HIV Test bogus, says PCR inventor

Great Debates
121

Anbushed: your cites are a joke. The Austin CHronicle? What the hell do they know about AIDS? Duesburg is a scientist, not a journalist.

This is good: your cite about condom usage led to this site–Pornotopia!

http://www.xtra.ca/site/toronto2/arch/body626.shtm

Forget the tease of erotica–pornography is now a mainstream language. Woohoo!!

We are not “denialists”, we just have a higher standard of scientific proof than you gullibilists. In fact, the premature consensus of the gullibilists will lead to many more deaths than the skepticism of those who question the HIV-AIDS hypothesis:

“In pointing out that too much AIDS research has been directed by myths that have been accepted uncritically by the majority of investigators, and that several well-established models of disease causation have been ignored as well, I am therefore arguing that AIDS research as a whole has not followed standard scientific practice of skeptical elaboration of possibilities followed by disproof. Instead, the community of AIDS researchers has reversed standard practice by leaping to the conclusion that the first obvious answer (HIV) must also be the best and the most correct answer. Until it can be demonstrated that no other possible explanation of AIDS exists besides HIV alone, and until specific tests are performed to attempt to disprove the HIV theory, there is no methodological justification for limiting research to HIV alone. This is basic scientific method. Einstein had some advice to scientists. He said that when devising a theory, make it as simple as possible and no simpler. My view of AIDS research, which owes a great the pioneering work of Joseph Sonnabend, is that both those who study HIV and those who refuse to acknowledge its role in AIDS have oversimplified. AIDS is complex. AIDS is multifactorial, and the diverse factors that are correlated with the various risk groups for AIDS all interact synergistically. Until we understand these interactions in their full complexity and set up appropriate experiments to test whether any of them are relevant to AIDS pathogenesis, we will continue to act, as we act today, like the blind men describing the elephant, each attributing all of AIDS to the part of the thing with which we are in closest contact (Root-Bernstein, 1993). Meanwhile, people with AIDS die as a result of our blindness._”

–Robert S. Root-Bernstein

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

122

Edwino, that study doesn’t prove that HIV causes AIDS. All it shows is that HIV infection is associated with immune suppression. Kids in Africa get malaria and diarrhea, they get dehydrated, parents don’t know about oral rehydration therapy. If they have malaria, they may be treated with chloroquine, which is extremely toxic and is an immune suppressant. Immune suppression leads to fungal or yeast infections, thus the nystatin. The diarrhea leads to malnutrition, further immune suppression, further infections, injections, antibiotics, and more immune suppression. In the midst of all this immune suppression, it is not surprising that there will be higher incidence of infection by HIV and other viruses. But there is no evidence that the HIV is causing the immune suppression. To focus solely on the HIV is a detriment to the child who is suffering from a host of problems.

I am not an AIDS denialist, nor an HIV denialist. I believe AIDS is a multifactorial disease. Call me a Root-Bernsteinist. He got a MacArthur genius award, maybe he has something to offer.

123

My wife is a fucking EPIDEMIOLOGIST. She is a scientist. You are simply and merely WRONG.

124

ambushed: what does your article
“Tails Between Their Legs: AIDS Denialists Lose Ground” have to do
with whether or not HIV causes AIDS? It’s just a report about a
protest by “denialists” that got out of hand. Did you even read
the articles you want the other side to look at and rebut, or just
find provocative titles?

125

Roger_Mexico

Debating this has curiously become like debating creationists. Every time a new transitional fossil arises, they either claim it is a fake or they claim that it is not a true transitional fossil. Here I have presented a study which does nearly exactly what Duesberg asks – it takes two groups of identical patients, in this case children who presented at a Ugandan clinic with sepsis. They were all incredibly sick, they were all presumably malnourished, dehydrated, and suffering from a variety of conditions endemic to Uganda. But the only ones with AIDS were the ones who were HIV+. This is using a definition of AIDS (the 1989 WHO standard) which is entirely clinical (for use in developing countries without access to lab tests) and not designed for use in infants.

You would not expect to see a 98% specificity of the definition if HIV were only a marker of a more general immune deficiency. AIDS is a specific type of immune deficiency caused by a loss of CD4+ T-cells. This decline begins shortly after HIV seroconversion. The immune dysfunction manifests itself when the CD4+ T-cell count drops to around 200. At this point a wide range of opportunistic infections, determined by the region and the exposures, begin to develop. There is no record of such a decline of CD4+ cells in HIV negative individuals. Treating with antivirals specifically targeting HIV lowers the HIV titers, the CD4+ count rebounds, and the clinical symptoms disappear. There is no argument here.

And you skipped my above questions. What about infants who develop AIDS after contracting the virus from their HIV infected mothers? Infants who don’t seroconvert don’t develop AIDS. Isn’t that a little coincidence? How about the spouses of HIV+ individuals who contracted HIV and later developed AIDS? Especially the spouses of hemophiliacs with no risk factors who later contracted AIDS and died.

126

Your wife is an epidemiologist? How profoundly irrelevant. Did you have anything intelligent to contribute to this debate? I thought not, so take it to the Pit. Beside given your wife’s present state of dissatisfaction in the bedroom, maybe you are the one who is fucking wrong. :smiley:

127

Well I was intrigued by this aspect of your study:

“708 children admitted with sepsis and clinical features suggestive of HIV infection were screened for HIV1 and HIV2 by HIV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was undertaken on all ELISA-seropositive blood samples (270). HIV infection was confirmed in 136 (19.2%), 438 (61.9%) were HIV-seronegative, 27 (3.8%) were HIV seroreverters, 36 (5.1%) were HIV-seropositive but PCR negative (uninfected), and 71 (10.0%) were indeterminate.”

Out of 708 children with sepsis and clinical features suggestive of AIDS, only 19% were confirmed as HIV-positive. Hmmmm…looks like HIV seropositivity is not such a good indicator of HIV infection. Doesn’t that sound odd to you?

I can easily counter your anecdotes with other anecdotes. What about infants who contract HIV from the mothers but don’t develop AIDS? What about spouses of HIV+ individuals who never contract HIV from their spouse. What about HIV- individuals who have AIDS? And so on…

Look Edwino, I appreciate that you have kept this debate at a scientific level. But debating this is useless until a proper epidemiological study is done. I believe that HIV is just one factor in a complex multifactorial disease. We will just have to leave it at that.

128

I conclude from this that you don’t know what “epidemiologist” means. I further conclude that trying to conduct a debate with somebody who doesn’t even have a rudimentary grasp of the terminology is a laughable waste of time.

To everybody else: I submit, based on past experience, that the justification for arguing with ignorant “true believers” is not that we are trying to change their minds. It becomes painfully clear that they will obfuscate and ignore in order to support their ignorant, erroneous assertions, and that they will never give an inch. Rather, the point of the argument is to make sure that their bullshit is not left unanswered, lest any undecided observers happen across the thread and decide from the uncontradicted assertions that the position may have some merit.

The question, therefore, is this: When do we decide that the argument has been sufficiently won to the degree that it’s clear to the hypothetical lurker that the true believers don’t know what they’re talking about? Obviously, there comes a critical juncture when we know we’re going around in circles, and the risk is that we get frustrated and abandon the discussion before fully pounding down the lid on the coffin of the true believers’ nonsense. Or, perhaps, that we succumb to frustration and get nasty (which I think I’m guilty of, and apologize for), meaning we lose the substance of our argument.

So: When do we know that we’ve won, as far as making the point for somebody who’s reading but not participating, such that we can safely extricate ourselves from the cesspool of bullshit?

129

I’ve done my reading about idiopathic CD4 T-lymphocytopenia (ICL, your “HIV- AIDS”). A NEJM survey found 47 cases out of 230,179 with CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. The phenomenon has been reported around 170 times in the medical literature, mostly in case reports because it is so bizarre. Most of the patients look nothing like AIDS – they often present with histories of assorted cytopenias, and often present in a pancytopenia or a general lymphocytopenia or leukocytopenia. Most of them have no risk factors whatsoever. This ain’t AIDS. Reports of these patients show that they don’t really progress, they often spontaneously resolve, and that antibiotic prophylaxis and interferon works well. This is untrue for AIDS. ICL is weird, and it gets as much attention as it does because it does sometimes resemble AIDS. It is the classic “zebra” in medicine, the rare disease that can be misdiagnosed as the common “horse.”

But again, we are left at the level of the anecdote. You accuse me of basing my arguments on anecdotes, I could easily turn around and do the same for you, with the relatively rare long term nonconverters that do not fall into the CCR5 mutants or related categories, or the ultra-rare HIV- AIDS cases. At what level do anecdotes become epidemiologic data? The numbers of all of my cases put together reach beyond the “n=a few” of anecdotal evidence. It goes beyond anecdote when one has a hypothesis which explains the data completely. The problem is, has been, and always will be that we can’t do experiments on humans. Medical science is hamstrung by this, but there is obviously no way around it.

I could just as easily turn around to you and ask you how you know Treponema pallidum causes syphilis. T. pal has extremely limited culture conditions, so perhaps there is less evidence of that link than HIV/AIDS. You could easily argue that sexual promiscuity causes syphilis, not some spirochete that causes a myriad of symptoms, from a red painless chancre to insanity. You could argue that the VDRL tests are only positive 80% of the time in primary syphilis and drops to 40% in neurosyphilis, and that a whole host of other conditions (30% of normal people give a weakly positive VDRL, 80% of pregnant women give borderline positive FTA-ABS). You could show people who have positive tests who haven’t developed syphilis. I could turn around and point to all of the people who have developed primary through tertiary syphilis after testing positive on Treponema pallidum antibody tests. I could show how penicillin, a specific treatment against the bug, gets rid of the disease. The epidemiologic evidence of HIV/AIDS is better in nearly every respect than that of syphilis, but I haven’t seen many conspiracy theories about T. pal recently.

About the study. Your issue with the study is exactly what gives it its power. 708 children were really sick and looked clinically like they may have HIV infection. They were classified according to the 1989 (clinical) standard, and 98% of the ones meeting the criteria were HIV+.

What would your criteria for a “proper epidemiologic study” be? Because there are hundreds of other cohort studies which an HIV-positive group was compared to an HIV-negative one. Guess what they all found? That the HIV+ group eventually developed AIDS, and the HIV- ones did not. So studies of that kind have not been done since 1990. It would be like controlling for gravity or that DNA is still a double helix. Here’s a few:

130

I had figured that out by the end of page 2.

131

Of course I know what an epidemiologist is. My point is, stating that your wife is an epidemiologist is as relevant to a debate about HIV and AIDS as me stating, I know how to spell epidemiology. I do know what I am talking about, I just have a different opinion than you. Why do you feel the need to browbeat people with differing opinions? That is just an indication of your intellectual insecurity. And Bosda, I doubt you have ever figured anything out, judging by your griping and sniping on these boards.

Edwino, it is hard to critique a study just by looking at the abstract. I will locate the article in the library and get back to you. Judging by the level of intellectual dishonesty in these studies (like in the other Ugandan study), I am sure I can point out some flaws in the methodology.

To the lurkers: The jury is still out.

132

Where the hell is Trueskeptic? Tell him to come back here and hold up his thread. I cant do it alone!

133

You can’t do it with him, either. :stuck_out_tongue:

134

No it isn’t. Is there possible doubt that HIV causes AIDS? Yes. Is there reasonable doubt? No. And that is what the juries look for. Reasonable doubt.

And I am speaking as someone who trained as a medical scientist, and now carries a large clinical caseload of patients who are HIV positive, many of whom have AIDS. So basically I am in the trenches dealing with this mess daily. I’ve read the studies, I’ve weighed the evidence, and unless there is clear data to the contrary, concise and repeatable, it’s now a no-brainer for me.

QtM, MD

135

Your tiny lamp’s been drowned by your all-wet pettiness, sealamp. You’re just pulling the same disingenuous evasion that the intellectual-integrity fearing Roger_Mexico did in his own pointless and evasionary post on the small number of posts which were not strictly medical in nature, while utterly IGNORING all of the numerous other articles and papers which PROVE that HIV is the correct and only cause of AIDS!

I did indeed read them all, but I will admit that my inclusion of a handful of short, popular articles was a mistake on my part because they have been dishonestly abused by the disingenuous, truth-denying evaders here as a rhetorical ploy to avoid facing the overwhelming factual evidence against their bizarre political agenda-driven anti-science.

So I now correct my mistake. Now, please provide compelling, peer-reviewed, evidence establishing:

(1) that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS

(2) one by one that all of the following rebuttals to the denialist’s deliberately ignorant and dishonest claims haven’t thoroughly debunked the denialist’s claims:

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

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

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

136

Roger_Mexico, your cites and arguments are truth-hating, anti-scientific travesties.

Duesburg is a pseudo-scientist truth-denier with a bizarre political agenda who denies facts and the overwhelming evidence against him and blathers disingenuously from outside his field of expertise. He has no credibility among actual scientists on this issue.

As for your petty and evasive complaints about a handful of my popular cites, you’re just pulling the same disingenuous evasion that the intellectual-integrity fearing sealamp did in his own pointless and evasionary post on the small number of cites I listed which were not strictly medical in nature, while utterly IGNORING all of the numerous other articles and papers which PROVE that HIV is the correct and only cause of AIDS!

I will admit that my inclusion of a handful of short, popular articles was a mistake on my part because they have been dishonestly abused by the disingenuous, truth-denying evaders here as a rhetorical ploy to avoid facing the overwhelming factual evidence against their bizarre political agenda-driven anti-science.

So I now correct my mistake. Now, please provide compelling, peer-reviewed, evidence establishing:

(1) that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS

(2) one by one that all of the following rebuttals to the denialist’s deliberately ignorant and dishonest claims haven’t thoroughly debunked the denialist’s claims:

Doubting that HIV causes AIDS – Newly added, August 2003 article debunking claims of Duesberg, Root-Bernstein, et. al. as well as "true"skeptic and Roger_Mexico, et. al.

Alternative theories of causation – Newly added, August 2003 article debunking claims of Duesberg, Root-Bernstein, et. al. as well as "true"skeptic and Roger_Mexico, et. al.

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

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

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

And black is white and the craters on the green-cheese moon were carved out by 1920’s style “death rays”. From: AIDS Denialists

The truth about you denialists is that you folks are studiously ignoring or denying the overwhelming facts and studies which utterly disprove your thesis and instead prove that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS. But I agree that you have a unique standard of proof: You will only accept claims that agree with your personal prejudices and your ignorant political, anti-science, undeniably death-promoting agenda. Regardless what the more-rational-than-most, but still irrational and less-than-scientific Root-Bernstein says, by preaching and shouting to the scientifically naive not to worry about contracting HIV, you are KILLING AN UNTOLD NUMBER OF PEOPLE!

See also this: The dead hand of denialism

137

There’s been more than enough solid evidence presented here, from the overwhelming majority of scientists who’ve studied the issue in a rigorous way and concluded that HIV causes AIDS, to convince anyone with an open mind who wants to learn.

For the few who enjoy aiming spitballs at the scientific community and fancying themselves rebels (or as poor persecuted Seekers After Truth), no evidence will ever be enough. In previous times, they’d hang out at Flat Earth Society meetings, now they post on message boards hoping to draw a reaction.

The proverbial lurker is generally smart enough to figure things out, so I wouldn’t worry about sticking around to fire endless rebuttals at “debaters” who aren’t listening.

The cure rate for ignorance will always be less than 100%.

138

Edwino wrote:
“About the study. Your issue with the study is exactly what gives it its power. 708 children were really sick and looked clinically like they may have HIV infection. They were classified according to the 1989 (clinical) standard, and 98% of the ones meeting the criteria were HIV+.”

I don’t think that’s what the abstract says. From the abstract I gather:
In this study they had 708 children who had clinical signs of HIV. They then looked for ELISA-seropositive children in that group.
The breakdown was 708 children = 438 seronegative + 270 seropositives.
PCR was then done on the seropositives:
The 270 seropositive = 136 seropositive and confirmed (“HIV-infected”) + 27 seropositive but unconfirmed (“seroreverters”) + 36 seropositive but unconfirmed (PCR negatives) + 71 seropositive but unconfirmed (“indeterminates”)
The children were divided into two groups:
136 seropositive and confirmed (“HIV-infected”) and
501 = 438 seronegative + 27 seropositive but unconfirmed (“seroreverters”) + 36 seropositive but unconfirmed (PCR negatives)
(note the 71 seropositive but unconfirmed (“indeterminates”) were left out of the study)
The study then proceeds to show statistically significant measures of bad health in the 136 “seropositive and confirmed (“HIV-infected”)” group compared to the 501 mixed (“HIV-uninfected”) group.

Note that the 136 seropositive and confirmed (“HIV-infected”) is only 136/708 * 100 percent = 19 percent. Which is what Roger_Mexico said, and which is not 98 percent as you seem to be saying edwino. Good job, Roger!

Here’s a flaw in the study:
Only 12.6 percent (=63/501*100 percent) of the mixed “uninfected” group are seropositive. And of course all of those in the “HIV-infected” group are seropositive. Many dissenters argue that seropositiveness is correlated with non-HIV health risks. So this study does not address their arguments. A comparison of the
136 seropositive and confirmed (“HIV-infected”) children with the 63 seropositive but “HIV-uninfected” children
would address such claims.

(An examples of an argument that seropositiveness could be correlated with non-HIV health risks:
Perhaps some of the mothers got medication because of their seropositiveness while pregnant, causing adverse side effects in the children.)

139

Can we at least lance it? :wink:

140

No way am I going to read all 4 pages of this stuff. Sero-this and hemogoblin-that. Too much for poor Brutus.So forgive me if this has already been covered, but I have a question…

There are documented cases of people with AIDS who are demonstrably HIV- ?

I realise that wouldn’t prove that ‘HIV doesn’t cause AIDS’. But wouldn’t it show that something else can cause AIDS? Like we didn’t have enough to worry about already?

Or are those cases incredibly rare, and are simply unexplained?