Harper's Publishes AIDS Denialist

The latest issue of Harper's Magazine contains a stunning 15-page article by well-known AIDS denialist Celia Farber (formerly of Spin magazine) that extensively repeats UC Berkeley virologist Peter Duesberg's discredited theory that HIV does not cause AIDS. Among the claims that Duesberg makes (and Farber recounts approvingly) are:

AIDS is actually a "chemical syndrome, caused by accumulated toxins from heavy drug use."

"Many cases of AIDS are the consequence of heavy drug use, both recreational (poppers, cocaine, methamphetamines, etc.) and medical (AZT, etc.)"

"HIV is a harmless passenger virus that infects a small percentage of the population and is spread primarily from mother to child, though at a relatively low rate."

"75 percent of AIDS cases in the West can be attributed to drug toxicity. If toxic AIDS therapies were discontinued...thousands of lives could be saved virtually overnight."

"AIDS in Africa is best understood as an umbrella term for a number of old diseases, formerly known by other names, that currently do not command high rates of international aid. The money spent on anti-retroviral drugs would be better spent on sanitation and improving access to safe drinking water."

The best rebuttals to Duesberg's hypothesis are here, here and here. Over at Slate science writer Jon Cohen has a piece examining the wave of "pharmanoia" afflicting mass media. As Cohen and others point out, conspiracy theories like Duesberg's warp and exploit some of the best political interventions made by AIDS activists: that patients should be engaged with their medical diagnosis and treatment, that clinical drug trials should be grounded in sound ethical practices, that the emphasis on virology has circumvented immunological approaches to AIDS and that attention to the effects of poverty, malnutrition and other diseases is vital to preventing and treating AIDS.

It's a shame that a magazine as well respected as Harper's has shirked its duty to report on these issues and instead published Farber's article. South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign has put together a comprehensive rebuttal of Farber's article documenting over 50 errors. I also post here a statement from HealthGAP and a letter to Harper's from Gregg Gonsalves of GMHC.

HealthGAP: "Harper's Magazine has stooped to new lows in publishing a lengthy article that rehashes old distortions by a writer who does not believe that HIV causes AIDS. Harper's should immediately publicly retract this article, and devote the same space to an accurate piece of news about the global AIDS crisis. We are very concerned that this inaccurate article will be used to fuel government inaction outside the US, where some heads of state, such as the South African President and the Minister of Health, have invoked AIDS denialist rhetoric rather than prioritizing antiretoviral treatment access for the 800 South Africans with HIV who are dying unnecessarily each day."

Gregg Gonsalves: "Dear Editors, I have been a long-time Harper's Magazine reader. I am sorry that the March 2006 issue is the very last that I will read.

With Celia Farber's article "Out of Control, AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science," your magazine has managed to destroy its 156 year-old reputation in 15 pages.

Farber is a well-known AIDS denialist and publishing her work is akin to giving the folks at the Discovery Institute a place to expound upon the "science" of intelligent design, Charles Davenport a venue to educate us about the racial inferiority of the Negro or Lyndon LaRouche a platform to warn us about aliens, bio-duplication, and nudity.

If Harpers was some fringe publication or supermarket tabloid then we could all laugh at Farber's weird conspiracy theories and pseudo-science. The sad thing is that unlike the hoaxes perpetuated on the New Republic by Stephen Glass several years ago, Ms. Farber's reputation as a crank is widespread. Thus, it seems that your editors, after careful research and despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, decided that Ms. Farber was a serious journalist with a real story to be told.

If you choose to report falsehoods as truths when it comes to HIV/AIDS, how can I trust the veracity of the rest of what appears in your pages?

Yours truly,
Gregg Gonsalves

Comments (289)

1. Same Harper's just got "linked" a lot for their "Impeach Bush" editorial?

   Posted by Mask at 03/02/2006 @ 4:14pm

2. Speaking of crackpot journalism, does Carlin Romano still contribute to the Nation? Here's a line or two from an atrocious Islamophobic article he wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, citing gay neoconservative Bruce Bawer favorably:

   According to Bawer, liberals in Europe, even more than their American counterparts, want to believe that most Muslim immigrants share Western middle-class goals: a safe place to live, opportunities for their children, and the like. That accounts, Bawer argues, for the odd mix in their attitudes to Muslims: joy in the "multiculturalism" that makes their previously homogeneous societies more "colorful," and a nativist desire to keep Muslims in their place as exotica.

   Bawer asserts that the reality - confirmed for him by the resistance of European Muslims to assimilation, and the marked presence in their communities of honor killings, homophobia, polygamy, marital rape, forced marriage, and intolerance of democracy and pluralism - is that European Muslim leaders, with demographics on their side, still harbor the millennial hope of taking power in Europe, and see the European attitude as both weak and hostile. It is "political correctness," Bawer writes, that has "gotten Europe into its current mess."

   Of course, Marc Cooper writes things just as embarrassing on his own blog.

   Methinks the Nation Magazine should clean up its own act first.

   Posted by lproyect at 03/02/2006 @ 4:51pm

3. Great point, LPROYECT.

   uh, what?

   Posted by tjbehrens1 at 03/02/2006 @ 5:00pm

4. "Many cases of AIDS are the consequence of heavy drug use, both recreational (poppers, cocaine, methamphetamines, etc.) and medical (AZT, etc.)"

   So one more reason that people should not do drugs.

   I can now teach my children that on top of all the other bad things that can and will happen to you if you start doing drugs, that if they start doing drugs they can be more susceptible to contracting aids.

   Just say no...

   Todd

   Posted by Oksportsguy at 03/02/2006 @ 5:09pm

5. Awesome!! Now I can go back to unprotected sex!!!

   Posted by pcr at 03/02/2006 @ 5:21pm

6. Some of the comments really reflect the visceral contentiousness of this topic as described in the article. According to my read, Duesberg is not saying that HIV and AIDS are unrelated, but only that the classic scientific criteria for the demonstration of causality have not been met. Should there indeed be in excess of 4,000 documented cases of AIDS in patients who are HIV- as claimed, it would surely seem reason enough to revisit the science and at least ask "why?". In any case, as a health professional and medical science writer for the past 20 years, I thought the article was both balanced and thought provoking. My subscription to the Atlantic was tossed long ago. I'll be reading Harper's as long as I'm alive and they're still publishing.

   Posted by IgnatiousT at 03/02/2006 @ 5:28pm

7. I am always sympathetic to skeptics and contrarians, so I was curious to read Celia Farber's HIV articles.

   In 1987, when I subscribed to Spin.

   Since then, HIV denialism has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Whereas these questions were usefully provocative in 1987, they are much less useful twenty years later. Now they much more closely resemble IDers or global warming dissidents: fringe scientists who ignore the overwhelming evidence contradicting their hypotheses.

   I studied a social science, and I am sympathetic to some of Farber's critiques, such as the sociological phenomenon of scientists protecting their income streams and positions, at the expense of unbiased critical inquiry. Like I said, that made me open-mindedly consider her critiques in the 80s. And based on my amateur study of the field, I wouldn't even be totally shocked if it turned out that HIV is highly correlated with AIDS but is not directly causally connected (last I checked, the causal mechanism has never been discovered).

   However, overwhelming field and lab evidence suggests that the anti-retroviral (ARV) cocktails work. Maybe we don't understand exactly how HIV causes AIDS, but the ARV drugs work. We know this. Thabo Mbeki provided us with one of the world's most persuasive, most tragic field experiments when he denied ARV drugs to his HIV-infected citizens, after being convinced by Farber and Duesberg, then was forced by internal and international pressure to begrudgingly provide them, with corresponding life-saving results (somewhat mitigated by alleged governmental tail-dragging).

   It would have made sense for Harper's to publish this in 1987 or even 1997, but not in 2006. Or at least not without also publishing rebuttals indicating just how contrary to overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus this position is.

   Posted by leftbehinds at 03/02/2006 @ 5:40pm

8. Ignatioust-

   I hadn't read your reply before writing my reply.

   Yes, I absolutely agree that the cases of AIDS without HIV are the strongest argument for a research program investigating this issue. My understanding is that that science is in fact underway.

   I should say that I haven't read the full Harper's article, just excerpts here and elsewhere (as well as almost all of Farber's other work on this, which is extensive and repetitive). Maybe this article is more balanced than Farber usually is.

   Posted by leftbehinds at 03/02/2006 @ 5:45pm

9. Even if you have 4,000 people who appear to have the syndrome without the virus, all that should indicate is that there can also be other causitive factors producing a syndrome similar to what the virus produces. After all, the symptoms of a cold can be from a cold virus - or from some other cause entirely. Yet cold viruses do clearly cause colds.

   The telling fact would be the people with the virus who never develop the syndrome. It's been determined that they all share a genetic uniqueness, are all of European ancestry, and that the rare gene was selected for in the European population because it also protected against the Black Death. Everyone without that rare gene who harbors the virus develops AIDS within a decade. I'm not in medicine, but to not accept that as fact, excuse me, buggers belief.

   Posted by Unnational at 03/02/2006 @ 6:17pm

10. A great deal of all medicine, eastern as well as western, is guessing without fully knowing, but at the very least having a pretty good idea based on empirical evidence. We have an idea that HIV and AIDS are related. We have an idea how to treat it.

    That said, its very sad to see Farber has stayed on this path. I used to be a huge fan of hers back in the day. I really wish she could had stuck it to Guccione.

    And by the way, has anyone noticed over the years that Harpers likes to take contrarian positions just to keep the pot simmering? It pushes the line of what the mainstream perceives as responsible journalism, but doesn't cross that line, say like various right wing, northern European newspapers do with cartoons about Islam.

    Posted by pcr at 03/02/2006 @ 6:19pm

11. Duesberg is the same dope who insisted that prions [cdc.gov] were scientifically impossible.

    Posted by fromredbird at 03/02/2006 @ 6:32pm

12. Same Harper's just got "linked" a lot for their "Impeach Bush" editorial?

    Posted by MASK 03/02/2006 @ 4:14pm

    Same MASK who occasionally posted thought-provoking comments?

    Posted by fromredbird at 03/02/2006 @ 6:35pm

13. Unnational wrote: "Even if you have 4,000 people who appear to have the syndrome without the virus, all that should indicate is that there can also be other causitive factors producing a syndrome similar to what the virus produces."

    Or the current tests are not detecting the virus due to masking of some sort. Similar to the recent issues with drug testing athletes (in one case, as I recall, an athlete was banned for a while for using a hair growth product which masks certain performance-enhancing drugs).

    It's not out of the question that some genetic variation or environmental factor could prevent the HIV antibodies from showing up. All the current HIV tests still detect the products of the body's response to the virus, correct? Perhaps in some people that response mechanism is completely malfunctioning, therefore no antibodies...and "HIV-negative".

    Posted by tealfan1 at 03/02/2006 @ 7:33pm

14. "It pushes the line of what the mainstream perceives as responsible journalism, but doesn't cross that line, say like various right wing, northern European newspapers do with cartoons about Islam."

    are you willing to let islamic countries, tyrannies all, set the standard for responsible journalism? and how about our own press' cheerleading the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was and is that responsible journalism? I think the issues raised are far more complicated than this throwaway line you are peddling

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/02/2006 @ 9:13pm

15. Unnational and Tealfani,

    Yeah, I'm hardly a biologist, but it seems clear these are important questions. And it is troubling that the causal connection between HIV and AIDS has never been fully explained (which is not the same as saying that there is no causal connection).

    There are responsible ways of encouraging discussion of these issues, but Cynthia Farber probably isn't the person to do it.

    And yeah, Harper's definitely tries to be edgy. The question is whether they've stumbled over the edge this time.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/02/2006 @ 9:22pm

16. I meant Celia Farber. ;)

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/02/2006 @ 9:23pm

17. the abortion thread is closed so this one will have to do. check Tap for an interesting review of a book chronicling the shameful history of forced sterilization in this country.

    my point? forced sterilization is equivalent to forcing a woman to carry a foetus to term. both are a gov't run amok, and a woman's rights being destroyed. the former is no longer tolerated, while several states are rushing toward the latter. shameful

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/02/2006 @ 9:39pm

18. Since when did Harper's become a scientific journal? I'll stick to the N.E.J.M. thank you.

    Posted by Zeddmen at 03/02/2006 @ 10:19pm

19. Same Harper's just got "linked" a lot for their "Impeach Bush" editorial?

    Posted by MASK 03/02/2006 @ 4:14pm

    ...And then they printed this? With quotes like this, "If Harpers was some fringe publication or supermarket tabloid then we could all laugh at Farber's weird conspiracy theories and pseudo-science."

    Hence the article.

    Did you read the article? Or just the headline?

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 03/02/2006 @ 10:19pm

20. Dear Mr. Kim:

    Thank you for your editorial. It is a perfect example of the kind of behaviour Celia mentioned in her article. In a sense, your reply (using the terms "denialist" and "conspiracy theory", and quoting editorials which were never subject to peer review, including the infamous Cohen 1994 hatchet job, as your "best rebuttals"), only strengthens her piece.

    The HIV/AIDS hypothesis is possibly the most refuted hypothesis in science. It remains in force solely because of politics. But the science demolished it years ago. It is only a matter of time before the politics weakens and reality prevails. You cannot deny reality forever.

    A friend of mine who worked in HIV research for 10 years will be having an essay featured at LewRockwell.com shortly, possibly sometime in the next few days. I suggest you read it, Mr. Kim, as it not only gives a quick summary of the major reasons why the HIV/AIDS hypothesis cannot possibly be true (the flat-line prevalence curve,

    Flat-line prevalence curve [rethinkaids.info]

    insufficient biochemical activity, etc.) it also gives good insight into the sociological and political machinations of HIV/AIDS, from someone who worked as a scientist on HIV for 10 years and has left the cult.

    I would also suggest, Mr. Kim, that you read Harvey Bialy's new book, "Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, and AIDS", (if you CAN...your post is so smacking of scientific ignorance that I wonder...)

    Harvey Bialy [reviewingaids.org]

    I commend Harper's for having the guts to stand by this article, which will undoubtedly be remembered as a landmark essay. They are certain to take a lot of heat for it, but they made the right choice.

    And now, for more shameless plugging:

    Rethinking AIDS [rethinkaids.info]

    AIDS Wiki [reviewingaids.org]

    Darin Brown

    Assistant Professor of Mathematics

    Eastern New Mexico University

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/02/2006 @ 11:00pm

21. The absolutely best comment I have ever read:

    Awesome!! Now I can go back to unprotected sex!!!

    Posted by PCR

    Good job PCR. Puts it all in the proper perspective using the least amount of words.

    Posted by AmeriPundit at 03/02/2006 @ 11:31pm

22. Unfortunately, AIDS evolves at such a fantastic rate, nearly everbody who has it has a different strain. This makes it a very difficult virus to find a cure for.

    But to say that there is no link between AIDS and HIV, I mean come on, how stupid can you get?

    Posted by DRG9 at 03/02/2006 @ 11:57pm

23. Darin Brown

    Assistant Professor of Mathematics

    Eastern New Mexico University

    Posted by DARIN BROWN 03/02/2006 @ 11:00pm

    Anybody who thinks the HIV/AIDS is the most refuted hypothesis in science please feel free to demonstrate to the rest of us your faith in your hypothesis. I think a transfusion of a matching blood type from an HIV infected individual should do.

    And if AIDS is actually a "chemical syndrome, caused by accumulated toxins from heavy drug use." and not caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, you won't die.

    I can't think of a better way to demonstrate to the rest of us that you are correct.

    (We can even make a reality show out of it)

    Posted by Will C. at 03/02/2006 @ 11:59pm

24. I have spent several years reading several thousand scientific papers on HIV/AIDS and I'm afraid that Duesberg has it right. Even the terms HIV and AIDS have little meaning. When we say someone "has" HIV we really mean they have lit up a couple of antibody tests. Why do we assume that antibodies are indicative of a current infection for HIV, but not most other diseases? How were antibodies obtained without purification of HIV, something that has never been done.

    And the seminal work on HIV by Robert Gallo is known to be highly questionable. John Crewdson, Chicago Tribune science journalist, uses much stronger language in his book "Science Fictions...The dark legacy of Robert Gallo", a book that is heavily documented, with a website containing compies of hundreds of critical documents.

    And the term "AIDS" doesn't mean much either. In the US, since 1993, perfectly healthy people have been diagnosed as having AIDS on the basis of a low CD4 immune cell count and a positive HIV test, even though low CD4 counts can occur in perfectly healthy people. In 1997 the CDC reported that almost 2/3 of diagnoses were in this category, people without any AIDS-defining illness. And then ... they stopped reporting this rather embarrassing statistic in their annual surveillance reports.

    This definition is not accepted in any other country. So crossing the border into Canada, about two-thirds of the recently diagnosed would become AIDS-free. And in Africa, the "Bangui" definition rules. Here an HIV test is not necessary, and 3 of the following four symptoms will get you an AIDS diagnosis: fever for a month (not necessarily continuous), weight loss (>10% of body weight), diarrhea for a month and persistent cough.

    More, much more, including quotes from thousands of scientific papers, can be found at aras.ab.ca [aras.ab.ca]

    Posted by DavidCrowe at 03/03/2006 @ 01:03am

25. "DRG9",

    Your response is so vapid I don't even think it's worth a reply.

    As for "WILL C.",

    You obviously have little understanding of science. Such an experiment on one subject would prove nothing. (Especially given an admitted latency period of 10-20 years??) The way I would demonstrate to you that I am correct would be to present you data from the literature and arguments. Given that you apparently thought it was too much work to even go to the few hyperlinks I gave, or to read anything, and instead you offer some unscientific gambit, just shows me you're not really serious about this yourself.

    BTW, here's Rebecca's *WONDERFUL* article:

    Why I Quit HIV [lewrockwell.com]

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 01:50am

26. Here are two links that give the truth to many of the lies propagated here.

    http://rethinkingaids.com (The Official Website of The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis) - All data, no propaganda.

    And here is an article that appeared just a few minutes ago at Lew Rockwell that represents yet another unravelling of the HIV/AIDS tapestry, which has become so hideous over a quarter century of failure after failure that Harper's was forced to commit their considerable weight to seeing that all its many flaws were brought into the light, at last.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html

    Posted by bialy at 03/03/2006 @ 01:59am

27. Posted by DARIN BROWN 03/03/2006 @ 01:50am

    I would be so much more impressed if you actually injected the live virus in your veins. If you alone are not enough for a scientific experiment, perhaps we could assemble all those who think HIV doesn't actually kill people to also inject the live virus in their veins.

    Remember, because the virus is harmless, you can not administer any treatment.

    And we will release the findings after you all die a peaceful natural death with your immune systems intact and properly functioning.

    Wadda you say?

    Up for the challenge?

    Posted by Will C. at 03/03/2006 @ 02:15am

28. I, like many others, have friends, or had, who died of aids. unfortunately the above revisionism did not come in time to save them.Rese and Plunger move over.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 03/03/2006 @ 02:25am

29. I would be so much more impressed if you actually injected the live virus in your veins. If you alone are not enough for a scientific experiment, perhaps we could assemble all those who think HIV doesn't actually kill people to also inject the live virus in their veins.

    What I find especially funny about this challenge is that a common animal model for study is to inject macaques with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) or HSIV, which is a chimera of HIV and SIV. The macaques of course develop AIDS. Must be all that recreational drug use.

    Darin Brown ventures outside his field of expertise at his peril.

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 03:03am

30. Dear Mr. Kim,

    I urge you to examine the scientific arguments against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis instead of just repeating ad-hominem attacks made against dissenting scientists and reporters by the AIDS mainstream. You will find that the evidence against the HIV-AIDS hypothesis is indeed overwhelming. Oher posters have already linked to websites that describe this accumulated evidence; I just want to mention one other recent paper.

    Henry H. Bauer , an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry & Science Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, has recently authored a series of papers [hivnotaids.homestead.com] that show that the epidemiology of HIV positivity is not that of a sexually transmitted epidemic. Bauer writes in the abstract of his first paper,

    Since 1985, tests for HIV have been widely deployed to detect its anticipated spread into other social groups and geographic locales. HIV-positive people were found in every sector of society and in every part of the United States as soon as testing began. That HIV could have spread so rapidly into the general population across the country from those cities within 15 years is infeasible for several reasons:

    (1) the geographic distribution of HIV does not look like a spread from the AIDS epicenters;

    (2) that geographic distribution has not changed in two decades;

    (3) if anything, the prevalence of HIV has decreased since the mid-1980s;

    (4) direct studies have revealed that HIV is not readily transmissible.

    The conclusion seems inescapable: HIV tests do not track a virus that spread from the original centers of the AIDS epidemic. HIV is endemic. It is not the cause of the AIDS epidemics of the early 1980s.

    Bauer has written to the CDC and asked for comment; he reports that the CDC does not challenge his findings of fact, it simply won't accept his conclusions.

    The inconsistencies, contradictions and anomalies that plague the HIV-AIDS hypothesis are real, and they cannot be resolved by personally attacking the scientists and independent journalists who report them.

    Rochus Boerner, Ph.D.

    Germany

    Posted by rboerner at 03/03/2006 @ 07:00am

31. UNNATIONAL wrote: "The telling fact would be the people with the virus who never develop the syndrome. It's been determined that they all share a genetic uniqueness, are all of European ancestry, and that the rare gene was selected for in the European population because it also protected against the Black Death. Everyone without that rare gene who harbors the virus develops AIDS within a decade. I'm not in medicine, but to not accept that as fact, excuse me, buggers belief." How do you explain Magic Johnson and his never developing full-blown AIDS? Of course he does have some European ancestry because he is not a totally dark-skinned man. I don't know what to make of your comments. Being a black woman, am I more at risk, even if I don't have unprotected sex or do drugs? It seems to me that if the Europeans during the time just before the Black Death had been a cleaner people, maybe the Black Death could have been avoided. The spread of disease followed the Europeans wherever they went (smallpox among the Native people in America). Am I to understand that because the rest of the world did not live in filth during a period of world history, they and their descendants are now paying the price for it? Please explain to me your comments because you have just boggled my mind.

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 08:15am

32. How do you explain Magic Johnson and his never developing full-blown AIDS?

    Well, to my knowledge we don't really know this as I doubt he's making his personal medical records available for examination. But the specific mutation mentioned affects a receptor called CCR5. So far it seems that a small percentage of Caucasians have a homozygous defect for CCR5, which makes them resistant to HIV. But that doesn't mean there's other undiscovered genetic variations that also confer resistance to HIV.

    Am I to understand that because the rest of the world did not live in filth during a period of world history, they and their descendants are now paying the price for it?

    It's just luck of the draw. Being a black woman, it's much more likely you carry a copy of the mutation that causes sickle cell. That mutation also happens to confer greater resistance to malaria.

    Incidentally, the rates of Caucasians who have defective CCR5 is very low, something like one percent.

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 10:08am

33. Rochus, would you perhaps be the same Rochus Boerner of "NASA is covering up evidence for the face on Mars" fame?

    Just wondering.

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 10:24am

34. Thanks, GSWIFT for your response. Now I can stop my stemming anger at UNNATIONAL's words. On another note, if the report is credible, should I follow PCR's example and discontinue using unprotected sex? What would you prescribe as preventative measures, since it seems everything I've been taught about the prevention of AIDS is being turned on its head by the Harper's article.

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 10:48am

35. You can also insert "spread of AIDS" instead of "prevention of AIDS".

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 10:49am

36. Regarding drug use, How long does a person have to use drugs in oreder to "develop" the AIDS virus? Also, what are the kinds of drugs used that would cause one to "develop" the AIDS virus? (Unfortunately, I can't past the first page of the Harper's link in order to read her article.)

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 10:54am

37. So this is what passes for discourse on the Left? Ad hominem attacks bordering on slander? Ignoring the points raised by the dissenters?

    No wonder you feel powerless and ignored.

    Posted by jskirwin at 03/03/2006 @ 10:57am

38. My bad, ya'll. I was going to ask JSKIRWIN to whom or what are you referring? Are you lost?

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 11:07am

39. What would you prescribe as preventative measures, since it seems everything I've been taught about the prevention of AIDS is being turned on its head by the Harper's article.

    The Harpers article is bogus. As I mentioned above, monkeys injected with the simian version of HIV develop AIDS.

    The two main risk factors are intravenous drug use and unprotected sex. If you avoid IV drugs and use condoms, the chances of contracting HIV will be pretty slim.

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 11:07am

40. I think this thread is going pretty well. I'm learning alot. Keep up the good work people.

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 11:08am

41. Thanks again, GSWIFT.

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 11:08am

42. Dr. Boerner, do you agree with Ms. Celia Farber(??) regarding the link with drug use and AIDS?

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 11:11am

43. Over the last two years, I have read piles of medical research literature. HIV Negative AIDS (a.k.a. Idiopathic CD4 Lymphocytopenia, ICL) cases percolate throughout numerous HIV/AIDS research documents. I first stumbled across them in Johns Hopkins "2003 Medical Management of HIV Infection" guide (J. Barlett, J. Gallant - Chapter 2, Page 21) (http://www.hopkins-aids.edu/publications/book/03MMHIV1to3.pdf ). Interestingly, ICL cases also weave their way through the CFS literature (http://www.ncf-net.org/forum/presidentsMsg0402.html).

    HIV-NEGATIVE AIDS cases are the bridge that connects the CFS and AIDS paradigms. I wonder: if "AIDS" had been called a "low natural killer cell syndrome", rather than having it's present day man-made definitional construct, would the true nature of the relationship between AIDS and CFS been seen two decades ago?

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

    If HIV is not the cause of AIDS, then, what is?? Because HIV-Negative AIDS (idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia) patients are not prescribed any toxic antiretroviral medications. Nobody even acknowledges the idiopathic illnesses, never mind to care enough to want to drug us...

    I believe that to systemically diagnosis my undiagnosed infectious pathogen -- and millions of ailing, med-free, immunosuppressed CFS patients -- will be to answer the next-most, sequentially-logical question: What is the cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)?

    Orthodoxy: HIV/AIDS; AIDS Myth: HIV?AIDS; Proposal: CFS->AIDS

    www.lemonfoundation.blogspot.com

    Posted by klambert at 03/03/2006 @ 11:17am

44. Celia Farber has written a brilliant and compelling expose of the flaws, errors, cooked data, hilarious statistical fallacies, and heinous research gaffes that so characterize the entire HIV and AIDS fundamentalist establishment.

    The quick resort to shrill invective, blustery venom and trembling anxiety from AIDS fundamentalists like the laughable Greg Gonsalves make it crystal clear why Ms. Farber deserves wide acclaim and heartiest congratulations for ripping the mask off this atrocious mob of anti-science zealots and sky-is-falling poseurs.

    I have made dozens of copies of Ms. Farber's superb essay and will distribute them to my students and African colleagues........ what a long overdue breath of fresh air, common sense and anti-doomsday analysis.

    As for Gonsalves and his brethren in the HIV/AIDS church of fundamentalism, as the old country song put it, "go ahead....if feeling bad makes you feel better."

    Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/03/2006 @ 11:20am

45. Any comments about Duesberg's claim that prions [tinyurl.com] are scientifically impossible? Guess where he made that claim- on the Michael Savage [tinyurl.com] hate radio talk show.

    Posted by fromredbird at 03/03/2006 @ 11:26am

46. Dear K330K,

    In their joint 2003 paper

    The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition [duesberg.com], Duesberg and 2 other prominent AIDS reappraisers present substantial evidence that links recreational drug use and AIDS.

    Table 3 on p. 387 on that paper shows original CDC data that shows what the authors without exaggeration term a "perfect correlation between recreational drug use and AIDS" [among gay victims of AIDS in 1983]. In light of this evidence, I agree with Farber's statement that

    "There is ample statistical and epidemiological evidence linking the rise of mass drug abuse in the late Sixties and Seventies with the sudden appearance of AIDS. "

    Posted by rboerner at 03/03/2006 @ 11:36am

47. It seems to me, that the HIV denialists are merely outcroppings of the left's greater war against Big Pharma, Biotechnology and any corporate research industry. We have seen the enemy and they are us...

    Posted by jabelson at 03/03/2006 @ 11:36am

48. "It pushes the line of what the mainstream perceives as responsible journalism, but doesn't cross that line, say like various right wing, northern European newspapers do with cartoons about Islam." (unknown poster)

    are you willing to let islamic countries, tyrannies all, set the standard for responsible journalism?

    Posted by JOHANNESROLF 03/02/2006 @ 9:13pm

    The Danish cartoons were hate literature in the same category as the anti-semitic cartoon caricatures of Jews published by the nazis in the 1930's. It's hypocritical to pretend that this is solely a question of free speech. This is part of a worldwide hate campaign aginst all Muslims, the plain purpose of which is to convince us to lower our moral standards enough to allow it's perpetrators to lead us into a cultural hate/perpetual war paradigm.

    One of the main people behind the cartoons was Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish newspaper and an associate of Islamophobic "US citizen" Daniel Pipes, who advocates a purely military solution to "the Palestinian problem".

    Rose's newspaper refused to publish cartoons that were in a mildly comical vein with Jesus as the subject. It seems many advocates of "free speech" have a very relative definition of that term.

    Posted by fromredbird at 03/03/2006 @ 11:50am

49. "There is ample statistical and epidemiological evidence linking the rise of mass drug abuse in the late Sixties and Seventies with the sudden appearance of AIDS. "

    Posted by RBOERNER 03/03/2006 @ 11:36am

    I'm not conclusively taking either side in this but what you're saying above merely demonstrates that highly sexually active gay male men are often also recreational drug users. I'm sure that almost all of them also wear shoes but that doesn't mean that they got AIDS from their shoes.

    It also leaves open the question of why so many more heavy recreational drug user heterosexuals don't have AIDS.

    Posted by fromredbird at 03/03/2006 @ 11:56am

50. I agree with Farber's statement that

    "There is ample statistical and epidemiological evidence linking the rise of mass drug abuse in the late Sixties and Seventies with the sudden appearance of AIDS. "

    And how about those non drug users who contracted HIV from blood transfusions? They still develop AIDS.

    And how about reproducing these effects? Care to point to any studies where AIDS has been induced in an animal merely by giving it regular doses of recreational drugs?

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 11:56am

51. Will C.-

    I must say that I like your idea. There are several potential candidates who should volunteer here. How many do we need for a credible study?

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 12:06pm

52. And how about those non drug users who contracted HIV from blood transfusions? They still develop AIDS.

    Non-drug using, previously healthy people who were diagnosed as "HIV positive" and subsequently developed AIDS have usually been treated with toxic AIDS chemotherapy (such as AZT) prior to developing clinical symptoms. Development of "AIDS" after HIV+ diagnosis is a self-fulfilling prophecy if the HIV+ diagnosis triggers administration of drugs that cause AIDS defininig diseases.

    The paper I cited above describes the following instructive case:

    The case of Cesar Schmitz, married to an HIV-free wife and father of an HIV-free healthy child in Miami, FL, is an example of AZT-mediated mortality that did not appear in the medical literature (Duesberg 1996b). But his wife Teresa has recorded his case in sufficient detail for inclusion in this article.

    In March 1992, an asymptomatic Schmitz was found to be HIV-positive at a medical check-up and pressured by his doctor to start AIDS prophylaxis by AZT (figure 4b). Immediately after initiation of AZT treatment, Schmitz developed "nausea, diarrhea and weight loss". In 1994 he decided, "against his doctors will," to discontinue AZT medication, and "All of a sudden, like magic, no more symptoms" (Duesberg 1996b). But, in 1998 Schmitz developed lymphoma, which is a typical, late "side effect" that appears in 46% of patients 36 months after initiation of AZT therapy (Pluda et al 1990). In view of this and pressure from his doctors Schmitz started AZT therapy again. Within months he was "paralyzed", suffered from "unbearable cramps" and became incontinent (probably from mitochondrial dysfunction, see table 6), which his doctor explained as "side effects of one of the drugs he was taking". And in October 1998 Schmitz passed away (T Schmitz, personal communication).

    Concerning your second question, there is no need to take recourse to animal studies because the revelant observations exist for humans. Table 7 on page 109 of

    Duesberg, P. H. and Rasnick, D. (1998) The AIDS dilemma: Drug Diseases Blamed on a Passenger Virus (Genetica 104: 85-132) [duesberg.com]

    shows and gives scientific references that prove that certain recreational drugs alone (nitrites, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines) are sufficient to cause AIDS-defining diseases, including the 1981 AIDS signature illnesses immunodeficiency, KS and pneumonia.

    Posted by rboerner at 03/03/2006 @ 12:34pm

53. So what about the non drug users who contracted AIDS before toxic AIDS chemotherapy were developed or used?

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 1:11pm

54. Why then was AIDS initially so prevelent in the gay community?

    Why then were straight drug users not infected at similar rates?

    If AIDS is not sexually transmitted and only due to recreational drug use, why did it appear in geographic clusters at all?

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 1:16pm

55. HMAN23,

    All good questions. Unfortunately, as with most earnest questions most people come up with when confronted with doubt on HIV/AIDS, they are based on more than two decades of misleading, ill-informed, and dubious statistical and epidemiological incompetence emanating from the CDC. To *fully* answer all your questions requires carefully deconstructing two decades of this incompetence, which cannot be done in a single post. There is no substitute for going to the literature yourself, reading it personally, carefully reading the criticisms of dissenters, official responses, and critiques of the responses, and seeing for yourself.

    However, I can give some brief answers:

    So what about the non drug users who contracted AIDS before toxic AIDS chemotherapy were developed or used?

    I'm not aware of any, apart from hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions (who have their own reasons for being immune deficient..."Those hemophiliacs are not immortal.") and beyond the normal background prevalence of AIDS-defining diseases. Can you give references documenting such cases?

    Why then was AIDS initially so prevelent in the gay community?

    Massive drug use (dozens of recreational and pharmaceutical drugs), massive sexual promiscuity (1,000s of sexual partners), and a psychologically toxic environment. All of these are known causes of cell-mediated immunodeficiency.

    Why then were straight drug users not infected at similar rates?

    Stop using the word "infected"! Your wording only exposes how deeply and subconsciously prejudiced you are to the infectious theory.

    As to your question, straight drug users did get AIDS, even from the beginning.

    If AIDS is not sexually transmitted and only due to recreational drug use, why did it appear in geographic clusters at all?

    Well,...because the communities of gay men and drug users whose behaviours led to AIDS were themselves geographically clustered. No big surprise.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 2:04pm

56. There is a large community of AIDS cases in my area highschools. When I attended highschool in this area during the early nineties, there were no AIDS cases reported. RED CROSS came every year to the highschools in my county( Dekalb County, GA) to receive blood donations. Now most of these kids today are contracting AIDS at an alarming rate. Most of these kids are not using cocaine or poppers, etc. I will admit that they may smoke marijuana. But I do know unprotected sexual activity is very high. What would be the cause of these children contracting AIDS? They have taken no medicines whatsoever. If unprotected sex is not the cause then what is? In fact, the RED CROSS stated that they will never return to my former highschool because of the high rate of AIDS cases they found after testing the blood.

    Posted by k330k at 03/03/2006 @ 2:28pm

57. Darin (on my last question):

    Maybe I did not state my question clearly, but if recreational drug use or malnutrition are the culprits (and the disease is not sexually transmitted), why should it matter if one is gay or not? I realize that there might be larger clusters of homosexuals in certain areas, but why was the onset of the disease clustered at all in gay communities if recreational drug use and malnutrition are the causes? Why didn't drug users in Topeka have an initial outbreak? Or a poor slum of New Orleans? This hypothesis seems to draw a direct correlation between being gay and recreational drug use. If that is the conclusion, point me to something that supports this theory.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 2:56pm

58. The short answer to your question, HMAN23, is that there *WAS* a correlation between certain gay subcommunities and drug use. You should read "And the Band Played On" (Randy Shilts), "Faggots" (Larry Kramer), or "Surviving AIDS" (Michael Callen). In the 1970s, there was a subpopulation of gays who used drugs in unprecedented quantities.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 3:51pm

59. Of course, now there is still a correlation, mainly because the drug companies are pushing their products on gays.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 3:52pm

60. K330K,

    Are they "AIDS" cases, or are they just testing antibody positive? If they are simply testing antibody positive and are not using recreational or pharmaceutical drugs, they don't have much to worry about. Although I do wonder how such a high number (which you never say...you only give a vague description "large community") would test positive.

    HIV is prevalent at a low rate across the U.S. in all subpopulations (although some populations have higher rates). Funny how nobody seemed to notice a problem until Red Cross started screening blood.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 3:58pm

61. "a subpopulation of gays who used drugs in unprecedented quantities?" Those references may provide anecdotal stories, but what about heteros who used drugs in high quantities? What was it about the gay drug use that was so "different" that the disease started in the gay community?

    Another simple question - if AZT drug therapies and associated cocktail therapies are a cause of AIDS, why have AIDS deaths in the U.S. dropped since the mid 90's?

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 4:03pm

62. . . . after the more widespread use of those therapies?

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 4:04pm

63. It must be incredibly satisfying for the HIV dissidents to finally be getting some attention, even if it's from non-experts who are not qualified to rebut their specious arguments.

    In the beginning there was a bit of reasonable discussion of serious questions, but it has quickly devolved into conspiracy theories. Good work, HIV dissidents!

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 4:53pm

64. Sorry, Leftbehinds, I'll leave it to the experts and keep my lay opinions to myself.

    Posted by Hman23 at 03/03/2006 @ 4:59pm

65. Here's a quote from another blog that I think is pretty relevant to the discussion here:

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

    (link)Doc Rampage II (mail) (www):

    Elizabeth: I'll take your word for it that you are approaching this sincerely, but your suggestion can hardly be taken seriously. It's the "expert immunity" argument: "I can't possibly explain why I am right until you know everything I know about this issue". It creates an artificial barrier to skeptics who aren't experts. So you can ignore the non-experts until they meet your high standards and you can ignore the experts who are skeptics because if they really were experts they would be funded by the NIH.

    What if Dean took you up on your challenge? He would have to spend weeks studying these ten papers, then, assuming that they are really relevant, he would have to spend more weeks studying background information, and then he could begin the process of spending weeks debating the merits of each paper. But that debate wouldn't be necessary, because if those papers didn't convince him, then you could always say, well, then try reading _these_ ten papers.

    A debate like that is important, surely, but it should be undertaken by the medical profession, not by bloggers, and a big part of Dean's point is that the profession has never had this debate. Did they? Can you site the seminal papers where this debate was carried out? If so, that would do a lot to convince me. I wouldn't have to study the papers; just seeing that there has been a real debate would make me less inclined to be skeptical.

    The thing is that Dean and the other people on his side can state their reasons for doubting the HIV/AIDS connection without demanding that you spend weeks reading papers to see what their point is. They also have the papers, but they can state the major claims in a few paragraphs. And some of those major claims strike me as very persuasive: that there is no primary epidemiological study that showed the connection, that the nature of the disease changed drastically over the last thirty years, that the criteria for diagnosing the disease in Africa seem politically motivated, that one can have the virus for years, or even decades, without contracting the disease.

    So what are your major claims? That HIV has been found in every AIDS patient tested? That no one has ever found HIV in a person without AIDS? I know those aren't your claims, but what are? What are the major facts that you believe show the correlation beyond a reasonable doubt? Just a description, that's all I want. If your description of the evidence is convincing, only then would it be reasonable to delve further to see if your description is accurate.

    You should be able to say things like "There have been a dozen solid epidemiological studies showing a link between AIDS and HIV", and then describe in general terms what the studies found and then give the citations. Just saying "these ten papers support the AIDS/HIV link" without saying how they support it is not an argument.

    2.28.2006 5:20am

    Doc Rampage II [deanesmay.com]

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:08pm

66. HMAN23,

    You're correct, the references I gave are mainly anecdotal. But there are other sources which are more than anecdotal. A good place to start is the reports from the CDC itself, although these have their own problems.

    The 1991 HIV/AIDS Surveillance from the CDC

    CDC 1991 HIV/AIDS report [cdc.gov]

    reported that in excess of 90% of all AIDS cases were subject to abnormal health risks, including recreational drugs. At that time, in 1991, roughly 1/3 of all AIDS cases were IV drug users, and this accounts for the majority of heterosexual AIDS cases. Moreover, almost 60% of all AIDS cases at that time were homosexuals who heavily abused poppers, cocaine, speed, and a variety of other drugs (in addition to having 100s of sexual partners).

    You can go back even further into the CDC annual reports and see that the original cases follow a similar pattern (although the reports are difficult to read, due to sloppiness).

    Please note that when making these observations, this is not a judgment on people in any sense other than a strict biological/medical one that certain behaviours lead to certain health consequences. It is not a moralistic judgment about anyone's sexuality or identity. Indeed, if anything, it is an attempt to help people by alerting them to the dangers of certain behaviour.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:25pm

67. HMAN23- I wasn't saying you aren't entitled to your opinion. I was just saying that these HIV dissidents spend their whole lives thinking about this, so we, as lay people, are hopelessly outgunned (even though scientific consensus is overwhelmingly against their position -- and conspiracy theories about mainstream scientists manipulating data in order to protect their funding bear a large burden of proof).

    I've maintained an amateur interest in this over the years, and my impression is that whatever credibility the dissidents had was largely lost in the mid-90s, with the advent of the ARV cocktails. They still discuss AIDS as if it's the 80s, not updating to confront new realities.

    There are some valid questions still to be raised, and it's too bad they get lost in the din of the conspiracy theories.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:33pm

68. Another simple question - if AZT drug therapies and associated cocktail therapies are a cause of AIDS, why have AIDS deaths in the U.S. dropped since the mid 90's?...after the more widespread use of those therapies?

    The short answer to your question is that the deaths were already dropping before initiation of cocktail therapies and HAART. Here, strictly speaking, the raw number of deaths didn't fall until later, about the time of the new drugs, but the important number is really the death rate, i.e. the proportion of AIDS patients in a given year who die. Again, these numbers are totally messed up due to changes in the CDC definition, but using the CDC's numbers I compiled a spreadsheet and it shows that this probability of death dropped well before HAART and the cocktails. In fact, it levelled off about 1984-6, and began dropping about 1986, even before AZT. In other words, without wonderful medicine, the epidemic would have likely quickly dropped off and run itself out by the early 90s. But the iatrogenic epidemic of AIDS has dragged it on endlessly.

    Again, to be really clear: there have been 2 "AIDS" epidemics: the first, which peaked in the mid-80s and would have run its course by the early 90s, which was caused mostly by recreational drugs in risk groups; and the iatrogenic epidemic (caused by doctors), which began in the late 80s, blossomed in 1995 with the administration of HAART, and has dragged on ever since.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:34pm

69. Anecdotally, I've known so many extremely slutty straight drug addicts who never develop anything like AIDS that I am skeptical about that behavioral explanation. It seeems to indulge in sensationalistic accounts of gay hedonism in the 70s.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:37pm

70. == Misconceptions ==

    A major misconception is that AIDS dissidents include those who view AIDS as a government or military conspiracy. The truth is that dissidents are not conspiracy theorists. In the words of Yale mathematician Serge Lang,

    :"The main problems with the HIV/AIDS controvery have not been due to a 'conspiracy'...Rather, these problems have included:

    :*The inability by many people, and especially influential people, in the scientific establishment to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis and a hole in the ground.

    :*The refusal even to consider alternative hypotheses to the pathogenesis of HIV, notably drug use.

    :*Censorship and tendentious reporting in the scientific press, as well as in the press at large."

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:38pm

71. And I've known many of them for more than 10 or 15 years.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:39pm

72. Anecdotally, I've known so many extremely slutty straight drug addicts who never develop anything like AIDS that I am skeptical about that behavioral explanation. It seeems to indulge in sensationalistic accounts of gay hedonism in the 70s.

    The drug-AIDS hypothesis does not assert that everyone who uses any kind of drugs will develop AIDS. Specific factors are relevant in any individual, most especially dosage, i.e. cumulative lifetime intake.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:40pm

73. Uhhhh, if you knew the middle class, straight Manhattan party people that I know, you wouldn't scoff at their "cumulative lifetime intake." Lol.

    That whole hypothesis is totally stinky. It has a huge burden of proof.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:43pm

74. Also, I have an Ivy League degree in mathematics, and what the heck does that have to do with AIDS expertise?

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:47pm

75. (in reference to your invocation of "Yale mathematician Serge Lang")

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:48pm

76. "It is not a moralistic judgment about anyone's sexuality or identity. Indeed, if anything, it is an attempt to help people by alerting them to the dangers of certain behaviour."

    Darin, if that's the case, then why do you keep mentioning number of sexual partners as the reason that AIDS spread so rapidly within the gay community? If your theory is correct and drug use is the sole factor, then why would sleeping with 10 or 100 or 1000 people make a difference?

    If you're drawing a corellation between drug use and AIDS in the gay community, you also need to answer the question of why the rates of AIDS are so drastically different in the gay male and the lesbian populations.

    Posted by nmwallace at 03/03/2006 @ 5:49pm

77. Well, I've known my share of lesbian potheads, but lesbian crystal queens? Not so much.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 5:51pm

78. That whole hypothesis is totally stinky. It has a huge burden of proof.

    I agree. Any hypothesis on an issue as important as this should meet a high burden of proof. The major difference between dissenters (whatever hypotheses they may have about AIDS causation) and the orthodoxy, however, is that the orthodoxy seems strangely unwilling to submit itself to the same "huge burden of proof" of which you are so justifiably enamored.

    Those who support a drug-AIDS hypothesis have published strong data and arguments in the literature. These are based on a variety of aspects, including epidemiology, toxicology, microbiology, etc. The fact that their claims are in the minority with regard to the other 130,000+ papers on AIDS doesn't mean we should automatically throw them out.

    And how does the orthodoxy measure up to this "huge burden of proof"? They continue to distract from major inconsistencies and discrepancies between the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and reality. They focus on molecular minutia at the expense of seeing the bigger picture. They refuse to enter into even-handed debate. They accuse anyone who questions them of being dangerous and irresponsible. They pile hypothesis upon conjecture upon speculation upon more hypothesis, conjecture, and speculation, and then put the burden of proof on doubters to say that their hypothesis, conjecture, and speculation are wrong. They invent numerous ad hoc explanations for all the anomalies, at the same time they confidently claim the proof for HIV is "overwhelming" as they continue to pump out more and more "anti-HIV" drugs.

    So, I would ask you LEFTBEHINDS, which side do *you* think is meeting their "huge burden of proof"?

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 5:58pm

79. Darin, if that's the case, then why do you keep mentioning number of sexual partners as the reason that AIDS spread so rapidly within the gay community? If your theory is correct and drug use is the sole factor, then why would sleeping with 10 or 100 or 1000 people make a difference?

    You inferred something which I never said. I wasn't pointing out the number of sexual partners as a reason why AIDS "spread so rapidly" within the gay community. You're bringing an infectious assumption onto my comments.

    I mentioned the number of sexual partners because (a) having sex with 100s or 1000s of partners within a span of a few years (which occured for many) exposes one to multiple infections and STDs, which not only put a strain on the immune system, but also leads to indiscriminate antibiotic abuse. Also (b) drug use (esp. poppers, although others) was part of the sexual experience for many, so the sheer number of sexual partners is an indicator of drug use.

    If you're drawing a corellation between drug use and AIDS in the gay community, you also need to answer the question of why the rates of AIDS are so drastically different in the gay male and the lesbian populations.

    I'm not aware that lesbians abuse drugs at the rate of gay men.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 6:03pm

80. Also, I have an Ivy League degree in mathematics, and what the heck does that have to do with AIDS expertise?

    What was your subject? Differential topology? Harmonic analysis? Homological algebra?

    At any rate, Serge was heavily involved in monitoring and responding to the journalistic adventures of HIV/AIDS. His book Challenges

    Challenge s [reviewingaids.org]

    details a lot of these adventures.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 6:08pm

81. I said,

    "I'm not aware that lesbians abuse drugs at the rate of gay men."

    Again, to be *very* clear, I am not saying that all gays abuse drugs. In fact, the overwhelming majority DO NOT. Let me be very clear. But there is a particular subculture and subpopulation which does, and this is the subpopulation (which also finds itself under tremendous social and psychological assault) which finds itself being hooked into joining the AIDS machine.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 6:16pm

82. Have you ever read conspiracy theory literature? Check out 9/11 denialists (or dissidents or whatever): 9/11 Their arguments are very similar to yours, nitpicking the rebuttals of their claims in similar ways. From their contrarian perspective, any insignificant flaw in the other side is enough to validate their fringe position.

    To my amateur eye, the HIV dissidents seem to raise a few valid questions and a lot of farfetched questions.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 6:25pm

83. I don't consider the fact that HIV has been prevalent at a constant rate since testing began in 1985 to be "nit-picking".

    I don't consider the fact that, after 20+ years, there is no agreed-upon mechanism of pathogenesis, to be "nit-picking".

    I don't consider the facts that antibody tests are non-specific, or that AVRs are highly toxic to be "nit-picking".

    I don't consider the fact that the 1995 papers (Ho/Shaw) used to justify HAART therapy were flawed and contained numerous mistakes to be "nit-picking".

    But maybe you do. I'll leave it to the readers of this thread to decide how similar my points are to those of 9/11 theorists.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 6:37pm

84. Darin wrote: What was your subject? Differential topology? Harmonic analysis? Homological algebra?

    Do I detect a note of skepticism? What an unprovoked ad hominem attack. Why, you almost sound like one of those HIV affirmationists.

    FYI, my undergraduate degree was in math at Columbia, and my graduate degree was in econ at the LSE (game theory is my thing). Send me your number and I'll fax you copies of my transcripts. ;)

    But the point is, studying math does not an AIDS expert make. Writing a book about it is better, but I'd still be skeptical about his expertise.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 6:37pm

85. After taking care of AIDS patients as a nurse since 2001, and following the science and the politics for much longer, I've given up on trying to debate people like Darin Brown, because they have the advantages of (a) being more articulate than me and (b) not really knowing what they're talking about - which can be a real advantage, because it leaves you free to create a compelling argument by connecting dots that aren't really related and may not even be dots. But I'd like to get a couple of the lamer arguments out of the way for people who haven't heard it all before.

    First, a misunderstanding that seems to never die is the idea that the epidemiology of HIV is so unusual that it can't be a blood-borne disease. This is particularly dumb in an era when hepatitis B and C are such widespread public health issues: they are caused by well understood viral agents (that nobody denies), and they spread in exactly the same ways as HIV and not surprisingly have a great deal of overlap with the HIV-positive population. This was accurately predicted before any cause of AIDS was known; scientists who had studied the spread of hep B through the IV-drug-using, gay, and hemophiliac populations raised an early alarm that AIDS might be blood-borne - and, criminally, that alarm was ignored for far too long. And as with HIV, viral hepatitis has run rampant in a few demographic groups while making much slower inroads into others, and this is not a great mystery if you understand the risk factors - yet denialists continue to state that AIDS can't be infectious because it hasn't increased exponentially in the entire population.

    Second, the "AIDS is really caused by antiretroviral drugs" canard has been an unchanging central tenet of the denialist movement since the early days of Duesberg. It's easy to point to the fact that AZT and other drugs can have an immunosuppressive effect... but only if you don't understand the difference between suppressing white blood cells in general, which is something AZT and many other drugs do, and massively killing off CD4+ cells, which is not. Most of what we knew about opportunistic infections came from the very familiar situation of cancer patients who lost immunity due to chemotherapy... but that isn't specific to CD4 cells; immunosuppression due to toxicity, genetic factors, etc. just doesn't look like AIDS. The cells affected are different; the diseases you get are different. That's why AIDS was so quickly flagged as a new syndrome.

    Duesberg & co. believe that it is simply a massive coincidence that HIV specifically infects CD4 cells, has many well-documented biochemical effects that can kill those cells, and has many well-documented unusual characteristics that make it nearly impossible for normal immune responses to defeat the virus. Or at least, that is what many modern denialists believe; Duesberg himself seems to have simply ignored the last 10 years of research that have clarified the latter two points - he continues to assert that there is just no way for HIV to attack T cells. The earlier comment by "Ignatioust", that "Duesberg is not saying that HIV and AIDS are unrelated," is incorrect: Duesberg has stated repeatedly that HIV cannot possibly be a pathogenic virus. But Duesberg stopped doing meaningful work in virology long ago - he has rejected his own ground-breaking work on viral causes of cancer (ironically, Kaposi's sarcoma, one of the most common AIDS-related infections, has turned out to be due to a carcinogenic virus; Duesberg insisted, and may still insist, that it's caused by poppers) - and he shows little understanding of immunology. He has proposed absolutely no biochemical mechanism by which drug abuse can produce such specific effects, and he has continued to harp on the difficulty of demonstrating HIV's life cycle in cultures of single cell types, as if it were possible to model the immune system meaningfully that way. Much of what was thought about AIDS in the '80s was indeed wrong... but HIV science has come a long, long way in a relatively short time, while the denialists have continued to repeat the same things again and again, and to point to "mysteries" that are either misunderstandings of the issue, or irrelevant, or already solved.

    Posted by Hob at 03/03/2006 @ 6:44pm

86. HOB-

    You sound pretty articulate to me.

    Nice post.

    Posted by leftbehinds at 03/03/2006 @ 6:49pm

87. No, LEFTBEHINDS, an ad hominem argument attacks an argument by raising issues with the person making the argument. This is actually what you did by pointing out that Serge (whom you know was one of the most respected mathematicians in the community) was a mathematician. And on a topic (scientific/journalistic integrity of AIDS research) which was not itself *directly* related to AIDS causation.

    I was simply asking what your area was. I wasn't even attacking any argument of yours. Although it does confuse me a bit that you can have a mathematical education and not see the obvious flaws in the HIV theory. (Did you read Rebecca's essay??)

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 7:12pm

88. Denialists continue to state that AIDS can't be infectious because it hasn't increased exponentially in the entire population.

    It's not just the fact that it hasn't increased exponentially in the general population, it's the fact that its incidence has increased from the early 80s until reaching a peak in the mid 90s, then has been falling off ever since, all during the time that the prevalence of HIV hasn't changed.

    According to your understanding of AIDS epidemiology, HIV came from Africa some decades ago; it infected a small number of groups in the US in the early 70s; this small number became the original AIDS cases in the early 80s; HIV spread from this small number of groups into the general population in the short time period from about 1970 to 1985; then, magically, in 1985, just as testing began, it *stopped* spreading and just decided to flatten out into constant prevalence across various subpopulations, (while "AIDS" continued to remain confined to risk groups).

    How believeable is *that* story?

    Much of the remainder of what you say is simply ex cathedra assertions that are typical of churchgoers. I do agree with you that "HIV science has come a long, long way", although the direction of that particular path is probably where we would disagree.

    And we will continue to "repeat the same things again and again", until adequate answers are forthcoming.

    Posted by Darin Brown at 03/03/2006 @ 7:32pm

89. There are some valid questions still to be raised, and it's too bad they get lost in the din of the conspiracy theories.

    Posted by LEFTBEHINDS 03/03/2006 @ 5:33pm

    I'm still waiting for one of these learned individuals to take me up on injecting themselves with a syringe of live HIV. As educated people, they must not be into heavy drugs, so then there shouldn't be any worrys about this harmless virus ravaging their immune systems and killing them.

    Wouldn't we all feel better if we knew for sure?

    Posted by Will C. at 03/03/2006 @ 7:51pm

90. Also (b) drug use (esp. poppers, although others) was part of the sexual experience for many, so the sheer number of sexual partners is an indicator of drug use.

    Wow, that's a sweeping generalization. Got anything to back that up?

    I'm not aware that lesbians abuse drugs at the rate of gay men.

    Are you, in fact, aware of the rate at which gay men in the 1970's and '80's used drugs? Have you done a comparison of the rates of drug use in the lesbian and gay male communities? Or are you just throwing out a lot of unproven assertions in an attempt to make your case? It's looking like the latter to me, I'm afraid.

    Posted by nmwallace at 03/03/2006 @ 7:58pm

91. "then, magically, in 1985, just as testing began, it *stopped* spreading and just decided to flatten out into constant prevalence across various subpopulations"

    Posted by DARIN BROWN 03/03/2006 @ 7:32pm

    And this would have nothing to do with rampant AIDS paranoia and perpetual comdom ads on TV? Everybody getting tested, AIDS jokes on 'the tonite show' everynight etc.?

    I am a science afficianado, not a scientist.

    But all I've ever gotten from this (very old) controversy is, third world countries will call anything AIDS, to get extra funding.

    And "AIDS debunkers" all seem to come off as vaugely homophobic and elitist. With a particular hard-on for certain illicit drugs, that seem not to have similar effects, outside the traditional 'AIDS community'.

    Without enough time/expertise to explore the topic to the extent, where I could agree or disagree with you, I will have to do as most reasonably intellegent, but time challenged individuals will do.

    Go with the scientific concenus. Notice that there are seemingly intellegent people saying moronic things all the time. Usually with a hidden agenda. (Like, about global warming, for instance.)

    While there are indeed political forces (sadly) at work as well as medical ones, the official story seems to make more sense than this stuff. Which is not much changed since I decided I wasn't buying it years ago.

    It also matches my personal observations/experience better. Not a very broad view, but one I can at least verify the accuracy of.

    Much like ID vs. evolution, you seem to be about punching holes in competing theory, instead of postulating one of your own, beyond "they're wrong".

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 03/03/2006 @ 8:06pm

92. " Or are you just throwing out a lot of unproven assertions in an attempt to make your case? It's looking like the latter to me, I'm afraid."

    Posted by NMWALLACE 03/03/2006 @ 7:58pm

    Yea...that's what I meant.

    Eric

    Posted by malcontent3 at 03/03/2006 @ 8:08pm

93. then, magically, in 1985, just as testing began, it *stopped* spreading and just decided to flatten out into constant prevalence across various subpopulations, (while "AIDS" continued to remain confined to risk groups).

    You're completely ignoring the societal changes that happened along with the development of testing in the mid-'80's. I'm in my mid-30's. I hit puberty right at the time that people became aware of AIDS. I chose to delay any sexual experimentation until my 20's, and I have never had intercourse with a man without a condom. Is that because I have a latex fetish? Hardly--it's because, like many of my generation I grew up scared. The possibility of getting a disease that at the time was believed to lead to death within 2-3 years was enough to make an awful lot of us decide that unprotected sex just wasn't worth it.

    Much of the remainder of what you say is simply ex cathedra assertions that are typical of churchgoers.

    I'd argue the same of you. You say you're a math teacher--okay, show me some numbers, please. Surely there's a control group of gay men who have multiple sex partners but are not frequent drug users that have been studied, right?

    Posted by nmwallace at 03/03/2006 @ 8:10pm

94. A good sign that open inquiry may not be the real driving principle is when the same person says both of these things: 1. "...an ad hominem argument attacks an argument by raising issues with the person making the argument." 2. "Much of the remainder of what you say is simply ex cathedra assertions that are typical of churchgoers."

    This is why I identify myself as a nurse right away, to get the accusations about churchgoers, orthodoxy, "the AIDS machine", etc. out in the open right away. To this mindset, anyone whose job involves understanding the current state of the science is to be disregarded entirely... while on the other hand, every unsourced statistic floated by a denialist deserves a full detailed response, including full citations of all the relevant studies that produced the current consensus, and failure to do so (over and over again) proves that the consensus is unsound. It's an easy game to play, and would work equally well with any disease that inspires the same fears. Many of the denialists have honest concerns, but this approach is not honest.

    So I won't debate Darin Brown, but we do agree on one point: we will continue to "repeat the same things again and again", until adequate answers are forthcoming. Except for me, the things I'll keep saying will actually change slightly based on the results of ongoing research; and the question that must be answered before I'll stop is: "How could long-term exposure to stimulants, nitrites, opiates, antibiotics, and STDs, produce an irreversible progressive destruction of CD4+ cells long after the exposure, when none of the many immunosuppressive and mutagenic toxins we know of can be shown to do that?" I don't want to hear about a nonspecific cumulative "strain on the immune system", unless there is a proposed model of exactly what is getting strained and how. It's like saying that heart attacks happen because the heart is "tired" or "broken". I would not engage in a lengthy debate over how to treat heart disease with someone who made such a statement, and I would not consider him a good judge of what is or isn't plausible in the consensus view.

    This is, to my mind, the biggest vulnerability in Duesberg's approach: he wasn't quite vague enough. He actually proposed a culprit, illegal drug use, and now the failure to tie it to AIDS via any specific biochemical mechanism looks more and more odd as the decades go by. So on the one hand, there's the consensus view, with a bunch of science pointing to how the virus can do what it does, but that's supposed to be entirely discredited by some poorly understood trends in epidemiology... yet Duesberg's proposed model is a bunch of hand-waving that boils down to "all these things are bad for you, and putting them together is really bad, and AIDS is really bad, QED" and he has no science at all to show how this could happen. Ironically, that's exactly what he said about HIV in the beginning: no one's shown how it could do what it supposedly does. Which was true then - but not a sufficient reason to throw out the hypothesis; and it's not true now - but he doesn't care.

    Posted by Hob at 03/03/2006 @ 8:38pm

95. Since people here actually think that the transfusion idea is actually a real argument winner (which truly, truly horrifies me on too many levels)

    May I suggest to those Nation posters who believe that the HIV critics receive transfusions from HIV positive people, themselves receive transfusions from people with "HIV-Negative AIDS" to see if they then get "HIV-Negative AIDS" themselves.

    Would this convince you that there is something wrong with the HIV/AIDS paradigm? And, would this then convince the HIV dissidents that there is some OTHER infectious agent causing both HIV/AIDS and HIV-Negative AIDS?

    www.lemonfoundation.blogspot.com

    Posted by klambert at 03/03/2006 @ 8:54pm

96. May I suggest to those Nation posters who believe that the HIV critics receive transfusions from HIV positive people, themselves receive transfusions from people with "HIV-Negative AIDS" to see if they then get "HIV-Negative AIDS" themselves.

    Posted by KLAMBERT 03/03/2006 @ 8:54pm

    I'm not going to take blood from anybody with AIDS. But then I'm not the one making the argument that HIV is a harmless retrovirus and that AIDS is caused by drug use.

    Your assertion is a testable hypothesis. And the easiest way to test it is to inject live HIV into your blood stream and then sit back, have a cup of coffee, eat a scone... and wait to see if your hypothesis holds any water.

    It's really that simple.

    You've made your argument. We've heard you...

    Ready to bet your life on it?

    Posted by Will C. at 03/03/2006 @ 9:46pm

97. and as your control group...

    I'll do the drugs

    :)

    Posted by Will C. at 03/03/2006 @ 9:48pm

98. Klambert, speaking for myself, I don't see it as an argument winner. It's an irresponsible dare... one which was offered by the denialists, who then proceeded to back down from it. It wouldn't be evidence of much, except as a test of whether the denialist really believed his own arguments... which many do, although I suspect on some level Duesberg does not.

    Also, you are the one who's calling ICL "HIV-negative AIDS". The Johns Hopkins source you linked to explains something you've left out: cases of ICL do not really have a similar course to AIDS. You don't tend to see a progressive deterioration, the CD4 count is just low and stays low. A symptom is not the same as a syndrome. As for the other article you linked to, it contains no data except for a story about "Ms. X" and "Doctor XYZ" at "Large University Medical", with no reason given for all the obfuscation; it looks like a crank piece.

    Posted by Hob at 03/03/2006 @ 10:04pm

99. Posted by RBOERNER

    Table 7 on page 109 of Duesberg, P. H. and Rasnick, D. (1998) The AIDS dilemma: Drug Diseases Blamed on a Passenger Virus (Genetica 104: 85-132) [duesberg.com]

    shows and gives scientific references that prove that certain recreational drugs alone (nitrites, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines) are sufficient to cause AIDS-defining diseases, including the 1981 AIDS signature illnesses immunodeficiency, KS and pneumonia.

    You think so? Have you actually examined any of the original papers? Let's look at a couple of the papers by Baldwin, Roth, and Tashkin for example. Specifically

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=16204638

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=15964028

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=14741433

    You just might notice that the papers discuss how the drugs involved can accelerate the rate of HIV infection. They don't imply the drugs as a cause of AIDS at all. Now while the paper on THC did show a reduced CD4 count in mice, a placebo controlled trial with cannabinoids in humans showed no such effect.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=12965981

    We could also look at the Ratajczak paper cited on immunotoxicity of isobutyl nitrite.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=8529812

    The following excerpts seem rather pertinent.

    "There was a dose-related suppression of T-cell-dependent antibody-forming cell responses in the spleen following IBN exposure; however, other measures of T-cell and nonspecific immunity were not significantly affected....These results suggest that in the absence of changes in host resistance, IBN may have selective and partially reversible effects on the immune system."

    Selective effects in the spleen? Other measures not significantly effected? Partially reversible effects? Your case seems less than compelling.

    Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 10:28pm

100. Posted by DARIN BROWN

     I don't consider the fact that, after 20+ years, there is no agreed-upon mechanism of pathogenesis, to be "nit-picking".

     I suggest spending some time at this site [hivinsite.ucsf.edu].

     Of particular interest should be a section under "Natural Science of HIV" that is labeled, "Immunopathogenesis of HIV Infection."

     You and Boerner had best stick to math. Your foray into biochem isn't going so well.

     Posted by gswift at 03/03/2006 @ 10:38pm

101. Farber's piece was over-the-top even before she invoked Duesberg. With respect to clinical disease markers, diagnostic markers function beyond the hospital setting. For example, a <200 CD4 count, which is predictive of developing certain illnesses associated with AIDS, means, in this country, one may begin receiving critical social services before becoming desperately ill. At any rate, debunking, or even defying, orthodoxy is nothing new, and arguments needs not advertise, or in Farber's case, flog, themselves. I agree with Will C. above; a control group of this type should not be difficult to assmeble, and track, for years, if those so inclined really believe what they claim.

     Posted by rwilso7 at 03/03/2006 @ 10:55pm

102. If GSwift weren't such a dismissive jerk and had actually read the section he cites he would find a list of "proposed mechanisms" and language like "Whereas most HIV replication is thought to take place in activated CD4+ T lymphocytes.." and the kicker "Although the precise mechanisms of immune dysfunction remain incompletely understood..."

     All of which confirms the statement that there is no agreed-upon mechanism.

     As for WillC's challenge to be injected with the live virus, I would take that because the HIV retrovirus (not a virus) has never been isolated. The best he could propose would be to get a transfusion from an HIV-positive person, but transfusions carry all kinds of risks of immunposupression because of the introduction of foreign proteins. I worked at the Hempohilia Center in New York and they noticed immunosuppression in hemophiliacs for years before the notion of AIDS was ever born.

     It is amazing that such theoretically open minds such irrevocably on this issue.

     And before anyone says "Well, you haven't had someone die on you..." yes I have. Living in New York in the early 80s it was almost impossible not.

     Posted by zen_more at 03/04/2006 @ 09:16am

103. Like WillC said, I'm going to go with the scientific consensus on the AIDS issue. And since nobody's mentioned marijuana, I'll keep smoking my doobies. I am not an expert in microbiology, pathology, or AIDS-ology, but I do have a degree in chemistry. I do know, one has to do more than poke holes in a theory before it can be debunked. A new theory and has to be developed and stand up to scientific scrutiny. The drug abuse/AIDS connection theory has not stood up(not to me, anyhow). I'll beleive someone in the medical community who has worked with AIDS patients over a mathematicians or fringe scientists any day. Say what you will, that's my path and I'm sticking to it.

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 10:51am

104. Also, talking about how it comes about is well and good. I hope, while scientists are trying to debunk each other's theories, they keep their eyes on the prize: a cure/antidote. I'm sure the families of the AIDS victims would rather hear how to help their loved ones get better rather hear about the HIV/AIDS argument.

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 10:54am

105. As for WillC's challenge to be injected with the live virus, I would take that because the HIV retrovirus (not a virus) has never been isolated.

     Posted by ZEN_MORE 03/04/2006 @ 09:16am

     Then step right up and be the next player on the wheel. To get your injection of isolated HIV please contact:

     Huet T, Dazza MC, Brun-Vezinet F, Roelants GE, Wain-Hobson S.

     Laboratoire de Biologie et Immunologie Moleculaires des Retrovirus, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&lis t_uids=2559749&dopt=Citation

     What do you say sparky? Are you going to give us a follow post after you get the injection?

     Because we'll all be waiting for the good news

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 11:36am

106. I am a mental health advocate for an award-winning disability rights organization in Northampton MA and would like to share my observations about the nature of this debate.

     Celia Farber is in many ways working along a similar track to Robert Whitaker, a Pullitzer-nomiated journalist challenging pharmaceutical company-backed misinformation about the nature and treatment of schizophrenia, in his book Mad In America and his numerous articles.

     If you look carefully at the scientific data, Celia Farber, like Robert Whitaker, is right: the established wisdom does not hold up under scrutiny.

     At this point, however, the discussion goes haywire.

     Heated debates that feel intractable and cycle endlessly to the point of emotional eruption often indicate the presence of unspoken cross-arguments going on in the background. In the case of the "HIV does not cause AIDS" debate currently flaring in response to the Harper's article, I would suggest there is a parallel with the heated debates that flare up whenever you point out there is no conclusive scientific evidence that mental illness is caused by brain chemical imbalances, or deny that psychiatric drug treatments correct these imbalances.

     As a local activist working on mental illness issues, I have been keenly interested in figuring out ways to get beyond the deadlock polarization and vicious personalization that tends to emerge when the scientific wisdom is challenged and the chemical imbalance thesis is demonstrated as insubstantial. We have been doing public education around this work for 5 years with a great deal of success getting people to listen to us, rather than dismiss us as Scientologist, Szasz-ians, fanatics or dogmatists.

     The way we do this is to

     1. assert the scientific evidence that refutes the pharmaceutical prevailing wisdom. Robert Whitaker does this for chemical imbalances, and I believe, if you look closely, Celia Farber does this for the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis

     2. Move the discussion directly to the *implications* of this assertion.

     Our understanding of the mental illness debates is that the unspoken cross-arguments going on in the background I mentioned before have to do with the unaddressed implications of the assertion of no chemical imbalance. These implications are:

     1. that people are not suffering 2. that people should stop taking their psych medication 3. that society doesn't need to help people 4. that drug treatments don't actually do anything at all 5. that people are to blame for their lack of motivation to overcome their problems 6. that parents are to blame for messing up their kids.

     In our work we go through each of these implications of our criticism of the chemical imbalance hypothesis and explain that No, we are not saying any of this -- these are implications *imputed* to us by our opponents (who sometimes have financial, status or other investments in the chemical imbalance hypothesis, but not always). We point out what we are saying instead -- people need good mental health services with a range of choics and options based on solid demonstration of their effectiveness in light of dangerous side effects, and that people need accurate information in order to make decisions about treatment.

     What we did was to recognize that the debate in the foreground -- is it or is it not a chemical imbalance, is it or is it not corrected by drugs -- was paralleled by a debate in the background. By bringing the background debate into the open we began to get a real hearing and move the discussion away from heated polarization and back into productive rational deliberation around shared values.

     I would therefore suggest that Celia Farber's error as a public educator (though there is no error I can see as a journalist) is not anticipating the implications imputed to her. And I would suggest that the back-and-forth cycling of this debate really gets nowhere until the imputed implications and unspoken cross-arguments going on in the background are directly addressed.

     In the context of refuting the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis debate now raging, I am not very experienced in this discussion as I am with mental health discussions, but some of the background implications that seem to be imputed are:

     1. that no one's health ever improves from hiv treatment medications 2. that condoms/safe sex are not important in preventing illness 3. that hiv testing and hiv education never improve health 4. that opponents of hiv medication treatment accessibility are unconcerned with improving health in developing nations 5. that deaths in developing countries attributed to AIDS did not occur 6. people should not get medical treatments when they are identified as having AIDS. 7. that people diagnosed with AIDS or AIDS-related conditions are not sick.

     A more careful analysis is needed of these debates to zero in on exactly with the imputed implications are, but I feel strongly that the debate gridlock around this issue in the foreground can only be overcome when the debate going on in the background is addressed directly.

     Posted by willhall at 03/04/2006 @ 11:36am

107. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&lis t_uids=2559749&dopt=Citation

     And don't forget to take out the break between PubMed&lis and t_uids or the URL won't work.

     (my apologies if you geniuses already knew that)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 11:45am

108. Reading the semi-hysterical and frothing blather from the defenders of the HIV-causes-AIDS orthodoxy, one senses the utter desperation of a paradigm in collapse.

     If heterosexual activity is the process for transmitting this retrovirus, then what about these strange numbers. Among the actors and actresses of the adult film industry (centered in Los Angeles) who perform prodigious amounts of condomless sex for money, between 1998-2004 approximately 81,000 HIV tests were administered to those pornographic stars.

     Of that amount (at $50 per test), a grand total of eleven registered a positive result, or one in 8,000 in a cohort of 20-35 year olds that surely engages in more sex than almost anyone else in the USA.

     I would propose that those eleven (11) cases had several other issues in their medical records besides sexual activity, such as psychoactive street drug use or the consumption of other medications.

     Celia Farber's essay is one the top pieces of investigative journalism in the past five years.

     It is a superb antidote to the empty piffle of herd-journalists on AIDS like the ever-edgy plague-chaser Laurie Garrett or the Africa-confused Mark Schoofs.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/04/2006 @ 12:03pm

109. Reading the semi-hysterical and frothing blather from the defenders of the HIV-causes-AIDS orthodoxy, one senses the utter desperation of a paradigm in collapse.

     If heterosexual activity is the process for transmitting this retrovirus, then what about these strange numbers. Among the actors and actresses of the adult film industry (centered in Los Angeles) who perform prodigious amounts of condomless sex for money, between 1998-2004 approximately 81,000 HIV tests were administered to those pornographic stars.

     Of that amount (at $50 per test), a grand total of eleven registered a positive result, or one in 8,000 in a cohort of 20-35 year olds that surely engages in more sex than almost anyone else in the USA.

     I would propose that those eleven (11) cases had several other issues in their medical records besides sexual activity, such as psychoactive street drug use or the consumption of other medications.

     Celia Farber's essay is one the top pieces of investigative journalism in the past five years.

     It is a superb antidote to the empty piffle of herd-journalists on AIDS like the ever-edgy plague-chaser Laurie Garrett or the Africa-confused Mark Schoofs.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/04/2006 @ 12:03pm

110. I'll beleive someone in the medical community who has worked with AIDS patients over a mathematicians or fringe scientists any day. Say what you will, that's my path and I'm sticking to it.

     Posted by K330K 03/04/2006 @ 10:51am

     What's funny about this thread is that it sounds like any ID thread. You have a group of pseudo-intellectuals attempting to use anecdotal stories to "disprove" hundreds of thousands of man hours of actual research into the subject matter.

     One day I was looking through some of the papers on genetic research and bio chemical research on a scholarly database at one of our local community college. I thought that I would be able to understand what they were talking about because I've taken college biology, chemistry, genetics...

     Those papers made my head explode they were so involved and detailed with chemical names and processes that I hadn't covered in my classes.

     So I think I'm going to leave the research to the guys who know what they are talking about, read the occasional article that comes out in Scientific American, Discover, Nature, Cell...

     And laugh my ass off every time the osmosis crowd wants to take on the science community with campfire tales and casual observations.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 12:06pm

111. The heated nature of this debate speaks volumes. I agree with DoctorChipper that this may be evidence of a paradigm in collapse. I certainly hope so. The defenders of the HIV faith have had more than twenty years to stop this so-called "pandemic". They've spent billions of dollars examining the most researched microbe in human history. Yet all they can come up with for "treatments" are frighteningly toxic drugs that must be taken for life by those who've had the misfortune of testing "positive" on non-standardized, non-specific antibody tests.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 1:32pm

112. And laugh my ass off every time the osmosis crowd wants to take on the science community with campfire tales and casual observations.

     Posted by WILL C. 03/04/2006 @ 12:06am

     (I forgot one...)

     ,especially those referencing the "heated nature" of the argument

     (Ha Ha Ha Ha)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 1:56pm

113. I hear you, Will C.

     This is very much like the ID debate. Punch holes in another theorey, while giving vague allusions to a different cause.

     Nobody, on the "drugs cause AIDS" side has explained the mechanism, or why so many other drug users don't get HIV or AIDS.

     There definately seems to be anti-drug elitism going on here. Perhaps this is just another front for the "war on drugs" and "the culture war" (i.e. fags and third world people suck).

     Where are the ACTUAL FACTS SUPPORTING THIS "THEORY"? Tell me the current science is flawed. Fine. Where are the studies and statistics that support the 'drugs cause AIDS' theory?

     I get a flashback, from time to time, but no AIDS. ;o)

     I want my, I want my, I want my H.I.V.....

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/04/2006 @ 2:20pm

114. Is this what todd would sound like, with an ivy league education?

     (Why are elite colleges refered to, by the weed that envelopes old buildings and rips the mortar from between their bricks? Does 'ivy league' imply slowly crumbling foundations?)

     Eric

     Posted by malcontent3 at 03/04/2006 @ 2:25pm

115. The average American doesn't/can't understand Ms. Farber's essays for many reasons(educaitonal limitations, don't give a damn, works too damn hard to give a damn, etc...). So I should basically do what I've been taught to do form the outset: don't do amphetamines or opiates, don't have unprotected sex, don't share needles. Is there anything else that I should add to the list? While the debate is well and good, how does this help the American public? After hearing the other side of the argument, how does one go about protecting themselves?

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 2:54pm

116. It may seem to some that I am semi-hysterical and/or frothing(great word by the way), but after learning that there may be another cause I am confused. Do I not do what I've been taught thus far? Was the medical community outright lying/hiding the truth? Idon't care about right or wrong or who gets credit for whatever theory/ hypothesis, I just want to know how do I protect myself. So if I seem a frothing mess, imagine how the general will take this data. One word, pandemonium.

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 3:01pm

117. Sorry folks, meant "general public"

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 3:01pm

118. Well, I hate to leave but I've gotta go. I've learned alot and I will pass on the information to all I know. Thanks for the info.

     Posted by k330k at 03/04/2006 @ 3:08pm

119. Lots of good ideas here. I don't agree with the conclusions of Dr. Duesberg, but AIDS is far more complicated than anyone thinks. I have done without the deadly cocktail now for over three years (after 15 years of infection) and I'm doing great. My viral load is remarkably low, for reasons my Dr. can't explain. What sucks is that most of the gay men at my local AIDS clinic are drug addicts; very sick self destructive people. It is hard to get accurate data when so many "patients" are destroying themselves with drugs and alcohol. Also re-exposing themselves with barebacking and unsafe sex.

     Posted by edweird at 03/04/2006 @ 3:42pm

120. What sucks is that most of the gay men at my local AIDS clinic are drug addicts; very sick self destructive people. It is hard to get accurate data when so many "patients" are destroying themselves with drugs and alcohol.

     This in itself supports Duesberg's view on the drug-AIDS hypothesis. Yet we all seem to turn a blind eye.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 5:02pm

121. This in itself supports Duesberg's view on the drug-AIDS hypothesis. Yet we all seem to turn a blind eye.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 5:02pm

     I think it's also important to consider the role of the clinic as a root cause of AIDS. Perhaps it's the staid decor, the vinyl upholstery on the furniture or perhaps it's the type floor buffer being used to shine the tile. These are all good candidates for future research.

     But if we are going to do any fair and balanced inquiry into AIDS we can't just explore the clinic hypothesis but we also have to go much further back into the past at the dawn of AIDS and answer the question of why…

     It's fun to stay at the Y-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii MCA

     It's fun to stay at the Y-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii MCA

     And also why…

     They have everything for you men to enjoy,

     You can hang out with all the boys

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 5:20pm

122. Posted by ZEN_MORE If GSwift weren't such a dismissive jerk and had actually read the section he cites he would find a list of "proposed mechanisms" and language like "Whereas most HIV replication is thought to take place in activated CD4+ T lymphocytes.." and the kicker "Although the precise mechanisms of immune dysfunction remain incompletely understood..."

     All of which confirms the statement that there is no agreed-upon mechanism.

     That section discusses evidence that other cell populations also play a role as viral resevoirs with persistent infection. No one said every detail of the mechanisms had been identified. But statements by the denialists that "there is no agreed-upon mechanism" are deliberately misleading people into thinking NOTHING is known about HIV pathogenesis. That's a lie, or at best grossly ignorant.

     As for WillC's challenge to be injected with the live virus, I would take that because the HIV retrovirus (not a virus) has never been isolated.

     Lie, or merely grossly ignorant? Readers can make the call. Not only has the virus been isolated, but it's genome has been completely sequenced. Knock yourself out.

     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=genome&cmd=Retrieve&dop t=Overview&list_uids=12171

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 6:18pm

123. Posted by WILLHALL

     I would suggest there is a parallel with the heated debates that flare up whenever you point out there is no conclusive scientific evidence that mental illness is caused by brain chemical imbalances, or deny that psychiatric drug treatments correct these imbalances.

     Check it out. Tom Cruise reads The Nation.

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 6:35pm

124. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER

     If heterosexual activity is the process for transmitting this retrovirus, then what about these strange numbers.

     A mathematical point that seems to be escaping the denialists here is that the odds of any even that has already happened is 1.

     We can directly observe the infection and progression of the disease both in humans, and in model animals like macaques. If a mathematical model conflicts with this, then either the calculations, or the assumptions underlying the model are incorrect.

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 6:55pm

125. Posted by EDWEIRD

     I have done without the deadly cocktail now for over three years (after 15 years of infection) and I'm doing great. My viral load is remarkably low, for reasons my Dr. can't explain.

     Are you a Caucasian male? If so, have you ever been tested to see if you have the homozygous CCR5 mutation?

     If you don't have the CCR5 mutation, you might have an unidentified genetic variation that also makes you resistant.

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 7:02pm

126. I have done without the deadly cocktail now for over three years

     Telling word choice...deadly cocktail.

     Are you a Caucasian male? If so, have you ever been tested to see if you have the homozygous CCR5 mutation?

     Are you implying that his doctor doesn't already know about this?

     If this is common knowledge among "HIV" doctors, isn't this a test they should perform on caucasian males to spare them the "deadly drugs". This sounds like it could be the basis for a malpractice lawsuit. It would be, if it were me in this person's shoes.

     If you don't have the CCR5 mutation, you might have an unidentified genetic variation that also makes you resistant.

     Yes, an unidentified genetic variation, sure. Or the other possibility is that "HIV"=bullshit.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 7:26pm

127. Or the other possibility is that "HIV"=bullshit.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 7:26pm

     I agree. An injection of bullshit into your veins would also kill you.

     a little quicker though.

     (HIV is more like slower acting bullshit)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 7:43pm

128. or should we say

     "HIV"=Slow Acting Bullshit or "SAB" to those late to the argument

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 7:45pm

129. Are you a Caucasian male? If so, have you ever been tested to see if you have the homozygous CCR5 mutation?

     Funny how the CCR5 mutation isn't common knowledge. You don't hear about it on the news. It's not in those "HIV" awareness ads. If there are some people who can be spared having to take the "deadly cocktail" isn't it the ethical thing to do to let us all know? The answer is YES. So, it's interesting that you bring up CCR5 mutation after all is said and done.

     To think...I'm a caucasian male...maybe I don't need to worry about getting "AIDS"? This CCR5 mutation should be common knowledge. It could potentially spare a lot of people some misery. Don't you think so?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 7:51pm

130. It could potentially spare a lot of people some misery. Don't you think so?

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 7:51pm

     http://www.aidsmeds.com/news/20020716epid001.html

     Every dark cloud has a silver lining...

     But let's not forget the dark cloud

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:10pm

131. and um... if a mutation protects you from contracting HIV

     then you're not going to get HIV, you're not going to need the treatment drugs...

     But because AIDS is caused by drug usage and not a virus then the CCR5 mutation isn't going to protect you from anything... right.

     (do you guys ever listen to your arguments or do you just start talking)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:11pm

132. I'm going to grant that you're more intelligent than what you just said, Will C.

     I'm questioning the CCR5 mutation from an orthodox position (playing "devil's advocate). See how that works?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 8:15pm

133. I'm awaiting GSwift's responses to my thoughtful questions.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 8:16pm

134. I'm questioning the CCR5 mutation from an orthodox position (playing "devil's advocate). See how that works?

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 8:15pm

     So now you're working for the Devil.

     And there is no orthodoxy in Science (I think you're thinkin about religion) There's only what can be proven (using actual, verifiable and reproducible evidence) and what can't be

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:23pm

135. and I'm even willling to inject you with live HIV to prove to you it will kill you

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:24pm

136. and I'm even willling to inject you with live HIV to prove to you it will kill you

     Posted by WILL C. 03/04/2006 @ 8:24pm | ignore this person

     Will, that's called a threat. Do you understand that what you've just done is quite illegal?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 8:29pm

137. Will, that's called a threat. Do you understand that what you've just done is quite illegal?

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 8:29pm

     Not if there's no danger... (that is your argument correct)

     "HIV"=bullshit.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 7:26pm

     er r ya just playin with the devil agin

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:32pm

138. I'm contacting The Nation staff to take a look at this. This isn't cool, and you know it.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 8:38pm

139. I'm contacting The Nation staff to take a look at this. This isn't cool, and you know it.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 8:38pm

     Contact them hamster boy. And make sure ya explain to them how I'm gonna git that needle in ya.

     That outta make fur a couple of good laughs

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:40pm

140. You're really doing "your side" some BIG favors here.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 8:41pm

141. You're really doing "your side" some BIG favors here.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 8:41pm

     Why thank ya hamster

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 8:42pm

142. I am a molecular biologist with my Ph.D in virology. Although most of my work has been with filoviruses, I have done some work with HIV and have spent time at virology conferences where intensive discussion of HIV molecular biology/pathology takes place. As a Harper's subscriber I was shocked and disappointed to find Celia Farber's article in the new issue. The denialists here speak in extreme generalizations and demonstrate remarkably little expertise in the fields of molecular virology or viral immunology. They do show skill when it comes to regurgitating arguments that are dated, ignoring myriad sources of information, and perniciously advocating a position that basically declares thousands of scientists corrupt, callous, and, in short, murderers. I became a virologist because I want to help people, particularly people in the developing world, live healthier lives free from terrible illness. I make $31,000 a year and am thankful that I can make a living doing something I love. Outside of a very few bad apples, my colleagues are honest, devoted and curious. Pressures to obtain grant money are heavy, but to insinuate that these dedicated men and women twist their data to fit the prevailing "theory" or are part and parcel of some enormous conspiracy to "keep the money flowing" is truly revolting. In addition, the self-correcting nature of science (as recently demonstrated in Korea) is one of the wonderful features of this field of endeavor. It ain't easy to "finesse" the data, especially in a crowded field like HIV, and get away with it. Finally, the idea that researchers are automatons who ONLY do the experiments they propose in their grants, and don't have small projects ongoing to challenge orthodoxy is naive at best. Just because Duesberg doesn't receive grant money, doesn't mean that the type of experiments he's been suggesting for twenty years haven't been done in numerous laboratories over the past decades. Why don't we hear about it? Well, negative data isn't that easy to publish as it rarely furthers a field's goals, and this is especially true when that negative data just adds more weight to the prevailing view (i.e. that HIV directly causes the conditions that allow for AIDS to progress).

     To confront one ludicrous claim I saw in these comments: someone stated that "no one can show that HIV kills the cells it infects". Uh, have you ever heard of apoptosis (or programmed cell death)?. The major mechanism for CD4+ T cell depletion is programmed cell death, which can be induced by HIV through multiple pathways. The apoptotic cells appear to be primarily uninfected bystander cells and are eradicated by two different mechanisms: either a Fas-mediated mechanism during activation-induced cell death (AICD), or as a result of HIV proteins (Tat, gp120, Nef, Vpu) released from infected cells stimulating apoptosis in uninfected bystander cells.

     The problem, as always, is that scientific illiteracy is the norm in this country, and someone like Farber can dress up her screeds in pseudo-technical jargon that convinces the average reader, even an educated Harper's reader, of the legitimacy of her argument. I can't read music, so I don't make any attempt to criticize Verdi's work, even though I dislike it. Yet here are denialist troops shouting and screeching about AIDS, yet I've yet to encounter one outside the tiny generalship (like Duesberg) who could tell me a thing about DC-SIGN or the Fas-mediated apoptotic pathway or the tertiary structure of HIV integrase, let alone how PCR works or an ELISA is done.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/04/2006 @ 9:19pm

143. By the way, Will C., your comments have cracked me up - I especially loved your offer to contribute to a denialist study as part of the control group (i.e. loading up on the drugs they love to condemn). I'm not into mind-altering substances much outside of the occasional beer, but I'd be willing to bring your N to 2 just to take part in that study! ;)

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/04/2006 @ 9:23pm

144. By the way, Will C., your comments have cracked me up

     How about his comment about injecting me with HIV to prove it will kill me? Does that "crack you up"?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 9:29pm

145. Dan, are you upset about the needle part or the HIV part? I don't support threats of poking anyone with anything sharp. However, would you have the same reaction if he said he's going to inject you with a solution of sterile mango juice? I think not. Maybe it'll make you consider the tens of thousands of orphaned children in Africa whose parents succumbed to HIV-caused AIDS before you spout off about this issue again.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/04/2006 @ 9:34pm

146. How about his comment about injecting me with HIV to prove it will kill me? Does that "crack you up"?

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/04/2006 @ 9:29pm

     The "heated nature" of you reaction cracked me up.

     (hmmm... maybe that speaks volumes about your faith in your argument)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 9:35pm

147. What do African "AIDS orphans" have to do with Will saying that he'd like to inject me with HIV to prove it will kill me?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 9:38pm

148. Posted by CHUCK DARWIN 03/04/2006 @ 9:23pm

     And Chuck

     It's always a pleasure when a man who knows what he's talking about comes to the thread.

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/04/2006 @ 9:39pm

149. Hi, Larry

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/04/2006 @ 9:56pm

150. Posted by DANSEATTLE

     If this is common knowledge among "HIV" doctors, isn't this a test they should perform on caucasian males to spare them the "deadly drugs".

     It's a good idea. The problem is that a general practitioners office doesn't have the kind of setup to do genetic screening.

     Funny how the CCR5 mutation isn't common knowledge. You don't hear about it on the news. It's not in those "HIV" awareness ads. If there are some people who can be spared having to take the "deadly cocktail" isn't it the ethical thing to do to let us all know? The answer is YES. So, it's interesting that you bring up CCR5 mutation after all is said and done.

     It wouldn't surprise me if this isn't common knowledge outside medical and professional research circles. I'm a biochem major who happens to read a fair amount of related journals. But this is not the kind of thing that hits the evening news.

     It's probably not in ads because such a small number of people carry it. Of the some odd 1 million plus cases of HIV in the U.S., only about a third are Caucasian. Homozygous carriers of the delta CCR5 allele are very rare, only like 1 percent. And the distribution is not even across Caucasian populations. It's more frequent in the northern populations like the Fins. People have budgets to work within. They're not going to spend money running ads to say, "hey white people, there's a very slim chance you're HIV resistant."

     Yes, an unidentified genetic variation, sure. Or the other possibility is that "HIV"=bullshit.

     It's also a "possibility" that it's not HIV, and they're all being zapped by invisible death rays from space. But since we already know that there's a rare genetic variation that confers HIV resistance, the likely scenario is that he has the known variation, or perhaps something similar that also confers resistance. For example, there's evidence that even having a single copy of the delta CCR5 allele can result in increased protection. There's perhaps other genetic variations we've not yet identified that could also increase resistance.

     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=11511825

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 10:10pm

151. Posted by CHUCK DARWIN

     Uh, have you ever heard of apoptosis (or programmed cell death)?.

     I admire your optimism. This is the crowd that thinks the virus has yet to be isolated.

     Posted by gswift at 03/04/2006 @ 10:14pm

152. Here is a thorough rebuttal of Farber's article by a group of researchers:

     http://www.tac.org.za/Documents/ErrorsInFarberArticle.pdf

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 12:41am

153. In reading one of the Duesberg papers linked above, I found the following to be very interesting:

     (ii) HIV protease inhibitors: The HIV protease inhibitors were designed to inhibit specifically auto-proteolytic processing of HIV proteins, which is necessary for HIV assembly (Fields 2001). But since no therapeutic effects were observed at the low doses at which these inhibitors "block HIV replication in the test tube" (The Durban Declaration 2000), the "anti-viral" doses were increased 4–5 orders of magnitude above what is needed to render HIV noninfectious in vitro, or to 1 to 2 g of inhibitor per day (Rasnick 1997). The high doses of protease inhibitors currently administered to patients are at minimum 50 times that needed to completely inhibit the cellular, intestinal aspartyl protease cathepsin D (calculation based on the Roche inhibitor Saquinavir; the Abbott inhibitor Ritonivar is 1000 times more potent against cathepsin D than Saquinavir), (Deeks et al 1997). Mice in which cathepsin D is deleted develop anorexia, their "Thymus and spleen undergo massive destruction with fulminant loss of T and B cells", and die about 26 days after birth (Saftig et al 1995). Thus protease inhibitors can cause at least three AIDS defining diseases, anorexia (weight loss), T-cell deficiency and death (see § 4e).

     The "Saftig et al 1995" reference can be found here:

     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&lis t_uids=7641679&dopt=Abstract

     If this is true, and mice are an appropriate model for what happens in humans, doesn't this tend to confirm part of Duseberg's drug/AIDS hypothesis - that ARVs can cause AIDS defining diseases independent of HIV infection? Also, if an HIV+ patient taking this drug dies how do they know if his weight loss and "fulminant loss of T and B cells" were caused by HIV or the protease inhibitor?

     Posted by SteveTheBear at 03/05/2006 @ 07:54am

154. HIV protease is structurally different from human aspartic proteinases like cathepsin D. That makes it possible to make inhibitors that are selective for the HIV protease. In this paper, the relevant qoute is "A high (>10^5-fold) specificity for HIV protease over those of the mammalian aspartic proteinases renin, cathepsin D..."

     http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=106025

     As to the dosages, I'm no expert on anti viral agents, but the high dosages might simply be due to low bioavailability. For example, the original oral form of Saquinavir called Invirase, was only about 4% bioavailable.(page 819 of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology, by Katzung)

     In other words, just because you're swallowing 1-2g of inhibitor doesn't mean the target is receiving that amount.

     Posted by gswift at 03/05/2006 @ 10:16am

155. One of many more obvious points here is that we can observe the disease's progression in both people and models like macaques, and they experience reduction in their CD4 counts just fine in the absence of HIV protease inhibitors.

     Posted by gswift at 03/05/2006 @ 10:25am

156. The news is in and it's all good As the entire, contrived AIDS hysteria in the USA and Europe is happily winding down, heteros continue to have lots of condom-less sex while educated and middle class women still take charge of their birth control.

     What results from risky sex is venereal disease, chlamydia, genital warts or unwanted pregnancies - NOT AIDS!!

     Obsessive, hysterical, uncritical charlatans who have pinned their gay identities, research careers, or financial stakes on the infectious viral theory of AIDS are enraged and frightened by the passing into oblivion of their errant and fruitless theory.

     I say good riddance and warmly congratulate Celia Farber for driving a huge stake into their poisonous, fear-mongering hearts.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 1:18pm

157. Thank God Doctor Chipper has something of value to contribute.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 2:55pm

158. I say good riddance and warmly congratulate Celia Farber for driving a huge stake into their poisonous, fear-mongering hearts.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 1:18pm

     You could help Farber drive that last nail in those poisonous fearmongering hearts. Just let us borrow one of your veins for a minute or so.

     O.K... O.k... o.k...

     Just a little pin prick

     There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!

     But you may feel a little sick (Ha Ha Ha Ha)

     Wadda ya say Dr Chipper? Are ya next in line to be Dr. HIV+ ?

     (you'll go down in history as a hero for truth and justice)

     just let us give those veins a little look see.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 3:07pm

159. and if you're correct we'll let ya change your name to Dr Chapstick

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 3:08pm

160. Yo' Chuckie - lest we (or you) forget what a famous 19th century naturalist reminded us - "To kill an error is as good a service as establishing a new truth or fact," or what some equally important 20th centry one opined, that "the great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."

     Time to out in the real world and away from that microscope of yours, eh?

     Anytime you want to share with us your vaunted knowledge of African political economies, the deterioration of public health facilities there, and what's really ailing Africans, do let us know.

     Pssst....... here's a little inside secret, but you gotta promise not to tell a soul......the clinical symptoms that define a so-called "AIDS case" in Africa have got nothing (nada, zero, zilch) to do with sexual behavior. Mum's the word. Honest injun.....

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 3:16pm

161. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 3:16pm

     We're stil waiting for those veins. And since you don't live in conditions resembling the political, economic or public health conditions in Africa.

     I'm sure everything will be just fine.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 3:20pm

162. We'll even let you use your forehead to drive in that last nail

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 3:21pm

163. Yo' Will C.......... here's a little wager for you and your hilarious miscreants and demented fear-mongerers summing on the HIV-is-everywhere-and-we're-all-at-risk-bandwagon-gravytrain........

     Bring me an HIV-positive heterosexual woman, who's good looking AND does not have any venereal disease (no syphilis or gonorrhea or chlamydia or genital warts.) You following me so far sleepy eyes?

     I will have condom-less sex with her for as many times as we can both manage it and guess what, ducky boy? I will remain HIV-negative. Step right up and let's see your money on the table on this one. Cat got yer tongue?

     Meanwhile, maybe you and your Mr. Statistics blowhards can explain why there have been so few heterosexual women's AIDS cases in San Francisco over the past 25 years.

     In 25 (twenty-five, XXV) years, from 1980-2005, the cumulative (all years combined) number of heterosexual women with AIDS in San Francisco has been......... you ready for this chicken-little? - .................252!!!!!! That's around 10 (ten, X) per year!

     Have fun in your self-imposed claustraphobic hysteria.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 3:30pm

164. Have fun in your self-imposed claustraphobic hysteria.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 3:30pm

     Sorry, my way is certain. So don't try to hide your cowardness behind your lechery.

     Just give us that arm Hero.

     DR. HIV+ Chapstick...

     That sure gets the girls

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 3:35pm

165. Doc Chippy,

     You remind me of our esteemed president: you keep making bold statements with no citation of evidence to lend those statements credence. Please provide peer-reviewed references in respected journals or put your megaphone away.

     As for Africa, do tell us what is really ailing the African public! I can think of infectious diseases, corrupt governments, rising levels of chronic disease, war, famine, and gender inequality off the top of my head, but I'm always ready to add half-baked blabber to that list.

     Thanks.

     P.S. I'm sure Charles Darwin is spinning in his grave at your comments - he was someone who challenged the orthodox view by amassing an enormous amount of empirical evidence before bringing forth his claims. You are unworthy to wear his discarded frock coat.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 3:36pm

166. Li'l Chuckie and Wee Willie......... together at last.......ain't they a cute couple......

     Yo' Chuckie.....ever heard of Paul Farmer? Oh, never mind. Who cares if you have...

     Anyhow, the distinguished Harvard physician Paul Farmer once told me how he found himself at conferences where professional colleagues (real professionals, unlike you two poseurs) went practically purple with rage discussing HIV and AIDS critic Thabo Mbeki, "even accusing him of genocide."

     Being a smart fellow, Farmer decided to look dispassionately at the controversy and soon concluded, quite sensibly, that Mbeki's message was that "poverty and social inequality serve as HIV's most potent co-factors, and any effort to address this disease in Africa must embrace a broader conception of disease causation."

     Well I'll be damned! He then acknowledged, "this is precisely the point many of us have tried to make….and we haven't been branded as AIDS heretics."

     I'll take my stand with Mbeki and Farmer not with clowns like Wee Willie who I'm sure never even uses the words "heterosexual" and "woman" in the same sentence.

     And the hits just keep on comin'..........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 3:58pm

167. And the hits just keep on comin'..........

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 3:58pm

     Awww poor baby. You went to all that trouble to be funny and all we really wanted was your arm.

     but then I guess that yellow streak runs deep in your family.

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 4:14pm

168. Chipster,

     I know of Dr. Farmer's work, particularly in Haiti, and I respect him greatly. Please provide one bit of evidence where he indicates he doesn't believe HIV is the cause of AIDS. You can't.

     I don't understand why you took so many words to say something no one with sense would disagree with. Obviously, poverty and social injustice correlate with HIV/AIDS for a multitude of reasons, including lack of female rights in relationships, reduced overall health leading to great susceptibility to HIV infections, poor medical treatment, etc. However, with over 5 million HIV+ individuals in South Africa, and longevity plummeting for both men and women in the country, I find it remarkable that anyone could conclude that HIV infection is not absolutely necessary for this tragedy. Are you telling us that a return to apartheid government is what is required in South Africa to reverse this trend in increased mortality? Because I can't see where else your argument leads, as you must believe that public health and social inequality have gotten appreciably worse since apartheid ended - otherwise, where would this massive increase in deaths amongst men and women in the prime of their lives be coming from? (Don't forget those evil protease inhibitors that induce AIDS haven't exactly been available in large quantities in South Africa over the past decade).

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 4:29pm

169. Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, look at Wee Wille Wonker in the blindfold....

     Now we all know for sure that Wee Willie never ever possibly could imagine using the words "heterosexual" and "woman" in the same sentence.

     And while you're trying so extra special hard to confirm how little you know about AIDS, you and your fellow blowhards still cannot, will not, dare not explain why there have been so incredibly few heterosexual women's AIDS cases in San Francisco over the past 25 years.

     Lemme say this again, real slowly, so even a pea-brained fundamentalist like you can grasp the absurdity of your mental strait jacket......In 25 (twenty-five, XXV) years, from 1980-2005, the cumulative (all years combined) number of heterosexual women with AIDS in San Francisco has been......... you ready for this chicken-little? - .................252!!!!!! That's around 10 (ten, X) per year!

     We are eager to hear your explanation of these teen-tiny numbers Wee Willie..........I know your alibis will do your other Fairy Tale intellectual ancestors proud...... Uncle Remus, Mother Goose and the Grimm Brothers.

     Congrats again and again to Celia Farber for her decisively effective and clutter-clearing article. One can tell how effective she is just by the trembling, furious, mindless blather spewed out by the nervous defenders of the HIV/AIDS Fairy Tales.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 4:40pm

170. Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, look at Wee Wille Wonker in the blindfold....

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 4:40pm

     Doc!

     I'm starting to get the feeling that Big Bad Brave you is afraid of a little hoax. Is this true? Instead of simply stepping up like a man and extending your arm for us(left or right... it really doesn't matter) so we can inject you with a few CC's of hoax, you keep trying to change the subject.

     So what's it gonna be hamster boy? You gonna step up or are you going to scamper on back to the habitrail matrix and try to burn off all that yella on the wheel.

     I'll tell you what. To make things a little more tempting on your end, after we give ya that intravenous shot of hoax, we'll give an extra big scoop of alfalfa pellets

     Hows that sound?

     yummy.. huh

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 4:48pm

171. Poor lost soul Li'l Chuckie. You reveal here how pathetically limited and empty is your knowledge of South African history.

     Are you aware that the country was actually defined and measured one way in 1987 and another way in 1997? Are you aware why?

     Are you aware that you have zero basis for making your absurdist claims about HIV rates in South Africa? Do you know that those ludicrous numbers are based on sentinel studies done on pregnant women (99% Africans) at ante-natal clinics?

     Are you aware that pregnancy itself is a primary reason for giving false positive test results? Do you even care?

     You can easily remove your fairy tale references to HIV and easily explain AIDS cases anywhere in Africa........but this is not what concerns you.

     Yet you wonder why condoms, safe sex missionaries, and all the pathetic and appalling waste of money has done nothing to improve Afriucans' health? You probably adhere to the invidious racist notion that Africans practice sex differently than white folks, now don't you?

     Keep typing your errant, pointless, error-filled, facts-optional drivel Li'l Chuckie......... thanks for reaffirming how little you know about African realities.

     Shouldn't you be getting back to your microscope and little microscopic, narrow, dreary and fruitless view of the world?

     Run along now.......your pal Wee Willie Wonker misses you too.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 4:50pm

172. Where are those HIV poz hetero women. Wee Willie? Be bringing them.... oops, I plum forgot...you haven't had as much as a conversation with a hetero female in years

     Lemme say this again Wee Wille so can grasp the absurdity of your mental strait jacket......In 25 (twenty-five, XXV) years, from 1980-2005, the cumulative (all years combined) number of heterosexual women with AIDS in San Francisco has been......... you ready for this chicken-little? - .................252!!!!!! That's around 10 (ten, X) per year!

     I am eager to hear your explanation of these teen-tiny numbers Wee Willie..........your alibis will do your other Fairy Tale intellectual ancestors proud...... Uncle Remus, Mother Goose and the Grimm Brothers.

     Wee Willie, Wee Willie, he's our man........if he can't answer it, no one can.

     Wee Willie...... you aren't doing naughty things again today, are you?

     Nighty night now.......

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 4:57pm

173. Run along now.......your pal Wee Willie Wonker misses you too.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 4:50pm

     My man Chuck also asked you for a link that demonstrated the DR Farmer beleived HIV didn't cause AIDS. So nobody's going anywhere until you post that

     Cept maybe you. Scamper off to find that link now hamster boy.

     we'll be waiting

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 4:58pm

174. Nighty night now.......

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 4:57pm

     Must be nappy time in hamsterland.

     When you wake up, bring that arm on over ya big stud.

     that big bad hoax don't scare you

     (and the shot only feels like a little pinch)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 5:01pm

175. Wee Willie Wonker............playing in his crib........ still can't admit he's living a fib......

     Can't find me that hetero HIV positive woman eh?

     Well you keep on a lookin' Wee Willie and when you do, you let the good Doctor know..........

     Wee Willie Wonker, jumpin' on the bed. Along came Celia and cracked his head......

     Screamin' and a fussin' and ajive talkin'.........Wee Willie wonders why there never has been and never will be any heterosexual AIDS "pandemic" in the USA......... aw....poor li'l fella.....

     Go read the 1994 study by Robert Michael, et. al. (Little Brown) to find out why......

     The death of a Fairy Tale is hard to take, eh Wee Willie.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 5:10pm

176. The death of a Fairy Tale is hard to take, eh Wee Willie.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 5:10pm

     Trust me. After we give you the shot, the death of the fairy tale will be very... very easy for me to take.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 5:13pm

177. This little Willie went to ACT/UP, this little Willie stayed home. This little Willie ate AZT, this little Willie ate none.....and this little Willie went wheeeeeeeeee............. as the paradigm collapsed around his sad, forlorn, teeth-gnashing and angst-ridden closet.....

     Ta ta.......li'l fella.

     We are all celebrating the success of Celia Farber.

     Say hi to your equally forlorn Li'l Chuckie pal.......

     My girlfriends all say hi!!!!! Try not to consume yourself with angst, rage, bitterness, and marginality......

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/05/2006 @ 5:46pm

178. Chips,

     To refute one of your myriad assertions, HIV testing is now extremely specific and sensitive in all populations, including pregnant women. For large-scale studies, see:

     Int J STD AIDS. 2003 Jan;14(1):37-41. Sensitivity and specificity of rapid HIV testing of pregnant women in India.

     Also, see:

     J Virol Methods. 1999 Mar;78(1-2):61-70 Multicenter evaluation of a new rapid automated human immunodeficiency virus antigen detection assay.

     With respect to your demands about the San Francisco study, I don't really understand how your pounding on about the 252 heterosexual women with AIDS in San Francisco helps your theory. That is 1% of the total AIDS cases in San Francisco - a small but significant number. These are women whose major risk factor was heterosexual transmission of HIV and they are postive for the virus. So, what do your propose has caused their illness? To expect that a disease that originated in amongst highly sexually active homosexuals in the city in the 80s, and is much more efficiently transmitted via both intravenuous drug use and anal sex would affect heterosexual women at a rate higher than it has is just plain avoiding reality. Heterosexual transmission is now happening in minority women at increasing rates and is the leading cause of new infections in the U.S.

     Finally, leaving aside your babbling about changed definitions of AIDS in South Africa, what do you propose has led to the massive decrease in longevity in that country - a change that correlates with massively increased rates of HIV infection? Or have the definitions of "longevity" also been modified in recent years?

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 5:46pm

179. My girlfriends all say hi!!!!! Try not to consume yourself with angst, rage, bitterness, and marginality......

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/05/2006 @ 5:46pm

     Angst, rage, bitterness, marginality... ?

     Doc I'm busy laughing at you

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 5:47pm

180. Define your terms.

     Does everybody feel confident they even know what "AIDS" means? I mean, in a scientific sense.

     No point in arguing if you are talking about apples and oranges.

     For all those who use the word, please post a scientific definition before using the word (with a source!). Better yet, send a link to something official (and perhaps even peer-reviewed).

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/05/2006 @ 5:58pm

181. Larry, I'm sure you're actually smarter than you're writings here would lead us to believe. The fact that there have been so miserably few female heterosexual "AIDS" cases in San Francisco lays waste to the idea that "HIV" is heterosexually-transmitted.

     Just because you state something as if it were fact, doesn't actually make it true, no matter how many times you do so. These are women whose major risk factor was heterosexual transmission of HIV and they are postive for the virus. Sorry, bud, but just because you say they are "positive for the virus" doesn't magically make it so. They probably tested reactive on non-specific, non-standardized antibody tests of some sort (they might have the audacity to call them "HIV" tests, I believe), but that's their real misfortune.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/05/2006 @ 6:16pm

182. The fact that there have been so miserably few female heterosexual "AIDS" cases in San Francisco lays waste to the idea that "HIV" is heterosexually-transmitted.

     Posted by DANSEATTLE 03/05/2006 @ 6:16pm

     Think... condom

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 6:20pm

183. Will C--

     You seem to feel the link between HIV and "AIDS" is solid.

     Care to provide a scientific define "AIDS" for the audience?

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/05/2006 @ 6:25pm

184. Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/05/2006 @ 6:25pm

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 6:28pm

185. Will C, please vet your sources first.

     You pointed to WikiPedia's entry for "AIDS".

     The first sentence says: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (or acronym AIDS or Aids), is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[1]

     Footnote [1] is: Marx, J. L. (1982). "New disease baffles medical community". Science 217 (4560): 618-621. PMID 7089584.

     WikiPedia defined AIDS as "caused by infection with ... HIV", and sources its statement with a paper from 1982, before anybody had even heard of HIV.

     Try again.

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/05/2006 @ 6:35pm

186. Try again.

     Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/05/2006 @ 6:35pm

     I don't need to try again. AIDS was first recognised as a medical condition in 1981. HIV was not isoloted until 1983.

     http://www.aegis.com/topics/timeline/default.asp

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 6:40pm

187. Dear Will C,

     The source WikiPedia provided was to a 1982 paper, at a time when HIV was not known to exist. This makes their citation invalid.

     If you still want to stick to the WikiPedia definition of AIDS, please provide a valid source for it.

     If you want to switch definitions, please do--but be sure to provide a definition of "AIDS" with a reference that backs up the definition.

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/05/2006 @ 6:49pm

188. Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/05/2006 @ 6:49pm

     The 1982 article was in Science and was titled: New disease baffles medical community.

     I'm guessing it baffled them because they didn't no the cause of the disease. But then you asked for a definition of AIDS.

     If you'd like one for HIV...

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 6:55pm

189. Ok, this is hopeless. Tens of thousands of scientists and medical professionals are intentionally producing and/or poisoning tens of thousands of human beings with toxic, worthless drugs just to make money and publish untruthful data, completely ignoring all this wonderful empircal evidence Chips and Seattle Dan assert while never providing references to back up their claims but, oh well, who cares, they've got Celia Farber and Peter Duesberg and UFO-LSD cool guy Kary Mullis who are heroic martyrs of a conspiracy of epic proportions. Life expectancies throughout numerous sub-Saharan African countries are dropping precipitously while HIV rates climb for reasons unrelated to the virus because they say so and that's good enough. To respond to peer-reviewed research that refutes their claims is silly! Why respond to propaganda spewed forth by the very machine they decry? Instead, it suffices to site the repititious claims made by their lovingly incestuous club of fellow travelers, which can stand outside the realm of science because, like Lysenko's claims for agriculture in the Soviet Union, they stand on a higher,purer plane than the filthy, laborious, and sillily "testable" and "repeatable" work of the revolting bourgeoisie with their debate, questioning and discourse which just muddies the irrefutable pristineness of Saint Farber's argument.

     Chips wants to bed the women he obviously views as mere objects on the road to pleasure, so begone with this pernicious HIV! My pleasure reigns supreme, so Africans and Indians and Russians dying from AIDS must understand that it is a tragedy of their own making - hail Social Darwinism and let me get on with my unsheathed enterprise as what is best for me is all that matters.

     I can't believe on the comment board of The Nation that folks like Will and me would be outnumbered by folks like Chips and Dan. It is a sad commentary on how far the left in the West hase strayed from the enlightenment principles of reason, rationality, and inquiry all in the name of fighting the man.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/05/2006 @ 6:59pm

190. Posted by CHUCK DARWIN 03/05/2006 @ 6:59pm

     I look at it as a window into the mind of your average conservative.

     This blog makes for a wonderful laboratory. And the republican party is always nice enough to supply us with a fresh supply of hamsters to poke and prod.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 7:03pm

191. and it's fun

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 7:05pm

192. Posted by WILL C.

     This blog makes for a wonderful laboratory. And the republican party is always nice enough to supply us with a fresh supply of hamsters to poke and prod.

     It is nice to get a couple that will openly demonstrate how ignorant the denialist movement is. The thing to remember is that lurkers always outnumber commenters. When I post links to the relevant research, it's not because I think they're going to read it, but so others can see for themselves just how crazy these claims are.

     In a way, they do a kind of service with "the virus has never been isolated!", "HIV doesn't kill T cells!", and so forth. I prefer my nutjobs out in the open.

     Posted by gswift at 03/05/2006 @ 9:19pm

193. OK, I worked my way through this whole thread. So now I know who deserves my special attention. It's too late right now to start my comments, but here are a few preliminary impressions:

     GSWIFT, you're the one who gets first prize for the person I disagree most with.

     Will C, you're a four-flusher. I'll take your offer of injecting me with "live HIV". I wonder where you would get that. HIV, and even worse, "live HIV" does not exist. And I won't let you inject me with any other crap. You seem to get an irritating pleasure out of the thought of injecting someone with something you imagine is deadly.

     Hob: You write things like: "This is particularly dumb in an era when hepatitis B and C are such widespread public health issues: they are caused by well understood viral agents (that nobody denies), and they spread in exactly the same ways as HIV and not surprisingly have a great deal of overlap with the HIV-positive population."

     Well, I deny it, and what I consider dumb is talking about hepatitis C, which doesn't exist either. It's just an alibi for the liver damage caused by antiretroviral drugs. No wonder it overlaps with HIV; they're two of a kind.

     Chuck Darwin: Your posts are the most pretentious ones. Don't be surprised if I come down hard on you in the next few days.

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/05/2006 @ 9:19pm

194. Posted by ICONOCLASTER

     GSWIFT, you're the one who gets first prize for the person I disagree most with.

     I must be doing something right.

     Chuck Darwin: Your posts are the most pretentious ones. Don't be surprised if I come down hard on you in the next few days.

     Because expertise in a relevant field = pretension

     Well, I deny it, and what I consider dumb is talking about hepatitis C, which doesn't exist either.

     Hepatitis C, another "mythical virus" with a fully sequenced genome.

     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=genome&cmd=Retrieve&dop t=Overview&list_uids=16556

     Just how do we sequence the genomes of things that don't exist? Are there no zebrafish in your world? And what are these "humans" everyone keeps talking about? Are they a subspecies of unicorn?

     Enquiring minds want to know.

     Posted by gswift at 03/05/2006 @ 10:09pm

195. Will C, you're a four-flusher. I'll take your offer of injecting me with "live HIV". I wonder where you would get that. HIV, and even worse, "live HIV" does not exist. And I won't let you inject me with any other crap. You seem to get an irritating pleasure out of the thought of injecting someone with something you imagine is deadly.

     Posted by ICONOCLASTER 03/05/2006 @ 9:19pm

     Pleasure? No.

     But then this debate isn't like the ID debate. I can't pull a fossilized chemical reaction out of the ground. But I can get HIV into you.

     But what I find amusing is how you hamsters always place conditions on how we infect you. None of you is just willing to go for it.

     So whenever you are truly ready put your sorry ass on the line and prove to the world that HIV is the myth you make it out to be

     I'm sure you'll tell us your name... your address... your phone number...

     Then we'll be in touch

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/05/2006 @ 10:21pm

196. Will C, I asked for a definition of "AIDS", preferably with a reference.

     You gave me the WikiPedia definition of "AIDS" which states "Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome ... is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from ... the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)."

     The citation WikiPedia gives for their definition is a 1982 paper. Please show me where in that 1982 paper it says AIDS is the result of HIV. (Hint: this might be a trick question.)

     If you can't find it--or it doesn't exist--then you have yet to supply me with a properly referenced definition of "AIDS".

     To the larger audience:

     I would imagine with so many "HIV/AIDS" experts, my request for a definition of "AIDS" was not too difficult of a request? Surely "AIDS experts" are discussing the same thing when they use the word "AIDS", right?

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 01:07am

197. Posted by STATIC SHOCK

     I would imagine with so many "HIV/AIDS" experts, my request for a definition of "AIDS" was not too difficult of a request? Surely "AIDS experts" are discussing the same thing when they use the word "AIDS", right?

     You and the larger audience can read about the "Classification and Staging of HIV Infection" right here at this handy site brought to you by UC San Francisco.

     http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-01-03&doc=kb-01-01

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 01:43am

198. ICONOCLATTER wrote Will C, you're a four-flusher. I'll take your offer of injecting me with "live HIV". I wonder where you would get that. HIV, and even worse, "live HIV" does not exist. And I won't let you inject me with any other crap. You seem to get an irritating pleasure out of the thought of injecting someone with something you imagine is deadly.

     http://www.aidsreagent.org/ http://www.nibsc.ac.uk/spotlight/aidsreagent/

     You can order infectious molecular clones of HIV. You can order the exact same ones that Duesberg uses to prove that HIV exists.

     http://www.theperthgroup.com/CONTINUUM/duesbergcontreward.html

     In order for the experiment to be statistically powerful you need a suitable number of Denialists to all get injected with infectious HIV.

     I should also add that macaques injected with the equivalent preparations of SIV or SHIV (SIV with HIV surface proteins) have a nasty habit of pronounced CD4 loss and death from SAIDS.

     It would be an interesting experiment to see how many of the people who signed the various "dissident" petitions would be willing to sign if they had to be injected with HIV.

     Chris Noble

     Posted by ChrisNoble at 03/06/2006 @ 02:07am

199. GSWIFT, thanks for the link. But it reveals more problems.

     Rather than there being a single definition, the CDC (which is only one of the groups that has created a definition, apparently), has itself changed its original definition multiple times--it has "undergone three major revisions" to quote the websi te [hivinsite.ucsf.edu] you referenced, in 1987 and 1993 for example.

     Out of curiousity, is the 1993 definition the latest? (You cited a document from 1998, that's why I ask.)

     The document goes on to say that the World Health Organization uses a different definition than the CDC.

     So when you, GSWIFT, use the word "AIDS", which definition are you employing? CDC? WHO? Neither?

     Also, if the CDC uses a different definition of AIDS than Africa, is it valid to compare statistics between CDC and the WHO?

     For the larger audience:

     Which one of the numerous definitions are you all employing? CDC? WHO? Neither?

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 02:26am

200. Of course the criteria will be modified as we learn more about the disease. If I recall correctly, the 1993 standard has had some minor updates, but is still the standard. This isn't really an area of expertise for me, so Chucky Darwin would be a better source on this.

     Of course the WHO has to use a different standard. Criteria like a CD4 count in an HIV positive individual just isn't feasible in third world countries with poor access to sophisticated testing. Naturally you're going to get better data out of the U.S. and other first world countries like the UK, France, etc.

     When I think AIDS, typically the CDC definition is what springs to mind, although if the subject is AIDS cases in a poor country, I realize that the diagnosis was more likely to have been based off a WHO type definition.

     You're obviously trying to set up some kind of point by requesting definitions. Where are you going with this?

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 06:52am

201. I would imagine with so many "HIV/AIDS" experts, my request for a definition of "AIDS" was not too difficult of a request? Surely "AIDS experts" are discussing the same thing when they use the word "AIDS", right?

     Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/06/2006 @ 01:07am

     Dude your not demonstrating the world that you're dense are you?

     The definition of AIDS in wikipedia uses the 82 article as its source because it was one of the first articles printed on the subject matter available to the general public. Having said that, the citation simply points to that article as it's source for the term AIDS, which by the way (and I though it was clear in one of my previous posts) was an unexplained syndrome that doctors started seeing in gay men sometime in 1981. You asked for a definition of AIDS, you got it. It was sourced to one of the earliest articles written on the subject. Like GSwift explained in his post, our understanding of AIDS has evolved into a broad body of knowledge since then. And that body of knowledge now includes the understanding that HIV is the cause. But the fundamental definition of AIDS remains the same.

     It's as if you had a pain and went to the doctor. When he diagnoses the cause and writes you a prescription, the pain isn't going to magically move somewhere else because it now knows we're onto it. It's still going to be the same pain, until you take the drugs. Just like the definition of AIDS, we have added to our knowledge of it. But it's still AIDS.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 09:40am

202. GSWIFT, I want to point out that my original request for a definition of "AIDS" has not been met. Will C. sent a WikiPedia URL and I culled out a definition which was improperly cited. You send me another URL which presented a very lengthy discussion on "Classification and Staging of HIV Infection". Where is the definition of "AIDS"--this word everybody is using so much?

     You wrote that, "of course the WHO has to use a different standard." But different standard for what? Diagnosis? If so, this is problematic. Let me explain.

     A doctor can diagnose you as having the flu with--or without--a laboratory test. But his method of diagnosis does not change the definition of flu.

     So what is the definition of "AIDS"--or are there many?

     Please copy the text of the definition (or definitions) here (copy/paste definition, with reference). And if there is more than one definition, please tell me why it is valid to compare "AIDS patients" and "AIDS statistics" between these various definitions.

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 09:50am

203. so you are dense

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 09:51am

204. Static, you've been given the links to the exact definitions used by the CDC and WHO. I can't do the reading for you.

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 09:59am

205. Will C., where is WikiPedia's citation for the for the caused by HIV part of their definition of "AIDS"? It's not there. So their definition is incompletely referenced. More than that, based upon your reading of the UCSF website that GSWIFT posted, do you think the CDC confirm the WikiPedia definition as accurate?

     Will C., you seem to think there is a "fundamental definition of AIDS". I'm not convinced given GSWIFT's posting. Are you sure the World Health Organization and CDC mean the same thing when they publish "AIDS" statistics? (A definition from both these parties would answer the question quite easily.)

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 10:00am

206. GSWIFT, I assumed you had already done the reading since you pointed me to the website as an answer to my question. If you don't want to define "AIDS" for the audience, that's fine. Hopefully, one of our other "HIV/AIDS" experts can do that.

     Perhaps you can answer the second part of my question, then? Please tell me why it is valid to compare "AIDS patients" and "AIDS statistics" between these various definitions.

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 10:03am

207. Will C., you seem to think there is a "fundamental definition of AIDS". I'm not convinced given GSWIFT's posting. Are you sure the World Health Organization and CDC mean the same thing when they publish "AIDS" statistics? (A definition from both these parties would answer the question quite easily.)

     Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/06/2006 @ 10:00am

     There is a fundamental definition: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

     Perhaps if you looked up the individual words in the dictionary you might be able to grasp their meaning when they are strung together in a phrase.

     And I am sure that the WHO and the CDC mean the same thing when they publish AIDS statistics.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:13am

208. Have you ever though about donating your brain to the munitions industry. As dense as it is, they might be able to grow it in a test tube and use it to replace depleted uranium in SABOT rounds

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:15am

209. I don't define any of this. There are agencies like the CDC and WHO that have independant criteria for identifying AIDS. If the audience is interested in the exact criteria used by CDC and WHO to define AIDS, they can read about it in detail. Hence the link.

     And what comparison are you talking about? Are you implying the CDC and WHO are putting out statistics about the same countries that are in conflict? Get to the point already.

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 10:16am

210. GSWIFT, I'm talking about a comparison in "AIDS" statistics. For example, "Country X has 1,234,234 cases of AIDS. Country Y has 1,567,567 cases of AIDS."

     My question is: Does Country Y have more "AIDS" than Country X? Or does it matter which country they are, and how AIDS was defined? What you write--about "independant [sic] criteria for identifying AIDS," leads me to think the answer is "it depends."

     The point is that many people use the term "AIDS" as if they have a solid, unchanging, fixed meaning (Will C. seems convinced of this, still, despite your link to UCSF).

     You have given no reason to believe that use of this term "AIDS" is justified without first defining it. Otherwise, how will people know which of the multiple definitions the person is referring to?

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 10:36am

211. Try this one retard.

     http://www.stopaids.org/resources/std_info/definitions.html

     (Why do I think it's not going to clear anything up for you)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:42am

212. The unchanging part Will is referring to is that both organizations are referring to a syndrome brought on by HIV infection.

     Yes, it matters which country data is collected in. Shockingly, collecting this kind of data is going to be a lot less precise in third world countries.

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 10:42am

213. GSWIFT, thanks for confirming, essentially, that "1,567,567 AIDS cases is not necessarily more or less than 1,234,234 AIDS cases"--because it depends on how you define AIDS.

     So why should anybody put any trust in global tallies of "AIDS" statistics? Isn't that like totaling all the apples and oranges--but then calling them all apples? (They're both fruits, sure, but are they both apples?)

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 10:47am

214. So why should anybody put any trust in global tallies of "AIDS" statistics? Isn't that like totaling all the apples and oranges--but then calling them all apples? (They're both fruits, sure, but are they both apples?)

     Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/06/2006 @ 10:47am

     It's more like totaling apples and bits and pieces of apples depending on the sophistication of the country doing the totaling

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:52am

215. What in the hell are you talking about? What we've established here is what, that data collection is harder is poor countries? Is this surprising to you?

     So the argument we're working towards is "number of AIDS cases is harder to measure in Africa than it is in the United States, therefore AIDS is a myth."

     I find this less than compelling.

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 10:59am

216. I find this less than compelling.

     Posted by GSWIFT 03/06/2006 @ 10:59am

     at this point you should be rolling off your chair laughing.

     (it's the other reason I blog here)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 11:00am

217. Posted by WIL at this point you should be rolling off your chair laughing.

     (it's the other reason I blog here)

     I gotta admit, it's pretty entertaining.

     Posted by gswift at 03/06/2006 @ 11:05am

218. Posted by GSWIFT 03/06/2006 @ 11:05am

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 11:06am

219. A thought experiment...

     The strategy.

     It's a thought experiment first.

     Get tested for a variety of sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus, before you and a potential sex partner have sex. Furthermore, each of the two potential sex partners reveals their test results to the other.

     Here's a collaborative blog and a collaborative wiki about the strategy of let's get tested together before we have sex... for sexually transmitted infections http://notb4weknow.blogspot.com

     http://www.seedwiki.c om/wiki/not_b4_we_know [seedwiki.com]

     Earlier edits at http://zork.net/dsaklad/notb4 weknow [zork.net]

     Your comment, feedback, hints, tips, pointers, suggestions, questions about the thought experiment welcome!

     Posted by donsaklad at 03/06/2006 @ 12:00pm

220. Wee Willie Wonker still flailing that dead horse boogeyman "heterosexual AIDS!"

     The reason Wee Willie and his stable mate Li'l Chuckie are so easily outnumbered here is that they recycle absurdist fairy tales, are congenitally unable to think critically, and have absolutely no idea how hilarious erroneous are their scare-tales.

     Never has been, never will be a heterosexual AIDS epidemic in the USA. Repeat after me, Wee Willie and Li'l Chuckie........ Know why? because AIDS has NOTHING whatsoever to do with heterosexual behavior, condoms, no condoms, abstinence like Wee Willie, or iron monogamy like Li'l Chuckie.

     San Francisco has recorded 252 heterosexual female AIDS cases in 25 years - 10 per year!!!! And Li'l Chuckie imagines that is significant. Back to your microscope nerd boy. It will reveal all to you.

     The brilliant 1998 Ph.D. thesis from UC/Berkeley by Michelle Cochrane raises serious doubts whether ANY of those female hetero AIDS cases had anything to do with sexual behavior at all. Go read it Li'l Chuckie and you'll see why.

     Wee Willie Wonker only reads Poz and ACT/UP posters so we discard his simple-simon scare tales like the useless navel lint they are.

     Yo' Li'l Chuckie.....where are all those HIV poz hetero women for our little experiment? Did your Dean scold you again?

     My work all across Africa strongly suggests that "AIDS cases" [using the loopie, useless, deceptive and ever elastic WHO clinical symptoms definition] appear and grow whenever AIDS researchers appear on the scene with their flawed and dishonest retrovirus antibodies tests.

     Otherwise, poor Africans suffer from protein anemia, malaria, TB, improper waste disposal and unclean drinking water, none of which anything whatsoever to do with sexual activity and none of which are ameliorated by toxic, often posionous drugs dumped onto Africa by western drug companies.

     Wee Willie Wonker and Li'l Chuckie - unite against the fear mongers and chicken-littles of the corrupt, debauched, and irrelevant AIDS fundamentalist church. You have nothing to lose but your lifelong anxieties and cramped social styles......

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 12:13pm

221. I introduced my questions to see how much homework the various people participating in this discussion, especially those who defend the orthodox position that "HIV is caused by AIDS." I asked for a definition of AIDS. I got two takers, neither of which would define it, and instead pointed me to websites with inaccurate references (Will C., pointing to WikiPedia) or voluminous entries that discuss the history of AIDS Case Surveillance definitions (GSWIFT).

     My conclusion: I'm not convinced people have taken time to review the real basics, such as the definitions of the words they keep using.

     I came to this conclusion when GSWIFT wrote: "The unchanging part Will is referring to is that both organizations are referring to a syndrome brought on by HIV infection."

     Are they?

     The definition of AIDS given by the CDC and NIH requires HIV infection (inferred by diagnosis using HIV-antibody test--not actual viral isolation or culture).

     The definition of AIDS given by the World Health Organization is different, and does not require HIV infection.

     The NIH states: "AIDS is the most severe form of HIV infection. HIV infected patients are diagnosed with AIDS when their CD4 cell count falls below 200 cells/mm3 or if they develop an AIDS-defining illness (an illness that is very unusual in someone who is not HIV positive)." (http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/other/cbrochure/english/03_en.pdf)

     The WHO states: "Can AIDS occur without HIV? ... HIV infection is the most common cause of acquired immune deficiency." (http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/134438/ALGAF/Algaf_c d/algaf_docs/Resources/UNAIDS%20Questions%20and%20Answers%20about%20AIDS %20(2004).pdf).

     Since both Will C. and GSWIFT argued that both CDC and WHO require HIV infection, they have now been proven wrong.

     I find it fascinating none of the other "HIV/AIDS experts" have offered to define their terms, and be so confident that "HIV causes AIDS".

     Posted by Static Shock at 03/06/2006 @ 1:17pm

222. Posted by STATIC SHOCK 03/06/2006 @ 1:17pm

     I'm not exacty what you just proved other then that both the CDC and WHO say HIV causes AIDS

     And I think that's what we've been saying all along.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 1:41pm

223. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 12:13am

     Hey DOC, Chris Noble was kind enough to give us a link where we can get on hands on some live HIV. So I guess all we need to do now is hook up and then you can demonstrate for us all the AIDS is a hoax.

     What do you say buddy. Is it about that time?

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 1:45pm

224. correction... not exactly sure

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 1:45pm

225. hey Wee Willie Wonker...........bring me those HIV positive hetero women and let's see how well your debased Fairy Tales and debauched fears hold up.

     Tick tock, tick tock.......scurry along now li'l fella and bring those women (any 3 or 4 will do) to my tent, ASAP so we can test your theory about AIDS and heterosexual sex.......what's taking you so long?

     What? You don't even know any hetero women? How can that be? Oh never mind, you already admitted that fact long ago. And no, no we know all about those "apparent" and faux women that you hang around with and they are all yours!

     Hurry hurry, scurry scurry Wee Willie..........your theory is collapsing all around you.......enjoy the rubble and curse the darkness while we're all out having fun.

     Ta ta.......tee hee and keep hunting for AIDS in all the wrong places..........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 2:08pm

226. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 2:08pm

     I guess that means you're going to hamster out on us

     I-iiiiiiiiiiiiiii figured you would.

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 2:20pm

227. We are all clapping and celebrating because it means the same good news for the 95% of the American population that is heterosexual.........and refrains from IV drugs...... that the whole AIDS edifice is revealed for the phonie-baloney crapola it always was........

     And we are thrilled to see frightened little critters like you get their panties bunched up, all nervous and belligerent, unable to grasp that your errant paradigm is collapsing in front of you!

     Heterosexuals all across the USA are thrilled to rejoice at how Celia Farber has ripped the mask off the Fundamentalist Church of AIDScammers....... too bad you can't join us Wee Willie........ go wear your silly little ribbon, get busy quilting, and pass out those condoms........

     2006 is a banner year indeed!!!!

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 2:41pm

228. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 2:41pm

     Oh Hamster Boy....

     hamster boy....

     Come out come out where ever you are...

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 2:43pm

229. Posted by WILL C. 03/06/2006 @ 2:43pm | ignore this person

     Wee Willie Wonker, Wee Willie Wonker, Wee Willie Wonker, Wee Willie Wonker.................. heterosexual women, HIV-positive, HIV-negative, HIV-indeterminate, HIV-whatever.....we love them all and stand ready to show poor Wee Willie Wonker what he's missing while he bangs furiously on his little keyboard cause no one pays the slightest attention to his mindless blather...

     Hetero women....we love 'em all!!!!

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 3:29pm

230. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 3:29pm

     Alfalfa Pellets!

     (shake shake shake shake shake)

     all... you... can eat

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 3:31pm

231. Wee Willie........ go wear your silly little red ribbon, get busy quilting, pass out those condoms, light a few thousand more candles, find a march to join, scribble a new saying, but do something 'cause the AIDScam is over, done, dead, and gone.

     Too bad you squandered your time and energy on that unicorn while the rest of us were out having fun fun fun...... pathetic waif.....

     Hey Wee Willie - maybe you can organize some red ribbons and quilts to fight Bird Flu!!!

     Yeah yeah yeah......Wee Willie Wonker......front line bird brain in the fight against Bird Flu.......

     Go get 'em Wee Willie.........berating your idiocy is so much fun and so easy-peasy

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 3:35pm

232. And after you gorge yourself on fresh yummy alfalfa pellets…

     the wheel

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 3:36pm

233. I thought that I would be able to understand what they were talking about because I've taken college biology, chemistry, genetics...

     Those papers made my head explode they were so involved and detailed with chemical names and processes that I hadn't covered in my classes.

     Posted by WILL C. 03/04/2006 @ 12:06am |

     ==========

     Poor sad, lost Wee Willie Wonker....... his pathetic admission said all we need to know.

     While Wee Willie's head keeps exploding with info beyond his feeble reach, we all keep laughing at him and his red ribbons and quilting bees.........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 4:50pm

234. Help me hamster boy...

     help me to find you...

     I want to help you prove the HIV hoax...

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 4:57pm

235. we can help each other

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 4:58pm

236. DoctorChipper, You're absolutely "on the money" about a heterosexual "AIDS epidemic" ever appearing in the US. It simply won't happen.

     Of course, there's not even a homosexual "AIDS epidemic". I suppose there is, depending on how loosely "epidemic" is defined. We're nearly in the throes of a "bird flu pandemic", with only sixty-some cases worldwide. Seems like the words "epidemic" and "pandemic" have lost all their meaning.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/06/2006 @ 5:30pm

237. DanSeattle - you are also 100% correct about the absence of a homosexual epidemic too.

     The absence of any such numbers is bad bad news for the AIDScammers. Their errant and deceptive assumptions make it utterly impossible for them to use anything other than absurd fairy tales to explain, say, how the number of AIDS cases in San Francisco has plummeted to 250 for the year 2005.

     And this despite the fact that gays and straights continue to enjoy sexual activities to their hearts' content, especially people between 18 and 35.

     When 60 or even 360 cases of bird flu world-wide constitiute an "epidemic" in those folks mind then we are truly facing an unruly mob of fear mongers.

     What ever happened to Ebola? In the 30 years since the first case was identified there have been around 1500 deaths from Ebola world-wide - since 1976!!

     Hell, about 1500 people choke to death on their food in the US alone every year.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 5:41pm

238. 1500 a year choke to death in the US? My GOD, that's more than an epidemic!!! Do we even have a word to describe this!?

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/06/2006 @ 5:50pm

239. and who said condoms were only 97% effect

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 5:53pm

240. it almost inspires you teach them youngins to slip'em on a cucumber for practice

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 5:58pm

241. "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous" Carl Sagan

     One doesn't have to be a medical doctor, virologist or rocket scientist to notice that in the ultimate analysis, "HIV/AIDS" is based on politics rather than compassion, greed rather than health, and hysteria rather than science.

     This is why a well researched and highly articulate article like the one by Celia Farber, published in HARPERS is generating such a commotion. Farber's article is a serious threat to the AIDS Establishment. The last thing that public-health officials, "AIDS" doctors, "science" journalists, major news outlets, Big Pharma, biotechnology and "mainstream" gay AIDS activists and organizations want you to know is that the public has been intentionally misled about who gets AIDS and why. They don't want you to even think about it -- because they all played a big part in deceiving and sexually terrorizing you.

     I call your attention to three quotes from "AIDS FIGHT IS SKEWED BY FEDERAL CAMPAIGN EXAGGERATING RISKS" published in the Wall Street Journal, (Pg. 1 and A6, 5/1/96.", Bennett and Sharpe.)

     1. Quote: 'Over 90 percent of the population is heterosexual and most people are at zilcho or very low risk,' says Lyle Petersen, until recently chief of the CDC branch that estimates the prevalence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS." Unquote

     2. Quote: "Though scientists and anti-AIDS activists knew that the government-nurtured fear of AIDS among upscale, non-drug-using heterosexuals was exaggerated, not everyone thought this was a bad thing. Indeed, many credited rampant fear with achieving pro-family goals that no amount of moralizing alone could have accomplished." Unquote

     3. Quote "But nine years after the America Responds to AIDS campaign first hit the airwaves in 1987, many scientists and doctors are raising new questions. Increasingly, they worry that the "everyone-gets-AIDS" message -- still trumpeted not only by government agencies but by celebrities and the media -- is more than just dishonest: it is also having a perverse, potentially deadly effect on funding for AIDS prevention." Unquote

     Someone asked if we could forget about safe sex -- as if using latex condoms are safe. What about all of the health care providers and workers who have developed serious and sometimes life-threatening allergies to latex simply by wearing latex gloves? Shouldn't this be a consideration -- when slapping on a latex condom? Especially if non-drug using heterosexuals and gays aren't really at risk? And the fact is that -- they aren't.

     A 10 year study on discordant couples in which one partner was "HIV+" and the other partner was "HIV-" who engaged in repeated "unprotected" sexual contacts, done by Padian, et al. (American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 146, no. 4, p. 350+, 1997) states: "We observed no seroconversions after entry into the study."

     That's pretty strong evidence against the basic beliefs that govern the AIDS paradigm!

     Unless the urgent issues raised by Celia Farber and published in HARPERS continue to be investigated and reported, the people who are really at risk for AIDS and the public will not be able to make informed decisions about preventing and treating AIDS. We need more of these articles!

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MichaelE1000 at 03/06/2006 @ 6:04pm

242. Unless the urgent issues raised by Celia Farber and published in HARPERS continue to be investigated and reported, the people who are really at risk for AIDS and the public will not be able to make informed decisions about preventing and treating AIDS. We need more of these articles!

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MICHAELE1000 03/06/2006 @ 6:04pm

     Unless the author of this thread has misrepresented the words of Celia Farber, then more articles like hers don't need to be printed. I read the WSJ article you sited and nowhere in it does it state or imply that AIDS isn't caused by HIV as Farber is claimed to have asserted.

     While I recognize that the rates of transmission of the virus varies depending on the type of sex, amount of lubrication and viral load in the blood at the time of the sexual encounter, leading people to believe that there is no viral component in AIDS is criminally negligent.

     As is instructing people not to take simple precautions like condom use.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 6:30pm

243. Mr. Ellner, you are misrepresenting the results of the '97 AJM study (which can be found here [aje.oxfordjournals.org]

     To begin with, the authors state bluntly at the beginning of the Results section of the paper that:

     "Most (51/82; 62%) of the female index cases were infected by previous heterosexual partners."

     So, heterosexual contact isn't a risk factor, huh?

     Next, the part of the study you cite is a secondary part of the entire study. In the primary study, the authors found:

     "Overall, 68 (19%) of the 360 female partners of HIV-infected men (95% confidence interval (CI) 15.0-23.3%) and two (2.4%) of the 82 male partners of HIV-infected women (95% CI 0.3-8.5%) were infected. History of sexually transmitted diseases was most strongly associated with transmission. Male-to-female transmission was approximately eight-times more efficient than female-to-male transmission and male-to-female per contact infectivity was estimated to be 0.0009 (95% CI 0.0005-0.001)."

     You know, if I was a woman, I don't think odds of 1/5, even over an extended length of time in a monogamous relationship, are the type of odds I'd feel too comfortable with.

     Finally, your comment about failure to seroconvert was a second part of the study, and as the authors discuss, was due to extreme changes in the behavior of the study enrollees. In fact, 97% of these behavorial changes, which included significant increases in abstinence and condom use, and a significant decrease in anal sex, occurred within the first six months of this part of the study. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

     This study is almost ten years old, and yet it conclusively demonstrates that there is significant risk for heterosexual transmission of HIV. Yet you site it only by regurgitating what you've read on some other denialist website, and not even looking at the study itself, which is freely available online. And we should trust anything else you say for what reason? In fairness, the authors do conclude that heterosexual transmission is relatively inefficient and I don't think anyone in the giant conspiracy you imagine would say otherwise unless they were employing scare tactics. As increasing rates of HIV in women indicate however, particulary in minority women, this is a major problem in this country, even if it doesn't rise to the level of an "epidemic".

     Oh, by the way Chipinator, I actually studied Ebola virus for my Ph.D. thesis. For your information, the virus is still out and about. In the past 6 years, nearly two-thirds of the total mortality from Ebola and Marburg viruses has occurred since their respective discoveries in 1976 and 1967, and Ebola virus has also decimated great ape populations in central Africa, and is spreading geographically. No one who works in the field has any respect for the hyperbole employed by an author like Richard Preston, but to say that limited epidemics of the viruses haven't occurred is just plain ignorant and disrespects hundreds of individuals who have died heinous deaths.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/06/2006 @ 7:24pm

244. Right. Whom do I begin with? Let's start with GSWIFT. He has the biggest mouth.

     >"I must be doing something right."

     No you don't. I've read through the whole thread, and I can't find any statement of yours that makes sense. You come with bummers like: "Ever heard of apoptosis?" Jeez, as if finding a name for a phenomenon proves that it's caused by a virus. White blood cells (including T-cells) have a limited life span, just as red blood cells do. Shortening this life span leads to lower cell counts. But please don't grab this opportunity to bring back David Ho's tap and drain theory. That made no sense right from the tart. Once a Ho, always a Ho.

     Yet, there's something familiar about you, GSWIFT. Nice warm feeling, like we've been debating these things before. Saves time, if I don't have to come to the snakepit anymore to find you.

     >"Just how do we sequence the genomes of things that don't exist?"

     Oh, very simple. You just scoop some material out of a barrel full of meat scraps at a slaughterhouse. You sequence that, and then you give it a *name* of something that doesn't exixt. For example: You sequence something the cat dragged in, and call it Hepatitis-C. But where's the virus itself? Is something dawning on you already? Right. Now all this crap yields different strands of nucleic acid, so the results vary all over the map. What do you do then? You simply postulate that this Hep-C virus mutates like crazy. Amd the result is 9 classes and more that 100 subclasses of Hep-C. I would never have gotten these brilliant ideas, but those smart virus-of-the-month scientists can make the Moronic majority believe anything.

     And eh... You mention "expertise in a relevant field". I think I've seen some samples of that before, and I was neither impressed nor amused.

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/06/2006 @ 7:36pm

245. >"Just how do we sequence the genomes of things that don't exist?"

     Oh, very simple. You just scoop some material out of a barrel full of meat scraps at a slaughterhouse.

     Posted by ICONOCLASTER 03/06/2006 @ 7:36pm

     And any geneticist would notice the eukaryotic complexity of this retrovirus DNA

     If you are going to make up mechanisms, at least make up believable mechanisms.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 7:43pm

246. With logic, evidence and common sense Michael Ellner demonstrates, once again, how pathetically easy it is to make mincemeat of the Fundamentalist HIV/AIDScammers.

     Obsessed with condoms, cucumbers, terrifying youngsters who can't argue back or preaching behavior modification to a generation whose behavior mocks pretensions and their smug pieties, the AIDS Fundamentalists cannot even manage a feeble guess to explain the vanishingly small number of (so-called) heterosexual AIDS cases in the USA.

     They have no credible way to explain the grand cumulative total of 252 hetero female "AIDS cases" in San Francisco from 1980-2005 (an average of TEN per year).

     Nor can they even claim with a straight face to explain the cumulative total of 93 hetero male "AIDS cases" in San Francisco over that same period which less than FOUR per year! FOUR, in a sexually active community that is surely over 90% heterosexual.

     Celia Farber has written a cogent and understated essay that powerfully indicts the entire HIV/AIDS smut peddlers. It's no wonder those mental midgets are writhing in anger and angst....... and it's about time.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 8:22pm

247. Condoms condoms condoms

     always where a condom

     raw hide (is the thing that gets you AIDS)

     So wear a condom pard..ner

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 8:37pm

248. Wee Willie Wonker and his Cucumber fixation!

     Wee Willie wears condoms when he goes skiing, drinks tea, watches baseball games, listens to the radio, reads a book and eats pasta. No wonder everyone knows he's a fool

     Psst....very few people - gay or straight - even bother with condoms (Durex is patently disappointed) yet there is almost no AIDS in San Francisco....... Imagine that!

     Wee Willie Wonks out again........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 8:43pm

249. Chipidiot stated:

     "Psst....very few people - gay or straight - even bother with condoms (Durex is patently disappointed) yet there is almost no AIDS in San Francisco....... Imagine that!"

     From the same report you keep banging on about (the 252 confirmed female heterosexual AIDS cases):

     As of 12/31/05, 26,531 cumulative AIDS cases and 17,917 cumulative AIDS deaths. Nope, no AIDS in San Francisco.

     Your silly Dr. Seuss impression is getting pretty tired. I've already stated in my post above that, yes, heterosexual transmission of HIV is relatively inefficient. Obviously, the original epidemic amongst the homosexual population and IV drug users doesn't overlap to a large extent with the general heterosexual community. So, with these factors combined, it isn't surprising that heterosexual women with no other risk factors (and who are, as Will suggests, insisting on condom usage in most cases) have not demostrated high levels of AIDS. It's nice to know you don't give a damn about the 252 women who are ill with a terrible disease - just like all women in your warped mind, they are objects to twist to your own ends without scruple. Your buddy Ellner above, who I already discredited in my last post, is, you say, full of "logic, evidence, and common sense." Thanks Chippy! So now that we know your standards for those traits we can dismiss your one-man Riddler routine without a second thought.

     By the way, as you never answer any question put to you, I'll try one last time - if not HIV/AIDS, what is the cause of the massive decline in longevity in South Africa over the past decade?

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/06/2006 @ 9:05pm

250. Your buddy Ellner above, who I already discredited in my last post...

     Chuck, you gave me a little laugh with that one.

     Posted by DanSeattle at 03/06/2006 @ 9:09pm

251. Psst....very few people - gay or straight - even bother with condoms (Durex is patently disappointed) yet there is almost no AIDS in San Francisco....... Imagine that!

     Wee Willie Wonks out again........

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER03/06/2006 @ 8:43pm

     If your talking about monogamous pairs... yup

     Anyone out there playing the field is wearing a condom.

     unless they got their education through abstinance only

     then you could sat they're gettin fucked twice

     (pretty good deal huh)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 9:29pm

252. corection... could say

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 9:31pm

253. Li'l Chuckie........there has been a grand total, a cumulative total of 345 alleged heterosexual AIDS cases in San Francisco over the past 25 years. Can you grasp the incredible insignificance of that total?

     I said cases - c-a-s-e-s - not deaths, just cases.....and as previously mentioned, the Ph.D. by Michelle Cochrane that scrutinized SF hospital records and charts raises serious doubts whether ANY of those cases who actually, ever "caused" by sexual activity but rather by IV drug use.

     I don't want to have to explain this to you again.

     Like many AIDS Fundamentalists who seem to have a religious calling, Li'l Chuckie is extremely edgy, nervous and uptight about any real, salty discussion about real sexual behavior.

     Because you are so immersed in your microscopically tiny world of slides and molecular biology all about HIV, you are illiterate and blind to South African history or its economic realities. Tell me if you know exactly what is meant by the "TBVC countries" and I will then know how familiar or alien you are to South African statistical records, mortality rates, or life expectancy.

     Every time I think about Celia Farber's great essay, it makes me so happy and thrilled to watch the hard core Fundamentalists of the AIDS Church gnash their teeth, scream bloody murder, and stammer and stutter as their paradigm goes down in a flaming wreckage.

     I say good riddance.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 10:05pm

254. Wee Willie Wonker - I know you must have some mental strengths, perhaps like being a waiter or a caddie because logic, evidence, spelling, grammar and common sense are all way beyond your feeble grasp.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 10:08pm

255. Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 10:05pm

     Condoms.... fewer cases

     Anti-viral drugs.... fewer deaths.

     you'd almost wonder why a doctor wouldn't know that.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:08pm

256. Wee Willie Wonker - I know you must have some mental strengths, perhaps like being a waiter or a caddie because logic, evidence, spelling, grammar and common sense are all way beyond your feeble grasp.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 10:08pm

     A doctor of english...

     That explains everything.

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:09pm

257. To be or not to be

     But is that the question of HIV?

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:14pm

258. Could it be a typo?

     Did you read HIVE instead of HIV.

     Perhaps you think we think bees are the cause of AIDS (and to clarify... when I say bees I'm refering to the insect and not the second letter of the alphabet)

     I can understand your confusion for it is not bees that lingers in the veins of unlucky love for there is no HIVE just HIV+ and the lovers who have it are just trying to stay alive.

     To be... To be...

     they dream to be

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 10:21pm

259. Wee Willie Wonker........ my god are you a dense dummy. No writer, no reader and definitely no scientist.

     No matter what you and your AIDS Follies Fundamentalists may imagine, hetero people like me and my friends are having lots of sex, using fewer condoms, sometimes spreading increasing amounts of sexual transmitted infections based on ignorance but no AIDS, no AIDS, no AIDS...... that's because sexual activity does not causes AIDS.

     Those are the facts. Do with them as you wish. Nobody cares.

     Until you notice the astonishingly microscopic numbers for hetero AIDS in San Francisco, this will elude you. And it does, because it must.

     Poor Wee Willie Wonker.....it must be tough to admit that the past 5, 10, 15, 25 years of fighting AIDS have all been for naught, a huge lie, a gigantic hoax, and a tragic farce......except for the quilters, candle makers and red ribbon sellers...........and big pharma........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/06/2006 @ 11:10pm

260. No matter what you and your AIDS Follies Fundamentalists may imagine, hetero people like me and my friends are having lots of sex, using fewer condoms, sometimes spreading increasing amounts of sexual transmitted infections based on ignorance but no AIDS, no AIDS, no AIDS...... that's because sexual activity does not causes AIDS.

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 11:10pm

     You are correct. Sexual activity does not cause AIDS...

     HIV does.

     Could this be a breakthrough or is it just another random firing of neurons in a moron?

     (we will find out shortly)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/06/2006 @ 11:54pm

261. Poor Wee Willie Wonker.....it must be tough to admit that the past 5, 10, 15, 25 years of fighting AIDS have all been for naught, a huge lie, a gigantic hoax, and a tragic farce......except for the quilters, candle makers and red ribbon sellers...........and big pharma........

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/06/2006 @ 11:10pm

     And you understand (who am I kidding) that if big pharma is making out like a bandit selling anti-virals, and anti-virals are the cause of AIDS, then more people should be dying and not fewer like you keep saying. But because HIV is the true cause of AIDS, you also understand (who am I kidding) that with greater condom use and greater access to those same anti-virals the incidence of infection is down as are the number of deaths.

     So I guess we'd all have to conclude that the twenty five year fight against AIDS has been fought well and is being won.

     Thanks for clearing all that up for us DOC.

     I knew you would sooner or later

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 12:14am

262. Wil certainly has a lot to say about an article he didn't actually read! ("I read the WSJ article you sited and nowhere in it does it state or imply that AIDS isn't caused by HIV as Farber is claimed to have asserted.")

     Any one who actually read my post is aware that I never claimed that the WSJ article indicated that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. I quoted the article because it clearly stated that the CDC and gay AIDS activists intentionally misled the public about the risks for AIDS. And if the CDC and gay AIDS activists intentionally lied about the risks of contracting AIDS -- why would any thinking person believe any thing else they tell us about AIDS?

     To bring the discussion down to Wil's level for a moment: If AIDS doesn't spread -- the virus theory is dead.

     Chuck D accuses me of misrepresentation and not reading the 97 AJM study -- he must be confusing me with Wil. The actual data in the AJM study does not support its authors deceptive claims of high transmission - Zero transmission in ten years speaks for itself.

     I suppose Wil and Chuck will claim that I have fabricated the quotes below, which are taken from the package inserts of the tests themselves:

     * "At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence or absence of HIV-1 antibody in human blood." (Abbott Lab HIV Test - ElA) * "The risk of an asymptomatic person with a repeatedly reactive serum developing AIDS or an AIDS-related condition is not known." (Genetic Systems HIV Test - Peptide EIA) * "The AMPLICOR HIV-1 (PCR "Viral Load") MONITOR test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV or as a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection" (Roche, Amplicor HIV Test Kit). * "Do not use this kit as the sole basis of diagnosis of HIV-1 infection." (Epitope, Inc. HIV Test - Western Blot) *"Clinical studies continue to clarify and refine the interpretation and medical significance of the presence of antibodies to HIV." (Abbott Laboratories HIV Test - ElA)

     The fact is that there is no scientific proof that any one was ever or is infected by an "HIV".

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MichaelE1000 at 03/07/2006 @ 01:23am

263. Any one who actually read my post is aware that I never claimed that the WSJ article indicated that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.

     Posted by MICHAELE1000 03/07/2006 @ 01:23am

     Not exactly true. While you never claimed The WSJ article said that AIDS wasn't caused by HIV you did say this.

     Unless the urgent issues raised by Celia Farber and published in HARPERS continue to be investigated and reported, the people who are really at risk for AIDS and the public will not be able to make informed decisions about preventing and treating AIDS. We need more of these articles!

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MICHAELE1000 03/06/2006 @ 6:04pm

     Unless you are now changing your story so that the urgent issues raised in Farber's article didn't include that AIDS wasn't caused by HIV.

     Are you changing your story? Or are we supposed to have read what you meant and not what you said?

     Because I can only read what you say.

     and I'm still not sure how you equate an article that is about exagerating risks with an article that fabricates causes.

     Perhaps you could explain oh wise one

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 01:53am

264. The fact is that there is no scientific proof that any one was ever or is infected by an "HIV".

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MICHAELE1000 03/07/2006 @ 01:23am

     A picture is worth a thousand words

     http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVretro.html

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 02:05am

265. you guys will like these too

     http://www.aids-info.ch/e_te/aas-e-kb.htm

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 02:08am

266. interesting reading from abbott diagnostics

     http://www.abbottdiagnostics.com/Customer_Support/Customer_Communication s/pdf/cadveric_claims_hivab.pdf

     For some reason they seem to think HIV exists, comes in at least two forms, has been isolated from human beings (which might be how they got those pictures I linked) and is transmitted by sexual contact, exposure of blood and blood products or from mother to fetus

     I wonder if a description of a virus by a laboratory which makes tests to determine it's presense in a human being constitutes scientific proof that someone was infected by AIDs if the test came up positive?

     Let me think on that for a while

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 02:40am

267. And don't forget to close the gap between "Communication" and "s/pdf" at the line break or the URL won't work

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 02:41am

268. Posted by ICONOCLASTER

     Oh, very simple. You just scoop some material out of a barrel full of meat scraps at a slaughterhouse. You sequence that, and then you give it a *name* of something that doesn't exixt. For example: You sequence something the cat dragged in, and call it Hepatitis-C. But where's the virus itself?...but those smart virus-of-the-month scientists can make the Moronic majority believe anything.

     Well Wilhelm, you say you have a doctorate in Biochem, so you're then perfectly aware of scanning electron micrographs, which can take pictures of viruses. Or are scanning electron micrographs also a myth? So what viruses HAVE been isolated, and how were those techniques different from those used to isolate HIV and Hep C?

     For the larger audience, "ICONOCLASTER" is the handle of one Wilhelm Godschalk, who it's claimed has a PhD in biochem from Univ. of Leiden. One of the telltale signs is his capitalizing "Moronic majority", which as you can see is the title of his first post at his homepage. He's been accepting challenges to inject himself with the virus for quite some time now. Not surprisingly, I've yet to see him post evidence that he's done so.

     http://www.wgods.com/

     Posted by gswift at 03/07/2006 @ 02:55am

269. Will C. and GSwift, I thank you for your continued efforts here. This will be my last post because I find the argument not worth continuing any longer. These self-righteous fools, whether they are true believers or just out to provoke for the fun of it (I sincerely hope it's the latter) are no longer worth our attention as they have opted out of rational debate, much like those who push intelligent design or refuse to accept global warming. I don't know what their motives are and, frankly, I don't care. As someone who abhors human suffering in all its forms, I truly hope none of them ever contract any serious disease, let alone one as frightening and debilitating as AIDS. For any other readers out there who have been silent in this onslaught of pseudoscience, especially readers of Harper's, I encourage you to add your voice to this and other forums in defense of science and reason - these precious organs for progress and a more humanitarian world are under threat, as this forum makes clear, from self-identified leftists as much as from reactionaries on the right.

     Posted by Chuck Darwin at 03/07/2006 @ 04:27am

270. I can tell from Li'l Chuckie's last posting here that my hunches regarding his illiteracy about South African history, record keeping and political terminology were all totally correct.

     The condom evangelicals, safe sex missionaries, abstinence blowhards, and anti-sex fanatics of the Fundamentalist Church of AIDScamming have only themselves to blame for the demise and demolition of their contrived "pandemic."

     Tone deaf to their own elastic definitions, oblivious to the striking duplication of AIDS "symptoms" in Africa with those of TB, malnutrition, water-borne infections, protein anemia and malaria, and pious supplicants to multinational drug companies' sponsored research schemes, the true believers of the AIDS Establishment grind their teeth and howl at the moon when someone like Celia Farber exposes their mendacity and corruption.

     Poor, sad, forlorn Li'l Chuckie.

     So obsessed and absorbed in his molecular biological world, so divorced from social realities on the ground in Africa, so caught up in his own little psychodramas, so angry, so frustrated, so furious that vast numbers of people simply don't buy his errant, contradictory drivel that AIDS is somehow "caused" by someone's sexual behavior.

     Who carees one iota what a malevolent, fear-monger like him thinks anyhow.

     Celia Farber's article in the March issue of Harpers lights a demolition charge underneath the entire AIDS dump heap of toxic drugs, futile hysteria and lazy journalists.

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/07/2006 @ 10:44am

271. There is only one word for Will C's photo.

     FYI-Electron microscopy is incapable of producing color images.

     Folks - To really make meaningful changes, we must take a more comprehensive view of what the "crisis" actually is and how this crisis evolved. Today, the social function of the CDC's admitted misrepresentations goes way beyond de-gaying AIDS, funding an industry and modifying sexual behavior. This murderous fraud hypnotizes us to believe that the poverty induced African-AIDS crisis is caused by a sexually transmitted virus.

     Unless, we see the HIV=AIDS construct for what it is, we will be part of the problem instead of part of the solution. The HIV-figment discourages sex, maintains inner-conflicts, promotes dependency and generates tens of billions of dollars -- And far more importantly, the HIV-trance conceals the murder of gay men, drug users and those pesky people of color.

     Let's be honest, it was obvious from the start, AIDS was not spreading out of the original social health risk groups. The sexually transmitted African AIDS crisis is a political construct that justifies the big lie: "Every one is at risk".

     The mass self-hypnosis effectively trivializes the role of the social, political, economic and environmental burdens of tens of millions of people. Human Beings -- who are truly at risk for developing behavior based acquired immunodeficiency syndromes in the West and poverty Induced immunodeficiency syndromes in Africa and Asia.

     Celia Farber and HARPERS gave us a free pass out of the AIDS Zone. The question is we will use it? Will you?

     Michael Ellner

     Posted by MichaelE1000 at 03/07/2006 @ 12:38pm

272. There is only one word for Will C's photo.

     FYI-Electron microscopy is incapable of producing color images.

     Posted by MICHAELE1000 03/07/2006 @ 12:38am

     Pseudocolored transmission electron micrograph of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) on infected human lymphocyte.

     http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVretro.html

     Most of us who read the word "Pseudocolored"... understood that

     But thanks for clearing that up for the rest of the crew

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 12:46pm

273. Not being a virologist, but someone familiar with the scientific method, I'd like the answer to the following 2 questions from some one who is familiar with virology and the science of AIDS. 1. Have there ever been any double blind studies, comparing those diagnosed with HIV who are split into 2 groups: one group getting the drug cocktails and the other being left alone, and following their morbidity and mortality rates over a 10 year period? 2. Have there ever been any studies comparing untreated HIV positive with HIV negative people, controlling for lifestyle (e.g. IV drug use, life in the fast lane, etc.), and seeing what differences, if any, exist in the morbidity and mortality rates of each group over a 10 year period? Thanks.

     Posted by Jerry65 at 03/07/2006 @ 12:54pm

274. Next up is Will C.

     >"But what I find amusing is how you hamsters always place conditions on how we infect you. None of you is just willing to go for it."

     Conditions??! Hell, no. I'm only holding you to what you proposed to do: Infecting me with "live HIV". So I challenged you to do just that. Now your buddies may suggest places where you can get pure HIV, but they're fourflushers too. I have a counter challenge for them: They provide the "pure HIV" and then we'll see (by EM and ultracentrifugation) just how pure it is. If it's pure, I'll take it; if it's not, you and your cronies take the ARV's for at least 2 years. Deal?

     And... Do you really pretend you don't know my real name? Ask George, or one of the others. Everybody knows who I am. It's like being with old pals here. So... Why am I not enjoying myself?

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/07/2006 @ 6:39pm

275. >"Well Wilhelm, you say you have a doctorate in Biochem, so you're then perfectly aware of scanning electron micrographs, which can take pictures of viruses."

     Sure. One of my close friends is an electron microscopist.

     >"So what viruses HAVE been isolated, and how were those techniques different from those used to isolate HIV and Hep C?"

     Many viruses have been isolated. A list too long to compile here. The EM techniques used are the same. But HIV and hep-C ar different in the sense that the EM pictures are pathetic (too much cell garbage), or completely non-existent.

     For the audience at large: I recognized "GSWIFT" immediately, because his posts are the most stupid ones in this whole thread. Although I must admit that "Will C" is a close second.

     And if anybody wants to inject me with "HIV", then the least thing I should expect is that they really have such a virus; not some random crap. I must leave it at that, because I also spotted Chris Noble here somewhere, and I'm sure I have some comments to aim at him too. And then there is, of course, "Chuck Darwin", impatiently waiting for me to address him. Oh yes, we've met before also.

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/07/2006 @ 6:57pm

276. >"Will C. and GSwift, I thank you for your continued efforts here. This will be my last post because I find the argument not worth continuing any longer."

     Oh, not so fast Professor! You're not running away already, are you? I recognized you also right away, of course. You must have a very brittle ego. I've told you before on another forum: You don't know your stuff. It's nice to present yourself as the expert scientist. But it would really be better if you would listen once in a while to older scientists who have a lot more experience than you do. I'm quite willing to discuss the scientific issues here. And I'm even willing to suffer the babble of some of the clowns who are hanging around here. But whenever we seem to get down to serious stuff, the more educated contenders disappear.

     >"These self-righteous fools, whether they are true believers or just out to provoke for the fun of it (I sincerely hope it's the latter) are no longer worth our attention as they have opted out of rational debate, much like those who push intelligent design or refuse to accept global warming."

     Please make up your mind. Do you want to discuss global warming (which is bullshit too) or HIV/AIDS? I you were really so keen on rational debate, you would have been overjoyed to see me enter the debate. There have been several participants in this thread who have been asking reasonable questions. Why don't the "experts" answer them?

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/07/2006 @ 7:17pm

277. Another gem by Prof. Chuck darwin:

     >"Oh, by the way Chipinator, I actually studied Ebola virus for my Ph.D. thesis. For your information, the virus is still out and about."

     I see. If you start out your academic career studying a virus that's a hoax too, you won't have any trouble believing in other bogus viruses that come down the pike.

     Say, you know which virus is also still about? The .357Magnum Virus. When you shoot somebody with a .357 Magnum gun, he instantly becomes more vulnerable to infection with the .357Magnum Virus, and that virus kills instantly.

     I'm quite willing to pay he many people who died the respect they deserve. But my question remains: What did they really die from? If I were a serial killer, I would find it most convenient to shift the blame to some imaginary virus. "No you Honor, I didn't poison those people; they died from a virus infection."

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/07/2006 @ 8:01pm

278. It's time to focus on the subject of this thread: Celia Farber's article. Of course it's great to see an honest journalist, who is brave enough to write the truth, get published in a magazine that is considered "respectable" by the Moronic Majority. Reading some comments by the orthodoxy, I find very little reason and lots of chutzpah. For example: "Celia's article refers to questions that were asked 20 years ago. But she seems unaware of the progress in the field that is being made right now." (Yes, they really have the nerve to write that!) Well, I'll be... (!) Those questions that were asked 20 years ago were never answered to anybody's satisfaction!! And all those papers that are written now (by 13 authors or more per paper) are based on the assumption that all those things for which proof was lacking 20 years ago, are the gospel truth! Is there anybody around who has the balls to call that progress? After more than 20 years, we are still waiting for proof that: 1. HIV exists 2. Low T4-cell levels are caused by a virus 3. HIV is infectious 4. HIV can be sexually transmitted 5. HIV-infection leads to AIDS (whatever that is) 6. AIDS is more life-threatening than the ARV's used to treat it.

     Pretending that these are indisputable facts won't bring science one millimeter further.

     Posted by Iconoclaster at 03/07/2006 @ 8:25pm

279. I have a counter challenge for them: They provide the "pure HIV" and then we'll see (by EM and ultracentrifugation) just how pure it is. If it's pure, I'll take it; if it's not, you and your cronies take the ARV's for at least 2 years. Deal?

     Posted by ICONOCLASTER 03/07/2006 @ 6:39pm

     More conditions

     Pussy!

     It's funny how you came back in force after the room emptied out. But then it's alway easy to win when you are alone on the field

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 8:48pm

280. And... Do you really pretend you don't know my real name?

     Posted by ICONOCLASTER 03/07/2006 @ 6:39pm

     Shit Head?

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 8:50pm

281. Posted by ICONOCLASTER

     I'm quite willing to discuss the scientific issues here.

     You deny the existence of Ebola and HIV, yet won't inject yourself with them. Talk is cheap.

     Posted by gswift at 03/07/2006 @ 9:00pm

282. Posted by GSWIFT 03/07/2006 @ 9:00pm

     Ebola... hmmm, high fever, bleeding from every orafice...

     Hey Shit Head, your a mans man. How about a little Ebola in the forth quadrant?

     Ha Ha Ha Ha

     (or does that have to be pure too)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 9:14pm

283. Do you electron scan your babe's who ha before you get down and dirty on it.

     or doesn't she exist either?

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 9:19pm

284. One more thing Shit Head. I noticed how you twisted Chris Nobles words from infectious HIV to Pure HIV. Another Pussy move to get out of out of the injection..?

     Unattainable purity

     Two of Continuum's steps required absolutely pure isolates of HIV. First, Continuum requested electron microscope pictures of viral particles that exhibit HIV's shape, size and structure "and contain nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions". Professor Weiss pointed out that many pictures of HIV have been published. However, unlike bacteria that can reproduce themselves on a sterile dish, all viruses are parasites that have to be grown inside living cells, and it is next to impossible to remove all other debris from the culture. Other scientists have highlighted the irrelevance of this insistence on purity if the HIV particles themselves are clearly present; for example, it's like saying that it is impossible to identify a German Shepherd dog by its unique appearance, if it happens to be surrounded by a pack of poodles.".

     http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/news/ekisolation.htm

     I stumbled on this website while Googling different word combinations with AIDS. But then you probably knew about that whole purity issue but figured we wouldn't. Well one of us did.

     Night Night Pussy

     :)

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 10:01pm

285. It is impossible to remove all cellular debris from HIV cultures by ultracentrifugation because they can both have the same density.

     On the other hand it is not only possible to obtain infectious molecular clones of HIV that exceed the criteria used by the Perth Group but it has been done. Even Duesberg is not stupid enough to deny this.

     http://www.duesberg.com/papers/continu1.html

     "Isolation of HIV: The existence of the retrovirus HIV predicts that HIV DNA can be isolated from the chromosomal DNA of infected cells. This prediction has been confirmed as follows: Full-length HIV-1 and HIV-2 DNAs have been prepared from virus-infected cells and cloned in bacterial plasmids (Fisher et al., 1985; Levy et al., 1986; Barnett et al., 1993) . Such clones are totally free of all viral and cellular proteins, and cellular contaminants that copurify with virus banded in sucrose gradients at a density of 1.16 g/ml according to the "Pasteur rules". Indeed, these clones are even free of genomic HIV RNA. Infectious HIV-1 and HIV-2 DNA clones productively infect human cells to initiate HIV replication (Fisher et al., 1985; Levy et al., 1986; Barnett et al., 1993) . Such infected ("transfected") cells contain HIV-specific DNA, and produce particles that contain reverse transcriptase, HIV-specific antigens (Fisher et al., 1985; Levy et al., 1986) , have diameters of 100 nm under the elctron microscope (Fisher et al., 1985) , as expected for retroviruses, and produce infectious virus that is neutralized by antisera from certain AIDS patients (Fisher et al., 1985; Levy et al., 1986; Barnett et al., 1993) . Since infectious HIV DNA has been isolated from infected human cells that is free of HIV"s own proteins and RNA as well as from all cellular macromolecules, HIV isolation has passed the most vigorous standards available today. In other words these infectious DNA clones meet and exceed the isolation standards of the traditional "Pasteur rules". Isolation of infectious HIV DNAs is theoretically the most absolute form of isolation - it is the equivalent of isolating the virus" soul, its genetic code, from the virus" body, the virus particle. Thus HIV isolation based on molecular cloning exceeds the old standards defined as "Pasteur rules" by Continuum."

     Infectious molecular clones of HIV can be ordered.

     http://www.aidsreagent.org/ http://www.nibsc.ac.uk/spotlight/aidsreagent/

     You can order this molecular clone http://www.aidsreagent.org/UploadDocs/ds3552_003.pdf

     that was obtained from someone with severe immune deficiency - a CD4 count less than 10. http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=240461&blobtype=pdf

     Go ahead try it. Convince all of your fellow Denialists to try it.

     Chris Noble

     Posted by ChrisNoble at 03/07/2006 @ 10:39pm

286. It is impossible to remove all cellular debris from HIV cultures by ultracentrifugation because they can both have the same density.

     Posted by CHRISNOBLE 03/07/2006 @ 10:39pm

     A photo of what you are refering to

     http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/news/purehiv.htm

     Posted by Will C. at 03/07/2006 @ 11:08pm

287. Figure 3 of this paper shows a much better preparation that has relatively few vesicles.

     See Figure 3 : CL4. Bess et al

     Sucrose density gradient purification simply cannot remove cellular debris and vesicles that have the same density as HIV.

     Other methods can be used to further purify preparations. Characterization of highly purified, inactivated HIV-1 particles isolated by anion exchange chromatography.

     Chris Noble

     Posted by ChrisNoble at 03/08/2006 @ 12:05am

288. Wee Willie Wonker - edgy, nervous, tendentious, dumb&dumber all in one, his degenerate rage getting the better of him drop by drop by drop.......... still posting gibberish, still unable to answer the basic questions about those damn microscopically small heterosexual AIDS numbers in San Francisco.

     This is all about AIDS blind Willie, its numbers, its absurdist definition and the fact that tons and tons of healthy heteros (a concept alien in your twisted, closed world) are having lots and lots of happy, hot and frisky-risky, condomless sex (the ladies take charge of birth control) and no AIDS cases here, none there, none hardly anywhere in the good old USofA......... that's because AIDS has nothing to do with sexual behavior. None. Nada, Zero, Zilch

     These deteriorating numbers reaffirm the empty-headed drivel that you and your swill types still hang onto like medieval ecclesiastics who think the earth is flat.

     Scream, curse, stomp and strut all you like. You are the laughing stock of the list Wee Willie Wonker.

     You know it and we all know it.

     Go scamper home and practice putting condoms on fruit, wear some red ribbons or go quilting.....ha ha ha ha your pathetic and absurd lies are all open and exposed to ridicule........

     Posted by DoctorChipper at 03/08/2006 @ 02:33am

289. Go scamper home and practice putting condoms on fruit, wear some red ribbons or go quilting.....ha ha ha ha your pathetic and absurd lies are all open and exposed to ridicule........

     Posted by DOCTORCHIPPER 03/08/2006 @ 02:33am

     yep... it was the random firings of neurons in a moron

     Posted by Will C. at 03/08/2006 @ 02:44am