Verdict back in Australian HIV denial case

Posted by Tara C. Smith on April 27, 2007
(229)
More »

I wrote a post back in February about HIV’s “Kitzmiller vs. Dover” trial. The trial was appealing the sentence of one Andre Chad Parenzee, a native of South Africa who’d been convicted in Australia back in 2004 of infecting one woman with HIV (and exposing two others). Parenzee knew of his HIV+ status, telling the women he had cancer instead and not disclosing his infection nor using condoms. In the appeal, the HIV “dissidents” led the way, with Valendar Turner and Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos of the Perth group taking the stand and denying that HIV even existed. Papadopulos-Eleopulos also uttered this memorable line:

She was asked by prosecutor Sandi McDonald whether “you would have unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV-positive man”.

“Any time,” replied Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos.

Well, the decision is in…

…and the judge ended up throwing out the appeal:

Justice John Sulan today dismissed the witnesses’ testimony, saying the pair lacked credibility and were advocates for a cause rather than independent experts.

He said the evidence that HIV existed was compelling and he rejected the application for a re-trial.

“I am satisfied that no jury would conclude that there is any doubt that the virus HIV exists,” he said in his judgment.

“I consider no jury would be left in any doubt that HIV is the cause of AIDS or that it is sexually transmissible.”

Like the Kitzmiller trial, HIV “dissidents” had hoped the judge would take their side, and finally give their movement a bit of credibility. From what I’ve read from emails they sent me and others behind the scenes, they were gloating about how the judge seemed to treat witnesses from the side of mainstream science, and seemed pretty confident to me that they had a slam dunk. Those quotes above must sting a bit.

Like Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller verdict, Judge Sulan made it very clear what he thought of the “dissident” witnesses and tactics:

Justice Sulan said Ms Papadopoulos-Eleopulos, a physicist who works at the Royal Perth Hospital, relied upon opinions of others, which she often took out of context and misinterpreted.

He said claims that HIV testing methods were flawed were unfounded and the virus had been thoroughly studied by international experts.

It’s always a little worrisome when you have a non-scientist adjudicating matters such as these, that involve rather complicated virology, serology, diagnostics, epidemiology, etc., but it’s clear that the prosecution made their case, and the motivations and lack of credibility and scientific expertise of the defenses so-called “experts” shone through. The legal system certainly hasn’t been kind to the anti-science movements lately…I wonder which one will be the next to fall?

(229)
More »

Comments

  1. #1 Tyler DiPietro
    April 27, 2007

    Good news.

    But something tells me that the HIV denialist “War on Tara” is going to start up again in this comment thread. I’m putting myself and Abbie on standby.

  2. #2 ERV
    April 27, 2007

    *shrug* Well, honestly, its not like this is going to stop Deniers. This is exactly like ID Creationisms Dover. Decades to establish their views with science, couldnt do it. Try to get the courts to MAKE their views science, courts wont fall for it. Say their views are ‘science’ anyway. Ive had a post on my blog for ~2 months now on ‘HIV Science’ directed towards Deniers, none of them responded (sitemeter says they read it!). Ken ate Culshaws and her ‘science’ alive. None of this gives Deniers pause.

    Science means nothing. Courts mean nothing. Only The Cause matters.

  3. #3 Adele
    April 27, 2007

    Ah hate wah
    Eleanoh hates wah
    Fallah hates wah

    And I really, really, despise this War on Tara.
    But what the hell? I’m ready. Let’s get it on.

  4. #4 Dale
    April 27, 2007

    I’m surprised that the existence of HIV was even an issue in this case. If the law says it is illegal for an HIV+ person to have unprotected sex without informing his or her sexual partners, since when did disagreeing with the basis of a law become grounds for ignoring it?

  5. #5 Mustafa Mond, FCD
    April 27, 2007

    I am satisfied that no jury would conclude that there is any doubt that the virus HIV exists,” he said in his judgment.
    .
    “I consider no jury would be left in any doubt that HIV is the cause of AIDS or that it is sexually transmissible.”

    I wish I shared his confidence in my fellow man.

  6. #6 Richard Jefferys
    April 27, 2007

    The decision is now online: http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/judgments/Judgments2007/0427-SASC-143.htm

    I learned a lot about the “Perth Group.”

    “Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has no formal qualifications in medicine, biology, virology, immunology, epidemiology or any other medical disciplines. She has never treated or been directly involved in clinical trials of any kind relating to any disease. Her duties at the Royal Perth Hospital are to test people for sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.

    Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos claims that she conducts research in the area of HIV/AIDS in her private time. It became clear that, when she spoke about research, she meant reading various medical papers about the research of others. Her experience with the HIV virus and with AIDS is limited to reading and critiquing the work of researchers involved in various studies. She purports to have expertise to speak on the subject of virology, epidemiology, electron microscopy, biology and immunology. She has no practical experience in any of these areas. She has no formal qualifications in these disciplines.

    The evidence given by Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos about the Perth group demonstrates that she is promoting a cause. She is not independent. She is motivated to create a debate about her theory. The Perth Group will use whatever means available to promote that debate, including encouragement of persons such as the applicant, to promote their theories in courts of law.

    Dr Turner’s knowledge of the subject matter is limited to reading. He has no formal qualifications to give expert opinions about the virus. He has no practical experience in the treatment of viral diseases. He has no practical experience in the disciplines of virology, immunology or epidemiology.

    His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

    I conclude that Dr Turner is not qualified to advance expert opinion about virus isolation, antibody tests, viral load tests, or sexual transmission of the virus. His knowledge of these subjects is limited to having read a number of publications. He relies entirely on his interpretation of various studies in the specialised disciplines of virology, epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, pathology or infectious diseases, in none of which he has qualifications beyond his medical degree. He has no practical experience, and has performed no research which has been published.”

  7. #7 DT
    April 27, 2007

    It is quite clear that the defense have been totally misled by the denialists in thinking there were even grounds for appeal. Basing a defence upon non-existence of the virus was a ploy doomed to failure.

    Why not use somthing with a bit of real scientific uncertainty, such as the use of forensic sequencing, which has been controversial.

    Whatever, the verdict is a massive kick in the teeth for the denialists. To have their favoured “experts” lambasted as nothing but unqualified, opinionated twisters of truth, selective quoters of evidence, lacking in objectivity, refusers of accepting evidence contrary to their own views, etc etc must really hurt.

    The way Eleopulos and Turner were destroyed over their misuse of Padian and Rodriguez was priceless. There were quite a few other gems to treasure in the verdict, such as this comment on Valendar Turner:

    [143] “His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.”

    Absolutely priceless. The other bit I enjoyed was seeing Eleopulos squiming around trying to deny she knew Padian’s objections to the Perth Group interpretation. Cheered me up no end at the end of what has been a long hard week looking after my HIV patients.

  8. #8 SLC
    April 27, 2007

    Re Richard Jefferys

    Based on Mr. Jefferys’ discussion, neither Papadopulos-Eleopulos or Turner would be allowed to testify in a US court as an expert witness based on their lack of qualifications.

  9. #9 DT
    April 27, 2007

    Other bits are so good I cannot resist the urge to share:

    Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos:
    [77] “I knew nothing about cancer at that stage or biology for that matter” [in the 1970s]

    “So then I taught myself biology and that’s how my interest in biology started and by the end of 1970[s] I put forward a theory of cancer”

    “And then I come with a theory when doing this, I came with a theory of normal biological function.”

    The opinion of the Judge:

    [84] Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has no formal qualifications in medicine, biology, virology, immunology, epidemiology or any other medical disciplines. She has never treated or been directly involved in clinical trials of any kind relating to any disease. Her duties at the Royal Perth Hospital are to test people for sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.

  10. #10 Adele
    April 27, 2007

    This judge is one level-headed dude.
    His comments on Perth apply to most denialists with science backgrounds. Is there any denialist who does HIV work or whose an expert?
    So many denialists, so few experts! I wonder how many of these “scientist” denialists could debate an HIV scientist without falling apart. Duesberg, I’m sure, he’s smart in a way. Anyone else? Maybe Maniotis? Dehaarven? The rest are too unqualified or psychologically unstable. And that’s the scientists! Not to mention the head in the sand journalists like Farber and Liversedge.

  11. #11 Adele
    April 27, 2007

    I feel Mustafa Mond’s misgivings. A jury in the US might not have been collectively smart enough to turn in this verdict.
    But we can celebrate for a few minutes. I think the days of HIV denial are kinda coming to a close. I mean thinking the virus doesn’t exist. That was Perth all the way. Even Duesberg disagreed with them on it. Now they’re exposed and they did it to themselves. Nice job, Valeni!

  12. #12 mark
    April 27, 2007

    I’m not too bothered by a judge adjudicating some matters of science.

    After all, if you can’t convince a well-educated lay person that your science is valid while denialists are just cranks, then, well, you kind of suck at explaining science. I’m not sure what the Australian system is based on, but in the US with the Daubert case in 1993 the rules have been changed from the original Frye rule, which is that an expert’s theory must be based on data, peer-reviewed investigation, and reproducibility and must be “generally accepted”.

    Generally accepted is no longer the standard as a result of that case, and the onus of determining the quality of the scientific expertise (in federal courts) now falls on our judges (who pretty much apply the Frye rule if you ask me).

    Australia, I’m sure, has some guidelines for judges to evaluate legitimate science as well.

    Granted, you can always have a stupid judge or a poorly-designed legal system, but I think that’s the exception rather than the rule. Judges tend to be pretty bright and when given guidelines for detecting junk science (like conspiracy theories, or cherry-picking of data) they do pretty well.

  13. #13 trrll
    April 27, 2007

    It seems to me that judges generally do pretty well adjudicating scientific issues. While they may lack training in science, they are trained in logic, and they tend to be experienced in interpreting expert testimony.

  14. #14 Anna Z
    April 27, 2007

    Oh my, I’ve been reading the responses to Tara’s February post. It looks like the judge in Perth will have silenced at least one denialist:

    http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/02/hivs_dover.php#comment-349590

    I wonder how often pledges like that are actually kept?

  15. #15 Torbjörn Larsson
    April 27, 2007

    His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.
    [...]
    He has no practical experience, and has performed no research which has been published.”

    Remarkable similarity to Dembski.

  16. #16 Roscoe
    April 27, 2007

    [qs]She was asked by prosecutor Sandi McDonald whether “you would have unprotected vaginal sex with a HIV-positive man”.
    “Any time,” replied Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos.

    [/qs]

    Wonder if she feels the same way about having it off with someone carrying the mythical gonorrhea and syp? :-p

  17. #17 Chris Noble
    April 27, 2007

    Anna asks:I wonder how often pledges like that are actually kept?

    I’m sure that lincoln that he would accept the judges verdict if the judge was not obviously biased or a pharmashill. The judge through out the appeal – therefore he is obviously biased or a pharmashill and therefore lincoln will ignore the verdict.

    Exactly the same script of attacking the judge or theorising conspiracies that occured after the Dover trial is happening already. Uncanny!

  18. #18 Kristine
    April 27, 2007

    Like the Kitzmiller trial, HIV “dissidents” had hoped the judge would take their side, and finally give their movement a bit of credibility.

    But why for pity’s sake? These people amaze me.

    I toast the appeal being tossed out. An article that people should read is “The Denialists” in the March 12 issue of The New Yorker, about the consequences of HIV denialism in South Africa. There are people fighting hard to get the truth about AIDS out there. Thank you for your work on this, Dr. Tara. I only know about this issue because of you.

  19. #19 Chris Noble
    April 27, 2007

    [77] “I knew nothing about cancer at that stage or biology for that matter” [in the 1970s]

    “So then I taught myself biology and that’s how my interest in biology started and by the end of 1970[s] I put forward a theory of cancer”

    It’s also worth pointing out that she did absolutely no experimental research from the end of the 70′s to the beginning of the 80′s and yet her theory now suddenly “predicted” AIDS.

    oxidative stress causes cancer
    oxidative stress causes cancer
    oxidative stress causes cancer
    oxidative stress causes cancer
    oxidative stress causes cancer
    oxidative stress causes AIDS

    In the 70′s her theory didn’t predict AIDS. Then all of a sudden it did after the begiining of the AIDS epidemic.

    I also seriously doubt that she had heard of retroviruses before 1984. She only became an “expert” in retrovirology after she had a) formed a dogmatic position about the cause of AIDS and b) Montagnier/Gallo discovered HIV.

    I have sympathy for Parenzee’s family. They fell for the Denialist bullshit. Who could blame them. Meanwhile the appeal has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and the Australian government many times more. Can we send the Perthies the bill?

  20. #20 pat
    April 27, 2007

    Personally, I’m happy this dink got tossed, not that any would understand why.

    “Can we send the Perthies the bill”

    no, of course not; duh.

  21. #21 Chris Noble
    April 28, 2007

    no, of course not; duh.

    Why not?

    The Perth Group managed to hoodwink Parenzee’s family that this appeal had a chance of being successful. Even Duesberg would have stated that the Perth Group’s argument that HIV has not been isolated is plain stupid. Parenzee’s family have apparently paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund this appeal.

    As the judge concluded the reality was that the court case was more about publicity for the Perth Group than the well being of Parenzee. The Perth Group have used Parenzee for their own purposes. I find this morally reprehensible.

    What are the Perth Group and the other “rethinkers” such as “Kyle Shields” and David Crowe going to do if Parenzee dies from AIDS? What tales are they going to spin?

  22. #22 Chris Noble
    April 28, 2007

    David Crowe emailed :As expected by Kevin Borick, Andre Parenzee’s defence lawyer, Judge Sulan has denied the appeal.

    However, two good things are that Kevin Borick will be using other
    routes to appeal the conviction and that the 87 page summation is
    amazingly long for a case of this kind.

    So not even the defense lawyer believed the apllication for appeal would be successful.

    My respect for Borick has dropped further. What sort of a sick individual is this person?

  23. #23 DT
    April 28, 2007

    My respect for Borick has dropped further. What sort of a sick individual is this person?

    One who, like many lawyers, will espouse any cause as long as the $$$ keep rolling in.

  24. #24 Dean Morrison
    April 28, 2007

    Global Warming Denialists! – have the courage of your convictions and sue someone!

    Please ;)

  25. #25 Chris Noble
    April 28, 2007

    One who, like many lawyers, will espouse any cause as long as the $$$ keep rolling in.

    Apparently he’s acting pro bono so I don’t think it’s directly money that he’s after. perhaps he’s just deluded. Perhaps he wants an OJ Simpson like trial to make him famous. I don’t know.

    The only thing that is certain is that if he was really interested in the well-being of his client he wouldn’t have proceeded with this harebrained defense that HIV doesn’t exist. Now his client will appear to be some deluded fool who denies the existence of HIV and is likely to infect other people with HIV if he is released from jail. Borick has probably ensured that Parenzee remains behind bars for a long time.

    I wonder what Borick’s next line of defense will be. Perhaps Parenzee has never been isolated according to the well established rules of human isolatioon and thus may not actually exist

  26. #26 truth machine
    April 28, 2007

    I wonder how often pledges like that are actually kept?

    Never. Such people invariably have no scruples.

  27. #27 DT
    April 28, 2007

    What are the Perth Group and the other “rethinkers” such as “Kyle Shields” and David Crowe going to do if Parenzee dies from AIDS? What tales are they going to spin?

    Well, Pasqarelli died because of the stress of being in prison, did he not? Any death in someone who is HIV positive is never ascribed to HIV;- Perish the thought! They usually go for stress -> weak immunity -> severe opportunistic infection -> death. But HIV is never the root cause.

    If memory serves me correctly, didn’t another denialist die recently, from something that was not AIDS-related, of course?

  28. #28 A free thinker
    April 29, 2007

    I think this is not a defeat for the dissident movement. While reading the first stories about Parenzee’s appeal on “The Australian” and other media,I realized it was already a victory for dissidents, because they could express their views to the world and say “WE EXIST”, in spite of all the efforts of AIDS Inc. to close our mouths. Dissidents start saying “there is place for us, too, in newspapers, and not only on the web and few publications known by Western Bourgeoisie and few others in the world”. This is the end of Aids Establishment, whatever John Sulan could say. Eleopulos is a scientist, Turner is a scientist, a scientist said she would have “unsafe” sex with no condom with a hiv-positive man, knowing his “status” and swearing not to be at risk. German courts have already acknowledged that there’s no link between hiv and aids, this will be soon recognized by other courts in the world.
    “Aids corporation” has the power of an empire, but it does not corrupt the free thought of intellectuals, who, after reading of this trial, will begin to think by themselves.
    Since the beginning of this story I knew the Establishment could not fail to overcome, it was to show out all his POWER, all his MIGHT, to go on with poisoning people and killing innocents. So, a LIE HAS BECOME TRUTH. There is no link between results you can get from PCR, CD4 screening and health, and AIDS poisoners know that. Parenzee himself said he felt very bad when he was under antiretrovirals, but the medecine of American bourgeoisie had already decided for him. American bourgeosie, American tyranny has turned a lie into science and uses it to stop the undesirable from reproducing. We must stop this genocide. John Sulan said the hiv strains Parenzee’s antibodies reacted with are the same one of the women he slept with had antibodies for. These are ANTIBODIES, not VIRUS! I wonder what would happen if Parenzee and that woman were tested in England, or in the States, by using western blot test and either the CDC criteria, or the FDA criteria, or the Red Cross criteria. I am sure that if Parenzee’s trial would have taken place in another country, where hiv-positivity is defined by different criteria, no one could have condemned him, after finding him hiv-negative.
    The Romans said that IN DUBIO, PRO REO (in case of doubt, a judge must assolve). John Sulan didn’t respect this rule. His verdict is not wise,he does not have roman sense. His verdict was bought by American bourgeoisie, by American profiteering, by American genocide, that says “any voice of dissent costs lives”. This is not true. This is lie. This is falsehood. A true scientist does not refuse debate. A true scientist SEARCHES for science built on debate and proofs. THEREFORE, AIDS SCIENCE IS NOT SCIENCE, IT IS HOLY INQUISITION OF XXI CENTURY. AIDS SCIENCE IS NOT SCIENCE, IS SCANDAL THAT BUYS THE VERDICT OF A JUDGE IN ORDER TO GO ON WITH A PLANNED MURDERING.
    A man was condemned because he had a black skin and was labelled with the infamous label of hiv-positive, which means nothing.
    The scientists of fraud, of “Science Sold Out” can no longer overcome. We must stop them. We shall stop them.

    A dissenter.

  29. #29 Wayne Smith
    April 29, 2007

    Even if HIV is the cause of AIDS, it’s sad he will go to prison. Many discordant couples will attest to the fact that sex does not equal infection in all cases; just ask Magic Johnson’s wife. All partners should insist on condoms.

  30. #30 SLC
    April 29, 2007

    Re Wayne Smith

    Mr. Johnson uses a condom when having sex with his wife.

    Re free thinker

    As predicted, the whackjobs are coming out of the woodwork.

    Re Turner and Papadopulos-Eleopulos

    In a US court, neither of these clowns would be qualified to testify as expert witnesses, based on the description of their so-called expertise.

  31. #31 DT
    April 29, 2007

    As predicted, the whackjobs are coming out of the woodwork.

    The silence so far is relatively deafening, tho.
    Methinks they are all huddled in a corner somewhere, licking their wounds, and desperately trying to come up with a new idea or some positive spin they can cloak around their emperor’s nakedness.

  32. #32 pat
    April 29, 2007

    “Mr. Johnson uses a condom when having sex with his wife.”

    How would you know? …really curious here

  33. #33 Barry A
    April 29, 2007

    I’ve read the Court’s decision — it’s a fairly damning indictment of the scientific views proposed by Drs. Eleapoulos-Pappadapoulos and Turner. Was Duesberg part of this case, too? If so, I’d be disappointed, because I do think his cancer theory is intriguing and respect his well-chronicled career.

    One of the central disputes in the Parenzee case, hinged on a specific claim made by EP and Turner about the existence of HIV:

    Claim 1: There is no photograph of HIV via electron microscopy.

    Interpretation 1: Thus, there is no evidence that HIV exists as an exogenous retrovirus.

    This is a good solid claim. Either it is true or false. There should be no ambiguity. Either there is a photo or not.

    So, in response to the Claim 1, the prosecution produces testimony by a well-credentialed scientist, Dr. Dax, who shows various electronic micrographs of HIV.

    This, to me, firmly rebuts Claim 1, and forces the burden back on EP and Turner, to explain. Is the micrograph authentic? Which Scientist took it? How can we rule out cellular debris? What about the proper sucrose gradient density?

    And, yet, we hear no explanation by the Perth Group. Nothing. Perhaps, I missed it, but I saw none.

    So, although I tend to favor the underdog in these matters as a general principle, and lack any emotional attachment to this discussion (which discussion is often derailed by such emotions), it seems clear to me, that Claim 1 was scientifically rejected.

    I have other observations, but that’s my primary one.

  34. #34 Michael Barr
    April 29, 2007

    I am mildly curious what was this opinion of the German courts that Freethinker mentioned? And who was the denier who died? Was that Serge Lang (whom I knew, although not well, forty years ago).

    Duesberg is a really curious character. He probably had a point in 1990, but he has apparently not looked at the tidal wave of evidence since. I just read his Sci Am article on cancer and it appeared well reasoned and certainly worth investigating. How did he end up on the fringe? Of course, so did Linus Pauling, but only afte his active scientific career ended.

  35. #35 Sascha Moore
    April 30, 2007

    He may be referring to an article at Indymedia from june 22, 2003 in the leader of which it was claimed that a German high court had dismissed the claim HIV causes AIDS as without merit. Here’s the hyperlink.

    http://www.la.indymedia.org/news/2003/06/66369.php

    The case in fact was brought before the Landgericht Dortmund. An individual was charged in district court (Amtsgericht Dortmund) with making death threats against health officials and members of parliament and given an 8 months suspended sentence. The individual appealed but the Landgericht upheld the conviction.

    Nowhere does the court assess the validity of any claims concerning HIV and AIDS. They merely listed, in the summary of circumstances and in their reasons for sentence, the background elements to the case. Here’s the hyperlink.

    http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/lgs/dortmund/lg_dortmund/j2001/14__XVII__K_11_00urteil20010117.html

    The Indymedia writer obviously did not read the court decision.

  36. #36 DT
    April 30, 2007

    The denialist who died recently was Ken Anderlini, a Canadian who was a moderator of the “AIDS Myth Exposed” web site. He helped coauthor a rebuttal to Gallo’s critique of Celia Farber’s “Out of Control” article in Harpers.
    http://www.rethinkingaids.com/GalloRebuttal/overview.html

    It appears from postings on the AIDS myth site that his doctors diagnosed neurological complications from HIV, but I can find no independent corroboration. Of course the posters to the site vigorously deny HIV was related to his death. Perhaps it was unrelated, but without details no-one is in a position to judge any better than his doctors were.
    Quote:

    Over the past couple of years his health had declined rapidly with a strange neurological disease for which nobody could pinpoint the cause (except doctors who claimed it was HIV related, of course).

  37. #37 Dave S.
    April 30, 2007

    The silence so far is relatively deafening, tho. Methinks they are all huddled in a corner somewhere, licking their wounds, and desperately trying to come up with a new idea or some positive spin they can cloak around their emperor’s nakedness.

    No doubt. The ID creationists did the same thing after their crushing defeat at Dover. They said little to nothing for several days, until deciding on a strategy of attacking the judge in the case, even though they seemed quite happy with him beforehand.

  38. #38 SLC
    April 30, 2007

    Re pat.

    Mr Johnson has publicly stated that he uses condoms and he is an advocate for their use to prevent the spread of HIV.

  39. #39 fREEthinker (AID$ HERETIC)
    April 30, 2007

    I challenge prof. Dax to make himself a test, instead of going on with testing people with unspecific markers. I advice him to go to Altavista homepage, to click on “images” and write “purified hiv”, or “hiv banded and purified” between quotes. If the images he gave the court are the true hiv, purified according to the rules of classical virology, ACCORDING THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE’S RULES, then they must be published on the web, so that all the world can see them. If the images he gave to answer Ms Eleopulos are true, purified HIV, according to classical virology methods, then, you will find them published on the web! But if you don’t find but the images of VIRUSMYTH WEBSITE, if you don’t find but the pics commented by Eleopulos, Lanka, Franchi, then Parenzee is not guilty and Prof. Dax has swindled.
    THERE IS AN AGREEMENT AMONG VIROLOGISTS TO CONSIDER A RETROVIRUS ISOLATED ONLY IF SOME CRITERIA ARE FULFILLED. OTHERWISE, nobody can say it exists. And what about HL23V, then? Why Gallo does not say it causes leukemia? Why not to link all the deaths some people links to hiv to HL23V, or HTLV-1, OR to one of 200 viruses that in the 70s some scientists linked to cancer? Why not to use a condom to stop cancer viruses, then? Why not to use a condom for the mouth, too? Isn’t this idea fantastic? Why not to speak of all the couples that were infected with cancer viruses, and one of the partners, after some years, died with cancer? Why not send into jail the other, who infected his soulmate?

  40. #40 freethinker
    April 30, 2007

    Other diseases scientists suppose to have a viral/infectious origin:

    burkitt lynphoma
    leukemia
    diabetes
    multiple sclerosis
    hodkin’s disease
    some types of cancer
    Stevens-Johnson’s syndrome
    Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

    The difference among these illnesses and aids is that American Bourgeosie didn’t waste its money on them and used aids to stop other races’ reproduction. Maybe the death of Ken Anderlini is caused by a brain cancer or another neurological disease… They are so many! Why to link everything to HIV? HIV HAS BECOME EVERYTHING, I SAY EVERYTHING, FOR ALL PEOPLE. WHAT YOUR PARENTS DIED OF? HIV. BUT IT WAS CANCER. WHAT YOUR WIFE DIED OF? HIV. BUT SHE WAS A DRUG ADDICT. WHAT YOUR SON, NELSON MANDELA, DIED OF? HIV. BUT IT WAS PANCREATIC CANCER. LET’S BEGIN TO CALL DISEASES WITH THEIR TRUE, SCIENTIFIC NAME!

  41. #41 freethinker
    April 30, 2007

    When I spoke about German courts, I referret mainly to this book:

    “The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering, and Genocide from the Medical Industrial Complex
    John Lauritsen
    Amazon Price: $20.00
    Customer Review: The unproven concept that HIV causes AIDS is junk science at its best. The German courts have already concluded that there is no scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS. Sooner or later the American courts will recognize the same thing.”

  42. #42 Richard Jefferys
    April 30, 2007

    Amazon customer reviews aren’t always the best source of accurate information, in the same way that someone whose job it is to test people for sensitivity to UV light might not really be best placed to define the “rules” of virus isolation.

    The German courts have made no such conclusion, this is what you might call another classical denialist canard. It is arrived at by quote mining the part of the court document that includes a description of the crazy claims of the individual involved in the suit. Matthias Rath used the same tactic to try and claim that the South African courts agreed with his opinions about the Treatment Action Campaign.

  43. #43 freethinker
    April 30, 2007

    Anybody able to understand German read here please:

    Pressemitteilung, 18.1.2001

    Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
    nachdem wir Ihnen in den letzten Tagen MuM-8 (AIDS, Zukunft von Menschheit, Rechtsstaatsrealisierung) haben zukommen lassen, informieren wir Sie heute über Ergebnisse und Konsequenzen des in MuM-8 angekündigten, höchst eigenartigen Gerichtsverfahrens vom 15.1. bis 17.1.2001 vor dem Landgericht Dortmund.
    Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
    Dr. Lanka

    Richter Hackmann, Landgericht Dortmund, bewies am 15.1. und 17.1.2001 die Verlogenheit der Bundesgesundheitsbehörden (BZgA, RKI, PEI, BMfG), des Deutschen Bundestages und der über 5000 internationalen Wissenschafter, die die “Durban-Deklaration” vom 6.7.2000 unterzeichnet haben:
    Es gibt bis heute, entgegen den öffentlichen Behauptungen, keinen wissenschaftlichen Beweis über die Existenz des AIDS-Virus “HIV”!
    Es gibt bis heute, entgegen den öffentlichen Behauptungen, kein Foto eines isolierten HI-Virus!
    Es gibt aber, z.B. im Handbuch der Deutschen Bundesgesundheitsbehörden über HIV-Testung und in vielen anderen staatlichen Dokumenten, die eindeutige Aussage, daß HIV-Tests keinerlei Aussagekraft haben, also nicht gültig sind!

    Richter Hackmann führte in der öffentlichen Verhandlung am 15.1.2001 aus, daß Dr. Marcus, Pressesprecher des für AIDS zuständigen wissenschaftlichen Referenzzentrums der Bundesregierung, des Robert Koch-Institutes (RKI) ihm dargelegt hat, daß das sog. AIDS-Virus “HIV” niemals isoliert und mittels Foto dokumentiert wurde.
    Im Zusammenhang mit dem Internationalen AIDS-Kongress im Juli 2000 in Durban (Südafrika) hatten über 5.000 Wissenschaftler aus aller Welt, auf Initiative einer kleinen Gruppe von Wissenschaftlern, der auch Prof. Dr. Reinhard Kurth, Präsident des RKI und damit Vorgesetzter des Dr. Marcus (RKI) angehörte, behauptet, daß die Beweise zu “HIV und AIDS” auf dem höchsten wissenschaftlichen Standard vorhanden sind (“confirm to the highest scientific standards”). Richter Hackmann eröffnete am 15.1.2001 erstmalig den Beweis, mit dem Dr. Marcus (RKI) seinen Vorgesetzten, Prof. Kurth als internationalen Wissenschaftsbetrüger entlarvte.
    Wenn Dr. Marcus (RKI) gegenüber Richter Hackmann die bisher nicht erfolgte Isolation des HIV damit behauptet, daß die Hüllproteine zu labil seien, ist das nicht nur eine unbewiesene Behauptung. Die Behauptung ist dadurch widerlegt, daß die Isolation des als stabil behaupteten Viruskern nirgendwo erfolgte und nachgewiesen wurde.
    Das RKI (Dr. Marcus) schreckt nachweislich nicht davor zurück, einen Richter zu belügen. Auch das wurde am 15.1.2001 öffentlich bewiesen.
    Den richterlichen Ausführungen lag zugrunde die Behauptung des RKI (Dr. Marcus) vom 9.3.95 im Rahmen der Bundes-AIDS-Aufklärung der BZgA, Fotos des isolierten HI-Virus befinden sich in den Publikationen von Montagnier und Gallo (Science 220, 224).
    Diese Verlogenheit des RKI wurde im Petitionsverfahren Pet 5-13-15-2002-010526 mittels eigenständiger Lüge des BMfG gegenüber dem Parlament gesichert. Diese Verlogenheit wurde vom Bundestag selbst mit dem eigenständigen Akt der parlamentarischen Lüge gefestigt, indem das Vorliegen von Anhaltspunkten verneint wurde, obwohl der Bundestag mit Datum vom 6.10.1995 den Eingang von Anhaltspunkten bestätigt hatte.
    Wenn das HI-Virus niemals isoliert wurde, sind aussagegültige HIV-Antikörpertests technisch unmöglich.
    Dieses Wissen der Bundesgesundheitsbehörden war Richter und Staatsanwalt Strunk am 15.1.2001 bekannt.
    In dem “Handbuch “HIV-Test Arbeitshilfen zur Beratung und Testdurchführung” der Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA), das die Bundesregierung den örtlichen Gesundheitsämtern zur Beratung bei der Testdurchführung als Arbeitshilfe gibt, heißt es auf S. 22:
    “…. denn letztendlich ist nur dieser getestete Mensch in der Lage, das Ergebnis für sich zu bewerten.”
    Das ist so, als würde die Bundesregierung behaupten: “Nur das Rindviech selbst kann entscheiden, ob es BSE hat.”
    Richter und Staatsanwalt war auch bekannt, daß die BZgA über die Gesundheitsämter Betroffene absichtlich über die Testgültigkeit belügt. In der BZgA-Broschüre “Wissenswertes über den HIV-Test” wird gelogen: “….; der HIV-Antikörpertest gibt Sicherheit.” In der BZgA-Broschüre “Wenn der HIV-Test positiv ist” steht “Der Nachweis einer Ansteckung mit HIV ist meist ein Schock, …”
    Erstmalig wurde durch ein Gericht öffentlich die Verlogenheit der Bundesgesundheitsbehörden im Zusammenhang mit AIDS, der skrupellose Vertrauensmißbrauch der Bürger durch die Bundesgesundheitsbehörden dargelegt.
    Vor Gericht wurde dargelegt, daß Folge dieses heimtückischen Vorgehens der Bundesbehörden die Zustimmung positiv Getesteter zu einer extrem nebenwirkungsriskanten Dauertherapie ist, die unausweichlich eigenständig tödlich ist. Die extremen Nebenwirkungen der AIDS-Medikamente werden von niemandem bestritten.
    Auch wird von niemandem bestritten, daß eine solche Medikation nur als zulässig angesehen werden kann, wenn zweifellos eine HIV-Infektion nachgewiesen wurde. Vor Gericht wurde dargelegt daß allgemein in den Behörden bekannt ist, daß, solange das HI-Virus nicht isoliert ist, kein Test in der Lage sein kann, eine HIV-Infektion nachzuweisen.
    Der Richter bestätigte das Wissen der Staatsanwaltschaft, daß mittels aussageungültiger Tests die Zustimmung zu einer tödlichen Dauermedikation erwirkt wird und Menschen, insbesondere aus den Bevölkerungsgruppen der homosexuellen Männer und der Hämophilen sterben. Es wurde vor Gericht dargelegt, daß diese heimtückische Irreführung durch die durch Richter Hackmann als verlogen bewiesenen Bundesgesundheitsbehörden den Straftatbestand des Völkermordes (§ 220 a StGB) entspricht. Sowohl hinsichtlich der absichtlichen Mittäterschaft als auch hinsichtlich der absichtlichen Duldung durch Polizeibehörden und Justizbehörden nach Kenntnisnahme der Fakten.
    Auf diesem Hintergrund verkündigte Richter Hackmann auf Antrag von Staatsanwalt Strunk das Urteil “8 Monate Haft auf Bewährung und Einzug des Computers,” der nicht Eigentum des Beklagten ist.
    Dem Beklagten wurde vorgeworfen, er habe versucht, die Justizbehörden nach Kenntnisnahme der zweifelsfreien Beweise der absichtlich tödlichen Verlogenheit der Bundesbehörden zum rechtsstaatlichen Tätigwerden zu nötigen.
    “In einer Demokratie sei ein solches Verhalten eines Bürgers nicht duldbar, da es mit den demokratischen Spielregeln nicht in Einklang steht,” wenn ein Bürger tödliche Verlogenheit der Gesundheitsbehörden nicht duldet. “Es sei mit der grundgesetzlichen Meinungsfreiheit unvereinbar,” wenn ein Bürger bewiesene staatliche tödliche Verlogenheit nicht duldet.
    Das Urteil gründet in der wissentlich wahrheitswidrig vorgetragenen Behauptung der Staatsanwaltschaft und des Richters, der Beklagte würde “eine andere Meinung” zu “HIV und AIDS” vertreten, als die von den Behörden tatsächlich dokumentierte.
    Und daß er diese mit dem unzulässigen Mittel der versuchten Nötigung durchzusetzen versuchte. Dies obwohl Richter und Staatsanwaltschaft genau wissen, daß der Angeklagte in jahrelanger, nahezu kriminalistischer Vorgehensweise nur das tatsächliche, verschwiegene Wissen der Behörden offengelegt hat. Und daß die “andere Meinung” des Angeklagten lediglich darin besteht, daß im Gesundheitswesen nicht gelogen und getötet werden darf. Eine Meinung, von der der Richter weiß, daß sie in voller Übereinstimmung mit Verfassung und Gesetz steht.
    Das Urteil gründet in einer wissentlich wahrheitswidrigen Unterstellung, in einer Lüge des Richters. Der Pflichtverteidiger legte dem Angeklagten dar, daß hier, aufgrund der Gesetzeslage nicht von einem Revisionsgrund ausgegangen werden kann und bei diesem Urteil von der Tatsache des abschließend geschaffenen Rechtsfrieden auszugehen ist. Das Gesetz ließe die Revision nicht zu, “wenn der vom Gericht festgestellte Sachverhalt nicht der Wirklichkeit entspreche” (Rechtsmittelbelehrung [B], Vordruck 81).
    Demnach eröffnet das Gesetz den Richtern das Recht auf wissentlich wahrheitswidrige Behauptungen, die ein Urteil begründen. Richter dürfen lügen. Wie das RKI, PEI, BZgA und die Gesundheitsbehörden.
    Das verlogene, das erste globale Verbrechen (HIV/AIDS) stabilisierende Verhalten des Bundestages, bewies der Bundestag ebenfalls in den Petitionsverfahren Pet 5-13-15-2002-058744 und 5-13-15-212-023567a. Mittels zweier Lügen in der Beschlußbegründung, wies der Bundestag die Petitionen gewohnheitsmäßig zurück und sicherte hiermit absichtlich die Unterlassung der Nachmarktkontrolle (§ 63 AMG, Stufenplan II) bei den AIDS-Medikamenten: Zum Zwecke der Sicherung der Tötungen mittels absichtlicher Irreführung über die Testgültigkeit.
    Es ist damit zu rechnen, daß der Bundestag gleichermaßen mit der jetzt anhängigen, umfangreichen Petition Pet 2-14-15-212-026084 umgeht.
    Eine Verpflichtung zur Wahrheit, eine Verpflichtung zu einem Handeln nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen zum Wohle des deutschen Volkes, wie es jeder Abgeordnete beeidet hat, wird, aufgrund der Erfahrungen der Vergangenheit im Zusammenhang mit AIDS vom Bundestag leider nicht erwartet werden können.

    Karl Krafeld und Dr. Stefan Lanka, Dortmund und Stuttgart.

    Dissenters couldn’t obviously win in Australia, when all, I say all Aids Establishment used its power to destroy them. But to take part to the trial was a great victory for them, it was useful to make the world know they exists and Aids Establishment is cruel with them and with people, refusing debates. Debates can only help to save lives, but Aids priests don’t want to lose their privileges, their money, their power…

  44. #44 Richard Jefferys
    April 30, 2007

    That text is from Stefan Lanka’s website. Here is the actual verdict:

    http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/lgs/dortmund/lg_dortmund/j2001/14__XVII__K_11_00urteil20010117.html

    The deranged defendant, an AIDS denialist who took to issuing death threats against German health officials, espoused the view that HIV had never been isolated. The court documents inevitably have to describe the defendant’s views. Lanka writes a letter (the German text posted above) in which he tries to represent this as somehow the court ruling that HIV doesn’t exist or doesn’t cause AIDS!

    I’m surprised no-one has yet thought to take this quote-mining approach to the Parenzee decision. I’m sure they will eventually.

  45. #45 freethinker
    April 30, 2007

    I think that Parenzee should undergo an hiv test in another country, where testing criteria are different, to be diagnosed hiv-negative. With such a certificate, having a document showing his hiv-negative status, even Aids Establishment would agree he is unguilty.
    Lanka didn’t swindle: in the sentence the judge recognized rather openly the existence of dissidents’ views about hiv/aids.
    A judge is only a judge: he is not a virologist, then JOhn Sulan’s sentence didn’t prove that aids is a viral disease. IN DUBIO, PRO REO, FAVOR REI: these principles, of roman origin, must be respected by any fair court. Sulan knew that there are aids dissidents in all the world: many journalists, scientists and people knowing that aids is not a viral disease, in spite of all that AIDS COMPANY SAYS. HE CONDEMNED, BUT THIS CONDAMNATION WOULDN’T HAPPEN IN FRONT OF ANCIENT CLASSICAL ROMAN JUDGES, BECAUSE WISDOM FORBIDS TO CONDEMN EVEN IF THERE’S ONLY A PETTY DOUBT. IN THIS CASE, THERE WAS BUT AN UNPROVEN THEORY, UNPROVEN BECAUSE MANY SCIENTISTS DISAGREE WITH IT. A JUDGE IS NOT A VIROLOGIST, A JUDGE IS NOT A SCIENTIST. NOT ALL AIDS DISSENTERS COULD BE EXAMINED IN THAT TRIAL, BECAUSE PARENZEE WAS POOR, BUT AIDS EMPEROR, THE EMPEROR OF EVIL, WAS RICH AND CALLED ALL HIS DARK KNIGHTS TO OVERCOME. Unfortunately, the STRONGEST DISSIDENTS, WHOSE arguments are best, could not take part to the trial and the power of Gallo and his fellows was IMMENSE. They founded an empire, the empire of aids, which exstends from Europe to Africa, even as far as ex URSS and CHIna. I am sure that if Soviet Union still existed, American AIDS, American hoax wouldn’t have conquered the world.
    I HOPE ELEOPULOS WILL PUBLISH ON VIRUSMYTH SITE OR THE GROUP’S SITE NEW PROOFS AGAINST HIV-AIDS THEORY. SHE MUST EXPLAIN THE WORLD THAT NEITHER PADIAN’S STUDIES, NOR DAX’S PHOTOS PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF HIV. MAY THIS APPARENT DEFEAT TURN INTO A COMPELLING VICTORY!

  46. #46 Richard Jefferys
    April 30, 2007

    The denialist canard that HIV test criteria differ so dramatically by country that you can test positive in one place and negative in another comes from…(cue cymbal crash): Valendar Turner!

    What did Judge Sulan have to say about Valendar Turner again?

    “Dr Turner’s knowledge of the subject matter is limited to reading. He has no formal qualifications to give expert opinions about the virus. He has no practical experience in the treatment of viral diseases. He has no practical experience in the disciplines of virology, immunology or epidemiology.

    His opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

    I conclude that Dr Turner is not qualified to advance expert opinion about virus isolation, antibody tests, viral load tests, or sexual transmission of the virus. His knowledge of these subjects is limited to having read a number of publications. He relies entirely on his interpretation of various studies in the specialised disciplines of virology, epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, pathology or infectious diseases, in none of which he has qualifications beyond his medical degree. He has no practical experience, and has performed no research which has been published.”

  47. #47 Adele
    April 30, 2007

    Yes, if only Stalin were still around, those damn Americans like Luc Montagnier and. What? He’s not American? Well, he’s a capitalist then. Let’s start over.
    If only Stalin were still around, those damn capitalists and bourgeouis pigs would pay. Old Joey would round up all the doctors and nurses and receptionists and maintenance workers and police and judges and lawyers and stenographers and everyone else who was complicit in AIDS like Lanka says and ship em off to Siberia. Yeah! Then he’d put real scientists in charge like Lysenko. And of course Lanka and Kremer and that UFO cure guy and the one who says swallowing a cotton rope and flossing your digestive system will cure whatever.
    Freethinker, you’re really fun.

  48. #48 Adele
    April 30, 2007

    That reminds me of a film I saw a week ago. It was set in the Russian Revolution and when the Soviets had taken over the cities and were installing their apparatus, there was a typhus outbreak.
    But of course there wasn’t any typhus allowed because communism was absolutely the best thing ever and their public health system too. So the doctors who said, hey this guy has typhus maybe we should do something about it were rounded up and sent away. Or maybe they were shot or hanged as enemies of the people. The “good” doctors said hell no, there’s no typhus here, and they got promoted.
    That’s the crapside to ideology. Communism, fascism, or on a smaller scale denialism. If reality doesn’t match your ideology, you just ignore it. The opposite of science.

  49. #49 Kevin
    April 30, 2007

    Although this court case provided a golden opportunity for swaying public opinion on this matter, it is by no means the end to the discussion. The science supporting HIV=AIDS is still specious and the “story” used to prop-up HIV will no doubt continue to change. The difference is that this penchant for radically altering HIV’s story will now face greater scrutiny. If anything, this case has provided much needed exposure to this debate. On the other hand, had the judge allowed the appeal, it would have been devastating to AIDS Inc., and the political fallout would certainly have not been confined to Adelaide. Thus, his perfunctory support for the status quo was not surprising, at all. Yet, one can’t help be acknowledge that the proverbial cat is out of the not-so-proverbial bag.

    Unfortunately, the ineptitude of HIV experts will most likely have a longer shelf-life than most dissidents would prefer. The political implications of mass acceptance of the HIV fraud will be great, and those who are in power fully understand that fact — whether their complicity is conscious or not is another matter. Though, I am sure Judge Sulan was provided with outside “counsel”. Nevertheless, the truth will inevitably win out and along the way, the dissident ranks will continue to grow. Once again, it makes sense to acknowledge the parallels to the housing implosion that is currently unwinding. It has taken several years, but the truth is being revealed one foreclosure at a time, en masse. Many of us saw the writing on the wall from the beginning, three or fours years ago, even as economic “experts”, far and wide, were proclaiming a “new era” for real estate. Just like HIV, many people have suffered and will continue to suffer significant harm because of a willful lack of independent oversight. The exact same self-perpetuating system that created such a large economic maelstrom — one characterized by extreme conflicts of interests and unbounded greed– can also easily be identified as the defining structure within the medical community. From the weaseling drug reps right down to the publish-or-perish researchers, such a dysfunctional system will never produce reliable information, and anyone who believes it can is reduced to just that, a mere “believer”, and believers are not the best material for making “scientists”. Where human health is concerned, the almighty dollar is the most important dynamic, and those who stand to profit from human misery would like nothing better than to make believers out of us all. How easy it has become to persuade so many to pay so much to ameliorate their fears, by ingesting pill after pill? Restless leg syndrome, anyone?

    Such complicity requires sufficient confidence in government and social institutions, and that confidence has been quite robust due to our superficially high quality of life. However, financial pain has way of making even the most sheepish citizens take stock. If we are lucky, the economic meltdown caused by this housing bust will put hacks like Adele and DT out of work, and just maybe, the sheep will stop believing that the “experts” are always right. After all, it was the experts who told them that real estate was a “can’t lose” investment. Throw in the coming energy crisis and enough sheep might actually wake up this time to make a real difference, though it may take decades, which I’m not sure we have. Time will tell, but this appeal is only a small stone in a much larger pond. As I noted before, the science supporting HIV is still grossly problematic and that’s an understatement of epic proportions that many more will surely discover.

    Kevin

  50. #50 Matthew Young
    May 1, 2007

    I must confess I’d never heard of AIDS/HIV/Common Cold deniers until reading this very post. I am impressed – they do seem to rank right up there with some of the most inbred, mentally deficient, furiously twitching carnivals of cretinous nut-jobbery I have ever come across in my life.

    Tara, you have the patience of a saint.

  51. #51 pat
    May 1, 2007

    “That’s the crapside to ideology. Communism, fascism, or on a smaller scale denialism. If reality doesn’t match your ideology, you just ignore it. The opposite of science.”

    I would like to nominate neo conservatism and capitalism to this list.

  52. #52 Michael
    May 1, 2007

    Kevin:

    I will concede, there are fair concerns that a system such as we have seems prone to abuse. However, as part of that system (I’m a grad student in math), I wish I could assure you that, though a significant part of it is nosing around for grants, there is an honest-to-goodness search for honesty. The need for peer review by reputable journals, and reproducible results (in the sciences more than math), is there to fight falsified data.

    I have to hand it to you: you seem like less of a rambling street-side doomsday prophet than freethinker. A few pointers, though. One is that economics is not biology; whereas we can experiment directly with viruses, we cannot do so with economics — your analogy is whack.

    Secondly, I would like to point out that AIDS never killed anybody — and that’s what makes it so scary. Sure, Country A wasn’t taken over by Country B, but by Country C — but if its army hadn’t been wiped out by Country B, it would have had a heck of a better chance defending it self, wouldn’t it?

    Thirdly, I will admit that I have no expertise in epidemiology — or biology, for that matter. I am a math student, content to math about without a care or an application. However, I suspect that you are also not an expert — or else you would have put forth evidence with your claim that HIV science is on shaky ground. While your heart may be in the right place with regard to protecting America from abuse, I would like to warn you that paranoia, while helpful in exceedingly small doses, can easily grow out of control if you let it, and that conspiracy theories on their own are of no use. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Big Pharm is making up nonexistent diseases to line its coffers. What do you propose? We can’t do away with pharmaceutical companies, because there are legitimate illnesses which need medicinal treatments. Personally, I like the method of running all my ideas for world betterment by someone who is better-grounded than I am; that way, the holes in my ideas get shown to me before I make an ass of myself in public.

    If you are genuinely concerned about HIV science, find a biologist who is not a denier — preferably, someone who works in the field of HIV science. Ask that person to explain why the belief in the HIV-AIDS connections. Rephrase your refutations as polite questions, e.g., “I have heard that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but by the use of LSD. Not being an expert myself, I was wondering what your response to this claim is — what the evidence is otherwise, and such.” (Then again, I may well have annoyed a good 70% of the LSU faculty!) Good luck in your search for the truth!

  53. #53 freethinker
    May 1, 2007

    As Stephan Lanka says:

    “Academic medicine has been and is the most important pillar of support of all dictatorships and governments which do not want to submit to written law, to constitutions, to human rights, that is, to the democratically legitimized social contract.”

  54. #54 freethinker
    May 1, 2007

    “The HIV hypothesis of AIDS is the biggest scientific, medical blunder of the 20th Century. The evidence is overwhelming that AIDS is not contagious, sexually transmitted, or caused by HIV. The physicians who know or suspect the truth are embarrassed or afraid to admit that the HIV tests are absurd and should be outlawed, and that the anti-HIV drugs are injuring and killing people.”

    Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, SA, Jan 24, 2001

  55. #55 DT
    May 1, 2007

    Freethinker,
    I find it rather bizarre that you put so much faith into what is said by Stephan Lanka, the “virologist” who claims there are no viruses that are pathogenic to man. He also is “absolutely sure that no antibody test in medicine has any absolute meaning.” What a fantastic reference source of scientific evidence and rational opinion.

    Regarding the judgement in Adelaide, only a deluded optimist could imagine that the Perth Group could turn this “apparent defeat into a compelling victory”, as you put it.

  56. #56 TheBlackCat
    May 1, 2007

    Freethinker, please explain how you can have an antibody for something without having been exposed to it.

  57. #57 Kevin
    May 1, 2007

    One is that economics is not biology; whereas we can experiment directly with viruses, we cannot do so with economics — your analogy is whack. Michael

    Yes, in a perfect world, the declarations of disparate professions would not lend itself to such easy conflation, but in our highly corporatized world, professional standards of integrity have been sacrificed for market idealism. So, in the real world, my analogy is far from whack. You, Michael, apparently lack sufficient awareness to discern the similarities between the two, however, it is worth noting what the most important similarity is between the two: Both the housing bubble and the blief that HIV=AIDS are colossal blunders, where the scope of consequences continue to expand. That alone is worth consideration, especially as we all are forced to watch the suffering that each causes, thanks, in part to the media storm that each requires for survival.

    First and foremost, the reliance on propaganda has been instrumental in allowing these two blunders to balloon to their present disastrous proportions. You, Michael, suggests that only a retroviroligist is equipped to evaluate the truth of HIV=AIDS and in a less politicized environment, I’d agree. However, HIV long ago left the hallowed halls of academia is now a integral part of pop culture. Whether its the red ribbon campaign, or Bono’s red ipod silliness, or the next “men on the down-low” expose by Oprah, HIV education has been reduced to slogan-drenched imagery, and one rarely hears the truth straight from the horse’s mouth, aka a retrovirologist. Real estate pundits also fully employed propoganda to fuel this boom. Slogans like “buy now or be priced out forever” or “real estate prices never go down” were all the rage just a short 18 months ago. Now? Not so much.

    Secondly, both real estate and HIV medicine are characterized by easily identifiable fraud. With real estate, it was appraisal fraud as lenders no longer required independent appraisals, and on top of that, they allowed an unprecedented number of stated-income loans to be given to minimum-wage earners. Sometimes, multiple loans were given to the same low-wage speculator! With HIV, you should review the history of anti-HIV clinical trials. Placebo-controlled clinical trials — a hallmark of good science — were abandoned long ago in HIV research and on dubious moral grounds that any self-respecting scientist would find intellectually offensive. For a primer on the consequences of such fraudulent research have a look at this website. You’ll see what happens to medical professionals who have sufficient integrity to refuse to engage in fraudulent behavior.

    Lastly, I’d like to discuss the easily identifiable “shill” for they are ubiquitous in both real estate and HIV medicine. Naive gentleman such as yourself accept these idiots as “experts”, but, upon closer inspection, their expertise is highly questionable. For example, David Lereah, president of the National Association of Realtors, has been giving his “expert” opinion (or pollyanna nonsense) in every major paper throughout this boom, and for that, he should be held personally accountable for leading so many sheep to slaughter. He announced he was stepping down today. Alan Greenspan, though retired, will not be viewed kindly by history. His ridiculous interest rate policy after 911 is the primary reason that the housing bubble took flight, even though all signs pointed to an economy that, in fact, should have endured a mild recession. Now, a severe recession or even a depression is in the offing. In much the same way, one could levy the same charges against that charlatan, Robert Gallo. Both he and Greenspan have their admirers, but they are not the kind of expert that I find compelling, for they lack sufficient honesty and integrity to be true experts. One does not have to dig very deep to find evidence of Gallo’s questionable moral fortitude. After all, he was recently brought up on charges of significant “scientific misconduct.” Of course, most of the simpletons on this site will argue that a scientist is less a shill than a realtor or central banker, based on educational attainment alone, but Gallo and Moore and Fauci and all of the other high-profile HIV talking-heads earn their living by spouting the same propagandized slogans that any off-the-street AIDS activist might employ– all the while, failing to adequately address the many salient points HIV critics have been making for over twenty years. They are shills, through and through.

    The point is that HIV and the housing bubble are not independent products that have occurred in a vacuum. Instead, they are products of the same bankrupt culture of unbounded greed, and their many unflattering similarities attest to that fact. I too find it sad and disheartening that Science has sold out to the point that such a comparison can be made, but facts are facts. Incidentally, if you haven’t read Dr. Culshaw’s devastating critique of HIV=AIDS, Michael, you should do so. She does a much better job of pointing out the scientific faults of HIV=AIDS. Also, it should be noted that the world will not stop spinning if you do (no matter how “paranoid” you may feel). Dan Fendel, an emeritus professor of mathematics from San Francisco State University reviews Culshaw’s book as follows:

    “Every mathematician knows that by changing the definition of something, you can change the entire truth about that thing. Rebecca Culshaw describes how the HIV = AIDS ‘orthodoxists’ have abused this idea. As in a shell game, they keep moving the definitions around, so that anything can be true and everyone will be confused. The abuse of science that has been documented here is itself very frightening. But when we learn that the standard treatment for HIV-positives–antiviral therapy–will substantially increase their risk of dying, it’s even scarier.”

    Contrary to what is often suggested, there are many capable and reasonable people who find serious flaws in the HIV theory of AIDs, and it certainly doesn’t require a nuanced understanding of retrovirology to arrive at that conclusion. Of course, I haven’t even begun to touch upon the similarities between HIV dogma and that of any religion, but I’ve heard talk that there is just such a book on the way. I’m sure it will be very interesting for there is ample resource material from which to choose.

    Kevin

  58. #58 Robster, FCD
    May 1, 2007

    Kevin, offer some evidence of serious flaws. Not claims of them. Arguement from incredulity, ad hominems, false comparisons, strawmen, etc are proof of nothing.

  59. #59 Tara C. Smith
    May 2, 2007

    Contrary to what is often suggested, there are many capable and reasonable people who find serious flaws in the HIV theory of AIDs, and it certainly doesn’t require a nuanced understanding of retrovirology to arrive at that conclusion.

    Perhaps not, but many of these supposed “flaws” are pointed out by people who not only lack training in retrovirology, but also in epidemiology and molecular diagnostics (two areas where the alleged “flaws” often surface). No one familiar with basic epi would make the strawman arguments Duesberg et al. do, and no one who had practice with molecular techniques such as ELISA and PCR would criticize HIV diagnostics as the “dissidents” do.

  60. #60 Chris Lawson
    May 2, 2007

    Tara, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Duesberg thinks the Perth group are wrong because his scientific training means he knows that HIV is a real virus and understands that the molecular biology behind testing is real. His fallacy is based on his lack of understanding of epidemiology.

    Every denialist bases their arguments on their own personal area of inexpertise.

  61. #61 Dale
    May 2, 2007

    It seems to me that some dissidents aren’t protesting science so much as they are the politics, while others are just expressing their dissatisfaction at the lack of a cure or the effects of AIDS on their social lives.

  62. #62 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    Look at Kevin. He knows nothing about science and medicine other than what he’s read about natural hygiene. He objects to how the “housing market” has let HIV/AIDS to supposedly become so strong.
    Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.
    Tara and Chris are right about the educated denialists. Dale is right about the rank and file.

  63. #63 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    Kevin compares the supposed housing bubble to HIV. They’re both a product of the “unbounded greed” of our society.
    So Kevin, what would you call it if an academic took someone else’s ideas and words to write a supposedly original book?
    That’s not unbounded greed?
    Well, that’s what Culshaw did. You can read about it for yourself on AIDS truth.
    I doubt there’s anything in Culshaws book you can’t find in other denialists. Oh it’s devastating all right. For denialism.

  64. #64 pat
    May 2, 2007

    “Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS”

    really? Clearly you have never been to England …or Switzerland …or Japan …or…

    “If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    Whatever Adele.

  65. #65 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    Sorry Pat but listing all of the objects of your ideological hatred is too time consuming. Like listing all harmful ideologies, see above.

  66. #66 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    Pat are you going to say anything at all about the capitalists Duesberg, Rasnick and Bialy who profited from capitalism and biotech probably more than anyone who ever visits aetiology?
    They’re capitalists, Pat.
    They’re also chums with a neocon moneybags who funded Duesberg and Rasnick. They published in a neocon publisher. Their lifestyle leads to AIDS message dovetails with the conservative blame the victim view.
    Maybe they’re neocons, too or worse.
    Now, Pat, is there any HIV scientist on aetiology you know who made an obscene profit by selling a company to a very interesting kind of investor? Did any of us take money from a neocon investor who liked our tie of the “gay lifestyle” to AIDS? Do we hang out with right-wingers like Tom Bethell? Do neo-Nazi websites feature our writings?
    I didn’t think so.
    When I think of neocons and capitalists, I’m alot more likely to think of Duesberg than Tara Smith or DT or Jefferys or Dale or Jeanne or Taylor or anyone else here.
    Pat, this Soviet-nostalgia thing you and freethinker have with neocons, capitalism, and HIV is really misplaced.

  67. #67 Kevin
    May 2, 2007

    “…no one who had practice with molecular techniques such as ELISA and PCR would criticize HIV diagnostics as the “dissidents” do.” — Tara C. Smith

    No one?

    A very simple question for you, Tara…

    Isn’t it a fact that Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for his work with PCR, has very publicly criticized the use of PCR as an HIV diagnostic tool?

    Or how about Dr. Rodney Richards, who worked for Amgen and with Abbott Labs on the development of the ELISA tests?

    Dr. Richards, who holds a PhD in Chemistry, refused to compromise his professional integrity, and in doing so, refused to support the use of the ELISA — a test he helped develop — as the primary diagnostic test for HIV, since that test is designed to detect non-specific antibodies and NOT HIV.

    Now, Tara, if you’d like to amend your claim to say that “no shill who has practice with molecular techniques…” well then I’d be obliged to agree.

    Kevin

  68. #68 Kevin
    May 2, 2007

    “Tara, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Duesberg thinks the Perth group are wrong because his scientific training means he knows that HIV is a real virus and understands that the molecular biology behind testing is real. His fallacy is based on his lack of understanding of epidemiology.” Chris Lawson

    As is typical of the orthodoxy, Duesberg’s position as it relates to the Perth Group is being misrepresented. For a clarification of the similarites between Duesberg’s position and the Perth Group, respectable readers of this blog should go here. As the astute poster on that site notes, there is a difference between stating that “hiv does not exit” and that “hiv has not been proven to exit”. Perth does not agree that it has been proven to exist and Duesberg disagrees. However, the following quote from the poster who goes by “McDonald” from that site gets to the crux of the matter:

    Prof. Duesberg would claim no more than that he has shown an infectious, exogenous, agent with typical retroviral properties has been isolated and sequenced – which makes the scientific rift between him and the Perth Group negligible to anybody with no personal axe to grind.

    Thus, the bottom line is that both Duesberg and the Perth Group agree on the most important point, namely that HIV as it is popularly conceived, is a mistaken entity, and therefore, it does not cause the illnesses collectively attributed to AIDS, and that is where the true burden of proof lies, no matter how often the orthodoxy would like to deny that fact.

    Kevin

  69. #69 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    Kevin, we’ve all been over this a million times already. The ELISA test is specifically for HIV antibodies. For HIV specific antibodies.
    Newer ELISAs are for HIV specific antibodies and HIV proteins. They are very specific. There are actual HIV proteins that detect the antibodies and antibodies raised against actual HIV proteins that detect the proteins.
    My guess. Richards probably had a falling out with someone and is being nutty about it. If he objects to HIV ELISAs he should object to all ELISAs. Does he?
    And Mullis? Give me a break. Unless he wants to hand in his Nobel then he’s not criticzing “the use of PCR as an HIV diagnostic tool” PCR works. Mullis knows it.
    Kevin, Mullis says HIV can’t be quantitated by PCR. Not “can’t be detected”. He’s wrong. He’s wrong about alot of things. He admits it. In his book he even says he was able to invented PCR because he wasn’t really knowledgable, just inventive and creative and ready to question. By the way, PCR was invented in the late 60′s by a Norwegian group. Mullis was the one who CAPITALIZED on it as a capitalist, he was rewarded for bringing it to the MARKET. Mullis’ thing about HIV isn’t really a scientific criticism, he’s just trying to be the maverick again. Hallucinogens are good and we should legalize them, aliens are real and we should spend boku money trying to find them, atom smashers should be defunded, it’s cool to spray the woods behind your cabin with an automatic rifle, nutrition and diets are stupid, safety regulations are bad, and so on. Amusing. Maybe even thought provoking. But you’ve got to take the guy with a grain of salt. Have you read his book? You’ll see what I’m saying if you do.

  70. #70 Dale
    May 2, 2007

    Perth claims that HIV has not been proven to exist but if it had, one must conclude that it causes AIDShttp://www.theperthgroup.com/LATEST/PerthGroupRebuttalCF.pdf. Duesberg claims HIV has been proven to exist but doesn’t cause AIDS. How can anyone rationally argue that those two positions are reconcilable?

  71. #71 Richard Jefferys
    May 2, 2007

    Mullis, in addition to describing his conversations with glowing raccoons, has written about AIDS: “A segment of our society was experimenting with a life style and it didn’t work. They got sick.” Clearly, he brings to this subject baggage that is unconnected to his invention of PCR. He also argues the “immune overload” hypothesis, seemingly unaware that there is no support for it whatsoever in the immunology literature. And Richards, as you say, is a chemist – not an immunologist.

    The lack of any expertise in immunology is actually endemic to AIDS denial, which I think is rather telling given that AIDS is an immunological disease. Celia Farber has written that she thinks that the field of cellular immunology only exists because of HIV(!). The egregious denialist canard (I’m risking overusing that word, but it might as well have been invented to describe the tenets of AIDS denial) that opportunistic infections are “conventional” “unrelated” diseases would be immediately dismissed by any immunologist familiar with the literature circa 1970, let alone 2007. It is a grotesque misrepresentation of the science, aimed not at scientists but at lay people.

    Most denialist canards are tailored this way, and people like Kevin – who gullibly swallow them raw – then claim to have some insight into the science of immunology! As does, in fact, Rebecca Culshaw. Despite revealing an inability to discern the difference between natural killer cells and CD8 T cells in her published work, in her final publication Culshaw starts wittering on about Th1 and Th2 immune responses as if possessed of some great insight that had eluded most scientists conducting HIV research. And people are so desperate for even the patina of expertise that they are willing to believe that Culshaw’s opinions trump the entire worldwide community of immunologists.

    I wonder how much skepticism these individuals would display about the science of immunology if they needed an organ transplant? Would they refuse pre-transplant serology based on their notion that antibody testing is non-specific and useless? Some could surely eschew immunosuppressive drugs based on their hypothesis that stress – inevitably severe in someone undergoing an organ transplant – causes immuonodeficiency (why worry about organ rejection?).

  72. #72 Adele
    May 2, 2007

    And Culshaw’s immunology opinions aren’t even hers. According to AIDS truth she took them from Hienrich Kremer. Thing is, Kremer at least gets his terminology right even if his ideas are completely wrong. Culshaw’s got nothing.

  73. #73 pat
    May 2, 2007

    “Sorry Pat but listing all of the objects of your ideological hatred is too time consuming. Like listing all harmful ideologies, see above.”

    Maybe you can list them for me bekuz I missed my hatred.

    “Pat are you going to say anything at all about the capitalists Duesberg, Rasnick and Bialy who profited from capitalism and biotech probably more than anyone who ever visits aetiology?
    They’re capitalists, Pat.”

    You needn’t be a capitalist to need money. It is not a zero sum game.

    “They’re also chums with a neocon moneybags who funded Duesberg and Rasnick. They published in a neocon publisher.”

    I will try to hate them for it.

    “Their lifestyle leads to AIDS message dovetails with the conservative blame the victim view.”

    If someone leaps off a cliff, is it his/her fault or the park ranger’s? The “A” in “AIDS” does stand for Acquired, no?

    “Now, Pat, is there any HIV scientist on aetiology you know who made an obscene profit by selling a company to a very interesting kind of investor?”

    No, for that you need an original idea and stick out like a sore thumb…take it from a capitalist like me.

    “Did any of us take money from a neocon investor who liked our tie of the “gay lifestyle” to AIDS?”

    Yes, that and the “African life-style”.

    “Do neo-Nazi websites feature our writings?”

    who reads those.

    “Pat, this Soviet-nostalgia thing you and freethinker have with neocons, capitalism, and HIV is really misplaced.”

    please run that by me again, I don’t get where you getting off; did I say Soviet?

    PS: you and I would make a wiked cuppa a joe, interested?

  74. #74 pat
    May 2, 2007

    Richard Jeffreys, what is your area of knowledge concerning immunology…just wondering

  75. #75 pat
    May 2, 2007

    Weather Duesberg or the HIV/AIDS “Acquired” nonsense, no one is playing the “blame game”

  76. #76 Unsympathetic reader
    May 2, 2007

    TheBlackCat writes: “Freethinker, please explain how you can have an antibody for something without having been exposed to it.

    Cross-reactivity. Antibodies aren’t “for” anything, they’re just happen to bind a particular range of epitopes with various degrees of specificity. One molecule could stimulate production of an antibody that happens to also bind another antigen.

    Of course, you can control for that with other tests and other antibody preparations. It’s not an analytical showstopper.

  77. #77 Adele
    May 3, 2007

    UR, I’m not sure where you’re coming from or what you’re trying to say, but antibodies are certainly “for” something. Without getting into too much detail, there’s even a process called antibody maturation that happens in animals and lets antibodies that have developed “for” an antigen become more and more specific for it.
    Yes, cross-reactivity can happen and does. But the cross-reaction if it happens at all is usually going to be much lower than the reaction with whatever the antibody was raised to. If I have a cross reaction on lets say an ELISA for Hepatitis B, it’s probably near the experimentally determined cutoff so my doctor will test me again with a different test. If it’s a real reaction, it will usually be strong and most of the time it will be way over the cutoff and my doctor will say, sorry, it looks like you’ve got Hepatitis. Let’s talk about treatment options.

  78. #78 Richard Jefferys
    May 3, 2007

    Pat wrote:

    Richard Jeffreys, what is your area of knowledge concerning immunology…just wondering

    Pat, my opinions are based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

    Unlike Dr. Turner, however, I’m not radically re-interpreting the immunology literature based on this level of expertise. Please feel free to ignore what I have to say and read the literature yourself, email the authors and ask them your questions. The only immunology paper published in the last decade that I’ve seen denialists refer to is a review by Zvi Grossman, but the only word of it they seem to have read is “conundrum.” I can only wish they’d try and read and understand the rest of the paper and the large body of immunology literature it cites.

    And Adele is right, for a far more thoughtful and comprehensive explanation of Rebecca Culshaw’s many falsehoods and misrepresentations than I can offer, see:

    http://www.aidstruth.org/science-sold-out.pdf

    I’m embarrassed to confess I hadn’t taken the time to appreciate what a remarkable job Kenneth Witwer did producing this document, it actually works as a useful reference on all the major denialist canards (because Culshaw trots them all out in her book).

  79. #79 Michael
    May 3, 2007

    Le sigh. Kevin: Just want to quickly comment on one point. Yes, it is true that changing definitions changes the objects, but definitions are just pulled out of air. They’re usually constructed to formalize a concept, and someone working in a given field should be familiar with many of the alternative relevant definitions. In short, if a definition is changed enough that significant results no longer apply, then one should investigate whether the new definition is still describing the same intuitive object or concept.

    Also, my statement on paranoia was due to the fact that you seemed to be offering a conspiracy theory (grammatically correct though it may be) with little in the way of supporting evidence.

    And a quick question which I’m wondering about now. What about HIV-like viruses in other animals. Is the feline counterpart (FIV) similarly a construct of Big Vet? If not, why is it so far-fetched that humans can have a virus that attacks our immune systems? In fact, why is this so odd, seeing as there are viruses against every other part of the body?

    And Adele: please, stop with the commie-bashing! Sheesh! Yes, we know Marxism is an unstable system prone to collapsing into more stable, totalitarian regimes, but at least the man was trying to make the world a better place! Attack points, not people!

  80. #80 Kelvin Lorraway
    May 3, 2007

    Honestly, you lot are nothing but a bunch of childish delinquents….

  81. #81 pat
    May 3, 2007

    “Honestly, you lot are nothing but a bunch of childish delinquents….”

    thats funny, hehe

  82. #82 Unsympathetic reader
    May 3, 2007

    Adele: “UR, I’m not sure where you’re coming from or what you’re trying to say, but antibodies are certainly “for” something. Without getting into too much detail, there’s even a process called antibody maturation that happens in animals and lets antibodies that have developed “for” an antigen become more and more specific for it.”

    I am aware of that. I was disputing the teleological and exclusive implications of the word “for”. It’s a pedantic point.

    With regard to theBlackCat’s basic question: One can have an antibody that developed is expressed in response to binding molecule “A” which also binds to molecule “B” even if the immune system has never encountered the latter. If we accept that the antibody was “for” molecule “A” then that is how one could have a response to something such as molecule “B” that the immune system has never encountered.

    I did also say that cross-reactivity can be managed in tests (or ruled out in alternate tests) so I guess you could say that “where I’m coming from” has a zip code where you won’t find HIV denialists.

  83. #83 freethinker
    May 4, 2007

    “I reject the evidence of THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE JOHN SULAN. I conclude, for the reasons expressed, that HE IS NOT QUALIFIED to give expert opinions about whether it has been proved that a virus HIV exists. HE IS NOT QUALIFIED to express opinions on the tests that have been developed to diagnose the virus in humans. HE IS NOT QUALIFIED to express opinions about whether the virus is sexually transmitted. The opinion evidence of HONOURABLE JUSTICE JOHN SULAN is THEREFORE INADMISSIBLE.”

  84. #84 freethinker
    May 4, 2007

    “THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE JOHN SULAN lacks independence. HE is an advocate for a cause. HE chooses to rely upon opinions of others which HE often takes out of context and misinterprets. HE lacks objectivity. If faced with evidence which does not support HIS views, HE simply refuses to acknowledge it, or dismisses it without any basis for so doing. Examples of HIS refusal to acknowledge evidence which does not support HIS views include HIS response to the epidemiological evidence which HE says is not proof and which HE dismisses as unreliable.[81]”

  85. #85 Sascha
    May 4, 2007

    A judge is the only person qualified to determine the admissibility of evidence.

    A judge does not give evidence.

    Don’t try using the courts to make your case for you, you can only fail.

  86. #86 freethinker
    May 4, 2007

    “THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE JOHN SULAN has no formal qualifications in medicine, biology, virology, immunology, epidemiology or any other medical disciplines. HE HAS never treated or been directly involved in clinical trials of any kind relating to any disease.”

    THAT’S enough to refuse his verdict as a proof of the HIV/AIDS theory. I think that the unique lack of Eleopulos and Turner was they have never directly worked with HIV and they do not belong to Aids Establishment: that’s why their views were not accepted by the STATE’S justice.

    The truth is that John Sulan’s sentence does not acknowledge the freedom of scientific thought. There is no freedom of scientific thought about hiv/aids. If such freedom existed, Parenzee would have won his appeal.

  87. #87 freethinker
    May 4, 2007

    “NEGATIVA NE SUNT PROBANDA”. If Aids Establishment wants us to believe its theories, it must give absolute evidence for that. The existence of Aids dissidents shows out that such evidence does not exist.

    The solution of a problem is likely the simplest. HIV/AIDS theory does not satisfy human reason. So, Occam’s razor must pass on this theory and John Sulan’s sentence, which denies the freedom of scientific thought and of personal, sexual freedom awarded by the Constitution.

  88. #88 Sascha
    May 4, 2007

    The judge did not find on the scientific validity of the existence of HIV per se. He merely, for the purposes of the appeal of a criminal conviction, determined whether the appelant’s argument and supporting evidence was sufficient to overturn the conviction.
    For that purpose the parties can call on expert testimony to bolster their arguments. In this case the appelant had to find someone qualified to give evidence as to the validity of the appelant’s assertion that HIV does not exist.The witnesses had no particular qualifications as the Justice Sulan determined.
    As for free speech, you are free to say whatever you want, whenever you want. Justice Sulan is no obstacle to yours or anyone else’s freedom of speech, including Parenzee’s.

  89. #89 Sascha
    May 4, 2007

    Some will argue that HIV/AIDS is the simple explaination. It is true that the state had to make a their case against Parenzee in the lower court, the presumption of innocence profits the defendant.
    As far as the law is concerned HIV exists and it can lead to AIDS. Therefore if Parenzee tested positive and he had unprotected sex and the partner was thus infected, he has commited an offence.
    The lower court found the state to have proven all these assertions with sufficient certainty to warrant a conviction.
    If you want to change this you must prove that the overwhelming medical consensus is wrong.

  90. #90 freethinker
    May 4, 2007

    I can prove that the medical consensus you refer to is wrong simply by means of philosophy: indeed, such consensus is bought by American Industry, by American Bourgeosie to stop other races from reproducing and keep the power over the world.

  91. #91 Sascha
    May 4, 2007

    Good luck bringing that to a judge.

  92. #92 DT
    May 4, 2007

    I can prove that the medical consensus you refer to is wrong simply by means of philosophy: indeed, such consensus is bought by American Industry, by American Bourgeosie to stop other races from reproducing and keep the power over the world.

    Forget to take your meds today, freethinker?

  93. #93 jre
    May 4, 2007

    Shorter Kevin / pat / freethinker:
    It’s just a flesh wound! Come back here and take what’s coming to you. I’ll bite your legs off!

  94. #94 Sascha
    May 4, 2007

    Exactly! So, logically…,
    If… she.. weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood.

  95. #95 Tyler DiPietro
    May 4, 2007

    “The existence of Aids dissidents shows out that such evidence does not exist.”

    Wheeeee! Non-sequitors are funner than a game of Sonic the Hedgehog while intoxicated.

  96. #96 freethinker
    May 5, 2007

    In a dictatorship, what Aids Establishment made and is still making of your mind and of John Sulan’s freedom of judgement is called “brain washing”.
    In a dictatorship, propaganda is the main instrument used for “brain washing”.
    The same sentence of John Sulan could be used as a proof against hiv/aids theory. It is just like when the Church tried to impose the belief that the earth is flat.
    As you will remember, Colombo proved it isn’t so.

  97. #97 Sascha
    May 5, 2007

    St-Augustine, Thomas Aquinas took the sphericity of the earth for granted; a medieval astronomy textbook from the 13th c, “De sphaera mundi”, says it even in the title as well as propounding it between the covers. The orb was a symbol of Christ’s dominion on earth; i.e. “Salvator Mundi”. The medieval world took the earth’s sphericity for granted.
    Colombus only showed that there was a continent – America – between Europe and Asia. Nobody expected him to fall off the edge of the earth. Isabella and Ferdinand would not have trusted him with three ships had they not believed that he could reach China by the western ocean.
    You seem to be suffering from the effects of brainwashing yourself.

  98. #98 Kevin
    May 5, 2007

    Michael, as is the case with any debate, both sides of the argument require independent inquiry on the part of those who are trying to understand the debate. Unfortunately, with HIV one side overwhelmingly controls access to mass education resources, such as broadcast and print media; on the other hand, the discerning audience member has plenty of material by which to judge the merits of such a high-profile education campaigns. Not only do I find HIV education to be blatantly propagandized, but it is also delivered with a heavy, defensive hand. If you truly want to make an informed inquiry into dissident arguments, you should not rely on biased members of the orthodoxy to frame those arguments. Dr. Darin Brown and the wiki website he maintains offers an excellent starting point for reviewing original dissident sources. Taken from Dr. Brown’s site, I have found the following consideration to be very important for anyone who is new to this debate:

    The few orthodox scientists who claim to have questioned the HIV-causes-AIDS paradigm misstate and mis-characterize AIDS dissident positions (Maddox 1994a). As a result, dissidents claim the AIDS orthodoxy often argues against positions dissidents don’t actually hold.

    Dr. Brown continues by offering a couple of examples:

    1)The AIDS orthodoxy repeteadly call AIDS dissidents AIDS denialists, even though virtually no AIDS dissidents “deny AIDS.”

    2)AIDS orthodoxy promoters repeatedly accuse AIDS dissidents of promoting unsafe sex, even though most dissident reasoning would lead the reader to understand there are many kinds of reasons to have “safer sex,” as all dissidents acknowledge that sexually tranmitted diseases run rampant in AIDS-risk populations.

    Furthermore, unlike the orthodoxy, an independent inquiry into dissident arguments will reveal that they make their points by constructing actual arguments and not by attacking the character of the author, which not surprisingly, is a defensive tactic usually reserved for those who argue in support of an inferior argument.

    _________________________________________________________

    It’s not surprising, but it is dissappointing that no one on this site seems to have reviewed the website that I linked to in my previous post (honestdoctor.org). I guess no one here is interested in a factual account of the fraud that has been well-documented within HIV research, nor do they seem to have any comments on the vicious persecution that Dr. Fishbein has endured. Once again, the defensive tactics of the orthodoxy reveal themselves to those who are unbiased. What about it? Perhaps we could hear from the some of the obsequious sheep on this blog…..what about it Adele? How about you, Richard Jefferys?

    Here are a few of the damning allegations that were proven to be valid during the hearings that resulted in Dr.Fishbein’s reinstatement:
    ___________________________

    *Failure to follow or enforce Good Clinical Practices in AIDS trials.

    *Implementing a double standard regarding the quality of clinical trial practices – one standard for Africa and a higher standard for the U.S.

    *Ignoring health and safety data prior to approving the distribution of drugs for treatment of persons with AIDS.
    Failure to disclose information relating to the wrongful death of a patient on a clinical trial.

    *Inducement to commit fraud against the U.S. Government

    *Violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act

    *Improperly rewriting critical health and safety reports
    _________________________

    Those charges sure do sound like a strong foundation for conducting unbiased scientific research, right? Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive, but these are some of the infractions that I found to be the most egregious. I wonder if the public would have been made aware of these very unscientific research practices if Dr. Fishbein had the integrity of say…Robert Gallo or Anthony Fauci?

    Any comments Richard Jefferys?

    What about you Sascha? Are the revelations from this case also beyond your expertise?

    How about you Dale/DT ?
    I know that one of you is a pharmaceutical rep, so you qualify as an expert, though it’s difficult to keep it straight since you both parrot the same propaganda, in the same predictable way.

    Kevin

  99. #99 Sascha
    May 5, 2007

    Where does Fischbein say HIV does not cause AIDS and/or HIV does not exist?

  100. #100 Robster, FCD
    May 5, 2007

    Kevin,

    Other hypotheses were examined regarding the causation of AIDS. They turned out to be wrong. Lots of money went into them. They were dead ends. Certain denialists don’t want to accept that they were wrong and hold onto their ideas.

    Others, such as “freethinker” (such names are almost always a sign of a lack of logical thought) attempt to apply Das Kapital and pop-lit theories to science and just look silly.

    The truth is that John Sulan’s sentence does not acknowledge the freedom of scientific thought. There is no freedom of scientific thought about hiv/aids. If such freedom existed, Parenzee would have won his appeal.

    Science is not a place for the post-modernistic attidude of all answers are correct. Within science, there is a rigid mechanism of attempting to understand our world. Make observation. Form hypothesis. Gather data and evidence. Reject, accept or modify hypothesis. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    Certain hypothesis appear to have merit at first, and later are rejected once confounding variables are found and eliminated. That is why the behavior hypothesis failed.
    —————-
    Regarding Dr. Fishbein, he cites problems within one study and what he claims are CYA attempts after his dismissal. He appears worthy of whistleblower prottections, but I cannot comment on the validity of his claims. He certainly does not seem to consider himself a denialist, based on this website.

    To quote the rather flashy website (lots of martyr complex thrown in to boot), “The problem with HIVNET 012 is not one of statistics. Neither is it a nevirapine issue, nor even an AIDS issue. The problem is one of ethics and regulations — period.”

  101. #101 Adele
    May 5, 2007

    Kevin, you’re not a typical denialist and you’ve even said you’re not in contact with other “dissidents”, so I don’t expect you know much about denialists. Darin Brown should know a lot more. But your quote doesn’t show it.
    1)The AIDS orthodoxy repeteadly call AIDS dissidents AIDS denialists, even though virtually no AIDS dissidents “deny AIDS.”
    No, most denialists, I would say all deny AIDS. They say AIDS is something else. They say, die of PCP and you die of PCP but if you also have HIV then you’ve died of “AIDS”. They say it’s a fake, fraud, circular reasoning, etc. Duesberg, Maggiore, you know the rest.
    Another thing, you can’t have AIDS unless you’ve got HIV. That’s the medical definition. Sorry if you don’t like it. But If you deny HIV exists like the minority people Perth, Lanka, Culshaw, or deny it causes immune deficiency like majority Duesberg people than you deny AIDS as it’s defined by medicine too.
    But there’s more, point two.
    2)AIDS orthodoxy promoters repeatedly accuse AIDS dissidents of promoting unsafe sex, even though most dissident reasoning would lead the reader to understand there are many kinds of reasons to have “safer sex,” as all dissidents acknowledge that sexually tranmitted diseases run rampant in AIDS-risk populations.
    What a class A misunderstanding. Did this guy ever hear of Stefan Lanka? Lanka says there aren’t any pathogenic viruses. Then there are all those denialists who say AIDS was made up by a bunch of neocons I guess like the ones Duesberg is friends with to repress sexual freedom. They say you should rebel. And there’s Culshaw and her friends who say condoms are worse for your health than STDs. And the hygene people with their herbs and washing your hands after sex will keep you healthy.
    Even the ones who say use a condom, how are you promoting safe sex by saying, don’t worry, the virus everyone worries about the most is really harmless or maybe doesn’t exist.
    Darin Brown, wrong on both points, wrong on a lot of other things, too.

    PS sorry, everyone for my commie-bashing. I wanted it to be ideology bashing but freethinker and pat are such awesome young pioneers I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t mean to be so hard on Uncle Joe. Of course he thought he was trying to do the right thing. Most genocidal freaks think they are.

  102. #102 pat
    May 6, 2007

    Personally, Adele, I would put you and freethinker in the same loony bin… in opposite wards, mind you.

  103. #103 DT
    May 6, 2007

    AIDS orthodoxy promoters repeatedly accuse AIDS dissidents of promoting unsafe sex, even though most dissident reasoning would lead the reader to understand there are many kinds of reasons to have “safer sex,” as all dissidents acknowledge that sexually tranmitted diseases run rampant in AIDS-risk populations.

    What was it that Eleni P-E declared again when asked if she would have unprotected sex with someone who is HIV positive?

    Her answer: “Any time!”

  104. #104 Robster, FCD
    May 6, 2007

    Back in the day of MSN newsgroups, I got into a conversation with an AIDS denialist. I tried repeatedly to get him to agree that using condoms was a good idea, in that there were other STDs. He never rose to the challenge. Perhaps admitting that STDs even exist is a problem for some subset of denialists.

  105. #105 Chris Noble
    May 6, 2007

    Perhaps admitting that STDs even exist is a problem for some subset of denialists.

    There is a signifcant subset of Denialists that deny that any microbe causes disease. Just wait for them to tell you that Pasteur recanted on his deathbed with the words “The germ is nothing, the terrain is all”.

    An even larger proportion will deny one or more pathogens other than HIV.

    For a laugh look up their “List of scientists that doubt the HIV theory of AIDS” and count how many homeopaths, chiropractors, reflexologists, iridologists etc are listed.

    Look up Paul King and his psychotic campaign to rid the world from the “evils” of condoms.

    Look up Stefan Lanka and his psychotic campaign to free the world from the “evils” of vaccines.

    Of course there may well exist some rational skeptics. I just haven’t come across any.

  106. #106 Chris Noble
    May 6, 2007

    …all dissidents acknowledge that sexually tranmitted diseases run rampant in AIDS-risk populations

    I don’t think Darin has being following Duesbergian epidemiology closely enough! All sexually transmitted diseases spread randomly. It simply isn’t possible according to Duesberg’s first law of epidemiology for a sexually transmitted disease to have a much higher prevalence in a particular subpopulation!

  107. #107 pat
    May 6, 2007

    “Of course there may well exist some rational skeptics. I just haven’t come across any.”

    Not that I am one but perhaps it has to do with you spending ALL your energy blogging online where rationality of any sort is seldom found.

  108. #108 bob
    May 6, 2007

    I know this is a pretty old thread.

    Freethinker (pro Freefromthinking) said –
    “The same sentence of John Sulan could be used as a proof against hiv/aids theory. It is just like when the Church tried to impose the belief that the earth is flat.
    As you will remember, Colombo proved it isn’t so.”

    Colombo may have solved many of a murder, but I wouldn’t give him credit for showing a round earth. It is a common myth to believe that it was a common belief that the world was flat in the 1400′s. But then again you’ve been wrong about everything else; why change now?

    To any deniers out there.
    If HIV doesn’t kill people what does?

    If your answer is the medication:
    Why were there deaths before the drugs where widely used?
    Why has the death rate from HIV infection gone down?

    If your answer is poverty:
    Why weren’t AID-like deaths common in the dark ages or even up until the 1980? Poverty and related social ills have been around for a long time.

    If your answer is anal sex /angry god:
    Again, why weren’t AID-like deaths common in the dark ages or even up until the 1980? Wasn’t there anal sex and therefor an angry god before Regan?

    Bob

  109. #109 Adele
    May 6, 2007

    Pat, I know it’s your thing to ignore me, but could you please please just give me one little response on the capitalism of Bialy, Duesberg and Rasnick? Do you condemn it or just the capitalism of people you don’t agree with on HIV? And what about their neocon ties? Funding, publishing, friendships. Are you happy about those?

  110. #110 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, I know it’s your thing to ignore me”
    Nonono, I’m sorry you felt neglected so here I go:

    “could you please please just give me one little response on the capitalism of Bialy, Duesberg and Rasnick?”

    Rasnick invented the machine, Duesberg is on the board of advisors and Bialy…no real clue. I asked if these three were involved on a financial level and all I got was an indeterminate “probably”; I myself couldn’t find evidence but I would guess Rasnick, as the inventor, is at least somehow involved financially.

    “Do you condemn it or just the capitalism of people you don’t agree with on HIV?”

    No I don’t condemn anyone for wanting to make an honest buck. You, or someone else wailed at them for going abroad to do the testing of their machine to bypass “redtape” or whatnot…mmm, it reminds me of HIV drug testing in Africa so in a sense both sides are guilty of the very same crime. HIV drugs are toxic and hard to handle; everyone with an HIV+ friend/s knows this and science even admits it although with a hefty hand-wave that they are better than the disease (you need to have HIV to really answer that one I guess) but on the other hand, what is so deadly about this machine? Does it have side effects? I don’t know but if it does indeed help detect cancer at even earlier stages then surely you and I must support it. We shall await the results eagerly. At least I hope they are on to something because cancer remains the real human killer by far and if they succeed then they deserve a just reward for their efforts like all innovators.

    “And what about their neocon ties? Funding, publishing, friendships. Are you happy about those?”

    Neocon; I presume, stands for “neo conservative” and not “new rip-off” in which case it is a political ideology. I have plenty of friends who believe that free markets, runaway capitalism and hard-ass foreign interventions are the cure all for the worlds ills. Of course I would not agree with that in the least but this doesn’t make us unfriendly in all other aspects of life; just the political discussions can get quite heafty. One friend of mine believes that if governments can own nukes then he should be able to own them too and he says that with a straight face. Another friend of mine, while drive down East Hastings in Vancouver blurted out: “look at all that f*****g scum, line ‘em up and shoo…” upon which I threw a quick and heartfelt hissyfit but we still made it to the pub in time for the game. Does my friendship with them compromise my integrity? Do their beliefs make friendship impossible? Absolutely not, it just makes those friends of mine boarderline nuts but none of this changes the taste of beer and the joy of cards and whatnot else there is in life to enjoy aside from politics and I believe this is where you have trouble; I believe that you are not really capable of seperating the message from the messenger which is indeed the basis for my critisism of you. I’m not acquainted with Duesberg’s real political leanings nor is anybody else here but none of this changes the fact that many believe he is onto something in regards to cancer reseach; no one is calling him a whackjob there and the same goes for Margulis and her symbiosis-thingamajig theory, right Adele? Just because they are wrong on one thing doesn’t make them wrong on everything else.

  111. #111 Adele
    May 7, 2007

    Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
    But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems. I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all. I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them. You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans. You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.
    Your answer?
    It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work. But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.
    So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder. I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.
    Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.
    And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.

  112. #112 freethinker
    May 7, 2007

    “Before making becoming famous for HIV, Gallo’s laboratory had been found by an investigative panel of university scientists appointed in 1974 to be one of the worst offenders in the scandalous abuse of federal funds dished out during Nixon’s ‘War on Cancer’. Two co-researchers later went down for embezzlement and taking secret gratuities.”

    Gallo’s lab was just like an outlaws’ den.

  113. #113 Robster, FCD
    May 7, 2007

    Freethinker, you should give links when you use the words of others. To do otherwise is plagiarism.

    Source? Cut and paste from a denialist website. No verification of claims available at the site. Not saying that it isn’t correct, but they should offer links demonstrating that their claims are based in truth.

    The real key, though, is that the existence of HIV is seperate from Gallo. HIV’s existence and causal connection to AIDS has been independantly verified repeatedly (as in thousands of times). This is a non-sequitor.

  114. #114 Adele
    May 7, 2007

    Freethinker, you quote Anthony Brink from virus myth but you don’t give us his name or a link. That’s called stealing, my mom once said.
    Anthony Brink levels charges but doesn’t give any links.
    So all we know is, somebody somewhere supposedly says someone who had some relationship with Robert Gallo was involved in some sort of shady dealings back in the 1970′s.
    Come to think of it, my great-uncle was a murderer, and another guy I’m related to distantly robbed a bank. So I guess I’m totally disqualified from doing science. I’m quitting.
    If I didn’t though I’d join Gallo’s lab. That outlaw’s den thing is really neat! Do they all sit around wearing six-shooters and spitting to-baccy on the floor?

  115. #115 Adele
    May 7, 2007

    “They call me Wild Bob,” drawled the tall, lanky man in the buckskin lab coat. “But you can call me Doctor,” he continued, caressing the six-shooter at his side with menacing longing.
    “Well, Doctor,” I said, “I didn’t come here fer to exchange pleasernties. No, I AM fixing to invite you on a short trip out West for some plunder and profit. Yee-Haw.”
    “Now that’s more like it, Cowgirl,” replied Wild Bob, “I like that even more than this here Ten-Gallo hat. I mean Ten-Gallon, pardon the pun, ma’am.”
    “Well, long as yer shootin’s better than yer punning, we’ll rake in some fine buckaroos, Wild Bob!”
    “But tell me, miss, I hear tell this Gold Rush thing ain’t fer real. My ole pal Little Peter’s spreading this hogwash there ain’t no gold in them there Californer hills. Matter o’ factor, he’s got it in his two-tonic noggin there ain’t no such thing as gold at’all! Now what’s goin through yer purty li’l head when ya here such?”
    “Hell,” I replied, tossing back my straw-blonde hair, “I think Li’l Peter’s goin’ senile. He done moved up to Santa Denialino and done sold his ranch to some ventural capitator from Mississippi, shady little lizard, you catch my drift. No, Doc, I done seen that gold myself. I mined it, wined it, dined it, and re-fined it. It’s the real deal, I swear by my stinking saddle on a midday’s ride.”
    “Well, then, little girl,” Wild Bob measured his words carefully. “Welcome to our den o’ outlaws. I’ll take you around and introduce you to the rest. They’re a wild bunch, you hear. But if they get rowdy with you, you know what to do.”
    Some shots rang out and we hurried over to the horses…

  116. #116 Kevin
    May 7, 2007

    “Perhaps admitting that STDs even exist is a problem for some subset of denialists.” – Robster

    More slanderous drivel which is so typical on this blog.

    I know you read my previous post, Robster, because you immediately proceeded to post a long faith-based tirade about just how much you believe HIV=AIDS. Your fervor was impressive, but when you offer up slanderous tripe like the above quote, you are merely confirming the truth of the accusation that I levied in my previous post, namely that most HIV defenders purposely misrepresent dissident views to avoid dealing with HIV’s many shortcomings. Once again, it is obvious that these vile, defensive tactics are employed because you, too, must realize that you are arguing from a weaker position.
    _____________________________________

    Where does Fischbein say HIV does not cause AIDS and/or HIV does not exist? — Sascha

    I am beginning to believe that I gave you entirely too much credit when I previously suggested that you were a capable thinker, Sascha, or perhaps you are just a coward.

    It’s really a very simple question to answer: Do you or do you not agree with the firing of Dr. Fishbein, for revealing that numerous unprofessional and unscientific methods were used in the administration of HIV clinical trials?

    Dr. Fishbein’s views on the matter are clear. That’s why he was fired! If you weren’t so mealy-mouthed, Sascha, and if you’d actually spend a little time reading the site, there would be no need for your evasive questions. From the site:

    Rather than investigate Dr. Fishbein’s documented allegations, senior NIH managers chose to cover-up the wrongdoing. Then they embarked upon a campaign of retribution against the very person they had hired to reform the Division.

    also

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

    _______________________________________
    “Kevin, you’re not a typical denialist and you’ve even said you’re not in contact with other “dissidents”, so I don’t expect you know much about denialists.” – Adele

    I do not expect much of anything from you, Adele, for you’ve proven to lack sufficient intellect to discuss this matter beyond the level of a middle-schooler, and that’s the reason that you cannot understand Darin Brown’s many well-thought arguments. You’re just not smart enough. However, you are sort of right in suggesting that I do not know much about “denialists”, but I do know a great deal about “dissidents” and the arguments they’ve made, and I find those arguments to be far more rigorous than those proffered by the real denialists — the HIV orthodoxy.

  117. #117 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems.”

    I have already admitted to slipping on that one and even offered my apologies to you. As to you not making ad hominems, well, I’ll simply call that a misrepresentation of the truth.

    “I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all.”

    Why then did you need my take on it if you don’t care about his ties? I remember you blasting him for it. I never accused anyone in particular of making a dishonest buck although business as a whole is very good at holding back the truth when there is mucho dineros to be made and you know that. Don’t tell me you need evidence of poor quality control and data fudging to get goods and drugs to the market. Your local NEWSPAPER is littered with them.

    “I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them.”

    Politics interferes with science, it shouldn’t but it does. Even you do by inadvertently needing to discuss “denialists”…that is politics. Some people have agendas other than the truth as can be seen with big money and war for example. You seem to believe Duesberg has such a shady agenda but you must be able to come up with some evidence unless you want to be written of as just another passive-aggressive bloggeur. HIV science itself can be free of politics but it is unfortunately politics that shape the way it is viewed on the street. For example: HIV was on its way to being labeled a “gay” disease and the gay community was rightfully worried about more marginalization (they do suffer enough bullshit) and so AIDS became everyone’s disease. The blame of HIV/AIDS as being a gay disease (and now yet another black man’s burden) rests squarely on the shoulders of those who pioneered it and now it appears that they are trying to wiggle free of it by accusing dissidents of promoting homophobia and abusing the already shaky trust of the African community for some never fully explained but definitely “sinister” motives. You can see exactly the same thing happening in Iraq; the utter failure of the war is now the fault of the Iraqis and the anti-war camp. Now all those who don’t agree are simply accused of wanting to see people dead and these accusations are mostly absurd although not beyond some of humanity I am certain but I seriously doubt Duesberg harbors any eugenic tendencies.

    “You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans.”

    I don’t remember accusing scientists or doctors of being capitalist swine but “big pharma” simply goes with the terrain. If big business and western governments had any humanitarian goals there would have been a marshall plan and truely affordable meds for Africa long ago but unfortunately there is no such thing. South Africa was screaming for cheaper meds but they were refused, then they threatened to break patents to get them but then they were taken aside in a dark corner and straightened out; is there any wonder Mbeki became skeptical? Considering what they went through at our hands for decades it only follows but even then we managed to ridicule him and now it is somehow his fault that meds aren’t readily available. When his crazy health minister was proposing beetroot and garlic as an alternative she was merely attempting to address the problem with what they did have at hand seeing no one was forthcoming with those wonderful “life-saving” drugs. There is only a huge mess of AIDS NGO’s and GO’s squabbling over who gets what share of this huge pork barrel. It is so absurd that even African countries seem to be fudging their numbers to get a share of the attention. AIDS clinics are springing up like wildfire but those suffering the far more common diseases are simply shit out of luck. South Africa doesn’t even have AIDS in its top ten killers.
    I accused you in particular of being “like” O’Reilly because you go off on tangents like Bill’O:

    “Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    - A true O’Reilly moment there, Adele.

    “You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.”

    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extending and this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections. Remember: up to 20’000’000 dead and 0 cured. So unless you want to aggravate an already difficult education campaign you should stop this gross abuse of the English language.
    Which denialist made BIG BUCKS? What is BIG in your world? 2000, 20’000, 200’000 ? Mullis made BIG BUCKS for making PCR possible. If you think Gallo deserves a few million off HIV test kits then you would agree that he somehow deserves it too. Racist Neo Nazis are not likely to buy into the drug and malnutrition hypothesis of AIDS but rather the gay and the African AIDS hysteria as proof of straight and white superiority. (1 minute online search: rightwingnews.com/crackpots/whitepower)

    “Your answer?
It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work.”

    See website above.

    “But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.”

    Now you are contradicting your opening paragraph and besides…did I really write those words??? You are confusing me with “free”thinker maybe.

    “So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder.
    I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.”

    You do believe he hates gay men; so much is now crystal clear. As far as I can tell he hates drug over-doses, malnutrition and multiple viral insults. Why don’t you call him and ask him *politely* yourself, I’m certain he’ll take some time for you. Why am I convinced you wont?

    “Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.

    I don’t need to show ANY evidence that they WANT to kill Africans and gay men because I never accused anyone of WANTING to kill anyone! You, on the other hand, have some evidence-digging to do concerning Duesberg’s bigotry.

    “And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.”

    So what if it was around before? The question is why was it dropped to the bottom of the pile in favor of viral cancer?

    Nice start but then you got O’Reillyed towards the end. Shame. I could almost feel you huffing and puffing at your keyboard, blowing steam out your ears, trying to reach through the wires and strangle someone, anyone.

    PS: sorry for the long post but you felt ignored.

  118. #118 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems.”

    I have already admitted to slipping on that one and even offered my apologies to you. As to you not making ad hominems, well, I’ll simply call that a misrepresentation of the truth.

    “I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all.”

    Why then did you need my take on it if you don’t care about his ties? I remember you blasting him for it. I never accused anyone in particular of making a dishonest buck although business as a whole is very good at holding back the truth when there is mucho dineros to be made and you know that. Don’t tell me you need evidence of poor quality control and data fudging to get goods and drugs to the market. Your local NEWSPAPER is littered with them.

    “I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them.”

    Politics interferes with science, it shouldn’t but it does. Even you do by inadvertently needing to discuss “denialists”…that is politics. Some people have agendas other than the truth as can be seen with big money and war for example. You seem to believe Duesberg has such a shady agenda but you must be able to come up with some evidence unless you want to be written of as just another passive-aggressive bloggeur. HIV science itself can be free of politics but it is unfortunately politics that shape the way it is viewed on the street. For example: HIV was on its way to being labeled a “gay” disease and the gay community was rightfully worried about more marginalization (they do suffer enough bullshit) and so AIDS became everyone’s disease. The blame of HIV/AIDS as being a gay disease (and now yet another black man’s burden) rests squarely on the shoulders of those who pioneered it and now it appears that they are trying to wiggle free of it by accusing dissidents of promoting homophobia and abusing the already shaky trust of the African community for some never fully explained but definitely “sinister” motives. You can see exactly the same thing happening in Iraq; the utter failure of the war is now the fault of the Iraqis and the anti-war camp. Now all those who don’t agree are simply accused of wanting to see people dead and these accusations are mostly absurd although not beyond some of humanity I am certain but I seriously doubt Duesberg harbors any eugenic tendencies.

    “You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans.”

    I don’t remember accusing scientists or doctors of being capitalist swine but “big pharma” simply goes with the terrain. If big business and western governments had any humanitarian goals there would have been a marshall plan and truely affordable meds for Africa long ago but unfortunately there is no such thing. South Africa was screaming for cheaper meds but they were refused, then they threatened to break patents to get them but then they were taken aside in a dark corner and straightened out; is there any wonder Mbeki became skeptical? Considering what they went through at our hands for decades it only follows but even then we managed to ridicule him and now it is somehow his fault that meds aren’t readily available. When his crazy health minister was proposing beetroot and garlic as an alternative she was merely attempting to address the problem with what they did have at hand seeing no one was forthcoming with those wonderful “life-saving” drugs. There is only a huge mess of AIDS NGO’s and GO’s squabbling over who gets what share of this huge pork barrel. It is so absurd that even African countries seem to be fudging their numbers to get a share of the attention. AIDS clinics are springing up like wildfire but those suffering the far more common diseases are simply shit out of luck. South Africa doesn’t even have AIDS in its top ten killers.
    I accused you in particular of being “like” O’Reilly because you go off on tangents like Bill’O:

    “Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    - A true O’Reilly moment there, Adele.

    “You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.”

    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extending and this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections. Remember: up to 20’000’000 dead and 0 cured. So unless you want to aggravate an already difficult education campaign you should stop this gross abuse of the English language.
    Which denialist made BIG BUCKS? What is BIG in your world? 2000, 20’000, 200’000 ? Mullis made BIG BUCKS for making PCR possible. If you think Gallo deserves a few million off HIV test kits then you would agree that he somehow deserves it too. Racist Neo Nazis are not likely to buy into the drug and malnutrition hypothesis of AIDS but rather the gay and the African AIDS hysteria as proof of straight and white superiority. (1 minute online search: rightwingnews.com)

    “Your answer?
It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work.”

    See website above.

    “But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.”

    Now you are contradicting your opening paragraph and besides…did I really write those words??? You are confusing me with “free”thinker maybe.

    “So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder.
    I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.”

    You do believe he hates gay men; so much is now crystal clear. As far as I can tell he hates drug over-doses, malnutrition and multiple viral insults. Why don’t you call him and ask him *politely* yourself, I’m certain he’ll take some time for you. Why am I convinced you wont?

    “Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.

    I don’t need to show ANY evidence that they WANT to kill Africans and gay men because I never accused anyone of WANTING to kill anyone! You, on the other hand, have some evidence-digging to do concerning Duesberg’s bigotry.

    “And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.”

    So what if it was around before? The question is why was it dropped to the bottom of the pile in favor of viral cancer?

    Nice start but then you got O’Reillyed towards the end. Shame. I could almost feel you huffing and puffing at your keyboard, blowing steam out your ears, trying to reach through the wires and strangle someone, anyone.

  119. #119 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems.”

    I have already admitted to slipping on that one and even offered my apologies to you. As to you not making ad hominems, well, I’ll simply call that a misrepresentation of the truth.

    “I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all.”

    Why then did you need my take on it if you don’t care about his ties? I remember you blasting him for it. I never accused anyone in particular of making a dishonest buck although business as a whole is very good at holding back the truth when there is mucho dineros to be made and you know that. Don’t tell me you need evidence of poor quality control and data fudging to get goods and drugs to the market. Your local NEWSPAPER is littered with them.

    “I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them.”

    Politics interferes with science, it shouldn’t but it does. Even you do by inadvertently needing to discuss “denialists”…that is politics. Some people have agendas other than the truth as can be seen with big money and war for example. You seem to believe Duesberg has such a shady agenda but you must be able to come up with some evidence unless you want to be written of as just another passive-aggressive bloggeur. HIV science itself can be free of politics but it is unfortunately politics that shape the way it is viewed on the street. For example: HIV was on its way to being labeled a “gay” disease and the gay community was rightfully worried about more marginalization (they do suffer enough bullshit) and so AIDS became everyone’s disease. The blame of HIV/AIDS as being a gay disease (and now yet another black man’s burden) rests squarely on the shoulders of those who pioneered it and now it appears that they are trying to wiggle free of it by accusing dissidents of promoting homophobia and abusing the already shaky trust of the African community for some never fully explained but definitely “sinister” motives. You can see exactly the same thing happening in Iraq; the utter failure of the war is now the fault of the Iraqis and the anti-war camp. Now all those who don’t agree are simply accused of wanting to see people dead and these accusations are mostly absurd although not beyond some of humanity I am certain but I seriously doubt Duesberg harbors any eugenic tendencies.

    “You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans.”

    I don’t remember accusing scientists or doctors of being capitalist swine but “big pharma” simply goes with the terrain. If big business and western governments had any humanitarian goals there would have been a marshall plan and truely affordable meds for Africa long ago but unfortunately there is no such thing. South Africa was screaming for cheaper meds but they were refused, then they threatened to break patents to get them but then they were taken aside in a dark corner and straightened out; is there any wonder Mbeki became skeptical? Considering what they went through at our hands for decades it only follows but even then we managed to ridicule him and now it is somehow his fault that meds aren’t readily available. When his crazy health minister was proposing beetroot and garlic as an alternative she was merely attempting to address the problem with what they did have at hand seeing no one was forthcoming with those wonderful “life-saving” drugs. There is only a huge mess of AIDS NGO’s and GO’s squabbling over who gets what share of this huge pork barrel. It is so absurd that even African countries seem to be fudging their numbers to get a share of the attention. AIDS clinics are springing up like wildfire but those suffering the far more common diseases are simply shit out of luck. South Africa doesn’t even have AIDS in its top ten killers.
    I accused you in particular of being “like” O’Reilly because you go off on tangents like Bill’O:

    “Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    - A true O’Reilly moment there, Adele.

    “You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.”

    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extending and this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections. Remember: up to 20’000’000 dead and 0 cured. So unless you want to aggravate an already difficult education campaign you should stop this gross abuse of the English language.
    Which denialist made BIG BUCKS? What is BIG in your world? 2000, 20’000, 200’000 ? Mullis made BIG BUCKS for making PCR possible. If you think Gallo deserves a few million off HIV test kits then you would agree that he somehow deserves it too. Racist Neo Nazis are not likely to buy into the drug and malnutrition hypothesis of AIDS but rather the gay and the African AIDS hysteria as proof of straight and white superiority. (1 minute online search: rightwingnews dot com)

    “Your answer?
It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work.”

    See website above.

    “But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.”

    Now you are contradicting your opening paragraph and besides…did I really write those words??? You are confusing me with “free”thinker maybe.

    “So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder.
    I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.”

    You do believe he hates gay men; so much is now crystal clear. As far as I can tell he hates drug over-doses, malnutrition and multiple viral insults. Why don’t you call him and ask him *politely* yourself, I’m certain he’ll take some time for you. Why am I convinced you wont?

    “Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.

    I don’t need to show ANY evidence that they WANT to kill Africans and gay men because I never accused anyone of WANTING to kill anyone! You, on the other hand, have some evidence-digging to do concerning Duesberg’s bigotry.

    “And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.”

    So what if it was around before? The question is why was it dropped to the bottom of the pile in favor of viral cancer?

    Nice start but then you got O’Reillyed towards the end. Shame. I could almost feel you huffing and puffing at your keyboard, blowing steam out your ears, trying to reach through the wires and strangle someone, anyone.

  120. #120 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems.”

    I have already admitted to slipping on that one and even offered my apologies to you. As to you not making ad hominems, well, I’ll simply call that a misrepresentation of the truth.

    “I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all.”

    Why then did you need my take on it if you don’t care about his ties? I remember you blasting him for it. I never accused anyone in particular of making a dishonest buck although business as a whole is very good at holding back the truth when there is mucho dineros to be made and you know that. Don’t tell me you need evidence of poor quality control and data fudging to get goods and drugs to the market. Your local NEWSPAPER is littered with them.

    “I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them.”

    Politics interferes with science, it shouldn’t but it does. Even you do by inadvertently needing to discuss “denialists”…that is politics. Some people have agendas other than the truth as can be seen with big money and war for example. You seem to believe Duesberg has such a shady agenda but you must be able to come up with some evidence unless you want to be written of as just another passive-aggressive bloggeur. HIV science itself can be free of politics but it is unfortunately politics that shape the way it is viewed on the street. For example: HIV was on its way to being labeled a “gay” disease and the gay community was rightfully worried about more marginalization (they do suffer enough bullshit) and so AIDS became everyone’s disease. The blame of HIV/AIDS as being a gay disease (and now yet another black man’s burden) rests squarely on the shoulders of those who pioneered it and now it appears that they are trying to wiggle free of it by accusing dissidents of promoting homophobia and abusing the already shaky trust of the African community for some never fully explained but definitely “sinister” motives. You can see exactly the same thing happening in Iraq; the utter failure of the war is now the fault of the Iraqis and the anti-war camp. Now all those who don’t agree are simply accused of wanting to see people dead and these accusations are mostly absurd although not beyond some of humanity I am certain but I seriously doubt Duesberg harbors any eugenic tendencies.

    “You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans.”

    I don’t remember accusing scientists or doctors of being capitalist swine but “big pharma” simply goes with the terrain. If big business and western governments had any humanitarian goals there would have been a marshall plan and truely affordable meds for Africa long ago but unfortunately there is no such thing. South Africa was screaming for cheaper meds but they were refused, then they threatened to break patents to get them but then they were taken aside in a dark corner and straightened out; is there any wonder Mbeki became skeptical? Considering what they went through at our hands for decades it only follows but even then we managed to ridicule him and now it is somehow his fault that meds aren’t readily available. When his crazy health minister was proposing beetroot and garlic as an alternative she was merely attempting to address the problem with what they did have at hand seeing no one was forthcoming with those wonderful “life-saving” drugs. There is only a huge mess of AIDS NGO’s and GO’s squabbling over who gets what share of this huge pork barrel. It is so absurd that even African countries seem to be fudging their numbers to get a share of the attention. AIDS clinics are springing up like wildfire but those suffering the far more common diseases are simply shit out of luck. South Africa doesn’t even have AIDS in its top ten killers.
    I accused you in particular of being “like” O’Reilly because you go off on tangents like Bill’O:

    “Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    - A true O’Reilly moment there, Adele.

    “You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.”

    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extending and this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections. Remember: up to 20’000’000 dead and 0 cured. So unless you want to aggravate an already difficult education campaign you should stop this gross abuse of the English language.
    Which denialist made BIG BUCKS? What is BIG in your world? 2000, 20’000, 200’000 ? Mullis made BIG BUCKS for making PCR possible. If you think Gallo deserves a few million off HIV test kits then you would agree that he somehow deserves it too. Racist Neo Nazis are not likely to buy into the drug and malnutrition hypothesis of AIDS but rather the gay and the Africa hysteria as proof of straight and white superiority. (1 minute online search: rightwingnews dot com)

    “Your answer?
It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work.”

    See website above.

    “But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.”

    Now you are contradicting your opening paragraph and besides…did I really write those words??? You are confusing me with “free”thinker maybe.

    “So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder.
    I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.”

    You do believe he hates gay men; so much is now crystal clear. As far as I can tell he hates drug over-doses, malnutrition and multiple viral insults. Why don’t you call him and ask him *politely* yourself, I’m certain he’ll take some time for you. Why am I convinced you wont?

    “Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.

    I don’t need to show ANY evidence that they WANT to kill Africans and gay men because I never accused anyone of WANTING to kill anyone! You, on the other hand, have some evidence-digging to do concerning Duesberg’s bigotry.

    “And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.”

    So what if it was around before? The question is why was it dropped to the bottom of the pile in favor of viral cancer?

    Nice start but then you got O’Reillyed towards the end. Shame. I could almost feel you huffing and puffing at your keyboard, blowing steam out your ears, trying to reach through the wires and strangle someone, anyone.

  121. #121 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “Pat, that was a nicely reasoned response. Maybe there’s some hope for the internet after all?
But I would say that it’s you and Kevin not me who makes the ad hominems.”

    I have already admitted to slipping on that one and even offered my apologies to you. As to you not making ad hominems, well, I’ll simply call that a misrepresentation of the truth.

    “I criticize Duesberg because he is wrong scientifically on HIV and AIDS and makes up stuff, not because he seems to have neoconservative ties and makes money like all good capitalists. I don’t care who he votes for if he votes at all.”

    Why then did you need my take on it if you don’t care about his ties? I remember you blasting him for it. I never accused anyone in particular of making a dishonest buck although business as a whole is very good at holding back the truth when there is mucho dineros to be made and you know that. Don’t tell me you need evidence of poor quality control and data fudging to get goods and drugs to the market. Your local NEWSPAPER is littered with them.

    “I don’t begrudge him an “honest buck”. I have talke about this because you, Margulis, freethinker and others bring politics into science. A lot of other people do too but we’re discussing denialists here, so I focus on them.”

    Politics interferes with science, it shouldn’t but it does. Even you do by inadvertently needing to discuss “denialists”…that is politics. Some people have agendas other than the truth as can be seen with big money and war for example. You seem to believe Duesberg has such a shady agenda but you must be able to come up with some evidence unless you want to be written of as just another passive-aggressive bloggeur. HIV science itself can be free of politics but it is unfortunately politics that shape the way it is viewed on the street. For example: HIV was on its way to being labeled a “gay” disease and the gay community was rightfully worried about more marginalization (they do suffer enough bullshit) and so AIDS became everyone’s disease. The blame of HIV/AIDS as being a gay disease (and now yet another black man’s burden) rests squarely on the shoulders of those who pioneered it and now it appears that they are trying to wiggle free of it by accusing dissidents of promoting homophobia and abusing the already shaky trust of the African community for some never fully explained but definitely “sinister” motives. You can see exactly the same thing happening in Iraq; the utter failure of the war is now the fault of the Iraqis and the anti-war camp. Now all those who don’t agree are simply accused of wanting to see people dead and these accusations are mostly absurd although not beyond some of humanity I am certain but I seriously doubt Duesberg harbors any eugenic tendencies.

    “You criticize HIV scientists and doctors and pharma of being capitalists or neocons or Bill O’Reilly fans.”

    I don’t remember accusing scientists or doctors of being capitalist swine but “big pharma” simply goes with the terrain. If big business and western governments had any humanitarian goals there would have been a marshall plan and truely affordable meds for Africa long ago but unfortunately there is no such thing. South Africa was screaming for cheaper meds but they were refused, then they threatened to break patents to get them but then they were taken aside in a dark corner and straightened out; is there any wonder Mbeki became skeptical? Considering what they went through at our hands for decades it only follows but even then we managed to ridicule him and now it is somehow his fault that meds aren’t readily available. When his crazy health minister was proposing beetroot and garlic as an alternative she was merely attempting to address the problem with what they did have at hand seeing no one was forthcoming with those wonderful “life-saving” drugs. There is only a huge mess of AIDS NGO’s and GO’s squabbling over who gets what share of this huge pork barrel. It is so absurd that even African countries seem to be fudging their numbers to get a share of the attention. AIDS clinics are springing up like wildfire but those suffering the far more common diseases are simply shit out of luck. South Africa doesn’t even have AIDS in its top ten killers.
    I accused you in particular of being “like” O’Reilly because you go off on tangents like Bill’O:

    “Or Freethinker and Pat. Capitalism is synonymous with the USA which is synonymous with HIV/AIDS. If they hate one they have to hate the others. Stalin, their hero, wouldn’t have let “this” happen.”

    - A true O’Reilly moment there, Adele.

    “You don’t give much evidence or tell us what this means for a drug saving people’s lives. So I wondered what you had to say about denialists who sold their paper company for big bucks or took money from neoconservatives or had a message that goes so well with ultra-rightists that neo Nazis put their stuff on their website.”

    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extending and this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections. Remember: up to 20’000’000 dead and 0 cured. So unless you want to aggravate an already difficult education campaign you should stop this gross abuse of the English language.
    Which denialist made BIG BUCKS? What is BIG in your world? 2000, 20’000, 200’000 ? Mullis made BIG BUCKS for making PCR possible. If you think Gallo deserves a few million off HIV test kits then you would agree that he somehow deserves it too. Racist Neo Nazis are not likely to buy into the drug and malnutrition hypothesis of AIDS but rather the gay and the Africa hysteria as proof of straight and white superiority. (1 minute online search: rightwingnews dot com)

    “Your answer?
It doesn’t matter. They can be right about one thing and wrong about other things. It’s cool for a denialist to publish a book or a paper in an ultra-right press or journal. They need to get their message out. It’s cool to take money from neoconservatives with a rightist probably anti-gay agenda to fund your denialist work.”

    See website above.

    “But anyone in HIV science with pharma funding is corrupt, capitalist, greedy. You need to work on your reasoning Pat.”

    Now you are contradicting your opening paragraph and besides…did I really write those words??? You are confusing me with “free”thinker maybe.

    “So you’ll say I attacked Duesberg for hating gay people. Is that an ad hominem? People have accused Duesberg of nasty attitudes towards gay men, and that does bother me, since there it’s difficult to separate the message from the messenger. If you hate gay men and tell them not to take medicine, and then they die, that’s atrocious. It’s almost murder.
    I don’t know for sure if that’s how it is with PDiddy, but the signs aren’t good. This is not an ad hominem attack because Duesberg’s attitudes towards gay men are important in this discussion, whatever they are.”

    You do believe he hates gay men; so much is now crystal clear. As far as I can tell he hates drug over-doses, malnutrition and multiple viral insults. Why don’t you call him and ask him *politely* yourself, I’m certain he’ll take some time for you. Why am I convinced you wont?

    “Pat if you could show evidence that pharma wants to kill Africans or thousands of HIV scientists are anti-gay or something then your points would be more than ad hominem.

    I don’t need to show ANY evidence that they WANT to kill Africans and gay men because I never accused anyone of WANTING to kill anyone! You, on the other hand, have some evidence-digging to do concerning Duesberg’s bigotry.

    “And by the way, “Duesberg’s” cancer theory was around before he was born. He’s the poster boy for it now because he’s already a famous “dissident”.”

    So what if it was around before? The question is why was it dropped to the bottom of the pile in favor of viral cancer?

    Nice start but then you got O’Reillyed towards the end. Shame. I could almost feel you huffing and puffing at your keyboard, blowing steam out your ears, trying to reach through the wires and strangle someone, anyone.

  122. #122 Sascha
    May 7, 2007

    Kevin,
    And here I was giving you credit for being above the mudslinging. Well, no offense taken. But seriously, Dr. Fischbein has made some very serious allegations concerning the service he worked in. It would appear that at least a few were sufficiently substantiated for him to be given “whistleblower status” according to the federal statute.

    Many of the allegations were found to be true:

    “An internal report to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni substantiated many of Fishbein’s allegations, calling the agency’s AIDS research division ”a troubled organization” whose managers engaged in unnecessary feuding, used sexually explicit language, and were guilty of other inappropriate conduct that hampered its global fight against the disease.” John Solomon, Associated Press | December 24, 2005

    So I can only agree with the court’s granting him protection. I actually think all employees should be granted the same protection. This case is important in extending judicial protection to those people who are best placed to call attention to mismanagement, and fraud. No argument there.

    I would further argue that criminal proceedings should be possible where the patient didn’t or couldn’t give informed consent to participation in a trial, and was thus entered against their wishes. The right of a patient to make his own health care decisions is or should be a corollary to the basic right to life enshrined in most modern constitutions. Children should be afforded special protection as they cannot normally give informed consent – children and orphans in particular are amongst the most vulnerable members of society.

    However, the findings cannot be construed to provide evidence for a world-wide conspiracy to hide the truth about HIV/AIDS. So i apologise if my question appeared to be a provocation but I couldn’t see how this was relevant to the validity of the basic science.

  123. #123 Sascha
    May 7, 2007

    Kevin,
    And here I was giving you credit for being above the mudslinging. Well, no offense taken. But seriously, Dr. Fischbein has made some very serious allegations concerning the service he worked in. It would appear that at least a few were sufficiently substantiated for him to be given “whistleblower status” according to the federal statute.

    Many of the allegations were found to be true:

    “An internal report to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni substantiated many of Fishbein’s allegations, calling the agency’s AIDS research division ”a troubled organization” whose managers engaged in unnecessary feuding, used sexually explicit language, and were guilty of other inappropriate conduct that hampered its global fight against the disease.” John Solomon, Associated Press | December 24, 2005

    So I can only agree with the court’s granting him protection. I actually think all employees should be granted the same protection. This case is important in extending judicial protection to those people who are best placed to call attention to mismanagement, and fraud. No argument there.

    I would further argue that criminal proceedings should be possible where the patient didn’t or couldn’t give informed consent to participation in a trial, and was thus entered against their wishes. The right of a patient to make his own health care decisions is or should be a corollary to the basic right to life enshrined in most modern constitutions. Children should be afforded special protection as they cannot normally give informed consent – children and orphans in particular are amongst the most vulnerable members of society.

    However, the findings cannot be construed to provide evidence for a world-wide conspiracy to hide the truth about HIV/AIDS. So i apologise if my question appeared to be a provocation but I couldn’t see how this was relevant to the validity of the basic science.

  124. #124 Richard Jefferys
    May 7, 2007

    http://aras.ab.ca/rethinkers.php

    “Jonathan M. Fishbein. MD. Former Director, Office for Clinical Research Policy at the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) [Thinks Nevirapine is a very dangerous medicine that was approved based on improperly conducted studies. Also doubts that the Hiv tests are valid]”

    And this was someone that spent ten years running trials at Parexel for Big Pharma clients like GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.

    Take a look at the TOC for Parexel’s Bio/Pharmaceutical R&D Statistical Sourcebook 2006/2007

    http://www.mindbranch.com/listing/product/R198-25.html

    GlaxoSmithKline is right up there, Boehringer not even mentioned.

    And it’s kind of odd. If you look at the timeline outlining Fishbein’s concerns on his “honest doctor” website, it mentions concern about the validity of the claim that:

    “nevirapine sustains its advantage over AZT in preventing vertical transmission of HIV after 18 months.”

    And that:

    “President Bush announces a New Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative on 6/19/02, stating specifically that it ‘will support programs that administer a single dose of nevirapine to the mother at the time of delivery, and at least one dose to the infant shortly after birth.’”

    http://www.honestdoctor.org/images/media/TimelineHIVNET012.pdf

    The Honest Doctor website is hosted by Mack Design, “As the founder of MackDesign Studios, Benjamin directs the overall path of the company. Armed with over 6 years in the public and private sector in the fields of interactive technologies and commercial design, he has worked with high profile clients such as the CDC, NIH, Glaxo Smith Kline, MCI Worldcom and the IDFA.”

    It kind of begs the question: has Fishbein ever publicly questioned the safety & efficacy of AZT or Combivir for preventing mother-to-child transmission?

  125. #125 Sascha
    May 7, 2007

    Pat,
    I was about to blast you for carpet posting; but I seem to have had the same problem!

  126. #126 Richard Jefferys
    May 7, 2007

    John Solomon’s reporting simply repeats Jonathan Fishbein’s self-serving version of the documents in question.

    Here is the page on the “Honest Doctor” website that contains the documents:

    http://www.honestdoctor.org/documents.html

    Contrast what they actually say with the website’s representation of them.

    “It seems apparent that both sides behaved badly” – Fishbein doesn’t find a use for that quote.

    What they do not contain – contrary to Kevin’s claims or Solomon’s strong implication – is any kind of blanket endorsement of Fishbein’s complaints (and there is no reference whatsoever to the specific allegations he made about HIVNET012).

    Not too surprisingly, the accuracy of John Solomon’s reporting has been questioned many times before:

    http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/three-more-ap-john-solomon-articles.html
    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/01/post_7.php
    http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/wash-post-ombudsman-slaps-reporter.html
    http://mediamatters.org/items/200602130005

  127. #127 Adele
    May 7, 2007

    Pat, you’re getting so reasonable I’m almost starting to like you in spite of myself. We may even agree on a few things. I’m also worried about you. If you keep writing stuff like this misleading label leads people to believe that HIV is no longer the threat it once was which in return leads to more unprotected sex and thus more infections you’re going to get a rep as “orthodox”. Kevin will be calling you a pharma shill hack idiot who isn’t smart enough to vomit out the window of an elementary school bus.
    I won’t bore other readers by responding to all your points but there’s one.
    I already asked once to refrain from using the term “life saving” when describing HIV drugs because firstly they are at best moderately life extendingi>
    They are life saving drugs because they…..yes, say it with me…..SAVE LIVES. Life extending     is life saving. If you would die on Day X of a disease and a drug lets you live til Day X+20 then the drug has saved your life for 20 days. Or extended your life.
    Another way of seeing it, my uncle (not the murderer, the other one) had some bypasses done. A century ago he would have died within days. Now he might live another twenty years. But unless he’s tight with Elvis, someday he like me and you will die. Likely of a heart problem. So his operation didn’t save his life?
    Or my nephew who pulled a little kid out of a pool as a lifeguard last summer. That kid’ll die anyway of a gunshot or emphysema or cancer. So my nephew didn’t really save his life?
    And how about this? Antiretroviral therapy has reduced mother to child HIV infection to I don’t know about 1 percent in most countries where it’s available. Unlike other places, most kids of infected moms there don’t get HIV, so they also don’t get AIDS, and they don’t die of AIDS. Even if you dispute the drugs save the mother’s life since she might eventually die of AIDS, how is that not life saving for the kid?

  128. #128 pat
    May 7, 2007

    shit, terribly sorry, I was about to try again but I see that it was more than unecessary. I just made this post even looooooooonger

  129. #129 Adele
    May 7, 2007

    Oooh, now I can’t write HTML. Kevin must be right. Back to Kindergarten with me.

  130. #130 Kevin
    May 7, 2007

    “However, the findings cannot be construed to provide evidence for a world-wide conspiracy to hide the truth about HIV/AIDS. So i apologise if my question appeared to be a provocation but I couldn’t see how this was relevant to the validity of the basic science.” — Sascha

    Well, therein, lies the problem. I mean if you can’t see how the attack on Dr. Fishbein is relevant to the “validity” of the basic science, then you are either in denial or you are a dolt.

    Hell, you even provide further incriminating data with the John Solomon quote, and you still don’t see the problem.
    __________________________
    Let’s summarize:

    The AIDS research division is called a “troubled organization” by a inside investigator. Okay. An outside investigator is then hired to examine the situation. He does his job. He finds numerous unprofessional and unscientific practices (those were his words). The top-level officials (Fauci, et al) attempt to cover-up these findings by firing the outside investigator, Dr. Fishbein.

    These top-level officials have so far been spared any public scrutiny on this matter. No doubt because they are being shielded by their ties to Big Pharma. They should have been fired and even brought up on criminal charges. Instead, the unsound practices that Dr. Fishbein encountered have been discovered elsewhere. In fact they are par for the course in HIV research, particularly when it comes to “fast-tracking” new HIV medications. Thankfully, there are at least a few physicians and researchers who are not so easily compromised, and concerned citizens can find out the truth via websites like honestdoctor.org .

    ________________________________

    Incidentally, it should be noted that the findings of Dr. Fishbein were far more professionally compromising than the presence of a little unnecessary feuding and sexually explicit language. As I previously posted, the mission statement of honestdoctor.org addresses the true severity of the findings:

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

    It’s not surprising that one of the main goals of the organization is to ensure scientific integrity, nor is it surprising the such an organization has to remain strictly confidential. After all, people get fired for not going along with the con. If you fail to see how all of this relates to the problems with HIV=AIDS, then you are a true denialist, Sascha. Most of the thousands of HIV studies that are used to defend HIV have been produced in very unsound environments, where studies assume their conclusion and that conclusion almost always confirms that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS, even when the data within the study suggests otherwise ( see Padin, Rodriguez, et al). These studies have built in biases that should make any scientists who values critical thinking, very angry, and when the conclusion does not follow from the data, such deception is nothing short of outrageous.

    You and others on this blog attempt to paint all dissidents as “conspiracy theorists”. Well, that’s bullshit. These are facts, and belief in some great conspiracy theory is not necessary to arrive at the conclusion that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. An honest assessment of the facts is required, and so far, I’ve encountered very few HIV defenders who deal with the facts of this matter, with honesty and with integrity.

    Kevin

    For a humorous look into this very serious subject, readers should check out Jon Rappaport’s witty and insightful take on how the drug companies keep most researchers on a very short lease.

  131. #131 Kevin
    May 7, 2007

    “However, the findings cannot be construed to provide evidence for a world-wide conspiracy to hide the truth about HIV/AIDS. So i apologise if my question appeared to be a provocation but I couldn’t see how this was relevant to the validity of the basic science.” — Sascha

    Well, therein, lies the problem. I mean if you can’t see how the attack on Dr. Fishbein is relevant to the “validity” of the basic science, then you are either in denial or you are a dolt.

    Hell, you even provide further incriminating data with the John Solomon quote, and you still don’t see the problem.
    __________________________
    Let’s summarize:

    The AIDS research division is called a “troubled organization” by a inside investigator. Okay. An outside investigator is then hired to examine the situation. He does his job. He finds numerous unprofessional and unscientific practices (those were his words). The top-level officials (Fauci, et al) attempt to cover-up these findings by firing the outside investigator, Dr. Fishbein.

    These top-level officials have so far been spared any public scrutiny on this matter. No doubt because they are being shielded by their ties to Big Pharma. They should have been fired and even brought up on criminal charges. Instead, the unsound practices that Dr. Fishbein encountered have been discovered elsewhere. In fact they are par for the course in HIV research, particularly when it comes to “fast-tracking” new HIV medications. Thankfully, there are at least a few physicians and researchers who are not so easily compromised, and concerned citizens can find out the truth via websites like honestdoctor.org .

    ________________________________

    Incidentally, it should be noted that the findings of Dr. Fishbein were far more professionally compromising than the presence of a little unnecessary feuding and sexually explicit language. As I previously posted, the mission statement of honestdoctor.org addresses the true severity of the findings:

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

    It’s not surprising that one of the main goals of the organization is to ensure scientific integrity, nor is it surprising the such an organization has to remain strictly confidential. After all, people get fired for not going along with the con. If you fail to see how all of this relates to the problems with HIV=AIDS, then you are a true denialist, Sascha. Most of the thousands of HIV studies that are used to defend HIV have been produced in very unsound environments, where studies assume their conclusion and that conclusion almost always confirms that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS, even when the data within the study suggests otherwise ( see Padin, Rodriguez, et al). These studies have built in biases that should make any scientists who values critical thinking, very angry, and when the conclusion does not follow from the data, such deception is nothing short of outrageous.

    You and others on this blog attempt to paint all dissidents as “conspiracy theorists”. Well, that’s bullshit. These are facts, and belief in some great conspiracy theory is not necessary to arrive at the conclusion that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. An honest assessment of the facts is required, and so far, I’ve encountered very few HIV defenders who deal with the facts of this matter, with honesty and with integrity.

    Kevin

    For a humorous look into this very serious subject, readers should check out Jon Rappaport’s witty and insightful take on how the drug companies keep most researchers on a very short lease.

  132. #132 pat
    May 7, 2007

    “I won’t bore other readers by responding to all your points but there’s one.”

    At my expense, great!

    “If you would die on Day X of a disease and a drug lets you live til Day X+20 then the drug has saved your life for 20 days. Or extended your life”

    So you agree; they may extend your life. To call life extension “life saving” can be misunderstood and is often cited as one of the reasons for growing complacency concerning HIV. I would also add some other reasons for the growing complacency though, but never mind those. Precision is required and it is a scientific discipline after all and HIV/AIDS is enough of a semantic mind f***k as it is. HIV causes AIDS is simple enough but then we have immune deficiency without HIV which isn’t the same as AIDS but we do tolerate AIDS without proof of HIV in poor countries…we have HIV tests and some have AIDS tests, some die of AIDS while others die of OI’s etc etc etc.

    In the case of mother to child transmission, yes one might speak of life saving although the difference in whom the treatment benefits needs to be pointed out; again, precision is vital. I have not really read that it can be reduced to 1% though.

    The bypass and the life guard action go as “life saving” without a doubt seeing death in those cases would have been imminent as opposed to HIV infection. And the murdering uncle, well, he falls very short of the “life saving” mark, I agree.

  133. #133 Sascha
    May 7, 2007

    If the only way you can consider me anything but a dolt or a bullshitter is to agree with everything you say then count me out.
    Every study has a built in bias, it’s called the hypothesis.
    You state that “belief in a conspiracy is not necessary to conclude that HIV is not the cause of AIDS” but earlier you state that this “organisation has to remain strictly confidential” (whatever that means), because they don’t go “along with the con”. A con is a conspiracy. “they are being shielded by their ties to Big Pharma” is also characteristic of a conspiracy.
    Finally I stand by the fact that whatever Fishbein uncovered it does not render the basic science, i.e. the theory that HIV infection can lead to AIDS, invalid. Ich bleibe ein dolt.

  134. #134 Richard Jefferys
    May 7, 2007

    Kevin, you’re completely misrepresenting those documents (as does Jonathan Solomon and the “honest doctor” Fishbein) I sent a couple of replies with links but they’re caught in the spam filter. If you go to the “Honest Doctor” website and click on the “documents” link, this is the main document in question:

    Senior Advisor to Director (Ruth Kirschstein) to Deputy Director, NIH, Management Review, Report, Complaint No. NIAID 2004-0004, August 9, 2004.

    The “honest doctor” represents this as: “Fishbein Vindicated In NIH Director’s Report.”

    The 3 page report does nothing of the sort. It notes that one of the reasons for the souring of relations between Fishbein and Kagan is Fishbein’s failure to produce a strategic plan for his office, describes the dismal behavior that occurred along the way (including the description of DAIDS as a “troubled organization”) and concludes by saying that “it seems apparent that both sides behaved badly” and “it does not appear on the surface to be an EEO issue matter but rather turf battles and rivalries between physicians and Ph. D. scientists, which have been rife for too long.”

    It does not offer any endorsement of Fishbein’s critique of HIVNET012, it only makes a passing reference to the study. And it has certainly nothing to do with “basic science” most of which is done via R01 grants, it’s just about the management of DAIDS.

    I have no idea what you’re referring to by “outside investigator” – can you provide a cite or a link?

    You mention “ties to Big Pharma” – I assume you’re aware that Fishbein was a Vice President of Paraxel for 10 years. Parexel does contract work for the very biggest of Big Pharma: Pfizer, GSK, BMS, etc.

  135. #135 Richard Jefferys
    May 7, 2007

    Kevin wrote:

    Let’s summarize:

    The AIDS research division is called a “troubled organization” by a inside investigator. Okay. An outside investigator is then hired to examine the situation. He does his job. He finds numerous unprofessional and unscientific practices (those were his words). The top-level officials (Fauci, et al) attempt to cover-up these findings by firing the outside investigator, Dr. Fishbein.

    OK, now I get it – I hadn’t realized just how badly mistaken you are. The Kirschstein memo making reference to DAIDS as a “troubled organization” is about the Fishbein situation, it wasn’t written before he was hired. And Fishbein was hired to work for DAIDS, not as an “outside investigator.”

    Also, the AP reporter’s name is John Solomon, my error. If you google his name and look in “sourcewatch,” you’ll find that this case is not the first time that Solomon has been accused of misrepresenting the facts, he has written hit jobs on Harry Reid and John Edwards in the past.

  136. #136 Richard Jefferys
    May 7, 2007

    The difference between the Kirschstein memo and Fishbein’s and John Solomon’s representation of it is so vast that it’s actually shocking – I had somehow missed this part of the story.

    Here is the Kirschstein memo.

    Here is the John Solmon AP story which claims:

    “An internal report to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni substantiated many of Fishbein’s allegations, calling the agency’s AIDS research division “a troubled organization” whose managers engaged in unnecessary feuding, sexually explicit language and other inappropriate conduct that hampered its global fight against the disease.

    The review also concluded NIH’s efforts to fire Fishbein gave the “appearance of reprisal.” The report said no documentation was ever provided to him suggesting poor performance until after he complained about the safety in one sensitive AIDS study and filed a formal complaint alleging that the division’s deputy director was acting unprofessionally with subordinates.”

    I’d draw your attention to a couple of things:

    Most glaringly, note Kirschstein’s actual use of the term “appearance of reprisal” – it appears at the top of page 3 of her memo, in reference to senior management being generally unaware of “concerns about appearance of reprisal.”

    And then look how Solomon deliberately uses the three words out of context and – in nothing short of a lie – claims that the report “concluded NIH’s efforts to fire Fishbein gave the ‘appearance of reprisal.’”!

    Solomon’s phrase “An internal report to NIH chief Elias A. Zerhouni substantiated many of Fishbein’s allegations” is also flagrantly deceitful. It is clearly intended to imply that the report covered the allegations related to HIVNET012. As you can see, it does not. Furthermore, it leaves the judgment on Fishbein’s EEO complaint to the relevant board and just makes general recommendations about management and sensitivity training. It does not exonerate or vindicate Fishbein beyond acknowledging that there was “inappropriate behavior” in terms of bad language and innuendo in communications from the Deputy Director after his relationship with Fishbein had soured.

    Solomon has just been hired by the Washington Post, and their ombudsman has already had to publish a response to reader complaints about his hit piece on John Edwards sale of his home. Why he engaged in these same tactics when reporting Fishbein’s story is an open question.

  137. #137 Sascha
    May 7, 2007

    Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! You were right Kevin, I should have spent more time reviewing the material on the sight you mentioned.
    That the fifth estate has become as trustworthy as big pharma is shocking!

  138. #138 Robster, FCD
    May 7, 2007

    Kevin, I don’t think you understand what “slanderous” actually means. I also think you are mixing up “faith” and “evidence.” Also, your statements regarding the Fishbein case are the definition of conspiracy theory. Your only evidence is circumstantial and threadbare. No wonder the Australian case was tossed out.

  139. #139 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Pat, I agree it’s very unfortunate if anyone thinks antiretroviral drugs are so powerful and convenient that guarding against risk has become optional. Yes drugs will extend your life, or save it if you prefer unless you reserve the word “save” for granting immortality, but there can be side effects and it’s always better not to get HIV to start with. If there are actually people who think this way, their behavior doesn’t damn antiretroviral drugs. Similar to people who think they can eat at the golden arches three meals a day and get morbidly obese since they’ll just get some free and quick heart surgery someday. That’s a plain stupid attitude and it doesn’t mean doctors should stop practicing or praising cardiac procedures.
    To correct one thing you wrote, we do tolerate AIDS without proof of HIV in poor countries. That’s a common misconception but a lie when it’s spread by people who know. This is what Richard Jefferys correctly calls a denialist canard.
    You probably heard this from Duesberg or Maggiore or Farber or Culshaw or rethinking aids or somewhere. Most denialists say it somewhere. They’re wrong. Back in the day when tests weren’t around everywhere, health officials in Africa met in the city Bangui and made the AIDS definition you’re talking about. For the last I don’t know ten years or more most African countries require one test and some require a confirmation test too. That’s for diagnosis of AIDS. Are there any countries that just use the 1980′s Bangui dfenition anymore? I don’t know. Maybe one or two. Most don’t. If you read the denialists though the Bangui definition is used everywhere in Africa and they say if you just have a cough in Africa, you’ll get diagnosed with AIDS.

  140. #140 Sascha
    May 8, 2007

    there are concerns, at least here in Europe, that the existence of “life-saving” HAART therapies may minimise the danger of infection and reverse the progress made in the last decade to raise awareness within the general population. The perception that these drugs actually save your life and drastically the effects of HIV infection on a person’s health, appears to be encouraging behaviour that is considered a risk factor. (see the Lausanne University hospital centre’s publication: EVALUATION DE LA STRATEGIE DE PREVENTION DU VIH/SIDA EN SUISSE
    Septième rapport de synthèse 1999-2003, on the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health site: http://www.bag.admin.ch/evaluation/01759/02062/02243/index.html?lang=en)

    From the point of view of quality of life, a life saving treatment would be expected to return the patient to a health level comparable with that prior to the infection, without the life long dependancy on medication. Generally the treatments available to patients today still carry the risk of grave side effects as well as high costs. Life-saving does appear to create the impression of a cure; still beyond reach today.

    I agree with Pat on the need to maintain the distinction.

  141. #141 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Pat and Sascha, do you understand the terms life and save? What if my nephew pulled the boy out of the pool and resuscitated him, but not before the boy sustained some brain damage? The kid some would say wouldn’t have the same quality of life as before. So my nephew just prolonged his life, he didn’t save it?
    I think you’re confusing “quality of life-saving” and “life-saving”. If a drug or any medical action keeps someone alive, it’s life saving no matter what the “quality” of that life. As if Sascha or anyone else has the right to say what quality someone’s life has.
    HIV drugs save lives. The statistics alone prove it. If some people use that as an excuse to have unprotected sex, they’re misunderstanding.
    Oh, crap, I just spilled coffee on my keyboard. Let me clean it up. I hope I can save it!
    Damn. It still works but the keys are kind of sticky. I guess I didn’t save it, I just prolonged its miserable existence.

  142. #142 pat
    May 8, 2007

    Adele,
    Considering the fact that false positives are rather more common than false negatives, one test alone seems very inadequate whereas here at least two confirmatory tests are required. The rate of false-positives is still way too high with only one. Can you list the countries that require confirmation tests? One commonly available test in some african nations is that ora quick test which was shot out of the sky upon sight in the northwestern hemisphere due to its high unreliability.

    here is a BBC link to an article where they speak of the HIV prevalence hysteria being downgraded:

    news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3379707.stm

    The infection rate in Uganda is still based on estimates from antenatel clinics

    aidsuganda.org

    The canard jeffreys speaks of is his own. Even JP Moore is now getting into the hysteria by guessing that upward of 20% of SA’s black (of course) population is now infected. Who’s going to correct him? Who does this hysteria serve? I find it rather dangerous in that it may plunge entire nations into a state of mass depression where the prevailing attitude simply becomes: “whats the point in living? Let the world bank have it all!”

  143. #143 pat
    May 8, 2007

    ” As if Sascha or anyone else has the right to say what quality someone’s life has.”

    Well clinicians seem to have the right to say the drug’s side effects are still better than the disease, as if they were taking the drugs themselves. As for your computer, if its a lap-top then you have only managed to prolong its miserable life; if its a tower than a bit of surgery and a new key board and it will be as good as new.

  144. #144 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Pat, The thing about antenatal clinics and HIV is another denialist canard. First now it gets confirmed and second it’s not so inaccurate as denialists want you to believe. You need to remember that Duesberg and his rip-offs like Culshaw are working with really old info here. Because if they didn’t they would be out of an ideology. Uganda confirmed antenatal with sero studies a couple decades ago. Lots of countries do it now. Sometimes the pop. stuff gives higher numbers than antenatal, sometimes lower, but always kind of close. The Kenyan result you gave is probably not typical, 15% vs 7 or so. You can read in the article it was a big range by geography so sampling was important. It’s not like you have 20% by antenatal and 0.3% by survey. More like 20 vs 21 or 20 vs 17 and at the extreme 15 vs 7.
    WHO has a list of what African countries require what. I don’t know them all off the top of my head. Plus I’m a stupid Ami! But really only a few still went by the old definition the last time I checked and that was I think years ago. Maybe none do by now, I don’t know.
    Countries where you need confirmation go by seropositive percentage so you can minimize false positives. And remember we’re talking about AIDS diagnosis so you need clinical symptoms and the HIV test or tests.
    Why do you say Jefferys and Moore are wrong about South Africa? Do you have evidence?
    And if some epidemiologist gets a bad, scary result, should they just toss it out? Tell everyone theyre not sick? Give em some religion maybe?

  145. #145 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Well clinicians seem to have the right to say the drug’s side effects are still better than the disease
    No, clinicians say the drug’s side effects are better than dying from the disease. That’s because it’s their job first to save life.

  146. #146 Sascha
    May 8, 2007

    Yes, I do understand the terms life and save. Of course the therapy is more than just life maintaining but it is still a far cry from having saved their lives.
    I don’t pretend to judge someone’s quality of life, but it is in fact an issue. You can’t seriously pretend that someone who is on a course of medication that carries it’s own burden of side effects has the same quality of life as someone who doesn’t need medication to survive. It’s not a question of denying them the quality of life they have a right to, but rather a realistic assessment of the impact of treatment on the patient.
    No doubt it’s better than dying, but a cure that would result in a quality of life comparable to that which they had before is immensely preferable.
    The value of a person’s life does not diminish with the impairement of the quality of their lives. Every human being has an absolute right to life. But this right includes a certain quality of life. Human dignity as it’s core value, then the right to all that which enhances a person’s life: right to health care, right to an education, the right to adequate and accessible food and water and so on. everything that a person needs to fulfill their potential.
    It’s not enough to maintain a life if the basic autonomy and access to resources is not fulfilled. That’s what I mean by quality of life.
    These people have the right to expect our gov’ts to do their utmost to find a cure and not just a palliative treatment regimen.

    Even if it’s the public perception of the efficacity of the available treatment that leads them to minimise the consequences, it is the responsability of public health authorities to continue to educate the public in preventive strategies to avoid the spread of what is still a debilitating desease.

  147. #147 Richard Jefferys
    May 8, 2007

    pat wrote:

    “The canard jeffreys speaks of is his own.”

    No, it is a denialist canard that WHO surveillance is still based on the 1985 Bangui definition. E.g. from an Oct 2006 piece by Celia Farber on “Barnesworld”

    “The definition of AIDS in Africa, known as the Bangui definition, is indistinguishable from the symptoms of tropical diseases and poverty, including TB and malaria. The four main symptoms are: fever, diarrhea, persistent cough, weight loss. Many African countries, Uganda for example, can’t afford any HIV testing. They diagnose ‘AIDS’ by looking at the patient for Bangui symptoms.”

    Note that Farber also states that a surveillance definition is used for diagnosis and blatantly lies about the situation in Uganda. The same canard quacks in Culshaw’s book.

    Furthermore, the studies that demonstrated that shortcomings of the Bangui definition are cited by Duesberg and other denialists as reporting “HIV negative AIDS” cases. So they accept the Bangui definition of AIDS for their purposes by citing the studies that led to it being reassessed in the early 90s.

    The latest WHO recommendations have the following to say about strategies for HIV testing:

    “Oral fluid and urine tests may appear more appealing because they are noninvasive and may present less biological safety concerns than blood collection but are currently not recommended because they lack many of the advantages (ability to distinguish HIV-1 from HIV-2, identifying viral subtypes, establishing antiretroviral drug resistance and application of detuned enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)) offered by blood-based methods (Respess et al., 2001). Further, the results from these type of specimens cannot be confirmed by a second test.”

    And:

    “All laboratory tests, however, can result in false-positive and false-negative results, and UNAIDS, WHO and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have therefore given guidance on conducting multiple confirmatory tests (UNAIDS/WHO, 1999: UNAIDS/WHO Working Group on Surveillance, 2001). HIV testing strategies have been devised by UNAIDS and WHO to maximize the sensitivity and specificity of HIV tests while minimizing costs (UNAIDS/WHO, 1999; UNAIDS/WHO Working Group on Surveillance, 2001; WHO/UNAIDS, 2004b). The number and types of tests recommended in these strategies depend on the reason for the test (surveillance, blood screening or diagnosis) and the level of prevalence in a country. In agreement with propose quality assurance for HIV testing and in order to make testing consistent over time and across countries, UNAIDS and WHO recommend that a second confirmatory test be conducted for all cases in which the first test for HIV is positive. In countries where the prevalence of HIV exceeds 10%, UNAIDS and WHO also recommend doing a second test on 10% of all cases where the first test shows a negative result (UNAIDS, 2004b). The strategy presented in Fig. 2 adds a third test as a confirmatory test when the first two tests are discordant (not in agreement). In countries where HIV-2 exists, the second test should be able to discriminate between HIV-1 and HIV-2. If the first two tests are not in agreement and a third test is not performed, then the HIV test result will be regarded as indeterminate.”

  148. #148 pat
    May 8, 2007

    You are talking about recommendations which fall far short of what is actually being implimented on the field. Considering the amount of money pumped into HIV/AIDS research it is completely unacceptable that Africa still has to face such daunting problems in tracking HIV accurately. Why on earth do they have such trouble getting western standard testing to africa? Why only retest 10% of the first positives in countries with high prevalence rates? Why not all? Maybe because now most african countries have revised rates lower than 10%. What you describe there to me still sounds like a really bad bandaid job. If you tell me it is due to lack of funds then I must wonder where all that money goes. I can tell you that the local AIDS organisation here recieves from the government arount 900’000 sfr a year of which 95% goes to paying the salaries of the activists manning the desks and what do they do? they produce a handfull of poster campaigns a year. I hope you don’t work for a wastefull organisation like that.

    What about Uganda? Some claim it as a success story in tackling HIV infection but how much of that success can be explained through original estimate over-hype? What is the situation in Uganda? tell me.

    “Why do you say Jefferys and Moore are wrong about South Africa? Do you have evidence?
    And if some epidemiologist gets a bad, scary result, should they just toss it out? Tell everyone theyre not sick? Give em some religion maybe?”

    What evidence do they have for the scare? How do they get their bad results? If they had solid evidence they would give it but they are quite happy just tossing it out onto the street and when someone goes “hold on a sec” (like Mbeki) then we just gang up on him for being murderous?
    The Kenyan result is not typical because thay actuall went around and tested a whole swath of people and found the original estimates reached at through antenatal estimates to be way off. It would seem that the idea of antenatal estimates are just plain stupid and should be discontinued.

    “The statistics alone prove it. If some people use that as an excuse to have unprotected sex, they’re misunderstanding.”

    You can be part of the solution or part of the problem. How do you stop the misunderstanding? Well you can start by speaking plainly: There is no cure and the meds really suck! They ruin your liver, disfigure your body, can make you pee and shit in your pants, can give you dangerous rashes, make you dizzy most of the day and may even end up killing you too! thats what the message needs to be.

  149. #149 Richard Jefferys
    May 8, 2007

    pat wrote:

    Why only retest 10% of the first positives in countries with high prevalence rates? Why not all?

    Read it again:

    “UNAIDS and WHO recommend that a second confirmatory test be conducted for all cases in which the first test for HIV is positive. In countries where the prevalence of HIV exceeds 10%, UNAIDS and WHO also recommend doing a second test on 10% of all cases where the first test shows a negative result.”

    I don’t think I’ve ever said anything about SA HIV stats, not sure how I got roped into that. I’d suggest looking for citations in PubMed on SA surveillance data. And Mbeki certainly did far more than question surveillance data.

  150. #150 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Pat you said,
    The Kenyan result is not typical because thay actuall went around and tested a whole swath of people and found the original estimates reached at through antenatal estimates to be way off. It would seem that the idea of antenatal estimates are just plain stupid and should be discontinued.
    A lot of countries have done this and the Kenyan study is the outlier. Sometimes you get higher numbers with testing “a whole swath”. Sometimes lower. Sometimes almost exactly the same. Antenatal clinic results aren’t perfect but nothing else is either and they’re not so bad as you’ve read from Fraber et al.
    What’s the point in arguing about this anyway? Millions of people in Africa are infected. Is it 40? 50? Or “only” 25 million? “Only” 30 million? Is it 15% in Kenya or “only” 7%? 20% in South Africa or “only” 18%? Whatever the “true” numbers, it’s way too many people living with HIV and AIDS. I hope we can agree on that.

    About drugs: who disputes side effects? Anyone? But let’s not exaggerate them either. You make it sound like everyone has multiple really bad side effects. Read a bunch of studies and you’ll see some people don’t report any. Really serious side effects might happen in 10% give or take a few. And the studies don’t claim or prove there’s causation they just report adverse events because that’s how the system works. It’s like that liver nonsense. People with HIV who die of liver disease almost all have hepatitis, but Duesberg and lot blame all liver deaths on HIV drugs. Correlation not causation.

  151. #151 Adele
    May 8, 2007

    Sorry, my numbers up there are worldwide not just for Africa. But you get the point.

  152. #152 pat
    May 8, 2007

    “What’s the point in arguing about this anyway? Millions of people in Africa are infected. Is it 40? 50? Or “only” 25 million? “Only” 30 million? Is it 15% in Kenya or “only” 7%? 20% in South Africa or “only” 18%? Whatever the “true” numbers, it’s way too many people living with HIV and AIDS. I hope we can agree on that.”

    I agree that even 1 is 1 too many…to be poetic about it but when one misrepresents an entire nation as infected the psychological effect alone brings havoc. People look at blacks and their first thought is AIDS, crime, poverty and whatnot. Is it 18% in SA? How can a country have a 20 or even 18% infection rate and AIDS deaths barely rank in the top 20 list of killers? What math do you use? Hunch x Pi?

    You don’t need to read Faber to wonder about the state of affairs. See SA’s total mortality rate for 2003 (I think its the most recent one) and get it from their own ministry of health then go to WHO, NIH or even AIDStruth if you like and get their AIDS death estimates and see how the estimates CANNOT fit in the total mortality, even with a heafty dose of acid they don’t. Now the question is: who’s f*****g with who?

    Really serious side effects in 10% give or take is not a success story. That actually sucks. Who is lowering the bar?

    “People with HIV who die of liver disease almost all have hepatitis, but Duesberg and lot blame all liver deaths on HIV drugs. Correlation not causation.”

    I’ll make sure that I tell my friend this who has HIV but no hepatitis when his liver gives out. Another acquaintance of ours died last june of liver failure due to over medication. She had neither HIV nor hepatitis but a history of swallowing any medication that came to her…this is what the hospital staff said. She died of liver failure caused by drug toxicity. plain and simple. Liver failure due to drug toxicity is a reality not a fabrication.

  153. #153 Sascha
    May 8, 2007

    It really doesn’t matter! Forget I said anything.

  154. #154 pat
    May 8, 2007

    “It really doesn’t matter! Forget I said anything”

    You said it now stick out like a sore thumb! It is nice to be agreed with once on substance and not disagreed with out of habit.

  155. #155 DT
    May 9, 2007

    Pat, you mentioned earlier: “One commonly available test in some african nations is that ora quick test which was shot out of the sky upon sight in the northwestern hemisphere due to its high unreliability.”

    This is a prime example of the denialist mindthink. Find an issue over which there was minor uncertainty, then blow it out of all proportion and pretend that the truth lies where you wish it to be.

    This is what the CDC reported to the recent CROI meeting about the reliability of the test following reports from 3 (yes, only three) centres in the whole of the USA with higher than expected false positivity. (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/523083):

    DENVER (Reuters Health) Feb 07 – Recent reports of the inaccuracy of the OraQuick Advance HIV 1/2 Rapid Antibody test that uses oral fluids are not supported by an extensive review of post-marketing data, several large studies, and on-site testing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The OraQuick test was found to have a 99.6% specificity using oral fluids, compared with a 99.9% specificity when the test was conducted using whole blood samples. This is above the US Food and Drug Administration’s minimum threshold of 98% specificity for rapid HIV tests.

    The higher than expected false-positive results were confined to a few test sites, lead investigator Dr. Bernard Branson of the CDC told participants here at the 13th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

    “Our reading of the data is that there is no reason to question the use of this test,” Dr. Branson said.
    In March 2004, the FDA approved the OraQuick HIV test. However, during 2005, test sites in San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles reported an excessive level of false positives using the OraQuick HIV test and some sites stopped using it. In December, OraSure Technologies, Inc. announced it was cooperating with an investigation in response to reports questioning the test’s accuracy.
    When the investigators looked at four studies of the OraQuick test in which 12,010 HIV-negative subjects were tested, they found the specificity to be 99.6%. The results of post-marketing surveillance at 17 sites found a median specificity of 99.98%. An excess of false-positives was not seen at numerous other test sites in the same cities that used the same test lot.

    Possible explanations include use of the test after its expiration date or improper handling – the test is temperature sensitive, Dr. Branson told conference attendees.

    Overall, “the test works pretty well,” Dr. Kevin de Cock of the CDC said

    I’d really like it if you were truthful about things, and not rely on misinformation you get from denialist propaganda.

  156. #156 pat
    May 9, 2007

    is it then in use now in the us?

  157. #157 Adele
    May 9, 2007

    Pat,
    Really serious side effects in 10% give or take is not a success story. That actually sucks. Who is lowering the bar?
    As I said, a reported side effect is not necessairly caused by the medication. It’s just reported. If you’re in a drug trial and you eat some bad sushi and get sick, it gets reported. To be on the safe side. It takes a lot more work to prove the meds are involved and how they’re involved. No one’s lowering a bar!
    Pat, really. Find someone dying of a disease and tell them, here’s a drug. It has a 10% chance of giving you a nasty side effect like severe diarrhea usually these go away after the first month you take it, and there’s a 5% chance you’ll get annoying tingling in your feet so we might have to adjust the dosage or switch you to a related drug. And you can’t rule out other rarer side effects. But there’s also a good chance instead of dying in a few months or a year you’ll live to vote for Hillary. Twice.
    How many people do you think would take the drug? I read an article about this question and I’ll try to find the reference, but these people found terminal patients would tolerate a lot of even debilitating side effects and a lot of expense for even a tiny increase in their chance of survival. Antivirals do hell of a lot better than that, and they’re getting better all the time. That’s because everyone in pharma and medicine has a goal, zero side effects, but unlike you they won’t trash a good if imperfect drug until something better comes along the pipeline.

  158. #158 Adele
    May 9, 2007

    Pat,
    Yes, the OraQuick Advance oral fluid HIV test is in use throughout the US. In fact, it qualified for a Food and Drug Administration “CLIA waiver”. What does that mean?
    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several rapid HIV tests as waived tests under CLIA. Waived tests must use unprocessed specimens (whole blood or oral fluid), be easy to use, and have little risk of an incorrect result. So far, more than 1,400 test systems have been waived.
    Note the “have little risk of an incorrect result”.

  159. #159 Adele
    May 9, 2007

    Sorry, the source for that quote:
    http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/testing/resources/factsheets/roltCLIA.htm

  160. #160 DT
    May 9, 2007

    AFAIK the OraQuick test has been in constant use except where the centres involved withdrew it for a while, but not being US based I am not sure. The guidelines say that after a positive oral test there should be confirmation by a blood test, usually a finger prick (so what is your problem with this?)

    The point is that the test is very accurate and reliable when used properly. Some problems with it in a few centres have triggered an HIV-denialist reponse that “the tests were useless”, or were a “massive fraud” (on Hank Barnes’ blog) and this is confirmed by your own posting, which I hope you now admit is extremely wide of the mark.

    Still, the denialists always stick to the same MO, and knowing that the problems with the test have been resolved and that it has a specificity of 99.98% will not prevent them carping on about the inaccuracy of HIV tests and forevermore quoting this as an example, even when they know they are lying.

  161. #161 DT
    May 9, 2007

    AFAIK the OraQuick test has been in constant use except where the centres involved withdrew it for a while, but not being US based I am not sure. The guidelines say that after a positive oral test there should be confirmation by a blood test, usually a finger prick (so what is your problem with this?)

    The point is that the test is very accurate and reliable when used properly. Some problems with it in a few centres have triggered an HIV-denialist reponse that “the tests were useless”, or were a “massive fraud” (on Hank Barnes’ blog) and this is confirmed by your own posting, which I hope you now admit is extremely wide of the mark.

    Still, the denialists always stick to the same MO, and knowing that the problems with the test have been resolved and that it has a specificity of 99.98% will not prevent them carping on about the inaccuracy of HIV tests and forevermore quoting this as an example, even when they know they are lying.

  162. #162 DT
    May 9, 2007

    AFAIK the Oraquick test has been in constant use except where the centres involved withdrew it for a while, but not being US based I am not sure. The guidelines say that after a positive oral test there should be confirmation by a blood test, usually a finger prick (so what is your problem with this?)

    The point is that the test is very accurate and reliable when used properly. Some problems with it in a few centres have triggered an HIV-denialist reponse that “the tests are useless”, or are a “massive fraud” (Hank Barnes’ blog) and this is confirmed by your own posting, which I hope you now admit is extremely wide of the mark.

    Still, the denialists always stick to the same MO, and knowing that the problems with the test have been resolved and that it has a specificity of 99.98% will not prevent them carping on about the “inaccuracy” of HIV tests. This particular canard has entered denialist mythology, and they will forevermore quote it as an example, even when they know they are lying.

  163. #163 kevin
    May 9, 2007

    Censorship is certainly one way to win an argument but it is hardly commendable.

    I’ve tried unsuccessfully to post on this site for the passed couple days — both with and without embedded links — yet, I cannot do so from either of two pcs that I regularly use. I keep getting a message saying either my cookie settings are the problem or that my IP address has been block for malacious behavior. I guess exposing the numerous weaknesses in the orthodox position could be construed as “malicious behavior”, if you are a spineless hack like so many of the regular posters to this blog.

    A good friend was nice enough to allow me to test post from his pc, and low and behold, there doesn’t seem to be a problem. Go figure.

    Kevin

    I guess the meek shall inherit this blog, before they get the rest of the planet.

  164. #164 Richard Jefferys
    May 9, 2007

    That’s great Kevin, perhaps you can walk us through the Kirschstein memo now and explain your earlier claims about it?

  165. #165 Tara C. Smith
    May 9, 2007

    Kevin, I’ve not changed any settings, nor have I ever banned an IP address. Some other Sciencebloggers have, though, and I don’t know if it’s the same one you’re using or not. If you drop me an email with your address I can ask our tech guru if it’s on the banned list. Additionally, we’ve been having some technical issues anyway; bloggers getting 500 errors when they post, and comments being posted multiple times, so it might not even be an IP block but just a glitch in the site right now.

  166. #166 pat
    May 10, 2007

    the mail goes through science blog general server and are then passed on to the individual blogs; I doubt its taras fault. that said,
    The ora quick test are not used as general tests, they are used as orientation tests where quick diagnosis is needed; for example hospital staff pricking themselves and needing quick intevention with ARVs. They are not, as all agree, a diagnosis test; they definitly need back up testing. Who here, outside the lab has been offered an oraquicktest as standard HIV testing? Not on this side of the pond.

    “As I said, a reported side effect is not necessairly caused by the medication. It’s just reported. If you’re in a drug trial and you eat some bad sushi and get sick, it gets reported”

    I’ll start my own company and when shit looks bad I’ll blame it on sushi, thanks for the tip.

    “Pat, really. Find someone dying of a disease and tell them, here’s a drug. It has a 10% chance of giving you a nasty side effect like severe diarrhea usually these go away after the first month you take it, and there’s a 5% chance you’ll get annoying tingling in your feet so we might have to adjust the dosage or switch you to a related drug. And you can’t rule out other rarer side effects. But there’s also a good chance instead of dying in a few months or a year you’ll live to vote for Hillary. Twice.”

    First off you bening the side effects; severe diarrhea? Annoying tingling? Do you actually know people with HIV? Whats a good chance? By how much are you really beating the disease? Not by much I say. They say twelve years on average with HIV and no meds; my friend is now 13 years on meds and his liver is about to give out so bad that his doc reduced his meds to one pill. I call that a crappy deal because, to be cynical, he could have done without and saved himself a hellava lot of dough to pass on to his kids. He will need a liver transplant some day soon. Docs always win.

  167. #167 DT
    May 10, 2007

    Pat, your friend’s story sounds incomplete. Does he have hepatitis B or C coinfection? Does he drink? These are the usual causes for liver problems in those with HIV, although the drugs could have had some part to play (depending on which ones he had). It is extremely unusual to be told to reduce dose of medication to “one pill” because of liver problems – the doses are not usually altered with this.
    What “pill” is he on? I suspect you haven’t got all the necessary facts to turn around and blame the meds IMHO.
    Also, he has been on meds for 13 years – but how long has he had HIV for? Is it 15, 20, 25 years? Remember that with therapy the predicted average survival is 35 years, and that is from starting therapy and not from acquiring HIV. Also recall that average survival is just that- an average. So for every patient with less than expected survival there will be another who survives for longer than expected. If your friend doesn’t live as long as he or his doctor hoped he might, that is very unfortunate, but is just part of the law of averages. To base one’s assessment of HIV drugs on the anecdote of one man’s experience is not a valid way of considering the risks and benefits of treatment.
    I had a friend who did not survive his first induction course of chemotherapy for leukaemia. I cannot recall, but chemo toxicity may have been a factor. His leukaemia “survival” was only one month. That doesn’t mean chemo is useless – in fact it is usually curative.
    The plural of anecdotes is not evidence, and for every anecdoteal case you might mention to try and prove a point, I could mention dozens to show the opposite (I look after over 200 HIV patients as part of my job)

  168. #168 Sascha
    May 10, 2007

    It would depend what the point your trying to make is. If in fact your disputing the usefulness of a therapy, then yes the plurality of “anecdotes” is not evidence. But if the point is to show that the secondary effects of a course of therapy can impact the quality of life of a patient then every single anecdote is evidence of a patient suffering from a lowered quality of life.
    Denying that there are people who are suffering from the secondary effects seems absurd. And ascribing all secondary effects in fact to lifestyle choices appears just as absurd. But I may be mistaken. Are secondary effects an urban myth?

  169. #169 Richard Jefferys
    May 10, 2007

    I don’t see anyone denying the existence of side effects. And DT wrote:

    Pat, your friend’s story sounds incomplete. Does he have hepatitis B or C coinfection? Does he drink? These are the usual causes for liver problems in those with HIV, although the drugs could have had some part to play (depending on which ones he had)

    Mystifyingly, Sascha mischaracterized this as:

    ascribing all secondary effects in fact to lifestyle choices

    Why the mischaracterization?

    Quality of life can be studied using validated survey instruments, this is a field of research. Anecdotally, I have known people undergo treatment interruptions, some did fine and felt that their quality of life was improved, others experienced the negative effects of inflammation resulting from immune activation and felt awful. Nevertheless, based on the totality of anecdotes I’d have predicted that the quality of life substudy in the SMART treatment interruption trial would have found that, on average, quality of life improved during a treatment interruption. Disappointingly, this did not turn out to be the case.

    And pat’s postings are problematic for a number of reasons – on what basis is pat deciding his friends liver is giving out? Elevated liver enzymes? Has he had a liver biopsy, been assessed for fibrosis and received a Child-Pugh score? Making a comparison with an HIV negative person that overdosed on prescription drugs is spurious. And pat’s pessimistic assessmemt of the survival benefits of antiretroviral therapy is based on “I say.”

  170. #170 Adele
    May 10, 2007

    Who is denying there are secondary effects? I’ve said they’re not all necessarily due to the meds. Some people have them, and the side effects suck, they might even make people stop taking treatment. Other people have them, and they tolerate them well. Still others don’t have side effects of great consequence.
    35 years of life versus 12 or 13? Yes, it’s an average, people. What would you choose? What hell do you think most people would go through to double their remaining years? Some want to die right now or when things get bad, but most people want to live and they’ll do anything to. A lot of people even want to be kept alive as long as possible if they go into a coma.
    Patients should be given the information on side effects and allowed to make their choice. Oh, wait, that’s how we do it now.
    It cracks me up how Pat wants to make that decision for people he doesn’t know, do you want to outlaw all testing and drugs Pat, and how others want to define whether someone should live or die based on the “quality” of their life. Sure someone gets a headache for a few days, so let’s take away their drugs and let’em die. Better for them anyway, right? They’re suffering. Survival of the fittest. What complete crap.

  171. #171 DT
    May 10, 2007

    Sascha, you have misquoted/misinterpreted me, as Richard Jefferys has pointed out. Regarding anecdotes, of course single examples can demonstrate certain facts or prove a point. If I denied that the drugs had a secondary effect (which I don’t), then a single verifiable example of such an effect is proof that I am wrong.

    We are however discussing the “usefulness of a therapy” as you put it, so yes, you and I agree; An anecdote of someone possibly experiencing a reaction to therapy is insufficient cause to dismiss the drugs as being helpful. Risk/benefit is what it always comes down to, as with every single drug on the planet.

    You imply I am “ascribing all secondary effects in fact to lifestyle choices [which] appears just as absurd”. I cannot repeat myself often enough – liver abnormalities in HIV patients are mostly due to the effects of coinfection with Hep C and B (call those lifestyle choices if you will) and alcohol ingestion. Those are the facts, and no amount of disinformation by denialists to claim it is the drugs that are killing everyone through liver toxicity can change them.

  172. #172 Sascha
    May 10, 2007

    Ok! Thank you all for the clarifications. There is no argument that the choice must be based on the informed consent of the patient, and that generally they will choose the therapy because it does prolong their lives.
    And yes I apologise for misrepresenting the statements, it was more a reaction to what I percieved as “heightened sensitivity to possible denialist canard syndrom”. Not all disagreement is a denialist attack. So, Adele take a deep breath and relax.
    That quality of life – on average – did not rise during treatment interruptions, does not exclude that some did experience a betterment. (Does that word exist?)
    When you are confronted with a good friend who is slowly wasting away, it is difficult to remain cool and reasonable. Pat may be misinformed in some ways but he has his friends interest at heart, not some hidden stalinist agenda.
    I have friends that are being treated for other ailments who are also suffering from the secondary effects of their treatment. It doesn’t invalidate the treatment per se – although it might cause the treating doctor to revise his prescription. And giving these people a bunch of statistics about how on average this shouldn’t happen is cruel at best.

  173. #173 Richard Jefferys
    May 10, 2007

    Sascha wrote:

    giving these people a bunch of statistics about how on average this shouldn’t happen is cruel at best.

    But nobody in this thread is doing that, or suggesting that it should be done, either. I’m increasingly confused as to why you keep misrepresenting what people are writing.

  174. #174 Sascha
    May 10, 2007

    No I was not misrepresenting anything stated in this thread, I did not ascribe these statements to anyone. It was merely my personal take on what the reaction of my friend would be if I presented them with these statistics. And no, no one proposed I do such a thing.
    Everybody seems very touchy! I apologise again and profusely if any of you feel offended by what I write. But I can’t and won’t qualify every statement with a waiver and disclaimer.

  175. #175 y'ello
    May 10, 2007

    Sorry I took so long to respond over the p24AG antigen test results for Eliza Jane Scovill.

    http://www.aegis.org/conferences/IASHIVPT/2005/MoPe15-2C02.html

    By the by, you college kids wanna make easy money?Check out
    Christine’s site.25 grand would pay off a year or three of loans.Plus an additional $25 grand to a charity that feeds starving third worlders will be meted out.

    http://www.aliveandwell.org/

    Alive & Well $50,000 Fact Finder Award
    Find One Study, Save Countless Lives
    Non-profit education, research and support network offers money in exchange for missing science
    PDF
    http://www.AliveandWell.org
    Tel 877-411-AIDS, 818-780-1875

    Alive & Well will present a cash award of $25,000 to the first person to locate a study that provides us with missing evidence about the accuracy of HIV tests, and in celebration of this important finding, will donate an additional $25,000 to Heifer International, a unique charity working to end hunger in the developing world using a holistic approach to building sustainable communities.

    The missing evidence we’re looking for is a study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that shows the validation of any HIV test by the direct isolation of HIV from the fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues of positive testing persons.

    Since no HIV test directly detects HIV itself, and since the tests currently used to diagnose HIV infection rely on surrogate markers such as antibodies or genetic material, a study should exist somewhere in the published medical literature which shows that at least one type of surrogate test for HIV has been validated for accuracy by the direct isolation of HIV itself from people who test antibody, RNA or DNA positive.

    The $50,000 offered through Alive & Well will be paid by two anonymous donors committed to the possibility of integrity in AIDS science and to creating a world in which no one goes hungry. Award funds will be disbursed within 30 days of presentation of the required evidence as described above.

    For each month the award remains uncollected, Alive & Well founder Christine Maggiore, will make a personal donation to Heifer International (www.heifer.org) whose work resolves the most prevalent cause of disease and death in Africa: poverty and malnutrition.

    The Fact Finder Award expires on April 23, 2009, the 25-year anniversary of the historic announcement by the US Department of Health and Human Services that HIV had been found.

    Potential participants should note that detection of other surrogate markers not mentioned in this text (reverse transcriptase, p24, etc) or the presence of “retrovirus-like particles” in co-culture do not substitute for evidence of direct isolation of HIV from fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues.

    Can a study that validates HIV tests really be missing from the medical literature?

    That’s what we want to find out. It’s been 23 years since the discovery of HIV and the development and marketing of the HIV antibody test, yet it appears that no study ever validated HIV tests by the direct isolation of HIV from persons who test positive or have a “viral load.” As far as we can tell, the accuracy of the HIV antibody tests used around the world to say someone is infected with HIV has never been properly established, and there’s no information in the published medical literature showing how many positive tests occur in the absence of infection with HIV.

    What would a validation study prove?

    The accuracy of an antibody or other surrogate test for a virus can only be established by verifying that positive results are found only in people who actually have the virus. This standard for determining accuracy was not met in 1984 when the first HIV antibody test was developed. To this day, positive HIV antibody screening tests (ELISAs) are verified by a second antibody test of unknown accuracy (HIV Western Blots) or by “viral load,” another unvalidated test.

    A validation study would prove the ethical and scientific basis for the practice of telling people who test antibody, DNA or RNA positive that they are infected with HIV. Without evidence of validation by direct isolation of the virus, a diagnosis of HIV infection rests on unverified beliefs and unfounded assumptions.

    Is a validation study worth $50,000?

    To us, $50,000 is a small price to pay for scientific validation that HIV tests give positive results only to people who actually have the virus.

    Current HIV tests signal the presence of antibodies that react with an assortment of proteins associated with HIV, however, none of these proteins, are unique or specific to HIV. Without a validation study, no honest, well-informed doctor can say with any degree of certainty that someone who tests positive actually has the virus.

    Why can’t “viral load” tests be used to validate HIV antibody tests?

    Like HIV antibody tests, viral load tests are not able to directly detect HIV itself. Instead, these tests detect only fragments of genetic material (DNA or RNA) associated with HIV. To date, we have not found a study showing that the DNA or RNA attributed to HIV is found only in people who are actually infected with HIV using direct isolation as a gold standard to determine true infection.

    In fact, viral load tests carry disclaimers stating they are “not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic to confirm the presence of HIV infection” (Roche Amplicor viral load test).

    Why isn’t an antibody test that’s verified by another antibody test good enough to say someone is infected with HIV?

    The rationale for the use of antibody tests is that the immune system has the ability to detect foreign agents or viruses and to respond by producing antibodies that react with those agents or viruses. However, this rationale does not work in reverse. That is, the observation of an antibody reaction with a particular agent or virus does not prove that the antibody was produced in response to that particular agent or virus.

    The problem with using antibodies alone to indicate infection with a particular agent or virus is that antibodies engage in indiscriminate relationships with a variety of agents or viruses. One could say that antibodies are “promiscuous,” that is, antibodies meant for one agent or virus may react with another agent or virus that is a perfect stranger. Or, to put it technically, there is ample evidence that antibody molecules, even the most pure (monoclonal antibodies) are not mono-specific, and that they cross-react with other, non-immunizing antigens.

    What does all this mean?

    What this means is that people do not necessarily have the virus that their antibodies may appear to suggest they have. Here are some examples of how misleading antibody tests can be:

    1) People can have positive antibody responses to certain laboratory chemicals, but this does not mean they are infected with laboratory chemicals.

    2) People vaccinated for polio will test positive for antibodies to polio even though they don’t have polio.

    3) People exposed to TB will test antibody positive for TB but this does not necessarily mean they are currently infected with TB.

    4) The test for glandular fever measures antibody response to red blood cells of sheep and horses, but a positive test does not mean that someone is infected with sheep or horse blood, or that animal blood causes glandular fever.

    From these few examples, we understand why antibody response alone cannot determine if someone is infected with a particular virus.

    What’s the solution to the problems with HIV antibody tests?

    Since antibody reactions can come from more than one possible cause, scientists need more information before they can claim that an antibody reaction alone means a person is actually infected with a particular virus. Long before the HIV test was introduced into routine clinical practice, scientists needed to prove that a positive test means that HIV itself is present, too. This is especially important given the profound implications of testing HIV positive. People’s lives literally depend on the specificity of HIV tests.

    What is specificity?

    In this case, the formal, mathematical definition of specificity is the number of negative tests in a large group of individuals who do not have HIV infection. If 100% of 1,000 people who do not have HIV infection also test antibody negative, the specificity of the antibody test is 100%. If one uninfected person tests antibody positive, the specificity of the test is reduced to 99.9% (999/1000) due to the single false positive result.

    As far as we know, the specificity of HIV tests has not been established in this very necessary scientific manner.

    Is specificity the same as accuracy? How is the accuracy for an HIV test determined?

    A study that establishes the sensitivity and specificity of an HIV test would provide a scientific basis for claims of accuracy.

    Sensitivity + Specificity = Accuracy

    To determine the sensitivity of an HIV antibody test, researchers need to establish the numbers of persons with positive tests, and the number among those who also have HIV infection as determined by the direct isolation of HIV from their fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues.

    Conversely, to determine the specificity of an HIV antibody test, researchers need to establish the numbers of persons with negative tests, and the number among those who also have no HIV infection.

    How did AIDS experts arrive at the specificity of the HIV antibody tests used today?

    According to the medical literature on AIDS, the specificity of HIV antibody tests has been evaluated by testing healthy individuals such as blood donors. Because these individuals are healthy, it’s assumed that negative antibody test results mean they don’t have HIV, and because few if any of these people test positive, AIDS experts use this information to claim that the antibody tests are highly specific. This evaluation is the wrong type of experiment from which to draw such conclusions for two reasons.

    First, healthy people do not have a large number or a variety of antibodies to react with the test, so there are not enough antibodies available to measure the propensity for unwanted reactions. Second, good health cannot be used as a substitute measure for the absence of HIV infection any more than good health can be used as a substitute measure for the absence of kidney stones, pregnancy, cerebral aneurysms, pathogenic bacteria or coronary artery disease.

    What is the correct solution to the problem of distinguishing who is and who is not HIV infected?

    According to Dr Valendar Turner (www.theperthgroup.com), a medical doctor who has examined the problems with HIV tests, “The solution is obvious, scientifically speaking. You have to use HIV itself to validate the tests. To do this, you must take two samples from each person in a study and divide the two blood samples from each person in two groups: One sample to test for the antibody reactions and the other to try to directly isolate HIV. To know what the HIV antibody tests tell you about HIV infection, you then compare the reactions (positive tests) with what you are trying to find or measure (actual virus). The only way to distinguish between real reactions and false reactions (cross-reactions) is to use direct isolation of HIV as an independent yardstick or gold standard.”

    What would the results of such an isolation experiment show?

    The results of such an experiment would show how many of an appropriately chosen group people from whom HIV cannot be isolated have a positive antibody reaction anyway. This would tell us how many positive antibody tests occur in the absence of HIV infection.

    Without validation by direct isolation of the virus from the fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues of people who test positive, AIDS experts cannot know what positive and negative test results actually indicate.

    That there appears to be no data establishing the accuracy of HIV tests is particularly concerning given that people who test positive are said to be infected with a fatal, incurable virus and treated as if this were an indisputable truth.

    Why is it called a Fact Finder Award?

    What we want to find meets the dictionary definition of a fact, which is:

    1. Something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened.

    2. The truth or actual existence of something, as opposed to the supposition of something or a belief about something.

    3. A piece of information such as a statistic or a statement of the truth.

    4. The circumstances of an event, motion, occurrence, or state of affairs, rather than an interpretation of its significance.

    5. Something that is based on or concerned with the evidence presented in a legal case.

    In our search of the published medical literature, we have not found actual existence of evidence showing that popular interpretations of the significance of HIV tests are scientifically validated, and that suppositions and beliefs about the accuracy of HIV tests are scientifically correct. In exchange for a fact–a piece of information that shows statistics and statements are true–we will award the finder. Hence, the “Fact Finder Award.”

    (Definition of “fact” is from Encarta Dictionary, 2007 edition)

    If a study that validates HIV tests may not exist, what’s the point of offering the award?

    We hope a monetary incentive will motivate someone to find a study we’ve missed or to inspire a group of AIDS researchers to create one that hasn’t happened.

    The spirit of the Fact Finder Award is win-win. Anyway it goes, everyone will benefit from questions and concerns about HIV tests being addressed in a forthright, scientific manner.

    With this in mind, we invite you to join an effort that’s good for one and all by passing this offer on to AIDS doctors, AIDS scientists, AIDS organizations, AIDS activists and celebrity spokespersons, journalists, teachers, medical students, or anyone who wants to help Heifer International end hunger and poverty in developing world by building sustainable communities.

  176. #176 Chris Noble
    May 11, 2007

    Y’ello, honestly, what do you think the probability is that Christine Maggiore will ever change her mind and accept that HIV exists, the tests are highly accurate, HIV causes AIDS and I let my own daughter die from HIV infection?

    We’ve already had the Jody Wells Memorial Prize and the Huw Christie Memorial Prize. Both of these “rethinkers” were infected with HIV and died from AIDS. Shouldn’t this cause some “rethinkers” to rethink?

    That these prizes were not offered honestly was proved when Duesberg tried to claim the money. I somehow think that scientists will not bother attempting to “prove” something to people who are not willing to accept evidence.

  177. #177 Adele
    May 11, 2007

    y’ello, in how many weeks was it? you managed to find one example of cross reactivity between anti-p24 antibodies and some non-p24 antigen in a patient. Hint, there are a few other examples, too. But none of the few examples proves p24 cross-reactivity is widespread. And please remember the coroner’s people did control slides to rule out the remote possibility in the EJ situation.
    Unfortunately, EJ’s health problems were ignored and she was neglected so long she died and so responsible doctor’s won’t ever be able to confirm or throw out her diagnosis by the methods reported in your Brazilian conference abstract. Her symptoms and how the CDC diagnosis criteria was met with the tissue antigen sample really scream “HIV and AIDS”, not “ALL of this is just a weird coincidence set with NOTHING to do with the mother’s HIV”.
    People like y’llo and Maggiore deny the evidence forever because the truth they let a little girl die because of their own nutty AIDS denial hurts too much.

  178. #178 Adele
    May 11, 2007

    Please please I BEG you all to ignore the fraudulent money “reward” from Christine Maggiore and her “people who are still alive and well” group. They’ve got ulterior motives. I don’t know what they are, but Chris Noble is absolutely right, they’re not legititmate.
    If that neo-Nazi group that puts up Culshaw’s stuff came out with a reward for anyone who could prove white people aren’t genetically superior, I wouldn’t respond. I hope no one else would either. It would just legitimize them.
    Sorry, but I put “Alive and Well” in that same loony bin. These are people who encourage HIV positive mothers to breastfeed their babies and give anti-treatment advice to everyone. And they pretend their objective. Please. And then there are people like AlBayati on their board who offer other treatments. Conflict, maybe. There’s something real fishy here.
    So please ignore this little “contest” if you care about people who suffer from HIV infection and AIDS.

  179. #179 Robster, FCD
    May 11, 2007

    By medically neglectful mother’s guidelines, what virus could be proved to cause any disease?

  180. #180 Robster, FCD
    May 11, 2007

    BTW, when you see an error when you submit (other than the held for moderator one), hit the back button on your browser, then hit refresh. If your comment is up, no need to repost.

  181. #181 kyle
    May 11, 2007

    Adele.
    Ej had a cold and an ear infection for a couple of weeks only,she had perfect health before that. She only became very ill after she had taken anti-biotics.
    So you are saying HIV can now destroy the immune system in a matter of weeks.
    Ask yourself why won’t the L.A. coroner release the HIV test results.
    Also if you believe that HIV is easily transmissable, why has’nt her husband or her son been diagnosed positive.

  182. #182 Robster, FCD
    May 11, 2007

    Kyle, EJ was in poor health, not “perfect”. He immune system was already weak. It didn’t disappear over a few weeks. She had low weight for her age, and she was sick before she was prescribed antibiotics. If the doctors had tested EJ for HIV, they might have cought the PCP early enough to treat it properly. I doubt that her mother would have accepted the diagnosis, as wedded as she is to her pseudoscience. More likely, the prescription to treat PCP would have gone unfilled and nothing would have changed, unless EJ had been taken away from her parents. At the autopsy, PCP was found in her lungs with congestion and consolidation, along with HIV encephalitis and heavy staining for HIV p24 in the brain. Steatosis of the liver (fatty liver) was also found, and is typical of pediatric AIDS.

    As to the HIV status of her son, he got lucky. His percentage chance of contracting HIV via perinatal or exposure via breast milk was not 100%. Regarding her husband, I don’t know his status, or his testing history. Again, stats show that some individuals don’t catch HIV despite repeated exposure.

  183. #183 Dale
    May 11, 2007

    I don’t think there’s any way of knowing with any degree of certainty, the state of EJ’s health prior to her death. What is clear though is that her parents had a strong incentive for perceiving her to be in ‘perfect’ health and for believing that antibiotics were responsible for her death. Because if it wasn’t antibiotics then it was their choices and what parent would want to believe that?

  184. #184 Adele
    May 12, 2007

    Kyle, Robster and Dale answered your questions. Probably for the twentieth time. I guess you know but you can’t accept. Like, the coroner did release the test results. Have you been reading this thread? Antigen in tissue counts for diagnosis by the CDC. Or, did you ever read Nick Bennett’s response to alBayti the alive and well shill-hack to combine Kevin’s favorite words? The antibiotic theory is like saying the yeti is causing global warming because of all its fur. Read Bennett’s report at aids truth or on Bennetts site aidsmyth.
    I can just add to R and D, doctors tell me PCP is sometimes hard to diagnose. That’s why it’s so important to know if a child’s at risk for HIV so you can know what to look for. Also why precautionary treatment against PCP is used so much now in infants and it reduces mortality. Pointless to speculate maybe but if EJ’s doctor had done what most doctors would do, she would probably be alive and well today like so many well-treated HIV kids. Lots of them without rich parents and her access to medicine.
    Sorry, there’s no excuse for someone in medicine who knows a mother is infected and doesn’t test a child in their care or look for signs of disease. What did the doctor know and when are my questions?

  185. #185 Adele
    May 12, 2007

    Kyle for the wrong reasons you’re right about the immune system getting destroyed in a few weeks although destroyed might not be the right word, compromised is better.
    But I didn’t come up with that. It’s based on research from a lot of good scientists. When a person is infected the biggest immune organ in your body gets the snot beaten out of it in like days and weeks. That’s the gut. So your T-cells there get killed or damaged massively. You don’t usually see them decline in the blood right away or until years later. But that early damage in the gut devastates. It sets the stage. The immune system is compromised in days and doesn’t really recover ever.
    So, yeah, an important part of EJ’s immune system was destroyed in the days, weeks after infection maybe at birth or in feeding. And that immune problem just got worse in the next years and AIDS set in and wasn’t treated and got out of control. Very, very sad and tragic and so so preventable. I hope anyone who’s reading this thread will not get caught in some ideology trap and instead get their own kids tested for HIV if they have it themselves and avoid more unecessary deaths.

  186. #186 y'ello
    May 12, 2007

    “y’ello, in how many weeks was it? you managed to find one example of cross reactivity between anti-p24 antibodies and some non-p24 antigen in a patient.”

    Been a few days, and I didn’t spend a week, just two minutes on google.(I do have a life unlike most of the rest of the board here it seems)

    “Hint, there are a few other examples, too.”

    Indeed!

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2499039&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2902864&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2503943&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2567091&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=8607152&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=2649189&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Display&itool=abstractplus&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=2501931

    http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102223351.html

    http://www.lymphomation.org/story-graham.htm

    http://aras.ab.ca/test-discordance.html

    And my absolute favourite….

    http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/5/1659

    In which……..

    Division of AIDS, Center for Immunology and Pathology, National Institute of Health, Seoul,1 Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Pusan National University, Pusan, Republic of Korea2

    Received 22 January 2007/ Accepted 26 February 2007

    Specific antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), usually used for diagnosis, almost invariably become detectable within 3 months of exposure. We report on a patient whose HIV infection was identified early by a combined antigen/antibody test, but seroconversion did not occur for 7 months, until the implementation of antiretroviral therapy.

    You literally can’t make this stuff up! :-D

    “But none of the few examples proves p24 cross-reactivity is widespread. And please remember the coroner’s people did control slides to rule out the remote possibility in the EJ situation.”

    I’m sure the controls used were impeccable;)

    “Unfortunately, EJ’s health problems were ignored and she was neglected so long she died and so responsible doctor’s won’t ever be able to confirm or throw out her diagnosis by the methods reported in your Brazilian conference abstract. Her symptoms and how the CDC diagnosis criteria was met with the tissue antigen sample really scream “HIV and AIDS”, (not)

    *cough*massively*elevated*cough* T-cell counts*Lack of PCP defined pneumonia*hack*spits*.

    “ALL of this is just a weird coincidence set with NOTHING to do with the mother’s HIV”.

    Which has been disputed plenty of times….

    http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780967415307&itm=7

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

    There used be quite a few other remarks along a similiar vein on Amazon and several anti-dissident sites.They’re all mostly wiped now, very curious.
    Then there’s the fact both her husband who she boinks with no latex and her breast-fed son are HIV negative despite repeated testing(darn).Christine herself has tested positive,negative and indeterminate.

    “People like y’llo and Maggiore deny the evidence forever because the truth they let a little girl die because of their own nutty AIDS denial hurts too much.”

    Stop you’re breaking me heart(sniff).I never realized we’re such evil devious monsters for questioning the parroted claptrap.

    BTW, I feel extreme pity for the racist neo-nazis using Prof. Culshaw’s work, her fury against bigotry in all it’s form knows no bounds, as I’m sure certain fellow members of the dissident community have felt.She may not be able to stop them, but she will in no uncertain terms rip them a new one.

    (fraudulent cash)

    Why wouldn’t a college kid want the moola.It’s easy cash!
    And your nemesis finally gets her comeuppance, with her own money no less.Think of it, she’ll finally have to recognize she has no one to blame for her daughter’s death but herself.

  187. #187 SpamBot
    May 13, 2007

    http://www.med.upenn.edu/bmcrc/morph/gallery.shtml?Fig-11-HIV
    this seems to be an ‘electron microscope picture of HIV’
    just for the record…..

  188. #188 y'ello
    May 13, 2007

    Neat picture SpamBot, this site also has a bunch of cool pictures of the virus, unfortunately, none of them agree with each other.

    http://www.sparks-of-light.org/retroviralpix.htm

  189. #189 y'ello
    May 13, 2007

    Neat picture SpamBot, this site also has a bunch of cool pictures of the virus, unfortunately, none of them agree with each other.

    http://www.sparks-of-light.org/retroviralpix.htm

  190. #190 Chris Noble
    May 13, 2007

    Neat picture SpamBot, this site also has a bunch of cool pictures of the virus, unfortunately, none of them agree with each other.

    Yes they do!

    Some of the images are transmission electron microraphs that give a single slice through a virion. Some of them are scanning electron micrographs that give an image of the surface. Some are cryoelectron tomographs that give a 3 dimensionl image like an MRI or CAT scan.

    Do you really think a photograph, and X-ray and a CAT scan of a person will all look the same?

    The website that you linked too states: All other retroviruses are alike in size. It is part of the definition of a retrovirus that it is of this standard size.

    This is a “rethinker” factoid. It is simply not true. Retroviruses from by “budding” from host cells. Differing amounts of host proteins and virus proteins can be incorporated into the virion and the virion size is often quite variable.

    It would have been advisable to look in the scientific literature rather than getting your information off “rethinker” websites.

    Cryoelectron Microscopy of Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus

    From the abstract: The virions showed the broad range of diameters typical of retroviruses.

    Fig 3 shows a comparable size distribution for HIV and MMTV.

  191. #191 Mike Crichton
    May 13, 2007

    Wow, just when I think people couldn’t possibly get dumber that the “Intelligent design” crowd, I find the “HIV Dissidents” that troll Aetiology. Curse you, Tara C. Smith, for allowing them this destruction of what was left of my innocence!!! ;-)

  192. #192 Tara C. Smith
    May 14, 2007

    Oh, it gets even worse, if you check out the germ theory deniers. Be warned…

  193. #193 Chris Noble
    May 14, 2007

    Tara, don’t forget your friendly gravity deniers

    This one scores high on the Denialism Induced Pain scale.

    Who wants to deny gravity? I do. There IS no gravity force, and Newton had it wrong. Just take a bag holding 10 pounds of whatever, and hold it with your arm stretched out in front of you. After a while, your arm muscles get tired. Not surprising, because you expended energy, resisting gravitation. But… what is the energy source that is responsible for this “gravitational force”? Shouldn’t that get depleted also? (Think of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics)
    The earth has been around for a long time. If there was any energy depletion, we should have measured that somehow.
    So what’s a force for which there is no energy source? Answer: A non-existing force.

  194. #194 Tara C. Smith
    May 14, 2007

    I’m still convincing myself that one was a joke…allow me my own denial. :)

  195. #195 Kevin
    May 14, 2007

    “I’m still convincing myself that one was a joke…allow me my own denial. :) ” — Tara C. Smith

    No one has to allow you your “own denial”, Tara. You seem to make use of it, like most of the hacks on this site, whenever it suits you. For example, comparing those who disagree with your the scientific consensus regarding HIV to “gravity deniers, etc” is a manifestation of your own deep-seated denial of reality. Quality science is a contentious business. Of course, any one who cares to look into the matter closely can see that HIV science is a “sick” version of real science, so it is understandable that you and your ilk would attempt to lump all those with whom you disagree into one broad group; however, it is no less a pathetic gesture and it fails as an attempt to obscure the many faults with the HIV model of AIDS.

    Kevin

  196. #196 Kevin
    May 14, 2007

    “When a person is infected the biggest immune organ in your body gets the snot beaten out of it in like days and weeks. That’s the gut.” — Adele

    Normally, Adele’s posts are worthless, but she might be on to something here. This is exactly what happened to me, but it wasn’t caused by infection with HIV. No, it was the endless antibiotics that were prescribed by countless physicians, for my chronic sinus problems.

    Restoring the floral balance of the gut is the key to treating “AIDS”. Unfortunately, treating patients with toxic anti-retrovirals is not helpful at accomplishing that goal.

    Kevin

  197. #197 Richard Jefferys
    May 14, 2007

    y’ello wrote:

    *cough*massively*elevated*cough* T-cell counts*

    No, the absolute lymphocyte count was 10,800. This also includes B cells and natural killer cells. Although a low value has been shown to indicate an elevated risk of progression to AIDS and death in children, higher values are not indicative of a complete absence of risk. The immunological differences between children and adults were a complicating factor when guidelines for PCP prophylaxis were being generated, if you look back at those studies there were many cases of PCP in children with HIV that occurred above the initially suggested thresholds (and those were specific to CD4 T cell counts, not ALC).

  198. #198 Kevin
    May 14, 2007

    Wow, just when I think people couldn’t possibly get dumber that the “Intelligent design” crowd, I find the “HIV Dissidents” that troll Aetiology. Curse you, Tara C. Smith, for allowing them this destruction of what was left of my innocence!!! ;-) — Mike Crichton

    Your confusing innocence with ignorance, particularly if you are suggesting that Tara should censor this blog? That possibility seemed likely last week, as my ability to post just seemed to “disappear”, curiously in the middle of a rather revealing exchange between myself and two of the weaker minds on the blogs. The topic — scientific integrity and its relevance to HIV=AIDS — probably would not interests someone such as yourself, Mike, for based on your recent comment, you aren’t capable of following any argument that someone else hasn’t already approved and/or explained to you.

    With that said, the following two posts are my belated replies to Sascha and Richard Jefferys. The first is in response to Sascha’s own brand of denialism and the second to Mr. Jeffery’s lousy interpretation of the circumstances surrounding Dr. Fishbien’s unfair treatment for exposing significant wrongdoings within the NIH and DAIDS (Dept of AIDS and Infectious Disease):

    _________________

    “… because they don’t go “along with the con”. A con is a conspiracy. “they are being shielded by their ties to Big Pharma” is also characteristic of a conspiracy. — Sascha

    Just as I figured, Sascha, your reply was mealy-mouthed and otherwise weak. “Con” is certainly not equivalent to “conspiracy”, at least, by those of us who understand the importance of diction. Of course, if your intent is unjust, as in to slander or malign someone’s character, I could see why you might want to equivocate the two terms. However, a “con” is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “something used deceptively to gain another’s confidence”, which aptly characterizes HIV science and what it requires of its researchers. Once you are accepted into the “club”, you either agree to play the swindle game or you lose your status, i.e. the firing of Dr. Fishbein. However, it is the trusting public that is being swindled; that includes you and me and all other members of the public who place our confidence in the professionals doing the actual research.

    Of course, even a cursory look into today’s academic research environment — particularly where human health is concerned — would lead any discerning citizen to question the wisdom of placing high-levels of confidence in an environment that is characterized by excessive intimacy between researchers and those providing their funding. Independent research in such an environment is impossible.

    As for my suggesting that high-level HIV researchers have significant ties to Big Pharma, well, I hardly see how that is indicative of some conspiracy theory. It’s greed, plain and simple, and it’s an easily verifiable fact for anyone who knows how to use a search engine.

    Oxycotin anyone?

    Kevin

  199. #199 Richard Jefferys
    May 14, 2007

    Kevin, now that your IP is working again, can you walk us through your claims about the Kirschstein memo about Jonathan Fishbein? You were demanding comments earlier in the thread.

  200. #200 Kevin
    May 14, 2007

    Kevin, now that your IP is working again, can you walk us through your claims about the Kirschstein memo about Jonathan Fishbein? You were demanding comments earlier in the thread. — Richard Jefferys

    Apparently this blog censors particular words…for example, it would not allow a post that included the word that means, “improperly intimate or interconnected”. Tara explained that she does not censor by IP, so I guess I’ll have to take her word for it; however, that leaves only the possibility that this blog’s filter is hyperactive and/or poorly configured. I guess I shouldn’t expect a high degree of professionalism given the circumstances.

    As for the memo you reference, it’s hardly the important document that you suggest. The facts of the matter remain the same, but you don’t like dealing with facts, do you, Richard Jefferys? Dr. Fishbein was fired for exposing significant scientific misconduct and a poorly written “internal” memo suggesting otherwise is to be expected.

    Of course, you seem to agree with using character attacks to argue your points, for your posts on the matter at-hand were chock-full of such, and thus, the memo, hard to find. How do you find justification for such embarrassing behavior? Is it considered a necessary evil when defending almighty HIV? No matter how many slanderous attacks you make on Dr. Fishbein, the fact is that he was hired by the DAIDS, as an “outside” investigator– meaning he was not promoted from within, which is usually how the higher-ups in that organization are realized because promotion ensures the desired level of compliance. Regardless, he was hired to clean up a “trouble organization”, and he was fired for attempting to do just that.

    Furthermore, your response, in addition to being yet another insidious rant full of character assaults on Dr. Fishbein and Mr. Solomon, conveniently fails to address the most severe allegations, the ones that actually got Dr. Fishbein canned. As Solomon astutely points out: “(Dr. Fishbein) was fired for poor performance even though he had been recommended for a cash performance bonus just weeks before he was notified of his termination. You provide links to internal memos, which we’ve already established as being unreliable by virtue of the climate that produced them. Ever hear of the fox guarding the hen house…not a good idea.

    Incidentally, for those who are interested in continuing an intelligent inquiry into the conflicts of interests that dominate government research organizations like DAIDS, you should seek out the following essay: The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation by Donald Miller. It’s an insightful examination of the polluted climate in which most academic research is being conducted. The essay is featured in the Spring 2007 issue of The Journal of Information Ethics, so it’s not only well-constructed but also timely.

    Kevin

  201. #201 Kevin
    May 14, 2007

    Kevin, now that your IP is working again, can you walk us through your claims about the Kirschstein memo about Jonathan Fishbein? You were demanding comments earlier in the thread. — Richard Jefferys

    Apparently this blog censors particular words…for example, it would not allow a post that included the word that means, “improperly intimate or interconnected”. Tara explained that she does not censor by IP, so I guess I’ll have to take her word for it; however, that leaves only the possibility that this blog’s filter is hyperactive and/or poorly configured. I guess I shouldn’t expect a high degree of professionalism given the circumstances.

    As for the memo you reference, it’s hardly the important document that you suggest. The facts of the matter remain the same, but you don’t like dealing with facts, do you, Richard Jefferys? Dr. Fishbein was fired for exposing significant scientific misconduct and a poorly written “internal” memo suggesting otherwise is to be expected.

    Of course, you seem to agree with using character attacks to argue your points, for your posts on the matter at-hand were chock-full of such, and thus, the memo, hard to find. How do you find justification for such embarrassing behavior? Is it considered a necessary evil when defending almighty HIV? No matter how many slanderous attacks you make on Dr. Fishbein, the fact is that he was hired by the DAIDS, as an “outside” investigator– meaning he was not promoted from within, which is usually how the higher-ups in that organization are realized because promotion ensures the desired level of compliance. Regardless, he was hired to clean up a “trouble organization”, and he was fired for attempting to do just that.

    Furthermore, your response, in addition to being yet another insidious rant full of character assaults on Dr. Fishbein and Mr. Solomon, conveniently fails to address the most severe allegations, the ones that actually got Dr. Fishbein canned. As Solomon astutely points out: “(Dr. Fishbein) was fired for poor performance even though he had been recommended for a cash performance bonus just weeks before he was notified of his termination. You provide links to internal memos, which we’ve already established as being unreliable by virtue of the climate that produced them. Ever hear of the fox guarding the hen house…not a good idea.

    Incidentally, for those who are interested in continuing an intelligent inquiry into the conflicts of interests that dominate government research organizations like DAIDS, you should seek out the following essay: The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation by Donald Miller. It’s an insightful examination of the polluted climate in which most academic research is being conducted. The essay is featured in the Spring 2007 issue of The Journal of Information Ethics, so it’s not only well-constructed but also timely.

    Kevin

  202. #202 Richard Jefferys
    May 14, 2007

    Um, the “internal memo” by Ruth Kirschstein you refer to was the same one that makes reference to a “troubled organization” and it’s the same one you earlier claimed:

    a) led to the hiring of Fishbein
    b) vindicated all of Fishbein’s allegations

  203. #203 Adele
    May 14, 2007

    Here’s Kevin on his favorite subject, Kevin,
    Normally, Adele’s posts are worthless, but she might be on to something here. This is exactly what happened to me, but it wasn’t caused by infection with HIV. No, it was the endless antibiotics that were prescribed by countless physicians, for my chronic sinus problems.
    Good for you Kevin, but that wasn’t what happened to EJS. Her immune problems were from HIV. Except in a few people’s heads who can’t understand the difference between a white blood cell count and a CD4 count.
    -Worthless pharma shill hack idiot Adele

  204. #204 Adele
    May 14, 2007

    Is it just me? Or is it really amusing when y’ello Nick won’t take any amount of evidence for anything HIV and then turns around and takes someone’s word, her word nothing more, that this person and her husband have only unprotected sex, the husband’s still negative, she tested negative she hasn’t had any health problems and the rest.
    If yello was a big pharma hack shill like the rest of us, yello would be saying, “wait*cough*just a second*hack*spit I want to see their diary and why aren’t there any photos of unprotected sex and did you test their house for latex residues and how often and how recently? Because theres no solid evidence they ever had unprotected sex and also lets see the medical records. When was the husband tested. How recently.”
    Oh, and yeah, y’ello, I feel really, really sorry for those neo-Nazis. Not. What’s Culshaw gonna do anyway? I know she’s a big NRA person, but come on.

  205. #205 Chris Noble
    May 14, 2007

    For example, comparing those who disagree with your the scientific consensus regarding HIV to “gravity deniers, etc” is a manifestation of your own deep-seated denial of reality.

    The reality is that one HIV “rethinker” is or was also a gravity “rethinker”. Other HIV “rethinkers” “rethink” the whole germ theory of disease. Other HIV “rethinkers” also “rethink” evolution. There is a consistent pattern of reality denial amongst HIV “rethinkers”.

    Of course you could demonstrate that your reasons for “rethinking” HIV are based on science. To do that you would have to demonstrate that you understand the science that you critisize. So far you have consistently failed.

  206. #206 Roland
    May 23, 2007

    Hello Everyone! I am a concerned psychology-grad student from Austria. I became aware of the differences between mainstream and dissident views regarding aids/hiv when i was prompted to do an hiv test in a new relationship (which came back negative) and subsequently informed myself about the issue.

    I am in the process of making my mind up so i hope you will help me with this, for there are dire psychological and social implications for people testing positive – and if the dissidents are right, lots of suffering could be avoided – and perhaps better routes of treatment for severe immune compromised people could be pursued.

    As of now, i am skeptical of the orthodox view as well as i am of the dissident theories.

    Now i want to emphasize on the Maggiore case and her daughter who supposedly died from AIDS.
    Now some facts: Maggiore tested positive, indeterminate and negative in a series of HIV Tests over a long period. As the definition goes, someone who tested positive once has come in contact with a retrovirus called HIV which is said to cause aids, has therefore ‘seroconverted’ i.e. the RNA of the virus has been written into the DNA of cd4 cells and will stay & replicate there forever, eventually cause said disease.

    Now it is said that her daughter died of aids.
    But i think there are some troubles with this hypothesis:
    - 3 doctors failed to recognize any form of immune suppression or even more then usual frequency of normal illnesses (even less so) in the three years of EJ’s life.
    - a more than average count of white blood cells indicating a more than average active immune system.
    - Slides of the lungs actually do not show any signs of inflammation /according to the al-bayaty report)

    Thus i can hardly see how the death of EJ could be attributed to severe immune suppression which is, afaik, a necessary part of an aids diagnosis. Also, a positive HIV antibody test is also necessary, but this, interestingly, has not been done.

    Thank you in advance for your comments.

  207. #207 Adele
    May 23, 2007

    Roland,
    I’m not sure why you want to reopen this issue. Your questions were addressed and I think answered earlier in this thread and on others. Have you looked at the discussion? If so you would know it’s possible EJ was not so healthy as her doctor told the mother. A high white blood cell count doesn’t always equal high cd4 count and someone on here gave papers where kids with high WBC died of PCP like EJ. AlBayati didn’t examine the body, he’s friend of the mother and his conclusions are disputed by the original report and reviews by qualified MDs. A “positive HIV antibody test” is NOT needed for an AIDS diagnosis, we said above the tests were done for HIV antigen and that counts for diagnosis. The dissident’s talk about this alot but its not true anymore. There’s antigen tests and nucleic acid and culture to diagnose, too.
    Why is one case so important for making up your mind? What if EJ didn’t die of AIDS? Would it mean nobody dies of AIDS or HIV in’t real? MAybe to some denialists but if you think clearly you distinguish anecdote and statistics.
    And do we know the facts like you say? We don’t. The only facts we have are the coroners report and some people dispute that. The rest, we’re just taking someone’s word for how healthy they are or how healthy someone else was or what result they got on a test.
    The imcomplete facts like we have them say EJ died of AIDS, not much else to conclude. But if they’re wrong, it doesnt’ mean anything about HIV causing AIDS.
    Everyone would love it if this little girl was still alive today. Her death is a sad loss. Doesn’t prove HIV causes AIDS, that’s known since 1984, and doesn’t prove anything else. All we can take from it is the importance to get good medical care for your kids especially when you have HIV instead of ignoring it to make it go away.
    Roland if its true you haven’t made up your mind please keep reading and be critical. Not everything you read on dissident websites is true.

  208. #208 Ursula
    May 23, 2007

    Hi,

    Please excuse the simplistic nature of my question.
    Someone, (I think it was unsympathetic reader) said:

    ‘One can have an antibody that developed is expressed in response to binding molecule “A” which also binds to molecule “B” even if the immune system has never encountered the latter. If we accept that the antibody was “for” molecule “A” then that is how one could have a response to something such as molecule “B” that the immune system has never encountered’.

    My question is are molecules (A and B) antigens? If so, is it because the molecules are so alike in some structural way that the antibody response binds both?

  209. #209 Adele
    May 23, 2007

    are molecules (A and B) antigens?
    Yes or if we’re picky then no only A is an antigen here since B hasn’t provoked the immune system. B might be an antigen for another immune system but not this one. An antigen is just something that provokes an immune response.
    is it because the molecules are so alike in some structural way that the antibody response binds both?
    Yes. It could just be a small part of each molecule that’s similar.

  210. #210 Ursula
    May 23, 2007

    Thanks, Adele, that is what I thought antigens were, and also how I thought an antibody could bind a similarly structured molecule.

    Does this mean, if scientists know that two structurally very similar antigens exist, but antigen A is implicated in serious human disease, (while antigen B is not)that they may prefer to use antigen B in lab testing etc. for the detection of antibodies in a patient’s blood sample?

    I ask this question because of something I read. The implication seems to be that patients with the severe disease will also (via their blood sample) usually demonstrate a positive result to the more innocuous antigen in this case.

    This might be more at the research level, and I think the idea of choosing the relatively more innocuous antigen is partly due to a lower biosafety level (2, I think) being required.

    This is due to my interest in the agrobacterium infection apparently being found in biopsies taken from Morgellons disease patients.

    Thank you very much for your kind answer, and getting back so swiftly. I may have other simplistic questions to come, but it is all so long ago, (when I studied science), and molecular biology was in its infancy, (I think).

    With respect to the topic on this thread, I remember when being diagnosed with HIV was definitely a death sentence, and also when the drugs came into being, and they most assuredly extended the lives, and quality of life, of patients.

    Any healthcare professional who has a needle stick injury from an hiv positive patient usually takes the drugs as prescribed by specialist doctors, (to avoid seroconversion).

    That is all I know.

  211. #211 Adele
    May 23, 2007

    Ursula, I’m not very familiar with Agrobacterium and Brucella and such but I think you’re basically right about the antibody tests. The antigens’ similarity for these organisms is probably because they’re related by evolution. If a test for a nonpathogenic bacterium crossreacts with a pathogenic one then you can make a test with less precaution. This is just a factor at production level, cheaper at BSL-2 than -3. I don’t think you need to be in a BSL-3 to perform the test since the antigen isn’t live anymore.
    My question maybe you can answer it is if someone is positive on this test how do you know if it’s Brucella or the harmless bug? Don’t you need a more specific test? Do you know if PCR-based tests are used for this problem?

  212. #212 Roland
    May 24, 2007

    Adele,
    Thank you for your comments. As for Maggiore, I concede that it doesn’t proof anything. Its just a tragic – talk about hell: loss of a child,stigmatized, prosecuted. As for forcing parents to comply with accepted contemporary theories (and/or remedies based upon those), i think, in a democracy, everyone should have the right to come to his own terms and to decide which way to go – also for his children. Especially in regard to the fact that scientific theories are always fallible…

    Yes, will keep reading, and as always, i ll take anything with a grain of salt. For example, this one:

    Bermas BL et al.,

    Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and infection with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) are diseases that are characterized by immune dysregulation and autoantibody production. In this article we identify and characterize IgG antibodies from mice with SLE and SLE patients that bind HIV gp120 and HIV envelope-derived peptides. SLE can be induced in susceptible mouse strains by immunization with a human monoclonal anti-DNA antibody that bears a common idiotype designated 16/6 Id. We tested sera from various strains of mice in which experimental SLE was induced by this method, as well as from 93 patients with SLE and 31 controls (17 healthy controls, 14 patients with other autoimmune diseases) for the presence of antibodies reactive to gp120 by an ELISA. Antibodies reactive with gp120 were produced by BALB/c, C3H.SW, AKR, and DBA/2 mice, all of which were 16/6 Id immunized and had experimental SLE. C57BL/6 mice, which are resistant to induction of SLE by this method, did not produce antibodies reactive with gp120 despite 16/6 immunization. Forty-three percent of SLE patients made antibodies that bound to gp120 at titers greater than 1:40, whereas 12% of healthy control sera (p < or = 0.02) and 14% of patients with other autoimmune diseases contained such antibodies (p < or = 0.05). We delineated the specificity of this antibody activity by testing for reactivity to six HIV envelope peptides. In both mice and SLE patients, sera reactive with gp120 recognized the same three envelope peptides. Removal of the anti-DNA antibodies from the sera by DNA-agarose affinity purification did not change anti-gp120 specificity.
    PMID: 7826694 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

    Now, since I am not trained in biology, my Question is: As subjects with SLE and mice with induced SLE very frequently test positive on a HIV test, compared to subjects with other immune diseases and healthy ones, how comes that a test that is deemed to be specific for an exogenous entity, HIV, reacts on people not infected at all. or even mice?
    So, i think this gives rise to the question what those aids tests are really testing for?

  213. #213 Ursula
    May 24, 2007

    Hi Adele,

    I really am as ignorant about molecular biology as I say, so am extremely grateful to you for helping me out.

    Hitherto, the Agrobacterium (A.radiobacter)was only ever known (extremely rarely) as an opportunistic human pathogen, prevalence rate of about 20 since 1980, and occurred in immunocompromised (e.g. hiv positive) patients who often had ‘foreign bodies’ in situ, e.g. catheters.

    Two ophthalmic cases, reported in the literature in 2003 had devastating outcomes, and the patients were previously immunocompetent.

    Professor Citovsky (New York) has done PCR work on Morgellons patients’ biopsy samples recently, 100% of which he has reported as containing agrobacterium genes. 0% of the normal sample contained this startling finding. This expert is not saying this proves agrobacterium causes Morgellons, or proves it is an infectious disease. He said it is the first time plant infecting bacteria have been found in ‘human tissue’, and that further research is required. I do not know which species of agrobacterium he found, so need your help (if willing to give it).

    One of you, in an earlier post on this thread, said that microorganisms are implicated in a host of human disease, including Hodgkins Lymphoma. How do you know that?

    I do not know if the scientists testing the blood samples using agrobacterium antigen use PCR. I think, if they get a positive result, it must point towards Brucella, since (hitherto) agrobacterium did not infect humans, (or did so very rarely). I suppose the clinical diagnosis (of brucellosis)would be made on this, and other, clinical findings.

    In relation to this thread, patients with hiv who also develop agrobacterial infections would incur great interest, but not incredulity, because of their immune status.

    Why would individuals with normally functioning immune systems be infected with this bacteria? (I am not saying that every clinical test is normal, but the pattern is not consistent for all of them).

  214. #214 Adele
    May 25, 2007

    Roland,
    You asked a good question. What do HIV tests actually test for? The answer is HIV infection. The few cases of reported cross-reaction are reported because they’re so rare.
    Proteins can stick to each other and to other things but a real antibody-antigen reaction’s in another category. If we do an ELISA for antibodies to Protein Z we put protein Z in a plate and put serum on top of it. Antibodies to protein Z stick strong and stay when we wash everything and we can detect them with chemical reagents. How well the antibodies stick depend on a lot of things. So whenever we make a new ELISA we have to do a lot of tests with it and find out how much to dilute our serum and all the other paremeters.
    Lets say we forgot to put Protein Z in some of our plates and we do the assay but instead of diluting our serum like 1:1000 we don’t dilute it at all. We might get a positive result even though there’s no protein at all! If we got our serum from people with autoimmune disease we might have more positives in that group like 40% than in a control group like 12% maybe.

    That’s like what Bermas et al found. The Bermas et al (1994) reports some SLE patients have crossreaction with HIV gp120. They say antibodies reactive to gp120 by an ELISA. The reaction of the antibodies to gp120 is weaker than reaction of “real” gp120 antibodies. On an HIV ELISA if it used gp120 as one of the capture proteins this cross-reaction would maybe not show up or be near cutoff. If Bermas et al diluted their serum more they would probably lose the reactivity in HIV neg and only HIV positives would still react. ELISA isn’t a black or white, its a range and you look at how strong a reaction is or how weak if you’re a MD.
    Here’s what could happen with one of these SLE patients from Bermas et al who got an actual HIV test not just the gp120 ELISA. The antibody test would use proper serum dilution for the assay used and the faint gp120 reactivity if gp120 was even used in the assay wouldn’t put the result over the cutoff. So the person reads HIV negative.
    If the crossreaction was really strong it might reach the cutoff. Then you would need a second test. There you would only see the gp120 reaction, not multiple bands. So the person is again HIV negative. What if the person was one in ten million with multiple cross reactions? They come up positive on the second test. But the doctor knows the first ELISA was weak and the person has an autoimmune disease so she orders a PCR test or an antigen test or culture and those of course are negative. Do another one six months later and you know the person’s not positive.

    There’s a lot on the internet about crossreaction but there’s not much that’s confirmed. It’s mostly association. Like rabies vaccine, like fifteen years ago someone got a rabies vaccine and then later tested false-positive for HIV. So some people published a paper about rabies vaccine as postential cause of HIV false-positive. Problem is, not enough people get rabies vaccines and then get tested for HIV to know whether there’s a link. Who knows maybe a lab tech mixed up test results or the person who got the vaccine, a vet, had been exposed to a HIV related retrovirus like VM from sheep and that’s what caused it.

    Roland, the HIV tests are very good as much as a very vocal group of “dissident” activists want to think not. Experiences like what Maggiore reports for her own testing are rare and we’ve got only her word for what happened. Peer reviewed studies, independent labs comparing tests, the experience of thousands of doctors, HIV tests are excellent and getting better than ever. We just need to get them to more people who need them.

  215. #215 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    “HIV tests are excellent and getting better than ever. We just need to get them to more people who need them.” Adele, you are really fun! You look funner than a game of Sonic the Hedgehog while intoxicated, as someone here has already said about me.

  216. #216 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    “HIV tests are excellent and getting better than ever. We just need to get them to more people who need them.” Adele, you are really fun. You are even funner than Sonic the Hedgehog while intoxicated, as somebody here has already said.

  217. #217 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    “We just need to get them to more people who need them” Oh, yes, yes, yes, so more and more people will fall into the millstone!
    “It was the most terrifying experience of my life. I lost my head, completely”
    “When he knew that, he went to the hospital’s roof and threw himself down”
    “On me, the emotional impact was immense. I couldn’t control my fear”…
    These are some of the side-effects of hiv testing! Recommended for your health!

  218. #218 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    Biggar, R.J., Gigase, P.L., Melbye, M. et.al. 1985. ELISA HTLV retrovirus antibody reactivity associated with malaria and immune complexes in healthy Africans. Lancet. II:520-523.

    “Hiv tests are not excellent and they are not better than ever???” I think Adele is one of those people involved in hiv research, people who refuse public debate and would lose their job if John Sulan hadn’t supported them. There is an international cartel, called HIV/AIDS… I can’t stop saying that.

    Moreover, the research of Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos is interesting. Even if John Sulan undervalued her, even if, according to him, she has no “formal qualifications”, her work was published upon scientific journals and Fabio Franchi, italian specialist in infectious diseases, finds her research good.
    See:
    http://www.leadershipmedica.com/sommari/2005/numero_10/medicina/articolo_2/articolo/interfaccia.htm

    by
    Fabio Franchi
    Specialist in Hygiene, Preventive Medicine
    and Infectious Diseases in Trieste, Italy

  219. #219 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    “Experiences like what Maggiore reports for her own testing are rare and we’ve got only her word for what happened.”
    Adele, please, DON’T TELL US LIES!!! An opinion is not scientific truth. As Harvey Bialy says, everybody is ready to believe that CIA is lying, that the Government is lying, that FBI is lying, but that the Public Health Service is lying, no, it isn’t possible, the National Institute of Health is sacred and all that comes out from the mouth of the NIH is word of God.

    From
    http://www.omeonet.info/articoli/aids.htm
    by Dr A. D’Angelo
    Service of Coagulation
    and Unit of Investigation Thrombosis
    IRCCS H. San Raffaele, Milan:

    About ALL, I say ALL hiv/aids tests:

    “E’ un test riproducibile?

    No, la risposta è negativa. In controlli di qualità effettuati in Laboratori di riferimento, al massimo livello, frazioni dello stesso siero davano risultati differenti in diversi laboratori e persino risultati differenti nello stesso laboratorio in tempi diversi!”

    Translation:

    “Is it a reproducible test?
    No, the answer is negative. In quality controls effected in top level Labs of reference, fractions of the same serum gave different results in various labs and even different results in the same lab in different times!”

  220. #220 freethinker
    June 2, 2007

    To challenge the HIV/AIDS theory is not to challenge the germ theory.
    Even Robert Koch would be a whistle blower at the HIV/AIDS cartel and John Sulan’s verdict.
    The idea of infectious AIDS comes from the same scientists that maintained the viral theory of cancer… It violates the basic of virology and of medecine. And we are told to take it for truth!

  221. #221 Dale
    June 2, 2007

    “Is it a reproducible test?
    No, the answer is negative.

    Really? Curious because there was an article back in 1993 describing a retrospective study of HIV testing in the military that reviewed the results of 5,446,161 HIV-1 antibody tests performed on 2,580,974 individuals (the US Army HIV Data System) from 1985 through 1992. The conclusion was that the cumulative error rate was ~12.4 per million patients tested. Error rate being in effect positive results that weren’t reproducible. And as I understand it, testing has improved over the last 15 years.

  222. #222 freethinker
    June 3, 2007

    Hey! You didn’t quote the source of your information!

    You can read the study at this url:http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/269/22/2876

    Here the flaws are:
    “For all patients with one or more seroreactive sample followed by one or more nonreactive sample, we examined available records and retested the samples” Even according to that study, a positive result can be followed by a negative one.

    As Fabio Franchi writes:
    “Depending on the information published on the English authoritative medical magazine The Lancet (5), in 1990 on 20.2 million ELISA tests made in Russia, 20,000 were positive, but only 112 were confirmed by the WB; in 1991, on 30 million ELISA tests, a good 30,000 were positive, but of these only 66 were confirmed by the Western Blot, that is a minimum percentage (0.002%).
    Voevodin A. HIV screening in Russia (letter). Lancet 1992; 339:1548.
    http://www.cesil.com/0898/enfrah08.htm

    If testing had really inproved during the last 15 years, more than 5000 scientists wouldn’t have signed a petition against them, as Italian Aids dissident, Gino Burattoni (who is a physician) reports in his AIDS DENIALIST book “Fuori dal Coro” – (Out of the Chorus)by omeopiacenza editrice.
    And who are the true denialists? Those who deny… the existence of Aids dissidents!

    IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF NON-SPECIFIC ANTIBODIES, NOT VIRUS!

  223. #223 Dale
    June 3, 2007

    “For all patients with one or more seroreactive sample followed by one or more nonreactive sample, we examined available records and retested the samples” Even according to that study, a positive result can be followed by a negative one.

    Yes freethinker, a positive result can be followed by a negative one. In that study there were exactly 6 such samples – from which they calculated their error rate of ~12 per million patients.

    ELISA tests are designed to be very sensitive and as a sensitive test they have a relatively high false positive rate, although current tests have a far lower rate than those from the late eighties and early ninties. In any case, at least in the USA, HIV positivity isn’t diagnosed on the basis of a single ELISA. The tests are extremely reliable. At least as reliable as any other screening test.

    If it’s only a matter of non specific antibodies, why do the tests do such a good job of predicting (even retrospectively) who will develop progressive immunodeficiency? And why do only those who test positive for these specific antibodies also test positive by PCR (the latter being a test that measures viral RNA or DNA )?

  224. #224 Robster, FCD
    June 3, 2007

    Saying you have a list of like minded scientists will not impress anybody here. We are used to hearing such proclamations from creationists and the like, and they don’t mean anything. Furthermore, we know that that list will be full of non-scientists, homeopaths, germ theory deniers, etc.

    It is the same as calls for public debate. Debate has already occurred within the scientific literature. Competing hypotheses were examined, considered, and found lacking. Public debate would give public standing to cranks and pseudoscientists pushing ascientific beliefs.

    Beyond that little logical fallacy, you need to do a little reading into Koch. He never claimed that his postulates were perfect, and since Koch, the postulates have been refined and modified. Acting as though science has not progressed since Koch puts you in the same leaky boat as the creationists that refer to evolution as Darwinism. Sort of like how you referred to the 1985 Biggar et al paper to describe the state of science 22 years later.

  225. #225 Adele
    June 3, 2007

    Out of freethinker’s confused rantings, I find this one precious.

    If testing had really inproved during the last 15 years, more than 5000 scientists wouldn’t have signed a petition against them

    I still haven’t seen a petition with 5000 scientists has anyone else? Or even one against HIV antibody tests?

    There’s one petition with 2,454 signatures as of May at RA, but there aren’t many scientists on it. Look again “freethinker.” How many biologists on there? How many HIV experts? How many doctors? Now how many MDs? And how many like your Gino Burattoni who’s an “omeopata esperto scientifico”? Yep, like Robster said, “homeopaths, germ theory deniers.” And that’s just the tiny minority of ‘em who have any realtion to medicine.

    How many of the 2,454 deniers are real people? How many “signed” the petition like a reflex after reading some sob story on the internet about how HIV tests or antivirals supposedly killed someone and with no other knowledge of HIV at all? Do they remember signing it? Did everyone on the list actually sign it? I think it would be fun to start contacting some of those people and asking them. More productive than reinventing the wheel with these freestylethinkers that’s for sure.

    Although I’d really feel bad about debating these people when I find out for sure there are only about forty of them in the whole world.

  226. #226 Adele
    June 3, 2007

    Please, everybody, you’ve just GOT to look up Fabio Franchi, the guy freethinker was talking about earlier whose one of the two or three Italian denialists. The two pictures I saw of him would I think make very effective antiretrovirals all by themselves. Although the side effects would be really bad. This guy’s stare, it’s like he’s trying to burn holes in big pharma with his eyes! If I had a chance I think I would ditch my principals and debate Franchi in a public setting. Being on stage with him could make even ME look like a nice and attractive and unintimidating person!

    By the way I used my crappy Italian from back in college and read the article by Franchi freethinker kindly gave us and it’s the same old. Big surprise. What it is is him translating Duesberg into Italian, citing the same studies Duesberg misused, so boring. But all the denialists who read freethinker on here can say, well, there was this guy in Italy who gave a link to an Italian article and I couldn’t read it but that article had the answers. And you can’t refute that now can you?

  227. #227 FIRSTBLOOD
    June 4, 2007

    As I sit here and read all of the FDA Approved balogna I certainly hope that for the “Historical Record” that Tara who may think she’s “superior” will someday look back on her own Karma and realize what a bad deed she has done to Humanity!

    Someone with credentials can honestly pick out the divinity of her god because she can read a Science text book.

    I often wonder when US “Denialists” are attacked it’s not so bad we are just being accused of “Not being able to read and write” this is what a denialist means that we are subordinate creatures… and this is a Conspiracy Theory if there ever was one.

    Id Like to Thank Tara,Chris Noble,that Dippy Brunette(Abby), and other Quack Scientists for giving me a real REASON to Deny that HIV Causes anything!

    Kudos!

  228. #228 Adele
    June 4, 2007

    Wow, FIRSTBLOOD,
    You do know how to get drunk early!
    I’d join you but, quack, quack, back to work!

  229. #229 FIRSTBLOOD
    June 4, 2007

    Adele if you’ll notice I didn’t address you but since you had to open your mouth I suggest you crawl immediately back into your sewer!