Vanity Fair- July 2007: The Africa Issue

Hey, One Love!
I like the board because of the variety.
And you throw down something as outrageous as that, you have to expect to defend it . . .

There's lots of reasons to slam AIDS denial, and plenty of them feel very personal. I was doing activist media in the late 80s, and the radical folks were working their asses off to get the medical establishment to
1. recognize that there was a disease in the first place...the "gay cancer"
2. develop and release drugs faster to people that were dying fast
3. recognize that women got AIDS - the "secondary" markers that women got were different than what men got, so women weren't getting counted, or treated.
Allathat and so much more...

So when Mbeki or Gary Null or whoever is saying to take garlic, and "there is no AIDS", I can only think of the early struggle by health activists in the US and remember how the US government's early blind eye to the disease cost lives.

I'm totally open to alternative modalities, and hip to the idea that there's a profit-motivated AIDS industry just like there's a cancer industry, and that if you don't have potable water you're not likely to have access to condoms let alone ever-changing drug regimes but none of that equals HIV/AIDS not existing.
I wish . . .

laura wrote:
Frankly I have things I'd rather be doing than defending myself on this board.

it's not about you, it's about the discussion.
nobody is attacking you personally.

anyway it's totally cool if you don't want to be here talking about this - we're all here voluntarily

homeowner wrote: I don't want to jump on you before I understand fully what you are saying.

This paper is from 1992 but remains a very good examination of the issues involved with HIV/AIDS theory, including the situation in Africa. See also the rebuttal to the NIAID/NIH position.

Meanwhile, the Red campaign has lately come under attack from several sources such as this.

Carnivore wrote: I just briefly skimmed through some of that document

Ah, that says so much.

Carnivore wrote: people without much background in the techniques they discuss.

... like Kary Mullis (awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993 for his development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology), and the once-well-respected-until-he-dared-to-cross-the-establishment Peter Duesberg. OMG they are like so stoopid!! Like the earth is flat!!! LOL!!!

Carnivore wrote: There's only so much time I'm willing to spend on what is clearly nonsense.

After reading about AIDS for about nine years, it’s now the establishment view that looks like nonsense to me.

Carnivore wrote: I'll tell you what. I'll read your entire document

Wow - an entire document from an opposing viewpoint!

Carnivore wrote: if you read this one, even though it's not really fair to put a propaganda webpage and an article in a scientific journal on the same epistemological footing.

Of course not, because scientific journals are impartial, right? “The relationship between medical journals and the drug industry is "somewhere between symbiotic and parasitic," according to the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton.”

And unlike a propaganda webpage, a scientific journal would never attempt to influence readers by opening a story with a wackjob in an effort to tar and marginalize a view that refutes a hypothesis, right? And oh, the damning conclusions of their studies! "Abundant evidence" ... "according to some AIDS researchers" ... "seems instead to confirm" ... Wow, that was impressive!

Carnivore wrote: since then, the "gaps" mentioned in our knowledge of exactly how the HIV virus causes AIDS have been filled in

It's ever-changing bits of theory, not exact knowledge.

It’s funny how so many people who believe themselves to be completely rational and scientific fail to see their own beliefs, assumptions and arrogant prejudices. No, their opinion is based on fact, while opposing views are “propaganda”, “notions” and “beliefs” held by “fringe groups” et cetera.

Of course you won’t find positive articles based on alternative theories of AIDS in Scientific Journals, because once Robert Gallo announced he’d discovered the “probable cause of AIDS”, non-HIV research was terminated and medical journals refused to publish works based on alternative models. Rejecting the HIV paradigm is the career kiss of death, the end of government funding, the end of publishing. Of course the orthodoxy will just state that such articles or research “lack scientific merit”. And so thereby an artificial proof by concensus is perpetuated. So-called peer review has devolved into an incestuous exercise in supporting one’s own interests. Truly good science depends upon the free exchange of ideas, including the freedom to question what is “known”. The government-pharmaceutical complex has thoroughly squashed this process. (See also “Why did AIDS science go wrong?” starting on page 106 of the Duesberg paper which I posted a link to previously.)

Carnivore wrote: More links to literally dozens of discussions refuting the ideas in your document can be found here.

Each and every one either written or endorsed by the National Institutes of Health. Now there’s an objective source! Not to mention the wonderful folks who brought you the Nevirapine study (“Thirty-eight babies died. Sixteen on Nevirapine, twenty-two on AZT. Nevertheless, Nevirapine found approval, and is being sold and distributed throughout the developing world for use in pregnant women who test reactive on HIV antibody tests.”) and the orphanage drug trial scandal (“abandoned children, mostly of drug-addicted parents, were being used to test dangerous and toxic drugs like Nevirapine and AZT for the AIDS market. Children in ICC who refuse to take the drugs by mouth have them pumped through nasal or surgically-inserted gastric tubes.”). http://tinyurl.com/yom2ur

Anyway, just looking at the first document on the NIH list I notice right away how they’ve watered down the first of Koch’s postulates, from “the microorganism must be found in all organisms suffering from the disease” to “the suspected cause must be strongly associated with the disease.” I guess that’s one of the “modifications (that) have been suggested to accommodate new technologies, particularly with regard to viruses.” After all, if it has to be found in all cases, how would they explain idiopathic CD4+ t-cell lymphocytopenia (aka “AIDS without HIV")?

I am going to read this shoddy stuff, but I gotta tell ya … I see London, I see France, I see unsubstantiated claims, circular definitions, and evidence which shows at best a possible correllation between HIV positivity and AIDS, not causation.

Carnivore wrote: The fact that you're not going to read them all

The fact that I’m not going to read them all? Can you see into the future? Am I going to get hit by a bus tomorrow or something?

Carnivore wrote: doesn't make them true.

Haha, no, it doesn’t make them true. I think a big ol’ bunch of “truthiness” (bless you Stephen Colbert) is what we got here.

Carnivore wrote: Best of all, you can check out this great article from the Village Voice a few years ago. It puts the whole debate into plain English.

So apparently “plain English” is the euphemism by which hatefully biased language is going by these days: “notions of a small group of self-styled AIDS dissidents”; “people who espouse such fringe views”; “entertained the denialist ideas”; “surreal letter to Mbeki”.

A few observations on this “great article”:

“’Outrageous,’ says the lead author of that study, Nancy Padian, who is also conducting research in Zimbabwe. "It's more likely that the epidemiology of a disease would differ in different locations than be the same—just look at cancer and heart disease.”

Since AIDS is supposed to be an infectious disease, why would one presume it to have the same epidemiological parameters as non-infectious conditions like cancer and heart disease?

“The sex and age distribution of HIV on the continent mirror patterns seen with other STDs. Risk factors for having HIV include more sexual partners, being a prostitute, having had sex with a prostitute, and a history of STDs.”

And having more sexual partners, and a history of STDs, means more foreign material stressing the immune system, and more antibodies which can cross-react with HIV antibody tests.

“Every one of them had tested positive for HIV. All but one of the control patients with ordinary KS had tested negative.”

Given the serious concerns about the nonspecificity of HIV antibody tests, especially in Africa, this doesn’t impress me. http://gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=1035

See also “HIV test” kit pamphlets:

"The Amplicor HIV-1 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."
http://www.fda.gov/cber/PMAlabel/P9500054LB.pdf

Vironostika HIV-1 Plus O Microelisa System – “is intended for use as an aid [emphasis mine] in diagnosis of infection with HIV-1.”
http://www.fda.gov/cber/pmalabel/P020066LB.pdf

The Cambridge Biotech HIV-1 Western Blot Kit: "Accurate diagnosis of HIV-1 infection is important in determining an individual's risk for developing AIDS. Accuracy is complicated by false-positive and false-negative (EIA) results. POSITIVE blot results using any specimen type (serum, plasma, or urine) should be followed with additional testing. Such testing may rely on alternative test methods or specimen types. The clinical implications of antibodies to HIV-1 in an asymptomatic person are not known."
http://www.fda.gov/cber/label/hiv1cam052898Lb.pdf

Carnivore wrote: That was out of context. I didn't say the people who wrote it didn't have the background. I said that the people they are trying to mislead (such as yourself) don't have much background.

Yeah I know – unfortunately I was quite drunk when I posted so my bad as they say. But tell me … since you don’t me personally - how is it that you know what my background is?

Carnivore wrote: For example, their claim that electron micrographs of the virus are required to prove that HIV fulfills Koch's postulates as a cause of AIDS is just not true. You took their word for it. Most of their critiques can be dismissed with information you could have gotten from something as basic as the wiki on Koch's postulates

I evaluated the micrograph issue within the context of the other failures of HIV to prove Koch’s postulates.

Carnivore wrote: but they use big words, so people assume that what they're saying makes sense.

Can you say “condescension”? I knew you could. Don’t pull this “big words” crap on someone you don’t know just because they don’t agree with you.

Carnivore wrote: Plenty of very smart people have become convinced of totally incorrect ideas in the past.

Egg-zact-ly.

Anyway.

I’m going to end my contribution to this topic with a blog post by Lynn Margulis:

What is an HIV/AIDS denier? Or HIV/AIDS denialist? Peter Duesberg is a fine scientist, I have read his book and examined some of the scientific papers upon which it is based. From the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta I have requested the scientific papers that prove the causal relationship between the HIV retrovirus and the IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME commonly known as AIDS. They have never sent even references to the peer-reviewed primary scientific literature that establishes the causal relationship because they can't. Such papers do not exist. I have seen all four of the films made by Coleman Jones and colleagues in Toronto. Film #3 in the series is most telling. Although no strong evidence exists for any simple causal relationship what is clear is that the HIV claim is erroneous by the standards of microbiology and virology.

When I saw the glowing review of George Miklos, a colleague and a fiercely honest scientist, of Harvey Bialy's book on the scientific life of Peter Duesberg I bought and read Harvey's book. I have also read Celia Farber's superb article in the Lewis Lapham "swansong" issue of Harper's magazine, last March, I believe. Rebecca Culshaw's paper on why she quit AIDS statistical research and Dr. Geschachter's unpublished ms about African AIDS, accepted by the editor and then rejected both substantiated my reluctance to accept the glib "HIV/AIDS" term. I found all of these readings far more convincing than any literature proported to show a HIV-AIDS causal connection.

I heard a talk by a "medical scientist" from the Harvard Medical School at a meeting at Roger Williams Univ in Rhode Island from a supposed expert who attempts to design an HIV vaccine. He claimed the HIV virus mutates a billion times in 48 hours. It became clear that the HIV virus has no clear identity. The HIV tests, nearly always positive for pregnant women, that vary significantly in the US, Europe and Australia are particularly disturbing. My son-in-law, James di Properzio spent several months researching this story for the Common Review (the Great Books Foundation in Chicago). His findings were consistent with Celia Farber's and after encouragement from the editor the board reviewed and rejected his draft.

"Science is the search for truth" said David Bohm, "whether we like it [the truth] or not. From my readings, discussions with knowledgable scientists close to the story, I simply conclude, as does Kerry Mullis, the Nobel Lauriate who wrote a foreword to Duesberg's classical work that there is no evidence that "HIV causes AIDS". I have no special expertise. I simply seek the evidence for scientific claims, especially when they have dire consequences for the science itself and the treatment … not just medical … of so many people.

I have observed that the closer one comes to the study of humans the shoddier the quality of the scientific evidence. Maybe that is one of the reasons that I work with bacteria and protoctists (the eukaryotic microorganisms and their immediate descendants exclusive of plants, animals and fungi). The vast majority of these are harmless to human health.

Although I have written about the natural history of the anthrax bacterium, Beethoven's and Nietzsche's syphilis and the work of Hentry Taylor Ricketts with insect-borne pathgens (eg.g, ticks carrying Rocky Mt Spotted fever), in general I avoid the last 3 million years of evolution and any other studies that require detailed knowledge of mammalian, including human, biology. Why? Because political bias, hearsay and gossip are inevitable whereas in the first part of the evolution story (from 3800 until 3 million years ago) politics intervenes far less obtrusively. In pursuit of the story of life and its effects on planet Earth one can be more honest if the earliest stages of evolution are the objects of study.

And this way I can lay low and not be "name-called" (i.e., "denialist") because I ask hard questions and require solid evidence before I embrace a particular causal hypothesis. Indeed, is not my attitude of inquiry exactly what science is about?

laura, whatever you think causes or is associated or etc. with the sudden pattern of early death among large numbers of young people in africa, what do you think should be done about it?

i agree that food, clean water, etc. is of the utmost importance -- these things are needed regardless of AIDS, and would help those with most diseases, just as a healthy diet helped (but did not cure) those with TB before antibiotics -- but to say that people are dying of what they've always died of to me smacks of dismissive fatalism. certainly there have long been many awful diseases that can kill young people, but plenty of africans think something different is going on now than before. what do you think it is? if you don't think anything is different, why do you think that they do?

lmboogie wrote: Laura - do you have the same opinion of people who are diagnosed and die from AIDS in America? are they also dying from the top 10 causes you posted above?

They're not dying of the same diseases, and the difference in the clinical and epidemiological presentations of African vs. U.S. AIDS is one of the arguments against a common viral origin, particularly as in the U.S., different risk groups have proclivities to different diseases. The similarity though is that in both the U.S. and Africa all of the diseases involved are previously-known and unrelated conditions, which are redefined as AIDS in the presence of HIV positivity. Therefore:

Kaposi’s sarcoma - HIV = Kaposi’s sarcoma
Kaposi’s sarcoma + HIV = AIDS
pneumonia – HIV = pneumonia
pneumonia + HIV = AIDS

Etc. It’s this definition of AIDS which creates an artificially high correllation between HIV and AIDS.

People need to critically evaluate everything they read

Laura, are you critically evaluating your own sources? It seems like you're reserving your skepticism for what you consider mainstream information with "vested interests", and yet eagerly nodding your head at the alternative viewpoint.

Reminds me of the conspiracy theorists who will scoff at your naivety if you say you believe Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11, but have no problem believing that he was in fact a CIA agent paid to divert attention away from the real culprits, the Israelis, who are involved in a plot for world domination.

I don't see the skepticism and critical analysis going in both directions in your arguments at all. Maybe you should heed your own advice.

Chemists Identify Immune System Mechanism For Methamphetamine Binges

Gay men who use methamphetamine have greater risk of HIV seroconversion

Okay, so. We know that:
- Methamphetamine is highly correlated with so-called HIV/AIDS.
- Methamphetamine suppresses the immune system.
- The body produces antibodies to methamphetamine.
- “HIV tests” (which were developed to screen the blood supply, not to be used in the manner they are now) react positively to antibodies not specific to HIV.

So do we really need HIV in order to have AIDS?

o fer fucks sake. HAPPY GAY PRIDE DAY, EVERYBODY!

We also know that meth use is highly correlated with risky sexual behavior.
Being HIV+ and/or having AIDS is different than just having a suppressed immune system. This spiraling looking-glass set of half-assed arguments is nuts.

<--- makes some popcorn and settles in, waiting for more entertaining posts. :-'

WhyFi wrote:
If you're not part of the solution... [-X

Oh, wait - guess that describes me, too...

...you're not gonna finish all that popcorn by yourself, are you?

chomp. chomp. chomp.... :-&