Does HIV cause AIDS?

Great Debates
1

I’m not really educated enough to be able to formulate any particular opinion on this debate (so if circumstances ever dictate, I would either rely on the opinions of experts or I would have to do a lot more research) but I was wondering what the learned members of this board thought of this question.

In the red corner, we have the talented but raw underdog challenger:

http://www.virusmyth.net/

and in the blue corner, we have the Champion (winner of many fights but not all of them by KO):

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm

Thoughts?

2

Ha. Winner of many fights but not all of them by KO.

Very amusing. I hope sarcasm was implied.

Basically everyone who develops AIDS is HIV+. Those “HIV- AIDS” cases are either another immune deficiency or testing errors or very rare infections by non-reactive HIV strains.

To date, except for a very small minority of people with some type of resistance, everyone who is HIV+ eventually gets AIDS. This correlates nicely with an increase in the levels of HIV in the blood.

If you reduce the HIV count in someone with AIDS, they get better. The drugs that are so effective in fighting AIDS were specifically tailored to get rid of HIV.

The field is huge. There is as much scientific evidence for the HIV/AIDS link as there is for apples falling off of trees because of gravity. There are no good scientific chinks in this theory. Handwaving and claiming that “retroviruses don’t usually cause this kind of disease” and that it is due to marijuana abuse or whatever does not constitute science. Besides, HTLV can cause serious disease as well.

I believe that HIV is still the most serious threat to global political/social/economic stability. Parts of sub-saharan Africa have greater than 33% of the populace infected. If left unchecked, this will create an enormous social upheaval as these people die and leave behind millions of orphans. We should be focusing our efforts on treating and preventing this kind of disaster.

3

I remember hearing about scientist (a Frenchman I believe) who asserted that there was no HIV/AIDS connection; he was so convinced that he deliberately infected himself with HIV.

Anybody know what happened to him?

4

Probably died, I guess.

5

Our president in South Africa toyed with the notion that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, but was quickly shouted down.

Luckily our Minister of Health, totally dismissed the “HIV != AIDS” story and carried on with AIDS treatment and education in spite of the President’s old views (which he has now changed after the scientific community gave him a stern lecture).

It was even more embarassing for the President after one of his top aides died of a “mystery disease”, which everyone believes to be HIV/AIDS.

6

Ah yes - you’ve gotta love our Thabo… so trusting of everything he reads on the Internet…
Madam and Eve do:
One
Two
Three

Gp

7

Okay, a Google search for “scientist infected himself HIV” turns up a Florida doctor named Willner, who did this at a press conference in 1994.

http://www.sumeria.net/aids/willner2.html

More details.

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/rwcharlotteobs.htm

He turns up on a French website also. This looks like a full-scale report, outlining his thesis. It’s in French, Google will translate it into English for you, but only some of it, unless that’s just my computer being stupid.

This is an outline of his career.

And, ultimately, the point is moot.
http://uhavax.hartford.edu/bugl/rise.htm

The website has the date as 1993, when both the news links have it as 1994. So I suppose it’s possible that he didn’t die in 1995, but it seems clear that he had a heart attack and died.

From this.

Uh-huh.

8

Would you be so kind as to supply cites for these thing? Thanks in advance!

9

**Does HIV cause AIDS? **

Yes. Yes it does.

Next question?

10

Last I heard no one has been able to isolate HIV. This is one of the most important things to do before making leaps into what HIV may or may not implicate. I don’t know whether HIV causes AIDS. So whats up with isolating HIV? Any new developments I haven’t heard?

11

portajon: What are you talking about?

12

The Institut Pasteur isolated HIV in 1983, and Dr. Robert Gallo isolated it in the US in 1984.

13

Which parts? Most of these can be found as standard in any textbook of virology, infectious disease, or internal medicine. A good primer is Chapter 308 in Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. That is what I read in medical shcool.

First of all, AIDS is defined as a condition classified by HIV infection and a CD4+ T-Cell count of less than 200/microliter. So, by definition AIDS == HIV infection. A CD4 count of <300/uL without HIV is deifned as idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia (ICL), a different, very rare disease with a different epidemiology and clinical presentation. Reports have been published of seronegative HIV carriage, however, with odd mutated strains of HIV. I know this is a cheap shot, but it is a medical definition. There are no cases of AIDS that are not HIV+.

Now in terms of HIV progression to AIDS. Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine states that the median time from primary HIV infection to AIDS is 10 years without treatment. Up to 13% may not get AIDS for longer than 20 years. In most of these cases, the patients are not asymptomatic, though, and have viremia and some level of immunodeficiency. Less than 5% are termed long-term nonprogressors, whose T-Cell counts are normal. Most have persistent viremia but robust antibody production. Some of these have infections with defective virus, some of these have one of a number of genetic mutations (which are quite common, for instance in the CCR-5 gene). It doesn’t change my statement – the vast majority of HIV+ people eventually go on to develop AIDS without treatment.

About the drugs. Some, like ddC, AZT, ddI, and d4T are nucleoside analog polymerase inhibitors. These bind much more strongly to the HIV reverse transcriptase than the mammalian DNA polymerase, thus selectively blocking HIV replication. The other major class of drugs is the protease inhibitors. These are famously popular – after their introduction in 1996, people with end-stage AIDS were literally able to get up off of their beds and go back to work. They, according to Harrison’s are “exquisitely selective for the protease enzyme of HIV-1.” They were designed specifically for this purpose. Their complex organic synthesis, involving a number of steroselective reactions, and their long development period, partially explains their staggering cost.

The field is huge and I am loathe to dig up the primary literature. I will if you don’t trust Harrison’s which is really kind of a de facto standard for clinical medical practice.

14

There’s a certain irony here. Many, perhaps MOST of the people who assert that HIV does not cause AIDS are inspired by once-esteemed virologist Peter Duesberg, who has long insisted that HIV is harmless, and that the symptoms of AIDS are caused by a host of bad lifestyle choices (especially drugs) popular among homosexuals.

But when Duesberg first became prominent, it was almost exclusively right-wingers who embraced him! It was the gay community that rallied around the “HIV causes AIDS” theory.
Today, of course, virtually every reputable doctor and scientist believes that HIV is, in fact, the cause of AIDS, and Duesberg is widely regarded as a quack. But, ironically,
it’s fringe GAY groups (invariably of the far left) that hail the Duesberg hypothesis, and slam the HIV theory as a lie and fraud, designed by Puritans to put a crimp in their sex lives.

15

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by astorian *
**There’s a certain irony here. Many, perhaps MOST of the people who assert that HIV does not cause AIDS are inspired by once-esteemed virologist Peter Duesberg, who has long insisted that HIV is harmless, and that the symptoms of AIDS are caused by a host of bad lifestyle choices (especially drugs) popular among homosexuals.
I have read a couple interviews with Duesberg. I think he is a quack. However you can find many reputable scientist that dispute the isolation of HIV in 1983 and 1984. Seems like I also remember some group offering a large reward for anyone to prove the isolation based on accepted methds of isolation.

16

Contrary to popular opinion, IMHO, virus isolation and purification is not the be-all and end-all of infectious disease. Viruses are notoriously hard to isolate and culture, and HIV is no exception. Getting a pure unadulterated sample from a patient is difficult, as patients tend to have a low level viremia and you would need to process a lot of tissue. HIV is purified and made in tissue culture all the time, though, so it is not like people don’t have pure HIV sitting around in a test tubes across the world.

This all relates back to Koch’s postulates, which in a more naive day, were required to establish the specificty of a pathogen in causing a disease:

  1. The pathogenic organism must be detected in all cases of the disease.
  2. Pure cultures cause the disease in animals.
  3. You must obtain and propogate the same pathogenic organism from the animal.

There are a number of problems with this with respect to HIV. 1) has been repeatedly shown to be the case, as we define AIDS as HIV+ with CD4 < 200/uL and/or an opportunistic infection. All cases of immunodeficiency in HIV- individuals are not AIDS. 2) and 3) are somewhat related, and cannot be shown in HIV. This is due to a number of quirks of the virus – while infection can be established in a number of monkeys, transgenic mice, and rabbits, it doesn’t cause a disease. This rule is a little outdated knowing what we now know about the evolution of HIV. Traditionally, most of the severe human disease have co-evolved with us in domesticated animals and other animals that we come across regularly. They often cause diseases in said animals – witness cowpox/smallpox, swine/chicken flu, tuberculosis (M. tb versus M. bovis). This is not the case in HIV, which has made the jump from monkeys recently. Neither the jump nor the host-virus interactions which make HIV pathogenic in humans is well understood, but we are working on it.

The vast majority of evidence, however, points to HIV being the cause of AIDS. We have described the clinical, molecular, epidemiologic, genetic, and mechanistic features of HIV/AIDS. The theory makes sense without any credible scientific chinks in the armor. More importantly, it works pragmatically – treating the viremia treats the disease. Nitpicking one tiny detail – the lack of a pure culture causing disease in a model organism – seems to me to be relatively similar to creation scientists nitpicking tiny perceived chinks in the armor of evolution.

17

With all respect, put up or shut up.

18

Doesn’t this sound fishy to anybody else? I don’t think that you can call a doctor’s office and get confirmation if a person is a patient there, let alone find out if they have HIV.

19

Sorry for such a long post but someone ask me to put up or shut up. I ain’t shuttin up. This is just one list. You can find more and the number is growing daily. It includes doctors, scientist, chemist, microbiologist, and a couple Nobel prize winners. I don’t make shit up.

Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, microbiologist: “…there is no specific etiologic agent of AIDS…the disease arises as a result of a cumulative process following a period of exposure to multiple environmental factors…”[1]
Dr. Albert Sabin, discoverer of live-virus polio vaccine (National Institutes of Health): “The basis of present action and education is that everybody who tests positive for the virus must be regarded as a transmitter and there is no evidence for that.” [1]
Dr. Robert E. Willner, author of Deadly Deception: “Most of the medically supervised AIDS deaths were either caused or contributed to by the deadly drug AZT. In many cases it was given to perfectly normal and healthy individuals who were terrorized… into taking the phony HIV test.” [3]
Dr. Richard Beltz, creator of AZT (azidothymidine): “AZT was shelved for two reasons: My studies showed that it caused cancer at any dose and it was too toxic even for short term use.” [5]
John Lauritsen, author of The AIDS War: “The claim is made that AZT extends life. And yet most of the beliefs that it does are based on Phase II trials which were seriously flawed and utterly worthless.” [5]
Dr. Rachel Baggaley, British health advisor: “No one in Zambia ever dies of AIDS. They will say it is malaria, or a fever, or TB.” [4]
Walter Gilbert, Nobel Prize for chemistry 1980 & professor of molecular biology Harvard: [says of Peter Duesberg] “is absolutely correct in saying that no one has proven that AIDS is caused by the AIDS virus. And it is absolutely correct that the virus cultured in the laboratory may not be the cause of AIDS… I would not be surprised if there were another cause of AIDS and even that HIV is not involved.” [1]
Charles Thomas, professor of biochemistry Harvard: “It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biomedical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group.” [1]
Professor Serge Lang, Yale University: “There does not even exist a single proper definition of AIDS on which discourse or statistics can reliably be based… CDC calls these diseases AIDS only when antibodies against HIV are confirmed or presumed to be present. If a person tests HIV negative, then the diseases are given another name.” [6]
Neville Hodgkinson, writer London Sunday Times: “An authoritative new study has uncovered powerful evidence that the ‘Aids test’ is scientifically invalid, misleading millions into believing they are HIV positive when they are not infected with the virus… They have heightened concerns that the spread of Aids in Africa has been wildly exaggerated.” [7]
Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR test, Nobel Prize Chemistry 1993: “They got some big numbers for HIV-positive people [in Africa] before they realized that antibodies to malaria – which everyone in Africa has – show up as ‘HIV-positive’ on tests.” [8]
Robert Root-Bernstein, molecular scientist, author of Discovery and Rethinking AIDS: “We used to think we knew that everyone is at equal risk for HIV and AIDS, and that a heterosexual epidemic was inevitable. But the epidemiology of AIDS has yet to prove consistent with that view…” [9]
Phillip E. Johnson, journalist: “Reporters who cover the AIDS story are told by a host of eminent scientists that there is absolutely no doubt that the world is threatened by a catastrophic plague of AIDS caused by HIV and to question this fact is about as rational as to think that the Earth is flat.” [10]
Peter Duesberg, retrovirologist, member of National Academy of Sciences: “HIV is just a latent, and perfectly harmless, retrovirus that most but not all AIDS patients happen to carry. To say that HIV is the cause of AIDS is to cast aside everything we know about retroviruses… The HIV theory is inconsistent, paradoxical, and absurd…” [11]
John Lauritsen, author of The Great AIDS Hoax: “…AIDS is neither new nor unique, but was concocted as an umbrella term to cover a complex of diseases, some of which had been medically described as far back as 1539.” [12]
Llaila O. Afrika, author of Afrikan Holistic Health and Nutricide: “An AIDS virus is a particle of a dead human cell. It can not eat, reproduce, grow, move, attack you or be attacked, it is not a plant or animal and it is not alive. A virus is not active one month and inactive (sleep) the next, nor does it sleep between 2 to 5 years before it attacks the person.” [13]
GlaxoWellcome, pharmaceutical manufacturer of Retrovir (AZT): “WARNING: Retrovir (zidovudine) may be associated with hematologic toxicity [blood poisoning] including granulocytopenia and severe anemia particularly in patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease… Prolonged use of Retrovir has been associated with symptomatic myopathy similar to that produced by human immunodeficiency virus… The full safety and efficacy profile of Retrovir has not been defined, particularly in regard to prolonged use in HIV-infected individuals who have less advanced disease.” [14]
Elinor Burkett, author of The Gravest Show on Earth: [of the "AIDS industry] “…a combine of certain doctors, politicians, government research scientists, pharmaceutical companies, home health care providers, gay community leaders, CDC officials, funeral and health insurance bureaucrats, the media – all of whom… may have cashed in, or copped out, or been misled, or succumbed to greed and ego…” [15]
Tom Bethell, Hoover Institution researcher: “The fact is, I am now convinced, AIDS is not a disease at all – it is a government program.” [16]
Harry Rubin, retrovirologist, member of National Academy of Sciences: "I don’t think the cause of AIDS has been found. I think [in] a disease as complex as AIDS that there are likely to be multiple causes. In fact, to call it a single disease when there are so many multiple manifestations seems to me to be an oversimplification. [17]
Dr. Charles Geshekter, professor of history Univ. California at Chico: “A 1994 report in the Journal of Infectious Diseases concluded that HIV tests were useless in central Africa, where the microbes responsible for tuberculosis, malaria, and leprosy were so prevalent that they registered over 70% false positive results… in people whose immune systems are compromised by a wide variety of reasons other than HIV…” [18]
Rep. Gil Gutknecht, U.S. House of Representatives, member of Committee on Science: “Considering that there is little scientific proof of the exact linkage of HIV and AIDS, is it ethical to prescribe AZT, a toxic chain terminator of DNA developed 30 years ago as cancer chemotherapy, to 150,000 Americans – among them pregnant women and newborn babies – as an anti-HIV drug?” [19]
Elliot Fox, journalist, founder of Association to Re-evaluate AIDS: “AIDS, the Waterloo of the medical industrial complex, is said to be caused by a virus, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, detected by antibody tests which are proven to be grossly inaccurate, and treated by incredibly toxic pharmaceuticals that are definitely proven to cause the syndrome.” [20]
Jon Rappaport, commentator/journalist, author of AIDS, Inc.: “A lot more people are aware that HIV is a hoax and AZT is killing people… More people are realizing this is not behaving like a contagious disease.” [21]

20

Hey look, it’s the HIV isolation prize. If anyone reading this can meet the accepted methods of isolation you can claim this reward.

THE ISOLATION OF HIV ­ HAS IT BEEN ACHIEVED?

AUTHORS’ NOTE FOR INTERNET USERS:

In the middle of 1995 Continuum Magazine (Editor, Huw Christie, 172 Foundling Court, Brunswick Centre, London WC1N 1QE United Kingdom, Voice int + 44 171 713 7071, Fax 7072) offered a prize of one thousand pounds sterling to anyone providing scientific proof for HIV isolation. Following this challenge a series of articles were published and below is presented the case against (Continuum, September/October 1996 Supplement pages 1-24). The BARE ESSENTIALS of the Eleopulos and colleagues paper are:

No researcher has yet presented evidence for the isolation of any particle, retroviral-like or otherwise, proven to be a retrovirus by virtue of demonstrating its ability to produce exact copies of itself when placed in an “uninfected” cell culture. Although the method for retroviral isolation was thoroughly discussed at and published by the Pasteur Institute in 1973 no HIV researcher has yet presented evidence for HIV isolation by this method.
It is invalid to speak of HIV particles, HIV proteins, HIV RNA or HIV DNA (cDNA) or even entertain the notion of HIV antigens or molecular or viral cloning without such proof.
The detection in culture fluids of reverse transcription of the primer-template A(n).dT15 is not specific proof for the presence of a retrovirus.
The “HIV proteins” are defined as the subset of proteins (approximately 20%) of the proteins present in cultures/co-cultures of tissues from AIDS patients which react with some antibodies present in some AIDS patient sera. However, it is not possible to declare any protein a component of a unique, exogenously acquired retrovirus by means of an antigen/antibody reaction.
There is no proof that any of the “HIV proteins” are coded by the “HIV genome”. And, for example, in a computer-assisted analysis of the amino acid sequences of the envelope protein complexes derived from the nucleotide sequences of seven AIDS virus isolates, it was reported that gp41 protein, which should have a molecular weight of 41,000, had a calculated weight of 52,000 to 54,000.
There is disagreement as to which are the “specific” HIV proteins and thus which proteins are significant in defining HIV infection on the basis of the HIV Western blot antibody test. Presently, worldwide there are at least ten major sets of criteria for defining a positive HIV Western blot and hence HIV infection. Thus positivity and infection in some institutions or countries is not positivity or infection in others.
The “HIV RNA” and “HIV DNA” are defined on the basis of length (approximately 10,000 nucleotides) and chemical composition (adenine rich) of all the RNA present in cultures of tissues of AIDS patients, NOT on the basis of RNA extracted from a particle first isolated and then proven to be a retrovirus.
In 1990 the HIV genome was said to consist of ten genes. This year Montagnier reported that HIV possesses eight genes and according to BarrÇ-Sinoussi, HIV has nine genes. Neither is there constancy of the number of nucleotides in the “HIV genome”. Also, to date, only 11 full length “HIV genomes” have been sequenced and accordingly, HIV genotype consignments are derived from sequence analysis of subgenomes measuring 2% to 30% of the total. The data is that such “genomes” vary between 3-40%. (If 30% of the HIV genome varies as much as 40%, how much does 100% of the HIV genome vary? In the HIV Western blot, how can an HIV producing one set of proteins detect antibodies that are produced in response to the set of all other disparate “HIV genomes”? When does “HIV” become some other entity?). Thus, not only are there no two HIV genomes of the same length or nucleotide composition, there is no single genetic entity “HIV DNA” to describe the myriads of “HIV genomes”. It is also estimated that patients contain between one and one hundred million distinct HIV DNAs at the one time. Neither is it correct to encompass such DNAs under the umbrella of a quasispecies of “closely related genomes”.
Even if there were proof for the isolation of a unique, exogenously acquired retrovirus with a unique stretch of RNA (cDNA), there is no evidence for the cloning of HIV.
There are many mechanisms, all well known to retrovirologists and which have nothing to do with the acquisition of an exogenous retrovirus, that may explain all the “HIV phenomena”, that is, the generation of particles, proteins and nucleic acids in AIDS patients or in cultures/co-cultures of tissues from AIDS patients. For example, the types of cells used to “culture HIV” may exhibit such phenomena independently of being “infected with HIV”.
Neither the HIV antibody tests nor the HIV genomic tests have been appraised by reference to the only scientifically valid gold standard, HIV isolation. Notwithstanding, in one study, the concordance between HIV serology and “HIV DNA” varied between 40 - 100% and in another study only 74% of patients were positive for plasma “HIV RNA”. In “Seven French laboratories with extensive experience in PCR detection of HIV DNA”, the data revealed that of 138 samples shown to contain “HIV DNA”, 34 (25%) did not contain “HIV antibodies” while of 262 specimens that did not contain “HIV DNA”, 17 (6%) did contain “HIV antibodies”.
Regardless of the above, for retrovirologists, proof of the existence and pathogenicity of a given retrovirus is contingent upon demonstration of specific antibodies to retroviral proteins. The significance of this fact is demonstrated by the example of HL23V, the “first” human retrovirus discovered by Gallo in the mid 1970s. By 1980, the demonstration that antibodies to HL23V were non-specific led to its precipitous demise, so much so that Gallo now never mentions his “first” virus and regards HTLV-I as the “first” human retrovirus. In addition to the evidence presented in the Eleopulos et al 1993 Bio/Technology paper, further data is presented that the 88% of AIDS patients infected with one or more fungal (including Pneumocystis carinni) or mycobacterial species contain antibodies to such organisms which may cross react with “HIV proteins” found in the HIV Western blot. Thus it is impossible to claim that such diseases are caused by HIV on the basis of an antibody test or that “HIV seropositivity” in such patients is caused by HIV. ≠ The authors
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