Heh

Taking a complex issue of politics, science, drug company influence and simplyfying it into a cartoon, typical orthodoxy propaganda, "good vs evil" instead of carrying out experemiments that could allay many of the publics fears, make a cartoon. real intellectual.

Instead of mocking the public, why dont you provide the original experiments/toxicology studies that proved it was safe to take thimerosol, when "splenda" was approved there were all kinds of animal inoculations etc, show me these similar studies that were published in the 1930's that proved thimerosol was safe to take long term.

Re cooler

So Mr. cooler, HIV/AIDS denier whackjob extraodinaire is also a vaccine denier. About par for the course.

YEah im in good company, so is margulis, i never denied vaccines you stupid troll, i just wanted the original toxicology studies that proved thimerosol was safe for humans, you fucking idiot, I can find them for splenda, but not for thimerosol, so fuck off loser.

Gosh, Cooler. Is that any way to carry on a conversation? Obscenity-laced vitriol is no way to elevate the discussion. But it does make it easier for people to simply write you off.
Just an observation.

He called me a whackjob, what should I do, give him a cookie?

Re cooler

1. Lynn Margulis has no competence whatever to pontificate on the HIV/AIDS issue. By the way, the clowns at the Discovery Institute are also HIV/AIDS deniers and they have even less competence then does Dr. Margulis. Even better company for Mr. cooler.

2. Mr. cooler has come to the thimerosol issue rather late in the game. This compound was removed from vaccines some 6 years ago. For anyone who may be reading this thread, I suggest going over to Dr. Oracs' blog as he has discussed this issue on numerous occasions and has far better qualifications to comment on it then does Mr. cooler.

Step oif, margulis is a fine scientist, not a fraud like you, with no credentials whatsoever.
All margulis and many other scientists want is the original scientific evidence that proved hiv causality, since you guys say the debate was resolved 20 years ago in the peer reviewed literature, your implying overwhelming evidence was published proving hiv causal role in AIDS 20 years ago, show me that overwhelming evidence from 20 years ago that ended the debate. Waiting, if you and Tara dont respond with those papers, youre admitting there never was any overwhelming evidence in the first place. Please, im waiting.

Re Lynn Margolis

1. Dr. Margolis was at one time a fine scientist but of late has turned into a whackjob. This is somewhat rare, but unfortunately occasional occurs. Other examples include Linus Pauling, Peter Deusberg, William Shockley, J. Allen Hynek, and Brian Josephson, all at least as prestigious as Dr. Margolis (Pauling, Shockley, and Josephson are Nobel Prize winners).

2. Mr. cooler has been informed of the evidence for the relationship between HIV and AIDS on numerous occasions on this blog. Like the young earth creationists who he so much resembles, he choses to ignore the evidence or hand wave it away. Quite frankly, Mr. cooler is a tiresome crank and nobody in the scientific community has the slightest interest in anything he has to say any more then they have any interest in what his counterparts amongst the young earth creationists, the geocentric solar system nuts, or the flat earthers have to say.

"Dr. Margolis was at one time a fine scientist but of late has turned into a whackjob"

She is unconvinced in one little area of science she admits not being hers and really doesn't talk about much unless prodded by the likes of you. This hardly makes her a whackjob. Every scientist stands out in one area or another with fringe ideas. What is important is that she is highly respected in her own area of expertise (Endosymbiotic theory) just as Duesberg is in his and they have made great scientific contributions in their respective specialties; to deny this is to be stupid and/or ignorant. You seem to have a "take all or nothing" approach to people and that makes you a whackjob in your own right. It is perfectly acceptable to say they are wrong about AIDS but dismissing them as whackjobs is the talk of a passive-aggressive, powerless teenager.

Her name is spelled Marg-U-lis not Marg-O-lis.

(to my defense, before the hail of insinuated abuse begins: I am an evolutionist and I know the world is round and cooler is not my buddy in arms. I just take issue with extremist "take all or nothing" non-sense coming from the people I am supposed to turn to for level headed science)

So, the Pharmawhores are now defending the PharmaMonster!

Re pat

As I stated, Dr. Margulis has no qualifications to pontificate about the relationship between HIV and AIDS. Given that fact, which she apparently admits, she is in no position to contest the scientific consensus on the issue. Prof. Deusberg, who earlier on had a distinguished career, particularly in the study of retroviruses, has been totally discredited by the scientific community relative to his insistance that HIV and AIDS are unrelated. Denial of that relationship is considered equivalent to evolution denial by the scientific community (interestingly enough, one of the organizations pushing this nonrelationship notion is the Discovery Institute, particularly Jonathan Wells and Philip Johnson, both young earth creationists).

For the information of Mr. pat, Linus Pauling, J. Allen Hynek, William Shockley, and Brian Josephson have also made great contributions to science. As I pointed out in an earlier comment, Pauling, Shockley, and Josephson are Nobel laureates, the highest honor that can come to a scientist. Unfortunately, Prof. Pauling insisted that vitamin C could cure cancer, Prof. Hynek insisted that there was credible evidence of visitations by extraterrestrials, and Prof. Josephson insists that PK, ESP, and cold fusion are real phenomena. Crackpot ideas all.

My position on the matter is that when one pushes a crackpot idea, it is fair comment to label such a person a whackjob.

Dr. Margulis' more recent ideas on endosymbiosis strike me as pretty far out. She reminds me of the typical general who won a spectacular victory at an early age and spent the rest of his career refighting the same battle. Chloroplasts and mitochondria, yes. Peroxysomes, maybe (doubtful, IMO). Flagelli (from spirochetes)? Ridiculous (IMO).

What we can conclude from this is that they was never any "overwhelming evidence" presented 20 years ago, or else slc would have provided it as I asked, instead, he just name called as usual.

I've repeteadly been told by Tara and Moore that the debate was won by the hiv beleivers 20 years ago in the peer reviewed literature, ie, overwhelming evidence that proved causality was presented 20 years ago, and you still cant give me that overwhemlimg evidence that you claim won the debate 20 years ago? Lauaghable.

If anything overwhelming evidence has come out against the hypothesis.

1. all the hundereds of chimps inoculated that were supposed to die didnt after 20 years.

2. When Gallo admitted the virus in 1/10000 cells all kinds of speculations were made, and no one really knows how this can destroy the immune system, now they claim the body is teeming with virus with 100,000 hiv per ml plasma loads, got any electron microscopic pics of this? of course not. Even if this were true, the patient would be dead within weeks, for every cell would be infected, ie no explanation for the 10 year lag.

3. The window period was extended from 10 months to ten years, talk about extending the goalposts!

4. Cant wait for that vaccine well all test positive then! antibodies usually protect agaisnt viral disease.

There is no scientific consensus never has been, the entire Armed forces institute of pathology came out agaist the hypothesis in 1992, headed by their highest ranking infectious disease pathologist shyh ching lo md phd, not to mention duesberg and his collegues at UCB, not to mention Margulis, etc etc. Thats alot of people to come forward considering the censorship and intimidation, your whole hypothesis is a house of cards waiting to fall.

Oh did I mention that shyh ching lo discovered a novel strain of mycoplasma ingonitus that killed every animal he injected.........thanks because of all the orthodoxy's stupidity this microbe has spread through the population masquerading as CFS, depression etc.

Still waiting for those experiments proving causality that won you guys the debate 20 years ago.

see hiv fact or fraud
google Project day lily.

Oh by the way I have original documents proving mycoplasma incognitus as pathenogenic to humans. Part of the bioweapons program. Project Day Lily google it.

"Researchers at the U. S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, D. C., and the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, have found compelling evidence that a previously unrecognized opportunistic infection -- one potentially treatable with antibiotics -- may be a major cause of illness in people with AIDS. Many infections of organs including the brain, spleen, liver, or lymph nodes -- as well as some systemic infections -- might be caused by the newly-discovered organism, called Mycoplasma incognitus. Until now, these infections would be counted among the many which cannot be diagnosed.
While the first report of the organism now known as Mycoplasma incognitus was published over three years ago, most of what is now known was learned later and published last year. And only in the last few weeks has the AIDS research community paid serious attention. Until recently the new organism was mistakenly believed to be a virus, and its discovery seemed to have little immediate relevance to treatment.

Then a series of five articles by Shyh-Ching Lo and others in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, between February and November 1989, showed:

(1) The new organism is a mycoplasma -- which is potentially treatable. Mycoplasma, a form of life between bacteria and viruses in complexity, was discovered about 100 years ago. Some species are known to cause human diseases.

The published articles only hint that the new organism might be treatable with antibiotics. But scientists at AFIP tested 15 common antibiotics against the Mycoplasma incognitus in the laboratory. A detailed report is being prepared for publication, but because of the public-health importance of the information, AFIP released a list of the drugs and their effective concentrations in a separate document. Doxycycline, tetracycline, clindamycin, lincomycin, and ciprofloxacin were found to be effective against Mycoplasma incognitus. But erythromycin, the antibiotic most commonly used to treat mycoplasma infections, was not effective -- and penicillin, streptomycin, gentamicin, and others also had no effect.

(2) Mycoplasma incognitus was found in the thymus, liver, spleen, lymph node, or brain of 22 of 34 persons who had died of AIDS. The patients who were selected for this autopsy study had all had evidence of organ failures.

(3) In a separate study with different patients, the mycoplasma was found in seven of ten persons with AIDS. Also, a much earlier study had found Mycoplasma incognitus in blood lymphocytes of 12 of 23 living persons with AIDS -- but in none of 22 healthy blood donors used as controls.

(4) The mycoplasma was also found in six HIV-negative patients (with no sign of AIDS) from different parts of the world, who had died in one to seven weeks of an undiagnosed infection.

No one knows how the organism spreads, but evidently it is not by casual contact, as family members of infected persons have not become infected themselves.

(5) Four monkeys were injected with Mycoplasma incognitus; all died in seven to nine months. The organism was found in the spleens of all the monkeys, and in some other organs as well. It was not found in a fifth monkey tested as a control.

(6) Extensive evidence from electron-microscope examinations, from specially designed PCR tests to look for the DNA of Mycoplasma incognitus, and from immunologic tests, showed that the organism was concentrated in lesions in affected organs. Mycoplasma incognitus is unusual in that it often infects and kills tissue without causing an inflammatory reaction, suggesting that it disables or evades part of the immune system.

Altman LK. Unusual microbe, once dismissed, is now taken more seriously. THE NEW YORK TIMES, January 16, 1990, page B6.

Booth, W; Specter, M. Microbe may play role in AIDS, other diseases. THE WASHINGTON POST, January 5, 1990, page A3.

Lo SC; Dawson MS; Wong DM; Newton PB 3d; Sonoda MA; Engler WF; Wang RY; Shih JW; Alter JH; Wear DJ. Identification of Mycoplasma incognitus infection in patients with AIDS: an immunohistochemical, in situ hybridization and ultrastructural study. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, November 1989, volume 41, number 5, pages 601- 616.

Lo SC; Shih JW; Newton PB 3d; Wong DM; Hayes MM; Benish JR; Wear DJ; Wang RY. Virus-like infectious agent (VLIA) is a novel pathogenic mycoplasma: Mycoplasma incognitus. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, November 1989, volume 41, number 5, pages 586-600.

Lo SC; Dawson MS; Newton PB 3rd; Sonoda MA; Shih JW; Engler WF; Wang RY; Wear DJ. Association of the virus-like infectious agent originally reported in patients with AIDS with acute fatal disease in previously healthy non-AIDS patients. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, September 1989, volume 41, number 3, pages 364-376.

Lo SC; Wang RY; Newton PB 3d; Yang NY; Sonoda MA; Shih JW. Fatal infection of silvered leaf monkeys with a virus-like infectious agent (VLIA) derived from a patient with AIDS. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, April 1989, volume 40, number 4, pages 399-409.

Lo SC; Shih JW; Yang NY; Ou CY; Wang RY. A novel virus-like infectious agent in patients with AIDS. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE, February 1989, volume 40, number 2, pages 213-226.

In addition, the NEW YORK NATIVE has published frequent and sometimes controversial coverage of this research.

spent the rest of his career refighting the same battle

Yeah and Margulis spend the rest of her career rewriting the same book!! Or getting a dude to write it with her.

Like I said last year about Margulis here's a person who was so into a political movement she let it effect her science. OK we're all people that's fine we all get influenced by stuff. Thing is most great scientists back in the day like Christian scientists or Muslim scientists they were great bc they could ignore their superstitions not bc of their sperstition.

For Maruglis it was like, anti-capitalism and there is no such thing called competition we should all help each other. So evolution happened bc of co-operation not competition. So she found out about mitochondria or she made the theory any way and other people proved it. Great!! I love co operation I think its great that diverse people can get together and do stuff together like in my lab!! Doesn't mean competition doens't happen or its just a human male thing. Did Margulis ever look at the real world I doubt it , I was watching cats in my yard this morning fighting about something. Didn't look like symbiosis it was like a war. Competition for resources. Ugly but true sorry Margulis and marxism isn't allways better then fascism they both suck. IT really sucks when you do ideological science, now and then you get something right like endosymbiosis but usaully not like Lysenko and millions die.

"As I stated, Dr. Margulis has no qualifications to pontificate about the relationship between HIV and AIDS."

She hardly "pontificates"; she merely answers when prodded.

"Prof. Deusberg, who earlier on had a distinguished career, particularly in the study of retroviruses, has been totally discredited by the scientific community relative to his insistance that HIV and AIDS are unrelated. Denial of that relationship is considered equivalent to evolution denial by the scientific community"

It is considered equivalent perhaps only in your narrow- minded world (which is what, by the way, other than "blogsciences"?)Just because he is wrong about one thing hardly makes him wrong about all other things; that would be poor logic. The fact that he is "discredited in HIV science" hardly discredits him in cancer science. Have you ever asked Duesberg or Margulis about their views on evolution? I doubt it but you now sound like Adele making wild insinuations light-years from reality.

"(interestingly enough, one of the organizations pushing this nonrelationship notion is the Discovery Institute, particularly Jonathan Wells and Philip Johnson, both young earth creationists)"

Interesting perhaps but irrelevant to the persons in question, unless you are into politics. Is Margulis a member of the discovery institute? Is Duesberg? You sound like an idiot making irrelevant remarks, sorry but it is so.

"My position on the matter is that when one pushes a crackpot idea, it is fair comment to label such a person a whackjob"

This comment makes you a thoroughly immature and superficial interlocutor. It perhaps is a crackpot idea but that hardly makes the whole person a "crackpot". You make the fundamental mistake of confusing the messenger with the message. Perhaps you could clarify your position by answering this question:
Is margulis' idea of Endosymbiotic theory a crackpot idea?
or is it the idea of a crackpot? (hint: you answered it yourself with "Crackpot ideas" So are we talking about crackpots, or crackpot ideas? One is simply a detail, the other a whole person)I don't have to explain the difference to an intelligent person like yourself, do I?

"Yeah and Margulis spend the rest of her career rewriting the same book!! Or getting a dude to write it with her."

You, Adele, can spend the rest of your life learning how to write.

"Did Margulis ever look at the real world I doubt it , I was watching cats in my yard this morning fighting about something. Didn't look like symbiosis it was like a war. Competition for resources"

Stupidity always seeks the comfort of simplicity. Cats are not social creatures, we are. Cats hate eachother unless it is springtime. We, on the other hand need eachother all year round. I just thought I would point out the difference to you. Obviously you don't own or understand cats nor do you understand the different survival tactics of the various species. Read Darwin, a riveting story it is.
Have you ever heard this one: "In numbers we strive"? That does not apply as much to cats as it does to us HUMANS!

Unless you own a 30/06 or a 12 gauge, I'd like to see you hunt on your own the way a cat does :). Better yet, show me where your food comes from outside of the super market!!!

Yeah and Margulis spend the rest of her career rewriting the same book!! Or getting a dude to write it with her."

Yeah, and Adele can spend the rest of her "career" commenting on various blogs. Or getting some loser to actually sleep with her:)

Re pat

1. "Have you ever asked Duesberg or Margulis about their views on evolution? "

It is my understanding that Dr. Margulis rejects the theory of natural selection as a mechanism for driving evolution. Rather far from a mainstream view.

2. Mr. pat says that Prof. Margulis' only possibly crackpot idea is that HIV is unrelated to AIDS and that therefore, it is unfair to label her a crackpot. OK, fair enough. Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims, in the absence of even a shred of evidence, that vitamin C can cure cancer is not a crackpot? Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims that the earth is being visited by extraterrestrials is not a crackpot? Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims that PK, ESP, and cold fusion are real phenomena is not a crackpot?

3. I haven't the slightest idea what Endosymbiotic theory is and hence am unable to comment on it. However, Mr. AK who commented earlier appears to have a low opinion of at least some aspects of this theory.

4. I have read some reviews of Prof. Deusbergs' cancer article in the Scientific American and they are uniformly negative. However, in fairness to the good professor, some of the negativity may be due to the disdain of the reviewers for his HIV/AIDS theories. As a matter of fact, I commented on another blog that the Scientific American article should be judged on its' merits ignoring Prof. Deusbergs ideas about HIV and AIDS. This in response to some of the reviewers who opined that the article should have been rejected out of hand because of Prof. Deusbergs' previous writings.

Re cooler

1. Mr. cooler cites articles from almost 20 years ago in defense of his position that HIV is unrelated to AIDS. He will have to do better then that. In addition, articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post hardly constitute peer reviewed literature. Furthermore, the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene doesn't exactly seem like a likely venue for articles on HIV/AIDS, assuming that Mr. cooler has accurately described the contents of those articles, an unlikely occurrence. How about citing articles from JAMA or NEJM.

Incidentally, the nasty comments from both Mr. pat and Mr. cooler about Ms. Adele are uncalled for. They only reflect negatively on those two gentleman, if we may stretch that term somewhat.

First off: "Mr." is nice but pat would suffice.

"Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims, in the absence of even a shred of evidence, that vitamin C can cure cancer is not a crackpot?"

Is all his research therefor worthless? No. Does Margulis concur with this? No, she doesn't as far as I can tell. You are confusing Margulis and Linus Pauling. I won't hold it against you; it is a very common fallacy with posters on this blog and you can now count yourself as one of them.

"Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims that the earth is being visited by extraterrestrials is not a crackpot?"

Is all his research therefor worthless? No. Does Margulis concur with this? No, she doesn't as far as I can tell. You are confusing Margulis and Prof. Hynek. I won't hold it against you; it is a very common fallacy with posters on this blog and you can now count yourself as one of them.

"Does Mr. pat consider that someone who claims that PK, ESP, and cold fusion are real phenomena is not a crackpot? "

Is all his research therefor worthless? No. Does Margulis concur with this? No, she doesn't as far as I can tell. You are confusing Margulis and Prof. Josephson. I won't hold it against you; it is a very common fallacy with posters on this blog and you can now count yourself as one of them.

"I haven't the slightest idea what Endosymbiotic theory is and hence am unable to comment on it. However, Mr. AK who commented earlier appears to have a low opinion of at least some aspects of this theory."

Then how can you say that "your understanding is..."? Perhaps you should shut up about Margulis until you do have an understanding. Mr AK, who you don't know, is your authority on this? now you really sound dumb. Try google and see what gives. Have fun with it.

" However, in fairness to the good professor, some of the negativity may be due to the disdain of the reviewers for his HIV/AIDS theories. As a matter of fact, I commented on another blog that the Scientific American article should be judged on its' merits ignoring Prof. Deusbergs ideas about HIV and AIDS."

Well...what are the merits? Scientific American is a version of popular science I take. What are the merits? C'mon...you can make up your own mind without the help of a popular science rag!

"Incidentally, the nasty comments from both Mr. pat and Mr. cooler about Ms. Adele are uncalled for. They only reflect negatively on those two gentleman, if we may stretch that term somewhat."

The fact that cooler and I write nasty comments about Adele is indeed "incidental". The point is, Adele couldn't write intelligibly if her life depended on it; half her posts are indicipherable and reflect a general lack of care for clarity and a general preference for insinuation and fabrication; you be the judge and I am no gentleman with her, I speak plainly that she is stupid and debased.

pat writes The fact that he [Duesberg] is "discredited in HIV science" hardly discredits him in cancer science.

Duesberg's arguments that aneuploidy, not mutations, is the sole cause cancer are nothing more than opinions based on flawed theoretical arguments that are not only not supported by data but are contraindicated by existing experimental evidence - these are the 'facts' that discredit Duesberg in this field.

Discredited in that field too? Really Dale?

Re pat

1. Apparently, Mr. pat is unaware of the fact that the Scientific American article I referred to was written by Prof. Deusberg. Thus we may assume that it accurately reflects his views on the matter. Furthermore, not being a medical researcher, I am in no position to make any assessment as to the merits of Prof. Deusbergs' views on the issues described in the article, nor is suspect is Mr. pat or Mr. cooler. Unlike Mr. pat and Mr. cooler, cooler, I defer to the experts in the field. As somebody who earned a PhD in elementary particle physics, I would be perturbed by a medical professional questioning the theory of quantum mechanics, just as a medical professional would be perturbed by my questioning a medical theory.

2. I am afraid that Mr. pat and I will have to agree to disagree on the subject of identification of crackpots, hopefully not disagreeably. The fact that Prof. Margulis, Prof. Pauling, Prof. Shockley, Prof. Deusberg, Prof. Josephson, and Prof. Hynek have distinguished records records of scientific achievement in no way immunizes them from crackpottery.

3. Based on previous threads in this blog, it appears that Ms. Adele is a medical professional who is more qualified to discuss the subject of HIV/AIDS then are Messrs pat and cooler.

SLC
It is clear that when you have nothing to say about Duesberg's or Margulis' science you should fall back onto name calling but I fail to understand why. You have no understanding about the sciences these two specialise in but somewhere you picked up someone else's opinion that they are crackpots and now sling it around as if it were your very own poop.
There is no disagreeing with you because you skip that part and go straight into name calling (crackpot). You are one unforgiving extremist but it is a good thing that you only live here where your extremist judgementalism of other people's character is boxed away in the insignificance of the blogshere.
Adele is a grand standing illiterate dolt who may have gotten some sort of degree from cereal box and if what you say about her is a mark of respectability and knowledge then surely Duesberg and Margulis deserve your respect as well but for some pathological reason you cannot seperate those names and the word "crackpot". Go over the threads and "try" to read anything Adele ever had to say about anything. Her "words" are the rantings of a professionally frustrated "crackpot" indeed who has yet to make any contributions to science very much unlike the people you so naively write off as crackpots. I will take crackpot Duesberg or Margulis any day over her illiterate idiocy.
But lets agree to disagree on what makes a crackpot a crackpot.

Re: SLC January 12, 2008 8:18 PM

I haven't the slightest idea what Endosymbiotic theory is and hence am unable to comment on it. However, Mr. AK who commented earlier appears to have a low opinion of at least some aspects of this theory.

More accurate to say I have a low opinion of its application to peroxysomes and especially flagella.

Re: Pat January 12, 2008 9:22 PM

Mr AK, who you don't know, is your authority on this?

If "Mr AK" wanted to be taken as an authority he would have posted under his full name with links to credentials. I should note, from the link posted above, the "At present the symbiotic hypothesis for the origin of cilia seems to be limited to Margulis and a few of her associates.".

Re pat

I call Prof. Deusberg and Prof. Margulis crackpots because the overwhelming preponderance of the scientific community considers their ideas about HIV/AIDS to be crackpottery. I suggest that Mr. pat is no more qualified to discuss this issue then he is to discuss the General Theory of Relativity or quantum mechanics. I have been patient with Mr. pat but his vicious broadsides against Ms. adele cannot go without response. The fact is that Mr. pat is a pompous, pusillanimous pinheaded prick who doesn't know his nether region from a hole in the ground. He is in the same catagory as Dr. William Dumbski and Jonathan Wells at the Discovery Institute. Mr. pat, if you don't like it, you are hereby invited to stick it where the sun don't shine.

"SLC":

"As somebody who earned a PhD in elementary particle physics, I would be perturbed by a medical professional questioning the theory of quantum mechanics, just as a medical professional would be perturbed by my questioning a medical theory."

What a joke to even compare the intracacies of particle physics to the fundamental questions on HIV.

You don't have to have a PhD or MD to recognize a PILE OF SHIT when you see it.

The holes in the HIV hypothesis are completely obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense and half a brain cell still functioning. The questions dissidents raise about HIV are very down-to-earth and straightforward.

"Future historians will have to grapple with the question of how the US Public Health Service and the medical establishments of the entire world could have gone so disastrously wrong. How could people of the late 20th century ever have believed anything so manifestly preposterous as the now-prevailing AIDS myths?"

I suggest you stop worrying about whether someone needs a PhD or MD to tell whether 2 + 2 = 4, and read Casper Schmidt's early essay:

http://www.reviewingaids.com/awiki/index.php/Document:Group-Fantasy_Ori…

darin

SLC,

Your comments, even from someone "with a PhD in elementary particle physics", remind me of the central sociological fact surrounding the reaction you embody:

This has nothing to do with the HIV hypothesis. Nothing to do with the pros vs. cons of vaccine administration. Nothing to do with whether global warming is human-caused. Nothing to do with the cause of the 9-11 attacks. Nothing to do with the issues.

It's all about "joining the anti-crankery club". It's all about getting patted on the back for "being skeptical". It's all about wearing "Skeptical Inquirer" t-shirts and throwing around terms like "whackjob" (implying that anyone who doubts a consensus viewpoint is akin to ejaculate fluid) and "denier" (implying that anyone who doubts a consensus viewpoint is akin to Holocaust deniers). It's all about having your ego stroked for helping in the fight against "scientific illiteracy" and "the cult of irrationality". It's all about the "taboo reaction" so eloquently and prophetically expressed by Feyerabend in Against Method years ago:

"Science [relating another person's characterization] ... is characterised by an essential scepticism; 'when failures start to come thick and fast, defence of the theory switches inexorably to attack on it'.' This is possible because of the 'openness' of the scientific enterprise, because of the pluralism of ideas it contains and also because whatever defies or fails to fit into the established category system is not something horrifying, to be isolated or expelled. On the contrary, it is an intriguing 'phenomenon' - a starting-point and a challenge for the invention of new classifications and new theories. We can see that Horton has read his Popper well. A field study of science itself shows a very different picture... Such a study reveals that, while some scientists may proceed as described, the great majority follow a different path. Scepticism is at a minimum; it is directed against the view of the opposition and against minor ramifications of one's own basic ideas, never against the basic ideas themselves. Attacking the basic ideas evokes taboo reactions which are no weaker than are the taboo reactions in so-called "primitive societies." Basic beliefs are protected by this reaction as well as by secondary elaborations, as we have seen, and whatever fails to fit into the established category system or is said to be incompatible with this system is either viewed as something quite horrifying or, more frequently, it is simply declared to be non-existent."

Read over the responses generated at this blog in reaction to HIV, vaccines, global warming, 9-11, etc. REGARDLESS OF THE MERITS OF THE DOUBTERS ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES, can anyone doubt that the "taboo reaction" expressed by the defenders of the faith here is any weaker than that in so-called "primitive societies"??

darin

"Future historians will have to grapple with the question of how the US Public Health Service and the medical establishments of the entire world could have gone so disastrously wrong. How could people of the late 20th century ever have believed anything so manifestly preposterous as the now-prevailing AIDS myths?"

Current historians will have to note that Casper Schmidt died from AIDS shortly after destroying all of his papers and manuscripts relating to the second part of "The Group-Fantasy Origins of AIDS".

SLC, I didnt write that summary of Lo's work, it was written by the John James of The Aegis group(an aids advocacy group, theyre not denialists") I didnt post the whole article bc "john james" was written in big print and who knows with this stupid spam filter what would happen.

As far as not being published in Science, who cares, Science published Gallo's crappy work, shows you what a distinguished journal they are, they are a maintstream journal that will not publish anything that rocks Faucis propaganda. Ie they dont seem to different than the scientific journals in Communist Russia and would never do to much to sway from the CDC's dogma.

Darin is right, this has nothing to to with the evidence, it has to to with an emotional attachment to certain widely held beleifs, ie just like in Orwells 1984 the attitude to solid evidence that debunks things that are beleived by everbody is that it must be crazy, for everyone beleives it, and theres no way the Mainstream media, government, the CDC, and the thousands of Doctors and scientists that view these institutions as the arbiters of truth and mindlessly follow them could be so incompetent and corrupt..

Here's what our idiotic friend SLC writes:

"I call Prof. Deusberg and Prof. Margulis crackpots"

First, you spelled Duesberg wrong.

Second, both are tenured professors at major American universities. Are you?

Third, both have a substantial body of peer-reviewed, published work. Try Google Scholar (correct spellings would help). Do you have any meaningful published works in your field? I tried "SLC" and didn't get much!

Fourth, both are members of the National Academy of Science -- the best of the best our country has to offer. I doubt you could even spell NAS, let alone be considered as a potential member.

SLC, please pause for a second. Take a breather. Think about this. 3 guys on the couch in front of a t.v., of course, can criticize or even slander Peyton Manning or Bobby Knight or Barry Bonds. That's the beauty of spectator sport and the First Amendment.

But you're a nobody -- the equivalent of an internet couch potato, criticizing a man and woman who have more scientific achievement in a month than you've had in your entire life. Cogitate on that, my friend:)

Not only them, but the entire Armed Forces of Pathology, one of the most sophisticated infectious disease Labs in the world, equipped to deal with a biological weapons attack from another country headed by Col. Douglas Wear MD and their Cheif infectious disease Pathologist Shyh ching Lo md phd came out in support of Duesberg and against the HIv hypothesis in the early 1990's.

They also clearly proved novel strains of mycoplamsa incognitus/penetrans were pathenogenic to humans,(see above) yes these people have far more expertise than SLC, tara or Orac etc. So there is an expert consensus, and the best scientists in the world like Duesberg, Lo and Margulis have spoken out against it.

I will take them over Moore the hack who hasnt won one award in his sorry carrer, Gallo who has been riddled with fraud accusations his entire career, and Gadjuseck the child molester.

According to Mr. Particle Physics' definition of whackjob, our lovey hostess, Miss Tara Smith, surely is the premier specimen. In her latest literary blog tour de force - as usual borrowed from elsewhere - she proposes following theory of comedy:

This would be funnier if people didn't actually believe it...

The thesis that something is funny in proportion to its unreality is so far from mainstream theories of comedy that the author of it can only be characterized in terms of the rankest "ejaculatory fluid".

Miss Smith, allow me to enlighten you. The reason why the cartoon is not funny is precisely that it is not real - nobody believes "it". The attempted caricature of a "CAM" is one created and peddled by the drug industry and all the other cowardly anti-crank leaguers the same way FOX News peddles caricatures of "far left nut cases".

It's simply a childish piece of infoganda, saying we, the drug industry, are mature and rational, and anybody who thinks otherwise we'll call a crackpot and we'll use all means at our disposal to silence them. Even your own badly written comment is designed to show how serious and reposnsible you are while broadcasting tasteless cheap shots.

So where's the joke? There isn't any. The joke is you guys and your insecurity which makes you indulge in this kind of wishful thinking that reduces everything including yourselves to infantile self-serving caricatures.

Actually, only one truly funny joke has come out of this entire string of drivel so far, and it was from Eddie. Why is it funny? you are undoubtedly compelled to ask. Because it embraces the caricature and in doing so turns it against the very peddlers of it. That's witty:

So, the Pharmawhores are now defending the PharmaMonster!

Let me know if y'all got it.

The best NY Times headline and article ever!

Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?

Big Pharma surely ain't no silly cartoon -- but those sneaky little bastards are real good at marketing and selling drugs for phantom diseases.

To make money ya gotta make up diseases --don't you get this Smith?

So where's the joke?

http://www.whale.to/

"I call Prof. Deusberg and Prof. Margulis crackpots because the overwhelming preponderance of the scientific community considers their ideas about HIV/AIDS to be crackpottery."

But the overwhealming majority do not smear their character for it, so why does this blog have the impulse to do so?
Thank you spelling your problem out. You go from the crackpotty idea straight to the personal. These two are very much seperable but not to the intellectually week and powerless. The cornerstone of any decent science is one's ability to question anything and everything without anyone needing their characters judged by it. Anyone who strays off that path and makes character calls is in effect opening themselves up to return broadsides on their own character. The specialty of this blog is to put people's character on trial for their fringe ideas. It is plainly obvious that this blog is populated by "lab dogs" that powerlessly bark and squeek up the legs of intellectual giants. The fact remains that inspite of their "fringe" ideas, their contributions to science will always dwarf anything and everything that that spews forth on this blog.

Unfortunately, Dr. Noble, you entirely missed the point. The joke is here:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_…

Re Mountain Man

"Second, both are tenured professors at major American universities. Are you?"

1. Both Prof. Margulis and Prof. Duesberg received tenure before embarking on their journey into crackpottery.

2. Prof. Michael Behe is also a tenured professor at a respectable university (Lehigh) and is universally considered a crackpot for his notions of intelligent design.

3. Prof. Linus Pauling was a tenured professor at a prestigious university (Cal Tech) and a Nobel prize winner to boot. Those facts are meaningless relative to his crackpot views about vitamin C.

4. Prof. Brian Josephson is a tenured professor at a prestigious university in Great Britain (Cambridge) and a Nobel prize winner to boot. Those facts are meaningless relative to his crackpot views about PK, ESP, and cold fusion.

5. Prof. J. Allen Hynek was a tenured professor at a prestigious university (Northwestern) and a former president of the American Astronomical Association to boot. Those facts are meaningless relative to his crackpot views about alien abductions and extraterrestrial visitations.

"Third, both have a substantial body of peer-reviewed, published work. Try Google Scholar (correct spellings would help)."

So do Hynek, Josephson, and Pauling. So what? They're still crackpots for proposing pseudoscientific garbage.

Mountain Man you wonder why SLC mis-spells Duesberg, BC deus means god and you people worship Deus-berg. Its a joke get it? Or a mistake who knows who cares get over it you know who slc means.

OK people Lynn Margulis denies competition in the natural world!! OK?? She says it in her books. She says its not competition, thats just a male capitalist construct. So when I tell you pat goes nuts and turns it into if I know alot about cats and if I am a survivalist. Doesn't matter Margulis says no competition!!

Pat do you have some stuff there about what I fabricated bc if not don't accuse me. Alot of people fabricate stuff here like cooler who says John Moore never got award. Alot more people repeat crap they hear and they don't check it. Like Noreen says Bill Clinton pardoned Bob Gallo on crimes against humannity and Amy Justice says protease inhibitors causes most AIDS deaths. Sheesh.

Why are we discussing this? Cooler, MEC, Mountain Man seem to have some pained compulsion to post nonsense, but Adele, Chris Noble, SLC, Pat, you should know better than to bother debating this nonsense with such people. We have 4 threads that refuse to die based on this, learn your lesson.

Hear, hear, apy.

Also, please, dear commenters - thimerosAl, not thimerosOl. If you're going to fight about it credibly, you need to learn to spell it.

If you go to Jp moores website at Cornell and click on "awards and Honors" the page is blank, im not making this up.

Jen m, are you kidding me, it's here here, not hear hear, and its credibility, not credibly coco bird. I couldnt give a hoot about spelling for its a blog not a term paper, but you are the one preaching than you should practice.

Jen m since you are a subtle shill for the HIV crowd, just provide me with the peer reviewed evidence proving HIV's causality that won you the debate 20 years ago in the scientific literature as people like you, Tara etc always claim. Waiting.

Mec, that link was classic on the hiv vaccine.

Here is jp moores own website at cornell, the link where you click "awards and Honors" Its Blank. LOL. And hes your leading proponent of this hypothesis who badmouths far more distinguished scientists? What a joke.

http://www.med.cornell.edu/research/jpmoore/awardsandhonors.html

I didn't know there was two J P Moores at Cornell I guess its the other one has all those awards!

Like the "Freedom to Discover" Distinguished Acheivement Award did you know 17 recipents got the Nobel prize later? To bad for JP Moore the other JP Moore who does AIDS research at Cornell got it not him!!

The adverb "credibly" modifies the verb "fight". The sentence as you proposed it would read, "If you're going to fight about it credibility, you need to learn to spell it." Did you think I meant, "If you're going to fight about its credibility..."? I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Thimerosal, an inert chemical, can't be said to have credibility, but the people arguing about it can do so credibly or incredibly.

The Oxford English Dictionary (to which you should have online access, as a Berkeley alum) states that "hear, hear!" or "hear-hear!" is a repeated form of the imperative "hear!" and "is used as an exclamation to call attention to a speaker's words, and hence has become a general expression of approbation or 'cheering'." The OED Online does not list anything for "here, here" or "here, here".

I don't maintain that anyone should be using one's best and most formal language in blog comments, but one's level of knowledge and understanding of a subject are open to criticism when one clearly cannot spell the subject. Note that I have never, anywhere, criticized the widespread and appalling abuse of the apostrophe in the comments here. Until we discuss apostrophes, I will not comment on a particular person's confusion of "its" and "it's".

I am not a shill (a mouthpiece posing as a disinterested party) for anyone or anything. I've always been pretty frank about the fact I believe that HIV causes AIDS, but I don't see the relevance to the original post, nor to thimerosal. I am not interested in your eternally repeated pseudo-challenges, particularly not when they're irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Psuedo challenges?
just provide me with the experiments that won you guys the debate in the peer reviewed literature 20 years ago, stupid puppett. Beaker from the muppetts has more scientific knowledge than you do.

I totally agree with you cooler, this is the beak, infact in our labratory we have confirmed everything that Lo and duesberg have been saying, hiv is harmless, and its only the Day lily mycoplasma that is a threat to humans and puppets alike,
Beaker.

The peer reviewed literature is waiting for a scientifically credible (as in data based) challenge to the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS. It's been 20 years, where is it?

Duesberg answered this best in another interview, just because he doesnt beleive in Santa Claus doesnt mean he needs to find another santa claus, nevertheless there are several more probable causes, AZT, mycoplasmas, severe terror of impending death, severe drug abuse.

Still waiting, you guys say youve won the debate 20 years ago by providing overwhelming evidence for hiv's causality in the peer reviewed literature, how come its so hard to provide us with this evidence?, I just did it above for mycoplamsa incognitus as pathenogenic to humans,Lo clearly ruled it to be the cause of death of 6 previously healthy people that died and he induced a fatal wasting disease in mice and monkeys with mycoplasma incognitus, and saw it with the electron microscope please give me the same type of causal evidence for hiv that won you the debate 20 years ago.

Cooler, what is your first language, anyway? I am pretty sure Adele's is German, and Jan Spreen's is Dutch, and clearly both of them also speak at least one language other than English, but I can't identify your milk tongue. French, maybe?

I speak 100 languages, im one of the worlds most preimere science journalists, you have to know many lanuages to spread such iconaclastic wisdom as I have been doing.

Jennie dear,

Adele's first and only language is streamofconsciusness.

But I see you prefer to stay on topic, so what did you think of the Pharma-monster cartoon and the sense of humour displayed? Does the cartoon accurately depict anything? Does it detract from the funiness that "they believe it"? Does Tara Smith's appaling writing skills and lack of originality impinge in any way on her credibility?

MEC, I'm afraid we don't know each other well enough to use endearments or nicknames. I would use your title if I knew it. (Just to head it off at the pass - everyone seems to have opinions about who's who around here. Please don't take this as an invitation for third parties to identify MEC. I don't care if you think MEC is Dr. Who, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, or Dr. No - if MEC is happy as MEC, let it alone.)

I find Dr. Smith's writing clear, concise, and skilful, and her topic matter interesting. I know her credentials and have had a look at some of her work outside of the blog, and she's more than just credible. She's thoughtful, insightful, and well-educated, and she knows her epidemiology and her molecular microbiology. I wonder why you spend your time reading and commenting on a blog you find inferior in all respects, but to each his own. Maybe you see yourself as a gadfly.

Cectic isn't really my cup of tea. I think the cartoon represents the nightmares of those who really believe that the needs of Big Pharma are the sole motive for mainstream academic science, yes, and I do believe that those nightmares are just bad dreams, not reality. I don't actually think those people are crazy paranoids in need of being locked up, and I don't find the humor of exaggeration very funny as a rule. (Just a matter of taste.)

As to the skeptical thinking thing - my dad, may he rest in peace, actually taught critical thinking, and was very fond of the Skeptical Inquirer and the people who publish there often. He knew a lot about rhetoric and formal logic, as well as about both English literature (his primary field) and had a very good lay understanding of science. He had friends who were into the woo, quite deeply, and he made fun of them - but he also had friends who were about as concrete and linear as a cement block, and he made fun of them, too. He made fun of everyone. He was more seriously concerned about the tendency to reject information gathered by the scientific method in favor of the vague "other ways of knowing," though, and I respect and agree with his worries.

I guess my point is that I don't usually feel like I can make an honest argument - about HIV, about mycoplasmas, about thimerosal - because people have their talking points and no one will actually respond to anything of substance I might say with anything but insults or repetition (sometimes in caps and bold face, often with comma splices that make me want to cry). So I refrain from comment in the contentious threads, and hope that some threads will be about the stuff related to the post.

"Jen m, are you kidding me, it's here here, not hear hear"

it is in fact "hear, hear" as in "lend me your ears!"

"Pat do you have some stuff there about what I fabricated bc if not don't accuse me."-Adele

you insinuated that I like UN estimates about mercury when the are "high" and UN Aids estimates about AIDS when they are ZERO" when in fact I have never argued they were ZERO. An insinuated fabrication???

"Cooler, what is your first language, anyway? I am pretty sure Adele's is German"

Her mother tongue CANNOT be german. I say this because she thinks "Schubladendenken" sounds "nazi-like". I will have to dig that quote of her's out but trust me, very, very few german words sound "Nazi-like" to Germans with few exceptions. I connot think of one unless put into a specific historical context. Adele is not German. So much is certain.

She may be from Trans-Simpletonia

"Schlubadendenken" sounds like falling down a flight of stairs to me, which tells you what I know from German. Maybe she's from somewhere other than Germany that speaks German or a similarly structured language? Or maybe my "ear" for writing isn't as good as I'd like it to be. (No! It couldn't be!) I am sure Adele will eventually be along to correct me, one way or another.

("Insinuated Fabrication" would be a great name for a noodly jazz jam.)

"I find Dr. Smith's writing clear, concise, and skilful, and her topic matter interesting. I know her credentials and have had a look at some of her work outside of the blog, and she's more than just credible. She's thoughtful, insightful, and well-educated, and she knows her epidemiology and her molecular microbiology. I wonder why you spend your time reading and commenting on a blog you find inferior in all respects, but to each his own. Maybe you see yourself as a gadfly."

Jen m, you have won the butkisser bootlicking award of the century. Endlessly butkissing and bootlicking.

Some people come to these to blogs because they see how science has turned into tabloid politics that consist of 5 second soundbytes and demagoguery thats costing people their lives and many feel morally obligated to post.

Oh jeez golly, Not only did shyh ching Lo clearly kill every animal with mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans and not find it in one healthy control, here is a CDC case study clearly proving pathenogenicity in humans, a young 17 year old girl who was sucessfully treated because the hospital was familiar with Lo's work, if it were up to Tara et al she'd be dead........but you guys keep up the killing, good work orthodoxy defenders, Nicolson is finding this in half of CFS patients etc
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no1/yanez.htm

Quick someone brings a heater, looks like somebody's brain froze!

Ahhh, so many trolls, so much stupid. It hurts!

------------

As for the topic: Very nice comic. It fits perfectly to the loony trolls that seem to have infested here. Oh well, there probably exists a vaccine against them (it's even Thimerosal free and thus also save for Trolls and Conspiracy Theorists).

PS. @SLC

I envy you. You've got quite the endurance to argue with those... (dare I say... crackpots? Ah, no. Too harsh) other people. I wish I would had that much patience. I usually got tired of them after 5 minutes. :/

Yeah if I were stuck at junior college for the last 20 years like you are Id be pissed to. Stupid Nerd.

"Some people come to these to blogs because they see how science has turned into tabloid politics that consist of 5 second soundbytes and demagoguery thats costing people their lives and many feel morally obligated to post."

There goes another irony meter.

Good observation fat ass, have you lost any weight since you last ran your mouth against me? FAT PIG. People that stuff 50 twinkies in their mouth a day shouldnt be lecturing others.

Dont be a bitch and play victim, you badmouthed me on another blog, forcing me to bring up your weight problem, its all good fun though!

Stupid troll is very stupid. Then again, it's cooler...

Nick,
Please suck on shyh ching lo's balls to get some real intelligence in your life. Have a nice day. Since you guys are so obsessed with "whackjobs" perhaps you also should consider taking a cum explosion in the face from Duesberg......just a thought. (just collapased in complete laughter)

Rumor has it that Tara has bought 20 copies of Dr. Garth Nicolsons new book Project Day Lily for her close friends and family as a stocking stuffer for the holidays, ie shes a closet mycoplasma truther....

Jen,

I wonder why you spend your time reading and commenting on a blog you find inferior in all respects, but to each his own.

That's a very good question Jen. Like the brave Sir John I do not feel inclined to reveal my motives. But let this much be said, I don't find Pat and Cooler, not even yourself, to be inferior in all respects.

Judging from your own comments, not least last paragraph in your Comment above, one might wonder why you're wasting time writing on this blog, and more so in this thread.

I think the cartoon represents the nightmares of those who really believe that the needs of Big Pharma are the sole motive for mainstream academic science

Interesting interpretation. It would be one of those compensatory dreams then, since the dreaming ego imagines himself dressed as a sort of eco-farmer clown. I don't know if you want to get into attributing motives to science rather than to scientists. However, a tool serves the motives of those wielding it nicht wahr?

It's nice to know something about your father's influence on you. Now I almost feel I know you well enough to use endearments. I teach critical thinking myself, but I'm not quite sure what you and your father's worries about rejecting the scientific method in favour of "other ways of knowing" has to do with anything.

Thanks cooler! I take it as a complement that the best you can come up with against me is some non-existent "weight-problem". Meanwhile, I schooled you pretty damn good in those threads where you tried to defend absurd 9/11 conspiracies. All good fun, indeed!

Re Tyler DiPietro

So in addition to being an HIV/AIDS denier whackjob, Mr. cooler is a 9/11 conspiracy whackjob. Why am I not surprised? As is pointed out on Mr. Hoofnagels' site, most such individuals are multiple denialists. One only has to point to Philip Johnson and Jonathan Wells, evolution, global warming and HIV/AIDS denialists. I wonder what Mr. cooler thinks about global warming and evolution.

I definately beleive in evolution, but id' had to agree with John Stossel and The BBC after their great special "the great global warming swindle" that there is no "consensus" cause the temperature used to be much hotter and jack shit didnt happpen in the past and the temp actually dropped from 1940 to 1970, which is strange considering man made CO2 were at all time highs.

I agree with nobel prize winner Kary mullis, idiots like tyler and SLC are going to be worrying about a small increase in temprature that was easily handled in the past and huge asteroid is going to hit the earth, which is a much greater threat than global warming, you people are so stupid that you'll destroy humanity.

As far as 9/11 youd have to be complete idiot to accept the oct, planes disspearing while passsports survive. The japanese parliament just grilled the priminister that 9/11 was an inside job, its obvious knowledge to anyone with half a brain, not to mention the millions of views that informed people are getting on 9/11, zeitgeist and Loose change 2nd edition and final cut, Get your popcorn ready.

http://video.google.com/videorankings?type=viewed&range=d2008-01-15&cr=…

Thanks for the softball.

"Duesberg answered this best in another interview, just because he doesnt beleive in Santa Claus doesnt mean he needs to find another santa claus" -cooler

A strange thing to say (but that's Duesberg for you) since Duesberg did propose an alternative. He basically proposed Santa Claus as an explanation for Christmas gifts.

Cooler, the universally recognized cause for a pile of presents under the Christmas tree is someone bought them. Ie your parents, kiddo. Santa Claus is a fun little lie to tell children.

The universally recognized cause for AIDS is HIV, an infectious and harmful retrovirus discovered by Montagnier and Gallo. Duesberg's Santa Claus lie is that drugs cause AIDS. It's not a fun little lie like Santa Claus, but one that gets people killed.

Drugs are bad for you but they don't cause AIDS. We knew that in 1984. Duesberg just keeps ignoring the truth and believing in Santa Claus.

Now there's more truth for Santa's fans to ignore. AidsTruth has a new article on another study about drugs and AIDS.

http://www.aidstruth.org/Recreational-drug-use-is-not-the-cause-of-AIDS…

Here drug users actually have slightly higher CD4 levels than those who don't, if they're infected or not. And that's after controlling for things like antiretroviral usage, sexual practices, etc. That's not to say everyone should take drugs, because the difference isn't big enough to result in health gains. But it does indicate, AGAIN, Duesberg is completely wrong and always has been.

Aids truth calls Duesberg's theory "dead on arrival", it was. And now the deniers are carrying around the mummified corpse of old Saint Nick like the mother in Psycho.

If you think 9/11 was bad, look at what they did to the titanic.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07

Re siReNA

Excellent riposte to Mr. coolers nonsense.

Re cooler

1. Gee, John Stossel, now their's a world renown scientist for you, not. Mr. Stossel is right up their with Ann Coulter, Michael Savage (nee Weiner), Kevin Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh as your basic grade A right wing bloviator.

2. Gee, Cary Mullis, the old bimbo chaser and LSD imbiber. A crackpot, just like his fellow Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson.

Re Tyler DiPietro

Mr. cooler is even nuttier then I realized. Three out of four ain't bad.

Brilliant! Thanks Apy! If I still had a jaw I'd have dropped it again.

Sirena, thanks for providing the evidence proving hiv's causality that won you the debate 20 years ago in the peer reviewed literature. NOT! you didnt do that because such evidence does not exist, unless you talk about Gallo's paper that found hiv in 1 of 10,000 cells in 26 of 72 aids patients with no animal model, if you think that proves causality youve got a few screws loose.

SLC is nothing but a government cant tell a lie whackjob troll. You guys are just plain ignorant and uneducated, no differnet than the chinese people that worshipped the junk science Mao peddled.

Re cooler

"SLC is nothing but a government cant tell a lie whackjob troll. You guys are just plain ignorant and uneducated, no differnet than the chinese people that worshipped the junk science Mao peddled."

Judging by Mr. coolers' failure to place the apostrophe in can't, his misspelling of different and his failure to capitalize Chinese, apparently his meds are wearing off. Time to hit the lithium bottle again.

get a job loser

Oh, see, now, that Titanic link is funny.

MEC, I agree that I should have used the phrase "mainstream scientists" rather than "mainstream science" - but for the most part, I don't care what scientists say if they don't agree with the science. That's why citing Drs. Mullis and Margulis as scientists (rather than celebrities) doesn't cut a lot of ice with me. Neither of them does anything remotely relevant to AIDS. (For that matter, I was under the impression Dr. Mullis retired permanently from the lab and now spends his days surfing.) Dr. Duesberg at least refers to some science in his own field, even though I disagree with his interpretations. But all that's moot to this particular discussion. I'm not trying to dig at you, just to answer one of your points.

As to why I comment here (I'm guessing you didn't mean the "insinuating fabrication" thing, but the comment before that?) - well, it's mostly to acknowledge and encourage discussions other than the HIV thing, because I'm interested in epidemiology. Which is why I wrote what I did about Dr. Smith - I enjoy her work. I do get pulled into stupid catfights, and sometimes I stupidly respond to jibes. But mostly I keep on thinking we will all start talking to each other rationally, sooner or later. (Cue Lennon's "Imagine" here.)

Jen m theres nothing funny about people being exploded to bits and pieces to the point their bone fragments were found on top of other buildings and the family members that wonder why Cheney did everything to block the investigation and why those planes flew for over 90 minutes without being intercepted and not one person has been fired for incompetence, or that many family members wonder why a plane could dissapear in shankesville and a terrorists passport still survive.

Here we go again. For anyone who is even slightly impressed by cooler's ignorant ravings (slim risk, I know), Mark Iradian has compiled a handy document undermining the major claims of the 9/11 conspiracy mongers. I'd suggest consulting that, and also viewing his annotated and corrected version of crank video "Loose Change".

Jen,

I don't want to keep bugging you, but this thing about science and scientists. . . What exactly do you mean you don't care what scientists say if they don't agree with "the science"? What is "the science"? From your next sentence it looks like you mean you don't care what people say about stuff they are not presently working on themselves unless it's to express their agreement with consensus.

If that's the case, why should we care about what they have to say in the first place? I'd think it would be of minimal interest to know that number 10,000 agrees with the 9999 others who are supposedly all better qualified to have an informed opinion on the matter anyway.

You know, Jen, I'm beginning to take an interest in you as a reasonably non-confrontational creature who thinks Tara Smith "cuts a lot of ice", so if you don't mind:

You say that Duesberg and Mullis don't do anything remotely relevant to AIDS. By "AIDS" I take it you include "HIV". Does that mean you define a "field of expertise" so narrowly that even if one has had a long career as one of the world's absolutely top experts on retroviruses, one hasn't ever done anything even remotely relevant to HIV, a garden variety retrovirus?

Duesberg was literally one of the inventors of the field that studies the connection between retroviruses and disease (cancer). The first AIDS-defining disease was Kaposis Sarcoma, a cancer thought to be caused by a retrovirus, HIV. And you're saying Duesberg has never done anything even remotely relevant to "AIDS"?

Kary Mullis invented PCR, a test that is widely used to confirm an HIV/AIDS diagnosis and which plays a crucial role in management and prognosis of AIDS patients. You're saying Kary Mullis has never worked with anything even remotely relevant to AIDS?

Do you judge Tara Smith to be an expert on all the different diseases she is writing about here, including HIV/AIDS? Or is it simply the fact that she never says anything out of the ordinary that makes her worth listening to in your opinion?

Tara Smith co-wrote a piece for PLoS on "HIV denial in the Internet Era" which had very little to do with either epidemiology or molecular biology (or neuropathology for that matter).

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10…

Did you think that was insightful, accurate and well written? If so, is that because there was not a comma in it that deviated from AIDStruth.org's party line, thus it expressed agreement with the other self-proclaimed defenders of "The Science"?

Jen, does it strike you in the least bit odd that Tara Smith, an epidemiologist, prefers to comment on cartoons rather than the many huge news stories about worlwide down revision of HIV/AIDS numbers revealing the flawed epidemology used by international organizations such as WHO and UNAIDS?

Does it strike you the least bit odd That Tara Smith, the epidemiologist and molecular biologist, has nothing whatsoever to say about the failed STEP and Phambili vaccine trials, but has an inordinate amount of posts on "HIV-crankery", something not even remotely relevant to her field by your own criteria?

Doesn't any of this tickle the critical thinker in you, Jen?

"You say that Duesberg and Mullis don't do anything remotely relevant to AIDS. By "AIDS" I take it you include "HIV". Does that mean you define a "field of expertise" so narrowly that even if one has had a long career as one of the world's absolutely top experts on retroviruses, one hasn't ever done anything even remotely relevant to HIV, a garden variety retrovirus?"

Calling HIV a "garden variety retrovirus" is probably misleading. AFAIK the distinctive qualifications for a "retrovirus" only concern the chemical transcription processes involved in replication. Not in the pecularities of how it effects immunodeficiency, etc. So to answer your question, I don't think a background in the broad category of retroviruses qualifies one to speak on a very specific retrovirus and its functioning/effects.

"Duesberg was literally one of the inventors of the field that studies the connection between retroviruses and disease (cancer). The first AIDS-defining disease was Kaposis Sarcoma, a cancer thought to be caused by a retrovirus, HIV. And you're saying Duesberg has never done anything even remotely relevant to "AIDS"?"

That's the thing about science. When we stand on the shoulder's of giants, we can see farther than they did. Deusburg's authority isn't automatic on AIDS, the field has obviously progressed far beyond the foundations he laid out.

"Kary Mullis invented PCR, a test that is widely used to confirm an HIV/AIDS diagnosis and which plays a crucial role in management and prognosis of AIDS patients. You're saying Kary Mullis has never worked with anything even remotely relevant to AIDS?"

That would be sort of like me saying that I'm automatically an authority on compiler design because I know how to program in OCaml. I have, indeed, never done anything remotely resembling compiler design outside of a few interpretive routines. I suspect that when Jen speaks of things "relevant to AIDS" she means subjects that have no trivial effects on our understanding of the syndrome.

Slight correction: "no trivial" above should be "non-trivial". Carry on.

Tyler,

HIV is a garden variety retrovirus. There's nothing special about it except the magical biological properties you claim for it,which are indeed unusual. But to use those claims to elevate HIV from its garden variety status is merely a garden variety of begging the question HIV apologist style.

I appreciate your guess as to what Jen means by "remotely relevant", but judging from your contributions hitherto I'd probably be even more interested in learning about your diet.

Shorter MEC: LALALALALA I CAN'T HEEEAR YOOOOOU!

By the way, in the event that MEC decides to remove his/her fingers from his/her ears, I'd like some clarification as to what genus of retrovirus constitutes to "garden variety" of the classification. Would it be alpharetroviruses, known to cause sarcomas, tumors etc. in birds and rats. Or is she perhaps speaking of gammaretroviruses, known to cause feline lukemia. Because, you know, obvious such radical distinctions in function/effects couldn't exist among "garden variety retroviruses". Or is the dastardly "medical establishment" lying about all of these too?

I wouldn't know if those supposed virus-cancer direct causal relationships are a "lie" too. But regardless, since it is a common assumption, and since Duesberg worked on exactly those kinds of pathogenic causal relations in the virus-cancer program, HIV would still be a garden variety retrovirus to him - like I've already pointed out in my Comment to Jen.

MEC, yes, I'm not sure I'm non-confrontational so much as impatient with bombast. (And I am once again trying not to respond to it, in this and other threads.)

Dr. Mullis certainly deserves credit for his invention of PCR. But he's not and never has been a virologist. He trained mainly as a physical chemist. He is a brilliant lateral thinker, and saw the potential to apply Thermophilus aquaticus' DNA polymerase for amplification. Specifically, he figured out that if you put purified DNA in with that polymerase, loose nucleotides, and buffer, and you cycle it through hot and cool, you can get a whole lot of copies. It was super-clever, and an enormous amount of work in the optimization; the change this laboratory method made to the field of molecular biology is analogous in size and character to the difference miniaturization made to computer science. All that brilliance and achievement, though, doesn't make Dr. Mullis a biologist, much less someone with a significant understanding of infectious disease. I only mentioned him at all because he is frequently cited as if his scientific expertise and Nobel Prize put him in the position of being an expert on HIV or AIDS. Neither of these is the case. He is not any more expert on the subject than is Steve Jobs or Alan Greenspan.

Dr. Duesberg is another story. He was indeed a leader in the field He came and talked to a small-group class I took in HIV/AIDS some years ago in grad school, and he was considerably more interested in talking about the death of his career than about HIV. He parted ways from the scientific mainstream considerably before the HIV debacle - he stressed that to us, and he stressed that the entire disease model of virology was, in his view, incorrect. He stated to us that viruses were not capable of causing cancers, and so I disagree with more than just his perspective on HIV - I feel that his field has moved on without him.

All of which is not to say that laypeople are not entitled to a degree of expertise conveyed by extensive independent study, nor to say that there aren't plenty of levels of knowledge and understanding between average layperson and field expert. I am not an expert on AIDS or HIV, but my training, which I am not going to go through here because I am a chicken about Internet crazy people watching me, does put me in a good position to understand more than the average undergraduate general biology senior, say. Why? Because I am able to read primary research papers about molecular virology and epidemiology critically, and I know how to evaluate the worth of a review paper or a meta-analysis and compare it to my understanding of the field. This took years of training in biostatistics (for the epidemiology piece), biomedicine (for the lab-methodology piece), and study design (for the critical-eye business.)

You have no way to confirm my claim of credentials, but Dr. Smith's training is an open book. Her ability to read an enormous volume of infectious disease literature efficiently grows from her training at accredited schools of medicine and public health, and from years of reading papers in the field. She reliably goes to the original paper and evaluates it in its context when she raises a topic here, which is a good sign where science writing is concerned.

I hope that clarifies my position somewhat.

"I wouldn't know if those supposed virus-cancer direct causal relationships are a "lie" too. But regardless, since it is a common assumption, and since Duesberg worked on exactly those kinds of pathogenic causal relations in the virus-cancer program, HIV would still be a garden variety retrovirus to him - like I've already pointed out in my Comment to Jen."

And you accuse me of question begging? Hilarious. Your inability to answer a very simple question is noted.

Funny how you guys mention "expertise." Keep in mind experts can be some of the dumbest sheep in the world, for example the cure for scurvy was known well in advance and proposed by a doctor and yet it was ignored for decades murdering thousands.

Also Gallo, the father of HIV doesnt even have a PHD, ie he's a medical doctor, not a scientist, so you should stop babbling about particulars.

The hiv issue is a political issue, not a scientific one, one where the science is so simple (kochs postulates) and the corruption and rush to judgement so obvious. So obvious that hacks like JP moore try to turn the simple into the complex in a veiled attempt to save their fledling hypothesis. Let me give you "appealers to authority" a crash course in proving a microbe is pathenogenic in humans.

Cooler's postulates

1. Does the microbe induce disease in experimental animals?

2. Is it visible by the electron microscope in the patient and/or does it infect enough cells to cause any disease?

3. Is their an epidemiological association?

Not to fucking hard to figure out.

Hiv fails Cooler's postulate one, tons of chimps injected none have died after 20 years.

Hiv fails coolers postulate 2 for there has never been any pics published of the 100,000 ml viral loads, even if this were true every cell would be infected and theres no explanation for the 10 year lag.

Hiv does satify coolers 3rd postulate in a sneaky way, when no one got sick they extended the window period from 10 months to 10 years, buying time for other things to happen, and theres not one study showing that people without other risk factors such as AZT, mycoplasmas, severe drugs etc even get AIDS.

Keep in mind mycoplasma incognitus passes Cooler's postulates with flying colors, it induces a fatal disease in mice and monkeys, is visible in dying patients by EM and there is a clear epidemilogical association with Aids, CFS, a 100% epidiemological asscoiation could be created by making a positive mycoplasma test an essential criterion for these diseases, thats what you guys got your 100% correlation with HIV right?

You guys have been duped, mycoplasma incognitus/ penetrans is probably the only microbe to worry about, and the people that are running the bioweapons program are laughing their asses off on how dumb scientists are not to figure this out. This is based on Garth and Nancy nicolsons claim that they had confidential sources in the Pentagon that told them it was part of the bioweapons program in their riveting book "Project Day Lily"

Yeah laugh at me all you want, but I beleive them, for it all makes sense, a military scientist shyh ching lo published on it, killing every animal inoculated, and from reading the first chapter one can only conclude that it was Lo himself who was nicolsons informant. Project Day Lily, mindblowing book.

Jen: Your position is laughably clear. Garden variety in fact. Thanks.

Tyler: Don't think I'm not very impressed with your talk of alpha and gamma retroviruses and their effects. I am. And so is Jen I'm sure. However, it's really not that complicated so there's no need to get shrill about it: You cannot use a supposed effect as premise to argue that a virus has that supposed effect. The supposed effect is what's in question, so it cannot be part of the premise no matter how many Greek letters you come up with. Greek logic beats the Greek alphabet you know.

What you're engaging in is called begging the question, which is entirely different from not answering the question, which is what Jen is doing. Please try not to confuse the two.

So once again, there's nothing genetically speaking,
nothing in terms of basic functionality - nothing "lenti" or any other dead language words - that distinguishes HIV from the, under ordinary circumstances, harmless passenger viruses Duesberg used to work with.

FeLV was known to cause immune suppression in cats by ~1970, long before the AIDS epidemic.

There was nothing radical about looking for a retrovirus as the cause of AIDS/GRID.

The only thing that is "garden variety" is Duesberg's dogmatic insistence that retroviruses cannot cause immune suppression or other diseases.

We also have SIV and SHIV that reproducibly cause CD4+ depletion, immunesuppression, AIDS and death in macaques.

Retroviruses can and do cause immunesuppression. The only people arguing to the contrary are fruitcakes. Duesberg is a nutcase.

Noble,
Since you have badmouthed people who have specialties in microbiology such as Garth and nancy Nicolson, Duesberg, and shyh ching Lo md phd ( a real scientist infectious disease pathologist whos labratory supported Duesberg in the early 1990's) which is ironic because you have no expoertise yourself can you please answer me this question.

Why does it take ten years for hiv to cause AIDS? Can you provide me with the electron microscopic pictures that show these 100,000 ml loads? If these viral loads were true wouldnt every cell be infected and the patient be dead in weeks? Please answer this questions since you are so quick to call many experts nutcases, why does it take ten years since you people now claim the body is teeming with HIV? Please answer Chris.

Cooler, try stepping outside the narrow bounds of Duesberg's website and project day lily. Read some of the papers in the literature. You could learn something.

If you want to argue that "garden variety" retroviruses such as SIV and SHIV cannot possibly cause immune suppression then try to explain the hundreds of papers showing that they do when they are injected into macaques.

Duesberg argues that retroviruses cannot cause AIDS. There is an extensive literature demonstrating beyond all possible doubt that they do. Duesberg is a nutcase.

PS. HIV causes CD4 cell depletion in the acute infection stage. Most of the CD4+ cells in the intestinal mucosa are infected at this stage. A handful of individuals progress to AIDS in the acute infection stage but in most people the immune response manages to control but not conquer the virus for a number of years before the CD4+ cell count falls below a level where the risk of opportunistic infections dramatically rises.

There are a number of host and viral factors that determine the amount of time it takes to progress to AIDS. There are highly pathogenic strains of SIV that can produce AIDS in weeks whereas others take months or years to cause severe immune suppression. However, highly pathogenic strains of HIV would likely kill the host before a new host could be infected. Evolution selects for less pathogenic strains.

".......then try to explain the hundreds of papers showing that they do when they are injected into macaques.

Oh jesus ~ spreading more crap aren't we?

"Clinicians treating patients with HIV encounter some patients with low plasma viral levels who experience rapid progression. What mechanism is responsible for their profound and quick CD4 cell loss? On the other end of the spectrum are those patients with high level HIV viremia who respond clinically like sooty mangabeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which can tolerate high levels of SIV replication without disease progression. Are such patients statistical extremes in an otherwise simple and uncontested paradigm, or are clinicians and researchers missing something? [like, um, missing something really, really big?]...RodrÃguez et al have taken the perspective of the individual patient in attempting to quantify how much of the variability of the individual CD4 cell loss is explained by the baseline plasma HIV RNA viral load...The provocative main finding from their study was that the presenting plasma HIV RNA load predicted no more than 10% of the observed CD4 cell loss in patients with chronic untreated HIV infection."
Henry WK, Tebas P, Lane HC. Explaining, predicting, and treating HIV-associated CD4 cell loss: after 25 years still a puzzle. JAMA. 2006 Sep 27;296(12):1523-5.

Tara,

Wow! I stand in utter awe at your ability to generate nearly 100 responses to a simple 10-word post.

Of course, most of the comments are from complete nutters with no understanding of science ('I never even heard of the endosymbiotic theory, but all you biologists are wrong').

Still, it is very impressive that you can summon this level of denial and dementia with 10 simple words.

Carter, try using your brain before copying and pasting something that you don't understand.

Sooty mangabeys are not macaques. Macaques have not been exposed to SIV before. Infect macaques with SIV and hey presto, CD4+ cell depletion , immune suppression, AIDS and death.

If you want to argue otherwise then read and criticise the hundreds of papers that show that SIV causes AIDS in macaques.

Retroviruses can and do cause AIDS. Anyone that dogmatically claims that retroviruses cannot cause AIDS is a crackpot.

"Of course, most of the comments are from complete nutters with no understanding of science ('I never even heard of the endosymbiotic theory, but all you biologists are wrong').-tex

This quote in brackets...who is it attributable to?

"Don't think I'm not very impressed with your talk of alpha and gamma retroviruses and their effects."

I'm really not losing a whole lot of sleep over how "impressed" you were (as evidence for this, I'll cite the fact that I slept like a log last night). I just wanted to know what, in your opinion, constituted a "garden variety retrovirus". I mentioned only two possible distinct genera of retrovirus, but there are others (including "lentaviruses") that constitue possible candidates.

"However, it's really not that complicated so there's no need to get shrill about it: You cannot use a supposed effect as premise to argue that a virus has that supposed effect."

Again, shorter MEC: Viruses don't actually have effects until I admit that they do.

Too funny.

cooler wrote a number of things:

Oh did I mention that shyh ching lo discovered a novel strain of mycoplasma ingonitus that killed every animal he injected.........thanks because of all the orthodoxy's stupidity this microbe has spread through the population masquerading as CFS, depression etc.

Lemme get this straight--a novel strain of mycoplasma ingonitus kills every animal it infects, and yet it manages to masquerade as depression? I'm not all that familiar with mycoplasma ingonitus, but I've some knowledge of depression, and except in the cases where it leads to suicide, it is not fatal. How can a fatal infection masquerade as a non-fatal condition?

Duesberg answered this best in another interview, just because he doesnt beleive in Santa Claus doesnt mean he needs to find another santa claus, nevertheless there are several more probable causes, AZT, mycoplasmas, severe terror of impending death, severe drug abuse

Severe terror of impending death... is a possible cause of AIDS? Consequence, perhaps.

I speak 100 languages, im one of the worlds most preimere science journalists, you have to know many lanuages to spread such iconaclastic wisdom as I have been doing.

Delusions of godhood. Got it!

Oh jeez golly, Not only did shyh ching Lo clearly kill every animal with mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans and not find it in one healthy control, here is a CDC case study clearly proving pathenogenicity in humans, a young 17 year old girl who was sucessfully treated because the hospital was familiar with Lo's work, if it were up to Tara et al she'd be dead.

According to the CDC report that cooler supplied a link to, the patient was a "non-HIV-infected 17-year-old woman". How cooler thinks that this provides evidence that m.p. causes AIDS is beyond me.

Good observation fat ass, ....

And its parents never taught it manners either. Tsk tsk.

obvious knowledge to anyone with half a brain

Ah, so you've had a lobotomy too! That explains a lot.

get a job loser

Another example of cooler's ability to be polite.

Not to fucking hard to figure out.

Hiv fails Cooler's postulate one, tons of chimps injected none have died after 20 years.

Chimps are not precisely the same as humans. HIV would not be the first disease organism for which the two different immune systems did not exhibit the same response. To use his words: "Not to fucking hard to figure out."

Why does it take ten years for hiv to cause AIDS?

Why is the exact mechanism of transmission of leprosy still unknown, despite the fact that Mycobacterium leprae has been identified as the infectious agent in leprosy? The maximum incubation period reported (for leprosy) is as long as 30 years. Some of these things not only take more than half of a brain to figure out, but many years as well.
Cooler's fervent belief in a 9/11 conspiracy doesn't make his other claims and protests any more credible. Quite the reverse. I'm not sure which 9/11 conspiracy theory he believes, but I haven't found any of them credible, and most I've run across are only slightly more plausible than the theory that the movie Men in Black is a documentary.

Darin Brown wrote:

You don't have to have a PhD or MD to recognize a PILE OF SHIT when you see it....
http://www.reviewingaids.com/awiki/index.php/Document:Group-Fantasy_Ori…

Yup, that's a pile of shit, alright.

Cooler suggests that, in addition to an HIV-related etiology of AIDS...

there are several more probable causes, AZT, mycoplasmas, severe terror of impending death, severe drug abuse

Terror of impending death cannot be the cause of AIDS. Most AIDS patients develop symptoms before they know they are infected. Also, disbelief in the "terror" is no sort of prophylactic. Even the inventor of the "Group-Fantasy Origin" explanation of AIDS (see D.Dan, above) died of AIDS. True believers in HIV/AIDS denial, who believe HIV is not only not a death sentence, but absolutely harmless, also die of AIDS. See the AIDSTruth site for a list of just a few denialists whose disbelief in "impending death" did not save them from AIDS.

Speaking of AIDS Truth, the document referenced in yesterday's discussion disproves cooler's "AZT" and "severe drug use." Controlling for AZT (and any other antiretroviral therapy), drug users do not experience CD4 changes as are seen with HIV infection. Infected drug users have higher numbers than non-users. The drug use hypothesis of AIDS etiology is preposterous and embarassing to anyone who advances it.

Which leaves mycoplasma. As far as I know, no one has tested all of the MACS cohort participants for the whole panoply of known mycoplasmas. Some scientists report that some mycoplasmas are associated with some often poorly-defined symptoms in a some patients. In contrast, HIV consistently produces the lymphocyte changes observed in MACS participants and other HIV-positive people.

The possible contribution of mycoplasma to AIDS could be researched further, but it is apparent that known mycoplasmas are not necessary for AIDS.

Ah, Dr. Noble well met! I was starting to weary of the amateur apologists here that make even you look intelligent and rational - rational apart from your hysterical repetitions of the mantra "SIV causes AIDS, SIV causes AIDS".

My advice is get yourself some sucking stones and relax.

What Duesberg says is that viruses don't cause diseases when they're inactive and only infect a fraction of cells. There's no special "delayed immunodeficiency" gene in HIV that can explain the 10-15 years "incubation period".

Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff. But the studies you should be pointing us to are the ones where they give each other AIDS by shagging. I'm sure that would narrow the number of articles a wee bit.

Jen m, are you kidding me, it's here here, not hear hear

Cooler - the proper usage is, "Hear, hear!" And frankly, we've heard enough from you. Tara, why do you let people litter your site like this?

Coolaid fills a necessary niche in the ecology of blogs; he provides comic relief in an otherwise gloomily serious and often virulent run-on quasi-debate.

Additionally, I think pre-schoolers should be encouraged to use their newly acquired computer skills. It builds self esteem and character. Obviously there is still a lot of progress to be made by this particular specimen, but all in good time.

"Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff."

Immunodeficiency is a much more specific trait than "disease". And exactly what "kinds of stuff" are you talking about here? Can you cite any papers that back up this assertion?

I'm not holding my breath.

Tiresome Tyler,

For once you brought up something useful.

Severe immunodeficiency can, according to Dr. Noble, set in even before the host has had a chance to produce neutralizing antibodies. Take up the exact definition of AIDS with him.

There are highly pathogenic strains of SIV that can produce AIDS in weeks whereas others take months or years to cause severe immune suppression.

Notice also the elegant science that explains the difference betwen 15 days and 15 years simply by the degree
of pathogenicity of the particular strain. It's as easy as that when you're a real HIV scientist.

As bonus, here's a funny one for you about some stuff used in animal experiments that seemed to have quite a "cofactorial" effect:

HIV-infected mice exposed to cocaine also had just one ninth of the CD4 T-cells of mice in the control group

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/50BA4AFB-1F00-4E6D-9FB5-93ACC52BF424.asp

MEC, I don't know what question you asked that I didn't answer. You asked me if I found the cartoon funny and why or not, why I trusted Dr. Smith, and you asked me to clarify my stance about mainstream science/scientists' perspectives on HIV. I answered. Please state the question I missed again. Thank you.

Kristine,
The only reason Tara lets me post here is because she feels "my lunacy" is a public service for her orthodoxy cause. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. She has told us this several times, but for example if this blog was viewed by thousands of educated people, ie became hugely popular and was not only used a small cadre of second rate hack scientists, My arguments, along With MEC's and Dr. Browns would be quickly deleted, for the public would see how easily it is to poke holes in the orthodoxy, and what fools weve made of these people.

And you guys shouldnt whine when I use profanity, If you scroll back I made the first post which contained no profanity at all, I was suddenly attacked as being a "whackjob" etc. Its a natural response when attacked by maniacs to respond in the same manner, although I will try and cut it down and take the high road.

Dan,
Hosts respond differently to infections, just because the monkeys and mice died that Lo injected had a fatal wasting disease, doesnt mean humans will respond in the exact same way, nevertheless in one of Lo's patents he inoculated Chimpanzees and they all got symptoms of AIDS, I'm not aware if they have died or not, I wish Lo would have published this, but he explained that he and his staff at the Armed Forces of pathology spent years before finally being able to publish in 1990, for most journals didnt want to rock the Orthodoxy's propaganda, so I dont blame them for giving up on the process because it was so corrupt.

Lo never claimed his pathenogenic mycoplasmas caused AIDS, rather his hypothesis was that they were pathenogenic in humans.

It is entirely possible for an early stage mycoplasma incognitus/penetrans infection to be misdiagnosed as a psycological disorder, and then as the patient worsens for them to be given a revoloving door of garbage can diagnoses like MS, Lupus, ALS, CFS etc.

On the hiv issue, you guys have.
1) failed to provide the scientific evidence that Tara et al claim won you the debate 20 years ago.

2)Fail to provide a study where hiv positive people with no other risk factors such as drug, mycoplasmas, severe stress and AZT even get aids, which is the only way to prove a species specific microbe with such a long window period is pathenogenic. Instead you offer poorly designed studies that were never meant to prove or disprove hiv's causal role in AIDS, just a convoluted desultory attempt to disprove alternative theories, how about proving your own theories first?

3) failed to provide electron microscopic pictures of these high viral Loads. What are we left with? Speculations and SIV.

You know, MEC, it's really not too hard to admit that you can't answer my question about what a "garden variety retrovirus" is. Here, say it along with me: "I'm an idiot and can't answer Tyler's question." A few more tries and you just might get it.

"Notice also the elegant science that explains the difference betwen 15 days and 15 years simply by the degree of pathogenicity of the particular strain. It's as easy as that when you're a real HIV scientist."

AFAIK "pathogenicity" is operationally defined as the degree of harm caused by an infectious agent. So, dug. The "elegant science" behind the contrasting fatalities involved with influenza pandemics would be similar. Different strains differ in lethality and infect different species. You should probably provide some context to that quotation as well, it's curious that you don't provide a link so that your citation can be cross-referenced. You know, honest people do this kind of stuff.

And to toss the funny right back at you, this item was right at the top of the "latest new section" in the sidebar of the page your sourced. Cherry pick much?

Tedious Tyler,

We were talking about contrasting time lapses from infection to disease, not "contrasting fatalities". It's a bit like the difference between begging the question and not answering it: the two things are remotely associated but not identical. So feel free to point me to two different influenza A strains whose incubation periods upon infection are years apart.

You further ask me for a reference about "stuff" that produces immune suppresion (we'll leave immunedeficiency until Dr. Noble has defined it properly for us) in animal models - only to accuse me of cherry-picking because I don't give you a study about humans.

If you don't mind me saying it perhaps you should hand over to one of the professional apologists now, cuz you're getting a teeny bit incoherent there. At times like this, the advice I give to Dr. Noble is take a relaxing day off at the beach, get yourself a pocketful of nice, smooth therapeutic stones, stretch out and start sucking away. The mild mathematical challenge involved in giving all stones the same sucking time is much more soothing than simply sucking on your thumb, even if you mess it up.

O, and the reference for the quote is here:

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2008/01/heh.php#comment-712566

Can't get much more authoritative than that.

MEC, once again: "I'm an idiot and I can't answer Tyler's question". Not that hard, junior. Or, if you want to actually take a stab at answering the question (not holding my breath), here it is again: what is a "garden variety retrovirus"?

"We were talking about contrasting time lapses from infection to disease, not "contrasting fatalities"."

No shit? So you want to cherry-pick which virological distinctions you'll believe and not believe based on...well, I don't know exactly. I have a feeling chasing you down for this is gonna be about as fruitful as asking what exactly constitutes a "garden variety retrovirus"?

As for influenza A, I could use you argument to dismiss the idea that you can have low-pathogenic avian flue and also high pathogenic avian flue. It's called an argument from personal incredulity, and it's a fallacy. Try harder, dipshit.

"You further ask me for a reference about "stuff" that produces immune suppresion (we'll leave immunedeficiency until Dr. Noble has defined it properly for us) in animal models - only to accuse me of cherry-picking because I don't give you a study about humans."

Yeah, you gave me a study of mice who were already infected with HIV. Nothing about injecting such substances itself causing immunosuppression, which was what I asked about. To quote you, since you seem to have such a short memory about what you write: "Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff." Nothing to back up that assertion.

What Duesberg says is that viruses don't cause diseases when they're inactive and only infect a fraction of cells. There's no special "delayed immunodeficiency" gene in HIV that can explain the 10-15 years "incubation period".

Duesberg says that retroviruses are harmless passenger viruses and do not cause immune deficiency or cancer. There is no special "delayed immunedeficiency" gene in HIV or SIV. Why should there be? HIV and SIV are never latent. They cause progressive CD4+ depletion at all times. In fact the largest part of the damage occurs during the acute infection stage. When the number of CD4+ cells falls low enough then the risk for a variety of opportunistic infections dramatically rises. In a handful of cases AIDS can occur in the acute infection stage.

There are several other viruses that give rise to persistent chronic infections. Get over it.

Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff.

We aren't talking about all kinds of stuff. We're talking about SIV and related retroviruses. The bottom line is that if you infect macaques with SIV they get AIDS. Give them exactly the same thing without infectious SIV and they don't. You can bluster and obfuscate all you want but you aren't going to change this.

But the studies you should be pointing us to are the ones where they give each other AIDS by shagging. I'm sure that would narrow the number of articles a wee bit.

Whoosh - goalpost move.

Many of the articles specifically concern sexual transmission. They use macaques and SIV as a model for the transmission of HIV. SIV is infectious across the vaginal lining.

If HIV is a "garden variety" retrovirus then SIV must be one too. Yet SIV causes AIDS in macaques.

By the way Dan and christine,
I feel I was too polite in my response to you guys after you attacked me. You 2 are 2 pathetic hacks that know nothing about microbiology or Kochs postulates, you both are so ignorant of the peer reviewed literature that if you either are in any way involved in the health care industry it will be a danger to the human race.

I cite experts Like Garth and Nancy Nicolson phds two award winning world renoun cancer researchers, DR. joel baseman of the NIH, The militarys highest ranking patholigist Shyh Ching Lo md phd and follow Nobel Prize winners Robert Kochs warning to the world that microbes that induce disease in animals are at least as much if not a lot more of a threat to humanity than those microbes that dont.

Because of your ignorance of these simple scientific principles you have ruined the lives of hundereds of thousands of people that are suffering from mycoplamsa penetrans/incognitus diseases and being misdiagnosed with CFS, ALS etc or being written off as hypochondriacs.
Have a nice day.

MECidiot cited this paper

Roth MD, et al. Cocaine enhances human immunodeficiency virus replication in a model of severe combined immunodeficient mice implanted with human peripheral blood leukocytes. Journal of Infectious Diseases 185: 701-5, 2002.

The only question I have is why.

The paper demonstrates that HIV (with or without cocaine) causes CD4+ cell depletion in this animal model.

In the absence of HIV infection cocaine had no effect on CD4+ cells.

"So feel free to point me to two different influenza A strains whose incubation periods upon infection are years apart."

This is a perfect example of the biggest problem deniers have when discussing general virology concepts; they think everything fits nice and neatly in boxes that are easily filed. If one virus does something, others must do it to (true for many things, not for others). If HIV infection has these certain set of characteristics, all other strains of HIV must have them too. Most of the time these black and white interpretations are detached from reality, which exists in NUMEROUS shades of grey.

As for the whole "garden variety" retrovirus I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read this. Consider MLV (what I would consider a "garden variety") which encodes four genes: gag, pro, pol and env. All retroviruses encode these four genes (or at least versions of them). Now consider HIV, which encodes 10 genes: gag, pro, pol and env plus vif, vpu, vpr, nef, tat and rev. Still think they're comparable? I have to agree that even though Duesberg is an expert on retroviruses, that is far from making him an expert on HIV.

As for the whole "garden variety" retrovirus I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read this. Consider MLV (what I would consider a "garden variety") which encodes four genes: gag, pro, pol and env.

Or FeLV. Only the basic number of genes common to all retroviruses and it causes immunesuppression in cats with a variable progression time from a few months to several years. This was known in 1970!

Lol!

Easy does it y'all, easy does it. Why is it the more I tell you to relax, the more hysterical and unreasonable you get?

"But the studies you should be pointing us to are the ones where they give each other AIDS by shagging. I'm sure that would narrow the number of articles a wee bit.

Whoosh - goalpost move.

Many of the articles specifically concern sexual transmission. They use macaques and SIV as a model for the transmission of HIV. SIV is infectious across the vaginal lining."

Dr. Noble, whose goalpost would that be? If I have moved the goalpost at all, it's only back to where it was in the first place. Was your hysterical but interestingly worded claim not that Duesberg was the nutcase on the fruitcake if he didn't believe SIV causes AIDS? I don't think he has ever claimed sexual transmission of SIV is impossible. Do you? I don't see how it is out of order to ask how many animals in the studies croaked after having become infected the perfectly natural way.

"MECidiot cited this paper

Roth MD, et al. Cocaine enhances human immunodeficiency virus replication in a model of severe combined immunodeficient mice implanted with human peripheral blood leukocytes. Journal of Infectious Diseases 185: 701-5, 2002.

The only question I have is why."

Dr. Noble, compare with the paper your friend, Tyler the Troglodyte, felt I had overlooked when cherry-picking this one, then maybe even you will get it. Maybe you will also get why I asked about infection and disease the natural way just above.

"There is no special "delayed immunedeficiency" gene in HIV or SIV. Why should there be? HIV and SIV are never latent. They cause progressive CD4+ depletion at all times. In fact the largest part of the damage occurs during the acute infection stage. When the number of CD4+ cells falls low enough then the risk for a variety of opportunistic infections dramatically rises. In a handful of cases AIDS can occur in the acute infection stage."

Dr. Noble, I don't know that I can do much more than quote your contradiction back at you. If the worst damage is done during acute infection, why only a "handful" of AIDS cases in that period? Why does it take the never resting HIV so long to finish the job?

How exactly does HIV cause progressive CD4 depletion at all times? Is there a mathematical model you'd like to point me to? Our good friend, Noreen, who has already been overcome by HIV and AIDS, does not seem to be experiencing progressive CD4 decline these days. D'you think it's because the "cofactors" are on sabbatical leave in Africa for the year?

I share your and Jim's amusement over the immense genetic complexity of HIV compared to other retroviruses - indeed I encourage such lighter moments. So which ones of all the extra genes is it that put the "lenti" in "lentivirus" in this case?

In MEC's view, a reported, undocumented exception invalidates a well-established rule. As in, "A man I met once claimed he had pancreatic cancer and survived; therefore, pancreatic cancer is not harmful."

Some pancreas cancer patients survive. Some HIV-positive people lose circulating CD4s more slowly than the average. Some have transient increases. With effective therapy (and Noreen claims naltrexone is helping her), CD4s may sometimes rise. Yet pancreatic cancer is not harmless, and HIV does cause progressive CD4 depletion.

Enroll, say, seven thousand people in a study, several thousand of them infected with HIV, several thousand not. Measure their T-cell populations every three or six months. Plot the data.

You will find that median CD4 counts decline progressively at all time points following infection in the infected group. Median CD4 populations remain statistically flat in the no-HIV group. Individual exceptions can be found, but they are included in the data and do not change the conclusions.

Enroll 7000 people in a study, test for something quite unspecific, such as SED, and amazingly you may find it predicts something.

Enroll 7000 people in a study, apply an unspecific test, such as the one for HIV, and amazingly you may find it predicts something - especially when, it has undergone years of "refinement" using immuno-compromised patients as gold standard rather than the purified HIV.

Okay folks, this is a time when it's to recapitulate so that MEC can't effectively gallop to a whole new set of absurd claims without owning up to his past one.

1. He has not explained what exactly constitutes a "garden variety retrovirus", even though he was quite insistent that HIV was such.

2. Concerning this:

"Dr. Noble, compare with the paper your friend, Tyler the Troglodyte, felt I had overlooked when cherry-picking this one, then maybe even you will get it."

The study he cited was in response to my request that he back up this assertion: "Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff." You'll note that it does no such thing, and in my response I pointed out another reported paper which showed no significant effect of recreational drug use on CD4 generation in humans.

Just keeping the facts on the table, since we clearly can't trust a dishonest cockbag like MEC to do so.

Dr. Noble, I don't know that I can do much more than quote your contradiction back at you. If the worst damage is done during acute infection, why only a "handful" of AIDS cases in that period? Why does it take the never resting HIV so long to finish the job?

There is no contradiction. In most cases the viral load decreases to a lower setpoint as the immune system partially controls the infection. On average people with a higher viral load in the chronic infection progress faster.

So which ones of all the extra genes is it that put the "lenti" in "lentivirus" in this case?

Is this meant to be an intelligent question?

There are a whole class of viruses that give rise to persistent chronic infections. There is no need for a "delayed immunedeficiency" gene. It is simply a chronic persistent infection that causes progressive CD4+ cell depletion.

This is a perfect example of the biggest problem deniers have when discussing general virology concepts; they think everything fits nice and neatly in boxes that are easily filed. If one virus does something, others must do it to (true for many things, not for others).

They actually use this argument and its exact opposite.

You'll get the influenza causes death in a period of weeks or not at all and then you are immune therefore all other viruses should behave the same. But, if you point out the animal models in which SIV reproducibly causes AIDS in macaques they'll tell you that SIV is not HIV and this cannot be evidence for HIV causing AIDS.

Dr. Noble, compare with the paper your friend, Tyler the Troglodyte, felt I had overlooked when cherry-picking this one, then maybe even you will get it. Maybe you will also get why I asked about infection and disease the natural way just above.

I'm still completely baffled by you citing a paper that completely contradicts your argument that HIV doesn't cause AIDS.

The paper demonstrates that HIV by itself causes CD4+ cell depletion in this animal model. Mock infection did not. Cocaine by itself did not.

In this animal model cocaine appeared to increse HIV viral load and the rate of CD4+ cell depletion. This suggests that cocaine could be a potential cofactor in humans that increases the rate of progression to AIDS. If you are HIV+ it is another good reason not to take cocaine. However, it does not suggest in anyway that cocaine by itself can cause AIDS.

If you read the paper by Chao, Recreational drug use is not the cause of AIDS you would have realised that the evidence does not support the contention that any recreational drug plays a significant role in the development of AIDS. Drug use may be a cofactor that affects the rate of progression but this study failed to detect any significant effect. It was even clearer that recreational drug use by itself does not cause AIDS. People like Raphael Lombardo still get AIDS whether they take drugs or not. Duesberg's theories are completely discredited.

Okay, rewritten and corrected post, since I think it has enough typos and word gaps to warrant it:

"Okay folks, this is a time when it's [good] to recapitulate so that MEC can't effectively gallop to a whole new set of absurd claims without owning up to his past [ones].

1. He has not explained what exactly constitutes a "garden variety retrovirus", even though he was quite insistent that HIV was such.

2. Concerning this:

"Dr. Noble, compare with the paper your friend, Tyler the Troglodyte, felt I had overlooked when cherry-picking this one, then maybe even you will get it."

The study he cited was in response to my request that he back up this assertion: "Of course you can cause immunodeficiency and/or disease in monkeys by injecting them with all kinds of stuff." You'll note that it does no such thing, and in my response I pointed out another reported paper which showed no significant effect of recreational drug use on CD4 [degeneration] in humans.

Just keeping the facts on the table, since we clearly can't trust a dishonest cockbag like MEC to do so.

There are a whole class of viruses that give rise to persistent chronic infections. There is no need for a "delayed immunedeficiency" gene. It is simply a chronic persistent infection that causes progressive CD4+ cell depletion.

Robodoc Noble, which class of virus would that be, Dr. Noble, that has as MO a "chronic persistent infection" that only causes disease after a decade or more in a strong and healthy host?

Is it chronic infection that kill those monkeys from various hiding places in the body in a matter of weeks? How about that natural course of disease when transmitted by good old monkey sex?

And why do you keep repeating the line about progressive CD4 cell depletion without teling us how that is accomplished?

I see you are not wholly convinced about that Chao study nailing Duesberg yet again. Are drugs a factor, a cofactor, not a factor at all in CD4 decline? Could drugs cause AIDS without significant CD4 decline? What say your animal models?

Tara: Your writing on the Black Plague is not nearly as atrocious as on HIV. Keep up the good work on those CCR5 receptors.

Robodoc Noble, which class of virus would that be, Dr. Noble, that has as MO a "chronic persistent infection" that only causes disease after a decade or more in a strong and healthy host?

Persistent Viral Infections

Hepatitis B is one example of a virus that can give rise to a chronic persistent infection that ends up as cirrhosis only after many years.

Your insinuation that HIV does not cause disease until years after infection is wrong. It causes CD4+ cell depletion in the acute infection phase. AIDS is simply advanced HIV disease. HIV disease begins with infection. AIDS is the point whereby CD4+ cell depletion has reached a point where the risk of opportunistic infections is extremely high.

Yes, very nice Robodoc, explain one phantom with another. But now to the real question. . .

I asked for a virus whose modus operandi was "chronic infection" for years. HBV infection is called chronic after 6 months. Only about 5-10 percent of adults infected with HBV go on to develop chronic infection. About one third of these 5-10% develop symptoms - SUPPOSEDLY from the virus and not from alcohol, drugs or the likes.

Anyway that hardly compares with what is claimed for HIV, where chronic infection is guaranteed by HIV scientists 100%of the time does it now?

But you know all this very well, you are just being dishonest with your fans as usual aren't you, Dr. Noble? Have you no compassion for the likes of Transfat Tyler, who is now going to parrot your HBV line forever and embarras himself even more.

MEC misinterprets Noble:
I see you are not wholly convinced about that Chao study nailing Duesberg yet again.

For the sake of health, avoid recreational drugs. They don't cause the massive CD4 depletion in AIDS, but they have other negative health effects. They are unlikely to extend anyone's life, and they could shorten it. That's what Chris is telling you, MEC; he is not questioning the Chao results.

Anyway, the scientific issue is not Chris Noble's level of certainty, but whether Chao's analysis presents further challenges to Duesberg's credibility. It does.

Duesberg has maintained that drugs like cocaine and poppers cause T-cell changes and immunodeficiency, but that HIV has no part in it. If MEC or any of his friends is unaware of the specifics of Duesberg's position, I encourage a read of Appendix B in Duesberg's book. Duesberg, again and again, cites what he views as evidence that HIV does not cause T-cell death, and that the T-cell changes and immunodeficiency associated with AIDS must be caused by another factor. He then repeatedly cites what he considers evidence that drug use is that factor.

Chao, like Ascher back in the 1990s, shows with rigor how wrong Duesberg has been, something most of us knew in 1990. Men with HIV have progressively lower CD4 counts, men without HIV do not. Drug use of HIV positive and negative groups in Chao is about the same. More or less frequent drug use does not affect CD4 decline. Continuous drug use does not affect CD4 decline. Drug use at study enrollment (before HIV infection) does not affect CD4 decline. Adjusting for AZT use does not change the conclusions.

The denialists, with the exception of MEC, have been strangely silent on the Chao paper. Do they have objections to its data, its methodology, its conclusions? Or do they accept, finally, that they and their leader have been wrong?

Allow me to clarify before MEC nitpicks:

When I write, "does not affect CD4 decline," please read "does not affect CD4 decline in any meaningful way." The authors find that cigarette smoking (at least one pack per day) is associated with slightly higher CD4 count. Obviously, I hope, that's not an endorsement of the Marlboro Man.

Chao also sees a small decrease in CD4 count in uninfected men who use poppers at the highest frequency. This "tiny" effect does not affect the overall steady CD4 counts in the drug using HIV-negative group. It is not seen in the HIV-positive group. The HIV-positive men using poppers most frequently have higher CD4 counts, but the effect is not statistically significant.

Chao puts it best: the "tiny," often inconsistent, and mostly statistically insignificant associations of drug use with T-cell changes are not "clinically meaningful." If real, they are indeed "tiny" when viewed beside the effects of HIV.

Chris Noble said; "HIV disease"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Misleading the readers here again arn't we?

"I asked for a virus whose modus operandi was "chronic infection" for years. HBV infection is called chronic after 6 months. Only about 5-10 percent of adults infected with HBV go on to develop chronic infection. About one third of these 5-10% develop symptoms - SUPPOSEDLY from the virus and not from alcohol, drugs or the likes."

Yes, and SUPPOSEDLY you are actually writing these posts out instead of bashing your head against the keyboard and posting whatever results from it. I don't actually believe it. Fuck any scientists out there who want to tell me otherwise.

By the way, MEC, "garden variety retrovirus" is still undefined. ;)

Although, in retrospect, I do have to be impressed by the fact that the best arguments MEC can come up with are all some combination of appeals to personal incredulity, appeals to ignorance and/or false dichotomies. With enemies like this, who the hell needs friends?

Elkie, of course Dr. Noble does not doubt the Chao study per se, but perhaps he doesn't feel it is nearly as conclusive as John Moore apparently does.

As for the strange silence among dissidents, the study is just out, it's rather unremarkable; what did you expect, riots in the street?

The data are more than a decade old and have been used a number of times - what you guys would call unoriginal research if a dissident performs it. There are no surprises here, par for the course, just as it's par for the course that Merck's latest vaccine crashed and burned, and that WHO's an UNAID's HIV/AIDS stats were shown to be corrupt once again, which is why suppose Tara, the epidemiologist, didn't find it worth mentioning.

Another immediate problem with getting excited about this study is that the quantity of drug use is ill-define: "At least weekly" if you're a real heavy abuser.

Nobody claims this supports Duesberg's position, but most dissidents have no problems accepting that, if you adjust for all other "confounders", snorting a line or smoking a joint once or twice a week in itself probably doesn't have a major effect.

If the study merits more than the shoulder shrug it has been met with everywhere except on AIDStruth.org, you can rest assured someone will dig into the details behind it. But at first glance who is going to disagree with the authors' own introductory remarks - certainly not Dr. Noble:

The effects of recreational drugs on CD4 and CD8 T cells in humans are not well understood.

The inconsistent findings [in different studies] may be due to differences in the levels of substances used in the study populations, the statistical models employed, and uncontrolled confounding.

Etc.

Maybe somebody like Darin Brown, who likes to play around with stats and numbers, will eventually get around to picking at this, but otherwise your best bet is for Tara to make one of her wonderfully eloquent detailed analyses of it in a separate post.

maybe somebody

The data are more than a decade old and have been used a number of times - what you guys would call unoriginal research if a dissident performs it.

If a dissident performed a rigorous re-analysis of MACS data, and if it were of the quality we see in Chao's work, "we guys" (whoever we are) might be quite impressed. Unfortunately, in 25 years, dissidents have done no more than selectively and deliberately distort papers they read and (in almost all cases) bypass peer review to publish their flawed, amateurish conclusions. The quality of dissident statistical analysis is on display in Duesberg's Appendix B, p.521:

It is entirely inconsistent with HIV-mediated pathogenicity that there are over 40 times more HIV-infected leukocytes in many healthy HIV carriers than in AIDS patients with fatal AIDS(......)Simmonds et al. report that there are from 1 in 700 to 1 in 83,000 HIV-infected leukocytes in healthy HIV carriers and from 1 to 900 (sic) to 1 in 30,000 in AIDS patients. Bagasra et al. report that there are from 1 in 30 to 1 in 1000 infected leukocytes in healthy carriers and from 1 in 10 to 1 in 1000 in patients with fatal AIDS. Thus, there are healthy persons with 43 times (30,000:700) and 33 times (1000:30) more HIV-infected cells than in AIDS patients.

One needn't bother to read Simmonds or Bagasra (not that Duesberg necessarily bothered in the first place) to recognize the multiple sorts of naive thinking this "analysis" reflects. Read the papers, and you will understand how much Duesberg is willing to distort to ignore his cognitive dissonance. And Duesberg's statistical prowess as indicated here is on par with what we later observe in other wishful thinking conspiracy enthusiasts such as MEC's good if statistics-challenged friend in Virginia.

Chao's reasons for re-analyzing these data are given, as is her reason for using the decade-old MACS study. Today, the supposedly-toxic HAART has drastically reduced mortality and morbidity and contributed to CD4 recovery to the extent that analyzing the contributions of recreational drugs to T-cell changes in HIV-positive patients has become extremely difficult. Data are data, and a new, rigorous analysis that answers old questions and clears up previous concerns is worth reading.

Finally, please, MEC, you know very well that the denialists in your little acquaintance circle are concerned about Chao and consider the paper a challenge to their beliefs. Some of them probably imagine, fancifully, that Chao performed this new analysis specifically to rebut their ridiculous assertions. It does rebut their notions, but I doubt that Chao has ever heard of them.

Sir Elkie,

I am proud to say that I have actually sent an email to a couple of my "acquaintances" entitled "We Have Been Challenged". Some part of the ensuing correspondence even received a cheerful if somewhat off-topic reply from Dr. Moore's alter ego, Mr. Macaque.

The challenge I referred to in the title was Moore's, as published by proxy on AIDStruth's newspage. It did not refer to Ms. Chao whom, as I've already said, appears both level-headed and even-handed as these things go.

As I've also reported, nobody got excited about the study itself, honestly, although The morbid Mr. Macaque did manage to raise a few eyebrows, when he responded to some technical questions about genomics and virology by posting a link to his "Dead Denialists Trophy Wall":

http://www.aidstruth.org/aids-denialists-who-have-died.php

Your appraisal of the statistical shortcomings of my acquaintances, and among them even a "good friend"- thanks for that although I'm notsure what makes him better than others - is much appreciated in terms of style. In all fairnes, however, I must say that hardly makes up for its complete lack of content and explanatory power.

Could you do my statistics challenged friends and acquaintances, as well as myself, the honour of spelling out your criticisms in more detail?

There's actually a reply to Moore now available from a very, very concerned indeed dissident. lol

http://groups.msn.com/aidsmythexposed/general.msnw?action=get_message&m…

MEC,

While I'm sure that your correspondence with John Moore or his alter ego is most interesting, it hardly concerns the rest of us, so let's stick with the issue at hand.

They say that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. And if you have to ask what's wrong with Duesberg's "statistical analysis," for example, the grotesque piece of subacademic work I quoted above, then I fear you would need at least a brief course in statistics to understand Duesberg's failings.

However, some of Duesberg's mistakes are so elementary that even your friends (good, better, or best) might understand at least one of his errors.

Imagine a country, termite-infested or not, where two ethnic groups live, largely segregated, A and B. Group A is affluent, controls most of the resources, and has ruthlessly exploited Group B. The Group A median family income is ten times that of Group B. Along comes Duesberg, who finds one individual in the destitute Group B who is a billionaire, and one person from the affluent Group A who lives in poverty. His conclusion is that the demographic data are "entirely inconsistent" with the existence of race-related income disparities. There are no racists, there is no racism, there was no exploitation; in fact, says Duesberg, Group B is often more affluent than Group A.

Duesberg's real-world statistical deception (or incompetence) is seen in the passage I quoted earlier: one outlier at one end of a spectrum compared with one outlier at the other extreme becomes "many" asymptomatic HIV patients (whom Duesberg calls "healthy") having "over 40" times the infected cells found in what he pessimistically calls "fatal AIDS" patients.

You can stop reading here, MEC, since the rest is mostly data from Duesberg's cherry-picked source. I am acutely aware of your aversion to data.

Simmonds et al, one of Duesberg's sources, published work on PCR and PBMCs in the Journal of Virology, 1990. They examined blood from 12 patients. Seven had Stage II disease under the then-current CDC classification system. They were "asymptomatic," which Duesberg wrongly interprets as "healthy." The remaining five had Stage IV disease, to which Duesberg applies the slightest touch of hyperbole and calls "fatal AIDS."

Here are the PBMCs per provirus detected in the authors' assay. (PBMCs, not just CD4 cells; many PBMCs cannot be infected.) For the Stage II patients:
83,000
50,000
30,000
14,000
10,000
5,800
700
And the Stage IV patients:
30,000
3,300
2,500
2,000
900

Unfortunately, taking the low outlier in one group and comparing it with the high outlier in the next group is hardly a valid way to analyze a data set. There are two obvious outliers: the 1/700 in the Stage II group (almost an order of magnitude lower than the next count) and the 1/30,000 in the Stage IV group (almost an order of magnitude higher than the next count). Including the outliers, we still get the following medians:
Stage II: 14,000
Stage IV: 2,500
In Simmond's assay, the median Stage II "asymptomatic" patient has six times less virus per PBMC than the median Stage IV patient. Quite the opposite of what Duesberg writes.

You may have noticed that Duesberg also writes of absolute numbers of cells, while the paper reports frequencies. Whether this is due to his apparent incompetence in statistical analysis, a trait mimicked by his devoted followers, or, instead, to his much more forgivable linguistic difficulties, I will leave to others to judge.

Interesting that the Gieger fellow cited by MEC pulls this paper out of his ass and quotes only this portion:

"Conclusions: Presenting HIV RNA level predicts the rate of CD4 cell decline only minimally in untreated persons. Other factors, as yet undefined, likely drive CD4 cell losses in HIV infection."

Of course, if you actually follow through the link you'll see that the study was attempting to determine the reliability of early viral load measurements as a predictor of the future CD4 depletion trajectory. Several editorials have extracts linked from the page, including a response from the authors that notes caveats about intraindividual variability of CD4 cell depletion and signal/noise ratio among varying measurements of HIV RNA. In fact, in their response the author explicitly state that "...our study was not designed to address the relationship of viral replication with time to occurrence of AIDS or death, and we make no claims to that effect. Indeed, more precise and prolonged measurements of both viral replication and immune competence, were they available, would likely reveal a tighter association, indicating a greater role of the virus in driving immune response than suggested by our analysis." And yet, this is quote-mined to make it seem as though it casts doubt on the association of HIV with AIDS. Shameless, and yet another indication of just how honest the HIV denialist crowd is.

Sir Elkie,

I thought you rather enjoyed a little gossip once in a while judging from the blog entries and circulating dissident emails you occasionally deign to share with us. But very well, I, as a member of group B intellectually speaking, am grateful that you have decided to share some group A wealth with me on the topic at hand.

However, I don't think Duesberg presented these numbers as a statistical analysis. He tells us quite clearly that he is picking the extreme numbers, so I see no attempt at dissembling either.

In terms of your analogy, it seems to me that what Duesberg is trying to say is that in HIV land a wealthy person in terms of infected cells is too often a poor person in terms of clinical symptoms.

I confess that in my own poverty I don't know how often a person infected with, say, influenza to use a recent example is near death with barely detectable levels of active infection, and conversely how often a person with massive influenza infection is entirely asymptomatic. To Duesberg this seems to be the case a little too often and a little too easily with HIV.

Perhaps you can come up with counter examples showing that low levels of infection is quite compatible with severe symptoms and vice versa? I truly believe that if I presented my small circle of acquaintances with examples showing that this is a normal state of affairs, they would consider that a far greater challenge than the Chao paper.

I must ask you to observe one condition though: none of these shaky correlation diseases, like HBV to pick another recent example, where most carriers remain asymptomatic anyway.

Hehe... Poor Rodriguez. He really had to face the Inquisition on that one. I can imagine dear old Mr. Macaque himself with a copy of the study in hand, pointing to these lines in bold:

Other factors, as yet undefined, likely drive CD4 cell losses in HIV infection.

"Ok, Mr.Rodriguez, the faster you spin the sooner you get to go home."

Good ol' MEC, when a blatant quote-mine is pointed out he responds with yet another quote-mine. He apparently is of the homeopath-esque school of "like cures like" modalities when it comes to bad arguments. Is this the start of an "alternative logic" movement?

arma