HIV Test bogus, says PCR inventor

[scule]

*Originally posted by trueskeptic *
**ambushed, your first cite does not look promising. Here’s a preliminary retort:

"In the discussion period of Mellors’s lecture, I decided to return to the questions that I’d wanted Markowitz to answer, about the meaning of “viral load.” After all, that was the heart of the matter: Mellors’s call to discard clinical endpoints was only as valid as the “viral load” figures with which he wished to replace them.

For starters, I wanted to compare his answers to Markowitz’s. So I repeated my question about the relation between “viral load” and infectious doses. Mellors responded by proclaiming, "Viral load has nothing to do with infectivity!"

Ah-ha! Now I had a second HIV big shot admitting that the “viral load” figures did not indicate infectious HIV." **

Ok, let’s add a better retort: what he is saying is that HIV is infectious regardless of viral load levels. In other words, if one has HIV, one can infect others, regardless of the viral load level.

[stpauler]

*Originally posted by Esprix *
*What the hell is this obsession with poppers (amyl nitrate)? Not everyone in the gay community, who engages in anal intercourse, or has HIV/AIDS has used or uses poppers. Sheesh! Talk about spreading misinformation…

Esprix

*And for that matter, not everyone in the gay community engages in anal sex, either. **

*And for that matter, I’ve known 2 gay males who’ve contracted HIV without ever engaging in anal sex, only oral and IIRC one of them never did poppers. (I’m not sure about the other one).

(and FWIW, I HATE poppers, they smell like White-Out which reminds me of my mom when she uses to type at home when I was growing up. Nothing kills the mood more than thinkin’ of mom.)

[edwino]

trueskeptic
I will respond to your bit about HIV infection rates plateauing in 1982 later this evening, I’ve been busy. I’d just like to highlight one more thing before I get to that.

From Jon Cohen’s Science magazine article, “Fulfilling Koch’s Postulates” (download in PDF format):

But recently some leading AIDS researchers have stopped conceding that HIV doesn’t satisfy Koch’s postulates, as powerful new evidence emerged from tragic accidents: the infection of three laboratory workers with a pure, molecularly cloned strain of HIV. As reported at the 1993 international AIDS conference in Berlin by the National Cancer Institute’s William Blattner and his colleagues, one of the three lab workers developed Pneumocystis pneumonia, an AIDSdefining disease, 68 months after showing evidence of infection. This lab worker had not received AZT (which Duesberg contends can cause AIDS), or any other anti-HIV drug, until 83 months after infection, when the patient had fewer than 50 CD4 cells, the key immune system cells destroyed by HIV. (A healthy person typically has a count of 600 to 1200 CD4s.)

I don’t understand how people argue against these types of data.

[bri1600bv]

Yeah, that is pretty powerful, though anecdotal obviously.

Are the questions in my post on page 2 just too ignorant to reply to? Just curious.

[tomndebb]

Are the questions in my post on page 2 just too ignorant to reply to? Just curious.

No. There is just a lot going on in the thread. Several of them are being addressed (although obliquely) in the direct discussion of the dispute of Duesberg’s thesis. For a couple of others:

The test for HIV is actually an anti-body test. Doesn’t this mean that your body has already fought it off?
. . .
Supposedly, IV drug uses have suffered from “wasting disease” for centuries. Maybe I’m wrong on this…am I? Now though, “wasting disease” together with HIV = AIDS. But this again doesn’t mean that HIV causes AIDS.
. . .
What about the people who have HIV and never seem to get AIDS? Magic Johnson came out 13 years ago and said he had it. He’s healthy as a horse, and most of that time it was before the new anti-whatever cures out there.

The presence of an anti-body means that the pathogen has been recognized as a pathogen (or, at least, as a foreign body). It does not mean that the foreign body has been successfully fought off.

There have not been IV drug users for “centuries,” but even correcting that to decades, there is a distinct difference between the effects of the loss of appetite common to many (not all) IV drug users and the actual wasting aspect of AIDS that more closely resembles the advance of cancer-related malnutrition.

Magic Johnson was put on a regimen of anti-HIV cocktails as soon as he was found to have the virus. The earliest cocktails were not as efficacious as the sets developed in the mid-1990s, but there have been anti-HIV drugs since the mid- to late-1980s. In addition, unlike so many people at that time who were not tested for HIV until they were prompted by other symptoms, he was discovered to have HIV in a routine physical. The significant difference at that point is that the virus was discovered before he had displayed symptoms and the regimen was begun while he was still in excellent health. The vast majority of people who were discovered to have the HIV at that period had already begun to suffer debilitating illnesses before they HIV was found in their blood. So he began with a head start both in treatment and in health.

[Roger_Mexico]

*Originally posted by edwino *
**trueskeptic
I will respond to your bit about HIV infection rates plateauing in 1982 later this evening, I’ve been busy. I’d just like to highlight one more thing before I get to that.

From Jon Cohen’s Science magazine article, “Fulfilling Koch’s Postulates” (download in PDF format):
I don’t understand how people argue against these types of data. **

It is easy to argue against it–it’s anecdotal and doesn’t prove anything. Why didn’t the other two workers come down with any AIDS-related diseases? Oh yeah, they are “slow progressors.” Why don’t we just call this “Ptolemy’s Disease.”

You should have read further in the article and quoted this from Duesburg:

“Rather than accept the labworker data as definitive, Duesburg said he would like to see an epidemiological study to answer the question of whether HIV causes AIDS. The study he wants would compare two large groups of people matched for age, lifestyle, and ‘non-drug use’ who differ only in HIV status. ‘If the HIV-positive group had significantly more AIDS-defining diseases than the negative group, HIV would be the cause,’ Duesburg says. But, he says, 'there is not even one study in the vast AIDS literature that shows that an HIV-positive group of 20- to 50- year-old people who do not use drugs and do not have congenital diseases, like hemophilia, have more AIDS than an HIV-negative control group.”

This is such basic science, I am surprised that Duesburg is considered controversial. He is actually merely being scientific.

[Roches]

The “poppers theory” is absolutely ancient, dating back to the first few cases in NYC. Many of the early cases were regulars at some of the larger gay clubs in NYC; hence, AIDS was being called “the Saint disease” (after a club of that name, now legendary in the history of dance-music culture) at the same time it was being called “gay cancer”. Since many of the early patients were heavy drug users, some people reached the conclusion that ‘poppers’ might be the cause.

‘Poppers’ were initially amyl nitrite, C5H11ONO, an ester of amyl (pentyl) alcohol and nitrous acid. This has been outlawed, and replaced with similar nitrites (e.g. butyl, isopentyl or cyclohexyl nitrite) which remain legal. The pentyl group is pharmacologically inactive; I suspect that the mechanism of action is hydrolysis of the acid to give nitrite ion, NO2(1-), which is probably then reduced to nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, NO, is a cardiovascular/muscular signalling molecule, and is also important in the mechanism of erection (nicely explained in this monograph for Viagra® =)), though this is not the reason it is commonly used (no further comment). Incidentally, amyl nitrite is an effective antidote for cyanide poisoning.

I don’t believe that ‘poppers’ could be a factor in AIDS or the cause of Kaposi’s sarcoma simply because there are many other sources of nitrite ion: cured meats, for example. While NO is capable of repressing some immune responses, but I do not think the duration would be sufficiently long or the repression sufficiently severe to be the cause of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Much of the research on the KS/nitrite link was very early in the AIDS era, around and before the time that HIV was isolated.

bri1600bv:

Has it ever been demonstrated HOW HIV causes AIDS?

Yes; HIV particles bind to a protein on the surface of some white blood cells called ‘CD4’. The RNA genome of HIV is then ‘reverse transcribed’* into DNA, then integrated into the host’s DNA. This essentially ‘hijacks’ the host cell’s own ‘machinery’ for copying DNA, making RNA copies of information stored as DNA (‘transcription’) and making proteins (‘translation’). The infected cell then begins to produce HIV, which is eventually secreted and spreads to other cells. A simple explanation of the HIV life cycle, as well as information about its genome, can be found here.

• Reverse transcription, the process of making an DNA copy from an RNA template, is the opposite of ‘transcription’, making an RNA copy from a DNA template. The first drugs for the treatment of HIV infection, such as AZT and ddC, worked by interfering with this process.

For example Karposi’s sarcoma is caused by HIV. OK, fine, but why is Karposi’s sarcoma ONLY found in homosexuals?

Kaposi’s sarcoma is an opportunistic disease, a condition normally easily overcome by the immune system. When HIV weakens the immune system sufficiently, diseases such as KS begin to appear.

The CDC site is massive and difficult to search, so I could not find hard data about the incidence of KS by ‘exposure category’. However, I did see remarks about KS observed in both heterosexual and pediatric AIDS patients, so it is not only found in homosexuals. The observation of KS in children under 5 would seem to indicate that the disease is not caused by ‘poppers’ or homosexual activity.

Supposedly, IV drug uses have suffered from “wasting disease” for centuries. Maybe I’m wrong on this…am I?

Morphine was first isolated from opium in 1805.
The hypodermic syringe was invented in 1853.
Heroin was first synthesized in 1874.

While IV, or at least parenteral, drug abuse may have been possible before 1853, I doubt it was common. Widespread drug abuse is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century. Besides, there were far more common causes of wasting than heroin addiction back then; dysentery and general malnutrition certainly come to mind.

Magic Johnson came out 13 years ago and said he had it.

I hadn’t thought of that. But AZT was introduced in 1987, and the first protease inhibitor in 1995 (see here for other drugs). Magic Johnson would have always been able to afford even the most extensive and costly HIV treatment regimens, which probably explains his remission.

Kerry Mullis said something about “the more elaborate the theory” the more likely the theory is just wrong.

This is a restatement of Occam’s razor, I guess. I don’t think it applies, though. There are many diseases which are known to be caused by viruses. It would seem that AIDS not being caused by a bacterium, virus or even a prion would be a more elaborate theory than the theory that it is caused by a virus found in many of its victims.

[bizzwire]

Trueskeptic said

[quoteThe phrasing is as follows: “David Rasnick, protease inhibitor designer.” Does that really sound to you like he discovered them, or is that just a tactic to cast aspersions on me? Ironically, I hope it is the latter; the former would suggest that you tend to parse incorrectly, and all that entails regarding the fruitfulness of our discussion. I had hoped we could avoid such nastiness in the search for the truth.[/quote]

“Protease inhibitors” are a very large class of compounds that inhibit enzymes which break down protein. They are not by nature specific to HIV/AIDs. In my company alone, we have several dozen “protease inhibitor designers,” although we tend to use the less grandiose and more descriptive term: “synthetic chemists.”

So, my take on this is that he did not “discover them,” so much as he was just another molecule monkey, especially since a search of the US patent office for “David Rasnick” turned up nothing (but I could have not been doing the search properly).

[ambushed]

*Originally posted by trueskeptic *
ambushed, your first cite does not look promising.

No, I suppose it wouldn’t look promising to someone who hates truth and intellectual honesty because they get in the way of one’s bizarre political agenda.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Rasnick’s typically despicable game-playing sophistry…

**… Mellors responded by proclaiming, “Viral load has nothing to do with infectivity!”

Ah-ha! Now I had a second HIV big shot admitting that the “viral load” figures did not indicate infectious HIV." **

First of all, Mr. credulous anti-skeptic, taking what some guy says orally in the heat of the moment as a careful, final scientific consensus is just another perfectly wretched example of the kind of profoundly dishonest games you truth-hating death-promoters routinely play. Shame on you!

From my first citation: Answering the AIDS Denialists: CD4 (T-Cell) Counts, and Viral Load:

**The denialist argument appears to be built upon a narrow and highly selective reading of the data. For example one of the sources Maggiore cites as proof for the above statement that low CD4 counts can occur without HIV, a Transfusion Safety Study Group report at the 9th International AIDS Conference, specifically notes that HIV-negative individuals with two or more CD4 counts below 300 were rare, and that both those with known and unknown causes of immune suppression “differ from the retrovirus immunodeficiency pattern” in a number of key parameters, including CD4 percentage and CD4/CD8 ratio

In other words, transient low CD4 counts seen in other circumstances do not equal AIDS and bear little resemblance to what is typically seen in HIV-infected individuals. What the denialists regularly ignore is that while unusually low CD4 counts can occur for a variety of reasons, numerous large, long-term cohort studies have demonstrated a distinct pattern associated with HIV infection: A statistically significant CD4 decline commonly begins around the time of seroconversion and gradually becomes more severe over time, eventually leading to increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections. This has been observed in cohorts of gay men, transfusion recipients and hemophiliacs. In these cohorts a decline in CD4 count has been consistently and strongly associated with the development of AIDS-defining illnesses.**

I refer again to my original post:

Denialists such as yourselves merely play at science, and you play at it poorly. You don’t actually employ it honestly. Among your games are: using evidence very selectively; ignoring counter-evidence; picking and choosing statements and misstatements made by a one or two researchers which don’t accurately reflect the scientific consensus; using long-debunked arguments; making bald assertions contrary to fact (i.e., lying), etc.

Your so-called “preliminary retort” has once again established the truth of my words. How can you folks like with yourselves?

Didn’t Duesberg promise to infect himself with HIV to prove it doesn’t cause AIDS? (I’m not sure, but I seem to recall him saying this). Why don’t you inject yourself with HIV to prove your case if you’re so certain that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS? Is it because you’re already HIV+ and are in deep psychological denial, or is it because you don’t believe your own bullshit?

[edwino]

*Originally posted by Roger_Mexico *It is easy to argue against it–it’s anecdotal and doesn’t prove anything. Why didn’t the other two workers come down with any AIDS-related diseases? Oh yeah, they are “slow progressors.” Why don’t we just call this “Ptolemy’s Disease.”

The other two lab workers had marked reductions of their CD4+ T-cells. They were well on their way to developing AIDS. Note that I said “these kinds of data.” It is anecdotal, but it is an important piece of the puzzle. Similar things have been repeated in lab animals and throughout the patient database. For claims of Koch’s postulates, it pretty much is exactly what is thought to be necessary for showing aetiology.

“Rather than accept the labworker data as definitive, Duesburg said he would like to see an epidemiological study to answer the question of whether HIV causes AIDS. The study he wants would compare two large groups of people matched for age, lifestyle, and ‘non-drug use’ who differ only in HIV status. ‘If the HIV-positive group had significantly more AIDS-defining diseases than the negative group, HIV would be the cause,’ Duesburg says. But, he says, 'there is not even one study in the vast AIDS literature that shows that an HIV-positive group of 20- to 50- year-old people who do not use drugs and do not have congenital diseases, like hemophilia, have more AIDS than an HIV-negative control group.”

This is such basic science, I am surprised that Duesburg is considered controversial. He is actually merely being scientific.

A cohort study is not necessary or even the best way to show aetiology. There are numerous problems to address in controlling, and numerous confounding factors. The lab workers (and animal studies, and other patient studies) show that changing one variable, the HIV status, is enough to start the disease process in motion. The lab workers are an effective demonstration of this. A large, expensive, scientifically unsound and unnecessary study is not worth performing on a disease whose aetiology has clearly been established by both molecular means and classic virology.

trueskeptic

"the rates of new HIV infections peaked in 1982 at 7500, long before the introduction of any safe sex campaign and even longer before the introduction of anti-HIV drugs. The rates dropped quickly, finally plateauing at only 500 new infections every year from 1988 through 1997.
…
"According to a study authored by Mitchell Katz, the director of San Francisco’s Public Health Department, stored blood samples show that the number of people testing HIV positive in that city peaked in 1982–four years before safe sex campaigns were initiated, five years before the first “anti-HIV” treatment was approved for use (AZT) and 14 years before the release of the new AIDS cocktail drugs.

I have read as much of the primary literature as I could get my hands on about the HIV incidence rate in 1982. Each of them cite the huge peak in the homosexual community from 1982-1984. They each say that notable changes in homosexual sex pratctices in the San Francisco area, namely less unprotected sex amongst polygamous men, was responsible for this drop off, which was completely irrespective of HIV knowledge. So I retract my former statement. Interestingly, the AIDS peak followed this epidemiologic curve 10 years later, just as one would predict. This only applies in the homosexual community. HIV incidence in IV drug abusers and other groups started to fall in the early 1990s with education and increased testing and the like. In each of these circumstances, the AIDS rates have followed the HIV rates by 10 years or so, adjusted with anti-retroviral therapy.

I’m not really sure what your point is – I asked specifically if AIDS rates had dropped off because of less unprotected anal sex, amyl nitrite abuse, AZT, or reductions of any one of your risk factors. There is still nothing that you have presented, except raw statistics, which contradicts my claim that AIDS rates have followed HIV infection rates shifted by the average incubation period and corrected for anti-retroviral therapy. The epidemiology is IMHO unassailable.

[Roger_Mexico]

The epidemiology is unassailable because it doesn’t exist. There is no epidemiological correlation between HIV and AIDS, therefore any attempt at causality through satisfying Koch’s postulates is irrelevant. Gallo squandered any hope of establishing a sound science of AIDS through his premature attempt to secure the patent on an AIDS test. There is no gold standard of accuracy and sensitivity for the HIV assay because the HIV virus was never isolated in pure form for this purpose. AIDS is a multifactorial disease of immune dysfunction. HIV is one factor, but it is not the only factor. It is not necessary nor sufficient to explain AIDS. There is AIDS without HIV, there is HIV without AIDS. It is really amazing how people’s skepticism is suspended in the face of dogma. Are you a scientist or a Propagator of Received Dogma?

[ambushed]

Roger, are you a Propagator of Received Dogma or a Propagandist for Received Dogma? There is nothing to your death-promoting denialist position but hopelessly credulous, anti-scientific dogma.

Why do you continue to regurgitate ancient, long-resolved crackpottery instead of, say, responding with compelling, rational, peer-reviewed, high-quality evidence to all the cites in my first post in this thread?

Oh, that’s right. You can’t.

[ambushed]

Er, make that my second post in this thread.

[edwino]

Roger_Mexico
First, here’s a little study for you:

Epidemiologic and clinical features of HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected...

A cohort study of African children, with the only difference being the HIV status. Guess what they found? More infective diseases, more health problems, wasting, and other signs of immune deficiency.

So, please explain these things. Infants born HIV positive, from maternal transmissions, who are not treated with anti-retrovirals and develop AIDS. The numerous people (beyond the lab workers) who have contracted HIV from their spouses, doctors, dentists, or infected blood, and later developed AIDS with out any other risk factors. Baboons infected with HIV-2 develop an immune deficiency. Macaques infected with SIV develop an immune deficiency.

You try and use scientific terms, you state that HIV is not necessary or sufficient. Yet the data plainly shows both necessity and sufficiency. The lab workers and animal models show sufficiency. The fact that all people with an acquired immune deficiency due to a specific reduction in CD4+ cells are HIV+ shows necessity (and I challenge you to find cases to the contrary, because I could not). You state that there is no epidemiological correlation. Which planet are you on? Are you ignoring the big spikes in HIV infection rates, followed by the spikes in AIDS rates?

HIV without AIDS has been well researched, and has uncovered key parts of the infection route. Mutations in some of these parts lead to some resistance to the virus. Host factors mitigate all medical conditions, and AIDS is no different. AIDS without HIV is the other key part of your argument. “AIDS” without HIV is a phenomenon which I cannot find in the medical literature. There are a few reports of Pneumocystis infection (but I can’t find a single pneumonia case) in immunocompetent adults, a few Kaposi’s sarcoma (which happens rarely, and is endemic in parts of Africa), and few other oddball cases. I cannot find the 5000 cases of HIV- AIDS that the virusmyth people cite all the time. Perhaps you can point me in a direction, and we can see if this “AIDS” is truly a specific reduction in CD4+ cells. Nobody doubts that there are other types of immune compromise out there. But HIV produces a very characteristic immune deficiency (of CD4+ T-cells), which leads to a very characteristic set of infections, which can be reversed by treating the HIV infection.

Yeah, there was controversy of Gallo versus Montagnier. Yeah, Gallo may not necessarily be the most moral scientist out there. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that HIV is not the causative agent. Gallo has absolutely nothing to do with the tens of thousands of papers chronicling the molecular events in HIV infection leading the eventual depletion of CD4+ T-cells, which directly leads to an acquired immune deficiency, which directly leads to opportunistic infections and the diagnosis of AIDS.

[Roger_Mexico]

Here you go ambushed:

P.H. Duesberg, ‘Retroviruses as carcinogens and pathogens: Expectations and reality’ Cancer Research 1 March 1987, vol.47, pp.1199-1220.

• P. Duesberg, ‘HIV is not the cause of AIDS’ Science 29 July 1988, vol.241 pp.514-517.

• P. Duesberg (letter), ‘HIV Causes AIDS’ Science 29 July 1988, vol.241 pp.514-517.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘HIV and AIDS: Correlation but not causation’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Feb. 1989, vol.86 pp.755-764.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘AIDS epidemiology; Inconsistencies with HIV and with infectious disease’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Feb. 1991, vol.88 pp.1575-1579.

• P.H Duesberg & J.R. Schwartz, ‘Latent viruses and mutated oncgenes: No evidence for pathogenicity’ Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology 1992, vol.43 pp.135-204.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘AIDS aquired by drug consumption and other noncontagious risk factors’ Pharmacology and Therapeutics 1992, vol.55 pp.201-277.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘The HIV gap in national AIDS statistics’ Bio/Technology 11 Aug. 1993.

• P. Duesberg, ‘Infectious AIDS; Stretching the germ theory beyond its limits’ International Archives of Allergy and Immunology 1994, vol.103 pp.118-126.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘The Duesberg phenomenon’ (letter) Science 20 Jan. 1995, vol.267 pp.313-316.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘Foreign-protein-mediated immunodeficiency in hemophiliacs with and without HIV’ Genetica March 1995, vol.95 pp.51-70.

• P. Duesberg & H. Bialy, ‘Duesberg and the Right of Reply According to Maddox-Nature’ Genetica Monograph “AIDS: Virus- or Drug-Induced?” 1995.

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘How much longer can we aford the AIDS virus monopoly?’

E. Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., ‘A critical analysis of the HIV-T4-cell-AIDS hypothesis’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.5-24.)

• E. Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., ‘Factor VIII, HIV and AIDS in haemophiliacs: an analysis of their relationship’ (Genetic

• P.H. Duesberg, ‘Foreign-protein-mediated immunodeficiency in hemophiliacs
  with and without HIV’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.51-70.)

• V.L. Koliadin, ‘Critical analysis of the current views on the nature of AIDS’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.71-90.)

• M. Craddock, ‘Some mathematical consideration of HIV and AIDS’

• B.J. Ellison, A.B. Downey, P.H. Duesberg, ‘HIV as a surrogate marker for drug use: a re-analysis of the San Francisco Men’s Health Study’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.165-171.)

• M. Craddock, ‘A critical appraisal of the Vancouver men’s study’

• P.H. Duesberg and H. Bialy, ‘Duesberg and the right of reply to Maddox-Nature’

• M. Craddock, ‘HIV: Science by press conference’

• M.D. Zaretsky, ‘AZT toxicity and AIDS prophylaxis: is AZT beneficial for HIV+ asymptomatic persons with 500 or more T4 cells per cubic millimeter?’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.91-101.)

• D.T. Chiu, P.H. Duesberg, ‘The toxicity of azidothymidine (AZT) on human and animal cells in culture at concentrations used for antiviral therapy’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.103-109.)

• H.W. Haverkos, D.P. Drotman, ‘Measuring inhalant nitrite exposure in gay men: implications for elucidating the etiology of AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.157-164.)

• K.B. Mullis, ‘A hypothetical disease of the immune system that may bear some relation to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp. 195-197.)

• G.T. Stewart, ‘The epidemiology and transmission of AIDS: a hypothesis linking behavioural and biological determinants to time, person and place’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.173-193.)

• R.S. Root-Bernstein, ‘Five myths about AIDS that have misdirected research and treatment’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.111-132.)

[Roger_Mexico]

edwino, that Ugandan study probably used the same methodology as this 1994 Ugandan study:

"The HIV establishment has made much of a 1994 paper by Dean Mulder et al in Lancet [vol. 343, p.1021], titled “Two-Year HIV-1-Associated Mortality in a Ugandan Rural Population.” This study of Uganda villagers showed that those who tested positive for antibodies had a much higher death rate than those who did not, especially in the age group 25-34. Officials from the CDC and other AIDS agencies cite this study as proving that an AIDS epidemic caused by HIV is ravaging Africa.

What the HIV propaganda does not say is that the subjects did not die of AIDS. The cause of death was reported for 64 antibody-positive subjects, and of this group only 5 were diagnosed as AIDS under the very broad “Bangui” (African) definition, which requires only conditions like sustained weight loss and persistent diarrhoea. Moreover, it is erroneous to assume that the Ugandans who tested positive were actually HIV- infected, because on antibody tests are common, particularly in Africa. That this finding of mostly non-AIDS deaths among persons who may or may not have been HIV-infected was claimed to support the HIV theory of AIDS and the existence of an African HIV/AIDS pandemic is eloquent testimony to the closed mindset and intellectual dishonesty that rules HIV research. "

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

[DocCathode]

*Originally posted by ambushed *
**

Didn’t Duesberg promise to infect himself with HIV to prove it doesn’t cause AIDS? (I’m not sure, but I seem to recall him saying this). Why don’t you inject yourself with HIV to prove your case if you’re so certain that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS? **

I’ve been following this thread and wondering this myself. In the early 1800s, a physician by the name of Broussais taught that the humours could be balanced, thus curing disease, by the proper application of leeches. In order to prove his mentor’s methods, one of Broussais’ top students publicly infected himself with pus containing active syphilis. He had no fear as he knew that leeches could save him. Naturally, the treatment failed. The man killed himself a few weeks later.

Brunvand, the folks at Snopes and others who fight to debunk urban legends are often asked if poinsettia leaves are poisonous. They often respond by eating one.

[edwino]

Did you even read the cite? HIV infection was tested by ELISA and then confirmed by PCR. This is the exact way that it is done in the USA.

They then compared the children using the old, purely clinical definition of AIDS, the WHO 1989 standard, They found that they had 28% sensitivity (only 28% of children who were HIV+ had 1989-classified AIDS upon diagnosis of mean age of 4 months), but a very high specificity (98%), so there were very few false positives. This is the old, clinical definition. This is stunning because the groups that they compared were infants who came into the hospital because they were septic. So, among infants with serious infections, the old clinical definition corresponded with HIV infection nearly 100%. They compared the clinical signs of the 1989 WHO definition, and they found statistically significant differences in every category, as well as a whole host of other clinical findings.

[ambushed]

*Originally posted by Roger_Mexico * **Here you go ambushed:

P.H. Duesberg, ‘Retroviruses as carcinogens and pathogens: Expectations and reality’ Cancer Research 1 March 1987, vol.47, pp.1199-1220.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P. Duesberg, ‘HIV is not the cause of AIDS’ Science 29 July 1988, vol.241 pp.514-517.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P. Duesberg (letter), ‘HIV Causes AIDS’ Science 29 July 1988, vol.241 pp.514-517.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘HIV and AIDS: Correlation but not causation’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Feb. 1989, vol.86 pp.755-764.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘AIDS epidemiology; Inconsistencies with HIV and with infectious disease’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Feb. 1991, vol.88 pp.1575-1579.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H Duesberg & J.R. Schwartz, ‘Latent viruses and mutated oncgenes: No evidence for pathogenicity’ Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology 1992, vol.43 pp.135-204.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘AIDS aquired by drug consumption and other noncontagious risk factors’ Pharmacology and Therapeutics 1992, vol.55 pp.201-277.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘The HIV gap in national AIDS statistics’ Bio/Technology 11 Aug. 1993.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P. Duesberg, ‘Infectious AIDS; Stretching the germ theory beyond its limits’ International Archives of Allergy and Immunology 1994, vol.103 pp.118-126.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘The Duesberg phenomenon’ (letter) Science 20 Jan. 1995, vol.267 pp.313-316.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘Foreign-protein-mediated immunodeficiency in hemophiliacs with and without HIV’ Genetica March 1995, vol.95 pp.51-70.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P. Duesberg & H. Bialy, ‘Duesberg and the Right of Reply According to Maddox-Nature’ Genetica Monograph “AIDS: Virus- or Drug-Induced?” 1995.**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘How much longer can we aford the AIDS virus monopoly?’**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

E. Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., ‘A critical analysis of the HIV-T4-cell-AIDS hypothesis’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.5-24.)

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

*** E. Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., ‘Factor VIII, HIV and AIDS in haemophiliacs: an analysis of their relationship’**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

*** P.H. Duesberg, ‘Foreign-protein-mediated immunodeficiency in hemophiliacs with and without HIV’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.51-70.)**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** V.L. Koliadin, ‘Critical analysis of the current views on the nature of AIDS’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.71-90.)**

Here are Koliadin’s own words to the denialists in 1999:

Many AIDS-skeptics seem to believe that the following two statements are almost proven scientific facts:

1. HIV is not the cause of AIDS;

2. HIV does not exist and HIV-tests are not specific

Moreover, many of them seem to believe that mainstream science does not accept these statements only because of vested interests, and/or even because something like worldwide conspiracy exists among the mainstream AIDS-researchers, doctors, policy-makers.

I dare to state this is not the case. Really, the two statements are bold ground-breaking hypotheses advanced by Peter Duesberg and the Perth group respectively. But, right now, they cannot be named “proven facts”: much work should be done to make these statements “proven facts”. There are many observations, real or virtual, which seem to provide strong support for the official theory and to refute dissident views. Unless persuasive alternative explanations are advanced for such observations, the HIV-causes-AIDS belief will continue to be judged as the ultimate truth…

[… We should not] turn the blind eye to inconvenient facts (what seems to have been the case by the moment).

*** M. Craddock, ‘Some mathematical consideration of HIV and AIDS’ * B.J. Ellison, A.B. Downey, P.H. Duesberg, ‘HIV as a surrogate marker for drug use: a re-analysis of the San Francisco Men’s Health Study’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.165-171.)**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; medically unqualified commentator

*** M. Craddock, ‘A critical appraisal of the Vancouver men’s study’**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; medically unqualified commentator

*** P.H. Duesberg and H. Bialy, ‘Duesberg and the right of reply to Maddox-Nature’**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; disingenuous researcher

*** M. Craddock, ‘HIV: Science by press conference’**

Arguments irrelevant to HIV-AIDS thesis; medically unqualified commentator

*** M.D. Zaretsky, ‘AZT toxicity and AIDS prophylaxis: is AZT beneficial for HIV+ asymptomatic persons with 500 or more T4 cells per cubic millimeter?’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.91-101.)**

Arguments now irrelevant to HIV-AIDS thesis

*** D.T. Chiu, P.H. Duesberg, ‘The toxicity of azidothymidine (AZT) on human and animal cells in culture at concentrations used for antiviral therapy’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.103-109.)**

Arguments irrelevant to HIV-AIDS thesis; article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

*** H.W. Haverkos, D.P. Drotman, ‘Measuring inhalant nitrite exposure in gay men: implications for elucidating the etiology of AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.157-164.)**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

*** K.B. Mullis, ‘A hypothetical disease of the immune system that may bear some relation to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp. 195-197.)**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP] ; medically unqualified commentator; crackpot commentator

*** G.T. Stewart, ‘The epidemiology and transmission of AIDS: a hypothesis linking behavioural and biological determinants to time, person and place’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.173-193.)**

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

*** R.S. Root-Bernstein, ‘Five myths about AIDS that have misdirected research and treatment’ (Genetica 1995, vol.95 pp.111-132.) **

Article now obsolete; claims debunked[SUP]*[/SUP]

[SUP]*[/SUP] Cites for articles in which all above claims have been debunked:

Answering the AIDS Denialists: CD4 (T-Cell) Counts, and Viral Load

Answering the AIDS Denialists: AIDS Treatment Improves Survival

Answering the AIDS Denialists: Is AIDS Real?

HIV, AIDS, and the Distortion of Science

The Controversy over HIV and AIDS (AAAS articles address deniers’ arguments at length, particularly Duesberg’s)

The Relationship Between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

MACS and WIHS Studies Provide Overwhelming Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS

HIV, AIDS and the reappearance of an old myth

Dissident Scientists and Government Conspiracies: A Look at Alternative AIDS Theories

Proof Positive: How African Science Has Demonstrated That HIV Causes AIDS

South Africa HIV dispute: Time to Stop and Think

A Step Back in Time: AIDS Dissenters Cannot Delete 20 Years of Research and Experience

HIV Causes AIDS: Proof Derived from Koch’s Postulates

AIDS Denialists Hype – When junk science turns lethal

Bad science: They once thought HIV was harmless. Now, they say, AIDS has forced them to reconsider.

On not using condoms: AIDS denialists, not dissenters

HIV Doesn’t Cause AIDS? Who Says?

Tails Between Their Legs: AIDS Denialists Lose Ground

HIV is the Only Cause of AIDS: The Potential for Journalism to Impact the Public Health

THE AIDS HERESIES: A Case Study in Skepticism Taken Too Far

[Testy]

I just escorted an HIV+ guy home to die. He had toxoplasmosis, TB, and various cancers. This crap by Duisenberg and Co. is going to get someone, or a lot of someones, killed.
If D’berg is so damn sure that HIV doesn’t produce AIDS then why doesn’t he just inject some? Put his body where his mouth is and try it out? I’m sure he has a pristine lifestyle and wouldn’t get AIDS.

Regards

Testy.