I'm a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. I also study epigenetic control of ERVs.
I was really mad this morning. I glanced at my new issue of Discover, and noticed yet another article glorifying HIV Deniers. Its not online yet, but its a seven page spread on Peter Duesberg.
So I brought it to work with me so everyone had to vomit as much as I did. They changed my perspective a bit.
First, Im still mad, but Im not as mad. I dont think they are glorifying him-- I think theyre playing to the 'fair and balanced all sides' game that 'journalists' think is so clever these days, which is still pathetic.
On the one hand, Jeanne Lenzer plays off of EXPELLEDs theme. You could hear 'Bad to the Bone' playing as Duesberg walked down the street with his bike, being described as a 'golden boy' turned 'bad boy of science.' 'Radical new theory getting serious attention'. Photos of Duesberg in a lab coat. Looking angelically into the distance. Persecuted to such extremes he no longer can afford his two personal secretaries (excuse me, how many scientists have a personal secretary??). And like William Dembski who can no longer use his Baylor ID card at Baylors cafeteria, Duesberg is no longer invited to colleagues houses to stay, for free, during conferences.
And gosh, hes saved so many lives! Why Billy Bob has been HIV+ for 23 years and hasnt taken any drugs!
On the other hand, this article does seem to paint Duesberg as a delusional old Nazi, commenting on how he flippantly refers to blacks as 'Schwartzes'. Though she misses the opportunity to point out that idiots like Rev Wright say that HIV was invented to kill black people... and use 'evidence' provided by a racist ass to that effect... ugh.
That being said... Who cares if Duesberg is an ass? Im an ass to the degree I dont care if youre an ass as long as your science is good. Sure Id prefer to work with nice people, but I can deal with assholes as long as their science is good.
That is where this article fails miserably. Duesberg made some goddamn stupid comments in this article like:
"He knew that HIV is a retrovirus-- the subject of his own heralded research-- and that retroviruses dont kill the host cells they infect. If anything, they make them proliferate."No. One problem I have with my experiments is that I sometimes put too much virus on my cells, and I kill them all. By 'kill them all', I mean 48 hours after I put viruses on, say, 100,000 cells, they are all dead. Nothing is left but scraps of cell membrane. HIV-1 kills the cells it infects. Btw, this might be a side effect of Ms. Lenzer of being lazy, but its HIV-1. Not 'HIV'. I might not be anal about apostraphes, but I am on that point. HIV ≠ HIV-1≠HIV-2. HIV-1 and 2 are different but related creatures, with different evolutionary histories. lol! I guess its like a primatologist getting irritated when someone calls a chimpanzee a 'monkey'.
Hes also got some prize pig statements about a disease that often goes hand-in-hand with AIDS, Kaposi's Sarcoma. Duesberg appears baffled by epidemiological studies of HHV8 (human herpes virus 8). HHV8 is kinda like Mono (EBV). Its usually fairly harmless... unless you become immunocompromised, like through AIDS or organ transplant, and you get KS lesions. Its not transferred blood-to-blood, so you cant get it through blood transfusions or IV-drug-use. This floors Duesberg:
Since nitrites (referring to poppers, cause Grannies making home-made cool-whip get AIDS from poppers) are powerful carcinogens, Duesberg thought this explained why gay men frequently developed KS but other risk groups, such as hemophiliacs and heterosexual drug abusers rarely did.You dont get infected with HHV8 through blood. Hemophiliacs and heterosexual drug users are therefore not 'other risk groups' for HHV8. Theyre 'other risk groups' for HIV-1 because its blood born. Seriously, Duesberg? Seriously??
He makes other claims and demands about HIV-1 that go relatively unchallenged. Sure she puts in the ol 'Other scientists dont agree' crap, which is refuted with 'But Nobel laureates agree with Duesberg!! Look here is an obstetrician that believes him!'. *rolleyes*
And then we stupid scientists are left with a stern warning from Ms. Lenzer:
Right or wrong, for more that two decades Duesberg has surely paid a price for his beliefs.Awwwwwwwww. Awww isnt that cute. Shorter Jeanne Lenzer:
...
[when asked why he keeps pushing this issue] "I dont want to be 'a good German.'"
The racist homophobe who has killed millions of people with his denialism has paid for his beliefs, you Nazis!**vomit**
**flips off Jeanne Lenzer**
My final note on this article, should you happen to see it online as 'support' for Duesberg. Duesberg is a 'scientist' to the degree he has previously published nice science. But did he ever really understand what being a scientists means? In this article he sobs:
"We had vigorous debates. But I thought that was good science. You challenge ideas. I thought it was all in good spirit."Is that was Duesberg, and Creationists, think is 'good science'? Being contrary? Debating things?
Of course a huge bit of fun in science is thought experiments-- What was the world like 3 billion years ago?? How did retroviruses evolve? Are they young? Old? Are they our ancestors??
But those thoughts mean nothing if you dont back them up with experimental data. Not only that, if there are competing 'thought experiments' with data, you must take their data into account. Scientists are slaves to data. It doesnt matter if you are a racist, you beat puppies, or youre a nephew loving Creationist. If you have data to support your claims, we must accept your data.
Duesberg has painted himself into a corner in that no one trusts him anymore. He might have neato ideas on cancer, and no one will ever believe him because he blew his science ethos on batshit HIV crap. No one believes he 'follows the data' anymore, so his thought experiments cant be tested by him anymore. Hes lost control over his own ideas. He might as well be an undergrad again.
Hes the scientist who proclaimed the wolf was a figment of our imaginations and let millions of people die. No one is going to believe him when he says 'WOLF!' or 'NOT WOLF!' ever again.
*shrug*
Comments
Yeah, I can remember when SciAm had an article on his ideas about aneuploidy and cancer not too long ago, they had to go to great lengths to demarcate them from his HIV nonsense. The editorial page was entirely devoted to that purpose, and the article itself was careful to make the distinction again.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | May 8, 2008 8:48 PM
While I enjoy your fast mind and tongue (or typing, I guess), could you slow down for a bit and explain what "cool-whip" has to do with aids?
Also - what are blacks called in German if not "Schwarzes"?
Posted by: Sili | May 8, 2008 8:51 PM
I am only familiar with that word as a derogatory term the equivalent of 'nigger'.
And, Duesbergs 'hypothesis' is that 'drug use', specifically the use of 'poppers' cause AIDS. Poppers are traditionally used to make homemade whipped cream, and are an ingredient in friggen Cool Whip.
Posted by: ERV | May 8, 2008 9:17 PM
Because amyl nitrate, the substance most usually connected with poppers, is prescribed for angina, which is a common affliction in the elderly. The point being, neither it nor cool-whip have much to do with AIDS, other than both sometimes being used props in sex, which does.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | May 8, 2008 9:21 PM
ERV: Damn it. I checked, no one had explained poppers yet so...I still like mine better.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | May 8, 2008 9:23 PM
Amyl nitrate ampules (poppers) have for decades been a popular gay party drug for various reasons.
Very different from Whippets.
Needless to say, no drugs have been linked to HIV, except as certain drug delivery systems, such as needles.
Posted by: PalMD | May 8, 2008 10:08 PM
Ugh! What an odious little twit!
I hadn't come across an HIV denier until last year. I was flummoxed! It was like someone told me: "the cold isn't caused by a virus, it's because of aliens!"
I looked like a gasping fish out of water for a while...
Posted by: MikeG | May 8, 2008 10:09 PM
Girly you're missing all the action. Go read Ben Stein discussing his divorce from reality. It's final don't cha know?
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/benstein.html
The man is too weird for words.
Posted by: Hey You | May 8, 2008 10:54 PM
I don't get this "portray all sides of the story" bit the media seems to pull. It always seems to be "scientific community" on one side and "crackpots" on the other, with equal coverage for both. Do journalists just lack judgment, so they can't figure out what is real and substantive and cover primarily that?
Posted by: Eric | May 8, 2008 11:16 PM
Ah - thank you.
I knew perfectly well what poppers are - and I think I've heard of Duesberg's crazy talk in that connection - but 'Cool-whip' is entirely alien to me ...
To me 'whipped cream' is made with, well, cream and a whisk. No, I don't have a particularly interesting sexlife, thank you very much.
And re "Schwarzes" you're prolly right. I should have read more of PD's wikipedia article. I just assumed the interview was conducted in German in Germany. Stupid me.
Posted by: Sili | May 8, 2008 11:39 PM
Good analogy to Expelled.
The same conspiracy theories crop again and again.
PS. Whipped cream uses nitrous oxide as a propellant. Alkyl nitrites are different. Neither cause AIDS or KS.
Posted by: Chris Noble | May 9, 2008 12:09 AM
As an actual german, let me weigh in on the "Schwarzes"-issue: "Schwarzer" (masculine, the feminine and plural would be "Schwarze") simply means "black person" in german (schwarz=black), and is *not* considered to be derogatory. The equivalent to the n-word would be... well, the n-word. German racists use it as well.
And being german, let me just say that I'm seriously ashamed that my country still produces such homophobic, racist fucktards (pardon my french) like Dueseberg - even though he was born in '36. And like you said: it's not only that he's a fucktard, he spews out some seriously insane crap. Creationists are a nuissance, who in the worst case might set your country's level of education back some generations. HIV deniers, however, are dangerous. They *kill* people.
Man, am I angry.
Posted by: Sebastian | May 9, 2008 3:32 AM
Ha, I was going to warn you about this article, but I see you already found it.
Did you catch the "Galileo gambit" on page 49? A Doucheberg supporter, Christian Fiala, talks about a "history of dissenters being right," then goes on to compare Duesberg to Ignaz Semmelweis. There is a much bigger history of dissenters being wrong, perhaps best expressed by Carl Sagan:
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | May 9, 2008 9:15 AM
Lenzer clearly does not know her stuff. On page 48, she paraphrases Duesberg on the "common assumption" that anti-retroviral therapy has dramatically reduced AIDS deaths. Does she agree that this is merely an "assumption"? Because she says nothing to counter that incredible statement.
In the very next paragraph, she quotes Max Essex about anti-HIV drugs, many of which are specific inhibitors of HIV enzymes: "If you include three of them at once... as soon as that happens, the immune system recovers." Is this just an "assumption"? Because I think there are a lot of actual published studies backing this up. And did she notice, "immune system recovers" - not "HIV levels drop." That is also studied and published, not an assumption. If Lenzer had the capability to actually check these things out, she could have written a much more meaningful article about how Duesberg is wrong, still wrong, and refuses to see the multitude of evidence which has stacked up against him.
Discover has been going downhill since the change of ownership. I decided not to renew my subscription, and I'm glad of it. Come to think of it, at least they got rid of those annoying and boring columnists, who I think of as "print bloggers."
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | May 9, 2008 9:27 AM
Well, that's a stupid thing to say. Unless, of course, you've got the data to prove your claim. Giving the bash a whole twist of irony I find damn amusing.
And, no, I'm not on Duesberg's side. Or the HIV denialist side. Rather, I'm on the side of poking a hole in your self-righteous, over-reaching hypocrisy so that you may see it from the eyes of another who happens to not be your enemy. Maybe it will wake you up and make you a better writer instead of sounding like an hysterical fool.
Seriously, Duesberg killed millions... May as well blame the Holocaust on Darwin then...
Posted by: Moses | May 9, 2008 9:44 AM
Happy to read your article this morning. I just read that Discover article last night, and thought it was interesting, but then I am coming as a total outsider to the whole issue.
Discover's article did smack a little of making a big deal out of a minority idea, which set off a few alarm bells. Thanks for weighing in with a cudgel and pointing out the holes.
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | May 9, 2008 9:45 AM
Moses, what exactly do you think will happen if HIV deniers aren't taken down? Their statements lack any connection to reality and science, and often include statements saying actions known to spread HIV in the real world are really safe. The world is at a population number over 6 billion, I don't have the number for people infected with HIV, but picture for a moment what will happen to the number of infections if everyone with HIV stopped doing anything to prevent spreading it to others who don't have HIV. They all go out and stop taking their meds, have unsafe sex with multiple partners, ect. How fast do you think it would spread if the majority of people started believing these articles?
There's nothing self-righteous about this and no over-reaching hypocrisy, ERV has spent a very long time studying HIV, knows this article is complete and utter crap, and it rightly pissed off with the level of positive coverage it's generating because if it gains enough traction millions of people really can wind up infected with a presently incurable disease that leads to a lot of deaths as it wrecks their immune systems.
Posted by: Felstatsu | May 9, 2008 10:15 AM
Prof Duesberg is just another example, thankfully rare, of a once competent scientist who turns into a whackjob. One need only mention such luminaries as Linus Pauling, William Shockley, J. Allen Hynek, and Brian Josephson. Unfortunately, a PhD or a stellar scientific reputation doesn't provide immunity from nuttiness.
Posted by: SLC | May 9, 2008 10:30 AM
newbie here, and am unfamiliar with this guy Duesberg, although he certainly sounds like a big pile of brown stuff. Is he just saying that recreational drug use leads to AIDS...is that really what he argues?
CL
http://www.coulterlewkowitz.com/
Posted by: CL | May 9, 2008 11:59 AM
To be honest I'd love to be able to answer your question CL, but this guy is so many different types of crazy that I'm having trouble following what his deranged mind is trying to say.
I think what he's trying to say is that gay men get KS (and the HHV8) because they use poppers but other straight drug users don't get KS because they don't use poppers, and all this is within the population that has AIDS. Just don't take my words at more than face value cause I'm not entirely sure what he's trying to say actually.
Posted by: Felstatsu | May 9, 2008 12:35 PM
@Felatsu: There are *already* people dying thanks to the deniers. The gouvernment of South Africa, for example, refuses to aknowledge that the cause of AIDS is the HI virus, and consequently does not implement necessary actions, or even public awareness programms.
Posted by: Sebastian | May 9, 2008 12:47 PM
@Sebastian
True, but without the numbers for that I avoided bringing it up since Moses up above seems interested in numbers. Hence the thought experiment asking him to picture what happens when everyone with HIV stops working to prevent its spread.
I believe it was also mentioned somewhere that medical staff have been executed because of deniers talking about how the medical community is intentionally spreading HIV too. Between not having numbers and not even wanting to think about doctors trying to help people getting shot because some HIV denier spouted some BS I chose to not initially bring it up. Since it's up and out now though, I invite Moses to also consider what happens when doctors get executed because deniers say they're really spreading HIV? How many deaths could result from just one? Another thing to think about is, even if you're not fatally wounded, what happens if you get a badly broken bone and find out the only nearby doctor was killed for spreading HIV because a denier said so? How happy are you going to be knowing you have an extra few days of pain followed up by a poor recovery due to complications from taking so long to treat the injury?
HIV/AIDS kills people even now and deniers who say stuff like this guy make the death count rise faster. Who knows if some of those deaths were people who could've lived long enough for a treatment to be found too. The only thing HIV deniers do in this world is spread pain, misery, and untimely death in the end.
Posted by: Felstatsu | May 9, 2008 1:13 PM
Hi Abbie,
Can't believe that Peter Duesberg is alive and kicking. I thought he might have assumed room temperature by now. He's just like Dracula..... or my "pal" Bill Dembski. Once you think you're safe in the water, then look out, because they're baaaaack!
Am a bit surprised that a formerly credible science magazine like Discover would be a willing platform for Duesberg's mendacious intellectual pornography.
Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
John
Posted by: John Kwok | May 9, 2008 3:06 PM
Sorry to report in from the anality squad...but it really bothers me when people use the wrong "born" in "blood-borne". Cheers.
Posted by: katie | May 9, 2008 6:10 PM
According to WHO (the World Health Organization, 2004) there are about 39 million infected persons in the world. http://www.who.int/hiv/facts/hiv2003/en/ If each of these people passed the disease onto one uninfected person, it would take only 5 such transmission generations to infect 1 billion people.
Thank goodness we have people like PD and governments like that of South Africa (with one of the highest rates of infection) to keep us save. (snark)
Posted by: JimNorth | May 9, 2008 6:24 PM
"Is that was Duesberg, and Creationists, think is 'good science'? Being contrary? Debating things?"
Scientists should NOT debate or be contrary! That would defeat the whole purpose of contemporary science. If you don't present a united front you will lose the trust of the public, of consumers. And then who would buy the drugs? And drugs have become one of the most important industries in the world. If we want our economy to stay afloat we better not debate anything that might damage drug sales.
Duesberg is a complete moron for not even seeing the financial angle. What does he think science is? A quest for truth? Ignoramus!
Posted by: pec | May 9, 2008 7:55 PM
"what will happen to the number of infections if everyone with HIV stopped doing anything to prevent spreading it to others who don't have HIV. They all go out and stop taking their meds, have unsafe sex with multiple partners"
If an HIV patient takes their "meds," they can still spread the infection if they have unsafe sex. How can you possibly be so ignorant and gullible as to think the HIV drugs make sex safe?
If an HIV denier advises HIV patients to have unprotected sex and spread the virus to others, then that would be irresponsible and unethical. But advising an HIV patient not to take AZT and HAART is entirely different.
Posted by: pec | May 9, 2008 8:04 PM
Pec! "Good" to see you over here at ERV's place!
I'm gonna have to warn you, though... ERV is not your usual blogger. ERV actually *works* in the field of HIV/AIDS. Your usual denialist crap won't work here.
HIV Deniers *do* encourage HIV patients to have unprotected sex. After all, HIV doesn't cause AIDS, right? You can just take a shower to prevent infection, right? Advising a patient not to take the drugs that *will* keep him/her alive is ethically equivalent to encouraging an alcoholic to keep drinking.
As I said over on the Denialism blog, learn something. The stupid is burning my eyes.
Posted by: LanceR | May 9, 2008 10:50 PM
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | May 10, 2008 8:41 AM
pec raised some good points.
LanceR, my guess is ERV won't respond to pec, she'll leave it to others.
Can anybody here present the best case of the opponent without scarcasm?
Posted by: William Wallace | May 11, 2008 12:42 AM
BTW, I am not an HIV denier or whatever. As far as I know (which is watching interesting PBS documentaries, and talking to people I know who are infected with HIV), HIV does cause AIDS, but I would like to here the opposing viewpoint presented in a non-sarcastic manner.
Posted by: William Wallace | May 11, 2008 12:43 AM
I had just read the article when I saw this. I just skipped over all of his HIV lunacy, but I wanted to mention when I saw his comments about aneuploidy commonly accompanying cancer, I wanted to shout "Correlation does not equal causation!" I'm a High school senior and I know that.
Posted by: Richbank | May 11, 2008 3:07 AM
"... idiots like Rev Wright say that HIV was invented to kill black people... and use 'evidence' provided by a racist ass to that effect... ugh."
By which I assume you mean Leonard Horowitz? (You can't be referring to Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid.) Dr. Horowitz ("Dr." because he's a former dentist; has no PhD) is no prize, certainly. However, as the principal (though not original) author of his Wikipedia bio, I have yet to find any evidence he's a racist. Does he pander to some racists? Pretty clearly: to Nation of Islam, to white militia survivalists in backwoods Idaho. He'll take customers and press notices wherever he can get them. He himself is jewish, albeit a Messianic Jew (i.e., says he believes that Jesus was the Messiah), which I suppose gets him through certain doors that might otherwise be closed to jews. A lot of epithets stick to the man, but "racist" is not, I think, one of them. However, if you happen to know otherwise, please e-mail me with substantiation, or edit the evidence (with clear citation) into the Wikipedia article.
(By the way, if you find Horowitz's Wikipedia bio too gentle, be aware that I'm restrained by Wikipedia NPOV and policy on Wikipedia about biographies of living persons.)
Posted by: Michael Turner | May 11, 2008 4:18 AM
Duesberg is really a sad case. He clearly did important science in his youth, but he seems to have become "stuck" on a pet hypothesis and is simply unable to let go of it. Of course, in scientific research, setbacks are frequent, and it can be a benefit to have confidence in one's own hypotheses. And many scientists don't really believe any results that they have not confirmed in their own laboratory. Since Duesberg no longer does research, it is possible that this may be a factor. Still, the reasoning in Duesberg's later HIV papers is so flagrantly bad, including some real howler errors in basic math, that I can't help wondering if he is suffering from some kind of neurological mishap or illness.
Posted by: trrll | May 11, 2008 9:24 AM
Discover has been covering Celia Farber/Duesberg since it was bought by (former?) lover Bob Guccione, Jr. who also supported her fraudulent tracts on the topic in his magazine Spin. From Wiki:
"During her time as a writer at Spin, Farber was romantically involved with the magazine's publisher, Bob Guccione, Jr.[16] In 1994, a Spin employee filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Guccione, Jr. and the magazine, alleging sexual discrimination and favoritism.[2] Farber was a key witness in the ensuing trial, as the prosecution alleged that Farber's relationship with Guccione, Jr. led to her promotion and other job opportunities.[16] Ultimately, the jury found that Spin editors had created a "hostile environment" and awarded $90,000 to the plaintiff; the remainder of the charges, including those of sexual favoritism, were rejected.[16]"
This was a prior interview in Discover, in which she makes transparently false claims about objectivity:
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/oct/celia-farber-interview-aids/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
Farber has also recently lied blatantly about a Lancet study, to try and con people with HIV into believing that ARVs do not reduce mortality.
http://aras.ab.ca/articles/popular/200706-FarberHIVAlive.pdf
Farber writes: "A paper published in 2006 in The Lancet reported the results of a large study that tracked 22,000 HIV-positive people between 1995 and 2003. It found that the drug therapy they received, known as HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Therapy) did not "translate into a decrease in mortality.""
- What the paper actually does (see http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606691526/fulltext) is compare the treatment response *during just the first year of ART" in discrete, separate cohorts from each calendar period (95/95, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001 & 2002/3). Mortality is extremely low (~2%) in the first year for each cohort because of the success of the therapies. What the paper shows is that this early (first year of treatment) mortality has not declined by much when the different calendar periods are compared: in 95/96, 2.2% (27 out of 1232) people died during the first year of treatment; in 2002/3, 1.3% (25 out of 1932) of people died during the first year of treatment.
Because this early mortality is significantly associated with starting therapy with very advanced disease, it is not surprising that the *average* improvement in viral load and CD4 response (after one year of ART) that has occurred over the calendar years in each cohort has not further decreased this early mortality; an average improvement in viral loads and CD4 at one year across each entire cohort would not be expected to benefit the small subset of individuals within those cohorts who still initiate therapy with advanced illness (it is even possible that some of these individuals had encountered denialist falsehoods about HIV and AIDS and believed them, thus not seeking care until diagnosed with a serious opportunistic infection). The improvements in surrogate markers seen in recent calendar periods should lead to a longer duration of benefit, and enough time has yet to pass to facilitate that analysis (you can't do 10 year follow up of a cohort that started ART in 2003 in 2006!).
The study cited by Farber was not even an evaluation of the impact of HAART on mortality, the same authors have already studied that question in the CASCADE cohort: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10791383
It's just one example of her deliberate duplicity, aided and abetted by Duesberg (who actually features the Lancet paper on his website, presumably hoping no one reads more than the abstract).
Posted by: BD | May 13, 2008 12:28 AM