HIV deniers...

[fraorlando]

Well, i did quite a lot of research on this topic as of lately, its very confusing, to say the least. Whats sure though seems to be, that the introduction of a new deadly virus as the cause of aids in the '80s was uncalled for. First of all, the purificatrion (of HIV, at that time called HTLV-III)by robert gallo was, and is, as far as i can see , very questionable. He couldnt actually see the virus, but exerted a lot of chemicals to the specimen (from a tissue of an aids patient) so that the cells exerted proteins, that he deemed a new virus. Some commentators from the dissident camp actually comment that this is not unusal for a cell under such circumstances and cannot account as proof for a new virus.
Also the commentators say that electron-photographs supposedly showing HIV in fact look more like cell debris (and the 'HIV' doesnt show the 'knobs' there with which it could contact other cells). Then Gallo went on to test if this virus could be found in other aids patients, but he found it in only 40% of them. Actually, as of lately, he testified before an Australian supreme court (in a case od 'criminal HIV transmission') that
"I would say of course, in and of itself, 40% isolation of a new virus, I would not say is the cause." (pg 1294, hxxp://aras.ab.ca/articles/legal/Gallo-Transcript.pdf ).

So, these findings are very questionable to me.
Also, it is often said here that people who dont accept the thesis HIV causes AIDS are denialists. Well i wonder what has happend to science, everyone should know that theories which became unfalsfieable, so that everyone questioning it would be just in 'denial' of what is 'truly true', are prone to become dogmas.
Also, the dissidents, as i rather prefer to call them, dont seem to be some internet-conspiracy nut jobs, as it was also suggested here - in fact there are several members of the National Academy of Sciences who question it and some 2000+ academics, doctors and a nobel price winner (Kary Mullis) too. (see some quotes: hxxp://aras.ab.ca/aidsquotes.htm) So yes, there is a debate, clearly, and these people dont seem to be just in denial.
More to come on that, when i have time...its, as i said, very complicated..

 

[fraorlando]

...so, for instance it is argued by the dissidents, that there are many examples in the peer reviewed literature. I took the trouble to probe it, and came up with the following:

Bermas BL et al.,
Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and infection with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) are diseases that are characterized by immune dysregulation and autoantibody production. In this article we identify and characterize IgG antibodies from mice with SLE and SLE patients that bind HIV gp120 and HIV envelope-derived peptides. SLE can be induced in susceptible mouse strains by immunization with a human monoclonal anti-DNA antibody that bears a common idiotype designated 16/6 Id. We tested sera from various strains of mice in which experimental SLE was induced by this method, as well as from 93 patients with SLE and 31 controls (17 healthy controls, 14 patients with other autoimmune diseases) for the presence of antibodies reactive to gp120 by an ELISA. Antibodies reactive with gp120 were produced by BALB/c, C3H.SW, AKR, and DBA/2 mice, all of which were 16/6 Id immunized and had experimental SLE. C57BL/6 mice, which are resistant to induction of SLE by this method, did not produce antibodies reactive with gp120 despite 16/6 immunization. Forty-three percent of SLE patients made antibodies that bound to gp120 at titers greater than 1:40, whereas 12% of healthy control sera (p < or = 0.02) and 14% of patients with other autoimmune diseases contained such antibodies (p < or = 0.05). We delineated the specificity of this antibody activity by testing for reactivity to six HIV envelope peptides. In both mice and SLE patients, sera reactive with gp120 recognized the same three envelope peptides. Removal of the anti-DNA antibodies from the sera by DNA-agarose affinity purification did not change anti-gp120 specificity.

PMID: 7826694 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Comment: So, subjects with SLE (autoimmune diesease) and mice with induced SLE very frequently test positive on a HIV test, compared to subjects with other immune diseases and healthy ones.
Now, this is mind-boggling: How comes that a test that is deemed to be specific for an exogenous entity, HIV, reacts on people not infected at all. or even mice? Did these mice have unprotected sex?
So, i think this gives rise to the question what those aids tests are really testing for...

 

[8den]

Ben Goldacre writes a brilliant witty and intelligent column every saturday in the Guardian, on the subject of pseudo science, bad science, and misleading reporting/presentation of Science, in the media. Here's his take on this;

If you think the nutritionists and vitamin peddlers in the UK are weird, you really want to go to South Africa, where President Thabo Mbeki has a long history of siding with the HIV denialists, who believe that HIV does not cause Aids (but that treatments for it do), and where his health minister talks up fruit and vegetables as a treatment, as we have previously covered here.
In this world, which is not as remote as you might think from where you're sat, Zackie Achmat is a hero: the founder of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, he recently won a breakthrough in his long battle against the vitamin-loving Aids denialists of Mbeki's government, to make HIV medication available through the public health system.

Achmat is also HIV positive, and was wealthy enough to afford antiretroviral medication, but deprived himself, risking his own life, as a matter of principle, until they were made widely available, despite even the personal pleas of Nelson Mandela, an avowed and public supporter of both antiretroviral medication and Achmat's work.

Achmat's victory, tragically a decade too late, was a deep wound for Matthias Rath, the German vitamin impresario who claims that his vitamin pills are better for Aids than medication, and his colleague Anthony Brink, a barrister and the leader of an allied organisation, the Treatment Information Group, which campaigns vociferously against the currently available antiretroviral medication, claiming - loudly - that they are not just ineffective but actively harmful.

This man Anthony Brink has now managed to file a complaint against Achmat with, of all places, the Hague international criminal court: Achmat is accused of genocide, for successfully campaigning to get access to HIV drugs for the South African people.

Now I have read this ridiculous document - which has been reported as a proper news event in much of the gay and South African media - and for the first 50 pages or so you get the familiar anti-medication and Aids-denialist stuff: they talk up the side effects of HIV drugs, they misrepresent the research.

But then, at around page 58, by which time any journalist covering this story must, I can only assume, have stopped reading, this "indictment" document suddenly deteriorates into full-on fruitcake action.

Brink "respectfully submit" that the international criminal court should punish Achmat with "permanent confinement in a small, white, steel and concrete cage, bright fluorescent light on all the time ... warders putting him out only to work every day in the prison garden to cultivate nutrient-rich vegetables, including when it's raining". This is supposed to be a serious war crimes document, remember.

Then it gets nasty. Achmat should be forced to take his HIV medication ("which he claims to take") and it should be "pushed if necessary down his forced-open gullet with a finger, or, if he bites, kicks and screams too much, dripped into his arm". And how will this forced administration be possible? He should be, white barrister Anthony Brink respectfully submits, "restrained on a gurney with cable ties around his ankles, wrists and neck ... until he gives up the ghost on them, so as to eradicate this foulest, most loathsome, unscrupulous and malevolent blight on the human race, who has plagued and poisoned the people of South Africa".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,,1994876,00.html

 

[fraorlando]

Well, whatever the Guardian writes. But isn't this supposed to be a skeptic inquiry into whether the aids dissidents have a point or not?
I can hardly see how this tabloid-style article can contribute to the discussion.

 

[Ian Osborne]

I can think of a very easy way to test the commitment of anyone who claims HIV is not associated with AIDS: Ask them if they'd be willing to be injected with HIV-infected blood.

Tempting, but I think we should avoid going down this route. We wouldn't challenge a legitimate scientist who claimed to have found a cure for AIDS to prove it by deliberately infecting himself, so perhaps we should avoid doing it to the woo-woos.

 

[8den]

Well, whatever the Guardian writes. But isn't this supposed to be a skeptic inquiry into whether the aids dissidents have a point or not?
I can hardly see how this tabloid-style article can contribute to the discussion.

Actually its good to examine the tactics of the deiners, who once you strip away the veneer of pseudo science, they are forced into bizarre attacks on anyone who points out their lies.

 

[fraorlando]

Actually its good to examine the tactics of the deiners, who once you strip away the veneer of pseudo science, they are forced into bizarre attacks on anyone who points out their lies.

So are we on a which hunt or something? In that case, i am not interested. Again, isnt that a skeptical forum. So what about the study above, any comments?

 

[stateofgrace]

So are we on a which hunt or something? In that case, i am not interested. Again, isnt that a skeptical forum. So what about the study above, any comments?

What do I think of the study?

Garbage is what I think pal, complete and utter crap.

Contents moved to AAH for breach of civility rule

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: chillzero

Before you answer pal, I have been there, I have seen with my own eyes Aids, I have seen the complete and utter desperation that comes with poverty and Aids

<snipped by mod>

 

[fraorlando]

What do I think of the study?

Garbage is what I think pal, complete and utter crap.

Aha. So You think, peer reviewed literature is generally garbage? Well, then on what basis could we discuss anything on scientific matters?
But please stay on the topic, i m already aware of epidemic panic regarding HIV.
But i m not interested in that either.
So, as long as you wont answer accordingly, the smiley rests.

 

[stateofgrace]

Aha. So You think, peer reviewed literature is generally garbage? Well, then on what basis could we discuss anything on scientific matters?
But please stay on the topic, i m already aware of epidemic panic regarding HIV.
But i m not interested in that either.
So, as long as you wont answer accordingly, the smiley rests.

Oh I see, so what do you propose be done about it ? He asks in an ever so civil tongue.

Since you are clearly not interested in the devastating effects that AIDS has not just on people but on entire countries and since I am then I guess we should part company.

When you actually have the nerve to practice what you seem to be preaching, that being that HIV appears not to be spread by unprotected sex and that HIV doesn’t lead to Aids then maybe I will read your rear reviewed paper, as I’m sure as the entire medical profession and whom seem to agree with me. That being that HIV is really spread by unprotected sex and it really does lead to Aids. Until they say differently, please continue, without me.

PS. I believe a round trip to Africa doesn’t cost that much, enjoy practicing what you preach.

 

[transferosome]

What do I think of the study?

Garbage is what I think pal, complete and utter crap.

Contents moved to AAH for breach of civility rule

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: chillzero

Before you answer pal, I have been there, I have seen with my own eyes Aids, I have seen the complete and utter desperation that comes with poverty and Aids

<snipped by mod>

Stateofgrace, I appreciate that this is an emotive issue. However, you're not helping things.

In fact, that goes for all the sceptics here. Can we debunk with science, not anger please? If the HIV denialists are wrong, you're helping their cause. If they're right, how will you ever know?

 

[transferosome]

...so, for instance it is argued by the dissidents, that there are many examples in the peer reviewed literature. I took the trouble to probe it, and came up with the following:

Bermas BL et al.,
Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and infection with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) are diseases that are characterized by immune dysregulation and autoantibody production. In this article we identify and characterize IgG antibodies from mice with SLE and SLE patients that bind HIV gp120 and HIV envelope-derived peptides. SLE can be induced in susceptible mouse strains by immunization with a human monoclonal anti-DNA antibody that bears a common idiotype designated 16/6 Id. We tested sera from various strains of mice in which experimental SLE was induced by this method, as well as from 93 patients with SLE and 31 controls (17 healthy controls, 14 patients with other autoimmune diseases) for the presence of antibodies reactive to gp120 by an ELISA. Antibodies reactive with gp120 were produced by BALB/c, C3H.SW, AKR, and DBA/2 mice, all of which were 16/6 Id immunized and had experimental SLE. C57BL/6 mice, which are resistant to induction of SLE by this method, did not produce antibodies reactive with gp120 despite 16/6 immunization. Forty-three percent of SLE patients made antibodies that bound to gp120 at titers greater than 1:40, whereas 12% of healthy control sera (p < or = 0.02) and 14% of patients with other autoimmune diseases contained such antibodies (p < or = 0.05). We delineated the specificity of this antibody activity by testing for reactivity to six HIV envelope peptides. In both mice and SLE patients, sera reactive with gp120 recognized the same three envelope peptides. Removal of the anti-DNA antibodies from the sera by DNA-agarose affinity purification did not change anti-gp120 specificity.

PMID: 7826694 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Comment: So, subjects with SLE (autoimmune diesease) and mice with induced SLE very frequently test positive on a HIV test, compared to subjects with other immune diseases and healthy ones.
Now, this is mind-boggling: How comes that a test that is deemed to be specific for an exogenous entity, HIV, reacts on people not infected at all. or even mice? Did these mice have unprotected sex?
So, i think this gives rise to the question what those aids tests are really testing for...

Fraorlando, how old is that research? How much research has confirmed or denied its findings?

Did you only join the forum because you found this thread on Google? I notice you have only posted here, so far. Are you an HIV denialist spreading the word?

Not a crime in itself, especially if you're right, but I'd like to know your stance.

 

[stateofgrace]

Stateofgrace, I appreciate that this is an emotive issue. However, you're not helping things.

In fact, that goes for all the sceptics here. Can we debunk with science, not anger please? If the HIV denialists are wrong, you're helping their cause. If they're right, how will you ever know?

I cannot express in words exactly how emotive this is for me but you are correct, hence the reason I will bow out off this thread.

stateofgrace

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Earlier in the thread, there is a lot of speculation about people doubting the HIV connection -- the standard religious nuts example, etc. I think that dismissing the people caught by this may be counter-productive.

I put a request up last year for resources on this subject because a few people I kind of knew (acquaintences, I suppose) had read Duesberg's work. To a lay person, he puts out (at first glance, anyway) a plausible theory that cannot be knocked down without real research. Duesberg appears to qualify as a real expert with retroviruses, and was either a Nobel candidate or recipient in the 80's (cannot remember). He also has stuff co-written with Kary Mullis, a Nobel laureate in chemistry.

So these guys have to be met forcefully. Their points can be countered, but this isn't like a typical moon hoax denier or 9/11 fantasist -- the people are looking to people with real qualifications, and the arguments must be treated seriously. I think that the HIV doubters are wrong -- based largely on the links and reading suggested by people from this site -- but please don't think that you can simply dismiss the arguments.

On the bright side, I think that many doubters in this area *can* actually be swayed by evidence. With the moon hoax people, I doubt that anything will penetrate most of their heads. Their position is set in stone and nothing will change their mind. The people listening to Duesberg, however, may be much more open to real evidence, if it is presented clearly.

 

[Cuddles]

This is once again a conspiracy that effectively debunks itself. There seem to be two main lines of argument, the first is that HIV doesn't exist and AIDS is caused by the drugs and the second is that HIV does exist and is spread by the USA/Jews/NWO/whoever in their quest for world domination.

Let's look at what these arguments would actually mean. AIDS is caused by the drugs? So how do you explain the fact that most people with AIDS don't have access to the drugs? This argument simply doesn't make sense. I could accept people arguing that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, but it is very clearly a communicable disease. If not HIV, then what? If these people are so sure that HIV is not involved, perhaps they would care to tell us what is? Once again we have a conspiracy theory that completely fails to provide a viable alternative to the accepted facts.

The other theory, that HIV is a bioweapon, is even worse. So it's a weapon. Now what? Does this mean that it doesn't exist? Does this mean that we shouldn't try to help anyone with it? OK, the Milk Marketing Board has unleashed a deadly virus on the world, but our heroic anti-conspirators have found them out so we can all go home and have a cup of tea (without milk)? Even if HIV were some kind of weapon, what should we do differently? Whether deliberate attack, accidental release or natural virus, what difference would it make? Hundreds of millions of people are infected and whether it was deliberate or not, they still need the same help. The utter lack of evidence for any conspiracy is irrelevant, because this conspiracy theory is completley pointless.

Edit : In fact, this has some interesting parallels with vCJD. There are many people who doubt that vCJD is caused by prions, yet they are not labelled as conspiracy nuts. The interesting difference is that there is actually evidence to back this up. The moral of the story is, if you rely on real evidence and come up with viable theories you will not be labelled a crank. If you rant about the MMB taking over the world but fail to show anything reasonable to back this up you will become a laughing stock.

 

[fraorlando]

Fraorlando, how old is that research? How much research has confirmed or denied its findings?

Did you only join the forum because you found this thread on Google? I notice you have only posted here, so far. Are you an HIV denialist spreading the word?

Not a crime in itself, especially if you're right, but I'd like to know your stance.

The study is from 1994. so I put it forward to discuss it - in fact I really dont know what to think about all of this, but for me it raises serious questions i d'like to clarify. Thats how i came to this place, for a sceptic enquiry. I'm not on either side, i m just concerned about whats going on in science on these matters, for if the dissidents are right, or only partly right, the consequences are more than just dire.

And, as it was mentioned, these people are not just flat earthers, for example David Rasnick, inventor of the protease inhibitors(the newest breed of aids-drugs in use) - it just makes me wonder what the hell is going on here.

So thats it for today. This whole thing just makes my mind spin. Good night.

 

[Civilized Worm]

Well, i did quite a lot of research on this topic as of lately, its very confusing, to say the least. Whats sure though seems to be, that the introduction of a new deadly virus as the cause of aids in the '80s was uncalled for. First of all, the purificatrion (of HIV, at that time called HTLV-III)by robert gallo was, and is, as far as i can see , very questionable. He couldnt actually see the virus, but exerted a lot of chemicals to the specimen (from a tissue of an aids patient) so that the cells exerted proteins, that he deemed a new virus. Some commentators from the dissident camp actually comment that this is not unusal for a cell under such circumstances and cannot account as proof for a new virus.
Also the commentators say that electron-photographs supposedly showing HIV in fact look more like cell debris (and the 'HIV' doesnt show the 'knobs' there with which it could contact other cells). Then Gallo went on to test if this virus could be found in other aids patients, but he found it in only 40% of them. Actually, as of lately, he testified before an Australian supreme court (in a case od 'criminal HIV transmission') that
"I would say of course, in and of itself, 40% isolation of a new virus, I would not say is the cause." (pg 1294, hxxp://aras.ab.ca/articles/legal/Gallo-Transcript.pdf ).

This is just like the 9/11 deniers, find something that was written very early on and then pick it apart while ignoring what we've learned since then. You're other article about the mice seems to be about the effectiveness of HIV testing and I fail to see what it says about the link between HIV and AIDs.

Well, whatever the Guardian writes. But isn't this supposed to be a skeptic inquiry into whether the aids dissidents have a point or not?
I can hardly see how this tabloid-style article can contribute to the discussion.

Ben Goldacre is a doctor and an expert in quackery and other medical pseudoscience.

 

[transferosome]

Cuddles, thanks for that

I'm not really interested in the HIV as bio-weapon CT... Maybe some people are, but since I started the thread I'd like to respectfully request that we stick to the one topic.

Fraorlando, thanks for clarifying your position.

NoZed Avenger, thank you. You've crystallised the debate wonderfully. There are a lot of crack-pots in the whole HIV denialist arena, but the reason some very intelligent people take it seriously is because of the high-profile scientists spearheading it.

Cuddles, the video I posted seems to suggest that AIDS has three causes. Being a syndrome rather than a disease, this is not quite as silly as it sounds.

Cause 1: Lifestyle. Homosexuality, drugs, constant partying. At some point, they say, this started to weaken people's immuine systems.

Cause 2: Poor living conditions. Dirty water, malnutrition, etc. In Africa, this suddenly, at some point, started to weaken people's immune systems.

Cause 3: Anti-retroviral drugs. These drugs supposedly cause the symptoms they're suppose to cure.

(Please feel free to correct me, it was a very long film and I may have misremembered parts of it.)

My first problem with the entire theory is:

There was a point when AIDS 'started happening'. It 'started happening' in Africa and the US/the western world. What simultaneously kicked off this lowered immune response in people all over the world? Why did it happen simultaneously to people of such different backgrounds? Why didn't it happen before? A virus fits... Lifestyle and living conditions don't - unless something weird and fundamental changed all across the globe...

There was a gap between AIDS appearing and the drugs being synthesised. People very much died during that time. What did the homosexuals die of? I assume they would have calmed down their lifestyles while ill, and thus recovered.

By the time the drugs appeared, AIDS aid agencies had sprung up. The aid workers had personal experience of the suffering the victims went through - and their life expectencies. If AIDS drugs made the problem worse, it would have been painfully obvious at a grass roots level. There would have been uproar. Could all thee people have been bribed maybe?

As it is, every time I see a testimonial by an aid worker, they come out in favour of the drugs and full of bile for the denialists - for daring to play games with the lives and hopes of these vulnerable people.

Can anyone shed light on the science?

At first glance, from what Fraorlando says, if that's the quality of their evidence it looks like the denialists are relying on old papers. It'd be nice to think we've made some advances in HIV detection in 13 years... Have we refined the technique? Do we still even use that technique? Was it a case of 'this is the best we have' at the time?

Does anyone here have the knowledge and experience to find out?

 

[kellyb]

Edit : In fact, this has some interesting parallels with vCJD. There are many people who doubt that vCJD is caused by prions, yet they are not labelled as conspiracy nuts. The interesting difference is that there is actually evidence to back this up. The moral of the story is, if you rely on real evidence and come up with viable theories you will not be labelled a crank. If you rant about the MMB taking over the world but fail to show anything reasonable to back this up you will become a laughing stock.

Just to clarify...
From what I've read, those who hold alternate theories on vCJD are not saying that it's not caused by prions. They're saying that the prions themselves aren't contagious, and that a viral infection precedes and causes the production of the prions.

This actually is sort of similar to the early HIV denialist claims, in that back in the late 80's not enough was known about HIV for alternate theories to be considered "out there". There was a time when alternate theories were plausible. But over the years the evidence has overwhelming compiled in favor of HIV as the causative factor behind AIDS.

If the "TSE's are caused by a virus" folks are continuously refuted, year after year, for a decade or two, and they continue to maintain that theory as fact in spite of the contradictory evidence, then they'll be labeled a bunch of quacks, as well.

 

[fraorlando]

This is just like the 9/11 deniers, find something that was written very early on and then pick it apart while ignoring what we've learned since then. You're other article about the mice seems to be about the effectiveness of HIV testing and I fail to see what it says about the link between HIV and AIDS

Agreed, the findings I presented are not very 'fresh' so to say. But this, in itself, doesnt necessarily say anything about its validity - but, you know, i put it online to discuss it, so if you want to refute it, please head right on and present your evidence. What is it exactly we actually have learned since then ?

Your also right that the mice-paper doesnt say anything directly about the link between HIV and AIDS. As i said, it raises questions about what those test are actually measuring... but: as HIV-positivity is actually part of the clinical definition of AIDS (i.e. you can have whatever AIDS-defining illneses, but without beeing HIV-positiv, its not diagnosed as AIDS afaik), it could also be, in the light of this study's findings, that there is something else causing 'HIV-positivity'i.e. HIV may not be the culprit. That is, if the study is not already refuted by other and stronger evidence...