Aetiology

If I remember correctly, some people such as Lynn Margulis appear to not be convinced HIV causes AIDS. Do their ideas have any ground to them? Someone like Dr Margulis have a fairly strong scientific background and don't appear to just be some crackpot.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 12:31 PM

Thanks for linking that interview Tara. I'm so jealous of how Jeanne Bergman and John Moore communicate! The analogies were just great.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 12:53 PM

I thought the denialists were nuts until i saw the video Hiv Fact or fraud last summer. Its pretty rude that many reputable scientists have questioned the hiv hypothesis, and have been insulted by many. Here is the video I saw last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064591712431946916

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

People question HIV because there is no reliable animal model (virtually every animal injected does not die of aids) and there is not much virus present, (its only in a small fraction of T cells) Like 1 in a hundred or so.

Many take the middle road, Like Luc montagnier the discoverer of HIV, Who in his book "virus" in 2000 still stresses the need for co factors, specifically shyh ching Lo's mycoplasma penetrans. This microbe causes disease and death in every animal injected as lo showed. DR. Nicolson has found this microbe via pcr in CFS, ALS, GWI and you can see his research here.

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

Garth Nicolsons new book must be read about mycoplasma and Gulf war Syndrome.

www.projectdaylily.com

Im not saying that HIV does or Does not cause AIDS but there needs to be more study, and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly, not insulted personally.

Posted by: cooler | June 29, 2007 1:28 PM

I don't think Dr. Margulis retracted. I don't know her but from what she says I think she has a very regimented anti establishment world view. Not a surprise I guess since she got alot of flak for her own contirbutions to symbiosis theory back then. Also the main denialists are good friends with Margulis. And she at least when she made those statements had only read denialists not the published science.

The problem is, the establishment isn't always wrong or always completely wrong or always made up only of capitalist pigs.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 2:03 PM

Richard,

go back and read the whole statement by the editor.

I'm sure he's quite well aware of the bold step his paper has taken, so, unfortunately, he's got to do some token dissident-bashing. He does go on to say that the debate should be kept open...which is a terribly inconvenient thing for those who promote the AIDS paradigm. They don't want debate. Debate=bad!

If you stood on such firm ground, you would enter debate with open arms and minds. And! If you were the scientists you romanticize yourselves to be, you'd understand that any question or challenge can be revisited, including a complete revision of a paradigm:)

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 2:23 PM

The claim that debate=bad for those that "promote the AIDS paradigm" is a bit off point isn't it? I am not a doctor nor do I have any experience in AIDS research, but from what I've been reading neither do the denialists. Debate is certainly useful when the two parties of relatively equal understanding of the concepts. It seems like those who "promote the AIDS paradigm" have been hearing the same arguments over and over and have promptly shown that the research disagrees. At this point, what use is debate?

I apologize if what I have said is off base, I have just been reading up on the AIDSTruth website, so perhaps my understanding of the current situation is poor.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 2:38 PM

Insults based on "The Simpsons"? Really dan. That's almost as good as cooler/911Truther BillyBipBip's comment consisting almost completely of the word "woo" and variations on it.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 3:01 PM

I was mocking you, you're the one that said woo first. I propose a new law that anyone over 80 years old can not say "woo" LOL

Posted by: cooler | June 29, 2007 3:26 PM

apy,

If you want to look at "alternative" sources of information, here are some ideas.

Barnesworld dot blogs dot com This was set up by Harvey Bialy who's views on homosexuality were mentioned up there and a right-wing lawyer whose employers were even embarased by this. Some of the articles on the site talk about HIV and AIDS. Bialy also photoshops alot of monkeyheads onto photos of John Moore and he had one of Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden. Definitely one of your more intellectual denialist pages.

newaidsreiview dot org This one is from a long time denialist "journalist" named Liversedge. There isn't much science on it but you can see more photos of monkeys and John Moore and read amusing arguments between people like "Forty" and "Pope" a guy named Claus Jensen about if John Moore is a closet denialist.

rethinkingaids dot com Has alot of links to other HIV denialist sites and it doesn't have such a distracting thing with ridiculing John Moore. The president is Etienne Deharven who is a emeritus scientist. They have a list of people who supposedly think HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The problem with it, alot of people on there never signed it or they're dead, of AIDS. Also denialists like to say everyone who'se on the list is a scientist but they're not.

duesberg dot com From the head honcho of bad science himself. Has all his like three thousand bad reviews linked legally or illegally I don't know. It all makes sense when you read it until you start looking at the references he uses and there are alot of them, he's lying about it all or using bad logic. All the time.

alive and well dot org. This one wants HIV positive mothers breastfeed their kids even though breastfeeding is a transmission risk. People on their board are people who make money "treating" these patients with "alternative" medicine. Cooler would call it woo. I call it cynicism and conflict of interest too.

There are more but they're all linked together. Read them but be critical. I've read most of em and I could lose one hand and still have enough fingers to count the facts I saw.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 3:55 PM

Adele,

oh my. What a difference it would have made had you simply listed the sites without commentary.

It would have given you some credibility, and in doing so, shown the supposed strength of your position.

I hope Apy's interest is real, and will embark on a journey of discovery.

Posted by: Dan | June 29, 2007 4:09 PM

Evion,
Certainly you raise some useful points. The most important being "who to trust". For many issues, one can look at the arguments themselves and determine which one is more likely to be valid, for instance the sun travels around us or we around the sun. However, something like AIDS has been studied for years upon years by very intelligent people with obviously controversial results, perhaps it will take a bit more than just reading a few webpages to come to a conclusion that one can consider their own. After reading a few web pages I cannot say that I understand the fine details any more than before, I can only regurgitate what various people have stated and present their arguments, none of which are the result of any research I have on the subject.

More importantly, you point out that nobody has given any solid proof that HIV leads to AIDs. From what I have found on the AIDSTruth.org website seems to suggest this is very well known and presents a few links to documents.

The AVERT web site (http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm) states:
The alternative definition of AIDS requires a CD4+ cell count consistently below 200 cells per cubic millimetre of blood, which cannot be explained by any factor other than HIV (such as cancer, malnutrition, radiation or chemotherapy). No HIV test is required.

It turns out that the vast majority of people diagnosed with AIDS fit these criteria. They form a population that barely existed before 1980, but which now numbers hundreds of thousands in the USA and Europe alone. People with such severe immune deficiency are at very high risk of developing serious illnesses and usually die within months (unless they take antiretroviral drugs).10, 11, 12 We can use this simple, unambiguous definition to test the association between HIV and AIDS.

I am not going to say if this is valid or not, I simply don't know. But given that some people are arguing that HIV does not lead to AIDS, do they have any evidence of an alternative? Do they have an animal model? Certainly lacking these does not mean dissidents are wrong, since the pro HIV to AIDS community does not either, but if both choices are on equally poor footing, what tips the balance in the way of the non-HIV theory? Is there any research which shows an overpowering existence of a counterexample to HIV causing AIDS? This would most definitely sway a number of people wouldn't it?

Finally, if the statement is HIV does not cause AIDS, and from what I understand even some of the most outspoken dissidents agree that HIV does exist, certainly if they all inject themselves with HIV and don't get AIDS that would be a pretty strong counter example. It looks win-win for both sides too.

Posted by: apy | June 29, 2007 4:57 PM

Perhaps arguing against specific points might help?

Is that so Apy? Why don't you mention some specific points you'd like to discuss then?

Following Adele, do you want to discuss homophobia, right wing lawyers, composite pictures, the definition of 'long time denialist "journalist"', "a lot of people whose problem is they didn't sign or they're dead of AIDS", whtehre Duesberg the "head honcho of bad science" links legally or illegally, or wheteher the above are all - gasp - linked together?

Come on take your pick, show your genuine interest in the science. You look pretty well informed after all

Perhaps your specific points are "what an animal model shows HIV doesn't cause AIDS" Well tell us what such a model looks like, apart from no animals get AIDS from HIV and we'll try to accomodate you

Don't be shy now, you're among powerful friends, so please go ahead and tell us what the "overpowering existence of a counter example to HIV causes AIDS" would be. We'll try to find one that satisfies you.

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 5:17 PM

I'm asking for an experiment that can be preformed that is reproducible that causes AIDS.

Apy, I'm sure you know that such an experiment would take a long time and cost a lot of money. Do you know somebody who'd like to finance and publish it?

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 5:38 PM

apy,

HIV research has SIV models of AIDS. HIV was a zoonosis it came from SIV in primates that infected an injured hunter or someone preparing the meat. So the ideal model of AIDS would be using the same virus or a similar virus in a host that hadn't seen that virus before. If you infect a primate with a SIV from another species it gets symptoms of AIDS. T-cells go down, it gets OIs actually most of the AIDS symptoms have been seen at one time or another. So there is a model. It's not perfect but what animal model of disease is? There are alot of questions left but we're working on them.

On the other side, most denialists have a drug or stress theory of HIV causing AIDS. There's a large block of research on drugs of abuse and other drugs and animals. The only drugs that cause anything like AIDS are immunosuppressives. Drugs don't cause AIDS. Stress doesn't cause AIDS. There's nothing out there you can link from an animal model to everyone who has AIDS. Except for a lentivirus you can find in every AIDS patient.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 5:47 PM

Duesberg knows rich people too. His lab got funded by rich ultraconservatives. Duesberg's had twenty years to make a contribution to AIDS research. What has he done? Published a bunch of repeated reviews that are an embarassment to the journals who published them. Lies, distortions, childish logic. Why didn't he do some of these drug studies to prove he was right? He's supposed to be the modern Galileo, what gives?

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 5:55 PM

When I wrote immunosuppressive I meant drugs used to prevent organ transplant rejection. Some steroid use can do the same thing.

Illegal drugs? Take heroin. There's been alot of interest in heroin and HIV since alot of people get HIV by injecting drugs together with someone who already has it. So there's been alot of research on this. The people in these studies with HIV have about half the CD4 T-cells that drug users without HIV have. Jon Cohen did a article about drug use and Duesberg in Science over ten years ago.
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1648a.pdf

Different drugs do different things to the immune system. These all get outweighed by what HIV does. HIV infection ends up depleting a specific population of cells and that leaves you helpless to the fungi and bacteria you normally fight off every day.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 6:13 PM

Where's the one paper that proves evolution? Honestly. You have access to the medical literature so look it up. Although you're probably a creo.

I'm satisfied with Bob Gallo's first group of papers plus Jay Levy's independent isolation. But none of that would've worked without the four years of publications by doctors and other people describing AIDS and what it was and how its infectious. If you want those papers and there are hundreds, go get them. They're not a secret. After 1984 there were still issues to solve. A lot of them were , some not. That's why we still work on it. But the causation is proven as much as you can prove something.

If you're interested in stick-infection, go read DT on the other thread.

Your placebo is really pissing me off. When you know a drug can save someone's life you don't give them a salt pill. So if you come up with a maybe better drug, you compare the first drug to the second one. It's called ethics. But there's not a single paper proving ethics, is there, I admit it.

Posted by: Adele | June 29, 2007 6:23 PM

Different drugs do different things to the immune system. These all get outweighed by what HIV does.

Makes you wonder what exactly the HIV test measures doesn't it?

Apy, You seem to have lost interest in animal models almost as quickly as Adele and have instead started speculating in how rich people are tied together:

Mr (sic) Bialy claims to be very rich. Rich people often know rich people, perhaps he could work something out

Are you suggesting philantropist millionaires should fund alternative medical research with no view to profit? But that would subvert the pharmaceuticals, perhaps our whole enlightened capitalist democracy wouldn't it?

You're not a commie are you Apy, or perhaps an islamist?

Posted by: Pope | June 29, 2007 6:29 PM

Dear Adele,

OK I understand you feel that HIV causes AIDs has been proven, and this proof is recorded openly somewhere in the medical literature. Fine. If this is so, then why no occupationally acquired AIDS cases in Brazil after 200,000 AIDS patients were treated in Brazilian hospitals upto the year 2000, at which time a single AIDS case was reportedly acquired from an AIDS patient? Doesn't this strike you as rather odd, and inconsistent with the "proven" hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS? Only one case?

Posted by: Evion | June 29, 2007 6:37 PM

LDN or low dose naltrexone is a wonderful drug that is helping many with immune deficiency diseses from cancers to autimsm, MS, AIDS and a lot more in between. It works by a differnt concept, meaning that it does not directly kill anything. Instead, it works by boosting the body's own endrophin levels in the brain so that the body can ward off diseases. It is taken late at night and not in a time-release form so that all through the next day the body's levels are normal. It has been found that many people with immune diseases have low levels of endrophins and this helps to correct this problem.

This drug is not new and Dr. Bihari used it in the early 80's for his AIDS patients. It has done great things for M.S. and some studies have been done on it. As stated earlier, it is cheap, non-addictive, no side effects and it works. I swear by this drug and you can take from that what you may. Having had AIDS and many of the AIDS-defining diseases, this drug has helped to keep me healthy. Since being on it, I haven't even had the common cold.

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 29, 2007 6:51 PM

I don't know, but the specific post you are referencing I made was referring to some sort of model for what dissidents do think causes AIDS. -- apy

I realize that I am only one example,but I suffered severe immune dysfunction, in the form of AIDS-defining ailments, while consistently testing HIV-negative. I've only recovered by my health after existing conventional care and by finding an MD who practiced holistic treatment for immune failure. He also realized that my health was being severely compromised by opportunistic fungal infections, which is also found in virtually all HIV-positive AIDS cases. For example, PCP and candida are both common AIDS-related fungal infections. Regardless, my health has drastically improved over the past two years, using primarily alternative treatments.

I have posted about my experiences numerous times on this blog. If you are truly interested in learning about an alternative interpretation of "AIDS", you can review my previous posts on the subject:

Here and Here...

In trying to find answers, I've found others, both test-positive and test-negative who have similar histories. The positive ones were usually placed on ARVs, which seems to help for a short period, but the negative patients, like me were left with few answers, unless we found them on our own, which I did! As long as conventional medicine prefers to remain in the dark about the realities of this condition, effective treatments for all "AIDS" cases will be a long-time coming, and perhaps, that's exactly what Big Pharma and modern medicine want...it certainly assures big profits and job security.

In my opinion, there will never be an easy, all-encompassing answer for AIDS, for it obviously has multiple causes. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, HIV doesn't appear to be one of them. What I do know is that the most effective treatments for restoring immune health will require a holistic understanding by both patient and doctor, and pharmaceuticals will definitely play a smaller role if the goal is long-term immune reconstitution. That's a fact.

Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | June 29, 2007 7:27 PM

Jeane Bergman is awesome and speaks like a true concerned human being scientist:

The HIV denialists say that the young children at ICC could not refuse the drugs or fight off the "researchers" who gave them their medications. Should children of two or even 12 years get to decide if they will or will not take their medicine? Of course not, particularly when irregular dosing may result in drug-resistant HIV."

Because kids don't know that not taking drugs will make their viruses be drug resistant - so you've got to make them understand by force. I get that fine, my father used to hit us with his belt buckle when we didn't understand that he was thirsty for his brown water. But we learned, and so should everyone.

But, please, one thing I'm still trying to figure out, what's the standard, for testing I mean, because no one will tell me, except by not answering. And I have a clinic to run, in Australianus, where my Aboriginees are depending on me to figure out who gets to die first on the lifesaving drugs.

Please help! What is the purified, particulate standard for hiv tests, that shows you that the 12-year old in Jeane Bergmans' article can't make a decision for himself?

I just keep coming up with no answer, on every test they always say that the other test is the standard, and then that there is no standard, adn I know what this means, because I took an HIV educators seminar, where they said that tests test for a particle that causes BIIIG problems in homosexuals and black peoples, but we had to ask everybody to get tested anyway, but relaly, just the blacks and gays were important. And I said, why? and they said, because they have the particle, and you know that from the tests. And I said - OOOOHHHH - I get it, they have the particle, and you know that beause you hvae it in the Smithsonian.

And they said, well, I guess they didn't say anything. So, I'm stuck, with all these bad batched old tests adn all these Aboriginees in Australianus, so please, someone tell me, what is the standard? You know, the single, purified, particulate, magic bean that is the reference point on the map for my old tests?

Because I paid a lot of money to set up this clinic, because I knew I could get the welfare checks out of their big, brown hands, if I tried hard enough - so please, don't let me down!!!

What's teh standard? What's the purified particulate standard?

Pleaase!! Tell me!

Posted by: JD | June 29, 2007 9:19 PM

SPeaking of standards, I found this on the internet (which I know is mostly horsepoop), so is this true, or am I really out of luck with my testing clinic?

"Along the same lines, no one is HIV viral load negative. All samples of human blood, tested by PCR Viral Load, always demonstrate the presence of copies of "HIV RNA." The standard protocol for HIV Viral Load declares a blood sample negative if less than 400 copies of HIV RNA are found."

Is that true? Why isn't anyone negative on the hiv pcr tests?

Similarly, the ultrasensitive protocol for HIV viral load declares a blood sample negative if less than 50 copies of HIV RNA are found (Roche 2003). No single human being is, therefore, entirely free of copies of "HIV RNA" in his/her blood. We all are "HIV Viral Load" positive to some degree. Whether this is due to minimal expression of endogenous retroviruses or to universal exposures to stressor agents remains to be analyzed.

Man, this sucks. I don't know what to do anymore. Or who to believe! Won't somebody help? WHy isn't anyone negative? Are we all going to die????

Oh NO! I just ordered a Wii. Now I'll never get to use it.

Posted by: JD | June 29, 2007 10:27 PM

"HIV has become a matter of faith" where is the evidence that HIV causes AIDS? We are suppose to take this on faith. And I suppose that AZT never hurt anyone too. If must be great not to pursue other avenues or theories because then the mainstream can never be wrong. Hell, they won't even debate the issue. So I ask you why should we take all of this on blind faith? Why should we believe what Gallo has to say when he was convicted of scientific misconduct? At least the rethinkers consider both sides of the issue because most started out with the mainstream's point of view.

If one looks at the 30 AIDS, defining diseases, they are not new and each are treatable. When one hasn't any symptoms then one is not sick. It's as simple as that. Not to be cruel but with many diseases, one will get better or not. There is no mystery to this. AIDS, a new classification, was the perfect storm. Events fell into place and many took advantage of this for the almighty dollar.

Mow, much to many's dismay, many of us have tossed the meds and are healthy. This brings up serious doubts about the situation. We cannot be explained away or sweep under the carpet. We are real and not theories to tear apart. I will leave you'll on that one and let you argue your "theories" back and forth. Several months from now I will check back in with you and let you know how things are going.

Posted by: noreen Martin | June 30, 2007 5:57 AM

I thought the denialists were nuts until i saw the video Hiv Fact or fraud last summer. Its pretty rude that many reputable scientists have questioned the hiv hypothesis, and have been insulted by many. Here is the video I saw last Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064591712431946916

Keep in mind that most scientists who question hiv have no conflicts of interest, unlike John Moore.

People question HIV because there is no reliable animal model (virtually every animal injected does not die of aids) and there is not much virus present, (its only in a small fraction of T cells) Like 1 in a hundred or so.

Many take the middle road, Like Luc montagnier the discoverer of HIV, Who in his book "virus" in 2000 still stresses the need for co factors, specifically shyh ching Lo's mycoplasma penetrans. This microbe causes disease and death in every animal injected as lo showed. DR. Nicolson has found this microbe via pcr in CFS, ALS, GWI and you can see his research here.

http://www.aegis.com/pubs/atn/1990/ATN09501.html

Garth Nicolsons new book must be read about mycoplasma and Gulf war Syndrome.

www.projectdaylily.com

Im not saying that HIV does or Does not cause AIDS but there needs to be more study, and scientists who questioned should be debated publicly, not insulted personally.

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 1:46 PM

Just like evolution deniers? The debate has already taken place in the literature, and the deniers' pet theories haven't stood the test

Yes just like evolution deniers. What's wrong with debating evolution in public? Why is it that scientific debate must be hidden from the public's eye in "the literature"

But ok, maybe Tara could point us to the literature where the debate with Duesberg and others has taken place, and tell us which theories have been tested according to the suggestions made by Duesberg and others.
One notable debate which didn't take place in "the literature" is Robert Gallo's promised rebuttal to Duesberg's PNAS article Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation But Not Causation http://duesberg.com/papers/ch3.html

Posted by: Pope | June 30, 2007 2:51 PM

I'm talking about a public jury of millions, not a group of scientists who have many conflicts of interest, and many others that are afraid to speak out. A public jury usually gets the verdict right in a criminal case, and experts because of conflicts of interest get it wrong in our judicial system.

This is too funny. There are articles upon articles in legal journals detailing precisely how prosecutors and defense attorneys routinely misuse statistics, withhold or massage vital data, and then put ignorant people in the jury box because they're going to not be able to recognize the distortions being fed to them. It happened to me once. I was removed "for cause" in voir dire because I admitted to being a biologist.

This is behind the denialists' campaign for public debate, and the creationists' campaign, the relativity-deniers' campaign, etc. People without the technical background can be led by the nose in a way which is less likely when the data is laid out and the arguments circumscribed by the necessity to put forth one's claims in a manner which evaluates it against the existing literature, rather than using mere rhetoric to wow the public.

Your list of scientists is misplaced. Nobody cares. You're just putting forth stupid rhetorical tricks again. I got my degree from a university (UCSD) with seven Nobel laureates in its biology department, the most for any university in the US. The second is the U of Chicago, and they have six laureats of only the fake Nobels in economics given out by the Bank of Sweden.

And it may shock you to discover that nobody gave a damn that person X had won a Nobel prize. It is the quality of their research that matters, not the name, the degree, or anything else which people like you latch on to try to give a veneer of credibility to an argument that has no basis in reality.

Posted by: Nullifidian | June 30, 2007 4:45 PM

I'm sorry to add this before allowing a response, but I happened across it, and it gave me a reason to doubt your Wisdom, Tara, yet again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6230580.stm

Lack of certainty

Researcher Professor Jaroslav Stark, from Imperial College London, said: "Scientists have never had a full understanding of the processes by which T helper cells are depleted in HIV, and therefore they've been unable to fully explain why HIV destroys the body's supply of these cells at such a slow rate.

"Our new interdisciplinary research has thrown serious doubt on one popular theory of how HIV affects these cells, and means that further studies are required to understand the mechanism behind HIV's distinctive slow process of cellular destruction."

The researchers think one possible explanation could be that the virus slowly adapts itself over the course of the infection.

But they stress that further analysis is needed to verify this alternative theory.

Ah-hah, we see the permissiveness of the Orthodoxy in allowing generous re-writing of The Theory, as long as, I suppose, it doesn't abandon it altogether.

Why wouldn't the theories of the 'denialists' count for even more, as they predicted the absolute failure of the central dogma I think, at least a decade ago?

I expect nothing but shrill argument in response, Tara, but I hope your readers will not be cowed, and will stand up for their rights to think.

regards,

Wm. Miller
private citizen
language teacher

Posted by: William Miller | June 30, 2007 5:33 PM

So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You're a total moron.

The HIV debate shouldnt be decided by frauds like Gallo who can tell the american people anything, make millions of his ridicolous hypothesis without hearing the many scientists that think he's full of it.

Its not rocket science, this is 8th grade stuff, Kochs postualtes. How do you prove a microbe causes disease in humans?

Animal model...........oh jeez 99% of animals injected with hiv nothing happens!

Have it be detectable in large amounts............awwwwww, according to Gallo in his book Virus Hunting hiv is in only 1 of 10,000 t cells! I just talked to that fool JOel Gallant and he admitted HIV is now an autoimmune disease and theres not much direct cell killing because he admitted it doesnt infect enough cells! Great speculation to save the hypothesis!

There should be some epidmiological sense, but according to the Army HIV is split evenly between the sexes, while AIDS is 90% male! This makes a lot of sense

Why arent people informed that AZT is a Chemotherapy that kills cells, why are they told it's an "antiretroviral" another lie.

You are pretty unamerican to force this disinformation on the public. Its called informed consent, People have a right to hear another side of an argument, people are not stupid, if some group of scientists argued that eating 20 pizzas a day was good for you, nobody would believe it, unless you bar americans for learning about other sides of issues, than they would believe anything, as in the case with HIV!

Posted by: cooler | June 30, 2007 5:38 PM

I did a quick google search for execptions to Koch's postulates, I found:
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~flegal/etox80e/SpecTopics/microbial.html
As with almost every, if not all, postulates in science, there are limitations and exceptions to Koch's postulates. For example, virulent strains of the bacteria that cause syphilis, Treponema pallidum, or leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae, have never been cultured in artificial media. Similarly, some infectious diseases, such as nephritis, may be caused by several different pathogens; and some pathogens can cause several different disease conditions, including Streptococcus pyogenes that can cause sore throat, scarlet fever, erysipelas (skin infections), puerperal fever, and osteomyleitis (bone inflammation).

I don't know how powerful any of this is to the argument, but the existence of some exceptions suggests the possibility that there might be more exceptions.

"So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You're a total moron."

cooler, I don't believe anyone has said this. For starters, science is international, the constitution is not. Secondly, jury's depend on the testimony of various experts to form their judgement. They are also wrong very often. Many guilty people have been found innocent and vice versa. Jury's are also not free to take what an expert claims and then test it on the defendent to validate it.
It would certainly be nice if a layman could spend 20 minutes listening to both sides adn be educated enough to make a decision about which side is correct but that is not the case. You are free to make your mind up either way but eventually you are relying on trusting what someone has said in order to form your opinion. I don't see how a jury of millions of laypeople would change this at all. Let's say the entire world decides to come to a majority rules verdict. In the end it comes down to how many people believed one side over the other and their verdict is not guranteed to be correct just because a majority agree to it.

Posted by: apy | June 30, 2007 6:42 PM

Cooler et al,

You can't handle the evidence. We place something before you and you turn your head. We use reason, and you use snark. We show you micrographs of AIDS viruses lysing a T-cell, and you see a man in an ape suit. You want things your way, and fuck the facts.

You are a true believer, just like any other creationist and Holocaust denier. It contradicts your beliefs it has to be a lie, and is not to be countenanced in any manner. I have to ask, aren't you getting tired of hauling those goal posts around?

I know how science works, and I know how scientists work. Tain't perfect, but at least scientists do make an honest effort to correct their errors when they are wrong.

And BTW, go over to ENWorld and ask about Ryan "Angles Boi" Boelle. Or do a Gigablast on the name. You want to accuse somebody of lying, know what the fuck you're talking about.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 30, 2007 7:24 PM

AIDS does not inevitably lead to death, especially if you suppress the co-factors that support the disease. It is very important to tell this to people who are infected. I think we should put the same weight now on the co-factors as we have on HIV. Psychological factors are critical in supporting immune function. If you suppress this psychological support by telling someone he's condemned to die, your words alone will have condemned him. "

- Luc Montagnier Virologist, Discoverer of HIV

You forgot to give a reference for this quote.
It's from an interview that appered in Omni magazine in December 1988 v11n3

You also forgot to include the rest of the paragraph.

"... have condemned him. It simply isn't true that the virus is one hundred percent fatal. If you lead a normal life -- sleep regularly at night, avoid alcohol, coffee, and tobacco -- your immune system could perhaps resist the diseas for ten or fifteen years. By then we might have found an effective therapy"

This hardly supports your claim that Montagnier is really a closet
"rethinker". Various co-factors almost certainly have a strong effect on the rate of progression. The single key factor is HIV.

Posted by: Chris Noble | June 30, 2007 9:39 PM

Along the same lines, no one is HIV viral load negative. All samples of human blood, tested by PCR Viral Load, always demonstrate the presence of copies of "HIV RNA." The standard protocol for HIV Viral Load declares a blood sample negative if less than 400 copies of HIV RNA are found. Similarly, the ultrasensitive protocol for HIV viral load declares a blood sample negative if less than 50 copies of HIV RNA are found (Roche 2003). No single human being is, therefore, entirely free of copies of "HIV RNA" in his/her blood. We all are "HIV Viral Load" positive to some degree. Whether this is due to minimal expression of endogenous retroviruses or to universal exposures to stressor agents remains to be analyzed.

HIV TESTS CANNOT DIAGNOSE HIV INFECTION

If your aim was to find a textbook example of the sort of illogical HIV Denialism that you can find on the internet then you have succeeded.

Less than 50 includes 0. A viral load measurement of less than 50 copies/uL does not mean that there are some copies of HIV RNA present. It measn exactly what it says.

It's hard to come up with any response other than "Duhhhhh";

Posted by: Chris Noble | June 30, 2007 10:34 PM

Hello Alan.

My name is Michael and I just read your comments up above about your friend and his illness and passing. If cooler does not apologise for his assumption that your friend was a real person or your story was made up, then I certainly do. My condolences for the loss of your friend. I too have lost many friends that at one time I too believed were due to HIV. My beliefs, however, have evolved since then.

I do think that you are only giving us a very small and partial picture of the situation and factors involved with your friend, his illness, and his passing, and not a full enough picture of the situation to do anything with but jump to premature and unknowledgeable conclusions, although I am sure it is accurate as to the best of your knowledge and memory of 3 years ago. As you said, Ryan was an internet friend of yours, not an intimate friend that you personally spent one on one time with, so we readers are now getting the information 3rd hand.

I would like to point out to you, Alan, some things you may not have considered, and one being that people do not die of AIDS. They die of something specific, and you did not share with us, what specifically, your friend died of nor any of what his specific symptoms were, nor what his treatments were, nor how his body reacted to the treatments. What was the cause of death? Was it hepatitis, TB, pneumonia, thrush, KS, PCP, or what? Or was it liver failure or kidney failure or heart failure? Was it something viral, bacterial, or was it related to his treatment. Please understand that without the full and complete picture, Alan, it is impossible for anyone to understand or do anything except jump to conclusions and assumptions of whether your friends death was HIV related or not. What were the other influencing factors if any? What was going on with him emotionally? What was going on in his relationship with his family? Did they accept him as a gay person, or did they reject him for this. Was he a person who expected to live, or did he have expectations of sickness or death? Did he even possibly have an inner death wish that he did not even share with you? You mentioned that he had formerly had drug problems, are you sure he resolved the drug addiction as well as the underlying emotional issues that drove his addiction? One can be sober and still suffer deeply from emotional stress that weakens ones immune system. Psychological factors can intensely affect one's immune system.

The reason I ask, is because I feel you are making assumptions that it is all about HIV, when his situation and exact illness was deeper than that even if it were partially true that HIV was a factor. Ignoring all of the other factors does not change them and make only HIV true. And the factors that could also have affected his situation are also much deeper than what little you have shared with us, and perhaps even deeper than the limited parts of his life that your friend had even shared with you over the internet.

I would hope you will also come to understand, that even though you believe you "knew" your internet friend well, there is yet much more you do not know, from which position it is very easy for you to jump to conclusions based on very limited information.

You wrote: "HIV denial has become a matter of faith, and that is poisonous to critical thought".

That statement is a double edged sword Alan, and one that can just as easily take a piece out of the opposite side of the issue.

I would only hope you would keep a more open mind on this issue Alan, although it seems you are already married to only one side of the issue.

Posted by: Michael | June 30, 2007 10:59 PM

So according to you we should abolish the constitution and have experts to decide trials!
Experts who if you watch Court TV say anything if the price is right. You're a total moron.

I'm a total moron because you've made up a wholly fictitious argument and attributed it to me? Well, doesn't that just scream "intellectual honesty" of the kind that has given the AIDS denialist camp its numerous successes in the courtroom?

If you want to know what my proposals for overhauling the currently established "expert testimony" is, just ask me. For one, I think that unannounced, blinded trials of forensic technicians should be done on at least a biannual basis, and that the results of these trials should form the basis for reporting any probabilities of a forensic "match".

I think that random samples should be elicited from populations by disinterested parties (i.e. not the police) in order to evaluate the degree of population substructuring in a given geographic area and that should be another basis for reporting any probabilities of a forensic DNA match.

I think that the product rule should be banned entirely when reporting the likelihood of a forensic DNA match since it skates the line of perjury.

And I think that the state should fund labs and forensic experts to replicate results, evaluate results, and testify on behalf of the defense, thus preventing situations where the defense doesn't raise a challenge to forensic evidence despite previous challenges to its legitimacy and known errors and frauds.

The HIV debate shouldnt be decided by frauds like Gallo who can tell the american people anything, make millions of his ridicolous hypothesis without hearing the many scientists that think he's full of it.

Virologists, epidemiologists, etc. have already heard the so-called 'many' scientists who are HIV denialists and they're unconvinced.

Its not rocket science, this is 8th grade stuff, Kochs postualtes. How do you prove a microbe causes disease in humans?

You don't. Next!

At best you can just establish a reasonable degree of confidence based on the correlation of diseases to symptoms. There are many organisms for which one or more of Koch's postulates do not obtain, so waving it about as if were the final answer to everything while not being equally skeptical about whether Mycobacterium leprae, for example, causes leprosy is fundamentally dishonest.

Animal model...........oh jeez 99% of animals injected with hiv nothing happens!

So Koch's postulates include the assumption that every disease will be transmissible across every animal on the planet? Uh, no, I think you just made that up.

Have it be detectable in large amounts............awwwwww, according to Gallo in his book Virus Hunting hiv is in only 1 of 10,000 t cells!

As has been explained to you repeatedly, CD4+ cells are t-cells, but not all t-cells are CD4+ cells. Anyone who cannot get this by now is either a moron, someone irreversably committed to the denialist position come what may, or both. Which are you?

I just talked to that fool JOel Gallant and he admitted HIV is now an autoimmune disease and theres not much direct cell killing because he admitted it doesnt infect enough cells! Great speculation to save the hypothesis!

You can't tell the difference between an immunodeficiency disease and an autoimmune disease, and you're staking the claim that it's virologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists who have to satisfy you that HIV is the causative agent in a certain immunodeficiency disease?

Way to support, by example, anything I could possibly say about the general public not being qualified to make a judgment on the matter.

There should be some epidmiological sense, but according to the Army HIV is split evenly between the sexes, while AIDS is 90% male! This makes a lot of sense

This is so incoherent that it's difficult to parse, but I assume it's about how the incidence of AIDS patients in "the Army" (I assume the U.S. one, since it seems to be certain Americans alone who think that nowhere else in the world exists) is skewed to men, while HIV-positive women equal the number of HIV positive men.

If that's so, it could be explained several ways, one of the easiest being that, since AIDS takes a long time to progress, it would be primarily seen in "lifers" who were HIV positive early in their career, and the demographics of lifetime military people in the Army skews to men, rather than women. Wow, something that's consistent with what we know about the demographics of the army, plus what is known about the progression of the disease, predicts a skew between male and female AIDS patients in the Army. One could think that's because the virologists, epidemiologists, etc. etc. are right!

Why arent people informed that AZT is a Chemotherapy that kills cells,

Because it doesn't. It may damage mitochondria, and people are told about that. Mitochondria haven't been independent cells for over two billion years.

why are they told it's an "antiretroviral" another lie.

Because it is an antiretroviral.

You are pretty unamerican to force this disinformation on the public.

Oh boo hoo. I've got news for you: I'm "unamerican" in more ways than that. I'm an anarchist. As such, I fully support your right to, if you are HIV positive, not take antiretrovirals if you don't want to. But you certainly had better disclose your status to any future sexual partners, so that they can make an autonomous decision of their own. However, I do not support misleading large swaths of people in ways which are likely to lead to thousands of preventable, or at least postponeable, deaths. In fact, I view it as genocide.

Its called informed consent,

The only consent that matters is the consent of the patient to take or not take the antiretrovirals, and I fully support the doctor giving the patient a full and frank explanation of all that is known about HIV. What the denialists claim is not known. In fact, it's a collation of bullshit, stupid misunderstandings, and demagoguery.

People have a right to hear another side of an argument,

Yes, but the issue is not that you want them to hear it, but you want us all to be forced to believe it. We've all heard the arguments of the denialists and found them to be utter crap.

What you hope to gain by doing public debates outside of the literature is to get public assent for your views even though you know they can't hack it among a genuinely skeptical audience of scientists. Given the human consequences of proposing stuff that you know is false and has already been debunked in the area of virology, it amounts to nothing more nor less than a prescription for genocide.

You disgust me.

Posted by: Nullifidian | June 30, 2007 11:33 PM

I keep seeing this word "hiv" coming up, and I still dont' know what the pure particulate purified gold standard smithsonian museum reference for this particle is.

no one will tell me. Spongy Noble believes in hiv like Peter Pan believes in fairies, and I know that Spongy must KNOW what the purified particulate molecule is that is also the where the buck stops here' gold standard for all and each and every 'hiv' test.

Spongy made a 'duhhhh' before, but I was wondering if it's true that you can call someone pcr 'negative' if they're, you know, below 400 whatever it is per cubic crapulmiter.

Please, Will someone tell me what the pure particulate purified gold standard is? I've been asking for days and days, and everybody keeps using the word 'hiv', and I know that you're not just making it up, you know, by believing in it - I know you have the purified gold standard reference particle for each and every test that corresponds with the tests so that all the true positives are positives and all the false positives are just misplace white people... anyway...

Can you please just send it to me in Australianus? The gold standard, just in a shoe box or something. I need a standard, because we have white straight people where I live as well as the Aboriginees, so you know, I can use the high-risk strategy for the brown-skins, but what do I do for the nice white ladies (I try to sleep with them, but I'm a restless sleeper and kick a lot, and that bothers their husbands).

Please, somebody, please, please, please,

what is the singular one-of-a-kind always there purified particulate gold reference standard for hiv tests?

What is it? Where is it? Why isn't it here at this special place, with Spongy and the gang? Please help.

Posted by: JD | June 30, 2007 11:46 PM

Step off, you disgust me.

If we were in Stalins Russia, Mao's China or Hitlers Germany a young Thomas Paine like myself would come up to a brainwashed loser like you and say, The policies of our leaders are crazy and are killing millions, you're reply would be "all the experts agree with it so shutup"

Experts are going to agree with the party line regardless of its merits most of the time, and only a brave few scientists will speak out. Why did experts in many historical instances supported corrupt policies as they did in Russia and Germany for example?

There are several reasons, thought control, money, funding, fear of speaking out, and a establishment that prevented the public from hearing the other side of an argument. All these circumstances are present here in America today.

An open public debate is the only way to get to the truth, and most Americans are unaware of the "denialists" arguments because of facsists like you, once they do, the gig is up. Im not saying hiv has nothing to do with AIDS, but I Agree with experts that are not bought and paid for that

"AIDS is much more complicated than HIV"

Shyh Ching Lo MD PHD
Cheif of the infectious disease dept
Armed Forces Institute of pathology

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 12:06 AM

Step off, you disgust me.

Nice to see you can only insincerely parrot me.

If we were in Stalins Russia, Mao's China or Hitlers Germany a young Thomas Paine

You envision yourself as a latter-day Thomas Paine?! Bwahahahahahah!!

like myself would come up to a brainwashed loser like you and say, The policies of our leaders are crazy and are killing millions, you're reply would be "all the experts agree with it so shutup"

Your is different than you're. One is a possessive, the other is a contraction. Thomas Paine knew the difference.

And if you want to go to historical analogies, Stalinist Russia provides us with an unqualified hack ruining Soviet biology by promoting a contrarian view (Lysenkoism) which was refuted by the experience and experiments of experts in the field.

Given this, you look more like Lysenko than I do.

Experts are going to agree with the party line regardless of its merits most of the time, and only a brave few scientists will speak out.

Wrong. There is not a "party line" in science. There's what works, and what doesn't. In situations where the evidence is ambiguous, like whether things combusted due to "phlogiston" or oxygen in the 17th century, there is debate. Where things have proven their utility as a predictive and explanatory model like evolution or the transmissibility of HIV as a causative agent of AIDS, there is minimal to no scientific debate about these essentials, and attention turns to finding out more beyond the basics which have already been established.

If one has evidence that the basics are fundamentally wrong, one can publish a refutation in the literature, where it will be evaluated. What you object to is that scientists aren't pushovers for your stupid form of argumentation, so you want us to engage in a game of public debate which would lend your view unwarranted credibility and allow you to pull the cheap tricks you can't get away with from scientists, because you know that your position cannot stand up to scrutiny in the full light of day. That is immoral.

Why did experts in many historical instances supported corrupt policies as they did in Russia and Germany for example?

Because everyone of them who didn't were purged, kept their opinions to themselves, or fled the country. Duh.

There are several reasons, thought control, money, funding, fear of speaking out, and a establishment that prevented the public from hearing the other side of an argument. All these circumstances are present here in America today.

So you name "thought control" as the #1 reason that people don't accept your shit for shinola? Wow. Got to dust off the tinfoil hats, those government mind control rays are way too strong for me!

An open public debate is the only way to get to the truth,

Wrong. Where was the "open public debate" and vote on the validity of the general theory of relativity? Inflationary theory? The atomic theory of matter? The chromosomal theory of heredity?

One would have to be a moron to think that reality changes when you vote on it.

and most Americans are unaware of the "denialists" arguments because of facsists like you,

You misspelled "factists".

once they do, the gig is up.

There is no "gig". People who go into virology, epidemiology, etc. do not want it to be the case that there's a virus out there which is currently uncurable, and for which there is no vaccine, and which cuts one's life expectancy down by several decades. They would much rather that AIDS be due to "poppers", drug use, etc. because those are relatively fixable, compared to a virus.

Your conspiracy theories are infantile, moronic, unrealistic, and are currently leading people doen the road to death because this cavalcade of bigots and nuts that makes up the public 'scientific' face of HIV denialism has achieved some level of traction in countries like Gambia.

Im not saying hiv has nothing to do with AIDS, but I Agree with experts that are not bought and paid for that

"AIDS is much more complicated than HIV"

Shyh Ching Lo MD PHD
Cheif of the infectious disease dept
Armed Forces Institute of pathology

I see. So the taint of government support shows that people cannot possibly be trusted except when they say things that you can mangle until you like them. What sterling intellectual consistency you display.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 12:56 AM

You preach and whine, but you dont have much evidence to back your position. If you have a brain, you'll realize there was never any debate on HIV after the Orwellian press conference in 1984. But you don't have a brain, so please dont send me another sanctimonious tirade, I dont even read half of your idiotic posts.

Can you give me a link of a scientific study/experiment that was designed to confirm/disprove Gallo's hypothesis? Guess what, all the studies after Gallo's claim in 1984 were designed with the premise that HIV already caused AIDS and were measuring something else entirely, had these studies been designed to test the hiv hypothesis they would have designed totally differently.

So what's an idiot like you left with? Gallo's original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference. What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells that was seemingly nuetralized by antibodies. If you think that alone is enough to prove causation you're even dumber that I thought.

Please dont tell me of the "20 years of confirmatory evidence since Gallo" NONE OF THOSE STUDIES/EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED TO TEST THE HIV HYPOTHESIS, THEY ASSUMED IT TO BE TRUE AND WERE DESIGNED TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THAT!

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 1:20 AM

You preach and whine,

Wrong again! I've neither preached nor whined. I've just refused to yield to a known liar.

but you dont have much evidence to back your position.

Wrong again!

If you have a brain, you'll realize there was never any debate on HIV after the Orwellian press conference in 1984.

Also incorrect, but when you're on a roll, why not go for the gusto?

But you don't have a brain, so please dont send me another sanctimonious tirade, I dont even read half of your idiotic posts.

I see. I don't have a brain because I accept that the widespread acceptance of HIV as the causative agent of AIDS is due to the weight of the evidence and not due to "thought control".

It would be funny if the human consequences were not so dire.

Can you give me a link of a scientific study/experiment that was designed to confirm/disprove Gallo's hypothesis? Guess what, all the studies after Gallo's claim in 1984 were designed with the premise that HIV already caused AIDS and were measuring something else entirely, had these studies been designed to test the hiv hypothesis they would have designed totally differently.

Okay, then wow us with your grasp of immunology and how to design a scientific experiment and tell us how these thousands of published studies and experiments should have looked, given your manifestly extensive expertise in the subject (which leads you to confuse immunodeficiency diseases for autoimmune diseases, for example).

You've made enough unsourced claims. Now's the time for the rubber to hit the road.

So what's an idiot like you left with? Gallo's original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference.

And nearly every other paper to do with HIV in the immunological literature since then.

What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells

So is it 1 out of 1,000 or 1 out of 10,000? Or is it 1 out of pi? One out of e? One out of 58 x log 7?

It has already been explained to you, by others previously and me most recently, that t-cells and CD4+ cells are not the same thing. CD4+ cells are t-cells, but not all t-cells are CD4+ cells. Since repeating arguments based on assumptions known to be false is to be a known liar, why should I give a damn about anything you have to say?

Please dont tell me of the "20 years of confirmatory evidence since Gallo" NONE OF THOSE STUDIES/EXPERIMENTS WERE DESIGNED TO TEST THE HIV HYPOTHESIS, THEY ASSUMED IT TO BE TRUE AND WERE DESIGNED TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THAT!

Okay, so how would they be designed if they didn't allegedly assume HIV-as-the-causative-agent-of-AIDS wasn't true? I'm sick and tired of you making wild accusations you can't support. If you can't show any basis for your claims in fact, then you should admit that and retract that, or if you're a more abashed soul just shut up and go away. Continuing to try to face those of us who know better out brazenly is a strategy which could only be convincing to a complete babe in the woods.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 3:02 AM

So what's an idiot like you left with? Gallo's original papers that were published AFTER his government sponsored press conference. What did he have? A partial correlation with no animal model and a microbe that was present in 1 out 1000 t cells that was seemingly nuetralized by antibodies. If you think that alone is enough to prove causation you're even dumber that I thought.

Gallo's original paper had passed peer-review before the press conference.

You are also displaying symptoms of DTWS (Denialist Time Warp Syndrome).

Only a small percentage of lymphocytes are in peripheral blood. The majority of lymphocytes are in the gut.

It is now recognised that a high proportion (~60%) of CD4+ cells in the gut are infected during acute infection and that the majority of CD4+ cell depletion occurs in the gut at this stage.

HIV pathogenesis: the first cut is the deepest.

The same pattern is seen in the SIV/macaque models of HIV infection.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 3:31 AM

For the drug compnay reps and paid AIDS political activists, repeating again, a placebo controlled study is one in which the study group is divided into two arms. The placebo group gets the inert tablet with no pharmacologic activity, and the drug group gets the drug with the pharacologic activity.

For HIV drugs, these rules have been thrown out the window, and it is common practice to do these unethical studies in Africa where the data cabinet sometimes is found missing and the data "recontructed". Scientific misconduct and outright fraud has been publicly exposed in a number of these studies. These studies are paid by the drug maker, and if you believe these tainted studies, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Again, the use of two toxic drugs for the placebo arm and three toxic drugs for the drug arm of a study is NOT a placebo controlled study. It is a charade and a disgrace to science and humanity. For a real placebo controlled study see reference number 3 below in which a simple nontoxic mineral that costs a nickel performed better than any HIV drug study.

Repeating, NONE of the HIV drug studies were REALLY placebo controlled. AIDS political activists are paid to repeat their dogmas and actually believe in it. The rest of the free world is not required to.

If HIV is NOT the cause of AIDs, then what is?

There have been a number of requests for an alternative explanation. We are all familiar with the drug hypothesis by Professor Duesberg as one alternative explanation.

Here is another.

The role of micronutrients such as selenium has been largely ignored by the mainstream medical system. Recent studies have implicated selenium deficiency as a key to AIDS pathogenesis. It is well known that the HIV genome encodes for glutathione peroxidase which depletes serum selenium. (1)

HIV positive patients who are supplemented with cheap inexpensive, nontoxic selenium tablets, have 30% less hospitalization. (2)

and show dramatic improvements in CD4 cell count and HIV reduction by PCR measurements. (3)

This improvement in CD4 cell count and surrogate markers with selenium is much more impressive than any of the HAART drug cocktail studies, none of which are REALLY placebo-controlled.

An excellent review article on all micronutrients and HIV can be found here. (4)

For Noreen and Kevin, for a non-toxic cost effective approach, this makes sense. Diagnostic testing for selenium, B12, and other micronutrients is straight forward with blood testing with the large national labs like Quest and Labcorp.

Organic Acid testing is available with US Biotek, Great Plains, Genova, Metametrix. Organic Acids are commonly used for diagnosis of nutritional deficiencies in autistic kids, and are quickly becoming the latest cutting edge method for evaluating nutritional deficiencies in adults and kids.

Supplementation with selenium is a no-brainer. It is non-toxic and cheap. Other micronutrients such as B12, and vitamin C are mentioned in the review article.

It is well known that malnutriton is a direct cause of immune-suppression, which in fact , is the definition of AIDS. Depletion of key nutrients like selenium could be a possible mechanism which could explain why HIV could produce a syndrome indistinguishale from starvation in Africans and North American drug abusers who are already suffering from malnutrition. It could also explain why well nourished non-drug users who are HIV positive become long term non-progressors. They are better nourished and better able to withstand micronutrient deficiencies.

This information is available in the public domain and is not original by any means.

1) Biochemistry, Molecular modeling and in vitro activity of an HIV-1-encoded glutathione peroxidase Lijun Zhao et al. PNAS June 6, 2000 vol. 97 no. 12 6356-6361

(2)HIV Clin Trials. 2002 Nov-Dec;3(6):483-91.Impact of a selenium chemoprevention clinical trial on hospital admissions of HIV-infected participants.

(3) Suppression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Viral Load With Selenium Supplementation, A Randomized Controlled Trial, Barry E. Hurwitz, PhD Arch Intern Med. Jan 27, 2007;167:148-154.

(4) American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 85, No. 2, 333-345, February 2007 REVIEW ARTICLE
Micronutrients in HIV-positive persons receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy. Paul K Drain, Roland Kupka, Ferdinand Mugusi and Wafaie W Fawzi

Compared with HIV-negative person, HIV-infected persons have lower serum concentrations of several micronutrients and more commonly have micronutrient deficiencies (35-42). Among HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART, Observational studies have shown low or deficient serum concentrations of several micronutrients, including thiamine, selenium, zinc, and vitamins A, B-3, B-6, B-12, C, D, and E to be individually associated with either low CD4 cell counts, advanced HIV-related diseases, faster disease progression, or HIV-related mortality (43-57). In addition, micronutrient interventions have been shown to have cellular and clinical benefits in HIV-positive persons not receiving HAART. In randomized placebo-controlled trials, a daily supplement of vitamins C and E for 3 mo reduced oxidative stress (61), a daily multivitamin supplement for 48 wk reduced mortality in subjects with baseline CD4 counts

Posted by: Independence Day | July 1, 2007 7:23 AM

Independence Day, you hit the nail right on the head? Selenium is important to health, in the states the areas with the lowest naturally occurring selenium in the soil have the highest cancer rates. In Africa, places with low selenium have high AIDS cases. Many vitamins and supplements have been proven to contribute to health. At the height of my sickness, I was taking 50 vitamins, supplements, herbs, good eating habits along with the medicines, which all assisted in my recovery. I believe in using all that is available to the patient to get well. I never said that the meds did not help, only that they should not be used for persons without symptoms or for long term use, then they become the next problem of the patient.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 7:42 AM

Why isn't studies being done to settle this arguement? There are too many unanswered questions and things that just don't add up to accept only the current theory. There has to be many avenues, which leads a person to AIDS. What do I have in common with gay men, who seem to have the majority of cases? I never took drugs except what was over-prescribed by doctors, smoked pot. etc. and probably some of them didn't either. If the AIDS cases were equally divided between the sexes, then I could entertain that HIV had something to do with it, but it is not.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 8:25 AM

What do I have in common with gay men, who seem to have the majority of cases?

They did AFAIK have the majority of cases around when I was born in 1982. That was because they changed their partners most frequently.

Those times are over. The vast majority of cases nowadays are heterosexual people of both sexes in southern Africa. Excuse me, don't you know anything?

You get HIV by blood contact; tiny wounds suffice. Sex (including oral, BTW) is enough to create such wounds. That's the most important way AIDS keeps spreading.

And if you don't live in a sterile environment while the virus destroys your helper T cells and thus your immune system, you will get the full range of AIDS symptoms from getting moldy alive, or from a mutation that would otherwise have been kept under control by the immune system but now leads to Kaposi's sarcoma, or from the common cold, and your years will be numbered.

(There, incidentally, we have the "cofactors" that make AIDS "more complicated than HIV".)

Posted by: David Marjanović | July 1, 2007 9:21 AM

I know what it feels like to be sick and dying, not to make make it to the bathroom and have accidents in the house. I know what if feels like not be able to eat anything and vomitting one's gut up. I know how it feels not to be able to get off the couch or even have the strength to fix Christmas bulbs on a tree. I know what if feels like to drop weight and have hair fall out and to look like death warmed over. I know how odd it feels not to be able to remember simple things like a grocery list or phone numbers. I know how painful thrush is in one's mouth and fearing that it might be cancer. I know how anemia feels and adds to one's tiredness, how a fast heart beat feels and having heavy breathing and not being able to breath. I'm sure that I have forgotten things and I know how arterial, blood gas tests, spinal taps, IV's and bone biopsies feel. Most of you talk about theories and papers but I have been there and know what works for me, whether you agree with me or not.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 10:04 AM

PS

David writes "southern Africa". That of course makes it possible that he is educating us about the conditions not in South Africa, but in what Dr. Noble and Mr. Jefferys would refer to as "subsaharan Africa".

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 10:25 AM

For the what's it worth department, many HIV-Positives take much higher doses of selenium, 1000mcg or eating 10 brazil nuts is the equivalent. As was mentioned above, it is easy to get selenium, Vitamin D and other nutrient levels tested. However, infectious disease doctors don't routinely test for these. I found it difficult to get them interested in any supplements whatsoever. They stay focused on "viral loads" and CD4 counts.

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 12:10 PM

Sir Kellog,

I was just admiring the genius of your literary style (I suppose these are your sharp analyses, since one arrives on them when clicking your name). It's truly marvelous how your artful figures of speech distinguish you from the likes of Tara, Noble and Jefferys. It was a difficult choice, I deny it not, but I think this representative piece of prose poetry more than anything bespeaks your originality:

You ever notice how alike denialists sound? We could be talking about creationists, holocaust deniers, sasquatch skeptics, HIV deniers, terrorism deniers, global warming deniers, or even flat earthers, and you'll get the same rhethoric with only the details changed.

One caveat, Sir Kellog, a mere factual correction if you don't mind, since your style and pitch are truly perfect. We denialists have never expressed scepticism about the existence of the sasquatch.

While we are on the subject of factual corrections:

The HIV/AIDS connection is not something cobbled together by people with nothing better to do.

As a matter of fact that's exactly what it is. Gallo and friends were so-called retrovirologist left with nothing better to do than looking for an HIV-AIDS connection since they had failed so miserably in finding a retroviral explain-all for cancer. Gallo himself had several failed attempts to come up with a pathologically significant retrovirus under his belt before he finally made a useful invention.

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 1:44 PM

Amongst those who promote the HIV=AIDS hypothesis, I've noticed many times they use the words murder, murdering, murderer and murderers.

Larry Kramer has often said that gays are murdering each other.

In one of my hometown weeklies, gay writers talk about gays murdering each other at bathhouses.

Outspoken AIDS activists have called those who question/challenge the hypothesis murderers.

Are people who question/challenge the HIV=AIDS hypothesis murderers?

Yes or No.

Posted by: Dan | July 1, 2007 3:09 PM

...when the thymus develops at approximately week 25.

Of course, I meant to say the thalamus. I really need to start using preview.

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 3:56 PM

Again, the use of two toxic drugs for the placebo arm and three toxic drugs for the drug arm of a study is NOT a placebo controlled study. It is a charade and a disgrace to science and humanity.

No, this is sheer nonsense. Ethical standards do not permit placebo controlled studies in dangerous or painful diseases when an effective treatment is available. This is not unique to HIV; it applies to ALL diseases, ranging from cancer to arthritis. The effectiveness of first-generation anti-AIDS drugs was established in placebo controlled studies. Once that was achieved, placebo-controlled studies became unethical, and subsequent generations of drugs were tested against known treatments. Again, this is standard practice for all known diseases.

Referring to the standard regimen as "toxic drugs" is also deceptive. ALL drugs have soem degree of toxicity associated with them, so "toxic drugs" is at best redundant, as well as falsely implying that there is something uniquely bad about this particular combination of drugs.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 4:13 PM

An 8th grader could understand Koch's postulates

Indeed. In particular, an 8th grader would surely know the meaning of the word "postulate," understanding its meaning as basically similar to "hypothesis," or "assumption," and would immediately recognize the foolishness of holding up these 19th century speculations as some sort of absolute standard for identification of an infectious agent. Indeed, Koch himself revised his postulates after finding exceptions, and many other exceptions have been identified since then.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 4:26 PM

nullfidian said

We are told the science is too complex to understand........An 8th grader could understand Koch's postulates, But can they understand the exceptions to Koch's postulates, like the fact that Mycobacterium leprae has not been cultured in vitro and understand why that doesn't matter to knowing that M. leprae is the causative agent of leprosy? [snp for brevity]People can learn about these things, but true understanding requires a significant investment in one's background knowledge, and serious mental effort. You don't want to admit that because you're lazy, dishonest, or incapable of mental effort, or some combination of all three. Just look at how you react when I ask you to support your claims with evidence and reasoning, in re: explaining how published studies would look different if they were testing the notion that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS. nullifidian, dumbass, they would have been designed much differntly and controlled for confounding factors if they really saught to confirm what he said. There it is. There's your support for your claim. You just repeat the same claim over and over again, and call me a "dumbass" apparently for demanding that you adduce some support for your claim. I guess I should just bow down in abject prostration before the Big HIV Denialist Expert who cannot support his claims. Oh well, if he cannot, who cares since he's so obviously right that the scientific consensus is due to "thought control" rather than an evaluation of the evidence, even if he doesn't know what the evidence is and is so ignorant as to confuse an autoimmune disase with an immunodeficiency disease. And yet somehow I'm the authoritarian precisely because I disdain this argument based on your overweening arrogance and completely illegitimate arguments to authority. Too funny.

Nullfidian uses a typical evasive gimmick in his reply to cooler. The science is much too complex for poor illiterate cooler to understand. Its futile trying to explain, so why bother. Sorry Nullfidian, that crap doesn't pull any weight. Either put up or shut up. It is not up to cooler to support his claims. He doesn't have any claims to make. He only has questions, and it is up to you and other paid AIDS political activists and drug company reps to answer them in a calm, logical, understandable fashion with a minimum of ad hominems. It is up to AIDS/Inc., Big Pharma to convince us they are worthy of trust. So far they have not done a very good job at it. The 20 minute John Moore video does not help to instill trust, and is in actuallity a large set back in developing credibility and trust, especially when he appears with his lawyer. The two of them make an "odd" couple if you catch my drift, and the pair actually shoot themselves in the foot. The video actually backfires, just like the Rachel Carsen, environemntal book which was bitterly denounced by the chemical industry only making it more popular, creating a groundswell movement called the EPA.

Put up a rational dialog which explains 1) the mechanism of disease, how HIV causes Aids. Here is your chance to be creative give it a try. 2) The AIDS animal model or lack therof, 3) the absence of expected numbers of occupationally acquired AIDS cases (take Brazil for example, 200,000 AIDS cases and only ONE occupationally acquired case), 4) the gold standard for HIV test kits or lack therof, 5) the lack of proof of efficacy of any HIV drug over a placebo, 6) and explain why anyone in their right mind would trust a medical system that has admitted past mistakes with AZT and the Dr. Ho "Hit Em Hard" policy, killing hundred of thousands, oops, sorry about that ? Here take this nice smiley face drug and you will feel better soon, my sweet goldilocks. 7) Why the main cause of death of AIDS patients is now liver failure which is not an opportunistic infection, it is an adverse side effect of a toxic HIV drug.? 8) and the original cooler question about the articles which followed the 1984 Gallo article which were announced at a Heckler press conference before any peer review. How did these following articles prove Hiv as a cause of AIDS?. Or, as cooler says, they were set up with the pre-supposition that HIV causes AIDS and therfore did not ever actually prove it. Why should anyone in their right mind believe Gallo after he was convicted of scientific misconduct? Unless of course, there were big bucks from the NIH, buckeroos from the drug companies, and HIV test kit sales involved, which there were. Gallo made a nice penny on his HIV test kit patent. The entire field of HIV research reeks of corruption and scientific misconduct tainted by drug compay money and NIH money. Even Africans are willing to pad their numbers to keep the money rolling in. Is that what you stand for nullfidian, padded numbers, and the genocidal elimination of undesirable homosexuals and drug addicts with medically administered AZT? Do you stand for the outrageous proposal that 2 toxic anti HIV drugs represent a placebo and three toxic anti-HIV drugs represents a drug? What do you stand for, nullfidian? Yourself?

Back to the placebo question for trill (is it actually troll). Thanks for FINALLY coming up with the well known argument that it is UNETHICAL to test a drug against a placebo, once the first drug in its class has been found effective. Guess what, the first AZT drug trial was corrupted, halted early and tested nothing. The drug group was kept alive with blood transfusions, while the placebo group died of whatever they had, hardly a fair comparison. We need to go back to using a REAL placebo,trll, my honorable drug company representative, especially when selenium which is nontoxic and costs a nickel performs better than your toxic drugs which cost a fortune. At this point it is unethical NOT to use a real placebo controlled trial. There are long term non-progressors who never get sick. Why not do a placebo controlled trial on them? Half get killed off in the toxic drug arm, and the other half lives happily ever after in the placebo arm. What are the ethics of this scenario?

And yes these are toxic drugs, that's why I use the word toxic. And no, not all drugs are toxic to the point they cause liver failure and stevens johnson sydrome or mitochondrial dysfunction. That's REAL toxicity, and as John Moore says in his video, quite truthfully, these drugs should not be sprinkled on your morning bowl of cereal.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 5:16 PM

Nullfidian uses a typical evasive gimmick in his reply to cooler. The science is much too complex for poor illiterate cooler to understand.

Wow, and where did I say that?

If I were to say anything in regards to cooler, it would be, as I have asserted before, that he already knows that the facts do not support him and doesn't care, which is why he's so enamoured of the idea of the "public debate" where he and his heros can scam the unsuspecting public.

Of course, so do you, Troll of 1,000 Identities, so why should I bother jumping through yours or his hoops when neither of you are honest enough to address my questions?

Posted by: Nullifidian | July 1, 2007 6:15 PM

Trrl, since an answer wasn't forthcoming on the smallpox thread, maybe you can tell me what that "now" means.

Does it mean that previously there were no problems with serious side effects, that "might have a negative impact on mortality rates", but now (Oct. 2006) there are?

Or does it mean, previously we didn't really want to admit it, but now we can't afford to ignore the problem any longer?

It means that before antiretroviral therapy was available, there were no side effects from them. With the advent of ARV drugs, the HIV population began to live longer and have reduced AIDS symptoms, but these drugs are not a perfect solution; while patients do much better on ARV therapy than without it, and live longer on the average, these drugs do carry a significant risk of side effects. When HIV infection was a near-term death sentence, ARV side effects were not so much of a concern. Now that ARV therapy is good enough that people with HIV are living much longer, there is more concern for developing improved treatment regimens with reduced side effects.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 6:42 PM

The chemical AIDS hypothesis could be readily refuted by any of the following experiments:

Essentially all of these "experiments" would require withholding antiretroviral therapy from HIV infected individuals. Such Tuskegee style experiments are considered highly unethical, and would not be approved by any Human Subjects committee.

Posted by: trrll | July 1, 2007 6:49 PM

Actually since HIV progresses so slowly, there really would not be much risk, if the people really got around 200 tcells they could opt to be on ARV's if they wanted to, there is no risk. A Much bigger risk is telling people there is 100% chance of death when you dont have the evidence to say that, that alone could kill them.

Its the only way to test a hypothesis of microbe causation when there's no reliable animal model and where the microbe is only present in a tiny fraction of the cells its said to kill, according to Gallo in 1990 its 1 in 10,000, according to the fool John Moore its like 1 in 100.

A matched study between hiv postives and negatives where the both dont use AZT/drugs/coinfections/catastropic stress. This is how the study should be conducted, the Cohort studies on AIDStruth were not designed to test the hypothesis, so they didn't control for these things, a new study would.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 7:03 PM

David, my question had nothing to do with which part of Africa you were talking about. The AIDS 'epidemic' started in Africa. Was it at any point a predominantly male disease there?

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 7:28 PM

Trrl,

Despite the inevitable toxicity of anti-HIV drugs, the over 5000 signatories of the Durban Declaration assert that, "drugs that block HIV replication in the test tube also" (i) "delay progression to AIDS", and (ii) "have reduced AIDS mortality by more than 80%".
However, the authors of the Declaration have not provided a reference for controlled studies in support of their assertion. But, they do acknowledge "That it is crucial to develop new antiviral drugs that . . . have fewer side effects" (The Durban Declaration 2000). Since many doctors share the views of the Declaration, we investigate here the evidence for these claims.
(i) Controlled studies investigating the ability of anti-HIV
drugs to "reduce mortality" and "delay progression to
AIDS": The licensing study of AZT, performed in 1987 by
the NIH in collaboration with the drug's manufacturer
Burroughs Wellcome in the US, is the primary placebo controlled study set-up to test the ability of AZT to reduce
the mortality of AIDS (Fischl et al 1987; Richman et al
1987). The study showed that, after 4 months on AZT, 1
out of 145 AIDS patients died, whereas 19 out of 139
died in the placebo group. The study interpreted this result
as evidence for reduced mortality by AZT. However,
this interpretation failed to consider that among the 4-
month-survivors of AZT, 30 could only be kept alive
with multiple blood transfusions because their red cells
had been depleted by AZT below survivable levels(Fischl et al 1987; Duesberg 1992). Thus, without lifesaving
transfusions 30 more AZT-recipients would have
died from anemia. In addition many AZT recipients had
developed life-threatening bone marrow suppression, neutropenia, macrocytosis, headaches, insomnia and myalgia,
that augured poorly for their future survival (Richman
et al 1987). Indeed, the low mortality of 1/145 reported
for the first 4 months on AZT, could not be maintained in
a follow-up study, which found the "survival benefits" of
AZT rapidly declining after the original 4 months period.
By 21 months, 42% of the original AZT group had died
and 35% of the control group, which by then had also
received AZT for 12 months on a "compassionate" basis
(Fischl et al 1989). Thus the placebo-controlled, licensing
study did not prove that AZT "reduces AIDS mortality by
more than 80%" compared to the untreated control.

The ability of AZT to "delay the progression to AIDS"
was investigated in 1994 by the largest, placebo-controlled
study of its kind, the British-French Concorde study
(Seligmann et al 1994). This study investigated 1749
HIV-positive, mostly male homosexual subjects divided
into untreated and AZT-treated subgroups for the onset
of AIDS and death. The Concorde study found in 1994
that AZT is unable to prevent AIDS and increases the
mortality of recipients by 25%. In view of this it concluded, "The results of Concorde do not encourage the early use of zidovudine (AZT) in symptom-free HIV-infected
adults." (Seligmann et al 1994). Thus there is no controlled
evidence that anti-HIV drugs "reduce the mortality of
"or "delay progression to AIDS".

But, in the absence of untreated control groups, the
effects of the new anti-HIV drugs on the morbidity and
mortality of HIV-positive recipients can not be determined
scientifically from the results of these surveys.
However, the average annual AIDS mortality of all HIVpositives on this planet [including the minority that is on anti-HIV drugs (The Durban Declaration 2000)] can be
estimated for 2000, the year that falls in between the two
surveys, based on data provided by the WHO and the
Durban Declaration: The WHO and the Declaration report
in 2000 34×3 million "living with HIV", and the WHO
reports 471,451 AIDS cases for 2000 (World Health
Organization 2001b) (obtained by subtracting the WHO's
cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000, see also table
4). Thus, even if we assume that all AIDS cases were
fatal in 2000, the resulting global mortality rate of HIVpositives would only be 1×4% - and thus 4 to 6 times
lower than the 6×7-8×8% mortality rate of HIV-positives
treated with anti-HIV drugs in the US and Canada.
Therefore, the claims that anti-HIV drugs reduce the
mortality of, and delay progression to AIDS are at odds
with the AIDS facts reported by the Durban Declaration
and the WHO.

(i) Diseases and death in HIV-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs: A sudden 10-fold increase in the mortality of HIV-positive British hemophiliacs, right after the introduction of AZT in 1987, made scientific headlines in
1995, because the increased mortality was attributed to
HIV by the authors of the study, i.e. Darby et al (1995),
as well as by the editor of Nature, "More conviction on
HIV and AIDS" (Maddox 1995). Even the editor of the
Lancet wrote an editorial asking, "Will Duesberg now
concede defeat" (Horton 1995)? Darby et al based their
conclusion on the sudden 10-fold increase of the hemophiliacs' mortality in 1987, shown in figure 5, on the
facts that the increased mortality was restricted to HIVpositive hemophiliacs and that the increase was independent of the degree of hemophilia (which is inversely
proportional to the life expectancy of the patient). But, by 1987 transfusions of blood and factor VIII had
already infected most hemophiliacs for a long time. Most
of them were already infected before 1984 (about 75% in
the US), because all blood supplies with HIV antibodies
were banned after the introduction of the HIV-antibody test in 1984 (Duesberg 1995c, 1996a). Moreover, the
mortality of hemophiliacs was steadily decreasing since
the 1970s until 1987 - despite the presence of HIV
(Duesberg 1995c)! Thus the only new risk of mortality,
in and after 1987, was not HIV, but AZT.

According to researchers from the NIH, AZT also increased
the mortality of US hemophiliacs 2×7 times and
their AIDS risk 4×5 times compared to untreated controls
(Goedert et al 1994; Duesberg 1995c).

http://duesberg.com/papers/chemical-bases.html

Posted by: Pope | July 1, 2007 7:45 PM

Nullifiddian said;

I'm looking, and not seeing any statement which explains what a virology study which attempted to show that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS would be different from the wealth of studies done so far, even though it is still being alleged that the studies done simply assume the link between HIV and AIDS and that somehow renders them illegitimate. Of course, those of us who actually practice science for a living know that if a foundational assumption is wrong, then hypotheses generated from that assumption are more likely to be falsified in experiment and observation.

So I ask again, O Masterful Expert on Experimental Design, how would the literature be different if they were testing the hypothesis that HIV is a causative agent of AIDS?

Duesberg placed into the record the studies you are asking for 20 years ago in his 1987 book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, and again in his 2003 paper as posted above by Pope which can be found at this link:

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition

J. Biosci. Vol. 28 No. 4 June 2003 PETER DUESBERG, CLAUS KOEHNLEIN and DAVID RASNICK.

Over time, more and more of Duesberg's ideas originally published 20 years ago, which had been, rejected are now being accepted by the weight of the evidence. He was right about AZT, he was right about HAART, he was right about the absence of believable series of occupationally acquired AIDS cases in the peer reviewed literature. He was right about the lack of correlation between CD4 cell count and HIV viral load, which means that he was right about the fact that HIV does not directly kill T cells in vivo. He was right about no animal model. He was right about long term non progressors who have HIV and dont get sick, which means HIV is a benign passenger virus (at least in this group). Is he right about everything? Nobody is. But one thing is as sure as night following day, in the end, he will be right, and you and your drug company sponsored associates, and your paid political AIDS activist brown shirts will be wrong.

There will come a day of reckoning when those responsible for poisoning pregnant mothers with toxic drugs will be held accountable.

for more information: reviewingaids dot com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 8:05 PM

What I am seeing from the HIV/AIDS denialists is ad-hominem attacks, name-calling, viciousness and a failure to understand some rather simple concepts that their opponents have put forth time and time again.

1) We aren't doing randomized placebo-controlled trials any more; we're doing randomized controlled trials of new agents against proven therapies, because to deny a patient an effective therapy is unethical. What part of this do people not understand?

2) "We need to go back to using a REAL placebo" says "Patriot Games", whilst appearing to misrepresent why the trial was stopped (do you have justification for your very serious allegation, and if you do, why aren't you in court with it?). Randomized controlled trials (whether placebo or not) are stopped early for either of two reasons: First, because the trial arm is doing so much better than the placebo/standard-therapy arm that it is unethical to withhold the drug from the placebo (what happened with AZT). Second, because the trial arm is doing significantly WORSE and must be discontinued for the patients' safety (as happened with Flecainide, IIRC, for the treatment of some cardiac rhythm abnormalities).

3) If you would like to put your money where your mouth is, denialists, why don't you sign up to receive a transfusion of blood from an HIV-positive person, then deny yourself antiretroviral agents and see what happens? Since HIV does not, in your view, cause AIDS, you ought to be safe.

4) There is no animal model for HIV-AIDS for the same reason that there is no human model for a range of animal diseases - some diseases do not cross species barriers.

Posted by: Justin Moretti | July 1, 2007 8:27 PM

You have already demonstrated that you are untrustworthy, so why should anyone trust your appeal to authority without even a quote from your source, not even a link to your reference. Very impolite and inconsiderate of you Dr. Noble to deprive your readers of the proof behind your words. Until then your words are empty shells waiting to be filled. Lets not fill them with colonic contents like last time.

How exactly have I demonstrated that I am untrustworthy. Maniotis has fabricated two quotes. He has repeatedly cited papers that have the opposite conclusions from his own spin. You're calling me untrustworthy? Is this some kind of silly game?

Caroline Sabin responded to Duesberg's assertion that the AIDS in people with haemophilia was actually caused by AZT in this article.

Response: Arguments contradict the "foreign protein-zidovudine" hypothesis

Patients are given zidovudine because they are ill

It is not true that most British haemophilic patients infected with HIV have been given zidovudine since 1987. Initially patients were given zidovudine after the development of AIDS. Subsequently, since around 1989, patients have been given zidovudine once their CD4 count has fallen below 0.2x109/l or after the development of symptomatic disease. Similar recommendations are made for pentamidine or co-trimoxazole as prophylaxis against Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. Consequently, by the time patients begin zidovudine and pentamidine they have low CD4 cell counts and are usually symptomatic.

Observational studies often show that patients given zidovudine have a worse prognosis than untreated patients.7 Patients receiving zidovudine are selectively treated because they are ill. The interpretation of findings from these studies should not therefore be that zidovudine increases the risk of AIDS. Of the nine patients developing AIDS in our study, seven received zidovudine only after an initial AIDS diagnosis when immunological deterioration had already occurred. There is no possibility, therefore, that either zidovudine or pentamidine had a causal role in the initial development of symptomatic disease in these patients.

How many times does this need to be pointed out to the acolytes of Duesberg?

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 8:57 PM

Dr. Noble, you are right that many times the patient has already progressed to AIDS and then are given the antiretrovirals with CD4 decline. Nevertheless, how can one have CD4's under 100, be sick and dying prior to the medcines and later again have CD4's under 100 and be healthy as a horse without the antiretrovirals? What is going on here?

Posted by: noreen Martin | July 1, 2007 9:13 PM

Im sure they were given monster doses of AZT and were terrified with a diagnosis of death which can probaly kill you much more than a virus thats in like 1 of 100 cells, nuetralized by antibodies and doesnt kill 99.9 % of animals injected with it.

Posted by: cooler | July 1, 2007 9:19 PM

Im sure they were given monster doses of AZT and were terrified with a diagnosis of death which can probaly kill you much more than a virus thats in like 1 of 100 cells, nuetralized by antibodies and doesnt kill 99.9 % of animals injected with it.

Oh, good science there....

Feh.

Posted by: gwangung | July 1, 2007 9:48 PM

Hey Justin.

You made four wonderful "points" or suggestions up above.

In response to your first and second "points", if they could be called such, wherein You claim: "1) We aren't doing randomized placebo-controlled trials any more; we're doing randomized controlled trials of new agents against proven therapies, because to deny a patient an effective therapy is unethical. What part of this do people not understand"?

Justin, are you testing our patience? The ONLY HIV drug that was ever placebo controlled was the original and only four month long, corrupted AZT trial that was run, conducted by, and overseen by the drugs manufacturer. Many of The "lucky winners" of this trial had blood transfusions during the 4 month trial, and ALL ended up dead within 1-1/2 years!!!

You are simply admitting that it is still currently a situation of more recent non placebo-controlled and fast tracked drug trials that have been done against other non placebo controlled fast tracked trials. And every one of these trials was designed and operated and paid for by the drug company that stood to benefit. And NOT EVEN ONE of these drugs has had the followup long term trials finished that were required by the FDA and promised to in order to market them. Can you say "Conflict of interest"? What part of this do YOU not understand?

Your third "point", if you want to call it that:

"3) If you would like to put your money where your mouth is, denialists, why don't you sign up to receive a transfusion of blood from an HIV-positive person, then deny yourself antiretroviral agents and see what happens? Since HIV does not, in your view, cause AIDS, you ought to be safe".

Hey Justin, how many years would we "denialists" who get such a transfusion have to wait before you admit that you are mistaken? 2? 5? 10? 20? 50? And if we got a cold or flu or herpes or pneumonia or whatever common illness 20 years after such a transfusion, would you be jumping up and down cheering and telling us we now have AIDS from the transfusion?

Not only that, but in your own ignorance, you are certainly overlooking the FACT that ALL BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS INTERFERE WITH THE IMMUNE SYSTEM!

See: http://www.med.unipi.it/patchir/bloodl/deleterious.htm

Blood transfusions are also associated with reduced cancer survival, and a multitude of other problems.

The only thing getting sick after any blood transfusion gotten from someone HIV positive or negative would prove, is that the dissidents are quite correct that many of the so called AIDS cases were caused by the transfusions themselves! How come hetero hemophiliacs diagnosed as HIV/AIDS never came down with the Number One AIDS Defining Gay Disease of Kaposis Sarcoma????

Even Ryan White's death certificate showed he did NOT DIE of anything viral, but due to blood loss and a failed liver from his AZT!

In your fourth point: "4) There is no animal model for HIV-AIDS for the same reason that there is no human model for a range of animal diseases - some diseases do not cross species barriers".

Well I got news for you Justin. Chimpanzees get ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE DISEASE that humans get, except for ONE? Three guesses what supposedly human infectious agent does NOT CAUSE ANY DISEASE IN CHIMPS, and the first two guesses don't count! And I will even give you a hint: It has three letters and is spelled HIV!

You know what Justin, if you refrained from posting ignorant posts like the last one you did, you would not have to worry about ad hom attacks, such as being called an ignoranimus or a damned fool! Perhaps you are a young know-it-all that has no room to learn anything new, or perhaps you are naive, or perhaps you are just intentionally playing dumb because you are starved for attention?

Posted by: Michael | July 1, 2007 10:40 PM

Noble said

Caroline Sabin responded to Duesberg's assertion that the AIDS in people with haemophilia was actually caused by AZT in this article.

Your quote is not really accurate, and you are guilty of the crime you accuse others, the misquote. The correct quote is here, by Dr. Duesberg.

"Patients with haemophilia treated with commercial factor VIII and zidovudine are at risk of developing AIDS defining immunodeficiency diseases like pneumonia, candidiasis, and toxoplasmosis but not Kaposi's sarcoma or dementia. Their risk of these diseases is proportional to their lifetime dosages of factor VIII and cytotoxic DNA chain terminators like zidovudine."

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 1, 2007 11:10 PM

My dear Dr. Noble, you obviously have not read Professor Peter. Duesberg's very thoughtful reply to Sabin's earlier hemophilia AIDS study which contains all the information rebutting her later comments.

Duesberg makes a number of claims here that are rebutted by Sabin in the comment that I posted. Duesberg argues that it must have been the AZT that caused the AIDS in these patients with haemophilia. However, as Sabin points out the patients were given AZT after they had progressed to AIDS.

Simply repeating Duesberg's initial false assertion does not make it any more true. Try to explain to me how the AZT travelled back in time to cause AIDS before it was taken.

Your quote is not really accurate, and you are guilty of the crime you accuse others, the misquote. The correct quote is here, by Dr. Duesberg.

What are you talking about? You're going to have to be a bit more specific if you are going to accuse me of dishonesty.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 1, 2007 11:51 PM

Patriot, Justin is not the only one who overlooks what I posted about blood transfusions. Even pseudo animation doctors are susceptible to ignoring the hazards of blood transfusions.

For the Second Time:

YOU are certainly overlooking the FACT that ALL BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS INTERFERE WITH THE IMMUNE SYSTEM!

See: http://www.med.unipi.it/patchir/bloodl/deleterious.htm

Blood transfusions are also associated with reduced cancer survival, and a multitude of other problems.

The only thing getting sick after any blood transfusion gotten from someone HIV positive or negative would prove, is that the dissidents are quite correct that many of the so called AIDS cases were caused by the transfusions themselves! How come hetero hemophiliacs diagnosed as HIV/AIDS never came down with the Number One AIDS Defining Gay Disease of Kaposis Sarcoma????

Even Ryan White's death certificate showed he did NOT DIE of anything viral, but due to blood loss and a failed liver from his AZT!

Posted by: Michael | July 2, 2007 12:08 AM

Over time, more and more of Duesberg's ideas originally published 20 years ago, which had been, rejected are now being accepted by the weight of the evidence.

This rewrites the history rather drastically. I've been reading the AIDS/HIV literature since the early days when it was merely an unusual cluster of cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, and I remember that when originally published, Duesberg's ideas were originally taken quite seriously by many scientists. Over the years, as more and more evidence accumulated supporting the HIV hypothesis, scientists one by one discarded Duesberg's claims. Today, Duesberg is left virtually alone, still doggedly hanging onto his own pet hypothesis while the scientific community has moved on, still trying with increasing desperation to nitpick away the flood of results that do not support his hypothesis.

Posted by: trrll | July 2, 2007 1:09 AM

Here is another Maniotism.

The A, B, C's of AIDS Denialism

But AIDS denialists at the Red Cross published statistics recently indicating that (31):

"among "non-risk" blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA - or 1 in 3.1 million donations - and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing."

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

....

13 Stramer et. al. "Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing", New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004.

The "quote" is manufactured by Maniotis. This is not what Stramer et al report. Even a brief look at the title would give you a clue. Stramer et al looked at how many extra HIV infected units were picked up by testing units from antibody-negative donors.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 4:27 AM

Patriot Games said:

"My dear Dr. Noble, you obviously have not read Professor Peter. Duesberg's very thoughtful reply to Sabin's earlier hemophilia AIDS study which contains all the information rebutting her later comments.

Dr Noble has responded quite comprehensively to this. But I wondered if you really read the Duesberg analysis yourself? As you seem to speak for him, can you explain why he says the following:

"The HIV hypothesis predicts the same pattern of AIDS diseases in haemophilia as in other AIDS patients, but Kaposi's sarcoma and dementia were not observed in the haemophilic patients studied by Sabin et al (table 2)."

First I'd like a reference to a paper stating that the "HIV hypothesis" predicts the same pattern of diseases in hemophiliacs. There must be a published prediction somewhere.
Where is it?

Obviously to claim this is nonsense - there is no such prediction because it is patently false. What infections/OIs/conditions someone gets is dependent upon current and previous exposure to opportunists.

Hemophiliacs do not get Kaposi because........ they do not use poppers (only joking!). We all know it is because they have very low infection rates with HHV8 which causes KS (as opposed to gay men/heterosexuals). The relevant point here is that HHV8 is sexually transmitted, so is prevalent in those with high rates of partner change / history of other STIs.

Duesberg just doesn't understand STIs - he never has and never will.

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 6:59 AM

Pope, the fact remains that in the Goedert hemophilia study those who are more ill, who already had AIDS or who were more likely to get AIDS are preselected as the ones who were given AZT.

The study was actually designed to assess the impact of factor 8 purity on progression of HIV, and not to look at the impact of AZT. In science one cannot twist study design around and jump to totally invalid conclusions. The study methodology correctly controls for the different independent variables (including AZT use) for the study variable of Factor 8 purity.

If a study was designed to assess the impact of AZT then it would have been completely different, and controlled for variables such as duration of infection, CD4 count and clinical stage of disease. This was not done, since this is not what the study was about.

In typical fashion, denialists have taken a single line out of a table in a paper, reinterpreted it's significance to promote their own agenda, and falsely claim that the overall study suddenly supports their spurious claims. They ignore the context of the study, ignore relevant parts of the text which explain why sick patients were given AZT, and dispense with all conventional scientific protocol concerning trial methodology and analysis.

Posted by: DT | July 2, 2007 7:34 AM

My "£%$£" computer, probably programmed By Dr. Noble, chose for some, I'm sure very logical, reason to change 'AZT' into 'age'.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 9:23 AM

The noble doctor noble is back to his "quote picking"

maniotis said:
But AIDS denialists at the Red Cross published statistics recently indicating that (31): "among "non-risk" blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA - or 1 in 3.1 million donations - and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing."
....
2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.
....
13 Stramer et. al. "Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing", New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004.

noble said;
The "quote" is manufactured by Maniotis. This is not what Stramer et al report. Even a brief look at the title would give you a clue. Stramer et al looked at how many extra HIV infected units were picked up by testing units from antibody-negative donors.

The quote is not "manufactured". It is very correct, as anyone can easily see.

Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing Volume 351:760-768 August 19, 2004 Number 8 NJM, Susan L. Stramer, Ph.D.,

Background Testing of blood donors for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA by means of nucleic acid amplification was introduced in the United States as an investigational screening test in mid-1999 to identify donations made during the window period before seroconversion. Methods We analyzed all antibody-nonreactive donations that were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 and HCV RNA on nucleic acid-amplification testing of "minipools" (pools of 16 to 24 donations) by the main blood-collection programs in the United States during the first three years of nucleic acid screening. Results Among 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA -- or 1 in 3.1 million donations -- only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing. For HCV, of 39,721,404 units screened, 170 were confirmed to be positive for HCV RNA, or 1 in 230,000 donations (or 1 in 270,000 on the basis of 139 donations confirmed to be positive for HCV RNA with the use of a more sensitive HCV-antibody test). The respective rates of positive HCV and HIV-1 nucleic acid-amplification tests were 3.3 and 4.1 times as high among first-time donors as among donors who gave blood repeatedly. Follow-up studies of 67 HCV RNA-positive donors demonstrated that seroconversion occurred a median of 35 days after the index donation, followed by a low rate of resolution of viremia; three cases of long-term immunologically silent HCV infection were documented. Conclusions Minipool nucleic acid-amplification testing has helped prevent the transmission of approximately 5 HIV-1 infections and 56 HCV infections annually and has reduced the residual risk of transfusion-transmitted HIV-1 and HCV to approximately 1 in 2 million blood units.

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

Yes, my honorable noble doctor noble, your very astute interpretation of the title of this article is quite correct.

The topic of the paper concerns the techniques used by the blood bank to screen donor samples for HIV, especially for antibody negatve samples which might harbor HIV which is missed.

About 1% of the blood donor samples are discarded because of a serologically positive result to HIV antibodies (ELISA) which, as we all know, is overly very sensitive, producing false positives.

In 1999 DNA amplification testing for HIV was introduced, and all blood donor samples were also tested using this method in which 16 samples are pooled as a cost saving measure.

The Stramer paper is concerned with establishing the validity of doing the DNA amplification test. Stramer looked at the data and found that 12 of the blood donor samples were postive for HIV by DNA amplification, yet were negative by HIV antibody serology. This is good news, because our blood supply is safer by picking up these 12 cases of HIV by which would have been missed, and Stamer is doing a good job.

Dr. Stramer then explains that these 12 HIV positives, which were HIV antibody negative, were explained as window period cases. This means these 12 cases are new HIV infections ocurring in the window period before antibody production starts, so the antibody test is still negative. Eight of these 12 had follow up and all seroconverted, or developed a positive antibody test after about 20-40 days days or so, when their natural antibody production kicked in. We assume the other 4 lost to follow up would have done the same.

Getting back to the validity of the comment,

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 can in no way account for the near 1 million infections said to afflict Americans, so this is AIDS denialism.

Lets give you the benefit of the larger number 12, and Stramer is telling us that there are 12 cases of new infection window periods detected when testing a pool of 37 million Americans. Assuming the CDC number of ONE million HIV infectd Americans annually, is this enough new infection to maintain a pool of 1 million HIV infections annually? Perhaps an AIDS mathematican like Dr. Rebecca Culshaw should answer this question.

It appears obvious that 12 cases of new infection window periods detected in 37 million americans doesn't seem hardly enough to maintain our epidemic, does it? Let's ask kevin, cooler, noreen, Pope, Michael, Adele and Raven what they think.

So in conclusion, my noble doctor noble, not only are you incorrect in your accusation about the misquote which was exactly correct. You are also demonstrated your interpretive failure to understand the comment below the quote. Of course this is nothing unusual for the noble doctor noble, as we have seen this repeatedly in your past comments. The noble doctor noble's ability to actually understand what he reads is similar to the ability of a robot. Try to do better next time, if there is one.

For more information see reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 2, 2007 10:41 AM

In that HIV Facts movie, Duesberg says that if you have HIV antibodies then that means your body is controlling the virus and killing it off. He says this is how it is for all known viruses.

It also says all retroviruses have something like 6 genes and there is nothing in the genetic structure that should make it act like it supposedly does.

I don't know enough about retroviruses to comment would anyone mind informing me? Thank you.

Posted by: apy | July 2, 2007 3:27 PM

I'm down for a review of the unanswered question -

what is the gold standard? The purified, particulate reference standard?

Anyone?

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 5:00 PM

I went to the page and this is what's there. There is no purified particulate standard for HIV tests. There is a grabass of garbage from every experiment on people you nazis say has clinical Aids.

Where is the particulate standard?:

The Source of Critical HIV Research Materials
Almost twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health realized the need for a source of critical research materials involving HIV and other pathogens for the scientific community. This led to the establishment of the NIH AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program. Created by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases [NIAID], this year marks the nineteenth year of this vital and growing program.

What's New >> Reagent News
Cell Lines
Rev-CEM (#11467)
CEM-SS cells were infected with a Lentivirus pNL-GFP-RRE(SA), [cat# 11466]. Clones were isolated and selected for HIV-dependent GFP expression. Order #11467 here.
Cloning Vectors
pNL-GFP-RRE(SA) (#11466)

pNL-GFP-RRE was first constructed by complete deletion of all HIV ORFs of pNL4-3 by replacing the 8.1 kb BssHII-BlpI fragment of the HIV-1 genomes with an insert containing the GFP ORF and the HIV-1 Rev-responsive element (RRE) including the HIV-1 sequence immediately following the BssHII site and the first 336 nucleotides of the gag ORF (the gag reading frame was disrupted by a frame shift mutation at the ClaI site by blunt end ligation), the GFP ORF was derived from pIRES-hrGFP-1a (Stratagene) by PCR amplification. pNL-GFP-RRE-(SA) was constructed by insertion of a PCR fragment into the NotI-SmaI site of pNL-GFP-RRE, in front of the GFP ORF. The insert carries the HIV-1 A5 splicing acceptor and D4 donor. GFP is expressed from the HIV-1 LTR promoter in HIV infected cells when Tat and Rev are present. Order #11446 here.
Expression Vectors
pEGFP-Vpr (#11386)

The Vpr coding region was amplified using PCR, from a full-length pNL4-3 clone. The 5' oligonucleotide contained a HindIII restriction site that allowed fusion of the eGFP open reading frame with that of Vpr. The 3' oligonucleotide contained a stop codon as well as an Xbal restriction site. The mammalian coding sequences include humanized GFP (eGFP) fused with Vpr under control of a CMV-IE promoter and a neomycin resistance gene under the control of an SV40 promoter. Order #11386 here.
pcRev (#11415)
Derived from pBC12/CMV/IL-2 (cat#11416) by cleavage with Hind III and Xho I followed by insertion of a Rev cDNA from the HXB3 strain of HIV-1 IIIB. Order #11415 here.
pQE30T gly-met SDF-1a/CXCL12 (#11435)
The pQE30 plasmid from QIAGEN was modified to contain a tobacco etch virus (TEV) protease cleavage site following the hexa-histidine tag and preceding the multiple cloning site. The DNA encoding mature SDF-1a was cloned into the BamHI (5') and HindIII (3') sites. Subsequently, site directed mutagenesis was used to modify the TEV protease site from ENLYFQGS to ENLYFQGM. This results in the DNA coding for modified TEV protease site preceding the DNA coding for mature SDF-1a. Since mature SDF-1a protein has no Met residues, SDF-1a expressed with this vector can be subjected to CNBr cleavage to remove the hexa-histidine tag. This leaves mature SDF-1a with a native N-terminus. XL-1 blue E. coli should be used for propagation or production of more plasmid. SG 13009 E. coli with pREP4 should be used for expression. Order #11435 here.
pcDNA3.1-APOBEC3DE-V5-6xHIS - (#11433)
The cloning insert was obtained from Open Biosystems (Huntsville, AL). Insert for human AID was cloned into mammalian expression vector pcDNA3 with a V5 epitope tag from SV5 paramyxovirus and a polyhistidine epitope at the C terminus. Plasmid DNA was transfected into 293T cells and expression of human APOBEC3DE was detected with a monoclonal anti-V5 antibody. Expression of human APOBEC3DE is driven by the CMV promoter. Order #11433 here.
pMM310 (#11444)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11444 here.
HIV-1 clone BaL.01 (#11445)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11445 here.
HIV-1 clone BaL.26 (#11446)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from the genomic DNA of infected PBMC. The original virus (HIV-1 BaL) was obtained from NIH AIDS Research & Reference Reagent Program (cat #510). The env/rev cassette was cloned into pcDNA3.1D/V5-His TOPO© expression vector by a directional cloning approach. A single transformed ampicillin resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Recombinant plasmid carries resistance genes for ampicillin and neomycin. Order #11446 here.
pGag-EGFPt (#11468)
The insert consists of Rev-independent HIV-1 Gag coding sequences [pCMV55M1-10 obtained from Dr. George Pavlakis, NCI (Schwartz et al (1992) J. Virol. 66: 7176-7182] fused in frame to EGFP. The clone was constructed as follows: 1) Rev independent Gag was amplified by PCR. The 5' primer contained a Kpn I site and overlapped with the start of the coding region of Gag. The 3' primer contained a Bam HI site, linkers that removed the Gag STOP codon, and bases that overlapped with the 3' end of Gag. 2) The PCR product was digested with Kpn I and Bam HI and ligated into KpnI/BamHI cut pEGFP-N1 (Clontech). Note that the protein product contains a linker of 10 amino acids (NRNGDPPVAT) between the end of Gag and the beginning of EGFP.. Order #11468 here.
Molecular Clones
pAncCgp120-op (#11397)
Derived from the pAncCgp160-opt clone (cat#11399). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 490aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11397 here.
pAncCgp145-opt (#11398)
Derived from the pAncCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11399). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 686 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11398 here.
pAncCgp160-opt (#11399)
A full-length subtype C ancestral env reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype C env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The ancestral env was inferred from maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses and represents the most likely sequence at the interior node of the subtype C cluster (Gaschen et al. Science 296:2354-2360, 2002). For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (Andre et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 842 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11399 here.
pConBgp120-opt (#11400)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 505 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11400 here.
pConBgp145-opt (#11401)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 701 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11401 here.
pConBgp160-opt (#11402)
A full-length subtype B consensus env gene reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype B env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The consensus env was generated by selecting the most common amino acid at each position in the protein alignment. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11402 here.
pConBgp160-201NS-opt (#11403)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The envelope cleavage site was generated by altering the potential N-linked glycosylation site at AA position 201 (201N/S). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11403 here.
pConBgp160-UNC-opt (#11404)
Derived from the pConBgp160-opt clone (cat#11402). The envelope cleavage site was removed by altering the primary cleavage site (REKR?SEKS). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 850 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11404 here.
pConCgp120-opt (#11405)
Derived from the pConCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11407). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the cleavage site (REKR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 490 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11405 here.
pConCgp145-opt (#11406)
Derived from the pConCgp160-opt clone (Cat#11407). The env gene was truncated by introducing a stop codon immediately after the transmembrane domain (SIVNR). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 686 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11406 here.
pConCgp160-opt (#11407)
A full-length subtype C consensus env gene reconstructed from alignments of full-length subtype C env sequences available in the 2001 Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database. The consensus env was generated by selecting the most common amino acid at each position in the protein alignment. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the EcoRI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 842 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11407 here.
pWITO4160.27 gp160-opt (#11408)
Derived from pWITO4160 clone 27. For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503,1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 849 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11408 here.
pWITO4160.27 gp160-rev (#11409)
A PCR fragment containing full-length env and rev genes was derived from plasma virion-associated RNA from a subject acutely infected with a clade B virus by reverse transcription and nested PCR amplification. The env/rev cassette was cloned into the pcDNA3.1/V5-His©TOPO® expression vector and screened to ensure correct orientation with the CMV promoter. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. The size of the translated Env protein is 849 aa. Order #11409 here.
pCAAN5342.A2 gp160-opt (#11410)
Derived from pCAAN5342 clone A2 (Cat#11038). For this construct, the env gene was artificially reconstructed by substituting original viral codons with those of highly expressed human genes (André et al. J. Virol 72:1497-1503, 1998). A Kozak sequence GCCGCCGCC was introduced upstream of the ATG start codon. The env amino acid sequence was not changed. The final construct was ligated into pcDNA3.1(-) expression vector using the XbaI and BamHI sites. The size of the translated Env protein is 852 aa. A single transformed ampicillin-resistant E. coli colony was selected and expanded. Order #11410 here.
pWT/BaL (#11414)
This vector contains a Full-length HIV-1 provirus. This consists of the backbone of the HXB-3 strain of HIV-1 IIIB containing 2687bp Sal I to Bam HI fragment from strain BaL, i.e. the BaL Tat, Rev, Vpu and gp120 sequences plus part of Vpr and gp41. Order #11414 here
p81A-4 (#11440)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V1-V3 envelope regions of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 213:70-79, 1995. Order #11440 here
p21-85 (#11441)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V2-V3 envelope regions of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 79:4828-4837, 2005. Order #11441 here.
p20-36 (#11442)
This clone is a full length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V3 envelope region of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. The vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in Virology 79:4828-4837, 2005. Order #11442 here.
p49.5 R5-Tropic Molecular Clone (#11389)
This clone is a full-length HIV-1 infectious molecular clone containing the V3 envelope region of Ba-L in an NL4-3 background. This vector encodes beta-lactamase. Cloning is described in J. Virol. 65:5782-5789, 1991; J. Virol. 66:6547-6554, 1992; Virology 213:70-79, 1995. Order #11389 here.
Monoclonal Antibodies
D50 MAb anti-gp41 (642-665) (#11393)
Affinity purified from ascites fluid by Protein A/G chromatography. Recognizes gp41 (642-665). MAb D50 binds to the C-heptad but is not neutralizing. D50 MAb was generated during a study of the influence of the oligomeric structure of Env in determining the repertoire of the antibody response. ELISA titer against HIV-1 lysate (200ng/well) is 1:1000-1:10,000. Order #11393 here.
Anti-human DC-SIGN (9E9A8) MAb (#11422)
Does not cross react with DC-SIGNL. Use at 20 µg/ml for blocking, or at 0.5 µg/ml for FACS.. Order #11422 here.
Anti-human DC-SIGN/DCSIGNL (14EG7) MAb (#11423)
Cross reacts with DC-SIGN. Use at 20 µg/ml for blocking, or at 0.5 µg/ml for FACS. Order #11423 here.
Polyclonal Antibodies
Chicken polyclonal antibody to APOBEC3F#157 (IgY) (#11425)
Chicken polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F (NP_660341.2) using a synthetic peptide specific for N-terminal amino acids (CYEVKTKGPSRPRLDAK). Affinity purified against immunizing peptide. The APOBEC3F antibody can be used for western blot detection of recombinant APOBEC3F protein from E. coli or Baculovirus, etc., at a 1:250-1:1000 dilution. NOTE: Reagent will not easily detect human APOBEC3F derived from human cells by western blot. Order #11425 here.
Chicken polyclonal antibody to APOBEC3F#162 (IgY) (#11426)
Chicken polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F (NP_660341.2) using a synthetic peptide specific for C-terminal amino acids ((C+)KYNFLFLDSKLQEILE). Affinity purified against immunizing peptide. The APOBEC3F antibody can be used for western blot detection of recombinant APOBEC3F protein from E. coli or Baculovirus, etc., at a 1:250-1:1000 dilution. NOTE: Reagent will not easily detect human APOBEC3F derived from human cells by western blot. Order #11426 here.
Rabbit Anti-Human APOBEC3F (C-18) (#11474)
Rabbit polyclonal antibody raised against human APOBEC3F using a synthetic peptide specific for C-terminal amino acids (C-GLKYNFLFLDSKLQEILE). Affinity purified using peptide antigen. The APOBEC3F (C-18) antibody works well at 1/1000 for immunoblotting, and readily detects APOBEC3F expressed in transiently transfected cell lines such as 293T, but has not been shown to detect endogenous APOBEC3F present in primary human T-cells. Order #11474 here.
Proteins
HIV-1 Nef Protein (#11478)
A cDNA sequence encoding HIV-1 Nef, Gly 3-Asp 205 (Accession #AAL12764), was fused to His-tag (MASTTHHHHHHDTDIPTTGGGSRPDDDDKH) at the N-terminus and expressed in E. coli. Order #11478 here.
Viruses
HIV-1 CC 1/85 (#11394)
R5 primary virus which became R5X4 by 7/86 during the course of infection in patient "C". Order #11394 here.

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 5:38 PM

And on top of that Bush just commuted Libby's sentence - no jail time.

Posted by: Pope | July 2, 2007 5:59 PM

Elkmountaingoat,

What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for hiv tests?

There, is that "Hate-free" enough for you?

Simple question, sensitive one, answer it simply.

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 6:10 PM

ElkMountainMAN,

What you don't get is, if this """SCIENCE""" is Wrong, and it sho nuff is, then millions of po folk is getting murdered on drugs and going without good water food and medicine.

Simple enough Mountain Friend? So feelings can run, ya know, a little HIGH After 20 years of bein all sweet and nice.

So, I'll give it to you nice, one mo time:

What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for "HIV TESTS"?

SenSor SenSes ALL

Posted by: Sensor | July 2, 2007 6:16 PM

Slooowwww down there, Sensor.

Just because this bunch of folks couldn't lead you to that singular purified particulate reference standard for HIV tests, doesn't mean it doesn't exist now...does it?

Posted by: Dan | July 2, 2007 6:35 PM

Sensor said,

Elkmountaingoat,What is the singular purified particulate reference standard for hiv tests?There, is that "Hate-free" enough for you? Simple question, sensitive one, answer it simply.

ElkMountaineerGoatMan would probably say (if he could);

The gold standard for HIV tests; Don't you know this is 2006 and science has advanced since 1984. We don't need a gold standard for the HIV tests. Besides we have DNA tests now and we know they are always right 100% of the time, so who needs a gold standard?

Proof that HIV causes AIDS; How HIV causes AIDS is proven and published somewhere in pubmed. Exactly where is not important. We know it is in there somewhere. Just ask Google or Wikipedia, they will tell you that its there somewhere. Anybody who asks where, is a "denialist", gets cut off from NIH funding and drug company money.

Animal model for AIDs. We have an animal model. One chimp got AIDS and died after we injected some blood into it. Exactly what we injected is published in the paper, so go look it up stupid.

Occupational AIDS. Hundreds or thousands of doctors and nurses got AIDS from needle stick injuries from their AIDS patients. This is a fact. They were too embarassed to let any body know about it. After all getting AIDS is a bad thing, so they hid this information. That's why there are no reports in the medical literature, they were embarassed to tell anyone.

Aids drugs are safe and have saved millions of lives. You didn't now this? Yes its true. How do we know. Well we did PLACEBO controlled studies and showed this. Yes placebo controlled. A cocktail of HIV drugs is a perfectly good placebo. All HIV patients who die on these drugs died of AIDS, while all patients who lived, lived because of the miraculous healing powers of the drugs. Yes, destroying the mitochonria actually heals the cells. Its unhealthy to have too many mitochondria, you know.

The HIV AIDS vaccine; Just because there is no vaccine for HIV does not one small iota detract from the fact that HIV causes AIDS, or the need to spend billions of dollar over the next 20 years doing research to find a vaccine. A vaccine is just around the corner. Another 100 billion dollars, and AIDS will be cured saving billions of lives on the planet. Nobel prizes will be awarded for the vaccine discovery. It will be glorious.

HIV drugs for pregnant HIV MOMs and kids. The benefits are so great and the adverse side effects so miniscule, it is hard to actually give out these life saving drugs without breaking out in tears and cry with joy at how many lives are saved from each pill.

AIDs in Africa. Yes the Indianapolis Star is correct. There is AIDS in Africa and its getting worse every day. We had AIDS in gay drug addicted America and we cured it with the life saving drugs, so AIDS escaped and went to Africa because Africans are not too careful, if you catch my drift. We may never cure Aids in Africa because they don't listen to us when we tell them to stop having sex. They just keep doing it. Go figure.

Posted by: Old Glory | July 2, 2007 7:46 PM

Compare

"among "non-risk" blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA - or 1 in 3.1 million donations - and only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing."

"Among 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA -- or 1 in 3.1 million donations -- only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing"

Quotation marks are meant to indicate a direct quote. Unless you check the references you are relying on Maniotis to correctly report the findings of the paper. The fabricated parts of the quote do accurately describe the findings of the paper. The donors were not "non risk" they were antibody negative. The "incidence" was actually a prevalence (Denialists never seem to understand the difference) and not in the total population of blood donors but in the subpopulation that were antibody negative. Blood donors are also not a good indictaion of the general population because they are already screened.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 8:18 PM

OK, noble doctor noble, enough of your obsessive compulsive rituals and answer the simple question posed. Are 12 HIV acute infection window cases out of 37 million blood tests sufficent to maintain One Million HIV infections in the America annually? Lets have it yes or no. Stop your evasion and spit it out, or you dont get to peddle any more toxic drugs to unsuspecting Africans.

The "simple question" is not simple. It is based on false premises. The prevalence of HIV detected in blood units is around 300 times higher than the value that Maniotis implies. You are not allowed to donate blood if you have previously tested HIV positive or are in a high risk group. The people that donate blood are not the same group that are responsible for infecting people. The prevalence of HIV in blood donors is about 30 times lower than the prevalence of HIV in the total population.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 8:41 PM

excuse me for asking, but what is the "prevalence" of HIv in donated blood samples? Providing a number here would sufficent.

One of the adavntages of reading the papers that Maniotis cites rather than relying on his misinterpretation is that you can learn something.

Reference 15 of the paper is Current prevalence and incidence of infectious disease markers and estimated window-period risk in the American Red Cross blood donor population.

The observed prevalence of HIV in the donated blood units was 9.7 per 100,000 this is about 300 times higher than that implied by Maniotis.

It is also about 30 times lower than the overall prevalence in the US population (around 1 million per 300 million).

Considering that you have to fill out a questionairre with a long list of questions such as "Have you had sex with a HIV+ person" before you donate blood it is no wonder that the prevalence amongst blood donors is lower than the national average.

There also aren't 1 million new infections per year. That is the estimate for prevalence. The estimate for incidence is about 40,000.

Starting to see the light now, noble doctor noble?

No.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 2, 2007 11:10 PM

Trrll,

I'm glad we got that straight. I've always thought that the idea of specific suppressor and activator (AIDS) genes to explain HIV's unpredictably long latency periods must sound amazingly dumb to any real biologist.

Posted by: Pope | July 3, 2007 2:05 AM

Hey Adele,

How about those links to the EM photos of HIV with the gold tagged antibody labels?

Please?

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 3, 2007 10:29 AM

Maybe after you read the review you can send your friend Etienne a mail and ask him why he doesnt keep up with his old field. Too busy being a quack I guess.

Posted by: Adele | July 3, 2007 2:03 PM

Adele said Maybe after you read the review you can send your friend Etienne a mail and ask him why he doesnt keep up with his old field. Too busy being a quack I guess.

As you know Peter Duesberg was the original retro-virologist, and there never was even the faintest question about the existence of retro-viruses in any of his publications.

Etienne's objections related to purification of materials for a gold standard, and I believe his issues have never been addressed properly. So, if asking a few unanswered questions is your definition of a quackery, then you definitely picked the right century and the right country for it. Welcome to 1984.

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 3, 2007 9:03 PM

Dear Adele,

Thanks loads for the links to the gold labeled HIV Electron micrographs. I have been reviewing them as well as others using your helpful suggestions and found them quite interesting.

The HIV cone shaped cores, lateral bodies and surface knobs are well demonstrated, and I can see the small gold particles as well, indicating the HIV is labeled with the gold antibodies.

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell. Perhaps I am missing this paragraph, and could you please point it out to me? Which article and page specifically?

While you are at it, would you please point out in this schematic of the retroviral life cycle, at which step the HIV does damage to the host cell? As you can see, this diagram does not specfically mention that the host cell is being damaged by the viral replication, so please indicate at which step this is ocurring.

Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 3, 2007 9:39 PM

Nobody knows how HIV escapes antibody protection, and how it kills cells, when it only infects a very small % of t cells. But scientists have reached a "consensus", which is what you'd expect if the government supports a particular theory, therefore anyone questioning the "consensus" is a "denier"

Posted by: cooler | July 3, 2007 10:45 PM

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell.

This doesn't make sense. EM is well suited for imaging physical structures like virus particles, but is not capable of imaging biochemical phenomena like cell death. Particularly since the process of preparing tissue for EM kills the cells anyway.

To study biolchemical processes like cellular damage, one primarily uses the methods of biochemistry and cell biology.

Posted by: trrll | July 4, 2007 1:01 AM

Thanks loads for the links to the gold labeled HIV Electron micrographs. I have been reviewing them as well as others using your helpful suggestions and found them quite interesting.

I don't think anyone doubts there are plenty of pictures of gold tagged things. The question is what they show apart from the gold tags.

Funny thing Dr. Noble should mention Dr. Lanka. Has Dr. Noble forgotten that Dr. Lanka obtained an admission in his petition to the German Bundestag via Federal Ministry of Health that there exists no EM of HIV from patient plasma or serum?

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 3:25 AM

Perhaps Trll is taking you too literally, GTAM.
You had asked "Sorry to bother you with this, but I was wondering if you could direct me to the paragraphs where the host cell death is imaged on the electron micrographs. So far, plenty of the EM studies show HIV in various stages of the life cycle, but none of the EM photograms show any damage to the host cell. Perhaps I am missing this paragraph, and could you please point it out to me? Which article and page specifically?"

Well, as you say, EMs can indicate cell damage, and they do in HIV. And contrary to the assertion of dissidents, HIV DOES damage cells.
Here is a good paper for starters:
http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v12/n1s/full/4401582a.html
This gives over a hundred references to HIV-induced cell damage, so get reading if you need more details.

The dissident MO is to throw around broad statements as though they represent solid fact (eg "There are no EMs of HIV"). In response, we then point them towards EMs.

The dissident MO then takes us down one of 2 paths, either to dispute that the EMs show HIV at all (and drag readers into an abtruse detailed discussion about microvesicle constructs), or to qualify their original statement by saying "Ah, but what I actually meant was there are no EMs of HIV inducing cellular damage".

The response again is to point them towards just such papers (and then the whole cycle can begin again).

Employing these techniques we soon arrive at a point where the dissidents are arguing "Ah, but I still haven't seen evidence that Nef activates P21-activated kinase (PAK) proteins or Rho GTPase exchange factor Vav in T cells. Usually well before this point the dissident has lost all sense of direction completely and is just arguing for the sake of it, and hoping to hell that random viewers of the bloated thread will be so overwhelmed by detail that they are unable to see how wrong they are. The initial refuted assertion that "There are no EMs of HIV" has been left gathering cobwebs deep in the infancy of the exchange.

To give them credit, this MO works usually quite well. It does however equally well expose their intellectual bankrupcy.

Posted by: DT | July 4, 2007 10:27 AM

The dissident MO then takes us down one of 2 paths, either to dispute that the EMs show HIV at all (and drag readers into an abtruse detailed discussion about microvesicle constructs), or to qualify their original statement by saying "Ah, but what I actually meant was there are no EMs of HIV inducing cellular damage".

There is as simpler path which you forgot to mention: to qualify by saying "a picture of HIV directly from a patient's serum or plasma".

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 1:29 PM

Roy Hinley said

GTAM and Pope, How about this.
www DOT pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570
Figure 4 the electron micrograph of HIV infected T4 cells releaseing HIV particles, panels "(D and E) Cells actively producing virus. Note degenerative ultrastructure that follows virus release."

Dear Roy, when did they let you out?

Seriosly, thanks for the link to,

Cytopathic effect of human immunodeficiency virus in T4 cells is linked to the last stage of virus infection by REGINE LEONARD, DANIEL ZAGURY, ISABELLE DESPORTES, JACKY BERNARD, JEAN-FRANCOIS ZAGURY, AND ROBERT C. GALLO, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Vol. 85, pp. 3570-3574, May 1988

Yes, I can see that figure 4 demonstrates cells with "degenerative ultrastructurw following virus release", just as you say. Great. Now we all know that CD4 cell damage (and also cell death) occurs when HIV particles are released from the host cell. HIV kills CD4 cells at particle release when (as in Figure 2 schematic), the host cell wall is ruptured. Therefore, this means that Duesberg is wrong and Gallo is right. But wait a minute. One thought just ocurred to me. And that is this, it's been 19 years since this publication, so there has been plenty of time for others to replicate and confirm these findings. I don't remember anybody else mentioning host cell wall rupture upon particle release. Seems to me that if this was true, the whole debate over HIV would have been long finished in 1988. None of the more recent EM papers showed cell wall rupture upon particle release. As a matter of fact, they all showed "budding" of particles from the outer cell membrane which DOES NOT CAUSE CELL RUPTURE. Maybe I just missed it. Have these findings of host cell wall rupture after HIV particle release been repeated and confirmed by others? You know, that's what science is all about.

Let's ask all the other AIDS political activists, and drug company reps, and everybody else, Adele, andy, Raven, franklin, Pope, kevin, Patriot Games, cooler, Tara and Michael on the thread if they agree that Figure 4 and also the schematic Figure 2 have been verified by subsequent research.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 7:45 PM

Does that mean you agree or disagree with Figure 2 and Figure 4 of the PNAS paper cited by Roy Hinckley? A simple yes or no would be sufficient, with your reasons for the answer.

Posted by: Gold Tagged Antibody Man | July 4, 2007 8:00 PM

Let's ask all the other AIDS political activists, and drug company reps, and everybody else, Adele, andy, Raven, franklin, Pope, kevin, Patriot Games, cooler, Tara and Michael on the thread if they agree that Figure 4 and also the schematic Figure 2 have been verified by subsequent research.

There is a thing called Science Citation Index. Use it.

Several people have shown good will by giving you references to support their arguments.

What have you provided other than multiple aliases, accusations of being pharmashills and hot air?

Funny thing Dr. Noble should mention Dr. Lanka. Has Dr. Noble forgotten that Dr. Lanka obtained an admission in his petition to the German Bundestag via Federal Ministry of Health that there exists no EM of HIV from patient plasma or serum?

That is dishonest on two counts. It was not an admission. There are thousands of electronmicrographs of HIV from plasma and serum. The viral titer is relatively low in the peripheral blood except during acute infection and hence viral culture is used. Contrary to "dissident" claims controls are used and HIV does not magically appear in non-infected cultures.

If you really have a hang-up about culture (which you shouldn't) there are electronmicrographs of HIV in lymphoid tissue without culture.

HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 4, 2007 9:13 PM

I say "no EMs directly from serum or plasma". You say "dishonest! there are thousands of EMs from culture. My dear, dignified friend, how is it dishonest to be precise?

The post I was replying to did not have that caveat.

The German Federal Ministry for Health say that the 'viral concentration' would only be high enough for EM directly from serum or plasma during initial 'burst stage' infection or 'advanced AIDS stage'- which begs some familiar questions about pathogenesis.

If you has read the article that I linked you would have realised that it has been known for quite some time that the major reservoirs of HIV are in lymphoid tissue where the vast majority of the CD4 cells are. This is where the pathogenesis of HIV disease occurs. Only a small percentage of CD4 cells are in peripheral blood.

Duesberg is like a second rate magician tring to distract his audience with his right hand while he bends a spoon with his left hand and the chair leg.

However, they admi... I mean confirm that these pictures had by 2001 never been taken.

I have just given you a link to a paper from 1993 that shows HIV in uncultured lymphoid tissue. What is your ad hoc pretense for ignoring this evidence?

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 4, 2007 10:20 PM

Ok, that quotation got a little bit muddled. Since I don't want to be the cause of further allegations against Dr. Maniotis for manipulating his quotes let me make clear this is the main quotation from DIADS:

"Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation" when testing them for the absence of "HIV" from your healthy donor source"

Following that is Dr. Maniotis' commentary

Posted by: Pope | July 4, 2007 11:08 PM

Oh Pope! What do you suppose happens if you use PHA stimulated PBMCs that are more than 3 days old? It's not what Andy is trying to imply. It won't reduce the specificity of the assay but the sensitivity.

Posted by: Dale | July 4, 2007 11:35 PM

Posted under wrong category, should be under what is health.

Posted by: Rock of Gibraltar | July 4, 2007 11:57 PM

To the University of Illinois at Chicago, I'll be forwarding you my CV for consideration for an open faculty position. At least I can read with comprehension.

Pope, Maniotis has totally misread that section of the document. He has in fact quote-mined a sentence and is telling the unwitting that it says what his delusions would like for it to say rather than what the authors actually said.

The manual advises against using 3 day post stimulation PBMCs for either a control or as cells to culture HIV on.

Read section one:

"I. PRINCIPLE
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) are isolated from healthy, uninfected donor blood for
use in various assays and to culture HIV. The PBMC are stimulated with the mitogen
phytohemagglutinin-P (PHA-P), in the presence of human interleukin 2 (IL-2) for 24-72 hours
before use to promote blast formation and replication of T-cells."

That's the 3 days the sentence:
"Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation."

refers to. It's saying once cells have been stimulated with PHA they must be used within 3 days whether you intend to use them as a negative control, or to be innoculated with the virus.

It's a quality control step, in less technical terms it says: "Use cells while they're still fresh."

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 5, 2007 12:09 AM

Dear Dr. Noble, Roy Hinkley,

Heheh... I actually did perform a f..ing google and concluded Maniotis was being a little bit tongue in cheek, but that the quote + paraphrase was basically correct. But then I obviously got nervous and tried to make everything perfect re. the quotes - clumsily and unsuccessfully. I'll try again.

Set up a qualitative HIV culture using the newly prepared donor PBMC as "patient cells" to verify that the new donor is HIV culture negative (See - Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Method.)
Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation.

So far I think Dr. Maniotis has given us a fair paraphrase.

He then goes on to interpret the 3 days post stimulation as the recommended max. period in which to watch the negative culture. Assuming that by " See Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Method" is meant the following section on
Qualitative PBMC Macrococulture Assay, there's these instructions:

Maintain cultures for 21 days or until culture meets criteria for positivity.

If this is not the difference Dr. Maniotis meant, and if it is not the correct interpretation of the "Do not use PHA-stimulated donor PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation", I admit defeat and leave it to Dr. Maniotis to explain himself.

Posted by: Pope | July 5, 2007 1:23 AM

It is typical of AIDS apologists to evade and stonewall, rather than come clean and admit a mistake. That's because they are paid political activists, drug company reps with NO MORAL or ETHICAL character.

Since our AIDs Apologists seem to be busy with thir own mental masturbation dealing with technical minutia of PHA and PMBC's , and are ignoring a recent illustration (above) about their idol Bob Gallo, the inventor of the AIDS Virus, that Bob Gallo was caught in a lie in his 1988 PNAS paper Figure 4 and Fugure 2 in which he deceitfully and falsely told the world that when HIV particles are released from the host cell, there is cell damage and cell wall lysis. This a lie in the peer reviewed medical literature, and this lie is not alone. There are many more similar lies upon which the AIDS dogma is built. This is not science. It is pseudoscience, and those who defend it are the lowest of the low. No wonder people have lost trust in a system that has betrayed them with toxic drugs for a false theory supported with lies like this 1988 PNAS article coauthored by Gallo.

Adele gave us some links to EM photos of HIV particles with gold tagged antibody labels, and about 24 hour ago, it was mentioned that none of the images showed injury or damage to the host cella. A request was made for these images.

The initial reply to this was incorrect, that EM is not capable of showing cell damage, which it is.

The next reply was a link to an old paper co-authored by Gallo in PNAS from 1988 which says that cell damage from the final step of hiv partical release is shown in Figure 4 page 3574. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/85/10/3570
In addition, the page 3472 figure 2 schematic shows cell wall lysis and cell death upon release of the HIV particles.

The honorable drug company reps and political AIDS Activists were asked if they agreed or not with model proposed by the 1988 PNAS Gallo paper, and the few replies to this question have been, to put is bluntly, stonewalling and evasion.

So rather than waste time, I will answer this question for noreen, kevin, cooler, adele and raven and others who may be lurking and learning about HIV AIDS for the first time.

The answer to this question comes from the Robert Koch Institute Dec 1997 entitled, Fine Structure of HIV and SIV by Hans R. Gelderblom Dec 1997,
Robert Koch-Institut, Nordufer 20, D-13353 Berlin, Germany
http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/COMPENDIUM/1997/partIII/Gelderblom.pdf

please see figures 2 thu 6 whch shows HIV particles budding from the outer cell membrane with no damage to the host cell. Nowhere in this review is there any mention of damage to the host cell upon viral particle release or at any other step. In addition to that, the last paragraph says, viral half life for the HIV shed by budding is 30 hours explaining the rapid decay of viral infectivity, and "fine structure data have been collected on EM on viruses grown in culture, the validity of the structural model still has to be proven by EM evaluation of infectious plasma HIV"

This 1997 review of HIV fine structure contradicts the 1988 PNAS Gallo Figure 2 and Fig 4 proposals. Of course, this is not surprising considering Gallo's reputation for being wrong on his past proposals, and Gallo's tainted past history of scientific misconduct.

For the lurkers here, and other readers learning about HIV AIDS for the first time, I will summarize the conclusions reached so far.

1) HIV causes AIDS has never been proven in the peer reviewed literature.(unless "go to pubmed" is supposed proof)

2) The EM and IMF studies show HIV particles, however, these images do not show host cell damage caused by the tagged HIV. EM studies showing fine details of HIV grown in cell culture has never been validated by EM of infectious plasma virus. Gallo's 1988 PNAS article lied about this.

3) There is no gold standard for the HIV antibody test kits.

4) There have been no placebo controlled testing proving efficacy of highly toxic HIV drugs. (unless you consider two toxic drugs to be a placebo , and three toxic drugs to be a drug). The first AZT phase II trial was fraudulent, and later trials could not be truly placebo controlled because of the acceptance of the fraudulent first AZT trial.

5) The rationale for using cytotoxic drugs is flawed, since HIV is a genetic sequence in the cellular genome, and this can never be eradicated by toxic drugs.

6) The proposal that everyone testing positive for HIV will die without HIV drugs is obviously incorrect, as many long term non-progressors are alive and well without ever using toxic HIv drugs for 10 to 15 years or longer.

for more information see; reviewing aids DOT com

Posted by: Patriot Games | July 5, 2007 10:09 AM

cell damage and cell wall lysis

So Bob Gallo said HIV kills plant cells?!! Amazing. GTAM, you are a credit to denialists everywhere. Never have so few brain cells lied about so much in so many ways. Probably without even realizing it.

You don't understand how puzzling your demands are, patriot plow and now I see I'll never be able to teach you. Like I told you the only thing you'll be satisfied with is when we can shrink a electron microscope from truck sized to microscopic and put it in the bloodstream and take pictures of dying cells. Check back in forty or fifty years.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 12:13 PM

The original question was for EMs of virions.

You got EMs of virions.

Then the question was how do you know they're not microvesicles.

I sent the review including image and links to other immunogolds.

Then you want virions in the act of killing cells.

Claus Jensen, do you understand what EMs are for? Do you understand why you sometimes use a light microscope and why you use EM?

I hope your a better kickboxer than logician. Otherwise why would you live in Thailand don't they have enough kickboxers there already?

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 12:52 PM

Just saying Claus Jensen from Barnesworld is a kickboxing instructor in Thailand not a scientist or EM technician. Richard Jefferys did identify you as Claus Jensen if you remember. I think you also sometimes go by McDonald don't you.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 2:52 PM

Yeah, but do you have a photo of yourself taken from the Hubble Space Telescope? Or an EM of you at your computer?

Didn't think so.

Posted by: Adele | July 6, 2007 3:59 PM

Thanks to Chris Noble for linking to the DAIDS Manual, an expose of "trade secrets" that reveals a few of the "inbred" notions of "isolation" from dedicated HIV researchers. And of course we now see him giving his "expert opinion" on cell-culture quality control to an experienced researcher, which no doubt would qualify him in Judge Sulan's court, but hardly anywhere else. What we need is an opinion formed in light of the relevant sections of the DAIDS manual.

Chris said: "It means don't leave the stimulated PBMCs lying around for 3 days before you use them either to culture HIV or as controls. Start with a fresh batch."

No, it doesn't mean that.

Chris, it's called refrigeration ... do they really need a special standard explicitly stating that cell-cultures shouldn't be left "lying around?

Alas, as usual by now, it is the zealotry of the rush to attack that takes over when Chris evaluates a legitimate point. The general point is the likelihood of artifacts when "co-culturing" and assaying so-called HIV-1 antigen as confirmation of "HIV infection" in a "seropositive" patient, on which Dr Maniotis has provided more than enough evidence.

BTW, his expertise includes cell-culturing which certainly qualifies him in pointing out the obvious flaw in pages 41-50 of the DAIDS Manual. We really have a literacy test at this point. The distinction between "patient" and "donor" cells is critical in order to grasp what's going on. Why? Because the 3 day "limit" on pg 45 clearly refers to the next section (45-50) where the "new donor" cells become the equivalent of "patient" cells which in turn require another donor's cells for determination of a negative co-culture. Presumably, "donor" cells are from seronegative persons so an assumption may be that for negative results in accordance with 45-50, there's no problem. But the culturing is supposed to be an independent verification, which means that possible positive results from a "donor" monoculture needs to be assayed in accordance with the procedures of 45-50, excluding the co-culturing step. This requires "use" or assay for p24 past the 3 day time limit, i.e. "maintain cultures for 21 days or until culture meets criteria for positivity". Unfortunately, this simple control has been effectively deleted by the "quality control" statement.

So Dr Maniotis' point stands.

Posted by: Nick Naylor | July 6, 2007 6:12 PM

GTAM, 40, Pope, birds of a feather, et al. ad nauseum,

I was waiting for you and your drawer full of sockpuppets to indicate that you had actually read the Gallo paper. Since you haven't, and you seem hell-bent on putting your ignorance on display I'll help you out a little. Mind you, I won't be able to answer a lot of follow-up questions, you know the ones where you keep changing the issue at hand to try to evade the fact that you've been proven wrong yet again..., because I don't really like to ride the HIV/AIDS denialist merry-go-round. Whenever I do take a ride it's always the same: A never-ending cycle of illogic and nonsense spinning round and round in a downward spiral towards insanity....

And then I throw up.

In other words, you sicken me.

First, as others have pointed out, nobody would expect to determine the mechanism for cell killing by using electron microscopy. To deamnd such "proof" that HIV kills cells is as idiotic as a tobacco company executive who demands an electron micrograph of cigarette smoke caught in the act of causing widely metastatic lung cancer.

Second, if you read the Gallo paper you will see that introducing HIV to cultures of growing CD4+ cells causes 10-30% of activated T cells to die. That's your cell death right there. It happens when HIV is introduced and it does not happen in cell cultures where no HIV is introduced. You do not need an electron micrograph to see devastation on this scale.

Third, as I'm sure you've ignored hundreds of times, HIV kills CD4 cells through several different pathways some are direct, as shown in the Gallo EM I provided, others are indirect. Direct cell killing is not the only mechanism HIV uses to kill CD4 cells, it's not even the main mechanism. It is the mechanism you asked for, and received, an electron micrograph of though.

Fourth, you claim that figures 2 through 6 here: http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/hiv-db/COMPENDIUM/1997/partIII/Gelderblom.pdf
Disprove direct cell killing by HIV. I don't expect you to follow this but just in case someone else is reading this too:

look at figure 6. See the reference for the figure: "(from Gelderblom et al. 1987b26)."? It refers to reference 26 in the "References":

26. Gelderblom, H.R., H. Reupke, T. Winkel, R. Kunze and G. Pauli. 1987b. MHC-Antigens: Constituents of the envelopes of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses. Z. Naturforsch. 42c: 1328-1334

(You may note that Gelderblom is the same Gelderblom who wrote the original document you cited.)

Do you see the title? " MHC-Antigens: Constituents of the envelopes of human and simian immunodeficiency viruses." This would seem to indicate that Dr. Gelderblom is studying viruses in this work right? He didn't write a paper called, for instance, "Mechanisms of HIV induced cell death as determined by Electron Microscopy" or something. Rather, he is studying viruses, in particular he is studying the MHC-Antigens which are constituents of the envelope of the virus. To do that it seems reasonable that he will need a source of virus to study, no? Where would be the best place to get those viruses from?

Dead cells from a line of cells that experience cell death in the presence of the virus?

Or, living cells from a line of cells that are resistant to the cytopathic effects of the virus and are able to go on producing virus indefinitely?

My personal preference would be living cells from a resistant line of cells. But your preference may differ from mine, and that's fine. Why don't we see which one Dr. Gelderblom preferred for this work?

You may find the abstract for reference 26 here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2452527&dopt=Citation
in it you will see that Gelderblom used two different CD4+ cell lines: H9 and Molt-3. Guess what? Both are resistant to HIV's cell killing effects! Look it up if you don't believe me. Here's a little something to get you started.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=6200935&ordinalpos=26&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

This is why so much of what you read about HIV science seems mysterious, wrong, and sometimes diabolical to you. It's because you don't understand what you're reading. It's because, with all due respect, you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground in regards to biology.

Now, settle down. Settle down. I know what you're saying. (It's time to spin the merry-go-round right?) "Of course they're resistant to HIV because HIV doesn't kill cells!"

To which I'll refer you to the 10-30% cell-killing when HIV is added to activated CD4+ T cells in the first Gallo EM paper I cited. You can work backwards or forwards through the mountains of evidence that HIV kills CD4+ cells from there if you like.

Oh! I almost forgot.

That.

That one, right there.

No! Not that one. The other one.

Yeah that one! That's it!

The other one's just a hole in the ground.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 6, 2007 6:24 PM

For those who might think Adele has the slightest leg to stand on, here are a few links to EM studies of viral induced cell death, illustrating that electron microscopy is a routine tool for examining viral cell damage. This is not an impossible dream as Adele claims, it is a commonplace tool used every day to examine the effect of a virus on host cell structure. Where are the Electron Microscopy studies of HIV induced cell damage? There aren't any because HIV is a benign passenger virus as Duesberg correctly stated in his landmark 1987 PNAS paper, and in his 1996 book, "Inventing the Aids Virus".

http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/78/9/4884

Journal of Virology, May 2004, p. 4884-4891, Vol. 78, No. 9

JC Virus Induces Nonapoptotic Cell Death of Human Central Nervous System Progenitor Cell-Derived Astrocytes Pankaj Seth,1 Frank Diaz,1 Jung-Hwa Tao-Cheng,2 and Eugene O. Major1*

JC virus (JCV), a human neurotropic polyomavirus, demonstrates a selective glial cell tropism that causes cell death through lytic infection. Whether these cells die via apoptosis or necrosis following infection with JCV remains unclear. To investigate the mechanism of virus-induced cell death, we used a human central nervous system progenitor-derived astrocyte cell culture model developed in our laboratory. Using in situ DNA hybridization, immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy, and an RNase protection assay, we observed that astrocytes support a progressive JCV infection, which eventually leads to nonapoptotic cell death. Infected astrocyte cell cultures showed no difference from noninfected cells in mRNA expression of the caspase family genes or in any ultrastructural features associated with apoptosis. Infected cells demonstrated striking necrotic features such as cytoplasmic vacuolization, watery cytoplasm, and dissolution of organelles. Furthermore, staining for caspase-3 and terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling were not detected in infected astrocyte cultures. Our findings suggest that JCV-induced cell death of these progenitor cell-derived astrocytes does not utilize an apoptosis pathway but exhibits a pattern of cell destruction consistent with necrotic cell death.

http://www.virologyj.com/content/2/1/26

Ultrastructural studies on dengue virus type 2 infection of cultured human monocytesJesus A Mosquera , Juan Pablo Hernandez ,Virology Journal 2005, 2:26

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/84/12/3305

The mechanism of cell death during West Nile virus infection is dependent on initial infectious dose J. J. H. Chu and M. L. Ng, J Gen Virol 84 (2003), 3305-3314

Posted by: Frederick Gillet | July 6, 2007 7:36 PM

Adele, I strongly object to your implication that this Eugene is a fan of mine when everyone knows he's in favor of surrender in Iraq.

And if you don't know what refrigeration means ... well ... I have enough idiots for fans and certainly don't welcome you or your ilk as new viewers.

Posted by: Bill O'Reilly | July 7, 2007 12:19 PM

Trrl,

Let's have the EMs of morphological damage then, since it's long been the way the request was formulated.

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 3:43 PM

One sock puppet or another said,
electron microscopy is a routine tool for examining viral cell damage. This is not an impossible dream as Adele claims, it is a commonplace tool used every day to examine the effect of a virus on host cell structure

I didn't say that. You twist my words like you twist what trrll said. How many people have told you, the electron microscope is not the best tool to use for this? We can take EMs of syncytia but why would you take an EM of that? You can see it in light. The paper you gave above with "watery cytoplasm" and "cytoplasmic vacuolization" why do you need EM to do that? If viruses are all accumulating in one organelle and lysing it, maybe an EM would be nice, try to catch it in the act. But that's not what HIV does as far as I know so why an EM.

I think it was Hinkley sorry if I'm confusing him who gave the best analogy to what your asking for, "Where's the EM of cigarette smoke in the act of causing lung cancer?"

If you can give us that EM and I mean I want to see the actual cigarette smoke and the actual damage its causing and accompanying biochemical evidence the damage is leading to cancer. Then I'll find every EM you want or take them myself in the lab if I can't find them. Until then your a poser like Andrew.

Posted by: Adele | July 7, 2007 6:13 PM

Claus, claus, claus, pope, can't you do better than this,
I was more thinking along the line of what is the percent of HIV cell-killing in non-activated cells

Do you know what an activated cell is?

Ok, step back.

Do you know what a cell is?

OK. How's this,

Do you have access to an immunology textbook there in Thailand?

Take a break from whatever it is you do and read a few chapters. Laugh at yourself like we all laugh at you. And come back and ask some more intelligable questions.

Posted by: Adele | July 7, 2007 6:26 PM

If you will actually look at the Gallo paper I think you will see it very nicely answers all of your questions so far.

You want aberrant morphology? How but the multinucleated syncitial cells in panels F, G, and H of figure 4? nuclear membrane dissolved, chromosomes dispersed throughout the cytoplasm? What's normal about this?

Additionally this same paper looked at both in vitro grown virus and virus obtained fresh from the blood of AIDS patients.

To put it bluntly:

"Look you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Monty_Python)

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 7, 2007 6:33 PM

I can only imagine that after the next moved goalpost the sockpuppet choir will insist that somebody produce an electron micrograph of HIV during sexual transmission.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 9:47 PM

Where are the Electron Microscopy studies of HIV induced cell damage?

There are hundreds if not thousands of studies that show HIV induced cell damage in lymphoid organs.

I've already cited one of them in this thread so you have no excuse for your ignorance.

HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 10:30 PM

In vivo cytolysis and fusion of human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected lymphocytes in lymphoid tissue.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 7, 2007 10:34 PM

Dr. Noble, you're the one who is presuming and judging and cooking up wild accusations. Show me where I judge, or imply that the scientists in question are stupid (regarding the lab stuff we're talking about), Or shut up, cut back on the drugs for awhile and do some in vivo jerking off instead of merely cyber-abreacting your frustrations.

Posted by: Pope | July 7, 2007 11:29 PM

Dr. Noble, you're the one who is presuming and judging and cooking up wild accusations. Show me where I judge, or imply that the scientists in question are stupid (regarding the lab stuff we're talking about), Or shut up, cut back on the drugs for awhile and do some in vivo jerking off instead of merely cyber-abreacting your frustrations.

When your arguments are of the form that DAIDS openly state in their reference manual that controls should be treated differently to the standard assay for HIV culture then it is appararent that you think that thousands of scientists are stupid.

Every single HIV Denialist argument eventually reduces to the implication that every scientist that accepts the overwhelming evidence that HIV exists and causes AIDS is corrupt, ignorant or stupid.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 1:18 AM

You may remeber that it was not I, but a real credentialed scientist who advanced that argument.

The point was that you were prepared to accept that the credentialled scientists at DAIDS are all inept and stupid. If you don't understand the science then it boils down to you choosing to believe a tiny fringe of scientists who do no research on HIV of their own over the thousands of scientists that do.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 2:45 AM

Nonono, Dr. Noble, you're barking up the wrong tree with that Nathan Geffen line. Intelligent laypeople are very well capable of understanding the science with a little bit of explanation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Science is democratic. The knowledge is freely available to any one that wants to learn. Unfortunately, HIV Denialists start from a position of ignorance and fight tooth and nail to maintain that ignorance. Denialists are not interested in understanding the science they are only interested in finding justifications to continue their Denial. It is transparently simple to see who gets their "knowledge" from Denialist websites and books and who gets it from actually studying the science.

Your new version of the argument from consensus, holding the majority of scientists's intelligence hostage to your cause, is not valid. The scientists who thought the Earth was flat were not all stupid, they were operating under mistaken assumptions.

The idea that scientists thought that the Earth was flat is propagated almost solely by cranks who want to justify why the vast majority of scientists view their crank ideas as pseudoscience.

In this debate, I have to test anything the prominent 'denialists' say without regard to how stupid it may make certain people look. If you haven't worked in a testing lab, it is not easy to know what the DAIDS manual translates into in practice, or what Dr. Maniotis meant by his remark, which was part of a larger argument.

The problem is that I see the opinions of the prominent Denialists regurgitated without the slightest picogram of skepticism. If you don't understand how to read a virology manual then you have to weigh up the probability that the scientists at DAIDS are all amazingly stupid compared to the probability that Maniotis has reading problems.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 5:56 AM

Trrll has now returned 3 times to give us the basic lecture about imaging cell death. Has he anything else to contribute, like a photo?

When you quit making the same basic mistake, I will quit administering the same basic lecture. I'm certainly not going to bother to cite EMs, since it is not a technique that is well suited to detrmining cell health. I recognize this tactic: insist on evidence using a technique that is not well suited to answering the question, then when people provide evidence of the kind demanded (as has been done multiple times in this thread), nitpick it because it is does not clearly answer the question (meanwhile ignoring abundant evidence using methods that are far better suited to answering the same question).

Posted by: trrll | July 8, 2007 8:39 AM

I love this thread! Pure comedy gold.

What makes it great is that the denialists get so utterly, completely trashed, but still manage to keep their offensive, gleefully mocking tone. It's like the Monty Python black knight, sans limbs, still full of offensive overconfidence. "Come back you yellow bastard, I'll bite your legs off!"

I honestly think they know, deep down, that they're wrong. No-one could possibly fail to grasp simple concepts, over and over. No-one would resort to claiming that their concerns are never addressed, when the responses are right there on the same page, unless they were in deep, DEEP denial.

They are supernaturally dense. It's just not possible to be that stupid. They must be doing it on purpose.

Guys, give up. You lost. Badly. You're just humiliating yourselves now.

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 9:14 AM

See? Perfect example. Pope launches an attack on Trrll's answer without even saying what his objection is! Could he have missed that Trrll beat the textual crap out of him in the previous posts? Does he fondly believe that his vague insults (do they actually mean anything?) actually constitute a rebuttal? He's "accusing" Trrll of... what? Being employed? And apparently thinking this is some kind of devastatingly witty argument!

Surely not. Surely no even-slightly-rational person could genuinely think he's actually winning this exchange.

...and cribbing from Roy Hinkley? WTF? Uh, I said the answer is on the same page as your protestations that there was no answer because - stay with me here - it is on the same page. How would you prefer I phrase it? I don't see that it's such a witty or original phrase that anyone would need to crib it from anyone else. It's a simple statement of fact in the plainest english I can think of.

Might as well accuse people of plagiarism for using the word "the".

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 2:41 PM

Wait a second, so you're focussing on the fact that we both made the same joke (yup, I missed Roy's - I was foolishly reading the science), and not even bothering to defend yourself against the substance.

Wow. Score one for the Pope! Actually, I think you'll find that the black knight is a pretty popular symbol for idiot perseverance in the face of ignominious defeat. That at least two posters have applied it to you guys here is supposed to be good for you... how?

"Hey, everyone thinks I'm an idiot. I win!"

You manage to remember all the throw-away remarks, but somehow miss the answers you repeatedly ask for, and get. Staggering. How on earth do you expect this to convince anyone of your side of the argument?

...and did you just call me stinky? What are you, twelve?

Posted by: SmellyTerror | July 8, 2007 4:00 PM

They should not censor questioning, even the most radical questioning in an oligarchical manner.

Nobody is censoring you. Most people ignore you and other Denialists because despite your pretence you are not interested in the answers to your questions. You are not interested in learning anything. Most scientists are only too ready to help people understand their field of study.

Anybody can go to a library and pick up an introductory book about virology if they really want to learn. But that isn't what Denialists do. They start with the premise that HIV doesn't exist or doesn't cause AIDS and then they attempt to find "anomalies" in the "orthodox" science. Or even better they go to Denialist websites where other Denialists have already collected these "anomalies". Then they appoint themselves to be the arbiters of science and under the pretence of asking questions start to attack the integrity and intelligence of scientists that work in the field.

Take the Perth Group as an example. They had their oxidative theory of cancer before AIDS was observed. When AIDS was recognised all of a sudden their oxidative theory now postdicted AIDS. At this stage they had not even heard of retroviruses. After HIV was discovered and demonstrated to cause AIDS they all of a sudden became experts in the isolation of retroviruses despite never having had any practical experience. It is possible to teach yourself a lot of the science if you are honestly interested. But they aren't interested in understanding the science. Their only objective is to find self-serving justifications for ignoring the science.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 8, 2007 7:33 PM

I get the impression that the real problem with HIV denialists is that people with immune system problems just don't like being lumped in with Teh Gheys.

Posted by: Jon H | July 8, 2007 11:27 PM

Dear AIDS apologists or denialists,

Have you taken the AIDS test that medical students must pass after they receive their mandatory HIV test before beginning medical school?

Find the best answer:

1. Reverse transcriptase (RT) is a specific marker for "HIV" because:

A) It is a normal protein found in the uninfected cells of bacteria, yeasts, insects and mammals.

B) RT is important for telomere replication at the tips of normal chromosomes.

C) RT is now seen in market magazines concerning biotechnology stocks regarding a variety of normal, non-pathological contexts.

D) Because worms develop AIDS.

E) All of the above.

E) A, B, C, but not D or E.

2. Read the following information and provide the best title:

In symptomatic patients with HIV infection, early treatment with zidouvdine delays progression to AIDS, but did not improve survival, and was associated with MORE side effects. There were 43 deaths, 23 in the early-therapy group, and 20 in the late-therapy group. The medium time from the diagnosis of AIDS to death was 16 months in the early therapy group, and 19 months in the late-therapy group.
The racial and ethnic groups appeared to respond differently to the timing of zidpovudine therapy. Fewer minority (African American and Hispanic) patients died in the late therapy group (two deaths) than in the early-therapy group (nine deaths), but the difference was not significant. Among non-Hispanic white patients, early therapy significantly delayed the onset of AIDS but had no effect upon survival. Minority patients were much more likely than white patients to be intravenous drug users (40% vs. 10%).
After two years of follow-up, we found no difference in survival between the two treatment groups.

A) AZT is a "life-saving" drug?

B) AZT kills more healthy patients (early group) than sicker (late treatment) patients.

C) You should hit white patients hard and early but only treat black and hispanic patients late, cause they're "different biologically."

D) AZT increased survival.

E)AZT disproportionately harmed Blacks and Hispanics, and provided no benefit to the quelling of advancing immune suppression in Caucasians.

F) B&E

3. HIV test kits are nearly 100% accurate because:

A) At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence of absence of antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 in human blood.

B) Abbott's 1997 Laboratory's ELISA test kit package insert says:"ELISA testing alone cannot be used to diagnose AIDS." (Abbott 1997).

C) Epitope's 1997 (the maker for one of the Western Blot kits) package insert says: "Do not use this kit as the sole basis for HIV infection." (Epitope 1997).

D) Roche's 1996 "Amplicor" test kit's insert states:
"The amplicor HIV-1 monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV, nor as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection." (Roche 1996).

E) These disclaimers are typo's on the "HIV" test kits and should be ignored.

F) Because Seville Marketing of British Columbia, Canada, on two Web sites had advertised the "Discreet" home HIV test kits as producing 99.4% accurate results based on three independent studies, yet three minutes after performing the test according to the package instructions, 15.4% of the results were inaccurate; after eight minutes, 29.6% of the results were inaccurate; and 59.3% of the tests produced inaccurate results after 15 minutes, and the FTC will seek a permanent ban on sales and advertising of the kits in the United States and a permanent order to seize any kits that are imported.

G.Because NucliSens(R) HIV-1 QT package insert says:
"The NucliSens(R) HIV-1 QT assay is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV-1 nor is it to be used as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV-1 infection."

H) Because COBAS AmpliScreen HIV-1 Test, version 1.5 says:
"This test is not intended for use as an aid in diagnosis."

I) Because the clinical implications of antibodies to HIV-1 in an asymptomatic person are not known.

J) Because OraSure(R) HIV-1 Western Blot Kit says is not intended for use with blood, serum/plasma or urine specimens, or for screening or reinstating potential blood donors.

K) Because Defer et al. in a paper entitled, "Multicentre quality control of polymerase chain reaction [viral load] for detection of HIV DNA" (AIDS 6: 659-663, 1992), claimed that: False-positive and false-negative results were observed in all laboratories (concordance with serology ranged from 40 to 100%).

L) Because Busch et al., in a paper entitled, "Poor sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of detection of HIV-1 DNA in serum by polymerase chain reaction" claimed that: PCR-DNA tests on 151 ELISA-negative people found that 18.5% (28 people) had positive PCRs. Furthurmore, only 25.5% of people diagnosed HIV-positive had positive PCR's.

M) Because viral load does not correlate with T-cell numbers, and progression of disease can only be predicted in 4%-6% of any HIV-positives studied (out of 2,800).

N) Because out of 37,000,000 samples, 12 PCR-positive or 2 (ELISA positive) were found.

O) None of the above.

P) All of the above.

4. "HIV" is the virus that causes AIDS, but it causes anemia because:

A) Because as a retrovirus, it really doesn't need to intercalate its genome into target cell nuclei.

B) Because although it only may infect 1 in 10,000 T cells, it also infects, like Ss sickle-cell anemia, 50/100 RBC's to cause anemia.

C) Because RBC's are actually made by muscle cells, and it is well known that HIV causes muscle wasting, which decreases the production of RBC's.

D) Because patients selectively biased and targeted by AIDS doctors as high risk patients are put on AZT, which depresses all cell division.

E) Because AIDS is neither a disease of too few or too many lymphocytes, but a disease that affects neurons, glia, endothelial cells, liver cells (which is why liver failure is now the leading cause of death in Cleveland).

5. Nevirapine decreases MTCT of HIV:

A) Because single dose of nevirapine is the cornerstone of the regimen recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

B) Because Max Essex thinks feline leukemia virus is the AIDS virus.

C) Because nevirapine resistance is detected (with the use of standard genotyping techniques) in 20 to 69% of women and 33 to 87% of infants after exposure to a single, peripartum dose of nevirapine.

D) Because no women in the placebo group and 41.7% in the nevirapine group had virologic failure.

E) All of the above.

F) None of the above.

6. There are no good animal models of AIDS:

A) Because it is well known that some viruses are very species specific, and will not jump species.

B) Because HIV came from monkeys and not hominoid primates such as chimps because black people have their children play with dead monkey carcasses because they can't afford toys for them, and somehow this virus got into the gay community from black children in Africa eating (or "playing with") monkeys.

C) Because hungry blacks living in Africa eat monkeys and HIV can infect through kissing, and eating food.

D) Because SIV is a better model for HIV infection than HIV.

E) Because chimps that live in retirement homes actually have very low stress levels, and stress created by an "HIV diagnosis" can be very immune suppressive (to humans), and because chimps are dumb and unless they are taught to sign, they don't know they have an HIV infection, and thus stress plays no role as a co-factor and they can't develop AIDS (unless they understand they are infected, as one transfused monkey did).

F) Because the structural proteins of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, have been found in dogs, sheep, and goats (bacteria, worms, and other animals if you believe that RT is specific to HIV and is found in all these critters as Varmus and Temin believed), it is difficult to study immune suppression in collies and worms, or bacteria.

7. A registry has been established to monitor fetal outcomes born to women exposed to efavirenz and other life saving ARVS, and HAART:

A) Because neural tube defects have been noted among women taking Efavirenz (Sustiva).

B)Because drug-induced liver toxicity with highly elevated liver enzymes (greater than 20 times the upper limit of normal) has been observed in 39% of healthy volunteers receiving rifampin 600 mg once daily in combination with ritonavir 100 mg/saquinavir 1000 mg twice daily (ritonavir boosted saquinavir).

C) Because females and patients with higher CD4 cell counts are at increased risk of liver toxicity (because they are healthier when they begin "the life-saving drugs" than are people with lower counts.

D) Because females have a three-fold higher risk of symptomatic nevirapine liver toxicity than males, and females with CD4 cell counts above 250 cells/mL have a 12-fold higher risk of symptomatic liver toxicity than females with CD4 cell counts below 250 (11% vs. 0.9%).

E) Because males with CD4 cell counts above 400 cells/mL have a five-fold higher risk of symptomatic liver toxicity than males with CD4 cell counts below 400 (6.3% vs. 1.2%).

8. Dr. Nobel said to a nameless AIDS apologist named Raven that "I'll save Maniotis the effort because all of those studies you cited are meaningless because the allopathic authors have to claim success or else they wouldn't get their pharma funding: (refering to "In Alberta, HAART dropped the AIDS mortality by 80% in HIV+ that many patients died of other causes"):

A) Because Dr. Nobel doesn't like Raven.

B) Because "all of those studies" (Raven) cited "are meaningless because the allopathic authors have to claim success or else they wouldn't get their pharmainc funding."

C) Because Tara Smith, an epidemiologist, says that "HIV" is like all diseases and that mutations happen in the CCR5 receptor that protect some folks from getting ill, but that pregnant women should be put on nevirapine, AZT, 3Tc, and saquinavir just in case they aren't mutant women.

D) Because the Concorde study showed NO mortality benefits of AZT, and was a much longer, and larger study than the Fischl FDA approval study in which the 19 patients who were transfused to keep them alive all died anyway after about a year, arms of the trial were switched, the trial was unblinded, and the Freedom of Information Act documents that describe the study had sentences which were "blacked out" so we have no way of knowing what really happened in that study.

E) Because The 2006 Lancet study of 22,000 patients over the past 10 years on meds, entitled, "HIV Treatment Response and Prognosis in Europe and North America In The First Decade of HAART: A Collaborative Analysis" concluded with: "Virological Response after starting HAART improved over calendar years, but such improvement has not translated into a decrease in mortality." (see page 453)

9. The DAIDS 1997 official "HIV" culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, "Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation" when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source:"

A) Because it is part of a test using (some of those kits listed above in question 3) of sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cell supernatants for at least 21 days wherein two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or "out of range" (O.D.>2).

B) Because it is a test using sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cells for at least 21 days wherein two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values that are "out of range (Optical density.> 2).

C) Because it is a test using sequential samplings of undetermined infected or uninfected cells for at least 21 days wherein three consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, where neither consecutive value is > four times the previous sample, but the third value is at least four times greater than the first.

D) Because someone is considered "HIV" positive if they exhibit 30 but not 29 picagrams/ml of p24 protein on the second test.

E) Because someone is not considered "HIV" positive if they exhibit 40 pg/ml on the first test, but 4 picagrams/ml p24 on the second test.

F) Because a woman named Christine Maggiore is really "HIV" positive although she never has tested positive on two consecutive tests and has never been ill.

G) Because "control cells" or cells derived from "a healthy donor source are cells that consistently test less than 30 pg/ml.

10. "Original antigenic sin" is a term "HIV" vaccinologists use to describe:

A) When a vaccinated individual is exposed to a noncross- reactive strain of HIV that induces the production of antibodies specific for the vaccine strain that are unable to neutralize the newly encountered strain (in other words when a vaccine doesn't work).

B)The fixing of an immune response in a non-adaptive pattern.

C) When vaccinated individuals may be no worse off than unvaccinated individuals because unvaccinated individuals also have a lag in generation of antibody to HIV because their immune response has not been "primed" by vaccination.

D) The conclusions of The Office of Technology
Assessment Book (1995 Congress of the United States: Office of Technology assessment. Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues. Roger C. Herdman, Director) presented to the 1995 Congress of the United States in 1994 by the AIDS Research Advisory Committee (ARAC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dieases (NIAID) that recommended that Phase III clinical trials with enveloped vaccines should not proceed in the United States because of scientific, political, and ethical issues, and the significant level of scientific uncertainty about the wisdom of immediate trials.

E) Vaccines may cause a false-positive HIV screening testing test...resulting in discrimination against vaccine recipients in, for example, military service, health insurance, life insurance, employment, and travel.

F) Participation in an HIV vaccine trial, itself, may result in stigmatization, as others may assume that all vaccine trial participants are members of groups, such as injection drug users and men who have sex with men, who are at increased risk for HIV infection.

G) Vaccinees, relying on the protection afforded by an experimental vaccine, may engage in behaviors that increase their risk for HIV infection.

H) There is the potential for the viruses to be inadequately attenuated, for an adequately attenuated viral vaccine to cause disease in immunocompromised individuals (Read AIDS patients), and for an adequately attenuated virus to revert to virulence. There is also concern that a live attenuated vaccine could induce tumors.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 9, 2007 3:28 AM

Repeat DT's comment for me. Thank you.

How many times did we go over the "endogenous RT" already?

If HIV RT activity doesn't exist and all anyone measures is endogenous RT
OR
If endogenous RT overwhelms HIV RT measurements
OR
If endogenous RT just interferes with HIV RT measuring
THEN
Every time I do an RT assay I would confirm Andrew's theory that scientists all dumb and confuse HIV RT with endogenous RT. I'v been doing them for I think about ten years now off and on thank god because they're damn boring and I never saw what I should see if Andrew's right.

I had this above but again, here's a good experiment and its results. And I'm doing primary cells so people don't object to cancer cells and artificial activation, but it doesn't matter.
1)Primary cells with replicating virus 175000 cpm
2)Primary cells with virus with several inactivating mutations 500 cpm
3)with killed virus 400 cpm
4)Primary cells all by their selves 150 cpm
5)Nothing not even cells just some saline 95 cpm

WE wash off the virus after a few hours so any virus we measure later is coming from inside the cells. After some days we take some liquid off the cells and put it in a centrifuge to take out any dead cells and floating things. So all we've got now is liquid with tiny stuff in it like virus. We centrifuge it fast to pellet the virus. Detergent to break open virus. All the little proteins spill out yes RT too. Then we give the RT some stuff it can work on and measure how much work it does with radioactivity, counts.

Now look back up at those results.
The machine always detects something. It's called noise. Theres 95 counts in the saline by itself. Not much more in the cells by themselves. This tiny difference could be random or maybe some real endogenous RT activity. The killed virus and the mutant virus are again slightly higher something might have got through one or two cells were susceptible to the mutant maybe or something or one or two virions not killed. But guess what? The "normal" virus gives us three logs higher than any of this. 175 000 versus 500 the second highest.

If endogenous RT is what everyone is reading when they think HIV RT, I should get 175 000 counts in everything with cells in it.

Is there another explanation? Maybe the virus on the cells does something toxic to them and they make more endogenous RT enzymes. OK, but my controls like killed virus don't make RT. Or maybe the virus has to get in the cells and do something. Ok, but my mutant virus with just a few point mutations that's kind of the exact thing as the real virus except its defective post integration, that one doesn't make RT either.

I can't think of a good explanation for that except HIV has a RT I'm measuring

Especially since, this cell enzyme Andrew talks about isn't made in our cells much. it's silenced. Yes, epigenetically. It gets made in cancer cells mainly.

So why would it be outside primary cells anyway in quantities high enough to confuse it with virus RT?

Andrew should have answered these questions before instead of joking around but he hasn't yet.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 10:59 AM

No Adele,
Don't outlaw balconies or ambulances just yet. And its not about the rath of God. So good for you to respond specifically to my points on my test. You probably would get and F in my class.

The Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) shows that the hepatitis B vaccine damages far more individuals than there are persons who exhibit the hepatitis B syndrome. Evidence obtained from the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and other physicians, vaccine-monitoring agencies such as the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the CDC and World Health Organization, the Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition, the hepatitis B vaccine manufacturers Merck and GallaxoSmithKline, and evidence from the peer reviewed scientific literature, all show that the risk of groups such as infants and children acquiring liver hepatitis associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is nearly 0%. In all comprehensive statistical surveys available, the actual incidence of the hepatitis B syndrome in the US has remained constant at about 2 to 4 cases/ 100,000 individuals despite widespread mandated and aggressive vaccination programs in all but 4 states [1].
The data also show that the hepatitis B syndrome, when it does occur in non-vaccinated individuals, spontaneously resolves in almost 100% of those who became seropositive for the HBV molecular markers (HBsAg, anti-HBsAg, HbeAg, anti-HbeAg, or HBV-DNA). The liver syndrome is quite rare (0.00024%-hovering near zero percent for both adults and children), while over 10% of hepatitis B vaccine recipients experience adverse reactions. According to the Merck package inserts, 10.4% experience adverse reactions, and 1% are serious enough for emergency room admission.
Some of the severe adverse effects include autism, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, arthritis (both transient and permanent), Guillain-Barré Syndrome, myelitis including transverse myelitis, seizure, febrile seizure, peripheral neuropathy including Bell's palsy, diabetes mellitus, pancreatitis, encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, thrombocytopenia, systemic lupus erythematosus, lupus-like syndrome, vasculitis, optic neuritis, radiculopathy. Lesser vaccine effects include vomiting, abdominal pains, vertigo, dizziness, pruritus, angioedema, urticaria, lymphadenopathy, insomnia, dysuria, hypotension, increased risk of shingles, migraine, severe muscle pain and weakness, hypesthesia, alopecia, petechiae, increased sedimentation rate, tinnitus, conjunc vitis, visual disturbances, syncope, tachycardia, keratitis, irritability [2].
The practical and economic impact of the effects of this mandated recombinant hepatitis B vaccine policy is devastating infants, families, and the nation, because the nature and frequency of the vaccine damage is typically so debilitating. The damage experienced during the French mandatory hepatitis B program prompted France to discontinue its hepatitis B program several years ago, and a class action lawsuit compensated some 15,000 families that had been devastated from hepatitis B vaccine injury [3].
The efficacy of the vaccine has also been challenged. According to some long-term studies in populations said to exhibit "endemic" frequencies of markers indicating endemic hepatitis B "infection" such as Gambia and Egypt, antigenicity (the presence of the HbsAg antibody among the vaccinated) does not persist beyond about 5 years [4], yet expression of the hepatitis B syndrome confers immunity and antigenicity for life [5] in nearly 100% of those who are unvaccinated and experience the full-blown syndrome that spontaneously resolves without significant morbidity in almost all cases [6]. A study conducted with Egyptian children, reported a similar lack of long-term antigenicity as determined by antibody levels. The study population comprised six equal groups (30 children in each group, 15 boys and 15 girls) at different post-vaccination intervals following the completion of the third dose of HB vaccine: 1 month (group 1), 1 year (group 2), 2 years (group 3), 3 years (group 4), 4 years (group 5), and 5 years (group 6). "63.3% of the children in group 1 had a good immune response (anti-HBs > 100 mIU/mL), in groups 2 and 3 this had dropped to 43.3%, to 23.3% in group 4, 6.7% in group 5 and in group 6 (5 years post-vaccination) none of the children had a good immune response (0.0%)" [7].
The "cryptic argument," that every person on the planet must be vaccinated because the hepatitis B "virus" can hide in cells in "chronic carriers" for decades without causing clinically detectable disease, and then mysteriously, decades later, "cause" hepatocellular carcinoma, ignores the fact that seropositivity for the hepatitis B antigens may not have anything to do with serum hepatitis. In the vast majority of seropositive individuals without liver disease, the presence of the HBV markers may represent non-specific markers of immunological stress, or merely represent a normal genetic polymorphism, as was originally thought by Baruch Blumberg (who discovered the Au antigen, HbsAg, in the blood of a black Australian aboriginal, and was awarded the Nobel Prize that he shared with NIH's former Neurobiology Program director, D. Carlton Gajducek--the discoverer of the so-called "slow virus" prion diseases). For these discoveries, the doctors were jointly given The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 "for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases," because the infectious agents and mechanisms of disease causation were believed not to conform to the standards of accepted pathogen isolation, the idea of distinctive genetic (nucleic acid) identity, the timing of infection to demonstrable cell pathology or morbidity, or to the classic proofs of pathogenicity worked out by Koch. For instance, D. Carlton Gajducek championed the idea that "infectious proteins" devoid of nucleic acids were at the basis of slow, debilitating neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., kuru, CJD, Mad Cow, scrapie in sheep)--syndromes that are characterized by extremely long latency periods after initial "infection," and destruction of the brain tissue years or decades after "infection." Although the concept of slow viruses, and pathogens devoid of nucleic acids were vigorously challenged and rejected by many in the scientific establishment during the 1980's because the idea challenged the established biochemical chain of events worked out for all other infectious agents, and because these syndromes appeared to be both infectious and run in families, Stanley Pruisner believed Gajducek's hypotheses to be plausible, and found that the hypothesized disease-causing PRP protein was present in both diseased and healthy hamsters (for which another Nobel Prize was awarded).
Blumberg termed the rare "hepatitis B" antigen, Au, for Australian antigen, because the Au antigen was first found in the blood of a healthy black, Australian aboriginal man, but he also detected it in the blood samples of Micronesians, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Native Americans, and patients with Down syndrome, leukemia and transfusion patients. Blumberg acknowledged, however, that the vast majority of people, who test positive for HbsAg or HbeAg, never become sick, develop hepatitis, or cancer of any kind.
For instance, as the first to identify the hepatitis B antigen in their survey of genetic polymorphisms in blood samples, Blumberg and Alter reported that leukemia patients (not liver cancer patients), patients with Down syndrome, hemophiliacs, and blood transfusion recipients tested positive more than the general population for the hepatitis B antigen, yet rarely developed liver hepatitis [8], suggesting there is no specificity or pathogenicity with respect to Au marker and the appearance of the rare hepatitis B syndrome (because these syndromes are manifested due to vastly different etiologies).
Therefore, despite the presence of (Au) HBsAg antigen in a blood sample of a rare patient with full-blown hepatitis or liver cancer, the antigen did (does) not predict who would (will) develop clinically detectable hepatitis, and is not a specific marker for the development of liver cancer. Consequently, the genetic polymorphic "causes," or physiological stress "causes" of hepatitis as a form of autoimmune dysfunction or stress have been largely ignored, and instead, an infectious viral cause for hepatitis was advanced, as it was for pellagra, SMON, and a variety of other syndromes.
Blumberg and his colleagues reasoned that a virus might cause hepatitis because something smaller than bacteria that was associated with inducing transfusion hepatitis could pass through filter pores too small for bacteria to pass. Yet not only viruses, but foreign and antigenic proteins also can pass through these filters, and it has been well established in the medical literature since that era that foreign proteins can profoundly disturb the immune system, specific organs, and organ systems.
Although some agencies such as the World Health Organization and others claim that about 40-60 percent of liver cancer is attributable to HBV, how do we explain the fact that about 1/3 of Down patients also express the Au antigen, and 1 in 10 leukemia patients express the antigens, according to Blumberg, yet Down syndrome isn't due to a virus - its due to chromosomal non-disjunction.
Regardless of what "causes" the rare hepatitis B syndrome or the appearance of the hepatitis B "markers" (which most physicians admit is likely due to an autoimmune disease process set into motion by a viral infection), and despite the ill-defined molecular markers that appear in 1/3 of Down syndrome children, and in 1 in 10 leukemia patients according to Blumberg [8], abundant evidence accumulated by the VAERS and the CDC shows that the hepatitis B vaccine is strongly associated with an unacceptable frequency of debilitating life-long illnesses.
Despite widespread mandated hepatitis B vaccines for more than a decade, and claims that it can prevent heptatocellular carcinoma, no evidence whatsoever exists linking hepatitis B causally with hepatocellular carcinoma, as no animal models have ever exhibited this carcinoma after experimental infections, and no liver cell culture of normal human or animal liver cells has ever been induced to change into cancerous cells after adding the "hepatitis B agent" to them.
As titles of papers about Hepatitis B published in journals as prestigious as Science sometimes suggest [9], it is reasonable to ask why neither chimps show liver pathogenicity, cellular damage, or develop anything resembling hepatitis in modern studies when they are experimentally infected with "hepatitis B," nor do humans show cytotoxic damage either [10]. In this respect, one might reasonably wonder why "hepatitis B" and "hepatitis C," are not considered primarily acquired autoimmune diseases, rather than infectious viral diseases, since cellular pathology in most cases is not present?
It also should be added that the antigenicity (the presence of the "hepatitis B" antibodies among the vaccinated) does not persist beyond about 5 years, yet hepatitis infections of all kinds confer immunity and antigenicity for life in those who are unvaccinated and experience a full-blown hepatitis B syndrome that spontaneously resolves in almost all cases. Moreover, despite widespread mandated hepatitis B vaccination in 47 states, liver cancer rates have increased in the US from 4 cases/100,000, in 1992, to 5.5 cases/100,000, since at the end of 1999, and leukemia rates have slightly decreased according to the NCI and CDC's official records.
One should rightly ask if a decade even qualifies as long enough to make such claims about a vaccine that prevents liver cancer, or which is associated with 10% of leukemia cases decades later. First of all, epidemiological studies cannot be used to claim a causal connection between the expression of a protein in a person's blood, and the development, or non-development of a cancer, decades after infection. In addition, a Japanese study" claims that heavy drinking rather than transfusions or cigarette smoking accounted for at least 41% of hepatocellular carcinoma patients harbouring antibodies against hepatitis B and C antigens in this country, 50 years after atomic bombs (not a risk factor for cancer?) were dropped by the U.S. on two of its civilian populations, such as Hiroshima, 175 miles away [11].
In this regard, the hepatitis B antigens may be only non-specific markers for some cancers or other grave medical conditions, as Blumberg first believed. The claim that seropositivity for HBV markers is linked to liver cancer decades later is unsupported by evidence, and, it is like claiming that a freckle on an infant signals that melanoma will develop decades later.
As scientists and physicians, or as concerned citizens, we should no longer allow this dangerous state-mandated vaccine program to proceed, while it continues to cause hundreds of vaccine damaged persons for every one person the vaccine supposedly protects.
By so doing, we are irresponsibly risking the health of a generation of infants and children, without providing parents with information about the adverse vaccine reactions, because of propaganda that suggests that by vaccinating them, we will insure that they will not contract hepatitis B or liver cancer if they grow up to become needle-using drug addicts, persons with multiple sex partners, prisoners, mental health patients, or health care workers exposed to human blood.
This kind of fear mongering and propaganda not only ignores evidence showing that these possibilities are without foundation, but functions to stifle legitimate questions about the biology of the hepatitis B syndrome, or legitimate questions concerning the benefits and consequences of vaccination that should have been addressed before this (or any) vaccine was mandated. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) should have asked the following legitimate questions:

1. Why is such alarm regarding hepatitis B sweeping across the planet now as a sexually transmitted syndrome, when jaundice (and assumed hepatitis) has been recorded in the medical literature since the time of the Ancient Greeks?

2. Because it is claimed that hepatitis B can only be spread through venereal contact or through exposure to infected fluids, are humans more promiscuous now than they were during the Eleusinian orgies and Roman bacchanals chronicled by the ancient poets?

3. Because the hepatitis B molecular markers are non-specific, what evidence is there to substantiate that 350,000,000 people in the world are "carriers" of HBV, and that 1,000,000 people in the US are carriers?

4. In this regard, why are the projected figures for hepatitis B syndrome given, when data recording the actual incidence of hepatitis B have been available for 20 or more years?

5. If the hepatitis B antigens are specific for the hepatitis B syndrome, and if these antigens don't simply represent markers for certain physiological stress responses such as cancer or long term alcohol or drug use, or if the presence of the hepatitis B antigens don't merely represent the different incidence and expression of certain Human genetic polymorphisms (differences in the kinds of molecules found in the blood of different peoples, as was originally thought by Blumberg), then why did Bluberg and his collaborators find the hepatitis B antigens present in a vast majority of healthy people who never develop hepatitis, or in patients experiencing other non-liver related illnesses or genetic disorders? In this same context, why did Blumberg clearly indicate that when Millman came to his laboratory in June of 1967, "and calculated the amount of Au in the serum of carriers and estimated that in some it amounted to about 1% of the serum proteins, that his immediate response was that if this was all virus it would be incompatible with the life of the carrier" (p7124, ref. 8)?

6. Do leukemia and hepatocellular carcinoma share something in common other than a high likelihood of generating molecular mimicry, or other types of mimicry, or is the antigen merely expressed in both diseases in persons whose immunology is altered by cancer, alcoholism, autoimmune stress, or altered for some other reason?

7. If a hepatitis B (or C) virus could by themselves cause liver cancer decades after infection, then why does the microscopic percentage of those who exhibit the hepatitis B antigens and who develop chronic clinically detectable liver disease, require carcinogenic co-factors "such as fungal aflatoxins" (p. 7121 paragraph 4), or a lifetime of alcohol abuse or drug consumption to develop cancer [8]?

8. Why can't the hepatitis B virus (and C virus) be isolated according to standard isolation techniques, even after a Roman effort and after decades of trying, and why did Blumberg insist that nucleic acids were not recoverable from these "virus isolation" preparations (page 7124 paragraph 6 ref. 8), but were inferred to be a virus? In this same context, why did Blumberg clearly present the fact that "Millman and London found that partially purified Au particles that presumably also contained whole virus particles, which we had not yet visualized, could be transmitted by inoculation into experimental animals. The fully purified particles from which the whole virus had been removed were not infectious. The implication was that we could separate the non-infectious particles containing only the surface antigen from the pathogenic whole virus particles." Is this reason to mount a global vaccine campaign, against what may be inherited genetic and biochemical polymorphisms, that Blumberg believed were at the basis of Au-associated morbidity? Why did Blumberg state that"Additional studies, some of which are still in progress, were consistent with a genetic susceptibility to persistent infection with HBV, which is part of a complex interaction of polymorphic systems. Hence the research on genetic polymorphisms related to differences in disease susceptibility was central to the discovery of HBV" (page 7123 paragraph 9, reference 8)?

9. What substance(s), then, were actually isolated from sick persons, and modified and developed by Merck as antigenic material to make hepatitis B the first "molecularly derived recombinant" vaccine?"

10. Why don't supposedly infectious and pathogenic hepatitis B isolates induce liver disease in chimpanzees, mice, or other organisms [9, also see 10]? Why doesn't it induce either liver cancer or leukemia in animals? Why have there been no instances reported where "the hepatitis B virus" generated a pathological effect in animal models, or in liver cells infected in vitro that even remotely resembles the hepatitis B syndrome's hallmarks in those tiny fraction of seropositive individuals who exhibit morbidity consistent with the hepatitis B syndrome?

11. If the recombinant vaccine is molecularly specific against a hepatitis B virus and if the vaccine confers long-term immunity, then why does the vaccine 'wear off' after only several years? By contrast, when the real hepatitis B syndrome resolves in the vast majority of persons in nearly 100% of all cases who develop jaundice and demonstrable liver pathology, then why does this mild and transient syndrome provide lifetime immunity, and produce detectable antibody titres of the hepatitis B antibodies for at least 50 years [5]? If these data are correct and acknowledged even by the vaccine manufacturers, then what is the logic behind vaccinating newborns when their immune and digestive systems are developing and fragile, and when their often hypothesized membership into in IV injecting, multiple sex partner, or blood product exposure risk group might occur a decade or more after the antibodies generated by the vaccine can no longer be detected?

12. Why have some studies shown an increase in the hepatitis B syndrome when infants are vaccinated? (EG. "Children vaccinated in infancy are at increased risk of hepatitis B virus infection in the late teens" [12]?

13. Why is the hepatitis B vaccine still mandated after a congressional hearing that put its safety in question, and why aren't are parents given any information at all about the possible adverse effects of the hepatitis B vaccine that are listed on the manufacturer's package inserts?

14. Finally, is vaccine policy written according to politics rather than prudence?

The Illinois Department of Public Health versus the Parent Teachers Association of Illinois

A small group of physicians and scientists gained the support of the Illinois PTA in a unanimous decision to support a current halt to the current mandated hepatitis B vaccine. Another way of saying this is that every school representative present at the convention, when shown the data we had obtained, had agreed with our concerns, and immediately held a brief session to advance a motion to direct PTA funding to disseminate literature so that parents would be informed.
This group of perhaps a thousand parents (mostly women), appeared to have only one concern: the total welfare, protection, and education of the school children of Illinois.
It should be stated emphatically, that the current hepatitis B mandate threatens not only our children's health, but also serves to threaten our children's education and admission to all kinds of institutions (day care and school admission), with the bluff that "if you don't get your kid vaccinated against this STD, that is detected only in subpopulations of injection drug users and perhaps highly promiscuous persons, healthy black Australian aboriginal men, Micronesians, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Native Americans, patients with Down syndrome, leukemia and transfusion recipients, he or she cannot enter school to learn how to read and write." This is not overstating it. Children cannot gain admission into day-care, Kindergarten, elementary schools, junior highs, high schools, and now even colleges, without showing evidence of a mandated (federally-recommended), and dangerous vaccine (hepatitis B).
Pursuing these issues, we presented the current head of the IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health Director Whitaker and his staff), with the same publicly available data from Medline, the vaccine manufacturer's package insert warnings, data from the Vaccine Adverse Events reporting System, the CDC, Vaccine-link, and other databases, that we had presented to the Illinois PTA convention. After visits with numerous Senators, and public officials during the past several years, over a year later, in June of 2005, we finally were granted a brief meeting with the IDPH, after they could put us off no longer.
As a response to our pleas to institute informed consent regarding the dangers of the hepatitis B vaccine's side effects and safety record as it appears on the Federal governments VAERS database, and after many weeks of deliberation, Dr. Whitaker and his staff emailed us a one paragraph letter stating:

"Parents are currently given enough informed consent."

Well, one may ask Dr. Whitaker, "how do threats that our children won't be admitted to school unless they are jabbed with the hepatitis B vaccine (a rare syndrome) and whose safety data we have yet to see, constitute, informed consent?"
Shouldn't parents at least be given a list of the adverse syndromes induced by the vaccines that are presented on the manufacturer's package inserts, as shown above on Merck's insert? Should parents be shown the VAERS data? Should a list of the hundred or so articles on Medline regarding adverse syndromes induced immediately after vaccination, by mostly private physicians? Shouldn't parents be informed that the data supposedly supporting the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine in neonates doesn't exist [13].
Somebody should tell the public, as we have tried to warn for the past several years, that parents have the right to refuse all vaccines or medical treatments on their children's behalf, with the aid of a publicly-available form on which either religious or philosophical objection to these experimental medical interventions can be declared.
The school nurse and Public Health Department, or school admittance policies should not be used to threaten you that you cannot enroll your kid, based on the madness surrounding the possibility that your 5-year-old will transmit a sexual, or needle-borne, or blood-product-transmitted "syndrome" that has a 95% or greater spontaneous resolution rate, to someone else's 5 year old, (when they have sex or shoot heroin in the gym locker-room, or if they share razor blades-are the reasons typically given to support mandatory vaccination) as the pharmaceutical company and Public Health Service logic goes.
We beg the Public Health Service to regard your own children as potentially at risk for becoming sexually promiscuous and needle-using drug addicts (or health care workers), and use them as experimental subjects of an expensive vaccine possessing a 10.4% rate of adverse events, so they won't contract a rare disease that poses almost 0 risk, that will resolve without treatment in most cases, that simply produces harmless antibodies as evidence of exposure, or that may represent immunological stress or a simple genetic polymorphism, as Blumberg first proposed. Please leave our infants and children alone.
Why in the face of all this damning evidence against the vaccine, does the hepatitis B vaccine mandate still stand with no end in sight? It is because new legislation has insured that there is no incentive, compensation laws, or mechanisms in place anymore to guard against dangerous universally mandated experiments.

The future is here: Medical Terrorism into law

From the "Biodefense and Pandemic and Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005--a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to enhance biodefense and pandemic preparedness activities, and for other purposes [14] SEC. 319F-3:

"(a) Authority- As provided in subsection (b), and subject to subsection (b)(1)(C), a manufacturer, distributor [sic; distributor], or administrator of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A) or a health care provider shall be immune from suit or liability caused by or arising out of the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic and epidemic product, described in subsection (b)(1)(A)."

Further, subsection (b)(1)(A)(i) reads:

"(i) IN GENERAL- No cause of action shall exist against a person described in subsection (a) for claims for loss of property, personal injury, or death arising out of, reasonably relating to, or resulting from the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacture, labeling, distribution, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of a security countermeasure or qualified pandemic or epidemic product distributed, sold, purchased, donated, dispensed, prescribed, administered, or used in anticipation of and preparation for, in defense against, or in response to, or recovery from an actual or potential public health emergency that is a designated security countermeasure or a qualified pandemic or epidemic product by the Secretary in a declaration described in paragraph (2)."

What's being described here is almost carte-blanche freedom to use untested vaccines, drugs, medical products, or "security countermeasures". And there is nothing you, or we, can do about it because it is in the interest of "National Security."

References

[1] 2003CDC MMWR January 24, / 52(RR01):34-6.
[2] Merck and GallaxoSmithKline package inserts.
[3] Marshall E, Science; 07/31/98, 281(5377):630.
[4] The Gambian study: Whittle et al., Observational study of vaccine efficacy 14 years after trial of hepatitis B vaccination in Gambian children. BMJ, 2002 Sept. 14; Vol 325.
[5] Black FL, Jacobson DL. Hepatitis A antibody in an isolated Amerindian tribe fifty years after exposure. J Med Virol , 1986 May;19(1):19-21.
[6] 2003 CDC MMWR report.
[7] el-Sawy IH, Mohamed ON. Long-term immunogenicity and efficacy of a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine in Egyptian children. Eastern Medi terranean Health Journal Vol. 5, Issue 5, p. 922-932, 1999).
[8] Blumberg BS. Hepatitis B virus, the vaccine, and the control of primary cancer of the liver. PNAS, 1997; 94:7121-5.
[9] Guidotti et al. Viral clearance without destruction of infected cells during acute HBV infection. Science. 1999 Apr 30; 284:825-9.
[10] Ordog et al., Perinatal and intrafamily transmission of hepatitis B virus in three generations of a low-prevalence population J Med Virol., 2003 Jun;70 (2):194-204.
[11] Pyong et al. Case-control study of hepatocellular carcinoma among Koreans living in Osaka, Japan. Jpn J Cancer Res. 1994 Jul;85(7):674-9.
[12] Hilton Whittle, Shabbar Jaffar, Michael Wansbrough, Maimuna Mendy, Uga Dumpis, Andrew Collison, Andrew Hall. Observational study of vaccine efficacy 14 years after trial of hepatitis B vaccination in Gambian children. BMJ vol 325, 14 September, 2002.
[13] Lewis E, Shinefield HR, Woodruff BA, Black SB, Destefano F, Chen RT, Ensor R; Vaccine Safety Datalink Workgroup. Safety of neonatal hepatitis B vaccine administration. Pediatr Infect Dis J. Nov;20(11):1049-54, 2001; Also, Testimony of Dr. Marc Geier at IOM hearing, Aug. 2004.
[14] http://thomas.loc.gov/ Search Bill Title or Number - S.1873RS click 'enter bill number.'

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 9, 2007 11:59 AM

Notice everyone that the question was, how does Andrew explain lack of RT activity in samples that lack actively replicating virus in the experiment I described.

Andrew had no response a few weeks ago, no response today. He just repeats himself like he hasn't been debunked.

Instead of an explanation for RT he copies reams on Hepatitis vaccine.

So where's the explanation? Andrew is obviously more interested in his own self promotion than developing an idea further.

Posted by: Adele | July 9, 2007 12:24 PM

So Andrew has spammed us with a cut and paste about Hepatitis B. I know he isn't too bright, but surely he must know this is a thread about HIV?

Anyhow, he would have us believe hepatitis B is a harmless irrelevancy from antiquity, where no one gets ill, and where vaccinees get more problems than do those catching Hepatitis B. In fact, it appears from his claims that he thinks Hepatitis B does not exist at all. What next, TB denial, germ theory denial??

Welcome to the surreal world of denial, folks.

A few facts:
Hepatitis B:
Acute phase: manifestations range from subclinical (70%) to icteric hepatitis (30% - generalised weakness, nausea and vomiting, jaundice, anorexia for up to 3 months) and, in some cases, and fulminant hepatitis in 0.1-0.5% of cases (liver failure and death).
Chronic phase: (This may occur in those who have failed to clear hepatitis during their initial illness, usually around 5-10% of all cases). Manifestations are chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (and death).
Extrahepatic manifestations also can occur with both acute and chronic infection, usually in about 10-20% of cases. These include a serum sickness-like syndrome manifested as fever, skin rashes, arthralgia and arthritis. Serious complications may occur in the form of polyarteritis nodosa and renal glomerular disease and nephrotic syndrome.

(if I were Maniotis, at this point I would scare-monger even more by cut and pasting dozens of pages of horrible sounding consequences from all these conditions, but I'll keep things brief)

In those who acquire Hep B perinatally, there is initial immune tolerance and few apparent problems. All of these kids become carriers, but at around 30 years of age immune tolerance is lost. Seroconversion can result in all the above conditions, and death from hepatic failure may result. Only 20% of people will spontaneously clear the virus when infected perinatally.

There are 2 billion individuals with serological evidence of hepatitis B infection worldwide. Of these, 400 million are chronic carriers and 500,000 to 1.2 million will die annually from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
(See Epidemiology and natural history of hepatitis B. McMahon BJ. Semin Liver Dis. 2005;25 Suppl 1:3-8).

Vaccination:
Using the definition of >10 IU/L anti-HBs as a positive response, the overall seroconversion rate is about 95 percent in healthy adults.

The most common adverse reaction is soreness over the site of injection (10-20%). 1-3 % report mild low grade fever, malaise, headache, joint pain and myalgia. These adverse reactions are usually mild and resolve completely.

The only real possible concern about the vaccine which was thought to be visible above "background noise" was multiple sclerosis. Some reports of a possible association prompted the French Government to suspend routine school-based vaccination for hepatitis B in October 1998. However, at least six subsequent studies have failed to show a statistically significant temporal or causal association between hepatitis B vaccination and multiple sclerosis.

Studies on vaccine reactions:
These are best determined within the context of follow up studies on cohorts of vaccinees, rather than the VAERS reporting system which often registers uninterpretable noise.

Frequency of adverse reactions to hepatitis B vaccine in 43,618 persons. McMahon BJ; Helminiak C; Wainwright RB; Bulkow L; Trimble BA; Wainwright K. Am J Med 1992 Mar;92(3):254-6.

PURPOSE: To determine the incidence of adverse reactions to hepatitis B plasma-derived vaccine. PATIENTS: Alaska natives (43,618) who received 101,360 doses of hepatitis B vaccine. METHODS: All adverse reactions, excluding transient fever, myalgia, or soreness lasting less than 3 days, were reported. An intradermal skin test was developed to test purported adverse reactions. Records of the entire population were reviewed for Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). SETTING: A statewide hepatitis B control program for Alaska natives. RESULTS: Possible adverse reactions occurred in 39 persons. The most frequent adverse reactions were myalgia/arthralgia lasting longer than 3 days (14), followed by skin rashes (eight) and dizziness (seven). Skin tests were performed on 13 persons and were positive in five. Six of the persons with negative skin tests and eight persons who did not undergo skin testing received additional doses of vaccine without any adverse reactions. No increased incidence of GBS was found in the vaccinees. CONCLUSION: Hepatitis B vaccine is safe and most adverse reactions are coincidental.

Nevertheless, even the VAERS system gives Hep B vaccine the green light:
Recombinant hepatitis B vaccination of neonates and infants: emerging safety data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Niu MT; Davis DM; Ellenberg S. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1996 Sep;15(9):771-6.

METHODS: US reports associated with HB vaccination and received between January 1, 1991, and May 31, 1995, by the national Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) were reviewed as a case series. RESULTS: During 1991 through 1994, 12,520 (32%) VAERS reports were received for events temporally associated with administration of HB vaccine, of which 14% were received for neonates and infants. More reports described serious outcomes for neonates (under 0.1 year old) than for other age groups (40% vs. 6 to 15%). HB alone was administered to 58 (97%) neonates; review of these reports did not reveal unexpected serious events. Among infants (0.1 to 0.9 years old) 192 (9%) received HB vaccine alone and 1469 (66%) received HB in combination with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine. Similar serious adverse events reported in neonates and infants included fever, agitation and apnea. Events reported for infants receiving HB/DTP and DTP alone were similar and differed from reports filed for infants receiving HB vaccine alone, suggesting that these events may be associated with use of DTP vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: This review shows no unexpected adverse events in neonates and infants given HB vaccine despite use of at least 12 million doses of vaccine given in these age groups. Although VAERS lacks the ability to distinguish coincidental events from true vaccine reactions, this database represents the largest case series of events temporally associated with HB vaccination of neonates and infants.

MY CONCLUSION:
Bring on the vaccine, please!!

Posted by: DT | July 9, 2007 1:09 PM

Quick question folks.

How do you sleep at night given Gallo's Parenzee trial testimony when he says that "if nobody here in the court room is "HIV" positive, there will be no molecules of "HIV" in their blood!

Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?

Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

Together with Dura et al., saying that they can find it in the thymus of "HIV-negative children."

Together with marketing magazines as I have already quoted saying that it is in a number of normal contexts.

Together with the cancer literature I am familiar with saying that it is in the expression patterns of a variety of tumor cells (tumor cells come from normal pre-existing non-tumor cells as far as I have been able to determine. Where did they pick up their RT, from HIV?

Where did "HIV" supposedly acquire it's RT? From outer space? Or from normal (or diseased) cells? It is supposedly a virus after all-with all of its genome, and proteins, and lipids ultimately derived from cells.

Gelderblom says RT is part of the pol gene along with IN and PR. Where did "HIV" acquire its RT from if not from normal cells (or diseased cells with messed up expression patterns)?

Just wondering.

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 11, 2007 11:11 AM

Wonderland, that's a good one. Nothing Andrew says touches my questions about RT from above.

In case Andrew had problems reading, the question was, how does Andrew explain lack of RT activity in samples that lack actively replicating virus in the experiment I described. Andrew had no response a few weeks ago, no response today. He just repeats himself like he hasn't been debunked.

And no response today.
Instead he wrote

How do you sleep at night given Gallo's Parenzee trial testimony when he says that "if nobody here in the court room is "HIV" positive, there will be no molecules of "HIV" in their blood!

Same way I sleep at night knowing if there were never any lizards in my bedroom there aren't any lizard molecules in my bedroom.

Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?

Who disputed this? Glycoproteins are also found everywhere. A sheep has glycoproteins, doesn't mean HIV can't have glycoproteins too. Doesn't mean a sheep glycoprotein is the same as a HIV glycoprotein.

Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

Define normal? Like I said before RTs in your body are tightly regulated. You usualy just see them made in cancer cells. Other places they're silenced. Maybe Andrew needs to learn more about epigenetics.

Together with Dura et al., saying that they can find it in the thymus of "HIV-negative children."

This is new. Dura et al find HIV RT in the thymus of HIV negative kids? Did they do an RT assay? Did they use antibodies? Did they sequence the protein to confirm it? Or was it just a crap experiment with a cross-reacting antibody they didn't control right? I don't know since Andrew didn't even tell us what journal this was or when it was

Together with marketing magazines as I have already quoted saying that it is in a number of normal contexts.

"marketing magazines"?! Did Andrew find anything in comic books? Like maybe the Silver Surfer is made of 60% HIV RT?

Together with the cancer literature I am familiar with saying that it is in the expression patterns of a variety of tumor cells (tumor cells come from normal pre-existing non-tumor cells as far as I have been able to determine. Where did they pick up their RT, from HIV?

This was covered before. In normal cells TERT the reverse transcriptases for telomere maintenance are silenced epigenetically. Cancer cells get their programming messed up and the RT gets turned on. You can get RT activity you can also measure levels of RT RNA. Guess what? It's not even close to HIV RT RNA.

Where did "HIV" supposedly acquire it's RT? From outer space? Or from normal (or diseased) cells? It is supposedly a virus after all-with all of its genome, and proteins, and lipids ultimately derived from cells.

I don't know what to say. I hope Andrew isn't serious about this. If he is maybe he could talk to some of his colleagues who teach virology. HIV RT translates from HIV RNA transcribed from HIV DNA.

Gelderblom says RT is part of the pol gene along with IN and PR. Where did "HIV" acquire its RT from if not from normal cells (or diseased cells with messed up expression patterns)?

Gelderblom? Hans R. Gelderblom? Is he the only one who says RT is part of the pol gene? This is from the textbooks decades old. Andrew is being silly. Infected cells make HIV RT when HIV is there to direct the process via DNA and RNA. Uninfected cells don't make HIV RT. Unless they're cancer they don't usually make any RT and if they do no one should confuse it with HIV RT.

HIV RT is not in uninfected cells.

Posted by: Adele | July 11, 2007 1:33 PM

Andrew the pathological liar wrote:
"7. If a hepatitis B (or C) virus could by themselves cause liver cancer decades after infection, then why does the microscopic percentage of those who exhibit the hepatitis B antigens and who develop chronic clinically detectable liver disease, require carcinogenic co-factors "such as fungal aflatoxins" (p. 7121 paragraph 4), or a lifetime of alcohol abuse or drug consumption to develop cancer [8]?"

Where [8] was
Blumberg BS. Hepatitis B virus, the vaccine, and the control of primary cancer of the liver. PNAS, 1997; 94:7121-5.

So I downloaded this paper and read all of page 7121, and found that paragraph 4 does not state that toxins and/or alcohol abuse are "required" to cause liver cancer:

"Some patients infected with HBV, HCV, HDV, and probably
HGV may develop chronic infection. This may follow an
acute attack; the virus does not resolve, but remains active or
sub-active in the body for many years. More and more of the
liver cells are destroyed, scarring occurs, and liver function
decreases. Chronic liver disease can be life shortening. For at
least two of the viruses, HBV and HCV, primary hepatocellular
carcinoma (HCC) may develop, usually many years after
the initial infection. The probability of HCC increases if the
chronic carriers also are exposed to other agents, such as the
carcinogen aflatoxin, which is produced by Aspergillus fungus
that contaminates poorly stored foodstuffs. There is also
epidemiological and other evidence that high body iron stores,
which can be a consequence of excessive iron intake, also can
increase the probability of HCC.
"

Inhalation of certain types of asbestos fiber particles increases the risk of lung cancer. Likewise, chronic exposure to cigarette smoke increases the risk of lung cancer. Inhaling both asbestos and smoking cigarettes has a synergistic effect, increasing the risk of cancer far beyond the additive total of the increase in risk from both.

Marsella LT, Marmo C, Saracino V, Del Vecchio R.
The association of asbestos and cigarette smoke in lung cancer. Note 2
Clin Ter. 2006 Jan-Feb;157(1):53-9.
PMID: 16669552

Kurihara N, Wada O.
Silicosis and smoking strongly increase lung cancer risk in silica-exposed workers.
Ind Health. 2004 Jul;42(3):303-14.
PMID: 15295901

Liddell FD.
Joint action of smoking and asbestos exposure on lung cancer.
Occup Environ Med. 2002 Jul;59(7):494-5
PMID: 12107302

Contrary to what Andrew would like to confuse people into believing, this does not mean that asbestos exposure is harmless, or that cigarette smoke is "required" in order for asbestos to cause cancer.

Posted by: Dr. Duke | July 11, 2007 3:42 PM

Andrew,
Here's your quick question:

Quick question folks.
How do you sleep at night given Gallo's Parenzee trial testimony when he says that "if nobody here in the court room is "HIV" positive, there will be no molecules of "HIV" in their blood!
Together with former head of the NIH Varmus saying that RT is found in worms, mammals, bacteria, and other critters?
Together with Temin stating that RT is found in many normal contexts?

Hyenas have hemoglobin in their blood, but if there are no hyenas in the zoo then there will be no "hyena molecules" in the blood of any of the zoo animals. This is true even though lions have hemoglobin, tigers have hemoglobin, and bears have hemoglobin (Oh My!). They all have hemoglobin, but none of them have hyena hemoglobin.

Worms make actin, but they don't make hyena actin.

Reverse transcriptases are found in all retroviruses and in other cellular contexts, but the only people with HIV reverse transcriptase in their blood are HIV-infected people.

Andrew, how do you sleep at night knowing your arguments are so lame?

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 12:21 AM

Hey Pope,
I see you dredged up Dr. Maniotis's false statements about the DAIDS manual:

However, I followed Dr. PS Duke's (aka Harvey Bialy I suspect) exciting link and came upon this good old denialist classic, courtesy of our friend Dr. Maniotis:
The 1997 DIADS Official "HIV" Culturing Manual also exhibits evidence of AIDS denialism. Under quality control," Section VI, page 45, the DAIDS manual
warned "HIV" cell culturists: "Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation" when
testing them for the absence of "HIV" from your healthy donor source In non-technical language, DAIDS claimed that the way to make sure control cultures (healthy donor source) were indeed not infected with "HIV," was to quit
watching the control cultures after 3 days. Perhaps DAIDS simply followed Montagnier's and Gallo's AIDS denialism, and accepted that it was PHA, and not "HIV" that could, after 3 days, induce the same effect on T-cells not incubated with "HIV" (A), as it did with infected cultures (2-9)? Nevertheless it is denialism, because they warn culturists to terminate control cultures after 3 days, and thus control cultures are NOT terminated at the same times as the "HIV" infected cultures.

I apologize for repeating myself, but I'm not sure if you saw Dr. Maniotis's most recent explanation of his DAIDS blunder in the Smallpox thread:

The DAIDS 1997 official "HIV" culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, "Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation" when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,"
was taken out of context of the argument I was making because in
"The Reporting Results Section which follows (section VII) a rationale follows that obviously employs both healthy (or non-"infected" cells-although I don't think anybody tests intentionally non-"infected cells") in a manner that is irrational to my way of thinking, unless I really don't understand what is going on.

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 12:56 AM

RE:

The DAIDS 1997 official "HIV" culturing manual, under quality control, Section VI, page 45, advocates, "Do not use PHA stimulated PBMC older than 3 days post stimulation when testing them for the absence of HIV from your healthy donor source,"

Why doesn't somebody answer my simple question. Let me rephrase it using small words:

The Reporting Results Section which follows (section VII) a rationale follows that apparently employs both healthy (or non-infected cells) and infected cells-although I don't think anybody tests intentionally non-"infected cells") in a manner that is rational or what we would considered CONTROLLED. For example:

Cultures whose supernatant meet one of the following criteria are considered culture positive IF:

"Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or "out of range" (O.D.>2) or

"Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values (read: from a healthy donor source) that are "out of range (Optical density.> 2); or

"Three consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml (read: from a healthy donor source), where neither consecutive value is > four times the previous sample, but the third value is at least four times greater than the first,"

Would you consider a sample negative (read: from a healthy donor source) if the 3 consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA corrected values read (first test) 25 pg/ml, and (second test) 15 pg/ml, (third test) 5 pg/ml?

Would you use these cells as uninfected controls?

Asked another way, are these control cells considered non-infected if they read 25 on the first reading, and 15 on the second and 5 on the third?

Try a second sample using the first criterion stated above:

"Two consecutive HIV p24 antigen VQA CORRECTED values of > 30 pg/ml, of which the second value is at least four times greater than the first value or out of range" (O.D.>2)

First sample =6pg/ml: second sample)=23pg/ml

Yes? No? Maybe better get other "healthy cells" than go with a 6 and a 23? Or are these two readings enough to say, "Aw-what the heck-they aren't over 30pg/ml and the second series ain't quite 4 times greater that the first value of 6, so I will just tell the doc that they are negative, and will tell the patient nothing about it.

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 12, 2007 4:02 PM

Andrew is still dodging. He demands answers but he won't give any.

I will answer his question about p24 readings and there's a good answer.

BUT only after he gives us a honest response to why I don't find RT activity in any of my controls. I described my experiment above. I asked simple questions. Andrew Maniotis hasn't been able to answer.

Posted by: Adele | July 12, 2007 5:21 PM

Andrew,

HIV reverse transcriptase has been molecularly cloned and can be easily distinguished from any reverse transcriptase encoded in the human genome. Just as hyena hemoglobin can be easily distinguished from the hemoglobin of other mammals.

Your starting to sound like a case of social promotion at UC Berkeley.

Posted by: franklin | July 12, 2007 7:13 PM

Might as well also mention that T cell responses against HIV's reverse transcriptase are readily detectable in HIV-infected individuals (just Google "rt-specific ctl"). I wonder if Andrew Maniotis has ever talked to a cellular immunologist about their "outragious claims" regarding HIV infection and AIDS.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 12, 2007 7:54 PM

Andrew wrote:

"This is pure crap because you haven't isolated "HIV" at anywhere close to sufficient purity to claim you have a distinct RT from the "epigenetically silenced" RT that is endogenous."

What part of "infectious molecular clone" do you fail to understand?

Grisson RD, Chenine AL, Yeh LY, He J, Wood C, Bhat GJ, Xu W, Kankasa C, Ruprecht RM.
Infectious molecular clone of a recently transmitted pediatric human immunodeficiency virus clade C isolate from Africa: evidence of intraclade recombination.
J Virol. 2004 Dec;78(24):14066-9.
PMID: 15564517

Brehm JH, Koontz D, Meteer JD, Pathak V, Sluis-Cremer N, Mellors JW.
Selection of Mutations in the Connection and RNase H Domains of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Reverse Transcriptase that Increase Resistance to 3'-Azido-3'-Dideoxythymidine.
J Virol. 2007 May 16;
PMID: 17507476

Hu Z, Giguel F, Hatano H, Reid P, Lu J, Kuritzkes DR.
Fitness comparison of thymidine analog resistance pathways in human immunodeficiency virus type 1.
J Virol. 2006 Jul;80(14):7020-7.
PMID: 16809307

Hammond JL, Parikh UM, Koontz DL, Schlueter-Wirtz S, Chu CK, Bazmi HZ, Schinazi RF, Mellors JW.
In vitro selection and analysis of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 resistant to derivatives of beta-2',3'-didehydro-2',3'-dideoxy-5-fluorocytidine.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2005 Sep;49(9):3930-2.
PMID: 16127074

Abram ME, Parniak MA.
Virion instability of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase (RT) mutated in the protease cleavage site between RT p51 and the RT RNase H domain.
J Virol. 2005 Sep;79(18):11952-61.
PMID: 16140771

Posted by: Dr. Duke | July 12, 2007 7:56 PM

Andrew Maniotis asked:

" How do you know that the RT you are measuring isn't endogenous RT..."

Why Andrew, you simply use your secret decoder ring.

We must have been remiss in issuing yours.

Here it is:
http://psyche.uthct.edu/shaun/SBlack/geneticd.html

May it serve you well.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 12, 2007 10:12 PM

So I guess you would run with the cells being 29pg/ml or some similar permutation as being "normal healthy controls." You guys really don't know how to do a controlled experiment. A simple yes is really all you needed to say. Or yes, we use cells that are showing 28pg/ml for our healthy normal controls, while cells over 30 are considered infected.

RE: the heat inactivated virus.

You are correct. I did forget about the heat inactivated virus not ringing up the counts in the experiment you described. Normally this would be a good control for real viruses like Herpesvirus. But what you detect here must be an endogenous noxious protein that is heat stable?

You can't say otherwise-sequencing or not-mobio or not. It doesn't matter cause there ain't no gold standard which is the virus itself. You don't know if the sequence you are consistently getting is the same sequence due to the same stimulus generating the same pathological effect.

RE:
"If it's close you do it again and you do other tests like PCR to make sure its not false."

I'm sure the DIADS folks and those reference labs that follow their manual do this over and over until they find "a healthy donor source" that would consistently ring up

Wonderful certainty here to risk a person's life by then convincing them they are going to die.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 13, 2007 12:00 PM

Excellent takedown, Adele. The controls are solid, especially the proviral DNA.

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 13, 2007 1:19 PM

I told Andrew about my controls. He had something to say about ONE of them. His explanation was a stretch, heat denatured protein, and he got it wrong anyway, he said heat stable protein, but it was a possibility. The others all three of them he can't respond to because they prove he's completely wrong. So he makes jokes and insults and pastes alot from irrelevant papers.

The junk science is Andrew's. Science that doesn't have hypotheses or experiments at all. Much less controlled experiments like mine. Actually I wouldn't call his stuff science.

Andrew says,
"There is no evidence that you aren't seeing the effects of what you think is "HIV" is harming or infecting the cells in any way: Can't show it in chimps, in non-activated T-cells (red blood cells, neurons, muscle cells, or whatever cell type you want to be the target of "HIV's" malicious nature this month), etc."

I've seen HIV infecting two primary cell types this week alone. No stimulation required. Is Andrew such a Kool-Aid drinker he can't read the literature?

When Andrew wants to talk about my other controls that will be fun. But he won't. He'll post some more stuff on HERVs or how pesticides get sprayed on his pasta or whatever.

Posted by: Adele | July 13, 2007 5:17 PM

Adele,

I think you're being too hard on Dr. Maniotis:

"The junk science is Andrew's. Science that doesn't have hypotheses or experiments at all. Much less controlled experiments like mine. Actually I wouldn't call his stuff science."

Why, I saw a control being used in Dr. Maniotis' work just the other day. HIV integrase was tested to see if it had the same chromosome reconstituting ability as Topoisomerase.

It did not. Obviously, very powerful conclusions can be drawn from a well controlled experiment like this. The most obvious, of course, is that HIV does not exist.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 13, 2007 7:21 PM

Roy,

Care to explain what you mean by "chromosome reconstituting ability" means? Just because two proteins have similar activities does not mean that one exists. If this passes for Maniotis style science, Adele is being too polite, if anything.

Posted by: Robster, FCD | July 13, 2007 7:40 PM

Andrew,

You still haven't been able to figure out the the qualitative macroculture assay from the DAIDS manual?

Maybe you should try doing an experiment and setting the assay up in your lab. At least then you could speak from experience.

Posted by: franklin | July 13, 2007 8:03 PM

Dear Franklin, Adele, Dr. Duke, Hinkley (Hinkley, is this you? http://www.gilligansisle.com/prof.html)

Why don't you all ever try to even respond to my questions? As Franklin I believe said about cheer-leaders...following some questions I stated, it would be most helpful for you to address the following issue of Bess et al:

RE:

Not one molecule of "HIV's" proteins would be present in a whole stadium full of sports fans, given none of them were HIV postive.'

Well gee Mr. Gallo, Mr. Fauci, Mr. Wainberg, I got 29 "units" of p24 in my blood, so I guess its safe that I can go after the cheerleaders or donate blood tomorrow! I ain't got 30 pg/ml on two consecutive tests, so I OK! For shame! I'd rather take my chance with phrenology as a test for intelligence, or burning witches to see if they die (as you did to Christine's family). But I'd bet that, naïve to the absolute junk science of the "HIV/AIDS" religion, and if somehow convinced to take an "HIV" test (or now under mandatory testing conditions at my "routine checkup" without any informed consent as is currently in place by the Nazi administration), that I'd finally fulfill Jesse Helm's dream-to be afraid of any cheerleaders, and to regard for sure selectively biased populations such as gays (and African Americans) as being the object of "God's revenge." How are you supposed to feel if you blew a 29 on an AIDS breathalizer p24 test?

The DIADS culturing manual, in light of the warnings of Larent-Crawford are even more disturbing, and suggest, if you really think about it, that not only are there no animal models of "HIV," but there are no in consistent vitro models either, despite the DIADS attempt to codify a single set of protocols for normal stimulated lymphocyte culturing coupled to a diagnostic that doesn't make any sense.

Most heartbreaking of all, perhaps, is the fact that the equation of p24, or the spate of other "hidden epitope antibody tests or phony nucleic acid testing described in the last half of the DIADS handbook, all suffer from the same problems that Bess et al., (1997) so eloquently described (Microvesicles are a source of contaminating cellular proteins found in PURIFIED HIV-1 preparations"). In other words, on top of there being no consistent cell culturing model for "HIV's" so-called pathogenic effect (principally but not only due to the problems with mitogen interference that causes, according to Laurent-Crawford et al., unbalanced signals and apoptosis or syncytial formation or persistant non-pathogenic viral production depending on whether lymphocytes are "immature or "mature" there is still, no evidence whatsoever, that p24 has anything to do with an exogenous virus called "HIV." I'd like to give a few examples:

1. If you go to figure 3 in this paper, one cannot tell a piece of cellular debris from any other piece of debris or crap. And this is where p24 was isolated from under the best PURIFICATION conditions that "HIV" science could muster? If you want to see what a virus prep for purification should look like, see http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/news/edhlettercont.htm

And note that in this EM photograph, there isn't any crap that can co-purify and be mistaken for a unique, exogenous, viral protein, or at least it is highly unlikely given the purity of the prep. The author points to the two pieces of shit in the prep that aren't viral in nature in a background of hundreds that are identical.

2. The Bess et al., authors specifically state that: "Identification and analysis of the virus are complicated by the presence of cellular membrane vesicles which COPURIFY with the virus."

3. "We recently reported a proteolytic procedure (Ott et al., 1995b) that effectively removes greater than 95% of proteins associated with these membrane vesicles. This procedure has allowed us to demonstrate that the cytoskeletal proteins, actin, ezrin, moesin, and cofilin are located IN THE INTERIOR of virions."

Funny-I never saw this in any testbooks...along with pol, env, p24, p32, etc., that actin, ezrin, moesin, and cofilin were part of "HIV's" deadly arsenal it carries into cells from other infected cells.

Question: If actin, exrin, and cytoskeletal proteins are located INSIDE the virions, how can one tell if p24, which is a faint band on most cellular gels that come from non-infected cells in most labs, isn't also a cellular protein? The gel shown in figure 1 (the non-infected lane) has weaker bands at all of these weight designations that supposedly the infected supernatants were run (B,C). In fact the p24 band is extremely PRESENT in lane A, which is the uninfected lane. This gel is the basis for giving someone cancer chemo on their cornflakes for life as Moore pointed out? For shame!

4. "PHA activated human PBLs were also shown to produce microvesicles that incorporated cellular proteins (Fig. 6)."

5. "In addition to proteins, microvesicles were also shown to contain both RNA and DNA. Approximately 10ug of RNA and 4 ug of DNA were found per mg of protein. The major RNA species in microvesicles were ribosomal 28S and 18S subuitis and some low molecular species, PERHAPS tRNA."

Could these nucleic acids form little dark "cones" one might ask? Hard to tell you say. Look at figure 3 and tell me in those several dark cone-containing pieces of cellular crap, do you see your father, the sea, Mana from heaven, the "HIV" genome, your future?

6. "We have been unsuccessful at separating microvesicles from HIV- by centrifugation techniques (data not shown)." What! It's shown in figure 3!

7. GP120 may do the trick (if it isn't a cellular protein which it is).

8. "Clearly, future experiments utilizing purified viruses must be carefully controlled to account for the effects of cellular antigens present on microvessels" (like p24 and all the other so-called proteins and nucleic acids thought to be specific to "HIV"). Clearly indeed!#@###$@

9. "Numerous other cellular proteins have been identified in PURIFIED preparations of HIV-1. It is not known if these are physically associated with HIV particles and, if so, whether or not they have a role in the virus replication cycle. IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO STUDYING THE POTENTIAL FUNCION OF CELLULAR PROTEINS IN THE VIRUS REPLICATION CYCLE."

SHOULD READ:
IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO MAKING A GODDAMN TEST KIT, WHETHER OR NOT IT IS PROTEIN OR NUCLEIC ACID BASED, AND THEN USING IT TO RISK THE LIVES OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE DANGEROUS CHEMOTHERAPIES BASED ON A p24 or nucleic acid-based test that has been developed from the likes of this junk science.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 14, 2007 8:07 AM

What are you dribbling on about now, Andrew? No live attenuated HIV vaccine has ever been tested in humans, some doctors from the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care wanted to volunteer for a study but it never happened because of safety concerns.

And why are you obsessively citing a 12 year old report on vaccine trials? There are three ongoing efficacy trials, two involving attenuated adenovirus vector-based constructs that evoke HIV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses in the majority of recipients.

I've also been wanting to ask you about that child with cancer you mentioned in one of your posts on Barnesworld; you had some idea for treating him that you couldn't try? What was that?

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 14, 2007 3:06 PM

Andy writes SHOULD READ:
IDENTIFICATION OF WHICH CELLULAR PROTEINS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE VIRUS IS A PREREQISITE TO MAKING A GODDAMN TEST KIT, WHETHER Never mind, franklin's right "I really don't understand what's going on."
--Andrew Maniotis, July 6, 2007 pretty much explains your confusion.

Posted by: Dale | July 14, 2007 11:00 PM

"Have you now, or ever been, someone who dared ask a question regarding the reality and pathogenesis of "HIV," and its role in causing the previously known 47 diseases or syndromes now collectively called "AIDS?" And Sir, do you know anyone, especially scientists or physicians, who have asked such a question? Could we please have their names now?"

Well as I understand it, Harvey Bialy and Peter Duesberg have asked such questions. Sadly, like yourself, they apparently don't seem to understand the answers.

Posted by: Dale | July 15, 2007 1:07 AM

Andrew Maniotis wrote:

Because at that time 1995 there was claimed to have been (at least) 30 vaccine trials in the Congressional document I cited (closer to 80 if you look at the tables of this document-so there has been sufficient time to analyze these-and to discover there was no activation of T-cells claimed, no humoral immunity documented, no mucosal immunity that was apparent, and no cellular immunity demonstrated, largely because the stimulating antigens are not non-self-from an exogenous "HIV." And you'll tell me that "HIV" isn't immunogenic. Try telling that to the millions of "HIV-positives" that are thought to be infected.

No, I won't tell you HIV isn't immunogenic because it's plenty immunogenic. The antigens used in these vaccines are from exogenous HIV, unless you're seriously attempting to suggest that the HIV genes inserted in a vector such as ALVAC have a match in the human genome.

For immunogenicity data from HIV vaccine trials, you should look in PubMed. Even the gp120 subunit HIV vaccines activated CD4 T cells and generated CD4 T cell and B cell memory and gp120-specific antibodies. ALVAC induces HIV-specific memory CD8 T cell responses in ~20% of recipients, ALVAC was also in studies by 1995. Mucosal HIV-specific memory CD8 T cell responses have also been documented in some ALVAC recipients. Since 1995, newer vaccine vectors have been designed that are much better at inducing HIV-specific memory CD4 and CD8 T cells, they do so in the majority of recipients (the problem with reliably inducing CD8 T cells did not relate to HIV's immunogenicity, it related to efficiently accessing the class I antigen processing pathway with non-replicating vectors). The two vaccines that are currently in efficacy trials are Merck's Ad5 vector which encodes the Gag, Pol and Nef proteins from HIV-1 and the Vaccine Research Center's DNA prime/Ad5 boost which encodes Gag, Pol, Nef and three Env proteins from clades A, B & C.

Can you be more specific about that Barnesworld post? I don't remember writing anything about a child with cancer.

David Steele deleted it very quickly so I guess it's lost to posterity.

Posted by: Richard Jefferys | July 15, 2007 5:38 PM

"Like my stocks of virus at minus 80 degrees that I sequenced after I made them are supposed to mutate all by themselves in the freezer before I use them. Or maybe revert to wild type in a single round of replication. That's how he "answers" my RT results. And by the way they're not like big results they're just standard things you use to test new cells you get in or validate stuff."

Adele, are you some sort of budding young scientist? Do these comments have something to do with life on Mars? What in heaven's name are they supposed to mean?

Posted by: Shawn Hannity | July 16, 2007 1:03 PM

And here we have a serious contributor named "Franklin" who doesn't know what a "non-risk donor" means.

Of course, it logically follows that risk assessment must be something that Dr Maniotis has made up.

Posted by: Phineas T | July 16, 2007 1:16 PM

Oh Adele, such little faith you have that you have to impute such existential positions to Maniotis and Semon.

Of course deadly HIV exists.

Posted by: Meme Machine | July 16, 2007 1:39 PM

Too bad the Moore Bergman propaganda film

http://health.scribemedia.org/2007/06/22/fighting-aids-denialism/

didn't show the 3 fold variable size differences reported by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University team showed, when they claimed that (BBC News Tuesday, 24 January 2006, 14:04 -"3D structure of HIV is 'revealed'"):

"Scientists have created a map showing the 3D structure of the virus which causes Aids.

The variable size and shape of HIV has made it hard to map, the team said in the journal Structure.

So the UK-German team took hundreds of images of viruses, that are 60 times smaller than red blood cells, and used a computer program to combine them.

Oxford University's Professor Stephen Fuller said the 3D map would assist in understanding how the virus grows.

Unusual features

He told the BBC: "You say can you show me the structure of the HIV virus and the question is which one.

[YES THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION BY THE OXFORD SCIENTIST-WHICH ONE INDEED??????]

"HIV is very variable. It varied in diameter by a factor of three." [MAYBE SOME "HIV" VIRIONS ARE HAPLOID, DIPLOID, AND TRIPLOID?????] HA HA HA HA HA-THAT'S A JOKE].

The way the research team, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University, dealt with this was by taking multiple images at different tilts.

[THE APPARATUS WAS TILTED, NOT THE RESEARCHERS]!

Working with colleagues in Heidelberg and Munich, they took about 100 images of 70 individual HIV viruses and then looked at similarities.

Despite the variability, the team found some consistent features.

T-Cells

This included the finding that the core of virus - which is cone-shaped - spans the width of the viral membrane."

But there are spikes on the outside which bind to human immune cells, called T cells, and allow the virus to invade them.

[NOT JUST ANY T-CELLS-CD4+ T-CELLS. DAVID HO AND OTHERS HAVE SHOWN IN SCIENCE, FOR INSTANCE, THAT CD4+ T-CELLS ARE THE ONLY RESIDENT POPULATION IN THE GUT'S LYMPH PATCHES SHOWN OF COURSE TO BE "WIPED CLEAN" (BECAUSE OF "HIV'S INCREDIBLY NARROW CD4+ CELL TROPISM) VERY SOON AFTER INFECTION, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, THE VIRUS IS LYING DORMANT AS A PROVIRUS IN 1: 10,000 T-CELLS ELSEWHERE SOMEWHERE ELSE. WE NOW KNOW THAT AIDS CAN BE A DISEASE OF BOTH TOO FEW absolute AND TOO MANY absolute LYMPHOCYTES, AS IN THE CASE OF ELIZA JANE. BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT HIV IS VERY SPECIFICALLY TARGETING ONLY THE CD4'S, DESPITE WHAT DENIALISTS SAY REGARDING NO CORRELATION BETWEEN VIRAL LOAD AND T-CELL NUMBERS].

The significance of this is that whereas most viruses have internal structures which define the size, in the HIV virus it is the membrane which defines the size."

[FUNNY HOW TMV AND OTHER VIRUSES THAT HAVE BEEN SHOWN CAPABLE OF SELF-ASSEMEBLY FROM ISOLATED AND SEPARATED CONSTITUTENTS IN VITRO ALL HAVE THE SAME SIZE AND SHAPE BECAUSE THE CONSTITUENT MOLECULES HAVE STRUCTURAL CONSTAINSTS THAT DEFINE THE CURVATURE, GYRE, SIZE, AND OVERALL SHAPE OF A VIRUS, AS THEY DO A MICROTUBULE-I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE SOMETING SPECIAL REGARDING THIS FEATURE WITH HIV! SEEMS LIKE IT BREAKS ALL THE RULES. EVOKES ANTIBODIES BUT A VACCINE CAN'T BE GENERATED AGAINST ITS CONSTITUENT COMPONENTS, KILLS WHILE AT LEVELS OF 1:1000-10,000 T-CELLS WHILE WIPING THE GUT "CLEAN" IN A FEW MONTHS, ETC].

YET WITH CELLS, SUBCELLULAR ASSEMBLAGES, ETC, ISN'T IT TRUE THAT MEMBRANES DON'T DEFINE OR DICTATE STRUCURE OR MORPHOLOGY-BUT IT IS THE PROTEIN SCAFFOLDS AND NUCLEIC ACIDS AND OTHER MOIETIES (LIKE POLYAMINES) THAT DON'T BEHAVE ACCORDING TO A FLUID MOZAIC CONSTRAINT MODEL, WHICH IS WHY YOU CAN LIGHTLY TREAT CELLS OR VIRUSES WITH NON-IONIC DETERGENTS AND PRESERVE MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE PRECISESLY? MAYBE "HIV" EVOLVED DIRECTLY FROM THE FIRST MICELLES FORMED OF HYDROCARBON MOLECULES IN THE PRIMORDIAL OOZE. IF THIS IS THE CASE, WHY DID IT SUDDENLY SHOW UP IN 1981(1959? 1971 IN ST. LOUIS?]. MAYBE IT IS A PROPHECY LIKE THOSE OF NOSTRADOMUS (SP) TO DELIVER GOD'S REVENGE FOR THOSE WHO FORNICATE!!! SOMEBODY NAMED NOAH SHOULD START BUILDING AN ARC]!

This could inform the development of more effective therapeutic approaches Professor Stephen Fuller Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.

This puts constraints on the way it can assemble, the team said.

RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT-OH-OLD CHAP!

Professor Fuller said: "Identifying how the virus grows will allow us to address the formation of this important pathogen and how it accommodates its variability."

"This could inform the development of more effective therapeutic approaches," he added."

[IT CERTAINLY COULD]!

"But Professor Fuller, who continues to work on HIV, acknowledges that a new HIV vaccine or treatment resulting from his research was a long way off."

[WAY WAY OFF!!! T'WOULD SEEM THEY NEED TO FIRST ISOLATE IT AND SHOW, AS A CONTROLLED INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, THAT IT HAS A CONSISTENT MORPHOLOGY, HAS SOME PATHOGENIC EFFECTS ON CELLS IN CULTURE, OR EVEN IN AN ANIMAL MODEL]."

But he says the research could provide an insight into the way to prevent the virus from assembling.

[ANTIBODIES AND ENDOGENOUS GAMMAGLOBULINS FOUND IN HEALTHY INDIVUALS NUTRALIZE "IT," ACCORDING TO SOME AIDS DENIALISTS I COULD QUOTE.]

Treatments?

Like any virus, HIV is not a cell but rather strands of genetic code wrapped in protein.

[RIGHT! "HIV" ISN'T A CELL AT ALL, BUT CONTAINS ACTIN AND OTHER CYTOSKELETAL PROTEINS ACCORDING TO BESS ET AL.].

The virus invades living cells and take them over by usurping the cell's genetic code with its own."

[USURP IS PROBABLY AN UNFORTUNATE WORD CHOICE-RETROVIRUSES INTEGRATE THEIR GENOMES AND, LIKE GAJDUSEK'S PRIONS, REMAIN SILENT FOR YEARS WHILE THEY DISTROY THE GUT LYMPH NODES AT THE SAME MOMENT].

Roger Pebody, treatment specialist at HIV/Aids charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "Revealing the 3D structure of HIV may not sound very exciting but it's actually really useful [PROFITABLE], giving us more information about the virus and how it grows.

[HE OUGHT TO WRITE TO ADELE, SHE SAYS SHE CAN GROW "HIV" IN NON-PHA-STIMULATED PRIMARY T-CELL CULTURES (ADELE-ARE ALL THESE CD4+ OR ARE THESE MIXED LYMPHOCYTE/MONOCYTE/MACROPHAGE POPULATIONS?) WITHOUT STIMULATING THE HELL OUT OF THEM AND OXIDIZING THE CELLS TO CREATE TOXIC EFFECTS WITH PHA DEPENNDING ON "THE MATURITY" OF THE CELLS OF COURSE-ACCORDING TO LAURENT-CRAWFORD ET AL.,]! HOURAY ADELE!

"The more we understand about HIV, the more likely we are to be able to develop effective treatments and hopefully one day a cure."

[SOMEBODY OUGHT TO WRITE THE BBC AND TELL THEM ABOUT THE LIFE-SAVING MEDS, SO THEY WON'T EDGE INTO AIDS DENIALISM AND SAY THINGS LIKE:"develop effective treatments and hopefully one day a cure."

Also, somebody ought to tell Dr. Moore and Bergman to show "HIV" particles on their 20 minute propaganda piece that are also 3 different sizes instead of particles all the same size. At least the AIDS establishment ought to clean up their data a bit. They also might want to provide a picture on this propaganda movie that shows at least 1 particle with a "wedge-shaped core."

Someone might also want to tell that cunning legal mind, Bergman, in addition, that treating pregnant women with therapies that might be "effective" and "hopefully one day will cure" might not work so well when the retrovirus has intercalated its genome in a cell passed from mother to infant during labor, no matter how many grams of AZT or nevirapine she wants to give them, or regardless of whether or not 47% of the women will develop mutant viruses after one dose of nevirapine (Lockman et al.,). What might happen instead, is that these drugs may suppress normal immune functioning, cause diarrhea, vomiting, bone marrow suppression, liver failure, or perhaps just suppress the normal immune system functioning, including those cells that may be responsible for generating high RT readings, or p24 levels that exceed 30 pg/ml, or other so-called specific retroviral signatures. Maybe Bergman should advocate full-body radiation to kill any "HIV-harboring T-cells, plus of course, AZT, Nevirapine, 3Tc, ddI, sequinavir, mycoplasma removal agent, and perhaps for good measure, prophalactic bactrim for at least 28 days, and a good dose of amoxicillin to ward off any potential microbial "flair-up" these AIDS-infested women may harbor during pregancy? Certainly, if the mothers don't comply, Bergman ought to have suggested putting g-tubes into them to force them to take these "life-saving meds" so their babies won't grow up to infect low-risk people by accident!

Try to overlook the remarks of Moore and Bergman regarding denialists all being heterosexual racists and homophobes motivated by deep resentments toward these minority groups. Its not true. Lee Evens is no racist, nor is President Mbeki, and they have their opinions, as does Sam Mlongo, and others.

Peace
Jimi

Posted by: Jimi Hendrix | July 16, 2007 2:52 PM

Maniosemon or Eugeniotis writes
HE OUGHT TO WRITE TO ADELE, SHE SAYS SHE CAN GROW "HIV" IN NON-PHA-STIMULATED PRIMARY T-CELL CULTURES (ADELE-ARE ALL THESE CD4+ OR ARE THESE MIXED LYMPHOCYTE/MONOCYTE/MACROPHAGE POPULATIONS?)

I didn't say T-cells. HIV infects other cells too. Maybe you can look them up on google and write jokes about them for your split personalities.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 3:23 PM

Another Maniotis apologist wtote:

It is certainly entertaining, at the very least, to review the insults and piling on directed at Andrew Maniotis that carefully avoid his substantive points.

Professor Maniotis has made no substantive points. He has only provided distorted or flat-out-false statements about the work of other scientists, as amply documented in his posts.

That the denialists continue to defend the integrity-challenged claims of Maniotis simply illustrates their desperate need to deny reality.

Posted by: franklin | July 16, 2007 5:03 PM

Franklin,

Ok, but "denialists"? I think we've just seen an encore performance of Eugene Semon.

One day.

Ten thousand names.

Zero knowledge of epigenetics OR HIV.

The Eugenedrew Semoniotis show.

Coming soon to a blog near you.

Posted by: Adele | July 16, 2007 6:17 PM

"Do these mysterious non-T cells you use have CCR5 receptors?"

It is becoming a little tedious constantly correcting the Maniotis view of reality. At least there is some hope that he can learn from previous errors- I note the message has sunk home with him that RBCs are not nucleated.

Posted by: DT | July 22, 2007 2:48 PM

Andrew, I find it very ironic you accuse me of lies and distortions, when all I have done is correct your own. You have already demonstrated your capacity for playing fast and loose with the truth several times on this blog (and have even acknowledged it, I recall).

You implied only T-cells had the requisite receptors for HIV entry - I merely disabused you of this idea. In return I get accused of telling lies?

If you want an example of distortions/lies, let's look at your latest post shall we (we could select almost any at radom):

I learned some time ago that Human RBC's aren't nucleated. My question to you and the others has been to explain how "HIV" infection causes anemia in half of patients, to the extent they are given transfusions (of course ignore the fact that they are on AZT or HAART, whose package inserts state that anemia is present in about half the patients as does the clinical trial literature

I am also intrigued you say AZT causes anemia in "half of patients to the extent they are given transfusions". You say the package inserts and trial literature attest to this.

Well, I recall that transfusion-dependent anemia occurs in between 5-10% of patients on AZT. The only trial literature I can find that comes anywhere close to "half" is the Fischl data where anemia occurred in 39% of those with advanced disease (AIDS) who were also on high dose AZT. Of course, anemia is a common finding in AIDS patients, even without any contribution from AZT. I hope you do not suggest all anemia in AIDS cases is solely the result of AZT?
https://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/15/1009

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/8D480CE7-8E2B-4F01-9487-913431A85B86.asp
This presents data from a meta-analysis of 54 long term clinical trials involving 12640 patients with HIV showed that 1.5% to 1.8% of those on AZT in current treatment doses (500-600mg/d) had anemia -In contrast the rates of anemia in those NOT on the drug were 0.6% to 1.1%. No mention of your "50%" anywhere, and that's from 54 clinical studies. Are you reading the "clinical trial literature" from another parallel universe or something? (Don't answer that [It was rhetorical] - I know you are reading from the "Virusmyth" version of reality). The incidence of severe grade 3/4 anemia (the sort that requires transfusions) was only 1% in those on AZT as opposed to 0.3% to 0.6% of those not on the drug.

(You know, the more I find out about this drug, the more I am amazed at how lethal it is!) The only caveat on this study is the fact that the meta-analysis was done by Glaxo Smith Kline. I know this will be enough for you to scream "Conspiracy!", but it is not original company "data on file" being reported (which I would be suspicious of), but a collation of 54 clinical trials that have already been published in the literature.

So in summary, there is nothing to suggest what you claim. Perhaps you are deliberately lying about the data, or perhaps you have access to some that confirms your claim of 50% transfusion dependent anemia rates. If so I am sure we all would all like to see it.

Posted by: DT | July 22, 2007 7:25 PM

Is that all you have Mr. Hinkley, a caricature of my position and an insult?

That's your substantive response?

Posted by: Wewant Chris | July 23, 2007 3:33 PM

Gene or whoever you are,
Please don't abuse Tara's patience. Another thread just got closed down because of Semon style sockpuppet abuse. I don't want that do you? Please pick a name and stick to it like the rest of us do.
Thanks.

Posted by: Adele | July 23, 2007 5:14 PM

Is Adele, the lovable one-gal lab crew, the one for you?

She makes, sequences and grows her own stocks of non-T cell, non-stimulated non-cancerous cell line HIV all by herself. She keeps them at an undisclosed location, which isn't in Australia, at minus 80 degrees until use. She enjoys watching children get injected with thimerosol, but disapproves of Kevin inflicting PCP on himself by overdosing on doctor's advice. In her spare time she feeds the monkeys until they all come down with AIDS brought on by injections administered by Adele, the one-gal lab crew, herself with her non-T cell, non-stimulated non-cancerous cell line HIV, grown at home in an undisclosed location which isn't in Australia.

NB. The last bit of information was repeated to prevent any speculation in Murchian origins for either Adele or her HIV.

Posted by: Epidemiology-LISA | July 23, 2007 7:24 PM

Dear dear Adele, how can you be so confused over the point on AZT specificity? You see that post as an argument for Intelligent Design? You compare polymerization chemical reactions to locks and keys?

Of course the azido group on the thymidine is a human design with the purpose of terminating the DNA chain, stopping the reverse transcription process cold, so to speak, that is destined in theory to become the "preintegration complex".

If you can explain to me why the AZT won't terminate any DNA polymerization reaction it encounters, I'm all ears.

Posted by: Drug Lobby | July 24, 2007 11:57 AM

For DT:

Glad to see you are familiar with the fraudulent 1987 trial of Fischl et al. Did you read John Lauretson's book and see how the FDA data on the trial is blacked out when he obtained it from the freedom of information act and posted it in the end of his book? There is no way of knowing exactly how many patients received transfusions during this trial (but it was at least about half as you agreed)because it is clear that some of the patients were swapped between the AZT group and control group at the last minute, to further scew the results from the miserable and unblinded 4 month long results they already had (before the decided to keep the fudged Boston arm of the study). When I think of AZT, I think of this study, as you did.

Therefore, there is progress here, so I am going to drop my defensive tone and resume in this blog a sincere attitude I started with, if that's ok with you all.

My stance has been all along, but perhaps not obvious because of the criticisms I have made, that I realize doctors and pharmaceutical companies aren't trying to hurt but to help. I work at a medical school. I know that. The denialists, by and large, are trying to improve things through criticism, and my posts have been no exception. I have honestly learned from this blog, as I have over the years-e.g. I used to think AZT was 100% fatal until I began meeting people who were taking the stuff for 10 years or even 12 years and were not dead although they had a plethora of side effects (often debilitating) that could all be found on the package insert. That these patients taking AZT should even be alive 10 years after AZT violates biochemistry, and all I thought I knew about the biochemistry of DNA-chain termination in living cells and especially cancer cells (but humans aren't living cells they are organisms and group connected organisms at that, as are all primates at some point during their life cycle. These and other realizations prompted me to rethink my entire cancer therapeutics program (yes, reading the AIDS literature is relevant to cancer research) and rethink how we approach toxic cancer chemo with FuDR and other DNA disruptive agents, and I begin to understand the principles I posted before on this blog that were only to be ridiculed by those of you who KNOW what cancer and AIDS really is all about. Instead of a reductionist explanation, I began seeing that there are two great medical traditions in Western Medicine that are governed by "a law of similars" strategy (vaccination-where a like substance is presented to the organism at a low dose or in attenuated form with the hope of repeating Pasteur's Poully-Fort demonstration with anthrax, that something in the organism will recognize an imbalance created by the like substance or attenuated antigen, and be able to restore the balance, naturally (eg. Coley's toxins, modern cancer immunotherapies, vaccines, etc.). By contrast the "law of contraries strategy" that exists in Western Medicine a la Virchow, Erhlich, and Koch, and the German dye industry (and which dominates the reductionist approach), where a molecule binds to a side chain (like a dye binds to a fabric fiber) specifically and "kills" the thing ( I gave examples before you can see-penicillin is the prime example).

AZT's toxicity profile does not make sense according to a "principle of contraries" or reductionism because of the mitochondrial toxicity and the ability it must not have to distinguish host cell DNA from any other (which is why it probably acts as an antibiotic in many AIDS patients and why it reduces "viral load" signals because it suppresses all kinds of bone marrow, immune cells, B cells, etc., that generate these spurious signals (EG p24, non-specific RNA signals, HERV's, etc.).

By virtue of the law of similars, AZT makes sense. As an immunotoxin, it does what the homeopathic law of similars describes precisely: it boosts immune cell production shortly after the first doses (at low doses) for some time, but at high doses it kills the cells outright. So here I formally propose to you that AZT is a homeopathic remedy that stimulates T-cells precisely because it is so immunotoxic because these cells require DNA synthesis so much-so in effect it is like giving a perpetual vaccine every morning on your cornflakes, as Dr. Moore is fond of saying.

Then I remember reading, I god help me get the goddamn quotes right (you ought to check because I have made all corrections in a book I am writing that you all have suggested-as well as distortions of information that have crept in over the years):

McKinney et al., in an article entitled, "A multicenter trial of oral zidovudine in children with advanced human immunodeficiency virus disease" (NEJM. 1991 Apr 11;324(15):1018-25) reported that:

"Children treated with zidovudine continued to have bacterial and opportunistic infections. The effect of the drug on the frequency of these events could not be assessed because of the lack of control groups...One or more episodes of hematologic toxicity occurred in 54 children (61 percent)anemia (hemoglobin level,

Dalakas in "Mitochondrial toxicity of antiviral drugs" (Nat Med. 1995 May;1(5):417-22) claimed that:

"Clinical manifestations of ANA [Antiviral Nucleoside Analogs, such as AZT] toxicity: It is self-evident that ANAs, like all drugs, have side-effects. However, the prevalent and at times serious ANA mitochondrial toxic side-effects are particularly broad ranging with respect to their tissue target and mechanisms of toxicity: ... Haematalogical toxicity [anemia, and other blood disorders] ... Myopathy [muscle disorders] ... Cardiotoxicity [heart disorders] ... Hepatic toxicity [liver disorders] ... Peripheral neuropathy [nerve damage]?"

When Fischl et. al repeated their human experimentation in 1990:

Fischl et al., in "A randomized controlled trial of a reduced daily dose of Zidovudine in patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome" (NEJM. 1990;323(15):1009-14) reported that:

"178 subjects (34%) had a hemoglobin concentration below 5 mmol per liter [anemia]...A greater proportion of subjects in the standard-treatment [high dose AZT] group had a first episode of severe anemia earlier in the study, as compared with the proportion in the low-dose group. 134 subjects (26%) received red-cell transfusions (65 in the standard-treatment group and 69 in the low-dose group)...230 subjects (44%) had a [low] neutrophil [infection fighting white blood cells] count...134 (51%) in the standard-treatment group and 96 (37%) in the low-dose group...22 subjects (4%) had a [low] platelet [blood clotting cells] count?"

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine states: "[AZT], used for treating [HIV], often causes severe megaloblastic anemia caused by impaired DNA synthesis?"

AZT alone has some of the following warnings on its package insert printed in bold and CAPITALIZED type:

"WARNING: RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE, AZT) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA PARTICULARLY IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED HIV DISEASE."

"PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS. RARE OCCURRENCES OF LACTIC ACIDOSIS IN THE ABSENCE OF HYPOXEMIA, AND SEVERE HEPATOMEGALY WITH STEATOSIS HAVE BEEN REPORTED WITH THE USE OF ANTIRETROVIRAL NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES, INCLUDING RETROVIR AND ZALCITABINE, AND ARE POTENTIALLY FATAL."

Other side effects of AZT that have been listed on the AZT package insert also include:

"Persistent headaches lasting longer than 1 month, anemia, dementia, diarrhea, muscle wasting, candidiasis, non-specific oral lesions, severe fatigue, enlarged liver and liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, unmasking of opportunistic infections including CMV retinitis, spontaneous bleeding in hemophiliacs, lymphoma, severe skin rashes, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and other toxic reactions, back pain, body odor, chest pain, chills, edema of the lip, fever, flu syndrome, hyperalgesia, syncope, vasodilation, bleeding gums, constipation, dysphagia, edema of the tongue, eructation, flatulence, mouth ulcer, rectal hemorrhage, lymphadenopathy, arthralgia, muscle spasm, tremor, twitch, anxiety, confusion, depression, dizziness, emotional lability, loss of mental acuity, nervousness, paresthesia, somnolence, cough, dyspnea, epistaxis, hoarseness, pharyngitis, rhinitis, sinusitis, acne, changes in skin and nail pigmentation, pruritus, rash, sweat, urticaria, amblyopia, hearing loss, photophobia, taste perversion, dysuria, polyuria, urinary frequency, urinary hesitancy."

There also have been numerous mutagenesis studies regarding AZT and drugs with similar mechanisms of action that have been published. For example, among infants of mothers given AZT "to prevent the vertical transmission of "HIV"', the peer-reviewed literature has reported physical deformities result including:

"misshapen heads, triangular faces, misplaced ears, extra fingers, albinism, cavities in the chest, webbed fingers, spontaneous abortion, and "congenital" birth defects of the heart, chromosomal damage and various cancers. "

Other important warnings on the package insert of AZT carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, and impairment of fertility include:

"Zidovudine was administered orally at three dosage levels to separate groups of mice and rats (60 females and 60 males in each group). Initial single daily doses were 30, 60, and 120 mg/kg/day in mice and 80, 220, and 600 mg/kg/day in rats. The doses in mice were reduced to 20, 30, and 40 mg/kg/day after day 90 because of treatment-related anemia, whereas in rats only the high dose was reduced to 450 mg/kg/day on day 91 and then to 300 mg/kg/day on day 279."

"In mice, seven late-appearing (after 19 months) vaginal neoplasms (5 nonmetastasizing squamous cell carcinomas, one squamous cell papilloma, and one squamous polyp) occurred in animals given the highest dose. One late-appearing squamous cell papilloma occurred in the vagina of a middle dose animal. No vaginal tumors were found at the lowest dose."

"In rats, two late-appearing (after 20 months), non-metastasizing vaginal squamous cell carcinomas occurred in animals given the highest dose. No vaginal tumors occurred at the low or middle dose in rats. No other drug-related tumors were observed in either sex of either species."

"It is not known how predictive the results of rodent carcinogenicity studies may be for humans. At doses that produced tumors in mice and rats, the estimated drug exposure (as measured by AUC) was approximately 3 times (mouse) and 24 times (rat) the estimated human exposure at the recommended therapeutic dose of 100 mg every 4 hours."

" In the presence of metabolic activation, the drug was weakly mutagenic at concentrations of 1000 µg/ml and higher. In an in vitro mammalian cell transformation assay, zidovudine (AZT) was positive at concentrations of 0.5 µg/ml and higher. In an in vitro cytogenetic study performed in cultured human lymphocytes, zidovudine induced dose-related structural chromosomal abnormalities at concentrations of 3 µg/ml and higher."

"In two in vivo micronucleus studies (designed to measure chromosome breakage or mitotic spindle apparatus damage) in male mice, oral doses of zidovudine 100 to 1000 mg/kg/day administered once daily for approximately 4 weeks induced dose-related increases in micronucleated erythrocytes. Similar results were also seen after 4 or 7 days of dosing at 500 mg/kg/day in rats and mice."

Human chromosome breakage results are reported on the package insert also:

"In a study involving 11 AIDS patients, it was reported that the seven patients who were receiving Retrovir (1200 mg/day) as their only medication for 4 weeks to 7 months showed a chromosome breakage frequency of 8.29±2.65 breaks per 100 peripheral lymphocytes. This was significantly (P

A skull and cross bones warning appears on the Sigma Catalogue purchasing information for AZT: Rather than muscular men climbing a mountain, the following warning is advanced:

Toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organ: Blood Bone Marrow. If you feel unwell, seek medical advice (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing.

So, all in all, AZT is good stuff to give a pregnant woman? No I don't think so.
A developing fetus. Perhaps not.
The devil's in the dosage. Perhaps. But the data suggests no specificity for AZT and any so-called retroviral reverse transcriptase, but does suggest a homeopathic law of similars is at work (with lower doses of AZT) which stimulates production of the very cells it eventually will kill. The fact that people take it continuously and for years violates every principle we know about cancer chemo, other than a law of similars as I have stated.

It is really good to be sure, therefore, if someone really has 30pg/ml p24 or 29 pg/ml of p24 before doing drug experiments with drugs like these. Especially with children I would think.

Ok-now sling your insults.

Cheers,

andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 24, 2007 1:38 PM

Andrew has a serious problem with the first anti HIV drug. Hmmm, so does every doctor and scientist and even me! It was a good try but not good enough when they found better things.

Andrew wants us to live in a world where there aren't any drugs where there aren't any vaccines were if there's a chance a kid will get a stomach ache from a medicine that saves her life she shouldn't have it. She should just die and save the rest of our tax money. Right andrew? Very sad.

Its funny even though everyone agrees AZT shouldn't be used by itself anymore with a few exceptions Andrew still has to selectivley quote sloppy cut and paste like this
"Children treated with zidovudine continued to have bacterial and opportunistic infections. The effect of the drug on the frequency of these events could not be assessed because of the lack of control groups...One or more episodes of hematologic toxicity occurred in 54 children (61 percent)anemia (hemoglobin level,

why does he cut it off? HEre's why, the authors say
Many of these abnormalities resolved spontaneously, but 30 children required transfusions or a modification of the dose of zidovudine. Only three children had to stop receiving the drug because of hematologic toxicity.

and later
There was marked improvement in weight gain, cognitive function (mainly in children less than 3 years old), serum and cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of p24 antigen, and the proportion of cerebrospinal fluid cultures negative for HIV. CD4+ lymphocyte counts (mean at base line, 0.263 x 10(9) per liter) improved during the first 12 weeks, although the improvement was not sustained through the 24th week.

No AZT's not a great drug on its own mainly because the virus mutates not the side effects, but they aren't good. Not as bad as Andrew says though and everythings a poison at the right dose.

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 1:59 PM

Libya Announces Transfer of Medics


Anybody know how "HIV" can be transfered so efficiently to so many all at once through "pills?" I guess when the AIDS establishment decides someone tests positive because of sex it is worthy of a homicide trial, but here they just say, "woops!"

Statement by Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
July 24, 2007

We applaud today's decision by the Bulgarian and Libyan governments to
transfer the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to Bulgaria,
which follows the Libyan Higher Judicial Council's July 17 commutation of
the medics' death sentences. The United States had repeatedly urged Libya
to find a way to allow the medics to return home. This is an important step in Libya's continuing positive reengagement with the international
ommunity.

Along with its European allies, the U.S. has contributed to efforts to ensure this long overdue outcome, including through the establishment of the Benghazi International Fund, a private initiative to provide care and assistance to the over 400 HIV-infected children and their families.

We remain concerned about these young victims and will continue our support for Their treatment, including through our contribution to the Baylor College of Medicine's Pediatric AIDS Initiative's program in Libya and other
initiatives.

I wonder if they've read that:

"viral load is only able to predict progression to disease in 4% to 6% of HIV-positives studied, challenging much of the basis for current AIDS science and treatment policy" [Rodriquez B, Sethi AK, Cheruvu VK, et al. Predictive value of plasma HIV RNA level on rate of CD4 T-cell decline in untreated HIV infection. JAMA 296(12):1498-506, 2006;Cohen J. Study says HIV blood levels don't predict immune decline. Science 313(5795):1868, 2006.

Woops!

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 24, 2007 4:32 PM

Yeah Andrew's quoting himself again not Rodriguez.

Here's from the far right AAPS-TWYCSLOS, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons who wish this was a Theocracy Where You Can Shoot "Libs" on Sight:

"Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Chicago notes that "viral load is only able to predict progression to disease in 4% to 6% of HIV-positives studied, challenging much of the basis for current AIDS science and treatment policy" (JAMA 2006;296:1498-1506). Moreover, influenza vaccination is a cause of false positive screening tests and indeterminate Western blot tests (NEJM 2006;354:1422-1423)."

The first part of the quote's not even from him, its on a fake HIV information site for a while.

Posted by: Adele | July 24, 2007 5:23 PM

Azt is a chemotheraputic drug that wasnt even patented because it was so useless and dangerous. The damn guy that invented says its a horrible drug. What is wrong with you people? Give a drug that kills dividing cells to treat a disease thats supossed kill cells as well, that makes a lot of sense, for an infection thats in only a small % of tcells.

You guys need help. In a hundred years this is going to be looked at as the dark ages of medicine, and you guys will be laughed at in the history books.

Posted by: cooler | July 24, 2007 7:15 PM

DT,

Don't hold your breath waiting for the reference. Andrew drops his misquotes, disappears and comes back a week later with something different. Its flu false positive one week and when we show he misquoted its some vaccine and then its AZT the next week.

Andrew gives a quote up there about viral load. He gives his source. Thing is, the source doesn't have that quote in it. Andrew lied to us again. I'm done taking anything from Andrew seriously.

If I was still interested in Andrew I might ask him this question though since he's down with the anti-immigrant AAPS, "American Association of Phact-challenged Surgeons" Do people in the AAPS think undocumented aliens should be lethally injected as a matter of policy when they come to an ER, or do they just think it should be left up to each "American-Associated Phact-challenged Surgeon"?

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 9:55 AM

The diarrhea deaths in Botswana has been on my mind.

There's over a thousand peer-reviewed articles on breastfeeding and HIV. Nobody with cred who says HIV doesn't get transmitted by breastfeeding. And everyone who works on this wants to keep babies and mothers alive. So if there's controversy its because scientists are trying to find the facts and best approach.

I've read about maybe ten or twelve of thos articles but abstracts from alot more but not all. I don't expect Kevin and Maniotis and other people to read many of these articles and they obviously haven't. But they haven't even read the Lancet article from earlier this year the one they all talk about. And they don't even read the Washington Post article Maniotis pasted up there.

In the article
The rate of HIV among babies born to mothers with the virus fell from 40 percent in 2002 to 6 percent. Demand for the free government formula soared.

OK, so first formula helped to cut this rate. No expert denies safe formula cuts transmission.

SEcond thing though the only reason Coovadia and other people are even considering exclusive breastfeeding is antivirals. They get viral load down far enough risk of breastfeeding isn't nearly as high anymore. So low if you have to choose between bad formula and breastfeeding with good antivirals breast could be best but it's still being looked at and too early to know.

Didn't the denialists read the article? They go on about how bad the drugs are. Then they say breastfeeding is so great. But the only reason its so great is, its possible because of the drugs! No drugs, we'd still be at 40% transmission.

The other thing about the article they didn't see. It was a rainstorm not formula feeding spreading diarrhea. The 532 children who died, that rate was 20 times the usual deaths in a year. It was rainy season, some sewage or something got in water pipes, and kids died. Breastfeeding protects the linings better than formula. It wasn't formula killed people it was E. coli. If you could know in advance it was a bad rainy season maybe breastfeeding is better for that time. But this was a special incident. Its not like formula is blanket bad and breast is blanket good.

More complicated that Lancet study Kevin and people always talk about without reading it the mothers there who chose formula that's right CHOSE they weren't forced were the ones with really low CD4s and they knew it and that's why they chose formula. So they weren't as healthy and there babies probably too.

Another thing, the Lancet authors only looked at 6 months. But other people show transmission risk from breast is highest between 6 and 24 months. And also at 6 months survival it doesn't account babies who will die of AIDS at 4 or 5. So some situations, breast is best up to six months maybe but by five years it can even out or favor formula.

Lots of other stuff but obvi very complicated. I'm glad and probably all those women who have to deal with this are glad it's not men like Andrew and Kevin who get to make the choice for them. People who just say well breast is natural so breast is best and who cares what happens to your baby it makes me feel better.

While Kevin and Andrew exploit tragic deaths from a rain born local diarrhea problem and twist them into a science bashing tool, hundreds of MDs and other people are working on getting answers that are going to help people. That's science for you.

Posted by: Adele | July 25, 2007 11:00 AM

Adele, you're a liar and a denialist. In one comment about breastfeeding you begin by calling it a tragedy but end by comparing the infant deaths from formula feeding to receiving a scratch on the leg.

This time you make an even more implausible claim than when you pretended to give a shit about African children dying: Now you want us to believe that you've "thought about it". Adele, the process of thinking is supposed to get you somewhere. Apart from changing your tack from "really obvious fact" (in theory) to "very complicated" (in practice), I see no evidence that all your reading and thinking got you anywhere. You're still far more interested in your apologetics for Nestle and your jabs at Kevin and Andy than you are in even the briefest tip of a hat in recognition of the tragedy that has happened.

In the article
"The rate of HIV among babies born to mothers with the virus fell from 40 percent in 2002 to 6 percent. Demand for the free government formula soared."
OK, so first formula helped to cut this rate. No expert denies safe formula cuts transmission.

So is that science for YOU Adele? Public demand soars for something, so it must be good and helpful - as advertized?

Of course SAFE formula feeding that doesn't lead to malnutrition or harm the lining of the gut etc. PER DEFINITION cannot but cut transmission of whatever is in the breastmilk.

A megadose of AZT cuts transmisson
The 5 year life expectancy of an HIV+ gay in the mid-eighties cuts transmission
Early infant death cuts transmission.
Cutting off a woman's breasts or a man's penis will do much the same to transmission.
No expert denies that either.

Is that science for you Adele?

Posted by: Nestle | July 25, 2007 12:38 PM

Adele,

I see now that you didn't claim to have thought about anything at all. You just said it's been on your mind. But I do appreciate your sudden non-combative approach; It's as heart warming as "gently heating mother's milk", if you'll allow.
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/tripoli_sixhome_and_free.php#comment-512818

But dear me, Adele, reading through all those studies on breastfeeding and the best you can do is,

The sentence I gave is in context of drugs have cut transmission from 40% to 6%

I guess it's silly me who thought the context was infants dying from a horrible, easily avoidable, thoroughly disgusting medical scandal killing real babies.

If you've got counter evidence let's see it.

You betcha, Adele of the noble heart, (you do know the meaning of your own name don't you?) I've got counter evidence! But do you really think it has escaped anybody's notice that you 'forgot' to actually present the 'evidence'? Is that how you do science Adele?

Again without antiretrovirals this discussion wouldn't be possible

At last a true statement. This was never about the children, the mothers or the breastfeeding. Without the antiretrovirals this wouldn't have you or your masters' interest.

Sweet dreams.

Posted by: Nestle | July 25, 2007 8:58 PM

It really is fairly obvious to me that so many of the real HIV believing AIDS denialists are very uncomfortable with human sexuality and the human body. They only thing they can do is to consider such things soley from clinical points of view that lack any semblance of humanity or reality. They are freaked out over sex and it is no wonder they believe so rabidly that AIDS is a sexual disease and that human reproduction must be stopped because it is too scary and dangerous and the only way of reproducing should be done invitro from a test tube.

What a bunch of sick repressed freaks of nature!

It is always so obvious that many sexually dysfunctional and warped personalities are often behind the belief that HIV causes AIDS.

Posted by: Michael | July 25, 2007 10:45 PM

Dear HIV-OPHOBES, please do the world a favor and go get some counseling.

WARNING: only someones own filthy and guilt and shame filled and judgemental mind could conceive of anything "filthy" in the following)

FOR ALL OF YOU SEXUALLY REPRESSED HIVOPHOBIC BELIEVERS who yet believe the slogan that "HIV IS THE VIRUS THAT CAUSES AIDS":

Freud noted that, at different times in our lives, different parts of our skin give us greatest pleasure. Later theorists would call these areas erogenous zones. It appeared to Freud that the infant found its greatest pleasure in sucking, especially at the breast. In fact, babies have a penchant for bringing nearly everything in their environment into contact with their mouths. A bit later in life, the child focuses on the anal pleasures of holding it in and letting go. By three or four, the child may have discovered the pleasure of touching or rubbing against his or her genitalia. Only later, in our sexual maturity, do we find our greatest pleasure in sexual intercourse. In these observations, Freud had the makings of a psychosexual stage theory.

The oral stage lasts from birth to about 18 months. The focus of pleasure is, of course, the mouth. Sucking and biting are favorite activities.

The anal stage lasts from about 18 months to three or four years old. The focus of pleasure is the anus. Holding it in and letting it go are greatly enjoyed.

The phallic stage lasts from three or four to five, six, or seven years old. The focus of pleasure is the genitalia. Masturbation is common.

The latent stage lasts from five, six, or seven to puberty, that is, somewhere around 12 years old. During this stage, Freud believed that the sexual impulse was suppressed in the service of learning. I must note that, while most children seem to be fairly calm, sexually, during their grammar school years, perhaps up to a quarter of them are quite busy masturbating and playing "doctor." In Freud's repressive era, these children were, at least, quieter than their modern counterparts.

The genital stage begins at puberty, and represents the resurgence of the sex drive in adolescence, and the more specific focusing of pleasure in sexual intercourse.

Of course, Freud was very influenced by the religiosity and subsequent demonizing of sex in those Victorian times, and felt that masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality, and many other things we find acceptable in adulthood today, were immature.

Of course, today we know better, and those of us who are not caught up in projecting our own fear of sexuality onto others or projecting it in the fear of HIVophobia are much more comfortable with ourselves and our bodies and the bodies and sexuality of others.

And of course, this is the true stage theory, meaning that Freudians believe that we all go through these stages, in this order, and pretty close to these ages.

Posted by: Michael | July 26, 2007 12:04 AM

Hello Dt. Thank you for your kind words and vote of support.

Posted by: Michael | July 26, 2007 3:35 PM

Philly Boy,

Ever heard of human herpes virus 8?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaposi's_sarcoma

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 26, 2007 9:07 PM

"Get a clue there Roy, will yah?"

God! You have NO idea how amusing that is coming from you!

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | July 26, 2007 9:39 PM

Andrew drops by for a quick pasting! Yes the same Andrew who just disappears when he gets tough questions. Someone should tell him how to put a link in. You know, link, maybe a little quote, then your commentary. That's what a blogs about.

This way we don't know what Andy thinks they should of done,
shipped the tainted drug and kept their mouths shut?
ended making the drug because one batch didn't pass QC?
made sure people who take the drug had an alternative?

WEll we don't need a conclusion from Andy we already know it, if something doesn't got through qc, the whole company should get shut down and put on trial and all HIV drugs made illegal and all there money to Alive and Well.

My conclusion is, people need this drug their health relies on it and there's gotta be a way to put some redundancies in the supply system so people aren't left without.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 8:45 AM

4,126 words. Impressive! Annoying thought I can't tell what he wrote here and what he wrote somewhere else and what hes quoting.

Oh well I can't respond anyway now I'm working unlike Dr. Maniotis who must be on vacation for four months or something.

I just want to say, this is really disturbing and Maniotis or Semon or someone going by Nestle already said it a few days ago,
SEND HER OVER TO US FOR A MASTECTOMY SO THAT SHE WILL COMPLY WITH NON-BREAST FEEDING!

Disturbing and disgusting.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 9:45 AM

Sorry Andy, will get to you in time. Some of us have day jobs.

Posted by: Adele | July 27, 2007 3:08 PM

Yeah dt, AZT is good for you, thats why it was never patented because it was deemed to dangerous and useless for cancer. Sprinkle some on your toast, have a birthday party for your kids and give them AZT candy bars. Treat a virus thats in 1 of 1000 blood t cells with a drug that kills all cells. Its good fun.

Dr. maniotis has posted tons of studies showing AZT's damagae to mitochondria etc that you ignore, as usual like a corrupt defense lawyer you focus on details and try to get off on technacalities.

Posted by: cooler | July 27, 2007 5:35 PM

Microchips mulled for HIV carriers in Indonesia's Papua

Jul 24 03:57 AM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070724075657.4w2f978g&show_article=1

Lawmakers in Indonesia's Papua are mulling the selective use of chip
implants in HIV carriers to monitor their behaviour in a bid to keep
them from infecting others, a doctor said Tuesday.

John Manangsang, a doctor who is helping to prepare a new healthcare
regulation bill for Papua's provincial parliament, said that unusual
measures were needed to combat the virus.

"We in the government in Papua have to think hard on ways to provide
protection to people from the spread of the disease," Manangsang told
AFP.

"Some of the infected people experience a change of behaviour and can
turn more aggressive and would not think twice of infecting others,"
he alleged, saying lawmakers were considering various sanctions for
these people.

"Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those
infected people who can pose a danger to others," Manangsang said.

"The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for
those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what
they know about the disease and spread the virus to others," he said.

A decision was still a long way off, he added.

The head of the Papua chapter of the National AIDS Commission,
Constant Karma, reportedly slammed the proposal as a violation of
human rights.

"People with HIV/AIDS are not like sharks under observation so that
they have to be implanted with microchips to monitor their movements,"
he told the Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"Any form of identification of people with HIV/AIDS violates human
rights."

According to data from Papua's health office cited by the Post, the
province has just over 3,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Some 356
deaths have been reported. Papua has a population of about 2.5
million.

Copyright AFP 2005

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 28, 2007 4:27 AM

RE: The action of AZT on cells...

"Telomerase inhibition as a potential new therapy for colorectal cancer"

"Abstract:
Colorectal cancer represents the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Despite local tumour control, patients die from disseminated disease and improved therapy is clearly required. One possible new approach is inhibition of telomerase, a reverse-transcribing enzyme thought to be essential to prevent senescence of cells by synthesizing chromosomal telomeres, which is reactivated in 85-95% of colorectal cancers. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of telomerase inhibition by known retroviral reverse-transcriptase inhibitors using concentrations that are not acutely toxic to cells. The concentrations of three drugs (azidothymidine (AZT); dideoxythymidine (ddT); and dideoxyguanidine (ddG)) needed to reduce the proliferation (ID50) of the colorectal cell line HT29 by 50% were determined. Extracts were made of cells exposed for 24-48 h to these concentrations of each prodrug, telomerase activity determined using the Telomerase Repeat Amplification Protocol (TRAP), quantifying polymerase chain reaction products generated by telomerase with a phosphorimager and ImageQuantTM software. The drug treatments reduced the activity of telomerase in these cells by 97% for AZT, 38% for ddT and 47% for ddG, compared with control extracts. In order to confirm that the drugs used were directly inhibitory to telomerase, extracts of control cells were exposed to the active (phosphorylated) drugs and telomerase activity determined: greater than 60% and 80% inhibition occurred at 0.02 mM and 0.04 mM concentration of ddT and ddG, respectively. Control experiments demonstrated that the action of the active drug was not at the PCR stage of the TRAP assay and so was directly exerted on telomerase. We conclude that reverse transcriptase inhibitors can directly inhibit telomerase in cells exposed to prodrug concentrations, which are not acutely toxic, and that the active drug does directly inhibit telomerase. We propose that such inhibitors may have a role in reducing the survival, by inducing senescence, of remaining malignant cells after potential curative surgery, thus reducing recurrence and improving the prognosis of the disease. In addition they may be used in high-risk susceptible patients and in early-stage cancers."

Or AZT is used to stop Acute Myogenous Leukemia cells from dividing: (From Mangiacasale R, Pittoggi C, Sciamanna I, Careddu A, Mattei E, Lorenzini R, Travaglini L, Landriscina M, Barone C, Nervi C, Lavia P, Spadafora C. CNR, Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, Rome, Italy. Exposure of normal and transformed cells to nevirapine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor, reduces cell growth and promotes differentiation. Oncogene. 2003 May 8;22(18):2750-61):

Endogenous, nontelomeric reverse transcriptase (RT) is encoded by two classes of repeated elements: retrotransposons and endogenous retroviruses. Expression of RT-coding genes is generally repressed in differentiated nonpathological tissues, yet is active in the mammalian germ line, embryonic tissues and tumor cells. Nevirapine is a non-nucleoside RT inhibitor with a well-characterized inhibitory activity on RT enzymes of retroviral origin. Here, we show that nevirapine is also an effective inhibitor of the endogenous RT in murine and human cell lines. In addition, progenitor and transformed cells undergo a significant reduction in the rate of cell growth upon exposure to nevirapine. This is accompanied by the onset of differentiation, as depicted in F9 and C2C7 progenitor cells cultures in which nevirapine triggers the expression of differentiation-specific markers. Consistent with this, an extensive reprogramming of cell cycle gene expression was depicted in nevirapine-treated F9 cultures. Furthermore, nevirapine exposure rescued the differentiation block present in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines and primary blasts from two AML patients, as indicated by morphological, functional and immunophenotypic assays. The finding that an RT inhibitor can modulate cell proliferation and differentiation suggests that RT may represent a novel target in the development of therapeutical approaches to neoplasia.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 28, 2007 12:47 PM

Andrew,

Once again you demonstrate the truth of your admission that you "really don't understand what's going on."

Having failed at reading the primary scientific literature and a simple virological protocol, you now show that you are incapable of understanding even simplified press coverage of scientific results.

You quote from the summary by Andrew T. Pavia, M.D., of an abstract authored by Eshleman et al. at the 2001 ICAAC:

In the HIVNET 012 study, nineteen percent of the women who had received nevirapine, and who were tested at six to eight weeks post partum, had evidence of nevirapine-resistant mutations.

You then quote from a piece written for Reuters by Will Boggs, M.D., on Cunningham et al. (2002) J Inf. Dis. 186:181-8, and with strings of question marks you reveal your inability to understand straightforward English prose:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19% ???? (I thought it was 49%?????? According to the article by Esheleman above??? Hmmmmm....) of women who are not receiving other antiretroviral drugs.

I really don't understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 1:52 AM

Dear AIDS Apologists,

I looked up some studies I had on file in order to make good on your request(s) to provide data for my claim re: 50% transfusion-dependent anemia due to AZT. Actually it was an underestimate from the Fischl trial (1987) where it gained FDA approval fraudulently, and DT agreed on this approximate figure (39% I think she said without checking what she posted), but I wanted to see for myself if I was correct and was providing an accurate number.

By pasting these studies above as I have, (no I wasn't aware I pasted one twice)-I thought (incorrectly) that you AIDS apologist denialists may accept the fact that I am trying to connect with you folks to achieve some kind of understanding, after 25 years of anger, insults, name-calling, dismissal, and unproductive exchanges.

What I learned from this AZT exercise, is that we need to carefully separate transfusion-dependent anemia stats from anemia stats-they are undoubtedly different things that are lumped together, and I'm pretty sure not many investigators have rigorously separated one from the other, because there are no placebo control groups in most of the studies, and a wide variety of medications will induce anemias. Transfusions are dangerous medical procedures in and of themselves-they cause auto-immune diseases in many who receive them (that old self-versus-non-self thing-which is why no "HIV" vaccine has evoked cellular, humoral, mucosal immunity, or activated T-cells-but this is another story you don't want to address).

The more important point to me is that some authors have noted 3/8, 6/15, and nearly half requiring TRANSFUSION dependent anemias, not to mention the first Fischl study where it is claimed by a number of investigators that all 30 of the AZT group had received them at some point in order to stay alive, which in the long run didn't help with survival even though AZT is still called "life saving."

I would be far more interested in what insults you have to sling regarding my hypothesis of a drug like AZT's law of similar's effect on the immune system and other systems, as opposed to its so-called specific action against "HIV." As I have indicated above (to earn the title of homeopathologist, liar, I don't know what's going on, etc.),
a dispassionate view of all drugs, and their effects on organisms is not easily achieved by anyone for any compound I have ever worked with, nor is it the case here with AZT, as I have followed many persons on this drug, and those who refused the drug, and those that came off of the drug because it made them too ill, or very occasionally, those who came off the drug because their doctors told them to take a holiday because of the toxicity (especially anemia and neutropenia, throbocytopenias).

I'm sure many of you have had a lot of experience developing new cancer drugs as I have, designing pre-clinical experiments, and following them through human clinical trials, so I'm sure you have a lot of advice or teaching for me to learn. The desperation to do SOMETHING for immune suppressed individuals early during the AIDS era ushered in some very unfortunate results with AZT, and I'm sure not even you religious folks would deny this fact anymore. In the meta-analysis that was raised a few blogs ago, transfusion-dependent anemia is in perhaps now in the single digits as I remember-earlier studies in double digits, and there have been studies, all imperfect, that go as high as 50% as was the first one I pasted, and when AZT was used at super-gram dosages because the Gay community demanded it so vociferously. Dosages have all been lessened over time, scheduling has also been adjusted, or drug holidays imposed, and the effects of these interruptions, dose diminutions, have either been recorded or not, so to obtain a hard and fast statistic for AZT's ability to cause transfusion-dependent anemia is dependent on all of these factors.

The cell biology, and warnings that have arisen, however, have and are still ignored, and with the "standard of care" being the blind, ignorant, and harmful thing it often is in medicine, no concerted opinion ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE has been advanced to help stop the drug-reliance and carnage for either AIDS or cancer patients. Fauzi et al., can publish all they want on vitamin supplements, promising studies with selenium, forced eating schedules in Cuba that showed promise, and legions of folks who stopped taking AZT and HAART and are living productive and healthy lives 20 years later cannot for a moment change the forced drugging going on in this culture.

The most egregious issue for me was and is the scheduling and threats of compliance that are still forcefully imposed on patients using a DNA chain-terminating compound like AZT, 3Tc, DDI, etc. We sometimes get dozens of calls/ a month from folks who, for instance , developed HCC after 10 years of HAART, and who quit taking their HAART 6 years ago (this happened last week for instance). What do you tell a desperate housewife of an "HIV-positive, 10 year recipient of HAART who quit HAART on his own because of its toxicity, and then began to feel normal until a year ago began to develop liver cancer, and who now can't receive "the standard of care" for HCC at any hospitals or clinics where he lives (in a major metropolitan American city), because no doc will treat him for his cancer unless he also agrees to go on HAART again. What do you say to the wife? When you see this kind of story, and other similar conundrums again and again, what does a poor scientist to do/think?

I'd really appreciate Adele answering my question re: the relevance of her mutant's lack of activity to all of those mutant studies in humans I posted above where mutation is able to overcome the suppressive effects of nevirapine or other ARV's. I'm not interested in Franklin's inability to follow what the studies are saying-perhaps his "students" who do not know of his extracurricular activities can help him out here, if he for instance provides them with the Lockman et al., (and Essex)study from earlier this year citing a figure of I believe it is 47.1% mutations after a single dose of nevirapine (I have posted this on this blog at least 4 times without a single comment from you AIDS apologists debunking my inability to post a study verbatim. Franklin, you really should come clean with your students, and tell them that you are not only a teacher somewhere, but a devoted drug-enforcer for the federal government's forced drugging programs.

I'd also like a reaction from you folks regarding Montagnier's proported reason for the infection of the 426 children being due to "an influx of workers from sub-Saharan Africa" (read Blacks) that was quoted in the National Harold by Rosenthal. Also I suppose the breast feeding debacle is something I don't anticipate you have anything to say about where children have been dying due to lack of breast feeding because of the abhorrance of the human female breast and breast-feeding, or sexuality in general, as the implications of the carnage due to pulling mothers away from their infants because of an impassioned crusade to give toxic drugs to pregnant women is so disgusting that not even folks like you could excuse the ignorance here. In this regard, you might like to look at the following:

Among the more sober assessments of global health crises by certain mainstream AIDS Establishment doctors and scientists, "AIDS" isn't even the collection of diseases that poses the greatest challenge. For example, a series of articles was published in the January 6, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by Berkley et al. (96), that is accompanied by a short and pointed commentary in the same issue, that introduces the Berkeley et al. study, (by Kim Mulholland, and Richard Adegbola) entitled, "Bacterial Infections-A Major Cause of Death among Children in Africa:"

" For the past 25 years, since the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has been publishing estimates of mortality among children worldwide, the international medical community has been aware of the appalling burden of early deaths among African children. Early studies indicated that, in the absence of any effective medical care, children born in a rural African village had a probability of death before the age of five years of 30 to 50% (2. Reference 2 given here is from Mosley WH. Primary care: rhetoric and reality. Poluli J UN Fund Popul Act 1983; 10: 41-53, which is from a period of time before the "AIDS era)." From the outset, it was understood that many of these deaths result from the combined effect of poverty and malnutrition (2). Since 1990, mortality rates have fallen but remain high by global standards. Twelve African countries still report official death rates for children under the age of five of more than 20 percent. Community-based studies of death among children have been able to attribute these deaths to a number of common causes, either syndromes or specific diseases (see table I)."

"Table I. Official Estimates of Mortality among Children under 5 years of Age According to Cause in Sub-saharan Africa and Globally in 2002.

"Table I. Official Estimates of Mortality among Children under 5 years of Age According to Cause in Sub-saharan Africa and Globally in 2002.
Cause of Death Africa Global
Acute respiratory infection 16 18
Diarrheal disease 14 15
Malaria 22 10
Measles 8 5
HIV or AIDS 8 4
Neonatal deaths 13 23
Other causes 19 25
All causes 4.5 million 10.9 million

"Data are from the World Health Organization (WHO) and reflect the WHO African region, which excludes most North African countries, Somalia, and Sudan. Many of the deaths that were classified as due to "other causes" may actually belong among the main causes listed. A total of 54 percent of all deaths among children are believed to be associated with malnutrition. HIV denotes human immunodeficiency virus, and AIDS the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome."

"In the study, 28 percent of children admitted to the hospital with bacteremia died. Even more important, 26 percent (308 of 1184) of hospital deaths were associated with bacteremia. This finding compares with 22 percent of the deaths that were associated with malaria, suggesting that bacterial disease may be responsible for more deaths in children than malaria in this area where malaria is endemic. Did the children who died at home die from a spectrum of causes similar to that among children who died after reaching the hospital? Both malaria and bacterial illness are amenable to relatively simple therapeutic approaches, but antimalarial drugs tend to be more widely available in African communities than are antibiotics. Therefore, in a rural community, bacteremia may be even more important as a cause of death among children than it is in a hospital setting, since the management of bacteremic illness in the community is likely to be less effective than the management of malaria."

The article concludes with:

"only 18 percent of children admitted with bacteremic illness were infected with HIV, whereas severe malnutrition was present in 37 percent, suggesting that the latter is a more important cofactor."

"During the past six years, the world of international health care has been dominated by high-profile efforts to control HIV infection, malaria, and tuberculosis. Of these, malaria is seen as the most important contributor to death among children in Africa. This study (Berkeley et al) gives us cause to question whether this very narrow, disease-based approach is indeed appropriate and whether the most important causes of death among children have been appropriately targeted. Even in an area of rural Kenya with high rates of HIV infection and malaria, there appear to be more deaths of children associated with bacterial infection than with malaria, with malnutrition still the main cofactor. Global health strategies, like any other public health activities, should be based on evidence."

If you want to see some real African statistic kept by Africans themselves, you also might want to look at the statistics that were painstakingly arrived at over a 35 year period that were presented in a piece I wrote this year with Charles Geshekter, which can be found here.

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2007/01/a_global_strate.html

Cheers,

andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | July 29, 2007 1:21 PM

Andrew,

You asked us to check out your math. I have, and once again you prove that (as you put it yourself) you "really don't understand what is going on."

When quoting from Pavia's summary of an abstract authored by Eshleman et al. at the 2001 ICAAC, you tried to reason through the statistics on your own, with typically confused results:

"Only 24 infants were infected and available for resistance testing at four to six weeks, but 49% had resistant virus. (If nevirapine prevents transmission in 67%, as the Times article claims, and resistance mutants occur at 49% frequency, then in fact the 1 dose nevirapine has only saved 18% from the jaws of AIDS death! Check out this math!) Although many women and infants in Africa currently have no chance of receiving HAART therapy, the emergence of nevirapine resistance could compromise their chance of responding to treatment when it becomes available."

Huh? Andrew, is simple arithmetic beyond your skill level?

The identification of nevirapine-resistant HIV in 49% of the children who became infected despite nevirapine prophylaxis has no bearing on the reduction of the infection rate brought about by nevirapine.

If, as Andrew suggests, nevirapine prevents 67% of the cases of HIV transmission, then 67% of the children who would have developed AIDS have been spared. This remains true even if 49% of the children who did become infected have nevirapine-resistant HIV.

Let's check out Andrew's math by applying his numbers to an illustrative case. Assume a population in which, in the absence of Nevirapine, 100 children would acquire HIV. According to Andrew, nevirapine would reduce this number to 33 children (ie., "nevirapine prevents 67% of the cases of HIV transmission"), but 16 of these 33 infected children (49% of infected children) are now expected to have nevirapine-resistant HIV.

So according to Andrew's numbers: without nevirapine--100 infected children (with an unknown fraction having nevirapine-reisistant HIV), and with single-dose nevirapine--33 infected children (with 16 having nevirapine-resistant HIV). Yet somehow Andrew calculates that that nevirapine would only save 18% from AIDS.

Keep posting Andrew--you just keep proving the truth of your statement:

I really don't understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 5:03 PM

I really don't understand what is going on.

A quote by

FRANKLIN, the Prize Winning REAL LYING AIDS DENIALIST

Unanimously elected into the "Denialists Hall Of Infamy" on July 29th 2007

Dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 8:00 PM

There are what - 20 licensed HIV drugs now? And the denialists still get hung up on AZT and nevirapine, big time.

Nevirapine seems to be the bete noir for the reason that the single dose given to mothers to prevent MTCT of HIV can select resistance to nevirapine. This is through a K103 mutation, which would also rule out efavirenz. But there are plenty of other drugs available, should the mother require treatment sometime in the future (and why are rethinkers getting so worked up about drug resistance if they think that the drugs don't work in the first place?)

One way to look at the rethinker POV is to compare HIV MTCT like bacterial meningitis. Imagine these two scenarios (the first being equivalent to giving nevirapine, the second being to withold it.)

OPTION 1: Give people antibiotic A, which will prevent the meningitis in 2/3 of recipients. However, of the third who do get meningitis, half will have resistance to antibiotic A in the future, so if an antibiotic is ever needed again, you will have to use a different antibiotic, of which there are at least a dozen available.

OPTION 2: Give nothing, and let 100% get meningitis. Comfort yourself in the knowledge that although this will result in significant morbidity and mortality, if the patients do survive and ever need an antibiotic in the future, you could give them antibiotic A, even though this may not be necessary considering all the other antibiotic options there will be available to you.

Posted by: DT | July 29, 2007 8:36 PM

Ahhhhh, there goes the hypocritic Real AIDS denialist DT, trying to take us all down another primrose path of delusion.

No-one here ever said meningitis should not be treated! The antibiotics given for meningitis do not commonly require blood transfusions as does AZT. They do not cause an individuals skin to completely peel off as does Nevirapine.

DT would have us believe that AZT and Nevirapine are as nontoxic and relatively risk free as is a simple antibiotic. They are not, DT. There is absolutely NO COMPARISON, and YOU KNOW IT! AZT and Nevirapine are deadly toxic poisons that DT has often and probably still sells to doctors.

DT is running away from the internal guilt and shame of having done this, because DT has played a role in many people getting blood transfusions, lypodystrophy, neuropathy, and even death.

Had I been carrying such guilt on my own shoulders, I too might go insane or become a complete denialist as DT has obviously done.

Well not to worry DT, because if there is a God, then surely God is forgiving of all, and even forgives you. But not one moment before you admit to your guilt, and admit to your error and seek to change your evil ways!

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 8:48 PM

Chris said: "Antibiotics are one of the drugs most commonly implicated in SJS".

That is very true Chris, and obviously science needs to be pressured to come up with ways to quickly and accurately find out who will suffer these rare reactions to antibiotics and other drugs before full administration of any antibiotic or any other drug known to cause Stevens Johnson Syndrome, instead of wasting 14 billion a year needlessly pushing the unnecessary poisoning of patients with toxic anti HIV drugs. Or wasting untold more billions on more fruitless HIV research.

After all, liver failure is still the leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans, and almost all of the illnesses related to AIDS are completely treatable for those patients who want to live and want to be well, and are not also doing themselves in with drug addiction or high stress lives from untreated emotional problems or malnutrition.

Stevens Johnson Syndrome has been attributed to:
painkillers
rheumatoid arthritis
antibiotics
drugs for bi-polar disorder
non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS)
barbiturates
anticonvulsants
sulfa antibiotics
penicillins

SJS has been reported as caused by these specific medications

Bextra
Arava
Remicade
Ibuprofen
Daypro
Children's Motrin
Advil
Topamax
Lamectal
Allopurinol
Phenytoin
Carbamazepine

Why certain drugs cause SJS is still not fully understood. However, it is generally accepted that patients with known allergies to sulfa-based drugs have a greater chance of acquiring the conditions. Examples of sulfa-based antibiotics include:

Penicillins
Tetracycline
Doxycycline
Amoxicillin
Ampicillin
Zithromax/azithromycin
Beta-Lactams
Ciprofloxacin

Proper labeling of drugs is crucial to helping medical professionals and consumers recognize and understand adverse reactions such as SJS. Too often, drugs have sulfa components, but are not labeled as sulfa drugs.

Posted by: Michael | July 29, 2007 9:42 PM

Andrew,

You wrote:

I'm not interested in Franklin's inability to follow what the studies are saying

I assure that I understand very well the Eshleman study on nevirapine-resistance in the follow-up to HIVNET 012.

On the other hand, you seem unable to figure out even the simplified coverage of this study that appeared in the press. You quoted two press reports--One by Pavia, which you quoted as saying:

In the HIVNET 012 study, nineteen percent of the women who had received nevirapine, and who were tested at six to eight weeks post partum, had evidence of nevirapine-resistant mutations.

And another by Boggs, which you quoted as saying:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19%

But the juxtaposition of these quotes confused you so much that you embellished Boggs with a string of question marks:

A single oral dose of nevirapine given at the onset of labor significantly decreases mother-to-child HIV transmission, the authors explain, but new nevirapine resistance mutations develop in 19% ???? (I thought it was 49%?????? According to the article by Esheleman above??? Hmmmmm....) of women who are not receiving other antiretroviral drugs.

I really don't understand what is going on.
Andrew Maniotis, Ph.D. July 6, 2007

Posted by: franklin | July 29, 2007 9:49 PM

As usual Franklin, you are simply mistaken.

They are indeed sulfa. Don't take my word for it! Contact the manufacturer or the FDA.

You really should properly investigate before you type what you mistakenly believe are facts, as otherwise you simply and repetitively come across as being hopelessly ignorant. And even worse, as being a know-it-all who, as such, is simply incapable of learning anything new!

Posted by: Manu | July 30, 2007 1:00 AM

They are indeed sulfa. Don't take my word for it! Contact the manufacturer or the FDA.

How about a textbook? None of the antibiotics listed are sulfa-drugs.

You really should properly investigate before you type what you mistakenly believe are facts, as otherwise you simply and repetitively come across as being hopelessly ignorant. And even worse, as being a know-it-all who, as such, is simply incapable of learning anything new!

Oh, the irony!

Michael should have done some checking before he copied and pasted from a random website on the internet.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 30, 2007 1:38 AM

Michael,

There you go denying reality, again. I point out that you are providing false information about "sulfa-based antibiotics," and you persist in your fantasy. Not one of the antibiotics you listed is sulfa-based. Not even one!

The full text of a microbiology textbook is available for free at PubMed. Try reading the Chapter 11 Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Maybe you will learn the difference between a "sulfa-based" or sulfonamide antibiotic and the other classes of antibiotics. If you need help with the chemical structures in the diagrams, try asking a high school student.

On the other hand, you will probably continue to deny reality and insist that beta-lactams and tetracyclines are examples of "sulfa-based antibiotics".

Michael, every time you post such obviously false statements you further erode your credibility. When you insist that such obviously false statements are true, you undermine the entire denialist position.

Your arguments are so riddled with errors and falsehoods--errors and falsehoods to which you cling despite all evidence--that one is left with no reason to take any of your claims seriously.

Posted by: franklin | July 30, 2007 9:30 AM

The point is that every time a decision is made to treat with a drug, the doctor considers the possible risks against possible benefits. Squabbling about 2% anemia or 50% anemia, or which drugs cause SJS etc is getting us all nowhere fast (although it nicely demonstrates Michael's ignorance).

Rethinkers feel that drugs to treat HIV are unjustified on the basis of their toxicity, and on the other side of the equation consider HIV to be nonexistent/harmless. If one takes that view, then any drug is unecesary, even one with minimal side effects.

What we disagree about is the relative pathogenicity of the virus and the relative toxicity of the drugs. Orthodox HIV specialists consider there is a vast amount of relevant research and clinical experience that indicates it is far and away better to give the drugs than do nothing - genuine benefits are seen. Rethinkers seek to ignore or dismiss the totality of clinical experience and research, and do so in a dishonest way (like Maniotis does) by misrepresenting studies and lying about the degree of toxicity of the drugs.

Posted by: DT | July 30, 2007 8:36 PM

DT, I would agree with you when you said:

"Rethinkers feel that drugs to treat HIV are unjustified on the basis of their toxicity, and on the other side of the equation consider HIV to be nonexistent/harmless. If one takes that view, then any drug is unecesary, even one with minimal side effects".
--------------------------------------------------------
I myself, even as a dissident, would fight for anyone's right to take any of these drugs, if the individual themselves believes they must have them. The reason being that the placebo effect can work just as well in the opposing situation wherein the patient may believe they will die or sicken without taking certain medications, and will possibly worry themselves sick, or perhaps even mentally contribute to manifesting illness if not given something they believe in.

DT, You also said:

"Orthodox HIV specialists consider there is a vast amount of relevant research and clinical experience that indicates it is far and away better to give the drugs than do nothing - genuine benefits are seen".

This may very well be what orthodox specialists consider, however, this statement cannot be taken by me at face value, because those "specialists" who often have individual conflicts of interest, or are unknowledgeable of contributing factors such as drug addiction or extreme fear that the patient may be in, or the extreme stress that a patient may have in their life, are all too often ignoring or blind to anything that presents their product in any negative light, or conflicts with their bias that any presenting illness is due soley to HIV while ignoring all co-factors. This is often, if not even usually, the case.

Vioxx is a current and blatant example, and vioxx is far less toxic and has far less side effects than the HIV drugs.

There is no way to verify this, but I suspect the outcry over vioxx was as intense as it was because it is a drug commonly used by white middleclass heterosexuals.

There has not been such a public outcry over the toxicities of the HIV drugs, partly because of the public ignorance that believes HIV is an absolute death sentence, and I would also suspect it is because these drugs are commonly given 97% to homosexuals and blacks. If any drug were as toxic as these and were given to predominantly white heteros, the drug simply would not be on the market for long, and the manufacturer would have quickly been taken to task for the side effects.

There are a very high percentage of toxic and deadly side effects with the HIV drugs, but there is very seldom a drug company held reliable for any deleterious effects of these drugs at all. All of the cases I know that were taken to court were all done so by white heterosexual women!

Obviously, there is something seriously wrong with that picture. We can all close our eyes and pretend such is not the case, but the elephant is nonetheless sitting in the living room while we pretend to ignore it.

Almost no-one is aware that the study volunteers for ALL of the AIDS drug trials have never, not even once, been informed that the study was paid for by a pharmaceutical company or that the director of the studies had conflicts of interest. Absolutely NO HIV study volunteers have ever been made aware of this fact! Almost no-one is aware that the HIV meds are not proven against placebos. Unethical my ass, as they have never even sought willing volunteers, many of who would be glad to put their health at risk by taking the meds or by taking a placebo to further the scientific knowledge. Unfortutely, it seems the research community, which is pharma oriented and financed, has no desire to find out such information. Most likely because it is highly threatening to many special interests.

The patients enrolling in all of these studies all are in a state of fear and agitation and are therefor easily led into a study. This borderlines on illegal co-ersion of the study volunteers because the patients are in a state of irrational fear, and they are not told that there are many long term nonprogressors, and they are not told that there is another choice of simply avoiding hiv drugs and treating for presenting illnesses only! This practice, in and of itself, is wrong!

Nobody even knows how many there are that are untreated, and any such guess by anyone on either side would be simply that. It could be as low as a few percent, it could be more than 50 percent. Nobody knows.

The volunteers are not told that they could simply opt to only treat any actual illness that they present with and not treat HIV, and not treat for the very possibly if not probably misleading CD4 T cell counts and viral loads that current medication schedules are based on. Even the Rodriguez study and the current study shooting down the "runaway theory" show that this could very well be good policy that may benefit the patient. That this is ignored is absolutely not right, and I, as a gay man with friends and lovers affected with this issue, will fight any of you absolutely to the death in order to stop this immediately!

We all know that HIV does not necessarily lead to death. Anyone claiming that HIV inevitably leads to death, as Robert Gallo had proclaimed, is also a liar and an AIDS denialist, who is simply poisoning the fertile minds of those affected by a diagnosis, and contributing to their fear, stress, and any illness they may get.

Anyone who denies the above facts is a complete AIDS denialist. Anyone who plays down or simply guesses at what the survival rates of people only being treated for any presented illness may be are also lying as they are purely speculating as there are no studies done on this.

Those who take up the "everyone HIV positive will get AIDS and die unless they take the proven toxic deadly, but simply presumed to be life saving drugs" banner as a pure and total AIDS DENIALIST and REALITY DENIALIST LIE. Such promotion may be good for the pharma biz, but it has proven disastrous for many thousands of people who will now go through the rest of their lives damaged by AZT, Nevirapine, Lipodystrophy, Neuropathy, liver cancer and liver failures.

The AIDS apologists can feel as guilty as they want over this, or they can go into denial of it all they want. It does not change the facts. But there is no need to go into guilt or into denial over it. There are other choices such as focus on the solutions, and chalk the past mistakes up to simple human foible or error or ignorance that all of us are at times affected by.

Posted by: Michael Geiger | July 30, 2007 10:04 PM

DT
"Rethinkers seek to ignore or dismiss the totality of clinical experience and research,"...

Not necessarily. There seems to be benefits if one is on their death bead supposedly from the anti-microbial effects these drugs have, but to administer them ritually for a lifetime all in the hopes to keep one alive is sheer stupidity. How would you feel if you were told you have to stay on chemo for the rest of you life? Huh?

Your pretty little protected doctrine of more drugs into mouths is killing more people branded HIV then anything else. Jesus Christ. wake up.

Posted by: carter | July 30, 2007 10:28 PM

Hey Michael,

Another typical post from you:

The fact that they are NOT LISTED AS SULPHA BASED when all have components that ARE SULPHA BASED was the VERY POINT of posting them. But obviously you did not bother to READ MY ENTIRE POST or you would have understood that the reason for listing those particular antibiotices is because THE SULPHA BASED COMPONENTS OF THEM ARE NOT LISTED AS SUCH!

So the reason for listing the antibiotics as sulfa drugs in your post is because they aren't sulfa drugs? Denying reality is your occupation? Or just a hobby?

Beleive me, I read your entire post. There wasn't much there.

I've also read some microbiology and pharmacology textbooks. The reason for pointing you to the free Microbiology textbook available on PubMed was so that you could see for yourself that none of those antibiotics have "sulfa-based components". The textbook shows the chemical structures for many of the antibiotics you listed as "sulfa-based"--and guess what--not one of them contains a sulfa group.

Maybe you should complain to the organic chemists who determined the structures of the compounds and call them to task for hiding the "sulfa-based components". Maybe you can develop a new conspiracy theory about hiding sulfa groups.

It would be the logical next step for your denial strategy.

Keep up the front. Every time you insist on clinging to such an obviously false statement you undermine your entire HIV denialist position. If you can argue so vehemently for claims that are proven false simply by looking at a Pharmacology or Microbiology textbook, what value can your arguments hold over any other matters?

Posted by: franklin | July 30, 2007 11:25 PM

How many people died if he made an innocent mistake about an antibiotic, vs your "mistake" of giving people monster doses of AZT, a chemotherapy that kills cells to treat a microbe thats in 1 of 1000 cells! Treat an illness that supposedly kills cells by killing even more, makes good sense! oops!

Posted by: cooler | July 30, 2007 11:32 PM

Well, you two bobsey twins of AIDS denialism may be right about these antibiotics that they do not have any sulpha based components. I cannot say you are and I cannot say you are not. As you see for yourselves, there are others in the world at several sites on the net that say they do have sulpha components.

Personally, I really do not give a damn one way or the other whether antibiotics have sulpha components or not. But I would believe anyone else in the world before I would believe either of you two lying hateful troll AIDS denialist creeps.

We are talking about a very simple chemical fact. It isn't something that can be debated. Just look at the chemical formulas of the antibiotics in question. Do you even know what a Sulfonamide is? It appears that you don't and yet you are prepared to argue that non-sulfa drugs are really sulfa-drugs. Your passion and vehemence are inversely proportional to your knowledge of the topic.

Posted by: Chris Noble | July 31, 2007 3:15 AM

Michael says personal experience is what's important for understanding something.

I'm sorry for what Michael's gone through. I'm also sorry he's responding in putting out bad information to other people who could die of AIDS because of it.

Millions and millions of people died of malaria, centuries running. People needed an explanation their experience demanded one. They decided it was bad air caused it, mal-aria. Or a hex or being close to a kind of animal there were alot of reasons from "experience" and people like Michael who knew victimes sat around and talked naturally. Maybe they decided all the victims were depressed or impulsive or selfish or reckless or negative or they had ate too many nuts from a kind of tree in the fall.

They were all wrong. Michael's wrong. People see and remember what they want unless their in a system that doesn't let them fool themselves all the time like science. Not perfect either but there's checks and balances.

People who figured out malaria needed knowledge about microbes and insects and medicine. Not experience with their sister or best friend dying of it. It's tragic yes. But all this experience and emotion in the world doesn't help anyone unless its directed to solving problems not saying lies you don't even understand.

Posted by: Adele | August 1, 2007 10:47 AM

Carter,

What I think Adele is saying is that the science disagrees with you. HIV in most cases (>90%) does lead to AIDS, and untreatede AIDS in most cases (>90%) does lead to death, despite Michael's assertions to the contrary.

Posted by: Roy Hinkley | August 1, 2007 6:30 PM

Chris you are welcome to shut the fuck up about sulpha drugs because I am not knowledgeable about sulpha drugs or SJS and really do not care to know as I have no interest in that line of study. Of course, you seem to have the need to be a know-it-all on every subject in all of science, including sulpha drugs or what their possible components may be, and that is fine. Perhaps you work behind the scenes manufacturing and designing them when you are not busy fighting the dissidents. Or perhaps you really do know everything. But perhaps not.

It has been my experience that those who have such seemingly "know-it-all" attitudes are incapable of learning, because their brains are already full of what they think they "know" and what they "believe" truth and reality are.

Michael I never claimed to know everything. I am well aware of the limits of my knowledge and understanding. If I don't know something I do some research before I open my mouth.

You on the other hand appear to have to problems expressing opinions on subjects of which you have zero knowledge. You could have just said from the start that you have know understanding of antibiotics and severe side effects such as SJS. Instead you copied and pasted from a random website and tried to pretend that you knew something abut these subjects. This is symptomatic of your approach to science in general.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 1, 2007 6:42 PM

DT, don't forget those of us who refuse the drugs and are healthy. For well, over a year my CD4's have been well under 200 without incident. There are many such cases out here as I am in contact with them. These people live normal, healthy lives by adopting healthy, living habits and for me, I add LDN. It is possible to live without the antiretrovirals regardless of all the rhetoric that the mainstream spouts.

Posted by: noreen | August 1, 2007 9:07 PM

Adele.

You said:

"Millions and millions of people died of malaria, centuries running. People needed an explanation their experience demanded one.

A couple of hundred gays got sick back in 81 and millions of people needed an explanation their experiences demanded one!

"They decided it was bad air caused it, mal-aria. Or a hex or being close to a kind of animal there were alot of reasons from "experience" and people like Michael who knew victimes sat around and talked naturally. Maybe they decided all the victims were depressed or impulsive or selfish or reckless or negative or they had ate too many nuts from a kind of tree in the fall. They were all wrong."

THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY SURPRISES ME about that story, ADELE, is that the scientists and doctors at the time, DIDN"T BLAME MALARIA ON GAYS, BLACKS, OR SEX!

But back to what we humans later did discover, and why we dissidents simply love your story of Malaria and your example of another disease that was falsely accused of being blamed on the wrong facts......., and HOW ELSE it relates to HIV and AIDS......

Today, We all know the explanation for malaria.

We know it is spread person to person by a parasite infecting red blood cells and transmitted only by blood via mosquitos.

We know it can be easily seen with a microscope in all the affected.

And we know that it thoroughly and easily passes all of kochs postulates.

We also all know that HIV is NOT spread through mosquitos as Malaria parasites are, nor any other insect bites.

SAY WHAT???? HIV is not spread by blood via mosquitos????

Would you please explain to us why HIV is not transfered through mosquitos?

How could this be Adele, when HIV is supposedly a blood borne disease that one supposedly very easily gets through simply sharing dirty needles or from blood transfusions or from semen????

HIV retrovirus is thousands of times smaller than the huge ass parasite that infects red blood cells that causes malaria that is transmitted by mosquitos. By this standard alone, HIV should be the easiest thing in the world for a mosquito to transmit!

But they do not, and never ever have!

How can this possibly be Adele?

Does this make any sense to you?

Please do explain to us why HIV is not ever transmitted through blood via mosquitos.

I can't wait for your answer, Adele. So please do not make me wait for eternity!

I am sure it will be another great moment of Pure Unadulterated Homer Simpson Science!

By answering just this one question, Adele, if you can explain this phenomenon of aetiology to all of us denialists, we can then return to the orthodoxy fold and once again all will believe that HIV is real, and actually infects Tcells in the blood, and that HIV is the true cause of AIDS!

Why isn't HIV spread by mosquitoes Adele?

DDDDOOOOOOOOOOHHHhhhhhhhh!!! said the all knowing and wise scientist and Double Doctor, - Dr. Homer Simpson!!!!

Posted by: Michael | August 2, 2007 1:41 AM

Well stated Michael and you are right! Years ago, cancer was the worse thing on the planet and those with it were looked at by society as given a death sentence. We have since adjusted to cancer. Now, AIDS is the latest grim reaper. AIDS was invented on paper from a collection of old diseases, none of themselves were particularly life-threatening. Throughout history mankind has developed diseases and some made it and others died, survival of the fitest. This is as ancient as history.

Doesn't folks remember that AIDS was called GRID and why? That retroviruses are harmless and that Gallo only found it in about 40% of cases? Why isn't the HIV test specific to HIV or why hasn't it been validated? This is key to the HIV issue as lives are being ruined by these tests while most wave the HIV causes AIDS banner. Have all of you who believe in this had an HIV test? Will you trust your life and its accuracy to this test?

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 7:33 AM

Franklin, I can only go on what I see and that is great health despite low CD4's. I agree with the Pittsburg doctors and what was stated at the AIDS Conference in Spain, that CD4's and viral load weren't the best indicators of who would develop AIDS. Although, I progressed on to AIDS, I agree with them that the liver enzymes and white blood counts were better indicators and since mine are perfect and I haven't any OI's, I can only conclude that they are right and that my course of action is working for me.

Posted by: noreen | August 2, 2007 9:41 AM

Michael,

You asked Adele why mosquito bites can transmit malaria but are not an effective vector for transmission of HIV:

HIV retrovirus is thousands of times smaller than the huge ass parasite that infects red blood cells that causes malaria that is transmitted by mosquitos. By this standard alone, HIV should be the easiest thing in the world for a mosquito to transmit!
But they do not, and never ever have!
How can this possibly be Adele?
Does this make any sense to you?
Please do explain to us why HIV is not ever transmitted through blood via mosquitos.
I can't wait for your answer, Adele. So please do not make me wait for eternity!
I am sure it will be another great moment of Pure Unadulterated Homer Simpson Science!

By answering just this one question, Adele, if you can explain this phenomenon of aetiology to all of us denialists, we can then return to the orthodoxy fold and once again all will believe that HIV is real, and actually infects Tcells in the blood, and that HIV is the true cause of AIDS!

Once again you reveal your ignorance of biology and medicine.

It is not the size of an infectious organism that determines whether or not it can be transmitted by mosquitoes. Infectious agents that can be transmitted to humans by mosquito bite have evolved to be able to replicate in mosquitoes and in humans. Not all human pathogens can productively infect mosquitoes. In fact, like HIV, most human pathogens do not infect mosquitoes.

Malaria, the example you cite, illustrates the complex evolutionary adaptations that are characteristic of those pathogens that can infect humans and mosquitoes. The malarial life cycle requires passage through mosquitoes for sexual reproduction. The mosquito-phase of the malarial life cycle takes 2-3 weeks before the malaria parasites are infectious for humans. It's not as if the mosquito's stinger is the equivalent of sharing a dirty needle and injects someone else's infected blood into your body. Once the parasite is ingested by the mosquito, it has to be able to infect and grow within the mosquito host. This is explained in the FREE Microbiology textbook available on PubMed:

The gametocyte, which is the sexual stage of the plasmodium, is infectious for mosquitoes that ingest it while feeding. Within the mosquito, gametocytes develop into female and male gametes (macrogametes and microgametes, respectively), which undergo fertilization and then develop over 2 to 3 weeks into sporozoites that can infect humans. The delay between infection of a mosquito and maturation of sporozoites means that female mosquitoes must live a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks to be able to transmit malaria. This fact is important in malaria control efforts.

Michael, once again your denialist argument lacks any true intellectual content and is based solely on your ignorance of biological science. Again you show how your denialism masquerades as an intellectual activity, yet simply reflects your desperate emotional defense mechanism against the very serious personal tragedy affecting your life.

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 10:11 AM

"When they find out there's a biology explanation they can't accept it"

Ah -- yes, except that the Biology is seriously flawed.

If you seriously believe that the Biology its not flawed, then please show us the purified particulate reference standard that determines unequivocally whether or not someone is infected with a particular infectious (HIV) virus particle?

If you seriously believe that the Biology its not flawed, then please show us a study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that shows the validation of any HIV test by the direct isolation of HIV from the fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues of positive testing persons. (And by the way, $50,000.00 awaits someone who can).

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 1:43 PM

Carter the valid test kits,
Ok we can send a space shuttle to orbit, right?
We can build a space station in orbit.
We could build another rocket on the space station and take it to the moon.
When we're there, would you say we didn't really reach the moon from earth? Because we took a few steps to go from earth to moon?

In the middle eighties they isolated HIV in gradients. Photographed by EM, Nucleic acids sequenced, proteins identified, proteins linked to the nucleic acid, found patient antibodies identifed proteins from the particular fraction of gradient, 1.15-1.17 if you want numbers. They cloned the sequences, mass produced proteins in bacteria made antibodies to them, made tests.

You can look up all of this on pubmed. hint it's not all in a single paper. There's lots of them. Is that really such a problem?

If it is make sure you never stop at a gas station on your way to work. Or you won't actually be at work when you get there and you might get fired.

Posted by: Adele | August 2, 2007 2:37 PM

Noreen,

Study after study has shown the importance of declining CD4+ T-cell levels in predicitng opportunistic infections. I am glad that you aren't currently experiencing any opportunistic infections, but you should realize that you are at very high risk of developing potentially fatal complications of your immunosuppression.

I can understand your reluctance to start anti-retroviral therapy if you feel healthy. But I am curious what you will do in the future if--despite your positive attitude, healthy living habits, and avoidance of anti-retroviral drugs--you still go on to develop opportunistic infections. Will you refuse to take anti-retroviral therapies if you become ill despite your best efforts at healthy living?

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 4:41 PM

Adele,

Kindly point out the readers here and I, what substantiates that there are purified particulates for reference? The standard that determines unequivocally whether or not someone is infected with HIV. Please, since you know so much, surly you could find something to reference here. Maybe a couple since since you point to and from your bible of HIV. Don't you know where to find this? Or are you just spouting that HIV is real because "we have correlation" and consensus makes it so. If people weren't dying from your death camp, your ranting would be laughable.

Posted by: carter | August 2, 2007 5:02 PM

Kindly point out the readers here and I, what substantiates that there are purified particulates for reference?

AIDS Reagents

You can get various reference viruses, molecular clones etc here.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 2, 2007 7:04 PM

Noreen,

I am not aware of any scientific evidence that Low Dose Naltrexone is an effective therapy for MS or AIDS, nor do I understand your rationale that any drug effective for MS or cancer will certainly benefit AIDS patients, as well.

On the other hand, given that you currently feel well and are reluctant to risk drug toxicities, trying LDN is an approach that, although of no demonstrated benefit, is unlikely to cause significant toxicity.

But I remain curious what you will do in the future if--despite LDN treatments, your positive attitude, healthy living habits, and avoidance of anti-retroviral drugs--you still go on to develop opportunistic infections.

Will you refuse to take anti-retroviral therapies if you develop opportunistic infections despite LDN therapy and your best efforts at healthy living?

Posted by: franklin | August 2, 2007 8:08 PM

The correlation with drug use is also pretty strong, especially if when one realizes that in the early 90s AIDS was redefined to bolster the correlation that HIV=AIDS, thereby removing most AIDS cases that were HIV negative. Of course that makes it easy to correlate near 100 percent, but it's not objective, it's deceptive, and it isn't scientific. Science is designed to get around such deception. Yet the official definition was changed, based on a predetermined outcome. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, by simply removing what doesn't correlate.

In the Ascher study AIDS was diagnosed without using HIV status as a criterion. The result was that none of the HIV- patients got AIDS. On the other hand HIV+ patients got AIDS irrespective of their drug use. There is no circular logic here.

There are several other studies that show the same results.

There are also animal models such as SCID-hu mice that undeniably show that HIV causes CD4+ cell depletion and AIDS.

Duesberg and others are labelled Denialists exactly because they deny the existence of the evidence that discredits their views.

Duesberg's response to Ascher was to a) accuse him of lying and b) invent 45 HIV- AIDS cases. The debate has been over for a long time. People do not take Duesberg seriously because he blatantly lies about the science.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 2, 2007 11:03 PM

What else should be looked at in retrospect?

Lets begin with the number of gay men or drug addicts dying of AIDS since the first deaths in 1982.

In 1981, in the USA, five gay men became ill with an uncommon pneumonia, and by the way, none of these first five ever had any sexual partners in common. In 82 there were 8 deaths, in 83 there were 75, in 84 there were more than 100, in 85 the HIV test is invented and more than 170 die, in 86 there were more than 200 deaths, and in 87 there were between 250 and 300 deaths to AIDS.

Enter High dosage AZT monotherapy in 1987, given to ALL who tested positive for HIV. The death rate SOARED. By 1993 the word was out that AZT was deadly poison and doctors and patients slowly began to abandon it. The peak incidence of deaths was 50,877, reached in 1995. The average person taking AZT monotherapy lived 8 months to 1-1/2 years.

Enter the HAART drugs. As AZT was abandoned, but its effects still took their toll, the newer classes of drugs were put into use. The AIDS death rate came back down to pre 1987 levels. The leading cause of death in HIV positive Americans ever since use of the newer drugs replaced AZT has been liver failure, directly associated with those taking the newer medications. Other effects have been the maiming, disfiguring, and other effects of the newer drugs including lipodystropy, neuropathy, kidney and heart failure, and more.

Now, one more time, what was that you were telling me about HIV causing AIDS?

Can you say Epidemic of Psychosomatic Mass Hysteria?

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

As long as gays perceive themselves to be hated, either by God, or by the heterosexual majority, they will continue to believe that the heterosexual majority is out to kill or poison them, and they will submit to death as well as poisoning. No-one, and I mean NO-ONE! wants to live in a society or in a world, where they are hated, despised, looked upon as less than, or not fully wanted or appreciated.

Since gays, can no more change their sexuality then a leopard can change its spots, they will allow the heterosexual majority to dominate them, poison them, and submit to death by them.

The black races of the world will do the same, as they can also not change their skin color, any more than a homosexual can change his sexual preference.

May you all do as you will, and choose as you will. It is your world, and the choices are yours. And there are other choices available than the ones currently believed and imposed.

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 12:49 AM

Robert Gallo is the cause of AIDS. Tony Fauci is the cause of AIDS. John P Moore is the cause of AIDS. Marc Wainberg is the cause of AIDS. Every American President since Ronald Reagan has been the cause of AIDS. Most Americans are the cause of AIDS. The media is the cause of AIDS. Opera Winfrey is the cause of AIDS. Bono is the cause of AIDS. The surgeon general is the cause of AIDS. The "Moral Majority" are the cause of AIDS. The rascists and homophobes are the cause of AIDS. Even most Gays are the cause of AIDS.

And on this blog site....

Tara Smith is the cause of AIDS, Chris Noble is the cause of AIDS, Seth Manapio is the cause of AIDS, Richard Jefferies is the cause of AIDS. Franklin is the cause of AIDS. Adele is the cause of AIDS. DT is the cause of AIDS. Robster and Dale are the cause of AIDS. And the list goes on and on and on and on and on..........

So why don't ALL OF YOU HIV/AIDS LOVERS and PUSHERS just shut your own selves up and enjoy what each and every one of you yourselves are all creating?

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:15 AM

HIV

THE

HUMAN IGNORANCE VIRUS

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:28 AM

Some of you are just a little slow to catch on...., so one more time just for good luck:

THE CURE FOR AN EPIDEMIC OF HYSTERIA AND PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS IS EXTREMELY SIMPLE. ONCE IDENTIFIED AS SUCH, ALL ONE HAS TO DO, IS TO PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE IT TO BE AN EPIDEMIC OF "MASS HYSTERIA" AND "PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS", AFTER WHICH THE EPIDEMIC RESOLVES ITSELF IN A VERY SHORT SPACE OF TIME

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 1:57 AM

Michael,
You know the sure fire, once and for all way to stop AIDS as well as I do. STOP THE FUNDING!

How to stop the disease states: Fund the stuff big pharma can't make money on. And starting with Gov subsidies for organic farming.

Posted by: carter | August 3, 2007 3:43 AM

Sandi,

After that announcement by Margaret Heckler, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, research in IV and recreational drug use was dropped.

Of course research on drug use continued after the announcement. And studies on drugs and HIV and progression to AIDS are still done now.

Ask yourself this,
How many, proportion, HIV negative drug users get AIDS?
How many HIV positive people who don't use drugs get AIDS?

Of all drug users only a few get AIDS and they are the ones with HIV.
Of all HIV positive people almost all progress to AIDS if they don't take HAART and alot even if they do.

HIV is necessary and sufficient for AIDS but drug use isn't necessary or sufficient for AIDS. Even in the pre 1993 definition like in Ascher et al study, the number of HIV negative "AIDS" is so low every case is so medicaly remarkable, you could write it up for publication. Same with people who have HIV and don't progress.

Posted by: Adele | August 3, 2007 9:03 AM

Ask yourself this, How many, proportion, HIV negative drug users get AIDS?

Adele,
Zero according to the definition, however not because they are not suffering from the same thing, it's because they are excluded by the definition. Or should I say re-definition to ensure correlation:

Kaposi's Sarcoma + HIV=AIDS
Kaposi's Sarcoma - HIV=Kaposi's Sarcoma

Wasting Syndrome + HIV=AIDS
Wasting Syndrome - HIV=Wasting Syndrome

Tuberculosis + HIV=AIDS
Tuberculosis - HIV=Tuberculosis

Also correlations for HIV=AIDS are not based on any national or international statistic reporting, because no such thing exists. They are based on selected individual studies. These studies are based on the presence of HIV, and often non-standardized antibody tests at that. Further these HIV tests are test for antibodies, antibodies that may or may not be antibodies against HIV.

How many HIV positive people who don't use drugs get AIDS?

Not very many. I don't have fresh numbers, but the older WHO estimates that there are 28.1 million HIV positive worldwide, and only 5 percent (1.4 million) worldwide cases of AIDS have been reported. I can't find any numbers on drug use worldwide, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a fair correlation there.

Of all drug users only a few get AIDS and they are the ones with HIV.

Of all the sun bathers only a few get skin cancer. However unlike HIV=AIDS they don't predicate the diagnosis of skin cancer (call it other than skin cancer) on whether one sun bathes or not, and/or whether they use sun block or not.

Of all HIV positive people almost all progress to AIDS if they don't take HAART and alot even if they do.

Baloney. As I said in the WHO data above, 28.1 million are HIV positive worldwide. The total officially reported AIDS cases is 1.4 million, or only 5 percent of those that have the HIV virus.

Adele, you need to read and research for yourself all the data available from all sides. Then you can have an informed opinion.

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 6:12 PM

Doh! week=weed above. My spell checker goes by what I spell, not necessarily what I mis-spell. *blush*

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 6:18 PM

Sandi, I take it you didn't look up Ascher et al, using the pre 1993 definition of AIDS?

I'm familiar with the classic AIDS definition as well as the new definition. Do you have a point to make?

Posted by: Sandi | August 3, 2007 7:00 PM

Adele said:

"HIV is necessary and sufficient for AIDS but drug use isn't necessary or sufficient for AIDS".

HIV is only necessary because the CDC definition has limited AIDS to ONLY BEING DEFINED AS SUCH if a person tests HIV positive. If they test negative, then it is not ever defined as AIDS, even if they presented with 10 or 20 of the 30 possible OI's that are on the CDC AIDS definition list!

You and the CDC and the retrovirologists who pulled this circular definition crap as being the definition of AIDS should be exposed to the public as frauds and as lacking all integrity! This defintion was orchestrated by the AIDS retrovirologists and researchers for ONE REASON ONLY:

Simply to protect the HIV theory, and for absolutely NO OTHER REASON, after being highly threatened by the work of Peter Duesberg!

The ONLY thing that is necessary and constant in EVERY CASE of AIDS with any OI presenting, is Psychosomatic STRESS which impairs the thymus gland.

EVERY SINGLE AIDS CASE that reports Actual Illnesses SHARES THIS STRESS INDUCED LOWERING OF THE THYMUS GLAND IN COMMON, provided, one avoids including the 50% of AIDS diagnoses that are fully physically healthy who simply happen to have low CD4 counts which obviously makes no difference in their actual physical health!

Posted by: Michael | August 3, 2007 8:16 PM

I'm familiar with the classic AIDS definition as well as the new definition. Do you have a point to make?

The point that you are doing your best to ignore is that if you use a definition of AIDS that does not have HIV serology in the definitioon then the tight relationship between HIV and AIDS remains.

The Ascher study demonstrated this very well. Take HIV- and HIV+ patients and follow them over time. Who got Kaposi's sarcoma? Only the HIV+ patients got KS regardless of their recreational drug use.

The number of people with the specific depletion of CD4+ cells that are HIV- is extremely, extremely small.

Unexplained opportunistic infections and CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection. An investigation of cases in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia Task Force.

Posted by: Chris Noble | August 4, 2007 8:55 PM

I mistakenly said:

"Human DNA is also composed of more than 1000 sequences of exogenous retroviral materials in every human being".

I meant to say "ENDOGENOUS".

PS: All AIDS cases are psychomatic in nature, due to stress lowering the function of the Thymus Gland.

Every AIDS case proves this.

Posted by: Michael | August 5, 2007 1:15 AM

Michael, could you expand on your comment. I think that one's emotional state can contribute to AIDS but in order for it to make a great impact, it would have to be severe stress. Most of the AIDS cases have many AIDS defining diseases, which all have their respective causess. However, when one is extremely sick then one is not emotionally strong.

Posted by: noreen | August 5, 2007 7:24 AM

Chris Noble said this paper means something:

N Engl J Med. 1993 Feb 11;328(6):373-9.

Unexplained opportunistic infections and CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without HIV infection. An investigation of cases in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia Task Force.
Smith DK, Neal JJ, Holmberg SD.

Division of HIV/AIDS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333.

BACKGROUND. The clinical and public health importance of recent reports of patients with CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is unclear. We conducted investigations to determine the demographic, clinical, and immunologic features of patients with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia; whether the syndrome is epidemic or transmissible; and the possible causes. METHODS. We reviewed 230,179 cases in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) AIDS Reporting System and performed interviews, medical-record reviews, and laboratory analyses of blood specimens from adults and adolescents who met the CDC case definition of idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (

..."25 (53 percent) had conditions that were not AIDS-defining,"

"...and 3 (6 percent) were asymptomatic."

Asymptomatic of what? Having no "risk factors" for the disease case's definition? Asymptomatic of what?

"Eighteen patients had "risk factors" for "HIV?"

Were these among those selected because:

???

Isn't this a "risk factor" also?

Common Chris! Who you tryin to fool?

Of 47 "patients" all having nothing in common, including clinical illness, half of whom have none of 47 possible AIDS-defining conditions to choose from in order to link them to a syndrome,

RE: " CONCLUSIONS. This investigation of patients with idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia and unexplained opportunistic infections indicates that the disorder is rare and represents various clinical and immunologic states."

Very good! You finally give us a good definition of AIDS!

Thanks so much.

"Ten sex partners, three household contacts, and four children of the patients, as well as six persons who had donated blood to the patients, were immunologically and clinically normal..." and a partridge in a pair treeeeeeeeee.

Because there were 29 elephants and 16 lions exchanging exhaled air after they saw the Harry Potter movie, while 4 whales bumped their heads against some porposes and got bloody noses which, when their anaemic enucleated red-blood corpuscles carrying the virus washed ashore to there infect some sea gulls, who, upon flying to New York for the annual West Nile Virus Convention to meet with other birds to figure out how those Israeli birds transfered the virus only to infect other birds in New York with WNV from a black Ugandan woman from 1940, which then got into New York's lower East side to infect other persons whom mosquitoes would bite and then fly to St. Louis and Illinois to infect other birds, insects, and people who have suffered approximately 40-700 deaths per year for decades due to what has been called SLE or St. Louis Encephalitis but now have WNV too, we figure that there are no common features of this disease which exactly behaves like "HIV/AIDS."

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | August 5, 2007 9:57 AM