takes HIV to replicate, the body regenerates about 5% of its T cells (16), more than enough to compensate for losses due to HIV.
5) It is paradoxical that HIV is said to cause AIDS only after the onset of antiviral immunity, detected by a positive “AIDS test,” because all other viruses are most pathogenic before immunity. The immunity against HIV is so effective that free virus is undetectable (see point 1), which is why HIV is so hard to transmit (9, 12, 13). The virus would be a plausible cause of AIDS if it were reactivated after an asymptomatic latency, like herpes viruses. However, HIV remains inactive during AIDS. Thus the “AIDS test” identifies effective natural vaccination, the ultimate protection against viral disease.
6) The long and highly variable intervals between the onset of antiviral immunity and AIDS, averaging 8 years, are bizarre for a virus that replicates within 1 to 2 days in tissue culture and induces antiviral immunity within 1 to 2 months after an acute infection (9, 17). Since all genes of HIV are active during replication, AIDS should occur early when HIV is active, not later when it is dormant. Indeed, HIV can cause a mononucleosis-like disease during the acute infection, perhaps its only pathogenic potential (9, 17).
7) Retroviruses are typically not cytocidal. On the contrary, they often promote cell growth. Therefore, they were long considered the most plausible viral carcinogens (9). Yet HIV, a retrovirus, is said to behave like a cytocidal virus, causing degenerative disease killing billions of T cells (15, 18). This is said even though T cells grown in culture, which produce much more virus than has ever been observed in AIDS patients, continue to divide (9, 10, 18).
It is paradoxical for a virus to have a country-specific host range and a risk group-specific pathology. In the United States, 92% of AIDS patients are male (19), but in Africa AIDS is equally distributed between the sexes, although the virus is thought to have existed in Africa not much longer than in the United States (20). In the United States, the virus is said to cause Kaposi’s sarcoma only in homosexuals, mostly Pneumocystis pneumonia in hemophiliacs, and frequently cytomegalovirus disease in children (21). In Africa the same virus is thought to cause slim disease, fever, and diarrhea almost exclusively (22, 23).
9) It is now claimed that at least two viruses, HIV-1 and HIV-2, are capable of causing AIDS, which allegedly first appeared on this planet only a few years ago (20). HIV-1 and HIV-2 differ about 60% in their nucleic acid sequences (24). Since viruses are products of gradual evolution, the proposition that within a few years two viruses capable of causing AIDS could have evolved is highly improbable (25).

References and Notes:

J. Albert et al., J. Med. Virol. 23, 67 (1987).
L.A. Falk, D. Paul, A. Landay, H. Kessler, N. Engl. J. Med. 316, 1547 (1987).
G.M. Shaw et al., Science 226, 1165 (1984).
D. Richman, J. McCutchan, S. Spector, J. Infect Dis. 156, 823 (1987).
C.-Y. Ou et al., Science 239, 295 (1988).
M.E. Harper, L.M. Marselle, R.C. Gallo, F. Wong-Staal, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 83, 772 (1986).
A. Ranki et al., Lancet ii, 589 (1987).
Centers for Disease Control, J. Am. Med. Assoc. 258, 1143 (1987).
P.H. Duesberg, Cancer Res. 47, 1199 (1987).
H. von Briesen et al., J. Med. Virol. 23, 51 (1987).
D. Gallo, J. Kimpton, P. Dailey, J. Clin. Microbiol. 25, 1291 (1987).
J.W. Curran et al., Science 239, 610 (1988).
G.H. Friedland and R.S. Klein, N. Engl. J. Med. 317, 1125 (1987).
J. Coffin et al., Science 232, 697 (1986).
A. Fauci, ibid. 239, 617 (1988).
J. Sprent, in B and T Cells in Immune Recognition, F. Loor and G.E. Roelants, Eds. (Wiley, New York, 1977), pp. 59-82.
H.A. Kessler, J. Am. Med. Assoc. 258, 1196 (1987).
R.C. Gallo, Sci. Am. 256 (No. 1), 47 (1987).
Centers for Disease Control, AIDS Weekly Surveill. Rep., 18 April 1988.
R. Baum, “AIDS: The molecular biology,” Chem. Eng. News (23 November 1987), pp. 14-26.
R.M. Selik, E.T. Starcher, J.W. Curran, AIDS 1, 175 (1987).
R. Colebunders et al., Lancet i, 492 (1987).
K.J. Pallangyo et al., ibid. ii, 972 (1987).
F. Clavel et al., Nature 324, 691 (1986).
J. Sonnabend, in New York Native (9 May 1988), p. 19.

Posted by: cooler | December 3, 2007 7:35 PM

Is duesberg our eternal mother, or is outshined by father shyh ching lo? Every animal he incoculted with mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans died, mice/monkeys/chimps/embryos.

What a nightmare, when Dr. Garth nicolson and nancy nicolson found it in the blood of sick gulf war vets armed defense intelligence agents threatened him to stop his research? Would two of the top cancer researchers in the world lie aboout that? Who do you trust more, the pathetic hacks on these blogs like franklin/noble/ moore etc or honest researchers not tied to the drug industry like the nicolsons, Lo, montagnier, baseman, nobel prize winners Mullis, Guilleman etc.

Seems as if mycoplasma incognitus was part of the bioweapons program, the nicolsons true story, slightly fictionilized, rave reviews from real scientists, not the losers who troll these blogs.

www.projectdaylily.com

Posted by: cooler | December 3, 2007 7:50 PM

What did Karpas really say?

The entire quote should be put up at once, before the handcranked Noble meme machine is launched. I believe it is worth going through with an index finger, mumbling the words out loud, to get the full impact of what it reveals:

“The immune response to HIV can be compared to that of a live viral vaccine. It explains why most HIV-infected patients remain well for years. Other viruses that establish lifelong infection, such as herpes viruses, tend to remain latent in the body and the only other exogenous retrovirus known to be capable of infecting humans, the adult T-cell leukaemia HTLV-1, causes disease in less than one in a thousand of infected individuals. In man infection with HIV is probably never latent, because the virus appears to mutate continuously in every infected individual due to its highly error prone reverse transcriptase (RT) which lacks the proof reading capabilities of other RNA polymerases. This has two consequences: 1) In nearly every infected individual, despite a vigorous immune response that is protective for many years, eventually one or more mutants emerge that manage to evade the immune response and lead to disease progression and death; (2) in drug-treated individuals, a drug resistant virus emrges and treatment fails to halt disease progression. The continuous mutations of the replicating virus cannot be the only reason for the very high mortality of HIV infection in man, because the viruses HIV-1 and HIV-2 do not cause disease in their natural hosts, the chimpanzee and the sooty mangabey monkey, respectively. Disease occurs only when the viruses cross species.i

In addition to its high mutation rate, HIV can also evade the immune response by direct cell-cell contact through fusion between infected and non-infected cells: the virus can be transferred without being exposed to agents of the immune response, such as neutralising antibodies. This is facilitated by the affinity of viral glycoproteins expressed on the surface of infected cells for CD4 molecules on neighboring uninfected cells. Probably this process is particularly important in the lymph nodes, where presentation of foreign antigen to lymphocytes by cell-cell contact is an essential step in initiating immune responses.

Early after infection with HIV, cell-mediated immune responses can be detected in infected individuals… It is possible that when cytotoxic T-cells are lost a high level of neutralising antibodies can by itself delay disease progress….

Most HIV infection in the world is not confirmed by tests:

Most test methods can give false positive readings, so it is important to check any positive reading by a screening assay with a confirmatory test…..many third world countries are not in a position reuglarly to confirm positive readings obtained by the routine screening methods such as an ELISA. Since nearly 90% of the HIV infected live in third-world countries, this means that the majority of positive reactions are unchecked.

(Karpas developed his own alternative test method in 1985 which “contains its own controlled confirmatory test”):

The cell test showed that most of the healthy HIV-infected individuals have a very high level of anti-HIV antibodies whereas, in contrast, patients who progressed to AIDS had a low level of antibodies that decreased further with disease progression. Studies of such sera with Western Blot correlate with the cell test titration studies… The sera from the AIDS patients are missing numerous antibodies and even the antibodies which are present are at low concentrations…. We have assayed for the presence of neutralising antibodies in over 100 healthy HIV-1 infected individuals and without exception found that the sera contained significant levels of such antibodies….(We carried out) one of the earliest studies trying to explore and explain the differences in the immunological state between healthy HIV-infected individuals and AIDS patients (in 1985). Our studies have demonstrated that healthy HIV-1 infected individuals who were not viraemic had high levels of neutralising antibodies against the virus and a CD4+ T-cell count within the normal range while AIDS patients with very low numbers of CD4+ T-cells and high levels of HIV-1 were devoid of neutralising antibodies and had low levels of other antiviral antibodies (Karpas et al 1988).

Studies from the USA of long-term survivors have also found high levels of neutralising antibodies (Cao et al 1995, Pantaleo et al, 1995). Although polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for the presence of HIV-1 RNA in the plasma revealed significant levels of RNA in some individuals, the biological assay for viral infectivity failed to reveal the presence of infectious virus, suggesting that the HIV-1 in the bloodstream had beeen inactivated by the neutralising antibodies. In addition, this indicates that PCR does not distinguish between infectious (live) and neutralised (killed) virus.

Yes, sir, neutralise= kill.

Also helpful are someone else’s antibodies:

We have recorded similar observations with AIDS patients who were treated with passive immunotherapy (PIT). AIDS patients before the infusion of hyperimmune plasma were HIV-1 viraemic as monitored by the isolation of infectious virus from the plasma. After the infusion of hyperimmune plasma, infectious virus could not be isolated but many remained PCR positive.

Translation: Neutralising antibodies reduce HIV to vanishing set point. The pussy is treed by the dogs of the immune system.

Ultimate conclusion, as we said before:

HIV vaccinates you against HIV.

Here’s a bonus. How about AZT? Nasty stuff. Killed thousands, right?

Confirming this, Karpas continues, showing what a mistake AZT, and how beneficial IN AND OF ITSELF it must have been to stop using high doses of the poison – a proven useless poison which reportedly they are still mixing in small amounts into the cocktails:

The first drug that was approved for use in people with HIV disease was azidothymidine (AZT), a chemical developed years earlier as an anti-cancer drug but abandoned because of its high level of toxicity…. Not surprisingly, an early study of bone marrow in patients who had been receiving AZT revealed that all developed anaemiawith a varying degree of other white blood cell deficiencies.
AZT inhibits HIV replication by blockingg the viral RT and there is no doubt that initially the effect is very dramatic. In the early short-terms trials, AZT appeared to be beneficial. However, within a few weeks to a few months of AZT treatment, replication-competent, AZT resistant HIV strains emerge followed by disease progression, A placebo-controlled trial, lasting two years, revealed that AZT did not imptove survival and was associated with more side-effects. In the British/French Concorde trial which involved 1700 patients and lasted three years, follow-up revealed a statistically significant increase of deaths in the AZT treatment arm as compared to those in the placebo (J. Derbyshire, personal communciation, 1994). The other nucleotide analagues that have been approved for use, such as ddC and ddI, are also highly toxic and of short term benefit….

(With regard to protease inhibitors and HAART) Protease inhibitors are less toxic than AZT but when used alone , the virus quickly develops drug-resistant mutants. However, when a protease inhibitor was used together with two RT inhibitors it marked the first significant progress in anti-HIV treatment, The combination of drugs has been named highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Following the initiation of HAART treatment approximately 80% of AIDS patients improved clinically; and coincidentally their CD4+ T-cell counts increased and the plasma viral load dropped significantly or completely disappeared. (Hogg et al 1997). The length of the beneficial effects of HAART differs between the individual patients and ranges from a few months to several years. For some the toxic side effects are more pronounced than for others. In most individuals who can tolerate the drug combination over prolonged periods, a wide range of pathological conditions develops due to toxicity, many of them, such as lipodystrophy, have never been seen before in AIDS while liver damage and vascular conditions are common. As a result the HAART treatment of AIDS patients has changed from combating opportunistic infections to reducing toxic side effects…

Meanwhile HAART fails to eradicate replication competent HIV-1:

A recent study of a group of patients who have been treated successfully for up to 30 months with triple therapy, replication-competent HIV-1 was routinely isolated despite the fact that even the plasma assay for HIV-1 PCR was negative (Finzi et al, 199; Wong et al 1997).

Some AIDS researchers suggested that drug treatment should be initiated early in the course of HIV infection (Ho, 1995) but so long as the available drugs have only a limited period of effectiveness, and are toxic, that may be misguided. In most HIV-infected individuals, the immune system manages to limit the damage caused by the virus for many years – far longer (on average nine years) than any drug cocktails available that have the added disadvantage of being toxic.

Hey, why not try borrowing antibodies from healthy patients? It worked!

After our early study demonstrated that healthy HIV-infedcted individuals had high levels of neutralising anitbodies, while AIDS patients had none, we investigated the possibilitiy of using passive immunotherapy as a form of treatment in AIDS. This began in 1985, transfusing blood plasma from healthy HIV-1 infected individuals to AIDS patients (Karpas et al, 1985)….(There was ) some evidence of benefit when the patients were treated for two years…(Other studies suggested that PIT is beneficial but) Unfortunately, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have not been able to muster financial support in the UK….

(Meanwhile they have found) an increasing number of plasma donors who have been donating continuously for 3-7 years without a decline in numbers of CD4+ T-cells or antibody level or other signs of disease progression (Abelian et al, 2001). The mechanism of these effects is not understood. Defining it might help us to understand why HIV overcomes the immune system, and could open up new avenues for the development of therapeutic strategies against this deadly virus.

After you read enough of this stuff, you realise that Karpas is a reviewer who is severely handicapped by the HIV meme, which here, for example, prevents him from seeing the obvious – that the simplest explanation of “the effects” is that HIV is not deadly or even harmful at all.

Following all this you can read Richman’s paper, which Karpas didn’t see before going to press, and see that mutation is no answer to the question: How come the virus makes any kind of comeback with antibodies around to neutralise it?

Because Richman showed that the antibodies keep up very well with viral mutation, leading the dogs of the immune system to chase all the new variants of pussy cat virus up a tree just as fast as before, sometimes faster.

What a mess. All any thinking gay has to do is read this paper, I would think, and he wouldn’t cooperate with this latter day pellagra. But Alas! they all will doubtless read it like ElkMan with the monkey meme in their noggin, just like Karpas, and not see where the dividing line comes between evidence and misinterpretation.

Maybe one should borrow that meme machine from Noble and turn it on Karpas: “you liar/you misinterpret/you liar/you misinterpret/you liar/you misinterpet”.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 9:54 PM

Question for the Tara’s Club Clan:

The date on cooler’s above Duesberg post indicates July 29, 1988

I’d assume sometime between Gallo/Margaret Heckler announcement that they have found the “probable” cause of AIDS in 1984, within that 4 year period, when exactly did HIV make the massive jump from being “probable” to “concrete”?

After this Science, Vol. 241 isn’t that when you all started to call Duesberg a crackpot? So, therefore somewhere between those dates there had to be another announcement, another hoopla hurrah party and press conference for that now unmistakable claim HIV is now the cause of AIDS. When was it? What date. I cannot find it anywhere.

Posted by: carter | December 3, 2007 10:10 PM

Truthtwister, you know fully well that Karpas and Richman do not agree with your misinterpretations.

The only thing you are demonstrating is a highly developed form of cognitive dissonance.

You somehow skip over parts of these papers that refute your claims.

This is fundamentally dishonest.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 3, 2007 10:23 PM

when exactly did HIV make the massive jump from being “probable” to “concrete”?

This took a week or two, Carter, but it was by the authority of the New York Times.

Larry Altman deserves the credit for this bold move, or his editors.

A very high scientific authority indeed, the New York Times, which has not hesitated to repeat itself ever since to retain the glory of that moment, with the copyrighted mantra inserted in its every story on “HIV, the virus that causes AIDS”.

I believe other media are required to pay the Times a penny each time this phrase is used, but I am not quite sure, lacking concrete proof.

But heck, my assertion is enough, isn’t it?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 3, 2007 10:53 PM

“Yes, sir, neutralise= kill”

No, sir, it doesn’t. Neutralizing antibody blocks glycoprotein:receptor interactions, nothing more. Neutralized virus is still infectious if one were to remove the bound antibody.

“Translation: Neutralising antibodies reduce HIV to vanishing set point. The pussy is treed by the dogs of the immune system.”
An antibody species reduces the particular clone (probably the most prevalent) that it recognizes, nothing more, nothing less. However, ready to step up in its place is another HIV clone that is more fit than the other within the new environment. Repeating this immune activation, acquired response and reduction of HIV clone process eventually results in T cell exhaustion of both CD4 and CD8 T cells and is an important factor in the collapse of the immune system.

“HIV vaccinates you against HIV”

It’s not that black and white and you know it.

“After you read enough of this stuff, you realise that Karpas is a reviewer who is severely handicapped by the HIV meme, which here, for example, prevents him from seeing the obvious – that the simplest explanation of “the effects” is that HIV is not deadly or even harmful at all.”

No, after reading your post you realize that you are either 1)disingenuous or 2)unable to understand what you are reading. I’m going with option 1, as you conveniently forget to emphasize parts of the paper that discuss mutation and immune evasion. I also have this nagging feeling the “…” sections contain information that doesn’t fit with your ideas and therefore must not be acknowledged.

“Because Richman showed that the antibodies keep up very well with viral mutation, leading the dogs of the immune system to chase all the new variants of pussy cat virus up a tree just as fast as before, sometimes faster.”

Only to have a new variant spread requiring new dogs to be made. Again, it is this continued immune activation that is detrimental. PubMed “HIV and T cell exhaustion.”

Posted by: Jim | December 3, 2007 11:43 PM

Jim, please stop acting as the ventriloquist’s dummy for the meme. Don’t you realize that is the problem we are discussing?

If you read the post you will see that Karpas himself defines neutralize as kill. Write to him if you disagree.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 4, 2007 12:07 AM

I did read the post. It seems you are discussing neutralizing antibody responses and the fact that in your naive ignorant world you take that to mean the virus is incapable of causing disease once that occurs.

Nice to see though that you respond with only the lame “write to him” comeback and don’t actually address any other point (is it because there aren’t denialist talking points to refute them?). It doesn’t matter what he defined it as, that is not what it means in the context being discussed.

Posted by: Jim | December 4, 2007 12:14 AM

MEC,
Did you perhaps mean “ruminating,” not “germinating?” Your would-be linguistic master, the twister of truth, would not be pleased. But no matter; whatever I am doing in my “scientific recesses” is of little importance alongside the situation I read about this morning on the blog of Mark and Chris Hoofnagle.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/12/hivaids_denialism_is_deadly_th.php#more
It seems that the Liversidge-emulating “gatekeepers” at the MSN Aids Myth Exposed board are encouraging an HIV-positive mother to avoid any medical care for herself and her infant. Chiming in is one “rebecca veronica,” whom several denialists in the past have identified as Rebecca Veronica Culshaw. (Truthtwister, you may not be familiar with this minor denialist but cooler has vouched for her “hotness,” so you can safely listen to her. To use your words, Culshaw is a real female know-nothing, and not just some gay activist who likes to get a kick out of a female name.)
Culshaw and sidekick former academic Darin Brown tell the young mother to continue breastfeeding her baby, since there is nothing healthier and the “orthodoxy” doubt that mother to child transmission ever happens.
Lies, stupidity, and ignorance conspiring against an innocent mother and her child: a sad and lamentable state of affairs. How do these denialists sleep at night? (ELkMountainMan)

Brave Sir Elkie,

If you’re too much of a chickenshit to face Al-Bayati and the other people you’re smearing, just admit it, it’s no shame where you’re coming from, but please save yourself more embarrasment by trying to smear Truthseeker by non-existent association.

I have no doubt you’re a total zero as a scientist since you’ve often made that clear, not only by declaring the ineffectual smears of your fellow losers, Mark and Chris Hoofnagel, more important than your own, but also by spewing your characteristic, unbroken strings of toe cringingly uninformed propaganda.

Here is a little reading to get you up to date on breast feeding in your distant scientific recesses.

http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/more-hiv-less-infection-the-breastfeeding-conundrum/

Since I have not been able to find anything relating to science nor linguistics that suits your level of complete illiteracy, I guess it’s up to me to clear up your other major confusion: It is indeed “germinating” and not “ruminating”, since germinate, not ruminate, is what germs and people of equal intelligence do in their recesses.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 4, 2007 12:29 AM

“This took a week or two, Carter, but it was by the authority of the New York Times.”

Then so if this is true, then why do the pound the living day lights out of Duesberg at this point? They’d only be right if there was proof beyond any doubt the conclusive jump from “probable” to “is” was made and documented somehow. I see the Duesberg bashing as it’s none other than trying to protect a flawed concept, and a sure fire way to keep money flowing into their pockets. They must have known Duesberg’s Science, Vol. 241 was correct because there was no way the hypothesis by then had any merit because it was unproven. They had to come up with “he’s a crack pot” for no other reasons. I thought there had to be a massive leap from probable to proven somewhere announced, otherwise these purveyors shouting from the AIDS pulpit have nothing to stand on.

Posted by: carter | December 4, 2007 12:32 AM

Thus when the Richman paper appeared, the HIV loyalists tried to spin its meaning as being that HIV triumphs by mutating. We see Franklin and Chris Noble also exemplifying this interpretation. What the paper actually says, however, is that the antibody response rapidly evolves to keep up with the mutations and neutralize them. To quote the authors:

“We report here that in most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants.”
–D.D. Richman et al. “Rapid evolution of the neutralizing antibody response to HIV type 1 infection,” PNAS 100:4144-9, 2003.

To repeat: “potent neuturalizing antibody reponses are generated…to subsequent variants.”

Earlier in this thread, Franklin suggested that the findings were that the virus outruns the immune response. But the paper says that the immune response keeps up with the virus variants. Franklin then presented Table 1 from the paper, which he had misread. The table was for a single patient in the study (though the legend applied to 3 tables), and according to the authors, the case (TN-1) exemplified strong neutralizing responses (”peak neutralizing antibody responses reached >1000 as exemplified in patient TN-1″). Contrary to Franklin’s spin, the table for this case actually shows highest neutralizing antibody titers against later virus variants.

Franklin also misinterpreted the author’s interpretation of their results. What they termed “individual variability” Franklin misreported as a pattern of ineffectual later antibody responses. Although one would expect that the original virus strain would have the strongest neutralizing response, because it predominates and was present longer, in fact the study found that in a quarter of the patients, “higher titers of neutralizing antibody developed against viruses that emerged later in infection.”

In the study, the antibody response neutralized the later mutant variants, regardless of whether the titer of antibody was as high as against the original virus strain.

Richman et al. provided no data regarding “levels of virus replication.” Prof. Karpas, however, has written that the immune response does substantially reduce levels of HIV replication. So has Fauci.

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 4, 2007 12:52 AM

Bullshit.

Richman et al write:

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy.

and

The true timing of emerging neutralizing antibody responses may be masked by the extensive levels of virus replication (10^10 virions generated daily during chronic infection (20) and 100 times that during acute infection (21).

10^10 virions generated per day. This is incompatible with Truthtwister’s spin.

If you really believe that Richman and Karpas mean what Truthtwister says they mean then why don’t you contact them.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 1:19 AM

Contrary to Franklin’s spin, the table for this case actually shows highest neutralizing antibody titers against later virus variants.

It is hard to tell whether you are being deliberately deceptive or whether you are suffering from Truthtwister’s delusions of competence.

Table 1. Antibody neutralization titers (subject TN-1, treatment naive)

The peak neutralizing antibody responses of more than 1000 are always to virus variants from 3 or more months in the past.

The antibody response to the current variant is always much less.

Who are you trying to fool?

Take the column for 25 months. The peak antibody titer is to the virus variant from 19 months in the past. The antibody titer to the concurrent variant is much less.

The story that this paper tells is fundamentally different from the fairytale that you and Truthtwister are concocting.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 1:54 AM

Nice to see though that you respond with only the lame “write to him” comeback and don’t actually address any other point

Well, I didn’t mean to blow off what you wrote carefully, Jim, but as Chris Noble relentlessly proves, arguing with anyone’s meme machine is a waste of time when the meme itself is the subject under discussion – is HIV=AIDS valid or not, and if not, what fits the data better?

You have to do more than handcrank a meme machine, Jim, not because it is not a useful activity but because we are not discussing things on that basis. I like many here question the meme. So we are discussing not just what scientists tell us about the data but what they would tell us if they were not ruled by a meme which forms the framework for every study and review they carry out.

Unfortunately I believe Karpas is a prime example of the too quick acceptance of Gallo’s hypothesis as the premise of his work, He does not question the premise that HIV=AIDS however much his data may suggest a simpler story. He will instead try to wrestle any square peg into the round hole in his mind and fiddle and shove until it goes in.

So in reading his paper in a discussion where the meme itself is in question, it doesn’t do much good to handcrank a meme machine and hand me the objections that it turns out, since all it will do is lead
to a standoff with accusations of various kinds, see Chris’s rather feeble post above.

Hey Chris is that you or the machine all by itself? All it cranked out were your basic four lines – Karpas wouldn’t agree/its cognitive dissonance/its my selective quoting/its dishonest. What happened to its stupid/your selective quotes?

What one needs is a genuine partnership in sorting all this out, and a willingness to use a more sophisticated premise, involving the idea that a text of any review like his is written with certain assumptions and we have to see where the boundary line is between what everyone can agree is data and what is imaginative interpretation based on the Deadly-Virus premise.

We have to decide if and where Karpas goes wrong, as well as appeal to him as an authority. That is what is involved in questioning a paradigm. You can’t just be a teacher’s pet if the teacher’s belief is what we are questioning.

By the way, you are calling Chris Noble “lame”, since his repeated suggestion is that we write to Karpas and Richman to find out whether they agree with our interpretation, and you say that is lame.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 4, 2007 2:29 AM

Richman et al. provided no data regarding “levels of virus replication.”

Fig 3 shows the viral load of one patient. High viral loads over 100,000 copies/mL were seen for the first four months until iniation of ART.

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 2:30 AM

Truthtwister, this is getting very boring. All you are doing is repeating your original claims over and over again.

You know that Karpas did not mean what you say he means.

You know that if you asked him he would not agree.

The only thing that you are demonstrating is the fundamental dishonesty of the HIV “rethinker” movement.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 2:45 AM

What Robert said:

in a third of the HIV patients they studied the neutralizing antibody response was actually stronger against the mutant variant than against the original strain of HIV.

What Richman et al said:

In 9 of the 12 untreated patients with detectable neutralizing antibody, the highest measured neutralization titer was directed against the baseline virus (month 0) whereas in three others higher titers of neutralizing antibody developed against viruses that emerged later in infection.

Where Robert says “the mutant variant” Richman et al. say “viruses that emerged later in infection.”

Richman et al. show that in patients producing neutralizing antibodies, new viral variants are continuously evolving–they do not find “the mutant variant” but multiple mutant variants that vary depending on the point in time in which they are isolated.

Robert later adds the following quote from Richman:

And he interprets that statement as meaning:

But the paper says that the immune response keeps up with the virus variants.

The beauty of this experiment is that they assayed serial antibody samples against serial viral samples taken from the same patient.

For an antibody to effectively neutralize a viral infection, the antibody must be able to neutralize the virus present in the patient at the same time that the antibody is present in the patient.

If the virus evades the immune response, then virus isolated from a blood sample will not be neutralized by antibodies isolated from the same sample. That is what Richman found.

For example, the blood sample obtained at the six month time point of patient TN-1, contains a high titer of neutralizing antibodies to the virus isolated from the same patient at 0 months (titer = 675) and to virus isolated from the same patient at 3 months (titer = 1024).

So, as the authors reported, this patient developed “potent neutralizing antibody responses” to the autologous infecting variant (the virus isolated at 0 months) and to a subsequent variant (the virus isolated at 3 months), and the titer to the subsequent variant is higher than the titer to the autologous infecting variant (1024 is greater than 675).

But remember, these antibodies were isolated at 6 months and in order for them to effectively neutralize the virus in the patient they must be able to neutralize the virus present in the patient at six months.

The titer against the virus isolated at six months is only 78. This means that the virus has changed so that the antibodies that the patient is making–antibodies that potently neutralize the viruses isolated at 0 months and at 3 months–are not able to effectively neutralize the virus found in the same blood sample as the antibodies.

What happens next?

Over the subsequent months, the patient produces antibodies that can neutralize the virus isolated at 6 months–his titer against this variant rises to 1769 at 12 months and to 4345 at 25 months.

But how well do his antibodies isolated at 12 months work against the virus isolated at 12 months?

At 12 months the titer against the virus isolated at 12 months is only 76.

And at 25 months the titer against the virus isolated at 25 months is only 95.

So, even though the antibody response is evolving (over a 19 month period the titer to the virus isolated at 6 months rises from 78 to 4345), the virus evolves even faster; resistant variants are always found in the blood–variants that are not effectively neutralized by the antibodies present in the same sample of blood.

This is the same pattern that Richman observed in all of the patients who produced high titers of neutralizing antibodies.

The high titers are always observed against viruses isolated from blood samples drawn from the patient earlier than the blood sample from which the antibodies are taken–not against the virus isolated from the same blood sample as the antibodies.

Contrary to Robert Houston’s remarks, this isn’t my spin, it is what the data show and it is what the authors of the paper conclude:

Plasma virus continually and rapidly evolved to escape neutralization, indicating that neutralizing antibody exerts a level of selective pressure that has been underappreciated based on earlier, less comprehensive characterizations.

If Robert has an alternative explanation of the data, let’s hear it.

Posted by: franklin | December 4, 2007 3:08 AM

If you really believe that Richman and Karpas mean what Truthtwister says they mean then why don’t you contact them.

Your comrade in arms say this is lame, Chris.

10^10 virions generated per day. This is incompatible with Truthtwister’s spin.

Apparently you are unfamiliar with even the basic science of the immune response to HIV, Chris. Of course there is plenty at the beginning, before and as the antibodies emerge. The issue is how much there is later, whether it is thoroughly neutralized and banished from the arena of the bloodstream, and whether mutation allows it to escape repression.

The answers Karpas and Richman give us are a) none worth discussion b) yes and c) no.

This is so stupid, to use your favorite word, that one suspects you of deliberate dishonesty, your next favorite phrase. But don’t bother to answer, Noble, even if you are misunderstood. You are now proven to be nothing but a name caller, who hopes to avoid inspection of his replies by making them stink, verbally speaking,

You have achieved complete success. I for one have no interest in ever reading them again except as specimens from the pig sty, and something one can point to as good evidence that the paradigm is worthless, since only the second rank try to defend it in public.

The elite such as Fauci and Moore know how to evade responding, just as in your infinitely more primitive way, you do. How odd, that the genuine believers in the claim that HIV=AIDS are so evasive in their responses with censorship and insults.

Your replies are obtuse, smell like a pig sty, and they are automatically hand cranked from your meme machine, with not the slightest glimmer of wit or humor about them, which marks you as intellectually challenged. This matches their content, which is also worthless. I had hoped for a nice collection of the main points that paradigm defenders on the lower level could raise against the unanswerable points of the critics. But there aren’t any. Just handcranked misunderstanding expressed in gutter phrases.

Now why would that be? You are a bright computer geek, there must be purpose in your acting so crudely. That’s it – you do it on purpose to avoid people engaging you, and exposing the hollowness of your claims.

Well, congratulations on your success.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 4, 2007 3:39 AM

Truthtwister, this is getting very boring. All you are doing is repeating your original claims over and over again. You know that Karpas did not mean what you say he means. You know that if you asked him he would not agree.The only thing that you are demonstrating is the fundamental dishonesty of the HIV “rethinker” movement. Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 2:45 AM

Only one insult here, what happened, Chris? Just the tired old you-are-dishonest jibe.

No, Chris you are wrong as usual in your statements, I didn’t just repeat myself. First I quoted Karpas in full, where it was relevant, even his claim that got you so excited, that mutation accounted for the survuval of infectious virus, and told you that he had not seen Richman’s paper yet. Then I discussed with Jim why your meme machine approach is inappropriate when the subject of discussion is whether the HIV meme is correct, and how far data is misinterpreted through it.

Now you complain that I repeat myself to a boring extent, and that I know that Karpas would not agree with what I wrote, and that I show how intellectually dishonest the HIV “rethinker” movement is.

What could be more boringly repetitive that that? It has no science in it at all, and all three points are standard initial output from your handcranked meme machine.

I see I was right, and you were not present at all when the machine responded. You had it set to automatic.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 4, 2007 4:21 AM

Once again you completely fail to respond to any of the points raised and merely reassert your false claims.

The paper by Richman shows that HIV is not “thoroughly neutralized”, it is not “defeated” and it is not “vanquished”. Your continual assertions to the contrary only demonstrate your dishonesty. I have detailed precisely why your misinterpretation is fallacious.

This causes me to wonder as to whether you regard this issue as one vast joke. I don’t find you or your overly verbose essays in the least bit humourous or clever. If you want to be a court jester then so be it but kindly don’t make a joke out something which is killing millions of people.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 4:21 AM

Franklin, Dr. N,

You have convinced me: like Archie Moore against Muhammad Ali, the clumsy, flatfooted antibodies only manage to punch holes in the air where the virus was last round, never where it is at present.

You have even explained that inscrutable table for us, in a clear, comprehensible manner, so it’s inescapable to everybody who doesn’t deny facts that the continuously replicating virus is continuously outgunning the immune system in a thoroughly predictable way – like any acutely disease causing agent.

So now would, pretty please, could you put the “lenti” in lentivirus for us and tell, nay better still model mathematically, why it takes the little suberbugger so long to finish the job?

It took Ali 4 rounds to beat Archie Moore – exactly as predicted.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 4, 2007 6:05 AM

Researchers at the U. S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D. C., and the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, have found compelling evidence that a previously unrecognized opportunistic infection — one potentially treatable with antibiotics — may be a major cause of illness in people with AIDS. Many infections of organs including the brain, spleen, liver, or lymph nodes — as well as some systemic infections — might be caused by the newly-discovered organism, called Mycoplasma incognitus. Until now, these infections would be counted among the many which cannot be diagnosed.
While the first report of the organism now known as Mycoplasma incognitus was published over three years ago, most of what is now known was learned later and published last year. And only in the last few weeks has the AIDS research community paid serious attention. Until recently the new organism was mistakenly believed to be a virus, and its discovery seemed to have little immediate relevance to treatment.

Then a series of five articles by Shyh-Ching Lo and others in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, between February and November 1989, showed:

(1) The new organism is a mycoplasma — which is potentially treatable. Mycoplasma, a form of life between bacteria and viruses in complexity, was discovered about 100 years ago. Some species are known to cause human diseases.

The published articles only hint that the new organism might be treatable with antibiotics. But scientists at AFIP tested 15 common antibiotics against the Mycoplasma incognitus in the laboratory. A detailed report is being prepared for publication, but because of the public-health importance of the information, AFIP released a list of the drugs and their effective concentrations in a separate document. Doxycycline, tetracycline, clindamycin, lincomycin, and ciprofloxacin were found to be effective against Mycoplasma incognitus. But erythromycin, the antibiotic most commonly used to treat mycoplasma infections, was not effective — and penicillin, streptomycin, gentamicin, and others also had no effect.

(2) Mycoplasma incognitus was found in the thymus, liver, spleen, lymph node, or brain of 22 of 34 persons who had died of AIDS. The patients who were selected for this autopsy study had all had evidence of organ failures.

(3) In a separate study with different patients, the mycoplasma was found in seven of ten persons with AIDS. Also, a much earlier study had found Mycoplasma incognitus in blood lymphocytes of 12 of 23 living persons with AIDS — but in none of 22 healthy blood donors used as controls.

(4) The mycoplasma was also found in six HIV-negative patients (with no sign of AIDS) from different parts of the world, who had died in one to seven weeks of an undiagnosed infection.

No one knows how the organism spreads, but evidently it is not by casual contact, as family members of infected persons have not become infected themselves.

(5) Four monkeys were injected with Mycoplasma incognitus; all died in seven to nine months. The organism was found in the spleens of all the monkeys, and in some other organs as well. It was not found in a fifth monkey tested as a control.

(6) Extensive evidence from electron-microscope examinations, from specially designed PCR tests to look for the DNA of Mycoplasma incognitus, and from immunologic tests, showed that the organism was concentrated in lesions in affected organs. Mycoplasma incognitus is unusual in that it often infects and kills tissue without causing an inflammatory reaction, suggesting that it disables or evades part of the immune system.

Altman LK. Unusual microbe, once dismissed, is now taken more seriously. THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 16, 1990, page B6.

Booth, W; Specter, M. Microbe may play role in AIDS, other diseases. THE WASHINGTON POST, January 5, 1990, page A3.

Lo SC; Dawson MS; Wong DM; Newton PB 3d; Sonoda MA; Engler WF; Wang RY; Shih JW; Alter JH; Wear DJ. Identification of Mycoplasma incognitus infection in patients with AIDS: an immunohistochemical, in situ hybridization and ultrastructural study. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, November 1989, volume 41, number 5, pages 601- 616.

Lo SC; Shih JW; Newton PB 3d; Wong DM; Hayes MM; Benish JR; Wear DJ; Wang RY. Virus-like infectious agent (VLIA) is a novel pathogenic mycoplasma: Mycoplasma incognitus. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, November 1989, volume 41, number 5, pages 586-600.

Lo SC; Dawson MS; Newton PB 3rd; Sonoda MA; Shih JW; Engler WF; Wang RY; Wear DJ. Association of the virus-like infectious agent originally reported in patients with AIDS with acute fatal disease in previously healthy non-AIDS patients. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, September 1989, volume 41, number 3, pages 364-376.

Lo SC; Wang RY; Newton PB 3d; Yang NY; Sonoda MA; Shih JW. Fatal infection of silvered leaf monkeys with a virus-like infectious agent (VLIA) derived from a patient with AIDS. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, April 1989, volume 40, number 4, pages 399-409.

Lo SC; Shih JW; Yang NY; Ou CY; Wang RY. A novel virus-like infectious agent in patients with AIDS. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, February 1989, volume 40, number 2, pages 213-226.

In addition, the NEW YORK NATIVE has published frequent and sometimes controversial coverage of this research.

Part of the bioweapons program, found in many cases misdiagnosed as CFS/GWI. Google project day lily to find out how it was part of the bioweapons program, great facsinating book.

Posted by: cooler | December 4, 2007 1:01 PM

franklin,

I see. But isn’t it normal that shortly after the first exposure to a new antigen (in this case a new mutant virus), the antibody concentration will still be low (before the initial response)? The authors assume that it will take 3 months to have an inital response to the new mutant. Did they try to test the serum, say, 10 days or 30 days after t=n months to see how long the body takes to mount a proper response? How can the authors conclude that the virus evolves faster if the titers don’t decrease in value? If they would see a decrease in the titer t=6 months relative to t=3 months and in t=12 months to t= 6 months and so on, probably they could conclude with more safety that the virus is indeed evading. No?

Could you please link me to that paper please?

Posted by: Rezaf | December 4, 2007 1:28 PM

Rezaf et al,
Dont bother debating these trolls, they are “paridigm defenders” they will never have an open honest discussion, they are trash, who only regurgitate whats on the CDC’s website, if the CDC said mycoplasmas were the cause of AIDS theyd be parroting that.

These are the same types of people who ignored the cure for scurvy when it was known hundereds of years in advance, murdering thousands, because of their tremendous arrogance, sycophancy to the establishment and even greater stupidity. Read the pathology study above by Lo to and Duesbergs paper to how real scientists operate.

Franklin, elkmountainman, hinkley and noble etc are trolls who have been posting on these blogs in real time for the past 20 years, they probably went to med school back in the 20’s, Debating these wackjobs will drive you insane. Take your message to the people and to real scientists.

Posted by: cooler | December 4, 2007 3:10 PM

“MEC,
Did you perhaps mean “ruminating,” not “germinating?”

- Elk Mountain Grammatician.

“germinating” is proper and is a highly accurate cruise missile; not a crude IED and it landed a direct hit. Elk dude, you need a night at Yuk Yuks and a brew!

“The absence of a sense of humor correlates very highly – 99.9999% – with the inability to perceive the Grand Canyon sized flaws in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis.” -AL

Posted by: pat | December 4, 2007 5:13 PM

No, Chris “Mr Meme” Noble, obviously I don’t consider this whole issue a vast joke, since I have studied it rather more closely and longer than you have, it seems. That is the only reason I can think of why I have reached the only conclusion that makes sense, and you have not. It can’t possibly have anything to do with objectivity, can it?

No, the vast joke, a rather bad one, is your continuous effort to pile sandbag after sandbag in a relentless but vain effort to block the workings of reason, common sense and informed interpretation as they demolish the inconsistent, irrational and impossible paradigm you seem to regard as a biblical text.

Your irresponsibility and perhaps wilful stupidity in playing this fatuous role instead of taking an interest in what is really going on is a matter for your conscience, and your embarrassment when the paradigm is changed, as it inevitably will be at some point.

As far as the millions of victims of your long time efforts in delaying this change are concerned, they may well not forgive you, stupidity or not. One of the first questions they will ask you is why you did it.

Good luck with that.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 4, 2007 6:10 PM

This is like watching international ice-hockey tournaments.

High-flying, high-salaried NHL (first-out) loosers getting thouroughly wacked by the smaller, under-funded national teams from the rest of the world. All the NHL players have to offer are “enforcer-rules” hockey. i.e. If you can’t out-play them, then resort to the “no-rules-barred” approach: punching, high-stickig, interfering and whatnotelse-ing.
Very amusing (in a Schadenfreude way) and humbling to this disgrunteled and disillusioned Canadian.

Go- (insert random non- N. American coutry here)- Go!

Some play for keeps and others for money. The “better” game is not necessarily obvious at first glance but the seasoned lover can tell the difference with very littel experience.

Chris et Al., your passes and stick handling suck! TS, MEC and Razaf at least play well and are deserving of attention and praise. They play for the crowd and win and you play for your pay-check and loose pathetically. In other words, they take great pains to explain their play to the audience and you fuckers just sulk and stall.

I want my money back!!!
(actually not, I enjoy your loosing more than their winning!!!)

Posted by: pat | December 4, 2007 6:16 PM

Truthseeker (sic):

I don’t know who you think you can fool with your “baffle them with BS” approach.

And Later:

The issue is how much there is later, whether it is thoroughly neutralized and banished from the arena of the bloodstream, and whether mutation allows it to escape repression. The answers Karpas and Richman give us are a) none worth discussion b) yes and c) no.

You brought up the Richman paper in the first place, which in some circles would imply that you have read it.

I’ve provided links to this paper’s data showing that the human antibody response does not keep up with the evolution of the virus–not even 25 months into the infection, in the patient shown in the link.

The patient with the longest follow-up is TN-3 who has been followed for 39 months and is shown in this figure. For this patient they show data on viruses isolated at 10 different time points (0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 10 months, 14 months, 19 months, 22 months, 35 months, and 39 months), and for each of these viruses, they show the neutralizing antibody titer present in the sera of patient TN-3 at 10 time points (0 months, 3 months, 6 months, 10 months, 14 months, 19 months, 22 months, 35 months, and 39 months).

Pick any time point you like, and you will see that the antisera from that time point has negligible neutralizing activity against the virus isolated at that time point. High titers of neutralizing antibodies are only present against viruses isolated months before the antibody was isolated.

In contrast to your distortions of Richman’s work, their data show that the virus evolves to evade the host antibody response. Neutralizing antibodies are ineffective against the virus isolated from the same blood sample as the antibodies but are effective against viruses isolated from blood samples taken months earlier from the same patient.

You provide no alternative explanation for the data.

In fact, you completely ignore the data.

You simply pretend that the data show the exact opposite of what anyone who clicks on the links can see with his own eyes.

You pretend to see the opposite of what the authors conclude about their own data, but you provide no rationale for your conclusion.

But then again the author’s conclusions were based upon examination of the data.

Whereas you only seem to have examined the paper as a potential source for the cherry-picking of quotes.

OK, I guess I was wrong about you. You *are* lying about the Richman paper.

You probably don’t understand the paper, either, but you simply keep repeating your lies while ignoring the fact that the data in the paper disprove your claims.

At some point, repetition of a falsehood in the face of contrary evidence becomes a lie–even if the falsehood was originally the product of honest incompetence.

You imagine yourself as Galileo looking through his telescope–but you refuse to honestly confront the data and statements found in the very papers that you bring up.

Better to bury your head in the sand, little ostrich, otherwise, you might accidentally see the data–and they might be too disturbing for your pseudoscientific world view.

Posted by: franklin | December 4, 2007 6:55 PM

Ok I’ve read the Richman paper.

“We report here that in most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants. The antibody responses to these variants exert a selective pressure that drives continuous evolution of neutralization escape mutants.”

So that means no matter how much the virus mutates and escapes, it is always caught.Yes?No?
In fact, I think they never mention any virus overwhelming the immune system in this paper, as a proper immune response is always mounted.

“Although drug-resistance mutations confer much greater fitness in the presence of antiretroviral drugs, they typically do not exist as common polymorphisms in untreated patients because they impair the replication of wild-type viruses. In contrast, during the natural course of early HIV infection, fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge and compete for outgrowth in the presence of a rapidly evolving neutralizing antibody response.”
So the immune system can respond. Always. With a 4 week delay, yes, but how long does one take to fully heal a flu?

“The lack of cross-neutralizing antibody responses against heterologous primary isolates during the early stages of HIV infection adds to existing concerns about the difficulty of identifying immunogens capable of inducing broadly protective responses. It will be of interest to determine whether more broadly reactive antibody responses evolve over a longer course of HIV infection (i.e., >39 months). Nevertheless, an optimist might argue that neutralizing antibody confers such potent selective pressure that antibody targeted against a broad range of circulating viruses could contribute to an effective HIV vaccine. Moreover, in contrast to the selection for escape by a narrowly focused, potent neutralizing response that is reactive to remarkably high levels of virus replication, the prophylactic use of such potent activity against a relatively modest inoculum might confer significant levels of protection and is consistent with the efficacy of passive prophylaxis with antibody to autologous virus in the macaque model”

Could the vaccine to HIV be HIV itself?

So the basic idea that I get from this paper after reading it is that the immune system can always keep up with virus mutation. And there is no decline in antibody response along the time frame they set. In fact, it increases. the ability to mount a defensive response is not impaired, or at least it is not visible. That’s why ” It will be of interest to determine whether more broadly reactive antibody responses evolve over a longer course of HIV infection (i.e., >39 months)”.

Opinions?

Posted by: Rezaf | December 4, 2007 7:18 PM

The crowd being yourself, TS, MEC and Rezaf?

You will find that outside of your small band of Denialists most people think you are completely nuts.

Franklin and I have detailed exactly why the experimental data provided in this paper completely contradicts Truthtwisters assertions that HIV is “defeated” or “vanquished”.

Given that the paper is available online and anyone can read it who do you think will be convinced by Truthtwisters dishonest misinterpretation?

This is where the vast gulf separating Denialists from reality is most evident. They seem to believe that the burden is on the “orthodoxy” to prove to a small group of contrarian kooks that HIV causes AIDS. Somehow the need for you to prove anything is forgotten.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 7:31 PM

They are not nuts anymore than I am, or if by not following the herd and if by not taking toxic drugs for the rest of one’s life makes one nuts, then I am very happy to be called a nut too. You foks are the cracked nuts who won’t “debate” the rethinkers. The truth is that you are afraid too as you know others would listen to us and you would come out looking foolish. So go ahead and enjoy your free ride as it will soon be ending and you will be the ones that no one will listen too!

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 4, 2007 7:52 PM

Rezaf:

So that means no matter how much the virus mutates and escapes, it is always caught.Yes?No?

No, Rezaf, that means that no matter how hard the immune system works, the virus still produces variants that escape the neutralizing antibodies.

In the Richman paper, the antibody response always lags behind the evolution of viral escape mutants. In all of the blood samples from untreated patients, virus can be isolated that is invisible to the neutralizing antibodies of the host, even years after the initial infection.

You compare the lag of the antibody response in the HIV-infected patients to the length of time it takes to get over the flu, but years later the HIV-infected patients are still fighting off new variants of the virus.

Patients TN-1, TN-5, TN-6, TN-7, and TN-10 have each been followed for between approximately 1-2 years, and patients TN-2 and TN-3 have been followed for approximately 3 years–and even in their latest blood samples, all of these patients still have viruses that are not subject to neutralization by the antibodies present in the same blood sample.

Does it take you 3 years to fight off a cold virus?

But I commend you for reading the paper, thinking about the data, and trying to understand what they mean.

That’s already more than Truthseeker (sic) has done, and he’s been pontificating about this paper since November 28th.

Posted by: franklin | December 4, 2007 8:03 PM

Baghdad Bob says:

“…when the paradigm is changed, as it inevitably will be at some point.”

Name a date, plus or minus 12 months.

There’s $50,000 in it if you’re right.

Come on! Its free to enter!

Step right up and name a date.

I can’t understand why none of the denialists will simply name a date when the pardigm will fall? They’re all so sure its wrong why don’t they just tell us when the medical community will see it too? Surely it can’t last much longer right TS? Tell me when, 12 month? 24 months? Name a date by which the paradigm will fall or stop predicting its imminent demise.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day and you’ve been wrong for 24 straight years Liversidge. Redeem yourself now and tell us when, +/- 12 months, the paradigm will fall.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 4, 2007 8:28 PM

“…enjoy your free ride as it will soon be ending…”

Please Noreen, name a date, +/- 12 months, by which the paradigm will have fallen. That gives you a two year window to be right.

When will the paradigm fall please?

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | December 4, 2007 8:33 PM

So that means no matter how much the virus mutates and escapes, it is always caught.Yes?No?

No. HIV exists as a persistent chronic infection. It is never “defeated”. It continues to replicate and continues to cause damage to the immune system at all times. Compare this to an acute infection with influenza virus that is cleared once an immune response is mounted.

HIV is not alone in this respect. Richman gives other examples of animal retroviruses that cause disease after the host has produced neutralizing antibodies.

The first two references predate the discovery of HIV.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 8:38 PM

Hinkley aka birdbrain,
It took hundereds of years for the true cause of scurvy to be discovered, even though the cure was proposed and ignored by idiotic expert hacks like you guys for decades, causing death and torture because patients were denied informed consent for these “tribal remedies” were kept hidden from the public by mainstream hacks.

Its been 25 years and it will probably take a a few decades more for all people to see the flaws in the hiv hypothesis, and hacks like you guys will cull even more of the population as mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans slowly disables the population, the only microbe out of hep c, hiv etc that induces death and disease in every species of animal inoculated. Once again thanks for the genocide and denying patients informed consent. If people had informed consent they would demand to be vaccinated (Lo and the army have already patented and developed a vaccine, the sign of good hypothesis), not slowly be killed by an undiagnosed infection that will ruin their lives.

Tommy morrison, former heavyweight champion, diagnosed hiv positive in 1996, Dumped doctor Ho and his drugs after he read Duesberg’s book, had all kinds of unprotected sex with his wife, more than ten years later both still alive and totally healthy with no drugs, what ad hoc excuses do you have for them?

One of the few hiv positive people that had informed consent, who knows how many more could lead happy lives if they had informed consent like former heavyweight champion Morrison had. Would you tell morrison to his face he was a “idiotic woo denier low life” for beleiving Duesberg, hahaha I would love to see that confrontation!

Posted by: cooler | December 4, 2007 9:23 PM

Especially when you guys told him hed be dead by now if he didnt hit hard and hit early! Cant wait for all of your ad hoc excuses for his good health.

Posted by: cooler | December 4, 2007 9:27 PM

That’s a strange choice for a poster child for HIV “rethinking”.

According to his estranged wife he did take ARVs. His current argument is not that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS but that he is not infected with HIV.

There are conflicting accounts as to whether he really is HIV+ or not. If you can find out the truth then please enlighten us.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 10:19 PM

Franklin,

Now you’re at it providing useful public service, could you please define an adequate level of antibody reponse in terms of the numbers given in the tables for the different subjects?

If I read, for instance that the initial antibody neutralization titre is 26 for subject TN-1 how far exactly is that from an adequate response? After 3 months the titre is 216, how far is that from an adequate response?

Would you also care to explain the clinical relevance of these varying titers in light of this:

The failure of 2 of 14 patients to generate a significant neutralizing antibody response (Table 2) and the varying levels and timing of peak antibody titers among the untreated patients did not seem to correlate with levels of plasma HIV RNA or CD4 lymphocyte counts during the period of follow-up

Thank you.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 4, 2007 10:19 PM

MEC,
why don’t you just say what you want to say rather than pretending you are the grand inquisitor?

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 4, 2007 11:54 PM

Given that the paper is available online and anyone can read it who do you think will be convinced by Truthtwisters dishonest misinterpretation?

Answer: All open minds with even an elementary grasp of scientific reasoning and data.

Rezaf, for example, who doesn’t know me, had no preconceived position, and had not made up his mind till he read this thread, on which you have exposed yourself so nakedly as unable to read scientific papers with any sophistication.

He only encountered the examination of HIV=AIDS on ScienceGuardian.com a few weeks ago, yet he reads the Richman paper and concludes:

In other words, a good scientist, a knowledgeable chemist, and an open mind reaches a conclusion which you cannot.

Result:

Score: Chris “The Meme is Me” Noble: 0.

Truthseeker: 1.

All intelligent, open minds will see what I mean, Chris, when they read Richman, and not what you see. They will also see your incompetent pleas for the status quo for what they are.

The truth is this. With the monkey meme pulling half the levers in your logic-challenged, politically naive brains, you, Franklin, Roy and Elk are exposing yourselves as very silly to the entire world for ever.

So please for your own sake – you need every ounce of energy to run your extremely slow wits – I beg you to stop cranking your meme machine which has run so low on fuel it has nothing left but pre-adolescent jibes and tedious, empty counter assertions.

Acknowledge your defeat like a man, Chris, even if you are no gentleman.

Aussies are reputed to be among the most realistic and down to earth people in the world. Are you an immigrant? If so where from? It might explain a lot.

Posted by: Truthseekr | December 4, 2007 11:55 PM

All intelligent, open minds will see what I mean, Chris, when they read Richman, and not what you see. They will also see your incompetent pleas for the status quo for what they are.

Your definition of an “intelligent open mind” as somebody that agrees with your interpretation gives us a clear indication of your delusions of grandeur.

The article by Richman has been cited over 200 times in the literature. None of them interpet the paper in the manner in which you have. I guess you would have us believe that all of these scientists are completely stupid whereas you have some special knowledge that allows you to look past the data to some hidden truth.

Acknowledge your defeat like a man, Chris, even if you are no gentleman.

I see you are doing your very best impersonation of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail

I guess that you are hoping that anybody reading this will not realise that you have not made a single substantial response regarding the data in the paper by Richman et al.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 12:37 AM

Noble,
he was positive period in 1996, they do repeat testing in professional boxing.

Tommy Morrison Wants You To Believe

Boxing’s Next White Hope fired Dr. David Ho

——————————————————————————–

It’s just a living room, done up in Middle-Class American, with the requisite television the size of a small refrigerator and the stack of videos beside it; and the portrait photos of three red-cheeked children on the wall; and the three-seat sofa and the reclining chair; and it’s really all Tommy Morrison, who grew up in a fractured household in Jay, Oklahoma ever wanted for himself. “I’m just a normal guy” is his mantra. But this isn’t Morrison’s room. It belongs to the family of an HIV positive 26-year-old named Aaron Shriver, who now sits sprawled in the plush leather chair, legs extended, in his blue jeans and Eskimo Joe’s baseball cap. Across the room, poised atop a couch as though at any moment he will spring to his feet, an arm slung over the back for balance, Morrison radiates intensity. Ordinary living rooms have become his venues for combat, prettied-up boxing rings. A former top heavyweight contender (and briefly the champion of the weight class as ranked by the World Boxing Organization), Morrison hasn’t stopped fighting since shortly after his own positive test result in February 1996. His opponent isn’t AIDS, but the medical community that has linked it to HIV.

To Morrison, HIV is a benign virus and AIDS a fraudulent collection of symptoms. “AIDS has been here since creation, but it doesn’t do anything,” Morrison all but shouts across the room. Shriver nods. A few days before, following a tearful telephone call from Shriver to Morrison’s mother, the ex-boxer had driven his pickup here to Chelsea, about half an hour outside Tulsa, crossed the railroad tracks that run through the center of town, and visited Shriver and his family. Since 1994, Shriver had been treating HIV with AZT and other medications. But he felt himself getting progressively sicker. Morrison came to talk up his strategy of “natural hygiene,” a term he remembers reading, but he isn’t certain where. It’s a regimen of exercise, vitamin intake, healthy eating and no medicine. “I don’t even take aspirin,” Morrison says. “You know why? Because I’m not sick.”

Morrison believes it is the medications used to treat HIV, not the virus itself, that initiates a breakdown of the immune system. “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is something that’s easily cured,” he told the Shrivers. “The human body was made to cure itself, but we keep putting lots of shit into it.” To his surprise, they didn’t need much convincing.

“I knew the treatment was killing me,” Aaron Shriver says now. “It was taking a toll on my body, physically and mentally. Every time I’d eat a pill I’d say, ‘Aaron you are going to die. This pill is for people who are dying.’ But everything you hear about HIV, you have to take this stuff.”

Hearing this brings Morrison to his feet. At 28, he’s a big man with oversized arms, maybe not in fighting shape but not far from it. He wears a tiny diamond stud in his left ear, a depiction of Jesus Christ on his t-shirt and a wide-open face that shows emotions bigger than life, like a drive-in movie screen. “This kid was perfectly healthy before he started taking the medication,” he says. “He knew something wasn’t going right. All he needed was me to put him over the edge.”

When Shriver learned he had acquired HIV from a dirty needle, he considered it a death sentence. Like Morrison, he no longer believes that. “I’m tired of being the victim of this,” he says. He has stopped taking his meds: “I was feeding myself death.”

“‘Cause you knew how it was going to make you feel,” Morrison replies.

“Let me show you something,” Shriver says. He leaves the room and returns with a plastic bag half-filled with white-and-blue pills — a month’s supply of AZT. Morrison picks it off the table and gauges its heft. “Wow! Look at all that poison,” he says. “A big bag of pills that looks like death. No wonder someone gets sick. They get people who are totally healthy and give them poison, and their bodies start breaking out into infection or fever or diarrhea, whatever.

The body is trying to get rid of the toxins… ”

“And then they give you a pill for that… ”

“That’s right!” Morrison says. He’s standing in the middle of the wall-to-wall carpet now, his arms out in front of him like the boxer he was, booming his message through the living room and the empty house beyond, preaching to the converted. “They treat the symptoms! They treat the symptoms of the symptoms of the symptoms, and they poison you,” he says. He takes a breath, wraps his will around his emotion, gets it under control.

“Boy, I get mad,” he says. “But if somebody told you something, and you found out that if you’d followed their direction, you’d have died, well, that’s enough to spark anybody. That’s where my fucking motivation comes from. These guys tried to kill me, and they’re killing a bunch of other people, and it ain’t right. And I’m not going to let it happen.”

Living rooms aren’t Morrison’s only outlet for his proselytizing. As part of the probationary terms of suspended sentences for a weapons violation and an assault charge against his ex-wife, he gives speeches to high school and college students. But he’d do it anyway, he says, to spread the truth.

“I need something to motivate me,” he says. “Boxing was there, and then it was yanked away, but this other stuff is there now. Like defying conventional wisdom. I run into people in airports I haven’t seen in a long time and they’re like, ‘Man, you look good,’ and I’m puzzled because I forget what most people believe. And then it’s like, ‘Oh, but there’s so much you don’t know.’ And I don’t get down off my soapbox for an hour.”

Morrison takes pride in his candor, but he has had enough bad publicity in his short, out-of-control life to make him shun controversy. So in speeches to students he offers up a sanitized version of his own weird science. “You can’t go in and say to kids they’re not going to get AIDS from sex,” he says. “They’re not, but you can’t say it. You can’t say, ‘Here’s my wife, she doesn’t have it and we fuck all the time,’ because the media will pick it up and call you insane. So I tell them, ‘This is what you’re told, this is what I think, this is what I’ve done. And look at me: I’m healthy!’”

Morrison’s lifestyle, too, now has the trappings of normality. He lives on a ranch near Jay and works as a boxing commentator for Fox Sports. He has all but stopped drinking — though he was cited for driving while intoxicated near Kansas City recently, a function of wine with dinner at the home of a friend, he says — and is no longer a regular in the barrooms and clubs of Tulsa. Unlike many ex-athletes, he has money in the bank.

Nine months ago, in a surprise ceremony, he married his longtime girlfriend. He had pursued her for years while his reputation as a hell-raiser kept her at arm’s length. “She was afraid of me because of what she’d heard,” he says. “She thought all I wanted to do was get in her pants. She’d actually only been with one guy her entire life, the guy she went out with before me. We didn’t have sex until right before we got married.”

Now they have unprotected sex. Why use a condom, Morrison believes, when HIV can’t hurt you? “We haven’t changed one thing, and she tests negative every single time,” he says. “I’ve shown her everything I know, and she’s content with it. Basically, she’s giving me her life. She’s saying, ‘Here, whatever you’re doing, I’m doing.’ That’s how certain I am; there’s no way I’d ever do something to hurt that woman. Because there is no fucking way you can get HIV from sex. It’s scientifically impossible.”

Morrison won’t comment publicly on how he acquired the virus. He was first diagnosed in February 1996, after a blood test in Las Vegas. He was scheduled to fight Arthur Weathers that night as part of a three-bout contract that would culminate with Mike Tyson. Instead, he was suspended. He heard of the test result from his manager, Tony Holden, left his hotel and flew home. “I was as uneducated as anyone else about HIV,” he says. “I didn’t know what to think.” He landed at the Tulsa airport after midnight and saw a crowd huddled around a TV in the airport bar. As he approached, he realized they were watching videotape of him. That’s when he knew what a big deal it would be.

In northeastern Oklahoma, he is considered a hero. There aren’t many national figures from this part of the country. “I’ve read that Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley never turned down an autograph request,” he says, “and I try to be the same way.” Everywhere he goes in Tulsa, where he keeps an apartment, he is greeted with a handshake, a backslap, a bit of conversation. When his periodic indiscretions put him in the news, the locals in this corner of the world forgive him.

“I’m just like they are, except that I became a millionaire,” Morrison says, speeding his pickup past the Sonic drive-throughs and convenience stores that serve as topography along the prairie landscape. But Morrison stepped more quickly than most from adolescence to adulthood. He was a seventh-grader when he skipped a year of school, forged an ID and began fighting adults for winner-take-all paychecks in bars and roadhouses. These were Tough Man competitions, essentially street fights with gloves. “I was 13, had an ID, said I was 21,” he says. “I was working at construction sites, going to titty bars. They could tell I wasn’t legal, but nobody cared. The ID looked good, so they were covered.”

He returned to school and played football while continuing to make money fighting in bars under the name James White. He planned to play in college, but in his senior year, on a lark, he entered a regional Golden Gloves boxing tournament in May 1988. He had no formal boxing knowledge, two weeks to train and an army duffel bag filled with sawdust to beat on. But he traveled to Kansas City and won the heavyweight division, a real-life Rocky. That led to the national Golden Gloves, and then, it being an Olympic year, to the Western Region Olympic trials and the national trials in Concord, California. Eight fighters in each class were invited to Concord from across the country, including Morrison — two months removed from head-butting in sports bars.

He lost, but by then Morrison was being touted as the Next White Hope. It didn’t hurt that he was related by blood to John Wayne — born Marion Morrison — and seemed so unpretentious. “Everybody was telling me how much money I could make, with my ability and my personality,” he says. By November he had moved to Kansas City and turned professional. His nickname, like Wayne’s, was “Duke.” After two years, he was undefeated and featured opposite Sly Stallone in Rocky V.

But for a kid from rural Oklahoma, Kansas City was the fast lane. He never fell into drugs, but he did about everything else. He’d train for fights and win them all, but they were little more than pit stops between parties. “In the heavyweight division, if you’re a Top 10 guy, you only have to fight once or twice a year,” he says. “So there’s usually nothing to stay in for at night. And I couldn’t handle that.”

He says he never got into a scuffle out of the ring, though he was accused of many. “I never punched a girl, never hit a guy,” he says. But he admits to sometimes waiting until a friend or hanger-on had passed out drunk, then shaving off an eyebrow as a souvenir. He did it at a party once to someone he barely knew and got sued for it. He lost $8,000. “There was a time when I couldn’t have farted in an elevator without someone wanting to sue me,” he says.

Morrison’s string of casual trouble kept him in the headlines. It scared away endorsement deals, but his success in the ring kept getting him fights. He beat George Foreman to win the championship of the WBO, one of several alphabet-soup organizations that promote championship belts. He lost the belt but stopped the formidable Razor Ruddock on the way back up. Tyson was on his radar screen.

And then he tested positive. “He was white, and he had some talent, and in this wonderful world of boxing that goes a long way,” says Ross Greenburg, executive producer of HBO Sports, which telecast four of Morrison’s bouts. “He had a questionable chin, but a lot of heart. I do not honestly believe he would have been heavyweight champion of the world, but his heart willed him to win fights he shouldn’t have won. He had personal demons he had to attack, but he seemed to have overcome them and was training hard. We’ll never know.”

There used to be a sign by the road at the Jay city limit declaring it the hometown of Tommy Morrison, WBO heavyweight champ. Two days after he tested positive, the sign was taken down — officially or unofficially, Morrison never learned. And one man joined a health club, discovered Morrison worked out there and asked for his money back. “He figured out we’d be laying on the same bench or something,” Morrison says. “He was afraid he’d get infected by my sweat.”

Mostly, though, his celebrity helped him. Calls and letters came rolling in. Stallone left a message suggesting a German doctor; athlete friends he’d made in Kansas City’s pro sports community made recommendations. There were folk remedies, antigovernment manifestos, miracle cures. Morrison read them all, looking for a way to make HIV seem nothing more than normal. A month after testing positive, he was talking of a visitation from God.

“I believe that this virus is going to disappear from my body,” he said during an interview. He had sent for studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and devoured conspiracy-theory research such as Peter Duesberg’s Inventing the AIDS Virus and Richard Willner’s Deadly Deception. He was ready to believe.

Holden and Stuart Campbell, his attorney and close friend, urged a more conventional course. They contacted Dr. David Ho, the pre-eminent AIDS researcher who later became Time’s Man of the Year and serves as a physician to Magic Johnson. Ho agreed to treat Morrison. But Morrison refused to take various medicines, citing his own research and a spiritual vision. “All Dr. Ho did was do my bloodwork,” Morrison says over a boxer’s breakfast of strip steak, four eggs, two orders of hash browns. “And then he tried to give me the damn medication. The top guy in the field doesn’t even understand that HIV isn’t a germ, it’s a virus. It’s not alive, so you can’t kill it — which is why, 13 years later, we’re no closer to a so-called cure.”

Ho refuses to comment on Morrison’s case. He refers inquiries to the esteemed researcher Dr. Robert Schooley, head of infectious diseases at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver. “What Morrison is doing is actually not a method of battling HIV, it’s a method of denial,” Schooley says. “We know enough now to know that the cause of AIDS is incontrovertibly HIV, and that the drugs we have to treat it prevent disease from spreading and cut mortality rates. Telling people HIV doesn’t cause AIDS is a very convenient thing for the Peter Duesbergs of the world to be doing because it lets patients continue to do things they want to do. Unfortunately, it’s wrong.”

When Morrison refused to take medication, Ho’s office stopped treating him. That was fine with the boxer, who perceives doctors as the unwitting endpoint in a conspiracy among the pharmaceutical giants and the U.S. government. “AZT, ddI, all that stuff is very toxic,” he says. “AZT rids the body of the virus, but it brings your immune system down with it, so you catch a cold and die.” He calls himself the most educated person he knows regarding HIV. “I don’t know how I know the things I know,” he says. “I just know I’m right. I haven’t been sick in five years. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

True to his word, Morrison even managed to fight last September against a designated patsy, though he had to go to Tokyo to find both a governing body that would sanction him and a willing opponent. He earned only expense money and donated his winner’s purse to Knockout AIDS, a fundraising foundation he helped create that is designed to send HIV positive children to championship bouts, make sure they have enough healthy food to eat, and do other similarly good deeds. Other than that, Morrison is almost completely detached from the HIV positive community — so much so that when the gay newsmagazine The Advocate called his house for a scheduled interview, Morrison responded with insults and invective because, he says, he figured it was a friend pulling a prank.

So far, Morrison and Knockout AIDS have seen little of the estimated $500,000 his Tokyo fight was supposed to raise. But he has planned a celebrity golf tournament in Nashville to make up the difference. He would raise money by fighting again, he says, or even resume his career. But he’s afraid — not of infecting an opponent but of falling back into the lifestyle he had in Kansas City. As it was, much of the partying-induced puffiness of his earlier bouts was gone for his latest bout. “You should have seen him in Tokyo,” Campbell says, shaking his head. “He was in terrific, terrific shape.”

To Campbell, those rippling forearms are exactly what has Morrison deluded. “Until your body says, ‘Hey, you’ve got a virus,’ who tells him? His doctors, whom he doesn’t trust or believe anyway,” Campbell says. “If your body tells you you’re sick, you’re going to listen. But until then, it’s really, really hard to say, ‘Look, Tommy, you’ve got to start taking these drugs.’ And then it’s too late. You get a cold and it turns into pneumonia, and you go in and find out you have AIDS. And I think that’s what’ll happen with Tommy. I pray it doesn’t, but I’m worried it will.”

Since leaving boxing, which he calls God’s will, Morrison has led a full, fulfilling life. “I’m enjoying the hell out of being married,” he says. When he isn’t on the road giving speeches or broadcasting fights, he spends time teaching and training Brenda Rouse, a female boxer who is billed as the top-ranked contender in the 112-pound flyweight division. At a martial-arts studio near his Tulsa apartment, he extends his arms with padded gloves and lets Rouse work on her timing, her technique, her footwork.

They slide across the carpet, Rouse throwing staccato punches that crack like rifle shots. Morrison shows the same intensity in his eyes he had in Aaron Shriver’s living room. “In boxing, you never stop learning,” he says, wiping the sweat from his forehead during a break. “You start thinking you know it all, it’s the beginning of the end. Be a sponge! Absorb every kind of information you get about life, then decide for yourself what works.”

Outside the gym the day is bright and the March air is warm, the first warm day in a while. After the training resumes the crack of Rouse’s punches carries out the open door and into the sunshine. Morrison has mentioned getting back to the ranch before too long and maybe going fly fishing, for it’s a shame to waste a day like this indoors. But he’s in no hurry. He knows he has all the time in the world.

Posted by: cooler | December 5, 2007 1:21 AM

Dr. MCCANDLESS wrote in the LDN support group about another positive effect of taking LDN for AIDS.

— In LDN_HIVAIDS@yahoogroups.com, JAQUELYN MCCANDLESS wrote:
>
> New Data on Cancer Rates Among HIV-Positive People
> ‘Underline’ Need for Antiretrovirals That Restore
> Immune Function, Opinion Piece Says
>
>
> New data on cancer rates among HIV-positive
> people “underline” the need for the development of
> antiretroviral drugs that “restore immune function
> more effectively” than currently available treatments,
> Mark Wainberg — director of McGill University’s AIDS
> Centre at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal,
> Canada, and former president of the International AIDS
> Society — writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.
>
> As a result of increased life expectancy because of
> new antiretrovirals, clinicians and researchers are
> seeing higher rates of several “life-threatening”
> cancers among people who have been HIV-positive for

> long periods of time, Wainberg writes. These cancers
> include lymphomas, carcinomas and lung cancers,
> according to Wainberg, who adds that although the
> “numbers are still relatively small overall, these
> cancers are occurring with far higher frequency among”
> HIV-positive people than among the general population.
> One reason for the increase is that HIV causes a
> decline in immunological function that “cannot be
> completely repaired” by antiretrovirals, according to
> Wainberg. Treatment helps ensure that HIV-positive
> people will not acquire some infections, but the
> immune system still might be compromised in its
> ability to protect against cancer, he notes.
>
> According to Wainberg, the increases in cancer
> incidence “raise a number of important concerns” –
> including whether rates of cancer among HIV-positive
> people will continue to increase and whether the
> cancers will be “restricted to certain types or will
> diversify.” Another concern is related to treatment
> because chemotherapy temporarily might prevent the use
> of antiretrovirals, Wainberg writes, adding that such

> interruptions in treatment could “lead to renewed
> replication of the virus and exacerbation” of
> progression to AIDS. In addition, “long-term
> surveillance” is needed to track whether people living
> with HIV for 10 to 25 years will become more
> susceptible to developing cancer as antiretroviral
> therapy improves, Wainberg writes.
>
> According to Wainberg, although the number of cancers
> seen among HIV-positive people could “plateau,”
> widespread “damage” to the immune system already might
> have occurred in almost all patients, regardless of
> when they were diagnosed, by the time they start
> antiretroviral therapy. The “changes” the data on
> cancer “reflect in the evolution of HIV/AIDS as a
> long-term condition and in the quality of life of
> those living with it are vivid reminders that AIDS
> remains a fearsome disease, despite all the progress
> we’ve achieved over a quarter-century in therapies,
> acceptance and awareness,” Wainberg concludes
> (Wainberg, Washington Post, 12/4).
>

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 1:26 AM

But wait, hes a loon, hes going to be dead for sure by 2006 and have full blown aids! We must tell him that theres a 100% chance hes going to die and that he needs to be protected from Duesbergs ideas! oh golly this is murder!……………..well hes still alive and totally healthy!

Why dont you just admit that morrison, an average laymen knows more about hiv than you guys do, hes alive and proved you guys wrong, and if he took your deadly advice hed probably be totally miserable and sick now.

Not only that you cant cite any scientific paper that shows that people without mycoplasmas, severe stress, AZT and severe drug abuse even get AIDS, not one chimp out of hundereds inoculated has died after 20 years, why do you people deny people like Tommy morrison informed consent, and let them control their own destiny, crush their dreams when you have no evidence to do so?

Posted by: cooler | December 5, 2007 1:37 AM

Tommy Morrison Wants You To Believe

Believe what?

He currently claims that he was never infected with HIV. His ex-wife and his ex-lawyer have different stories.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 1:39 AM

He says that bc he claims to test negative now, strange I thought those tests were 99.9% reliable!

Posted by: cooler | December 5, 2007 1:46 AM

MEC,

It is very difficult to determine exact values for the degree of protection offered by a given level of neutralizing antibodies in an individual patient. In general, when there is a robust immune response to an antigen, the antibody titer will increase over a period of weeks to months. This is what Richman observed in 12 out of 14 patients.

Several of these patients are summarized in table 6, which compares the time course of the production of neutralizing antibodies against the initial viral isolates in several patients, and shows that each patient’s neutralizing antibodies are specific for the virus isolated from his own blood.

With the exception of patient TN-2, all of the patients in Table 6 show a significant rise in the titer of neutralizing antibody specific for his own viral isolate. For patient TN-1, the titers against his initial viral isolate at 0 months, 6 months, and 12 months are 54, 1236, and 3677, respectively. For patient TN-5, the titers against his initial viral isolate at 0 months, 6 months, and 11 months are 54, 3020, and 1435, respectively. For patient TN-6, the titers against his initial viral isolate at 0 months, 6 months, and 12 months are 62, 355, and 1097, respectively.

In contrast, for patient TN-2, the titers against his initial viral isolate at 0 months, 6 months, and 11 months are only 44, 78, and 73, respectively. He did not demonstrate a significant rise in his titer against his primary viral isolate.

But how high a titer is biologically significant? The most biologically relevant answer would be a titer that is high enough to interfere with viral replication. Such a biologically significant titer could manifest itself in several ways. For example, the titer might rise to a level that neutralizes the virus so effectively that the virus is unable to maintain the infection and the patient is cured.

Another possibility is that the titer might rise to a level that neutralizes the virus, selecting for rare variants of the virus in which the antigenic target(s) no longer will bind to the neutralizing antibodies, thus leading to the emergence of a slightly different virus in the patient. Richman’s data demonstrate the occurrence of this phenomenon in the HIV-infected patients. By this model, one would predict that if the titer gets high enough to be biologically significant–i.e. to significantly interfere with viral replication–then one will begin to recover variant viruses that no longer are recognized by the high titer antibodies.

Table 3, which shows the response of patient TN-3, a patient with a significant but somewhat sluggish response, helps illustrate this process. Looking at the numbers in the vertical columns, one can compare the activity of the antibodies isolated at one time point against the viruses isolated from the same blood sample as the antibodies, viruses isolated from earlier blood samples, and viruses isolated from later blood samples.

The number in bold always indicates the titer of an antibody against the virus isolated from the same blood sample as the antibody–the concurrent virus. Starting at the bold value and moving up, we can see how the concurrent virus compares to earlier viruses from the same patient. If the titer against the concurrent virus is a lot lower than the titer against the viruses directly above it in the column, then the antibody has provided a strong enough selective pressure that a variant strain has grown out. If the titer against the concurrent virus is similar to the titer against the virus directly above it in the column, then no selection has taken place.

For example, looking at the second column from the left (the 3 month plasma), the titer against the concurrent virus is 69 (the 3 month virus, in bold) and the titer against the Zero month virus (directly above) is 67. This indicates that between 0 to 3 months, the patient’s antibodies were not significantly interfering with replication of the virus.

In the next column to the right (6 month plasma) the titer against the concurrent virus is 81 (the 6 month virus, bold) and the titer directly above is 142 (representing the activity of the plasma isolated at 6 months against the virus isolated at 3 months). This is starting to indicate a change in the virus, suggesting that viruses that have an antigenic structure that differs from that of the virus predominating from 0-3 months have a selective advantage. The neutralizing antibodies are interfering with the replication of the viral strains isolated at 0 months and at 3 months, and the presence of these antibodies has started selecting out variants from the viral population.

Moving over one column further to the right (10 months plasma), the titer against the concurrent virus is 75 (10 month virus, bold). This titer is not very different from the titer against the 6 month virus directly above (titer = 91), but both of these are much lower than the titer against the 3 month virus (titer =231). This suggests that the immune response continues to be interfering with the replication of the viral strains isolated between 0 – 3 months, but little selective pressure has yet to interfere with replication of the viral strain that emerged at 6 months.

As you continue examining columns further to the right, neutralizing antibodies are eventually produced that interfere with the 6 month virus, and a new viral strain emerges that is insensitive to the neutralizing antibodies. This pattern repeats itself as you examine the subsequent columns.

From looking at these numbers, it seems that when the titer against the most recent earlier strain reaches about 120-175 (when the number directly above the bold number reaches about 120-175), the concurrent strain begins to antigenically diverge (the bold number becomes smaller than the number directly above it).

Comparing these results with Table 2 is also instructive. Table 2 summarizes the titers observed in patient TN-2, who did not mount a significant neutralizing antibody response. His titers bounce around between about 50 to 120, but no consistent increase is seen over time. With no selection taking place, no differences emerge between the titer against the concurrent virus and the earlier viruses.

How the production of neutralizing antibodies relates to the viral loads measured in individual patients is complex.

The strength of this paper is that it provides a detailed investigation of the neutralizing antibody response in individual patients and of the selective pressure that the antibodies impart on the virus.

But this paper does not attempt to provide a comprehensive evaluation of all of the parameters that affect viral replication and viral load in HIV-infected patients.

Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 1:52 AM

MEC,
why don’t you just say what you want to say rather than pretending you are the grand inquisitor?

But Dr. N, if I were the Grand Inquisitor I’d rank above John Moore, who is only a Small and steadily diminishing Inquisitor. But an Inquisitor is somebody who accuses. I only ask about the basis on which you arrive at your conclusions. Here’s what I want to say again:

“Franklin,

Now you’re at it providing useful public service, could you please define an adequate level of antibody reponse in terms of the numbers given in the tables for the different subjects?

Would you also care to explain the clinical relevance of these varying titers in light of this:

Thank you.”

Now Dr. N, do you know the answer?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 2:11 AM

Your definition of an “intelligent open mind” as somebody that agrees with your interpretation gives us a clear indication of your delusions of grandeur.

No, those are simply the qualifications needed to escape the meme when reading any paper, but as it happens, with Richman it yields my interpretation, yes, as you would appreciate if you possessed either quality in examining meme-riddled papers, which unfortunately is like asking you to look yourself in the face without a mirror, because you are indeed the Meme incarnate, Chris, and your arguments a classic example of the Meme Effect, ie the Kruger-Dunning effect in the special instance of HIV=AIDS, perhaps the grandest example of the Kruger-Dunning effect in the history of the politics of science, let alone biology.

The article by Richman has been cited over 200 times. None of them interpet the paper in the manner in which you have. I guess you would have us believe that all of these scientists are completely stupid.

Precisely. The meme inhabits most of the brains in the field. You hadn’t noticed this yet? We pointed it out to you earlier. Like Windows, the Meme is a bad idea that has network utility: the more it spreads, the more useful it is to everybody, even though there is a far better alternative, as in Mac OSX. You are not aware of this Chris? Well of course, the Meme is not aware of it, And you are the Meme.

whereas you have some special knowledge that allows you to look past the data to some hidden truth.

Yes indeed.. Not because I am privileged, but simply because I looked at the question, instead of allowing the Meme to take over my brain and prevent me from doing so. What you call special knowledge is easily available to anybody with an independent mind who does the same, impossible only to you and others ridden by the Meme.

It is truth hidden only from you and your busy gang of resolute HIV=AIDS apologists, who manage the almost inhumanly difficult trick of examining papers in HIV=AIDS having been told the correct interpretation and still concluding that HIV=AIDS, which is intellectually equivalent to forming a human pretzel, ie putting both feet behind your head and sucking on both big toes at once.

you have not made a single substantial response regarding the data in the paper by Richman et al.

True, and why should I? You misread the paper, I told you what the paper actually says, and you and Franklin raised false points corrected by Robert Houston and Claw, which was kind of them since none were worth responding to.

Richman found that the virus mutation is easily dealt with by the immune response of a healthy person. It does not allow HIV to escape its influence. It renders HIV a puddy tat up a tree, which is where your absurd twisting of clear data lands your Meme.

I see you are doing your very best impersonation of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail

Houston, Claw, Cooler, Rezak have now lopped off the arms and legs of the Monty Python Black Knight, not vice versa. I prefer to keep out of repeating the same old obvious points while you play the role of Denialist, which is the only one you know,

If you had any fresh and original point to make, I would answer, and if you won it, I would concede like a gentleman, It is time for you at long last, Noble, to face up to the fact that without the Meme machine, you have nothing to say.

Come out from behind it and fess up, Noble. Telling the truth about yourself is good for the soul,

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 5, 2007 2:34 AM

Richman found that the virus mutation is easily dealt with by the immune response of a healthy person. It does not allow HIV to escape its influence.

Simply repeating this falsehood over and over again does not make it true. You know very well that Richman does not agree with this mis/interpretation.

The rate of antibody neutralization escape and evolution in recently infected, untreated patients described in this report exceeds the relatively rapid rates of change that are characteristic of the emergence of drug resistance during suboptimal antiretroviral therapy. This observation indicates that the potency of the selective pressure exerted by neutralizing antibodies can account for the extensive variability of env in comparison to other HIV genes (31). The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy. During the course of HIV evolution, the envelope protein has acquired the ability to retain function (i.e., bind receptors) while tolerating multiple and repeated changes in several highly variable regions containing numerous glycosylation sites (32). Although drug-resistance mutations confer much greater fitness in the presence of antiretroviral drugs, they typically do not exist as common polymorphisms in untreated patients because they impair the replication of wild-type viruses. In contrast, during the natural course of early HIV infection, fully functional envelope variants continuously emerge and compete for outgrowth in the presence of a rapidly evolving neutralizing antibody response.

Figure 3 and Table 7 demonstrate that HIV continues to replicate and reach high viral loads despite antibody response.

You expect somebody to believe that even the authors of the paper are incapable of understanding it? Everybody apart from your small band of “rethinkers” misread the paper?

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 3:01 AM

Here’s what I want to say again

But you haven’t actually said anything. At least Truthtwister has the courage/foolishness to offer his own erroneous interpretation of the paper.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 3:04 AM

Richman found that the virus mutation is easily dealt with by the immune response of a healthy person. It does not allow HIV to escape its influence.

In case there are still people that accept Truthtwisters dishonest interpretation of this paper there is a more recent paper from Richman.

Antibody responses in primary HIV-1 infection

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 3:38 AM

franklin,

Thank you.
“Patients TN-1, TN-5, TN-6, TN-7, and TN-10 have each been followed for between approximately 1-2 years, and patients TN-2 and TN-3 have been followed for approximately 3 years–and even in their latest blood samples, all of these patients still have viruses that are not subject to neutralization by the antibodies present in the same blood sample.”
But according to what they report in the paper, the patients will develop a potent immune response eventually.
I did not find this quote on the paper. In fact the graph you linked me to is part of this:

“Individual Variability of Neutralizing Antibody Responses. The impact of antiretroviral treatment on the emergence and evolution of neutralization responses can be appreciated by comparing the patterns of individual responses among seven patients who declined treatment and five patients who successfully suppressed plasma HIV RNA with antiretroviral therapy (Fig. 4). Fig. 4 also depicts the considerable intersubject variation in the time to peak titer and the potency of neutralizing antibody responses directed at viruses that emerged later in infection. In 9 of the 12 untreated patients with detectable neutralizing antibody, the highest measured neutralization titer was directed against the baseline virus (month 0) whereas in three others higher titers of neutralizing antibody developed against viruses that emerged later in infection.”

Sorry I’ve read the paper again and I did not find anything that says that the immune system will eventaully stop responding. And I’ve read it over again. And again.
Uh oh…Here come comments about my ability (and intelligence) to understand even the simplest of papers.
I’m sorry, but English is not my native tongue and this paper is not very direct in its conclusions and is full of very technical language.

Noble,

Regardless of my position in this matter, I’m still able to read a paper (even if I have to n times) and understand what they conclude there. I don’t think it is the purpose of the authors to write a paper and let the reader’s imagination run wild and draw their own conclusions. All this because the paper is difficult to read. The paper that I’m used to read have a much more accessible language and convey their conclusions without rodeos.
You don’t know me or know anything about my intelligence or lack of it. If the paper said anything about virus overwhelming the immune system, then I would see it and they would tell it straight out. Not imagine that was what they are trying to say.
“We report here that in most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants. The antibody responses to these variants exert a selective pressure that drives continuous evolution of neutralization escape mutants.”

That’s what they report and conclude. Thank God for abstracts. They even suggest to study the immune response over a larger time frame.(Probably because they didn’t see the expected signs of immune decline?)

“We report here that in most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants (To ALL subsequent variants? That must be, because they don’t say otherwise).”

It is always caught.

Oh, I may not take 3 years to heal a flu, but I can be infected with the same strain of flu and not develop symptoms because of immune memory. Normally I take about 4 weeks to fully recover. That’s about the same time these patients take to develop proper immune response to the virus. And as Adele said before, that HIV evades immune response like, for example, herpes, one can have HIV in the system but only have an outbreak when the immune system is weakened by other factors. Just like herpes. And this one is not cleared from the system.

Noble, don’t strip me (and others) from my (modest) intellectual and critical ability. Nor label me with the D word. I read the paper with an open mind and unbiased stance. I don’t read paper with the sole purpose of not taking their word for it. Nor I do blindly believe in what it is written. (And I’ve had some surpises for blindly believing what is written on papers) I think one has to retain some critical attitude. The peer-review system isn’t incorruptible and holy. With all due respect for Mr. Richman’s work, if Mr. Richman was so secure about what he was doing, the messages conveyed in the paper wouldn’t be enshrouded by the extensive use of technical language. He would say his conclusions in a (even) more direct manner.
And I will not stand here and be judged because what I was able to take from the paper wasn’t pleasing to one or other “faction”. Nor I will be called murderer for that matter. It is the lack of constructive conversation that murders. That “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” stance has brought some positive results, didn’t it? Just look at Palestine or Iraq.
Hmmph…I wonder what would happen I my doctor called me heretic/denialist after I questioned one of his methods or asked for informed consent? I would sure deny him of the wad of money he takes for each appointment. And I’ve dealt with medical incompetence first-hand. And so have many others.
Franklin, on the other hand, is willing argue without the aggressive attitude (which I appreciate very much!).

Science is not just for you people.

Posted by: Rezaf | December 5, 2007 6:28 AM

Rezaf,

Even though high titers are raised against variants that arise after the initial inection, that doesn’t indicate that the immune system has blocked replication of the virus.

In order for the immune system to block replication of the virus, the concurrent sample must not contain virus that the antibodies are unable to neutralize.

As long as the high titer antibodies do not recognize the concurrent virus, virus is able to replicate.

Even if months later the patient produces neutralizing antibodies against a prior variant, the new antibody sample is accompanied by a concurrent virus that escapes neutralization.

The paper shows that although the antibody response evolves, the viral population evolves faster, continuously producing variants that are invisisble to the neutralizing antibodies.

Please go back to the paper and let us know know which patients have high titer neutralizing antibodies to their concurrent virus. If no patients have high titer neutralizing antibodies to the concurrent virus, then the virus continuously evades the immune response, as Richman et al. conclude.

Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 8:38 AM

“Here’s what I want to say again” (Mec)

“But you haven’t actually said anything. At least Truthtwister has the courage/foolishness to offer his own erroneous interpretation of the paper.” (Dr. N.)

Dr. N, thank you for this further opportunity; you know how I love rubbing your nose in it. Here’s once again for the cheap seats what, not I, but Richman has to say:

The failure to generate a (detectably) significant antibody response and the varying (detectable) levels and timing of peak antibody titers had zero, zippo, zilch, nil, nada, correlation with viral load and CD4 levels, the markers of progression towards AIDS.

In the post-Rodriguez et al. era of AIDS apologetics, I do not expect this to faze the believers, but still, would you like to present a mathematical model explaining this by now well known lack of correlation extending to antibody levels as well?

In order for the immune system to block replication of the virus, the concurrent sample must not contain virus that the antibodies are unable to neutralize.
As long as the high titer antibodies do not recognize the concurrent virus, virus is able to replicate. (Franklin)

Which begs the question yet again, how do I read from the different figures in the tables how many concurrent intact virions in the bloodstream are escaping the antibody response at any given point in time?

To help you in the right direction, here is Richman:

The true timing of emerging neutralizing antibody responses may be masked by the extensive levels of virus replication (1010 virions generated daily during chronic infection (20) and 100 times that during acute infection (21). Therefore, much of the neutralizing antibody that is generated early in infection may be bound to virions in lymphoid germinal centers and elsewhere and thus undetectable in plasma.

This was two quotes from Richman. I hope Dr. N comes on once more to say that I (meaning Richman) haven’t actually said anything since in that case he would be in perfect agreement with Rezaf and myself, and we can all go home early.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 10:38 AM

I will never cease to be amazed at the schizoid POV of the denialists.

Scenario One:
Scientists: “HIV rapidly evades host neutralising antibody responses – this is why we cannot develop a protective vaccine”
Denialists: “The virus escapes! They can’t make a vaccine! This is proof HIV does not cause AIDS!”

Scenario Two:
Scientists: “HIV rapidly evades host neutralising antibody responses”
Denialists: “Oh no it doesn’t! (we can interpret the science better than you!) This is proof HIV does not cause AIDS!”

The stupid……It burns!

Posted by: DT | December 5, 2007 1:02 PM

Welcome back DT. I want to report that my CD4’s are 145, an increase of 62 points. The only new thing in my life is the complete removal of all mercury amalgams and I have started the long process of chelation therapy. Although, I am happy with the latest results, I think the next three month levels will be more accurate after more and more mercury is removed, which it has been proven to lower CD4’s as has many other things.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 1:16 PM

Oh, want to add that my doctors are looking into the prospect of an HIV culture for me. I want to really see what is going on once and for all.

I must share a jewel of a quote to you from Dr. MCcandless, who is doing studies in Africa in AIDS:

“The future of new medicine in my opinion lies in helping the immune system, not in trying to poison, cut or burn every pathogen eccountered.”

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 4:55 PM

Glad you are keeping well Noreen. Any info on your Hep serology yet?

Perhaps you can tell us the criteria by which you critically judge a statement of medical information; what guides your decision to believe one “fact” rather than another?
I am just wondering because through these boards you have had exposure to countless studies in the field of biomedicine, but decide anecdote suits you best. Do you do the same with studies on mercury amalgam? Can you provide a link to the “proof” that it lowers CD4 cells? Does it lower all lymphocytes, or maybe CD3-bearing cells? What about its effects on CD4 cells, CD8, NK cells, CTLs etc? Does it affect CD19 populations? I am curious, so would be delighted to be pointed to the studies that have “proven” your claim for you.

Posted by: DT | December 5, 2007 6:20 PM

I don’t think it is the purpose of the authors to write a paper and let the reader’s imagination run wild and draw their own conclusions. All this because the paper is difficult to read. The paper that I’m used to read have a much more accessible language and convey their conclusions without rodeos.

This paper and others exist in a context of the literature. The authors do not write these papers with the idea that a group of people with little knowledge of the literature will go through and find selected quotes that can be twisted to mean something that they don’t.

If the paper said anything about virus overwhelming the immune system, then I would see it and they would tell it straight out.

It would be nice if you argued against what I have said not what you imagine. Although neutralizing anitibodies are generated they fail to stop HIV from replicating and they fail to stop new escape mutants from evolving.

By the time neutralizing antibodies to one particular variant have been generated new escape mutants have already evolved. HIV continues to outstep the immune response. You have apparently seized upon something Adele has said and are misinterpretting it. HIV and herpes simplex are both persistent infections. Herpes simplex is however a persistent latent infection. Replication is basically stopped and the virus hides out in neural ganglia. HIV on the other hand is a persistent chronic infection. It is never latent. Replication occurs at al stages of infection.

Please read up on the other examples of persistent chronic infectiuons – Visna-maedi, EIAV and SIV.

With all due respect for Mr. Richman’s work, if Mr. Richman was so secure about what he was doing, the messages conveyed in the paper wouldn’t be enshrouded by the extensive use of technical language. He would say his conclusions in a (even) more direct manner.

Once again, he did not write this paper with people like Truthtwister in mind. This might come as a surprise to somebody who has a delusion that he is the guardian of science and that it is up to scientist like Richman to prove to him personally that HIV causes AIDS.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 6:46 PM

This suggests that cellular immunity rather than humoral immunity plays the main role in controlling HIV viraemia. You could try reading more of the literature than the one or two papers that are handed to you with pre-misinterpretted quotes.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 6:58 PM

DT, the following link shows some info about mercury and dental amalgams. Also, I contacted Dr. Huggins and Dr. David Eggleston, who have done research on the issue of amalgam removal and CD4 improvement. They both agreed that by my having my amalgams removed, that I would see increases in CD4’s. DT, I think that around 80% increase in CD4’s is pretty good!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/AMALGAM/EN/SCIENCE/bernie_science.html#8

Also:
Pelletier L. “Autoreactive T Cells in Mercury Autoimmunity”J. Immunology, 140 no.3 (1988) pp750-54

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 8:12 PM

“You fail to grasp over and over the simple fact that she has conflicting HIV tests.”

Christine Maggiore has claimed to have various HIV test results (positive, negative and indeterminate) but I would request of her what she claims to request of others: Proof.

I don’t know that she’s ever had ANYTHING but a positive result – EVER. And the only reason I know that is because her 3 year old daughter died of PCP with a positive stain for P24 and assuming the kid wasn’t shooting heroin or sleeping around, mama was the source.

Posted by: Hanna | December 5, 2007 8:19 PM

There are at least tens of millions of people with dental amalgams, yet no explosive percentage of PCP among them. Same goes for drug addicts, the malnourished, the sleep deprived, the highly stressed, etc.

But these groups of individuals are not suffering from single digit CD4 cells, PCP, PML, Cryptococcal Meningitis or CMV Retinitis UNLESS they also test positive for HIV.

However, you find an overwhelming percentage of individuals with the above infections whom also test positive for HIV – yet nothing else about them is in common.

The correlation here are obvious to a child.

Posted by: Hanna | December 5, 2007 8:35 PM

Many things besides HIV, if at all, bring CD4’s down. I had radiation treatments,which is not known to increase levels. I would suggest that you read the above referenced document and see how terrible mercury is in the human body.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 8:40 PM

Thank YOU for that admission Dr. N. I’ll pass your misplaced compliment on to your colleague, Franklin, who unfortunately had stared himself blind on humoral immunity to the exclusion of all other considerations. However, allow me to repeat:

Richman, found it significant enough to mention: NO correlation between antibody titers viral load and CD4 count.

NONE whatsoever.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 8:49 PM

Hanna, I also had a double whammy by having numerous amalgams and by working in the dental field for 5 years, unprotected. Female dental assistants and hygienists were exposed to mercury and it vapors more so than the dentists. In fact, the study showed that even dental students had high levels of mercury and lowered immunity. I also have had several diseases that are linked to mercury exposure which occurred in that time frame.

Posted by: noreeen – Still Standing | December 5, 2007 9:04 PM

Admission?

Truthtwisters initial claim was that the antibody reponse “defeated” HIV and therefore HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.

Now apparently you have chnaged direction 180 degrees and are arguing that because the antibody titres did not seem to correlate with viral load that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.

Round and round we go!

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 9:06 PM

Yeah Noreen, I figured you’d point out the OBVIOUS that people who’ve undergone extensive radiation and/or chemotherapy or organ recipients receiving high-dose steroid treatment would be immune suppressed.

Prior to 1980, that WAS the source of immune deficiency and the life-threatening opportunistic infections I noted.

Subsequent to 1980, young people never having undergone radiation, chemotherapy or high-dose steroids were suffering these illnesses and dying. Hmm….what could it be? After all, it was men, women, some children – people with different backgrounds, behaviors and with such differences that no common factor could be found. Until HIV. Suddenly THAT was the ONE common factor these otherwise healthy people had that were now facing life-threatening OIs.

Again, only a child wouldn’t add it up.

Posted by: Hanna | December 5, 2007 9:13 PM

Further Noreen, if you have a peer reviewed paper that’s been published in a reputable medical journal that implicates amalgams as the cause of PCP, PML, Crypto, CMV Retinitis in a group of individuals, please do provide – I would be greatly interested.

Otherwise, it’s meaningless.

Thousands of women dye their hair blue, some of them develop breast cancer. That’s not enough to implicate the dye. However, if breast cancer is a rarely seen illness and suddenly there are explosive pockets of breast cancer among women who are also dying their hair blue yet breast cancer remains extremely rare otherwise, you have to start making an obvious connection that something’s going on with the blue dye that’s causing breast cancer.

With HIV, the logic works perfectly in both directions. Over 90% of people who test positive for HIV face a life-threatening OI within 15 years. These life-threatening OIs are only rarely seen outside of an HIV positive patient.

Do the math.

Posted by: Hanna | December 5, 2007 9:26 PM

Richman, found it significant enough to mention: NO correlation between antibody titers viral load and CD4 count.

Gee MEC,

Maybe that’s because the neutralizng antibodies are ineffective at halting the replication of the escape variants that arise in HIV-infected people.

Your worries about this lack of correlation should probably be directed to Truthseeker (sic), since he is the one that maintains that HIV is “defeated” by the neutralizing antibody response.

Those of us who have carefully examined the paper realize that even in the individuals who have produced the highest titers of neutralizing antibodies for years, every blood sample contains viral variants whose replication is not blocked by the antibodies present in the blood sample.

Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 9:27 PM

I have discovered an answer from Franklin, which I had either overlooked or which had been held back because of the many links. It provides useful assistance on how to read the tables, and it also recognizes that,

“this paper does not attempt to provide a comprehensive evaluation of all of the parameters that affect viral replication and viral load in HIV-infected patients.”
Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 1:52 AM

So Dr. N’s compliments were doubly misplaced it seems.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 9:43 PM

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication as does chemotherapy.

Hard to know what you or even Richman are really arguing, Chris, when the basic picture is so clear. After a few weeks the level of virus is excruciatingly low, that is what repression (Fauci’s word) means. The virus is thus vaccinated against, just as we are vaccinated against your objections, Chris. Once exposed to enough of them we develop an immunity. Mutated virus doesn’t get anywhere, just as your red herrings get nowhere.

In your intransigence, Chris, you are a Denialist who when offered a scientific lemon, says Ah – an orange! Informed that it is a lemon, you then inspect it very carefully and find a fleck of orange amid the yellow and shout triumphantly “It’s an ORANGE! You’re a liar! You’re dishonest! It’s an orange! looky here, an orange an orange an orange!!!!”

It’s a lemon. You’ve been taken, Mr Meme. HIV=AIDS is the biggest giant lemon in the history of science. And you think it is an orange.

I recognise your genius, Chris, but unfortunately like many geniuses you are misled in the real world by charlatans who take advantage of your idealism and your good nature and twist your neurons into pretzels.
It’s a giant lemon, Chris. Smell it. Taste it. Prod it. It’s the world’s biggest lemon. Sold to you by the world’s greatest used car salesmen, labelled scientists.

As to your new Richman paper, right now we can only see the abstract:

Antibody responses in primary HIV-1 infection.

Primary HIV infection
Current Opinion in HIV & AIDS. 3(1):45-51, January 2008. Frost, Simon DW a; Trkola, Alexandra b; Gunthard, Huldrych F b; Richman, Douglas D a,c,d

Abstract: Purpose of review: HIV-1 establishes persistent infections characterized by high levels of viral replication. This finding is remarkable given the presence of apparently vigorous HIV-specific cellular and humoral immune responses. We review the dynamics of antibody responses and viral escape from these responses during primary HIV-1 infection.

If this is PRIMARY infection, it is the first few weeks when there are high levels of virus, I take it, not later months when mutations make entirely ineffectual attempts to get going. Anyhow, basic point: that’s when virus titers are HIGHEST, so where is the AIDS? You just get a cold. Half don’t. That is all the AIDS HIV ever causes – a cold, if that.

HIV gives you a cold while vaccinating you against itself. End of story.

Bite the lemon, Chris! In weeks you get a hundred to thousand fold reduction in virus titer to a low set point, a steady state of very low level of virus concentration FOREVER unless there is an environmental change ie a later loss of immune competence from other sources. That’s why we have the flat line on the graph of virus titer – it is in equilibrium at a very low level.

We are talking of a plateau phase lasting for years and years, when people are effectively NOT ILL and NOT INFECTIOUS. Why? Because they now only harbor 1/100 to 1/1000 of the initial viremia. That is the measure of the VERY effective counter response of the immune system, Mr Meme. The virus is suppressed, DEFEATED by the body. Period. There is no further bad effect on the patient unless he is loaded with immune suppressors, such as gay fast life style drugs, or killer DNA chain terminator drugs given to him by well meaning physicians informed by the Meme as explained by Chris “Me da Meme” Noble, or malnourishment or starvation, or anti inflammatory drugs ie corticosteroids or stress or malnutrition which create cortisol, which suppresses immunity, as in the transplant operations where it is used for just such a purpose. Cortisol depletes T-cells in the plasma and the lymph nodes, as shown by your great leader Anthony Fauci, who now uses the word SUPPRESS to describe the action of the immune system cells against the virus.

Cytotoxic CD8 T-cells also help suppress the virus down from the initially high viremia, according to Fauci. 1) Neutralizing antibodies bind with key parts of the envelope to prevent the virus from infecting the cell, rendering almost all of it inert and uninfectious, Karpas says explicitly, neutralise means kill, and 2) antibodies tag it for destruction by other components of the system even earlier than the neutralizing antibodies, unless Richman is right to say they occur earlier than people thought in lymphoid germinal centers.

Anyhow, the very existence of mutated virus is a result of the original version being stymied and destroyed. The mutations which arise from decimated virus are despatched with equal gusto (please dont start bleating that because the virus is able to mutate it is not defeated, this is just silly), Moreover, check how replication is measured – PCR? Very MISLEADING – it gives far too high a virus titer because it counts fragments and dead material,

So a) the virus is kept down, and b) the PCR measures Richman et al are using are vastly exaggerating the numbers of live intact virus left by at least 60,000 times. Only 1 in 60,000 virions/part virions detected is infectious, maybe just 1 in a million.

We went through all this with David Ho in the late 90s, when Ho won his Time cover, for what turned out to be bad science, justifying his lethal hit “early and hit hard” scheme. Ho, Moore’s boss at the time, made the same claim as you are peddling now, that the virus was dangerously busy during the latent period, but unfortunately for him it all fell apart when Duesberg and Bialy pointed out the amount of active virus in the plateau period was far too little to cause trouble, even though Maddox tried to protect the claim by asking Does Duesberg have the right of reply? and confining him to a 500 word letter. Poor Ho, bathed in glory on the Time cover and then exposed as using fallacious mathematical models which overestimated the amount of active virus with PCR by 60,000 or more.

Not that there was any surprise in that. John P. Moore in 1992 had co-signed the finding that the ratio of infectious virus to the total of one cloned strain he studied was 1 in 10,000 to 1 in ten million. Only as few as 1 in ten million HIV-1 virions was capable of infecting a cell!! Plus the stuff spontaneously inactivates, Chris – loses its powers as it disintegrates all by itself. We’ll replay Mr Moore in detail as promised on Science Guardian when we recover from the exciting panel last night at NYU on Ending AIDS: Why The World Can’t Wait, full of beautiful women including the lovably cherry lipped Laurie Garrett all trying to help as the Meme spreads round the world destroying happiness and lives.

No wonder the visually highly presentable Nancy Padian is forced to say that people are hardly infectious if at all – that people who have heterosexual sex probably don’t ever transmit HIV positivity. Even in her apology on AIDSTruth she can only claim 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10,000 bouts result in heterosexual transmission by imagining some transmission occurred before her six year study, which found NONE at all.

But Mr Moore could have told her that. Of COURSE non-gay people don’t transmit, if there is such a very low level of virus in the otherwise healthy person and only as little as 1/10,000,000th of it is infectious.

Chris, you are an indomitable true believing Aussie knight tilting your tiny ineffective lance against a vast pyramid of theoretical consistency when you gallop against the true drug/conventional disease/nutritional deficit theory of AIDS. Duesberg established it two decades ago and it has not budged since, but merely accumulates evidence and confirmation year after year.

You are fighting this immovable pyramid on behalf of a vast garbage heap generated by monomania, the inconsistent, silly, impossible theory that AIDS is caused by an infectious virus, a smoking festering hypothetical heap which is disintegrating of its own accord as its high priests are forced to make concession after concession in their papers.

Read Fauci in the May 17 2007 NEJ and see how he agrees that the virus is SUPPRESSED by the immune system and that the efficiency of HIV transmission is DIRECTLY RELATED to the level of virus in the plasma. Then stop trying to blight heterosexual romance with this revolting theoretical stink. You may not value the smile on the face of a beautiful woman but we do. Stop worrying lovely girls by talking scientific nonsense about a part of life that should on this basis be as free of condoms as Africans feel they should be. In Uganda 80% never use them and their rate of transmission is 1 in 900 (Wawer).

Repeat – four out of five never use condoms and their rate is 1 in 900. Gee. I wonder why. It aint there, Chris, the HIV=AIDS hypothesis is a vast lemon.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 5, 2007 9:44 PM

The concern, Franklin, is Richman’s own:

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication

He spends a good deal of the discussion wrestling with this problem.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 9:54 PM

hanna,
since you know every answer about hiv, please provide me with the first few papers published before 1990 that proved hiv causes AIDS. Koch etc had original documents that prove causality etc.

Since most every animal incoulated doesnt get aids such as the hundereds of chimps who are still alive and kicking after 20 years of being inoculated with HIV, please send us the study that proves gallos 1/1000 cell microbe causes immune deficiancy.

In duesbergs book he claims the window period was originally 10 months, and has been extended to 10 years(and you talk about deniers extending the goalposts)

So ill be waiting for the study that shows people who are not on AZT, severe drugs/stress, mycoplasmas get aids vs matched controls, a study specifically designed to test gallo’s hypothesis, the only real way to tell if a species specific microbe with such a long window period is pathenogenic. Please send me that study, surely some expirementts were conducted that were designed to test gallo’s hypothesis? Oh wait, a study that questioned gallo’s sacrosanct hypothesis would never be allowed!

Posted by: cooler | December 5, 2007 10:08 PM

Truthseeker (sic),

Next time why don’t you just save some time and say:

“Pay no attention to the data behind the curtains!”

Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 10:30 PM

Hard to know what you or even Richman are really arguing, Chris, when the basic picture is so clear.

The basic picture that Richman describes is that HIV-1 establishes persistent infections characterized by high levels of viral replication at all stages of disease. 10^10 virions generated daily during the chronic infection stage and 100 times this during the acute infection. Neutralizing antibody titers to contemporaneous virus variants are low and fail to appreciably impact the levels of virus replication. Neutralizing antibody titers to virus variants from several months in the past may be relatively high but escape mutants have evolved in the intervening time.

No amount of bullshit and obfuscation on your part will ever turn this into “the virus has been defeated”.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 11:25 PM

If the titer against the concurrent virus is a lot lower than the titer against the viruses directly above it in the column, then the antibody has provided a strong enough selective pressure that a variant strain has grown out. If the titer against the concurrent virus is similar to the titer against the virus directly above it in the column, then no selection has taken place.

I take it it would be the ideal antibody response if the values remained constant then, indicating that no escape variants has been produced.

How would you distinguish that from…

many studies of autologous neutralizing antibody after primary HIV infection stress the low or absent responses with only infrequent examples of escape (Richman)

… which apparently is bad?

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 5, 2007 11:51 PM

PS. First quote is from Franklin.

Posted by: MEC | December 5, 2007 11:53 PM

MEC, what is the purpose of these continual floundering questions?

I know it isn’t an actual interest in understanding these papers because you have already made up your mind about the issue.

Although the neutralizing antibodies do not significantly impact the levels of HIV replication they do place a soft selective pressure on HIV and drive the evolution of escape variants. If neutralizing antibody titers remain low then there is little selective pressure to drive the evolution of new escape variants.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:20 AM

Next time why don’t you just save some time and say: “Pay no attention to the data behind the curtains!”-
Posted by: franklin | December 5, 2007 10:30 PM
No amount of bullshit and obfuscation on your part will ever turn this into “the virus has been defeated”.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 5, 2007 11:25 PM
Translation: no amount of irrefutable reasoning (antibodies) will ever stop us (the Meme Boys) from claiming that it is BS and obfuscation and “We are not defeated!”

Fine. Then maybe it takes driving a simple stake into the heart of this walking Dead Meme:

Can you produce one instance of a healthy HIV+ person who falls sick and dies without one of the ADDITIONAL FACTORS we listed above?

From the peer reviewed scientific literature, where the facts are loud and clear?

A healthy HIV+ who fell ill just from that condition? No fun drugs, no dangerous medical drugs, no corticosteroids, no stress from witch doctor voodoo,
no dietary deficiency, no conventional disease?

One genuine case.

If you contemplate that long enough, Chris, maybe even you will get the picture.

As Montagnier has.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 6, 2007 12:21 AM

After that overwhelming broadside from Truthseeker, anything I say may be anticlimactic. However, I’ve checked his remarks against the cited paper and found them consistent (see M. Johnston and A. Fauci: An HIV vaccine -evolving concepts. NEJM 356:2073-81, 2007).

Even with no neutralizing antibodies, the immune system is able to beat down the early high viremia to 100th, or even 1000th the original level and do so in a matter of weeks. What would one call the destruction of 99% of an enemy army? What would one call its continued suppression for years to about 1% of its original full force? Not a defeat? In any case, Fauci says that the immune responses (especially the CD8 T-cells) “continue to suppress the virus.”

I appreciate the analyses by Franklin and Chris Noble in response to my comment yesterday about the Richman paper (PNAS 100:4144-9, 2003). Franklin kindly invited me to suggest an alternative interpretation to the one he presented. I gather that he and Dr. Noble believe that only contemporaneous neutralization is relevant and regard the contemporaneous figures as negligible.

Their claims are not consistent with the authors, however, who define “negligible” as below 100. In the table shown (Tbl. 1) by Franklin from the Richman paper, the initial contemporaneous neutralizing response to the baseline virus was 26 but then climbs to between 3 and 8 times this value.

I was berated by both critics for pointing out that Table 1 in the Richman paper actually showed better responses for the later virus variants than for the baseline one. Noble and Franklin miscronstrued “later” to mean “latest” and accused me of deception. Table 1 however shows higher peak neutralizing titers for the 3, 6, and 9 month viruses than for the baseline strain. Those later variants also had higher contemporaneous neutralizing titers than did the original strain. Table 1 refered to patient TN-1 who exemplified the high antibody levels which were achieved by nearly half the patients. As the authors pointed out, in a quarter of their subjects “higher titers of neutralizing antibody developed against viruses that emerged later in infection.”

The titers of contemporareous neutralizing antibody were not high but were significant, generally over 100, which the authors defined as non-negligible. These levels were sufficient to eliminate the conemporaneous strains sufficiently so as to select for the subsequent variants.

Is the high potency of antibody achieved over time clinically irrelevant, as Noble and Franklin claim? No, it means that any earlier HIV variant that is in “the pool of latently infected, resting CD4+ T cells” (Fauci) will be zapped by powerful neutralizing antibodies if it’s ever re-expressed.

Furthermore, binding antibodies appears earlier than neutralizing antibody and may tag the virus – or cells harboring the virus – for destruction by other components of the immune system. Working with them, even low to moderate levels of neutralizing antibodies may pack a wallop, as the emergence of new strains suggests they did.

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 6, 2007 12:28 AM

Although the neutralizing antibodies do not significantly impact the levels of HIV replication they do place a soft selective pressure on HIV and drive the evolution of escape variants.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:20 AM

Bingo!

Decrease by 100 to 1000x with activity 1/60,000 is not “significant”?

To a flat line for years with no change until some other disturbance of the system?

Even Myron Cohen would have to correct you, Chris.

This statement alone is enough to vaccinate anyone literate in this field from having to deal with you.

Your entire second career now lies in ruins.

Maybe you should move to Denying that the sun rises in the East.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 6, 2007 12:37 AM

No fun drugs, no dangerous medical drugs, no corticosteroids, no stress from witch doctor voodoo, no dietary deficiency, no conventional disease?

You forgot the other things on the list of things that are supposed by “rethinkers” to cause AIDS. Antibiotics, cigarette smoke, aspirin, stress ….

The simple reality is that the list of things that “rethinkers” claim cause AIDS is so long and extensive that there isn’t a single person alive that hasn’t been exposed to at least one of them. The “rethinker” theories explain everything and nothing.

Raphael Lombardo was held up by Duesberg as an example of people not taking recreational drugs or ARVs. That is until he had the misfortune of progressing to AIDS and dying. Then in an textbook example of cognitive dissonance Duesberg retrospectively decided that Raphael must have been lying about not taking drugs. Duesberg has immersed himself so far into his state of self-delusion that nothing will ever convince him that he is wrong.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:38 AM

Their claims are not consistent with the authors, however, who define “negligible” as below 100.

In the more recent paper by Richman (Current Opinion in HIV and AIDS 2008, 3:45 51) he describes the neutralizing antibody titer to contemporaneous variants as “low” and that the reason they are low is that escape variants rapidly evolve.

You are playing silly word games. You know that Richman does not agree with Truthtwister’s misrepresentations and yet you continue to try to spin the truth.

Richman himself writes that HIV establishes persistent infections characterized by high levels of viral replication at all stages of disease with 10^10 virions generated daily during the chronic infection stage.

You can waffle all you want about suppression and repression it won’t turn this into defeat.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:57 AM

Thanks Robert for detailed clarity in answer to the fumbling autoresponse obfuscation generated by Chris and Franklin’s meme machine.

Furthermore, binding antibodies appear earlier than neutralizing antibody and may tag the virus – or cells harboring the virus – for destruction by other components of the immune system. – Houston

Right, I meant to write “if” Richman is right about this coming earlier, not “unless.”

Not that Chris or Franklin are going to try and refute the post anyway, it is clear.

Guess the meme machine is under repair. It has temporarily run out off “you liar” and “You dishonest” and “you misinterpet” chips and more had to be ordered up from the sale page of AIDS Truth.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 6, 2007 12:57 AM

MEC, what is the purpose of these continual floundering questions?

Dr. N. not only are you not able to undertand the simplest questions, you are also spinning like a top at the moment. For instance, how on Earth do you decide that the selective pressure exerted by antibodies is “soft”?

The sequence variation in one isolate from a single
HIV-infected individual sampled a few years after infection is greater than the global variation of an influenza epidemic strain during a flu season. (Burton et al.)

Is it this rate of evolution you consider the result of a soft pressure by largely ineffectual antibodies?

As for the rest Dr. N, Franklin has come up with a new way of determining the efficacy of the neutralizing antibody response:

On this view, constant values would show that no variants have escaped the neutralizing antibody response. However, Richman says:

HIV-1 were reported first by Weiss in 1986 ( 9), and several later studies have suggested that its appearance is slow to develop and of low titer ( 2, 4, 5). Neutralization escape of HIV has been reported in limited cases ( 10-15); however, many studies of autologous neutralizing antibody after primary HIV infection stress the low or absent responses with only infrequent examples of escape ( 5, 16-18). We report here that in most patients, potent neutralizing antibody responses are generated early after infection, at first to the autologous infecting HIV variant and then to subsequent variants. The antibody responses to these variants exert a selective pressure that drives continuous evolution of neutralization escape mutants.

In other words:

1. “Low or absent responses with only infrequent examples of escape” = ineffectual antibody response.

2. “Potent neutralizing antibody responses” = ineffectual antibody response.

3. Potent neutralizing antibody responses with no or infrequent examples of escape are (on Franklin’s interpretation at least) indistinguishable from “1.”, thus translatable into “low or absent antibody responses” = ineffectual antibodies.

I refer again to Robert Houston:

To put things in context, the significance of the revelations by Prof. Karpas and by Richman et al. about the neutralizing effect of anti-HIV antibodies is that for 23 years the AIDS extablishment has maintained that the antibodies to HIV are non-neutralizing and ineffectual.
Thus when the Richman paper appeared, the HIV loyalists tried to spin its meaning as being that HIV triumphs by mutating. We see Franklin and Chris Noble also exemplifying this interpretation.

It would seem this “spin” is inevitable since Richman’s study is designed so that the very figures which demonstrate the potency of the neutralizing antibody response automatically confirm the superior powers of the virus to outmutate them. Richman’s conclusion, not surprisingly, is also his basic premise:

The antibody responses to these variants exert a selective pressure that drives continuous evolution of neutralization escape mutants

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 6, 2007 3:00 AM

For clarity I have made an addition under “2.”

1. “Low or absent responses with only infrequent examples of escape” = ineffectual antibody response.

2. “Potent neutralizing antibody responses” with frequent examples of escape variants = ineffectual antibody response.

Posted by: Molecular Entry CLaw | December 6, 2007 3:09 AM

I am amazed at how people who know next to nothing about South Africa, Mbeki and his take on AIDS have so much to say. It is obvious that Tara C. Smith never read a single document our government ever produced or read any of our HIV strategy plans. Never listed to a single interview Mbeki gave or read a single article where Mbeki was interviewed about his stance on the epidemic. Tara C. Smith regurgitates the lies that have been peddled in the media with no proof to support her claims about Mbeki’s denialisim.

For the record:

Mbeki has never denied the existence of the epidemic.
Tara C. Smith cannot produce a single fact that disputes this assertion.
Mbeki has never denied the existence of HIV or that HIV compromises one’s immune system.
Tara C. Smith cannot produce a single fact that disputes this assertion.
All our government HIV/AIDS strategies are based on the premise that HIV causes AIDS. Mbeki initiated or started all these strategies.
Tara C. Smith cannot produce a single fact that dispute this assertion.
Mbeki’s government has increased money spent on HIV and AIDS every single year since he took over as the president of the country.
Tara C. Smith cannot produce a single fact to dispute this assertion.

Mbeki has questioned the relationship between HIV/AIDS and poverty. He was ridiculed for this by the interested parties. Data is however on his side. The “negative synergy” between HIV/AIDS and poverty can no longer be denied. Poverty is the main driver behind the global epidemic! Mbeki has always asked and sort the most effective ways of fighting the epidemic. Interested parties have tried to block anything that suggest that there are other things that can be done to fight the epidemic. They have promoted ARVs with no shame. Lies have short legs, the truth is out:

- Treating STIs is KEY
- Fighting poverty is KEY
- Education campaigns are very important but ineffective and
- For those already infected ARVs are the best we have for now.

There are studies that seem to suggest that circumcision may slow down transmission rates. This is interesting, but more research is needed.

The truth will come out at the end. Mbeki is neither a denialist nor a dissident!

Posted by: T. Kwetane | December 6, 2007 8:34 AM

T. kwetane,
thanks for chiming in, I assume you are a member of Mbekis regime. You might want to research mycoplasma penetrans/incognitus, every animal army scientist shyh ching Lo md phd inoculated it with sickened/died, such as chimps, monkeys, mice and embryos. He did not find it any healthy controls, and saw it in dying patients tissues with EM ( so it could not posssibly be a contaminent) Refrences above. As you know HIV does not do much in animals.

Refrences are above and on pub med. I belive Montagnier has found a high corrleation with mycoplamsas and sick people in Africa. As you should you should inform the african people of this epidemic, protect them with the vaccine that Lo and the Army has already developed, and treat those infected with antibiotics, and make testing a mainstream priority. And perhaps you should do some more research and google Project Day Lily to find out how it was part of the biological weapons program, written by 2 top cancer reserachers. This along with poverty and hiv can play a role in the AFrican epidemic.

Posted by: cooler | December 6, 2007 1:13 PM

Kwetane,

You might not want to jump on the Band Wagon of circumcision. It’s a haox, a way to have government control and another way the AIDS hierarchy can keep perpetuating failed Hiv/Aids science.

“Public Health & Education | Male Circumcision Does Not Offer Protection Against HIV Among U.S. Black, Hispanic MSM, Study Says”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22096758/

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=49216

Posted by: carter | December 6, 2007 2:45 PM

Mbeki has never denied the existence of HIV or that HIV compromises one’s immune system.

Mbeki is not interested in quarreling with scientists about their stock in trade; he is a politician who checked out the dissenters and found them led by qualified, establishment mavericks with expertise, especially Duesberg, who is a scientist equivalent to ten Nobles, or three Faucis, or two Baltimores.

That what politicians deal in and do best -evaulating credentials and motivation, He saw that there was a serious dispute in which the visible behavior suggested nothing but politics was being raised as a defense to criticism of the validity of the basic scientific and medical premise.

Thus he must have concluded the government should be cautious in joining the HIV=AIDS bandwagon to get the money it was throwing to African passengers, He played it according to intelligent politics – have a panel to see if there could be agreement on the science, join the passengers in the bandwagon and get the handouts, and reserve judgement on a very suspicious ideology where suddenly AIDS became a phenomenon found in poor remote African villages rather than in big cities

An experienced politician can spot such things a mile away. They tell him all he needs to know. Do you really think Mbeki doesn’t know what is going on with all the scientists and health workers? The man fought against apartheid and won a revolution. He is not an idiot. In fact he is unique among politicians on the world stage in having the wit to see through the charade.

Meanwhile, one gapes at these statements by Chris “Super Meme” Noble which deserve the front of the stage and the brightest spotlight:

“No fun drugs, no dangerous medical drugs, no corticosteroids, no stress from witch doctor voodoo, no dietary deficiency, no conventional disease?”

You forgot the other things on the list of things that are supposed by “rethinkers” to cause AIDS. Antibiotics, cigarette smoke, aspirin, stress ….

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:38 AM

Their claims are not consistent with the authors, however, who define “negligible” as below 100.

You are playing silly word games. You know that Richman does not agree with Truthtwister’s misrepresentations and yet you continue to try to spin the truth.

You can waffle all you want about suppression and repression it won’t turn this into defeat.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 12:57 AM

Thank you, Chris for giving us two perfect specimens of why you are so notable as a paradigm defender.

Anyone who hasn’t yet gathered that your scientific arguments are pretzeled minutiae baked in misunderstanding can now see from these two classic Meme outbursts very plainly all they need to know:

You forgot the other things on the list of things that are supposed by “rethinkers” to cause AIDS. Antibiotics, cigarette smoke, aspirin, stress ….

Not true at all (I included stress, by the way – do you even read what is said? Chris, why not try using the one finger, speaking each word out loud approach, as we already suggested twice?). This is a very silly counter. I am sure no one said aspirin, cigarette smoke, antibiotics, or stress were enough by themselves to collapse the immune system. You need heavyweight drugs, starvation, serious disease, and vital nutritional deficiences to seriously wreck the immune system. Obviously. As contributory factors to illness however you might get a significant contribution from eg heavy use of antibiotics, if prolonged. You didn’t know this Chris? Didn’t your grandmother tell you not to take even aspirin too long? Any foreign substance of this kind impacts the immune system and will prove toxic if there is enough of it, by definition. Some aspirin contains acetominophen which lowers the antioxidant glutathione in white blood cells and exposes them to damage from oxidative stress. Stress, too, can have a major impact – the psychic stress of being told by authorities such as your doctor, or even Chris Noble, that you are going to die, and all the medicine can do is delay it, and by the way, welcome to major and sometimes lethal stigma in the US as well as some faraway lands. It elevates cortisol which reduces T cell counts in the blood by sending them to the lymph nodes and the bone marrow (Fauci). I just told you this.

Your ignorance of all this seems wilful. The impact of other factors than HIV on the immune system is obviously decisive, especially if you realise, as any good scientist does, that the literature tells you HIV itself is not the danger.

Please. Stop being silly, Chris. Squabbling about twisted anecdotes where the true data is not known is just embarrassing, The statistics show clearly that those without major other factors involved do not endure AIDS symptoms. Period,

Duesberg has immersed himself so far into his state of self-delusion that nothing will ever convince him that he is wrong.

Typical smallminded ad hominem babble. Duesberg has a better grip on the literature and a better grasp of the reality of the situation that you ever will, by thirty times, clearly, not just because he has a greater mind and it is his field of long study now, but because he has had to answer innumerable challenges from the best scientific defenders the paradigm could muster, not to mention masses of outside professionals and ordinary people who insist on having everything explained to them six times before they can accept that the elite institutions are wrong on this one, misled by Fauci et al. Stop being cheaply cheeky. In this arena you are no match for Duesberg, whatever your uncelebrated brilliance in your own field. He predicted the total failure of the vaccine program in 1987, twenty years ago, and look what is happening now. Two major trials stopped because they were causing higher rates of HIV infection. The only predictions which prove out are Duesberg’s, not one of Fauci’s or by the WHO.

You are playing silly word games. You know that Richman does not agree with Truthtwister’s misrepresentations and yet you continue to try to spin the truth…Richman himself writes that HIV establishes persistent infections characterized by high levels of viral replication at all stages of disease with 10^10 virions generated daily during the chronic infection stage. You can waffle all you want about suppression and repression it won’t turn this into defeat.

This endless attempt to try and ride Richman to the goal of asserting that the virus is high level active throughout the years it is suppressed by the immune system to a vanishing point is wearying, Richman is an apologist, just as you are, but on a higher level – one where he has try to fit a square peg of data into a round hole of hypothesis. The virus is reduced to a faint ghost of its former presence, Mr Meme, and none of YOUR silly word games will get you any converts to the notion that it is active during this period in any meaningful sense.

You are quite absurd in your efforts to pretend that a virus which is run up a tree is really not up a tree at all, but down standing its ground to the dogs of the immune system. It is up a tree, Chris,like you, reduced to a low flat line on the famous graph of its “load” in a typical patient, where as everyone but you recognises it is in a defeated state, just as the Scots were defeated at Cowton Moor, Falkirk, Dunbar, and Langside.

The English didn’t kill every Scot in vanquishing the bonnie kilted clansmen of the Highlands in any of these victories, but defeats they were for the Scots, sorry to say, since a Scottish ruled England would have been a fine nation indeed, judging from Adam Smith, David Hume and James Boswell.

10 ^10 or 10 billion is David Ho’s number which was his vastly exaggerated PCR count, mostly dead virus and bits. Ho was thoroughly embarrassed by the specious error of his exaggerated numerical claims. The Richman paper doesn’t mention any data on replication in untreated patients, as Houston notes. It has only one table, table 7, on replication in one case, one ARV treated patient, whose ARVs reduced viral load, as they are designed to do.

You don’t know all this it seems, even though I just told you.

By the way, even if Ho had been correct with his 10^10, you would have to reduce the 10^10 by 1/60,000 to 167,000 per day for actual infectious virus, and that’s for the whole body. A viral load of 60,000 is only one infectious virion per milliliter (Piatak). Some estimate the figure as low as 1 in a million ie 1/17th of that. That’s 1 active virion per 17 milliliters ie in four teaspoons, one infectious virus. Isn’t that IMPRESSIVE, Chris? Sheezz..

Kindly be embarrassed and at long last, shut up.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 6, 2007 4:02 PM

T. Kwetane I am glad to here Mbeki is not a denialist, it’s good he sees HIV causes AIDS and ARVs can help people.

Its also good to fight poverty because everyone knows it makes it harder to stop infections and diseases. The UN says it and Mbeki says it and me too. But some people mis-interpret Mbeki on that and they think it means poverty causes AIDS. Poverty doesn’t cause AIDS HIV does.

SA got richer not poorer while AIDS went up.

1985 130b Rand GDP, 1000s HIV+, life expectency over 60
2005 1500b Rand GDP, millions HIV+ 300 000 AIDS deaths, life expectency 48

So SA got richer while HIV and AIDS went up, life expectency went down. I’m not stupid I know higher GDP doesn’t mean everyone is richer but also per capita GDP doubled 1985 to 2005 in South Africa. Fighting poverty is major but its is not enough to stop AIDS.

Pverty has affects on HIV spread and AIDS and AIDS can cause poverty. Poverty can’t cause AIDS by itself, being rich can’t make you immune. Ask Christine Maggiore she was a rich women but she got HIV and looks like she gave it to her daughter who died of AIDS.

Posted by: Adele | December 6, 2007 4:14 PM

This awe inspiring demonstration of higher mathematics, together with the fact that the so-called opportunistic infections (OI) are exactly the same good ol’ diseases Fred and Wilma Flintstone already knew too, makes Hanna one of the silliest HIV=Aids apologist of the WWW.

OK, Hanna, this will normally do you in. I’ll keep the hilarious “…90% of people …. within 15 years…” for some other time.

Posted by: jspreen | December 6, 2007 4:40 PM

Robert Houston says for 23 years the AIDS extablishment has maintained that the antibodies to HIV are non-neutralizing and ineffectual.

OK that means these people aren’t Extablishment,
Bob Gallo
Flossie Wong-staal
Jerome Groopman
Max Essex
Joe Sonnabend
Robin Weiss
Hans Gelderblom
Barre-Sinoussi
Chermann
Luc Montagnier
Levine
David Ho
About a thousand other people BC they all wrote papers about neutralizing antibody 1985 to now.

Robert Houston meet pubmed!

1985 Bob Gallo and Robin Weiss had papers in July Nature about neutralizing antibody.
Bob Gallo said
Here, we report that natural antibodies capable of neutralizing HTLV-III infection of H9 cells were detected in most adults AIDS and ARC patients but in no normal healthy heterosexual controls. Geometric mean antibody titres in ARC patients were double those in AIDS patients, and were even higher in two antibody-positive healthy homosexuals. This suggests that virus neutralizing antibodies may exert an in vivo protective effect. The presence of these antibodies indicates an immunological response to HTLV-III which potentially may be manipulated for therapeutic advantage.

1986 from Joseph Sonnabend et al
J Immunol Methods. 1986 Sep 27;92(2):177-81.
Sensitive assay for neutralizing antibodies against AIDS-related viruses (HTLV-III/LAV).
Harada S, Purtilo DT, Koyanagi Y, Sonnabend J, Yamamoto N.

1987
Krohn K, Robey WG, Putney S, Arthur L, Nara P, Fischinger P, Gallo RC, Wong-Staal F, Ranki A.
Specific cellular immune response and neutralizing antibodies in goats immunized with native or recombinant envelope proteins derived from human T-lymphotropic
virus type IIIB and in human immunodeficiency virus-infected men. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1987 Jul;84(14):4994-8.

And they knew nuetralizing antibodies worked in patients in 1987, Bob Gallo again.
Robert-Guroff M, Oleske JM, Connor EM, Epstein LG, Minnefor AB, Gallo RC.
Relationship between HTLV-III neutralizing antibody and clinical status of pediatric acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related complex cases.
Pediatr Res. 1987 Jun;21(6):547-50.

Bob Gallo said
All (100%) of the stable patients possessed serum neutralizing antibody in contrast to only one of the 12 (8%) clinically poor patients.

Good EMs from Gelderblom and Robin Weiss
J Virol Methods. 1987 May;16(1-2):125-37.
Detection of HIV envelope specific antibodies by immunoelectron microscopy and correlation with antibody titer and virus neutralizing activity.
Hausmann EH, Gelderblom HR, Clapham PR, Pauli G, Weiss RA.

Robert Houston may be that paper doesn’t exist because it’s immunogold of virus by EM?

Wow Max Essex and J Groopman to!!
Haematol Blood Transfus. 1987;31:410-3.
Transfusion-acquired HIV infection among immunocompromised hosts. Marlink R, Anderson K, Essex M, Groopman J.

Sheesh I have to stop BC there’s like 2000 papers about neutralizing antibody. So for 23 years the AIDS extablishment has maintained that the antibodies to HIV are non-neutralizing and ineffectual? Wrong.

Robert Houstion and Truthtwister why don’t you look it up somewhere except Bialy and Duesberg.

Posted by: Adele | December 6, 2007 5:08 PM

Adele Darling!

This is your best post since you confirmed HIV is an opportunistic infection just like any other:

Good! Now please go tell Drs. N and Richman:

the neutralizing antibodies do not significantly impact the levels of HIV replication (Dr. N)

The question then arises why such a strong selective pressure fails to appreciably impact levels of virus replication (Richman)

Robert Houston may be that paper doesn’t exist because it’s immunogold of virus by EM?

Adele get your facts straight, Houston and Truthseeker believe in the micrographic proof of the existence of HIV even more fervently than you do. But perhaps that study would be non-existent to Richman who found no correlation between antibody titres and virus neutralizing activity?

Adele, I know this is not strictly according to the honey bun rules, but I’ve already had my second grant proposal for proving that “HIV” can be conjured up artifactually in the lab turned down, and the titers of black choppers seem to be increasing by the minute, so how about I simply show that infectious HIV can be isolated from viral RNA negative
samples?

Come on girl how about it? Be a sport.

Posted by: Molecular Entry Claw | December 6, 2007 6:18 PM

“The crowd being yourself, TS, MEC and Rezaf?” -CN

You would like to think that, wouldn’t you? I think you are imagining it.

“You will find that outside of your small band of Denialists most people think you are completely nuts.”- CN

You have yet to demonstarte what I “deny” but I do know YOU think I am nuts.

“Franklin and I have detailed exactly why the experimental data provided in this paper completely contradicts Truthtwisters assertions that HIV is “defeated” or “vanquished. Given that the paper is available online and anyone can read it who do you think will be convinced by Truthtwisters dishonest misinterpretation?”"
-CN

No you haven’t; they have. As I said, your stick handling sucks…in my “nutty” eyes.

“This is where the vast gulf separating Denialists from reality is most evident. They seem to believe that the burden is on the “orthodoxy” to prove to a small group of contrarian kooks that HIV causes AIDS. Somehow the need for you to prove anything is forgotten.”

I am no idiot. The “burden” of proof is on those who say they have a “fact” and your “fact” remains a hypothesis until “proven” true(whatever that means) remember…the pathogenesis is unexplained to this day…it is ASSUMED!!!… Duesberg cant study his hypothesis until he is given the means to.

Chris, be a chap and take on razaf and show me that you are better at stick handling; until then I AM watching a crapy NHL game.

Posted by: patrick moore | December 6, 2007 6:38 PM

I have an Idea Chris…why don’t you and I fuck off with our stupid “one liners” and leave the grown-ups talk, how about it?

Posted by: patrick moore | December 6, 2007 6:43 PM

“I can’t understand why none of the denialists will simply name a date when the pardigm will fall? They’re all so sure its wrong why don’t they just tell us when the medical community will see it too? Surely it can’t last much longer right TS? Tell me when, 12 month? 24 months? Name a date by which the paradigm will fall or stop predicting its imminent demise.”

Who cares about a specific date. HIV history has shown us nothing but downward revisions since the word go. The medical community has no problem with it bit you cling on to 1984 dooms day scenarios. You are an anachronism, a “blast from the past”. You are a laggard!

Posted by: patrick moore | December 6, 2007 6:50 PM

Molly, you are taking it out of context. HEre’s some context, Richman papers. Read them, you will know more about neutralizing antibody.

Virology. 2006 Nov 10;355(1):1-5. Epub 2006 Sep 7.
Lack of neutralizing antibody response to HIV-1 predisposes to superinfection.
Smith DM, Strain MC, Frost SD, Pillai SK, Wong JK, Wrin T, Liu Y, Petropolous CJ, Daar ES, Little SJ, Richman DD.

Hum Antibodies. 2005;14(3-4):101-13.
Characterizing anti-HIV monoclonal antibodies and immune sera by defining the mechanism of neutralization.
Crooks ET, Moore PL, Richman D, Robinson J, Crooks JA, Franti M, SchÃ¼lke N, Binley JM.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Dec 20;102(51):18514-9. Epub 2005 Dec 9.
Neutralizing antibody responses drive the evolution of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 envelope during recent HIV infection.
Frost SD, Wrin T, Smith DM, Kosakovsky Pond SL, Liu Y, Paxinos E, Chappey C, Galovich J, Beauchaine J, Petropoulos CJ, Little SJ, Richman DD.

Posted by: Adele | December 6, 2007 6:50 PM

Please. Stop being silly, Chris. Squabbling about twisted anecdotes where the true data is not known is just embarrassing

This is where you and Duesberg are totally hypocritical and insincere.

Duesberg’s book has whole sections that are just anecdotes about Raphael Lombardo, Kimberly Bergalis etc. For some reason these are perfectly good anecdotes to support his theories until Raphael died from AIDS.

Let’s get this straight. Duesberg holds Raphael Lombardo up as a shining example of what happens when a HIV+ person doesn’t take recreational drugs or ARVs. Apparently his story is evidence that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Raphael Lombardo then dies from AIDS. Does Duesberg stop to think maybe I’m wrong? Maybe HIV does cause AIDS? No. He decides with absolutely no evidence that Lombardo must have been lying about not doing drugs.

Duesberg is a creep.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 7:02 PM

“Tommy Morrison Wants You To Believe

Believe what?

He currently claims that he was never infected with HIV. His ex-wife and his ex-lawyer have different stories”- Chris Noble

Chris Noble WANTS US to belive RUMOUR!! Rumour IS science. Ex- wives and lawers TRUMP science. hurray for the scientific method!!!!

Posted by: patrick moore | December 6, 2007 7:06 PM

Chris Noble WANTS US to belive RUMOUR!! Rumour IS science. Ex- wives and lawers TRUMP science. hurray for the scientific method!!!!

Tommy Morrison’s story is an anecdote. His ex-lawyer was one of the people claiming he tested negative. Now he claims that Morisson tests positive. Where is the science that you are bleating about?

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 7:14 PM

Some anecdotes may arise from an overlooked phenomenon. Regardless of the circumstances of a particular case, such as the purportedly non-drug using Raphael Lombardo, there is documentation of major immunosuppressive agents common in the lifestyle of AIDS risk groups. Aside from well-documented immunosuppressive effects of various recreational drugs and anti-HIV agents such as AZT (a cause of leukopenia and even pancytopenia, according to the PDR), little attention has been given to the role of medically recognized immunosuppressors: glucocorticoid and corticosteroid agents. These are often used as anti-inflammaatory agents, as Truthseeker pointed out, and have a natural counterpart in endogenous cortisol, which rises in conditions of stress and malnutrition.

This is described in the important papers by a toxicologist, Mohammed Al-Bayati, Ph.D., which are an important supplement to the Duesberg theory. They can be found at Virusmyth.com. The latest paper, “Examining the Causes of AIDS” (Medical Veritas 3:901-13, 2006) is quite fascinating and can be seen at: justiceforej.com/CausesOfAIDS(Al-Bayati).pdf

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 7, 2007 12:08 AM

“Duesberg’s book has whole sections that are just anecdotes about Raphael Lombardo, Kimberly Bergalis etc. For some reason these are perfectly good anecdotes to support his theories until Raphael died from AIDS.” – Chris “Limbless Black Knight” Noble.

Returned from two parties in New York to find this is the best Mr Meme can come up with. Not too surprising. The meme machine is still down, one assumes, while AIDSTruth Fedexes emergency supplies of -you liar-/-you misinterpret- chips.

The anecdotes in Duesberg’s book (sadly it shows signs of the clumsier hand of its original draft co-author Bryan Ellison, whose refusal to cooperate with the publishers’ demands led to him being jettisoned) are anecdotes and never treated as scientific proof of anything, except the idiocy of lay rumor and the unlikelihood of lay claims.

Name one anecdote ever used in any Duesber peer reviewed paper to prove anything scientific. Given the gigantic crowd bias towards assuming all data fits the HIV=AIDS meme, the one that directs Noble’s brain as well as the brains of all scientists in the field, it is natural to speculate about the truth hidden behind the vast curtain of the assumption which walls it off.

The science shows the Meme is wrong but doesn’t show what is right of its own accord. You have to look at the data and unlike Chris Noble ask what it really means, insofar as the truth can show through the corrupted research analysis. Duesberg has to guess where the facts are wrong. Putting words into his mouth is no help in this task which everybody has to tackle.

Why should Duesberg decide that all his carefully argued peer reviewed papers are wrong just because some guy he doesn’t monitor scientifically is claiming that he has no other source of AIDS than HIV? The chances are that the guy is lying because there is no reason whatsoever to believe that HIV is the culprit for his AIDS (see Gallo, Fauci and all HIV=AIDS papers so far.)

All the conflict and inconsistency in HIV=AIDS research is overwhelmingly suggestive of both data management, misinterpretation and misreporting in much of the data base, and that is part of what causes the hypothesis to look increasingly bad with every paper which reviews total achievement.

Duesberg like any literature reviewer has to politely accept the data of the papers he reviews, but he doesn’t have to accept anecdotal stories and claims that don’t fit what the literature has told him, which is that HIV is as capable of causing AIDS as Chris Noble is of winning the Nobel prize.

Duesberg is a creep.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 6, 2007 7:02 PM

Alas, one cross that Duesberg has to bear is that a scientific pygmy can call a scientific giant a name on the Web and have a few other pygmies cackle.

But most people know what to think.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 7, 2007 2:21 AM

Some anecdotes may arise from an overlooked phenomenon.

What, like Raphael Lombardo dying from AIDS. Duesberg did a very good job of overlooking that.

You still haven’t explained the Denialist paradox of why Lombardo was a perfectly good anecdote to prove that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS UNTIL he died from AIDS. Now he’s supposedly a liar.

I really liked Al-Bayati’s fairytales about poppers. Apparently, Duesberg and all the other dissidents are wrong. Poppers don’t cause AIDS directly. People taking poppers get lot of headaches. They take aspirin for the headaches. The aspirin causes throbocytopenia. They take corticosteroids for the thrombocytopenia. Then the corticosteroids cause the immune suppression. It’s all so clear now.

Medical Veritas is as ironically named as “Truthseeker”. Its “editorial board” is stacked with HIV Denialists and antivaccination kooks.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 7, 2007 2:32 AM

You are really starting to disgust me.

Lombardo wrote to Duesberg personally. Duesberg included his story in the manuscript because he believed that it supported his claims that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Duesberg didn’t seem to worry about whether lombardo was telling the truth at this stage.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t use Lombardo as an anecdote supposedly proving that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and then switch to him being a liar when he dies from AIDS.

When I call Duesberg a creep I’m restraining myself.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 7, 2007 2:52 AM

Explanation for a two year old mind:

Duesberg didn’t seem to worry about whether lombardo was telling the truth at this stage.

He took a man at his word, just as we take you at your word, Noble, not having any further information. Then he took another person or persons at his/her word and was left with a contradiction, which he resolved in the most obvious way, contingent on better information.

This is how decent people behave in society, they trust strangers because they themselves are trustworthy. Why this trust is disgusting to you is not clear, but it is certainly creepy to hear you express such an opinion.

Then, you believe, Lombardo “died of AIDS”. Extraordinary as a supposed scientist (we currently trust that your interest in this material reflects some background in science or near science of some kind) that you don’t know that this statement is not a scientific fact, but by definition a claim based on an interpretation based on a diagnosis based on a belief in a paradigm. All we know as fact even if everybody involved is an accurate reporter is whatever diagnosis was made by someone and some idea of the medical data on which it was made.

The diagnosis itself is by definition a loose assessment – “he had AIDS” – of a very unscientific and unspecific nature, hinging on an test which if positive makes all symptoms “AIDS” because supposedly it detects a Virus which cause catastrophic immune collapse, for which there is no conclusive evidence after 20 years, and which Duesberg shows does not match the literature. Therefore he naturally will suggest some other reason if told a man “died of AIDS” that he was previously told was healthy.

None of the discussion then or our discussion now is scientific, since the data is vague and subject to different interpretations and the “AIDS diagnosis” claim is based on beliefs which contradict the literature of the field. By definition your objection to what Duesberg concluded is as unscientific as the rest of your reasoning and claims here, for the same reason.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t use Lombardo as an anecdote supposedly proving that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and then switch to him being a liar when he dies from AIDS.

Anecdotes don’t prove anything in science, Mr Monkey Meme, so one doubts here you have any training in scientific logic, Duesberg merely recorded a blatant conflict in two beliefs held simultaneously by paradigm heads such as yourself, when he accepted that the guy was healthy and was “HIV positive”. When he was told one of your beliefs had changed, he pointed to the fact that they still conflicted with the literature, and suggested a way to resolve that conflict. If you don’t want to accept the suggestion, that’s up to you. But the switch is yours, not his. You as the provider of data are the creep, if the change of story is creepy. You are the disgusting one, if a change in view is disgusting. Duesberg merely reacted to the story he was told,

When I call Duesberg a creep I’m restraining myself.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 7, 2007 2:52 AM

Maybe you restrain yourself more.

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 7, 2007 8:35 AM
Post a Comment 1181 Comments so far

Correcto mundo Truthseeker!

“….HIV=AIDS research is overwhelmingly suggestive of both data management, misinterpretation and misreporting…”

Lest we add the all the corruption such as in the case of deliberate flat out fraud!

“AIDS researcher committed scientific misconduct by altering images and fabricating data, a UW investigation found.” [click carter]

If one person almost gets away with fake data and altering EMs – How many haven’t gotten caught?

Posted by: carter | December 7, 2007 6:24 PM

“Tommy Morrison’s story is an anecdote. His ex-lawyer was one of the people claiming he tested negative. Now he claims that Morisson tests positive. Where is the science that you are bleating about?”- CN

No no chris, where is the science YOU are bleating about behind his testing history??? What are we supposed to believe? What are we supposed to believe about Maggiore? When it suited Aidstruth (bergman) she was an HIV neg impostor and now she is an HIV pos impostor or whatever it is you make her out to be. What is the flavor of the month on his status today, or her’s??? Why is it ok for you fuckers to waffle around everyday about other peoples testing history? Have you ever been tested for hiv? how often do you get tested? C’mon, give us your “fucking” testing history anecdotes…Do you believe everybody should get tested? How often should they get tested? After every sexual encounter? …or only when they have sex with a “vulnerable minority”? If you had sex with an African woman, would you freak? Why? How many close friends do you have that are HIV positive and have to make difficult health descisions for themselves and their families??? C’mon, share YOUR medical history. Lead by example and tell us how you get tested and how often and why. I bet I’ve been tested more often than you…
You are a comfortable white prick without a worry in the fucking world stuck on one of the cheeks of the world’s arse. Why dont you shift some grass and move a little towards the arsehole of the world, you do live very close to it geographically speaking. You are the “butt” of your own laughable world.

Posted by: patrick moore | December 7, 2007 6:38 PM

Can you imagine if tommy morrison was dead and not totally healthy today, theyd be talking endlessly how he died of aids bc he beleived deusberg, now that hes alive and totally healthy, they just ignore him and say he probably wasnt positive (Yeah right, he saw david ho, all positive tests are repeated).

Posted by: cooler | December 7, 2007 7:35 PM

The only “better information” was that Lombardo died from AIDS.
This puts the lie to your empty challenge to come up with “drug free” AIDS cases. Any person that didn’t take drugs and dies from AIDS is a liar according to Duesberg.

It should be a lesson for all HIV+ “rethinkers”. You are valuable to Duesberg while you are healthy. If you progress to AIDS you’ll become a liar or they’ll invent stories about you.

As for Maggiore, it was OK for her to continually present herself and her children as an anecdote supposedly proving that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Now that her daughter dies from AIDS all of a sudden anecdotes don’t mean anything.

You can’t have it both ways.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 7, 2007 9:21 PM

I bet I’ve been tested more often than you…- Patrick Moore to Chris Noble

This is an odd remark from an infidel outside the HIV=AIDS religion. Let’s hope you weren’t tested voluntarily, Patrick, since it is hard to imagine why anyone informed about this field and what is really going on in its science (read Science Guardian/New AIDS Review if you need to catch up) would allow themselves to be tested, exposing themselves to being dragged into the teeth of such a dangerous modern witch hunt/lynch mob machine for chewing up innocent “HIV positives” and not only be stigmatized without reason but given dangerous drugs on no scientific or medical basis other than a fairy tale.

What is the purpose of educating people about this if they still go along with it? May as well treat Chris Noble as a scientific authority.

By the way, Mr Noble, when will you take responsibility for publicly misleading people for so long, and put your background, credentials and motivation on the table in public view for all to assess?

You are clearly intelligent enough to know what is going on, even if you are not always bright enough to know the correct science and why it is obvious.

The rationalizations you peddle are hollow, and your activities vicious in their effect on any innocents who may follow you. Tell us who funds your activities in this arena before proceeding further, and what your motivation is. Why should innocents believe you are well motivated, and love science, when you muddle it and trash it so often?

What are your background, credentials and motivation? Who pays you for your incessant and relentless attack on unbelievers in this groundless scientific faith? Who do you please, that we don’t know about?

Why is it a secret?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 7, 2007 9:54 PM

Any person that didn’t take drugs and dies from AIDS is a liar according to Duesberg.

Or he died from some other source of immune damage, not HIV.

Well, done Chris, you’re getting there. Slog on, maybe you will understand it all before the year is out!

Noble asked to confess

Now in the meantime, fess up, it will probably help clear your mind further:

What are your background, credentials and motivation?

Who pays you for your incessant and relentless attack on unbelievers in this groundless scientific faith?

Who do you please, that we don’t know about?

Why has it been a secret?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 7, 2007 10:07 PM

Hello everyone,

You may have noticed that the usual AIDS Wiki website address has been unavailable for accessing over most of the past couple weeks.

This was due to some technical problems we’ve been experiencing recently. While the usual website address is now working again, to make sure that similar possible technical problems are avoided in the future, the AIDS Wiki is now officially moving from the .ORG to the .COM suffix.

This change of URL address does not reflect any change in philosophy, either in theory or practice, regarding the non-profit status of the website. The change is purely a technical decision by the webmasters to avoid future possible problems.

Thank you for your attention and please help spread this information to as many others as possible. Thank you very much.

Darin Brown
Wikimaster
AIDS Wiki

Posted by: Darin Brown | December 7, 2007 10:18 PM

Have you all seen this story about a court case filed by Audrey Serrano?

The woman was “diagnosed” HIV+ (whatever that means), then given toxic anti-viral chemotherapy for 9 years, then told she was HIV-.

Curious as to what the moron AIDS alarmists think of this. If Ms. Serrano had died of the drugs, no doubt they would have attributed it to AIDS. Probably, this has happened with thousands of “AIDS” patients.

Posted by: Barney | December 7, 2007 10:54 PM

Or he died from some other source of immune damage, not HIV.

Then why does Duesberg accuse a dead man of lying? You can’t seem to admit that Duesberg’s actions were morally questionable.

Who do you please, that we don’t know about? Why is it a secret?

Paranoid? Has it ever occurred to you that some people are just disgusted and alarmed by the psuedoscientific nonsense that you and other “rethinkers” spread on the internet? There is absolutely no secret about my motivation for countering your bullshit. I believe that HIV Denial kills people.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 7, 2007 11:01 PM

Ignore noble, he just thinks hes a badass now because the hoofnagle brothers on their denilalism blog here(two of weirdest looking idiotic mother fuckers ive ever seen) put a blog recently called “hiv denial these sick bastards have another victim” (something to that effect) when they spied on the aidsmythexposed site and accused some members of “murder” when they informed an newly diagnosed hiv positive pregnant women of duesbergs views, ie gave her informed consent, so theyre getting all ghetto hyper about it.

So noble has changed his tune from his usual mild mannnered idiocy and stupidity to getting all sanctimonious about these issues, for after all the Hoofnagle loser brothers are these gatekeepers are these all knowing gods that tell us what is debatable and whats not, and what people can and cant hear. Forget these losers, they are murderers for not informing the public of the impending epidemic of mycoplamsa incognitus/penetrans, the only microbe to kill every animal injected, thier murderers for not letting people have informed consent and tell people that there is 100% chance youll die with hiv, even though there isnt one scientific paper published between 1984-90 that proves this.

They murdered ten of thousands of gulf war vets that tested positive with shyh ching lo’s pathenogenic mycoplasmas incognitus, not to mention all hundereds of thoussands civilains infected that have been misdiagnosed with depression/CFS etc.

We can never be accused of murder because we want the patient to hear both sides of an issue and make a health descion based on informed consent, not manufactured consent. Why shouldnt every person go to the aidstruth site and see hiv fact or fraud and control thier own destiny? Experts have proven to not be trustworthy and are frequent victims of groupthink and stupidity, like when the cure for scurvy was known decades in advance, but idiotic experts kept it hidden from the public and murdered millions, like they do now. This is not to say that many experts havent spoken out, as they have.

Posted by: cooler | December 8, 2007 12:18 AM

The real problem is that HIV Gullibility has killed people on a massive scale. As reported by Lederer In POZ magazine (April 2006), Joseph Sonnabend, M.D., co-founder of AMFAR, has charged: “1200 mg a day of AZT (the first approved dose in the ’80s) killed thousands, as did so-called early intervention.”

Posted by: Robert Houston | December 8, 2007 12:18 AM

There is absolutely no secret about my motivation for countering your bullshit. I believe that HIV Denial kills people. – Chris Noble.

Then answer all the questions, since you have done nothing you are ashamed of:

To: Chris Noble

What are your background, credentials and motivation?

Who pays you for your incessant and relentless attack on unbelievers in this groundless scientific faith?

Who do you please, that we don’t know about? Why has it been a secret?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 8, 2007 1:02 AM

Nice selective quotation! You missed the bit where he concurs that HIV does cause AIDS and that current treatments are effective.

If the “rethinkers” sole point was that high dose AZT monotherapy was a bad idea and resulted in people dying then you might have a legitimate point.

The continued insistence that HIV doesn’t exist or doesn’t cause AIDS is pseudoscience that results in needless deaths.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 8, 2007 1:23 AM

Then why does Duesberg accuse a dead man of lying? You can’t seem to admit that Duesberg’s actions were morally questionable.

Perhaps you would like to show us the exact quote, to show the context, and that the word “lying” was used, but why is it morally questionable to make a perfectly reasonable suggestion as to why the conflict between his claims and his fate arose? The other suggestion is that some other factor caused his death. The one certain fact, if the literature of the field is to be trusted, is that it was not due to being HIV positive, a non infectious condition of having vaccinated yourself against harmless HIV.

Why is it morally questionable to suggest someone is lying about a morally questionable activity they might want to deny for social reasons? You constantly accuse others here of being “liars” and being “dishonest”, so that appears to condemn you out of your own mouth for being “morally questionable”.

Did you mean to label yourself morally questionable? If not, presumably it was a Freudian slip, and quite a telling one.

Why do you constantly accuse others of being liars and dishonest? Are you judging them by yourself, or do you have some other reason for this morally questionable activity, which disrupts discussion here examining your muddled claims that the literature is upside down and HIV is really a dangerous virus causing a global pandemic because it escapes the immune system and is infectious, all of which the AIDS literature and its leading proponents say is wrong,

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 8, 2007 1:24 AM

Nice selective quotation! You missed the bit where he concurs that HIV does cause AIDS and that current treatments are effective.

If the “rethinkers” sole point was that high dose AZT monotherapy was a bad idea and resulted in people dying then you might have a legitimate point.

Yes, indeed, selecting the concessions made by Denialists to a valid HIV=AIDS debunking is a very useful activity.

For example, moving from the confused Sonnabend to the self-propagandized Chris Noble:

Now we have:

1) Chris Noble agrees that AZT monotherapy was a bad idea. The record tells us it killed possibly 300,000 people.

2) He wouldn’t take current ARV drugs himself.

So now we have his concession that the scientific/medical community is capable of killing 300,000 gays with the wrong medication, and this appears to have been enough to caution him not to take the currently prescribed drugs himself.

But he nonetheless enthuses about them and their rationale to all comers, often enough to suggest he couldn’t afford such heavy use of his time and attention without financial backing or significant rewards of some kind for making such an ass of himself in public for so long.

Is this not a “morally questionable” activity – to lead people into this dangerous belief without studying the literature carefully enough (use that index finger, Chris, and say the words out loud, it will really help a lot) to know what you are talking about?

After all, contradicting Karpas, Richman, Fauci, Gallo and Gisselquist must be the result of under research, when your intellectual brilliance is so obvious,

Now answer the questions:

To: Chris Noble

What are your background, credentials and motivation?

Who pays you for your incessant and relentless attack on unbelievers in this groundless scientific faith?

Who do you please, that we don’t know about? Why has it been a secret?

Who is your patron, Chris? Why the preoccupation with a topic so far from your apparent field of providing computer services to chemists? Do your gay friends love you for helping them believe in bad science, contradicted by the literature and its chief proponents?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 8, 2007 2:15 AM

Barney,
If the suit is upheld then it’s called malpractice; nothing more. No second shooter, no explosiv puffs, no hanger full of red sand.

The alarm is all yours. Cut the coolaid and use tinfoil to wrap your lunch, not your head.

Posted by: Sascha | December 8, 2007 3:32 AM

Mr. Noble,

If people stop BELIEVING in HIV, it is not necessary that they will stop using condomns. If not for HIV, then let it be for other REAL STDs.
This “Denialism” as you so are so quick to label it, does not kill anyone. Now that is a lie. You’re “excommunicating” people. If you go outside and breathe some fresh air and talk to real, common people, you will find that most of them find your beloved theory somewhat “fishy”. To the most knowledgeable ones, it will for sure. But because of people like you, no one has the guts to speak out until the day they get a positive and bullied into getting the ARV therapy. Mr. Noble, even some of our doctors advise against testing for HIV, if one does not belong to a “risk group”. Do you want to know what they tell us? “If you’re not an IV drug user and never had “unsafe sex” and are an all-round healthy person, there is no point in testing. For the infection rates are very, very low. Even if you had unsafe sex with an infected person, the rate of infection is 0.01%”(That’s 1 out 10000 intercourses, I think).
Thank the Lord, there are doctors who really care about their patients.
The fact that there are “risk groups” is strange enough to the most knowledgeable.
Of course, no one will tell you this if you behave as a Grand Inquisitor for AIDS Monotheism.
By the way, how many times have you got tested?
Would you take ARVs if positive?
Would you test yourself again if positive?
What would you do if, by any chance, the results were inconclusive?
And don’t tell me that you’d monitor your white count, blah blah blah. To tell someone that they are going to die AND make them feel guilty about it is enough to cause immune suppression. The feeling of one’s resignation to death is halfway to get there, and that is reflected in the white count.

Posted by: Rezaf | December 8, 2007 11:02 AM

Rezaf

This “Denialism” as you so are so quick to label it, does not kill anyone. Now that is a lie.

Tell that to Eliza-Jane Scovill, or the tens of thousands of infants in SA who died of AIDS because Mbeki denied their mothers antiretrovirals.

Posted by: DT | December 8, 2007 12:04 PM

Why does Chris Noble, proudly leading the bashing of HIV=AIDS review on this thread and others over the years, prefer not to answer the questions above, so that we can fully apreciate the spirit and motivation of his efforts ?

Could it be that the answer are compromising? Surely not. Surely Chris is well qualified by background and motivation to defend good science without any regard to who is pleased by his knightly tilting against “liars” and “dishonest” “misinterpreters” of HIV=AIDS ideology?

Does anyone else know the answers?

Posted by: Truthseeker | December 8, 2007 1:40 PM

Could it be that you like asking rhetorical questions?

In distinction to numerous “rethinkers” I have always used my real name. I have made no secrets or false claims about my qualifications or motivations.

I have a PhD in the physical sciences in a research area not connected to HIV. My current research is not connected to HIV. I have no financial connections to “HIVinc” and “bigpharma”. I do not speak for any patron. I speak for myself.

Do you have any more leading questions?

I guess you’ve given up discussing the science that you misrepresent in the Karpas and Richman papers and have decided to start attacking me personally instead.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 8, 2007 8:13 PM

You can’t manage to write a single sentence without twisting, distorting and lying. Why do you play these silly rhetorical word games?

The idea that AZT killed 300,000 is completely ridiculous and not supported by any data and I have in no way made such a “concession”.

You are also twisting my comments about ARVs. I did not say that I would not take them. I have been honest enough to say that I cannot say what I would do if I was in the position of some of the HIV+ “rethinkers”. I don’t know what I would do if I was diagnosed with cancer either.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 8, 2007 8:36 PM

Chris Weasel,

If the “rethinkers” sole point was that high dose AZT monotherapy was a bad idea and resulted in people dying then you might have a legitimate point.

Why was this a “bad idea”?

According to Dr. Sonnabend:

1200 mg a day of AZT (the first approved dose in the ’80s) killed thousands, as did so-called early intervention.”

Dr. Sonnabend thinks that “killing thousands” is a bit more than a “bad idea” — don’t you?

Posted by: Barney | December 8, 2007 9:04 PM

“I bet I’ve been tested more often than you…- Patrick Moore to Chris Noble

This is an odd remark from an infidel outside the HIV=AIDS religion. Let’s hope you weren’t tested voluntarily, Patrick,… …exposing themselves to being dragged into the teeth of such a dangerous modern witch hunt/lynch mob machine for chewing up innocent “HIV positives” and not only be stigmatized without reason but given dangerous drugs on no scientific or medical basis other than a fairy tale.” -TS

infidel…hmm.

Why do you tink I would be frightened?
Why do you think I would seek desperate medical help? There is nothing odd about having a testing history at my age. I didn’t always care.

Posted by: pat | December 8, 2007 9:35 PM

ZOMG!! You mean to tell me early attempts at treating HIV were to a certain degree faulty and the side effects resulted in unnecessary death. This can only mean that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and that there is a conspiracy to convince people otherwise. I’m gonna go get high ya’ll, peace.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 8, 2007 9:54 PM

Why was this a “bad idea”?

I said that this was the one area where “rethinkers” might have had a point.

The literature has detailed the toxicities associated with AZT from the first trials by Fischl et al. Nobody is denying that these side effects can be very serious and even fatal.

The first trials showed that AZT was effective in treating people with symptomatic HIV infection.

Later studies showed that AZT monotherapy provided no advantage as early treatment in asymptomatic HIV. By the same token in the average of three years follow up in the Concorde trial there was no evidence of any deaths caused by AZT let alone the massive genocide that “rethinkers” allege.

Posted by: Chris Noble | December 8, 2007 11:40 PM

Chris Weasel,

The myopia from which you suffer is truly astounding. AZT is cytotoxic. It kills white blood cells. During the AIDS hysteria in the 80’s, they pumped so much AZT into gay men, that the US death rate for AIDS reached 50,000 year. When they moved off AZT, the death rates began to plummet.

AZT was a f%cking disaster, and you’re a f%cking moron!

Posted by: Barney | December 9, 2007 12:18 AM

“Could it be that the answers are compromising? Surely not. Surely Chris is well qualified by background and motivation to defend good science without any regard to who is pleased by his knightly tilting against “liars” and “dishonest” “misinterpreters” of HIV=AIDS ideology?”

Could it be that you like asking rhetorical questions?

In distinction to numerous “rethinkers” I have always used my real name. I have made no secrets or false claims about my qualifications or motivations.

Do you have any more leading questions?
I guess you’ve given up discussing the science that you misrepresent in the Karpas and Richman papers and have decided to start attacking me personally instead.
Posted by: Chris Noble | December 8, 2007 8:13 PM

But this was not attacking you, was it? These are just kindly meant enquiries as to the state of your mind, You have now reassured us that your dedicated efforts to play John Moore-Mark Wainberg at the grass roots level are not fueled by any outside patron, which we are glad to hear, except it leaves the question, why the obsessive effort?

Specifically, we have to ask, are you compensating for the death of some relation or friend from AZT/Protease Inhibitors and trying to avoid considering whether it was iatrogenic murder?

Sorry to say it but there has to be a reason why you personally entirely closed off your own review of this patently ridiculous paradigm a long time ago, when you didn’t have any personal payday stake in it.

You are not unintelligent and the enormous inconsistencies which crawl the corpse of this hypothesis like worms are not balanced by one sustainable pillar of reason to believe in it, and you have been thinking about it for years in public, so there is an inconsistency in that, which is why we ask leading questions – that and your resolute lack of public information beyond your name.

There is always the question in smart HIV=AIDS defenders as to why they cannot see the wood for the trees, when so many talented people have well explained the real shape of the epidemic, which is that HIV accounts for none of HIV=AIDS except its defining label and analytical bias, and drugs recreational and medical/conventional disease/nutritional deficits and hunger account for all of it.

The behavior of digging in and refusing to concede any problem, and lobbing hand grenades like “liar!” over the top of the trench, ignores blatant fundamental disproofs such as a virus that the immune system conquers quickly and permanently (even that rise at the end of the viral load graph is a famous AMFAR panel fiction which has no confirmation in the literature), symptoms that correlate with everything but the virus, radical disparities in the epidemiology between continents, and on and on in a list which never ends, while the only pillar of the paradigm left standing after review is that it is all a “conundrum”.

The only conceivable reason why anyone well informed should try to bar the door against review is that they have a financial or emotional stake in the outcome, and that is why we ask what it is.

Since you deny that you are rewarded by commercial or other interests for your work, and you profess scientific ideals, we have to conclude that you have the only motive we can think of for a good man who is not easily fooled by bad logic.

That is, you have lost a friend or friends, or someone close, to this murder machine and like so many who have suffered that loss, you are impelled to believe that it is all valid, and the loss wasn’t a reflection of sheer blind human stupidity and wrongdoing, but an inevitable act of Nature and Destiny perpetrating a new lethal disease on people who had no reason to foresee it, and anyone who suggests otherwise, and that humans are to blame, raises a horrific possibility that cannot be countenanced, and its proposers are villains for even suggesting it, etc.

This emotional denialism is familiar to all writers and viewers of movies which feature anyone who has loses a loved one, and it does not reflect badly on anyone who feels it, except that in science it should be forgotten if people are trying to find out why a paradigm is such a failure after twenty years, providing no vaccine or cure, only a harmful and ultimately fatal poison as temporary palliative, no sense in theory or validity in its defense, a literature in which its main researchers quietly concede its pillars to critics, and ads from AmFar which

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