David Crowe takes it way beyond HIV denial

HIV “dissident” David Crowe is like the gift that just keeps on giving. Last year, I mentioned a paper he’d written in the journal Medical Hypotheses, suggesting that influenza serotype H5N1 doesn’t exist. Well, it just keeps getting better. Now, it seems he’s writing a book on “the infectious myth”–like previous commenter jspreen, he’s going to write about how the germ theory is wrong. Read more about it below…

From Crowe’s site:

Most people believe that every disease on the following list has an infectious cause:

* HIV/AIDS
* SARS
* West Nile
* Mad Cow, CJD and other Spongiform Encephalopathies
* Foot and Mouth
* Hepatitis C
* Polio
* Avian Flu
* the 1918 ‘Spanish’ Flu

There is considerable scientific evidence that these disease do not just have non-infectious co-factors, but that they are almost entirely non-infectious.

The book “The Infectious Myth” will investigate most of these diseases, providing the scientific evidence that they are not infectious and, in most cases, identifying more plausible causes.

This should be good.

Comments

#1 Stephen
June 11, 2007

And i suppose, since it was not explicitly noted, that the H4N20 serotype probably does exist. We could generate quite a list to keep them busy. I could write a computer program to generate permutations. Since many would, in fact, not exist (yet), the H216N412 deniers might actually be right.

A friend of mine with an engineering degree, who is good with the trickiest bits of astrophotography, is also into ID. As near as i can tell, it isn’t just religeon that stupifies him, it’s some sort of absolutism. Apparently, anything that is subject to change is discomforting, and therefore deniable.

For me, the idea that God could change the laws of physics on a whim is deeply unsettling. At least Evilution is predictable in broad strokes.
#2 Ed Yong
June 11, 2007

So he should have no problem then walking into a Level 4 Biohazard laboratory wearing nowt but shorts and sandals…
#3 MarkH
June 11, 2007

He’s taking on Hep C with the wrong scienceblogger. I’d like to see him back that one up.

Is his MO to just accuse everything we don’t have a vaccine for yet as being non-germ-based? I guess that doesn’t work with polio – which seems extraordinary given that it has one of the absolute best vaccines – but with the others it seems to be a common claim with the deniers that the reason vaccines don’t work is because the vaccine target isn’t causing the disease.
#4 Robert
June 11, 2007

If these diseases aren’t infectious then what is his model for how they spread?
#5 raven
June 11, 2007

People like David Crowe are valuable for showing just how far out the lunatic fringe extends. There is an extensive Dark Matter halo around the bright galaxy of human thought and intellect. It is a bit of a mystery what it is made of and what purpose it serves*. LOL

*Survival of the fittest perhaps. In many parts of the world, a germ theory denier wouldn’t live too long.
#6 Tara C. Smith
June 11, 2007

Is his MO to just accuse everything we don’t have a vaccine for yet as being non-germ-based?

I don’t think so. In his influenza paper, he makes many of the same arguments the Perth group does about HIV–that it’s been inadequately isolated, animal model lacking, not enough attention paid to “pharmaceutical and environmental” causes of disease rather than infectious ones, etc. Note that none of the agents highlighted are bacterial, which are easier to isolate. So I’m guessing it’ll concentrate heavily on the first point (“not isolated!”) with much of the third point (“pharma! dirty water!”) thrown in. Wonder how early I could get a review copy (if they’d even give me one…)
#7 Nomen Nescio
June 12, 2007

hmm – are prions technically considered infectious, though? i suppose it’d be apropos if he were technically correct only by a mistake of semantics…
#8 Alan Kellogg
June 12, 2007

Of course germs aren’t infectious. Prions, viruses, bacteria, protests, yeast, and fungi, now they’re infectious. But not germs.
#9 Chris Noble
June 12, 2007

Crowe is basing his polio chapter on the “research” of Jim West

Images of Poliomyelitis: A Critique of Scientific Literature by Jim West

Polio is really caused by DDT: see Duesbergian graph.

The poliovirus is caused by DDT reshuffling genes …
#10 raven
June 12, 2007

Polio is really caused by DDT: see Duesbergian graph.
The poliovirus is caused by DDT reshuffling genes …

Wikipeidia: An ancient disease, polio was first recognized as a distinct condition by Jakob Heine in 1840. In the early part of the twentieth century much of the world experienced a huge increase in the number of polio cases.

Wikipedia: DDT or Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane is the first modern pesticide and is one of the best known synthetic pesticides. It was developed early in World War II, and initially used with great effect to combat mosquitoes

Hmmmm, how strange. Polio is an ancient disease, dating back centuries. DDT is a modern insecticide dating from the early 1940s. So how did polio predate the discovery of DDT? To make things worse, the introduction of DDT predates by a relatively short time the decline of polio due to vaccination, introduced in 1954. I’m afraid “Mr. West” is made of straw and should avoid hungry herbivores.
#11 wheatdogg
June 13, 2007

Not infectious, huh? So how were there widespread outbreaks of polio before the creation of the vaccines against it? And why are there comparatively few now, after widespread juvenile immunizations?

Even a physicist can see the evidence is clear. This guy Crowe must be sniffing something.
#12 Nullifidian
June 16, 2007

I couldn’t help notice that all the items on the list are caused by viruses or prions. Is he similarly at odds with bacterial epidemiology? I’d love to hear him explain why bubonic plague or epidemic typhus is non-infectious.
#13 David Crowe
June 20, 2007

Thank you for your interest in my book project. I have drafts of chapters on SARS and polio and in both cases it is quite clear that the diseases were not infectious. Polio, for example, has an amazing seasonality, with virtually all cases occurring between August and October – harvest time. It is hard to see how a virus transmitted from person to person can be so influenced by the weather. Yet if the cause was toxic pesticides on fruit, vegetables and in milk, it all makes sense.

Regarding the vaccine, by 1960 less than half the most vulnerable groups were vaccinated yet the massive peak in cases was in 1952. The vaccine wasn’t even approved until 1954 and of course it took several years to achieve widespread penetration of the vaccine. What was causing polio to decline while most people were unvaccinated? And why were about half the people with polio symptoms (such as paralysis) negative for the polio virus?

With SARS it is quite clear that the fairly minor symptoms diagnosing someone with the disorder were seriously exacerbated by the use of ribavirin and high doses of steroids. It’s interesting that when a large number of AIDS and SARS patients were housed together in China not a single AIDS patient got SARS.

But for full details you’ll have to wait for publication which is still a year or two away. Obviously there’s a lot of research required for something like this.

Regarding bacteria, clearly they exist and can cause diseases, although in many cases the bacteria may only be a co-factor with environmental conditions such as malnutrition or exposure to toxins.
#14 David Crowe
June 20, 2007

Oh, and one more thing. It would have been nice when you started a blog entry to criticize my book if you had let me know so I could defend myself. That would have been really classy. It’s not like I’m hiding or anything.
#15 Adele
June 20, 2007

Um, David, like you denialists send John Moore a bouquet of posies and a little note everytime you plan to put a monkey head on him.

If you can’t take the heat, as they say.
#16 Tara C. Smith
June 20, 2007

David, I’m not exactly notified when y’all are trashing me all over the internets, am I?

Don’t suppose you’ll forward me a copy of the book to review when it’s finished? I’d counter your polio seasonality example with influenza, but I realize you don’t accept that’s an infectious disease, either. You do, might I assume, accept that weather can certainly affect vector-borne diseases?
#17 Nullifidian
June 20, 2007

Yet if the cause was toxic pesticides on fruit, vegetables and in milk, it all makes sense.

In that case, then you should observe that farmers and fieldhands would be more likely to fall victim to polio than others, you’d definitely see hotspots for polio correlated to agricultural areas like the San Joaquin Valley, with the incidence of polio falling off in urban areas and runoff from the fields wouldn’t bring pesticides into the drinking water, and come up with an explanation as to why the incidence of polio in modern times is so very low. If it’s a change in the manner of pest control, what’s the pesticide responsible which has been used since the 18th century (and quite possibly since the days of the Egyptians, as there are steles which seem to depict polio victims), fell out of favor in the wake of the development of the vaccines by Salk and Sabin, but is still used with some frequency in Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Bhutan, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Zambia?
#18 Kevin
June 20, 2007

Regarding bacteria, clearly they exist and can cause diseases, although in many cases the bacteria may only be a co-factor with environmental conditions such as malnutrition or exposure to toxins.

Excellent point.

You should review recent comments in this thread. I suffered from recurrent bacterial infections as an HIV test-negative, AIDS case. Once my health problems were resolved by treating the underlying problem — systemic fungal disease — the secondary bacterial infections disappeared completely. The key word here is “secondary”. The bacterial infections were being aggressively treated with antibiotics while the underlying disease state went unrecognized.

Hacks like, Adele, are too dull-headed to see the wisdom of abandoning the mythic dogma that is employed to support the now highly dysfunctional health care/science complex.

I will be interested to read your work.

Kevin
#19 Nullifidian
June 20, 2007

Something else that may be relevant to the polio discussion.

Fisman, DN (2007) Seasonality of Infectious Diseases. Ann Rev Pub Health 28: 127-143.

Seasonality, a periodic surge in disease incidence corresponding to seasons or other calendar periods, characterizes many infectious diseases of public health importance. The recognition of seasonal patterns in infectious disease occurrence dates back at least as far as the Hippocratic era, but mechanisms underlying seasonality of person-to-person transmitted diseases are not well understood. Improved understanding will enhance understanding of host-pathogen interactions and will improve the accuracy of public health surveillance and forecasting systems. Insight into seasonal disease patterns may be gained through the use of autocorrelation methods or construction of periodograms, while seasonal oscillation of infectious diseases can be easily simulated using simple transmission models. Models demonstrate that small seasonal changes in host or pathogen factors may be sufficient to create large seasonal surges in disease incidence, which may be important particularly in the context of global climate change. Seasonality represents a rich area for future research. [Emphasis mine.]
#20 Adele
June 20, 2007

Kevin,

I look forward to reading, too about how you decided to go with an uncontrolled study on antifungals and CRS and ignored three separate placebo-controlled trials showing amphotericin B was no different from placebo in treating CRS.

Also about how you can say 96% of people with CRS recovered after antifungal treatment when the highest percentage in any study is 75% and that was probably from the lavage, not the drug as the later controlled studies showed.
#21 Kevin
June 20, 2007

I realize how upsetting it must be for you, Adele, to be proven wrong by the facts, but your cantankerous, empty rants are worthless.

I don’t have time, at present, to continue explaining the world to you, but I most certainly plan to respond to your dubious reply in the other thread, regarding the antifungal studies we’ve been discussing. No amount of data massaging will change the fact that this information has been available for 8 years, yet antibiotics and not antifungals are still the primary treatment and still causing this illness to worsen for sufferers.

Kevin

ps
Have you seen Richard Jeffreys? He seems to have disappeared after being thoroughly exposed as an unctuous, philistine.
#22 frummy
June 20, 2007

I agree Anyone that disputes hiv/aids is a loony tune, therefore I propose new postulates called Gallo’s postulates.

1. find a partial correlation with a virus that is barely detectable in 1 of every thousand cells, and nuetralized by antibodies.

2. Create a window period so long to buy yourself time.

3. Forget having an animal model, just announce your new microbe to the press if you can, once its on every channel, the debate will end and everyone will beleive it,and call anyone that doesnt a “Holocaust denier”
#23 David Crowe
June 22, 2007

It is true that with an infectious disease you would expect the disease to ebb and flow with the time. But the seasonality of polio is definitely not due to random fluctuations. There is only one part of the world where a massive peak from about August to October is not shown (based on data I have going back to the 1916 epidemic in New York City). Would anyone care to guess what part of the world that is?
#24 David Crowe
June 22, 2007

Tara;

To respond to your specific post. Certainly I’ll give you a copy of the book to review when it’s completed.

Can you give me any examples of where I trashed you on the internet? I don’t normally ‘trash’ people, although I may criticize their ideas and/or lack of data to support them. I try to do that without ad hominem attacks.
#25 Adele
June 22, 2007

David, let me guess:

Almost everywhere south of New York City?

See http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no3/dowell.htm

Seasonality of polio depended on distance from equator too apparently and was mirrored in the southern hemisphere.

Malaria too is dependant on weather.

But both are infectious.

Good luck with your book. I’m sure you’ll sell at least a few hundred copies.
#26 Jim West
June 23, 2007

Mere recitation of dictionary definitions will not suffice, nor study abstracts, as criticism of David Crowe. David is a careful scholar.

David reads studies and their footnotes. That habit is apparently rare among others.

Disease paradigms strongly indict themselves when they omit and avoid toxicological causation, when that is so very obvious. It gives the impression that modern medicine may be the protector of industry.

Few on this blog are aware that there is a great association of persistent pesticides with polio epidemics, see http://www.geocities.com/harpub

The claim that polio is an ancient viral disease, omits the writing of the ancients themselves, who wrote that paralysis was due to metal vapors encountered during their metal and ceramic operations.

Almost no one is aware of MTBE poisoning of water and air in NYC during the so-called “West Nile virus epidemic”, when MTBE was banned by EPA. Toxicology was not accounted for.

So, when great drama occurs (as it did over the “war on polio” or the “war on the mosquito”) — whether it be from a close friend or medical industry press releases, look out for great exploitation.

Few are aware of the relationship between SARS (respiratory disease) and air pollution. I found that, UCLA found that. But that info did not get much press in the US, except in the Weston A. Price Foundation’s newsletter online. The UCLA study was broadcast well, though outside of the US. Oddly, SARS seems to have vanished.

Another parallel: Currently in Bangladesh it is just being realized that medical orthodoxy has entirely overlooked massive arsenic poisoning of “tube wells”, going on for decades. Somehow (I can’t imagine how), this was never accounted for when epidemics of cancer, neurological disease, smallpox, etc., were diagnosed by WHO, etc, in Bangladesh.

Medicine serves to protect, however, it has a tremendous conflict of interest with the chemical industry. Pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and warfare gases, are all manufactured within the same corporations, and even the formulae are quite often related.

These industries have great press agents, political influence, influence among scientific press and within educational institutions, to say the least. That power, coupled with their conflict of interest, should indicate something even to the most disinterested.

-Jim West
http://www.geocities.com/harpub
#27 Nullifidian
June 23, 2007

Mere recitation of dictionary definitions will not suffice, nor study abstracts, as criticism of David Crowe. David is a careful scholar.

David reads studies and their footnotes. That habit is apparently rare among others.

Erm…if he’s so careful, then why use an argument from ignorance regarding seasonality when seasonality can already be addressed by conventional transmission models?

Almost no one is aware of MTBE poisoning of water and air in NYC during the so-called “West Nile virus epidemic”, when MTBE was banned by EPA. Toxicology was not accounted for.

Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ester has been used as an additive in gasoline in numerous states, including my home state of California, where it was detected in ground water as early as the mid-90s and the governor ordered it to be phased out starting in March 1999. If MTBE were responsible for the ailment caused by the West Nile Virus, then we would have seen it start on the opposite side of the continent or in numerous areas more or less simultaneously, in a pattern which is not explicable by conventional epidemiology. This was not observed.

If you all have a reasonable alternative view of disease, rather than what looks for all the world like a second run at the miasma theory, then you should produce a testable epidemiological model to compete with the transmission model of disease.
#28 noreen Martin
June 27, 2007

David’s book will be a breath of fresh air as many times in medicine what was perceived to cause a disease was not correct such as swine flu, which did not occur but the vaccination was disastrous, pellagra, and more. I am guessing that he, like myself, does not believe in the germ theory of medicine he may believe in pleomorhpism, which would certainly make much more sense.
#29 Jim West
August 1, 2007

Glib, sleepy responses are not a substitute for the inclusion of toxicology in disease investigations.

It is clear that toxicology is routinely omitted and avoided at all stages of development for most theories of disease causation.

The ancients wrote that the paralytic diseases were caused in the blacksmithing and ceramic operations, mercury vapors. Bronze was primarily arsenic in ancient times. These things can account for ancient ‘polio’. Yet, virologists surmise with tunnel vision, that this was a ‘virus’?

The medieval recorded their findings that the ‘plagues’ were caused by poisoners of wells and cisterns. People were brought to court and convicted for that. But these inconveniencies are omitted from ‘medicine’.

Always, the evidence for industrial poison causation is massive, yet not discussed by ‘virologists’ and usually not by epidemiologists. Most obviously I’m referring to poliovirus, HIV, West Nile virus paradigms, as examples.

These omissions/avoidances, alone, are a tremendous indictment of ‘epidemiology’ and ‘virology’.

Medical establishment appears to be in the business of creating smokescreens to protect industry from liability, and to open the doors for exploitation.

Further examples:

Anytime one hears of an ‘epidemic’, one only need to use the internet quickly find competing toxicological models.

(Below are paraphrased article titles, from memory)

Article, “Amish community Stricken with polio!”

In five minutes of research, I found (Googled) that all the underground springs in the Amish community were polluted with organochlorine underground plumes from industry in the area, emergency water bottles brought in by the EPA, and all wells shut down. That information is completely missing in The New York Times, and ilk.

That information is omitted from the epidemiology of the Amish epidemic.

Article, “Infant killed by ants in crib!” (in Phoenix, Arizona)?

I contacted the etomologist who was badly interviewed for that article, and he was livid. No ants were found at the scene or on the child, but the coroner made a quick diagnosis. The infant was being treated (before ‘ant bites’) with medical ointments, but there is no mention of that as causative possibility, no toxicology mentioned. Is the coroner avoiding a confrontation with the chemical industry?

The newspaper, Arizona Republic, would not answer the etomologist.

Epidemiology seems to have developed as it is, from always avoiding confrontation with the chemical industry.

Article, “USGA Experiments Crow Sensitivity to West Nile Virus”.

I contacted USGA and only by pressing them through another scientist, did they respond to me, that they decided not to publish their paper. No headline announced that, for sure!

Remember SARS?

I published a review of air pollution in epidemic regions; six months later UCLA study was headlined throughout the world, that air pollution correlates with SARS (respiratory disease). Not announced in US publications, however.

People should not complain that I’m not making proper, studied, epidemiological comparisons, with controls, etc., because I’m just presenting evidence, and saying that the toxicology is entirely missing from official disease paradigms. Complain to those job it is to understand disease.

Anybody, not naive or corrupt, should be able to understand that this makes economic and political sense.

Political Parallel:

If the price of a house in New Jersey (downwind from 5 oil refineries) reflected the air pollution liabilities (loss of 30 years of life to cancer and heart disease and other disabilities), the landlords would have to pay the tenants $10,000 per month! And we can’t have that! Can we? But ‘we’ don’t exist, compared to industrial power.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. But that is the economy of political power.

Yes, we must heroically sacrifice ourselves to the greater industrial good. But it is not heroic, if we are ignorant.
#30 DT
August 1, 2007

What on earth are you going on about? Polio is an infection – the virus has been identified, vaccines made against the disease and this has virtually eliminated it globally. It has absolutely nothing to do with organochlorine toxins.
Recently a case arose in Australia – guess what, it was a man who travelled from Northern Pakistan where there had also been an outbreak (owing to a breakdown in vaccination because of fear engendered by polio denialists). Guess what? – the Australians identified and sequenced the virus, and found it to be identical to virus isolated from cases in North Pakistan.
#31 Seth Kalichman
December 13, 2008

Anyone interested in the psycho-basis for AIDS denialism (including the entire cast of characters portrayed on the recent Law & Order SVU Retro episode) should check out a new book coming out called Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy being published by Copernicus / Springer Books. This is the first psychological analysis of the AIDS denialist movement . It provides the inside scoop on the strange world of AIDS denialists and pseudoscientists and why they have attracted such a following. All of the royalties from sales of this book are being donated to purchase HIV treatments in Africa . Check it out.
http://www.springer.com/medicine/book/978-0-387-79475-4
#32 cooler
December 13, 2008

Seth, awesome book, I’ll make sure to buy a copy. NOT!

Seth, the definition of denialism is denying overwhelming evidence. So can you guys please answer a couple of questions.

In the 1985 the IOM recommended billions in funding for HIV, in 1987 AZT, a very potent drug, was approved, every medical school, the CDC, the FDA taught/spoke of the HIV hypothesis as fact during this time period.

Can you please provide the overwhelming evidence from this time period that proved HIV killed nearly every person infected? It must exist, for why else would have the FDA approved AZT etc. Waiting.

Also can you or anyone else cite the papers you read from any time period that convinced you that HIV causes death in nearly everyone infected, and can you please breifly summarize them so people can make sure you even read them. Waiting.
#33 Kevin
December 15, 2008

I’m an AIDS denialist, or rather an HIV rethinker, but such a distinction is merely semantics, to you, eh Seth Kalichman? I used to post on this blog a great deal, once upon a time, but now that Tara no longer post inflammatory posts related to HIV rethinkers, I haven’t found much use for continuing to read this pathetic blog. Apparently, others share my estimation based on the recent dearth of comments.

Anyway, your recent comment about the strange psychology of HIV denialism, once again, reveals far more about the real purveyors of psuedoscience (HIV scientists and the minions who blindly support that sinking ship) than it does about those of us who are unencumbered by professional indoctrinations. As the author of the book you link to, you are apparently quite the narcissist, as well. With that, let me say that your book is no doubt another fascinating entry in the ever-growing canon of pollyana tripe that defines the HIV literature. When will morons, such as yourself, wake up to the reality that the HIV industry is intellectually bankrupt?

I’m sure you’ll just continue to label me and anyone who sympathizes with my views, as simply someone who suffers from the strange psychology of “denialism”, but before you do, you might consider my track record prognostication here at aetiology:

HIV science comparison to Housing Bubble #1

HIV science comparison to Housing Bubble #2

Adele, DT, Dale and all the other HIV apologists on this blog consistently called me a conspiracy theorist for positing that this housing crisis would lead to severe global financial problems. It was very tiring. Then, when I suggested that the fraud in the financial markets was akin to the fraud that dictates human health research, my character was impugned, even further. Yet, I think it’s now clear that my first point has been proven beyond reproach. As the financial fallout continues to unwind, the explanatory failures of HIV will be further exposed.

I’ll make one final prediction here, just for you, Seth. Your book will either be ceremoniously forgotten, or else it will achieve a modicum of infamy as an example, not of the strange psychology that it posits, but by virtue of the strange psychology that it ignorantly defends.

I offer the following from a post of mine back in early 2007; readers here can judge for themselves whether the psychology of ALL “denialists” is strange because of their conspiracy tendencies or rather because of their “strange” allegiance to truth, in a climate of extremely intellectual dishonesty. I think it’s the latter:

This housing correction will jeopardize the stability of the entire global economy and the US economy will not be spared. In fact, we will suffer the most as the middle class has been virtually annihilated by the creation of this perverted “ownership society.” As the foreclosures mount, people will go from being homeowners to indentured servants, which perhaps will serve as a final wakeup call to all you with your heads in the sand (hello, Harold). However, I fear that it is too little too late to lessen the blow. Is it any wonder that our country’s future is indeed bleak when so many are so willing to accept lies as truth and profiteering as “science”. We are heading for a very deep bottom if we continue to ignore the importance of accountability in this age of unparalleled greed.

Kevin