Thursday, January 22, 2009

Passenger Virus

The AIDS dilemma: drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus
(Full Text)

Excerpt

  1. "
    AIDS highly non-random with regard to sex
    Almost 90% of the over 800,000 American and European AIDS patients are men, and only 10% are women (Adams, 1989; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1995; World HealthOrganization, 1995b; AIDS Zentrum im Robert Koch Institut, 1996; Hodgkinson, 1996; Fiala& Lingens, 1997). In epidemiology, this is as different as day and night from the common 50% distribution between the sexes of all known infectious diseases (Evans, 1982; Evans &Feldman, 1982). Despite widespread heterosexual prostitution, AIDS has remained a maleepidemic (Fiala & Lingens, 1997)

  2. "In 1985, Haverkos et al. from the CDC analyzed the AIDS risks of 87 male homosexual AIDS patients, 47 with Kaposi´s sarcoma, 20 with pneumonia, and 20 with Kaposi's sarcoma plus pneumonia (Haverkos et al., 1985; Haverkos, 1988). All the men had used several sexual stimulants; 98% had used nitrites. Those with Kaposi's sarcomas reported two times more sexual partners and 4.4 times more receptive anal intercourse than those with only pneumonia. The median number of sexual partners in the year prior to the illness was 120 for those with Kaposi's and 22 for those with pneumonia only. The Kaposi´s cases reported six-times more amyl nitrite and ethylchloride use, four times more barbiturate use, and two times more methaqualone, lysergic acid and cocaine use than those with pneumonia only. The authors concluded that the nitrites and other drugs had caused Kaposi's sarcoma because no statistically significant differences were found for sexually transmitted diseases among the patients..."

Sunday, December 14, 2008

African Practices

REAPPRAISING AIDS IN AFRICA
UNDER DEVELOPMENT & RACIAL STEREOTYPES

Charles L. Geshekter

Excerpt

...At the 10th International AIDS Conference in Yokohama (August 1994), Dr. Yuichi Shiokawa claimed that AIDS would be brought under control only if Africans restrained their sexual cravings. Professor Nathan Clumeck of the Universite Libre in Brussels was skeptical that Africans will ever do so. In an interview with Le Monde , Clumeck claimed that "sex, love, and disease do not mean the same thing to Africans as they do to West Europeans [because] the notion of guilt doesn't exist in the same way as it does in the Judeo Christian culture of the West...

The serious consequences of claiming that millions of Africans are threatened by infectious AIDS makes it politically acceptable to use the continent as a laboratory for vaccine trials and the distribution of toxic drugs of disputed effectiveness like ddI and AZT. On the other hand, campaigns that advocate monogamy or abstinence and ubiquitous media claims that "safe sex" is the only way to avoid AIDS inadvertently scare Africans from visiting a public health clinic for fear of receiving a "fatal" AIDS diagnosis. Even Africans "with treatable medical conditions (such as tuberculosis) who perceive themselves as having HIV infection fail to seek medical attention because they think that they have an untreatable disease."(20)

Primary health care systems in Africa will remain hampered until public health planners systematically gather statistics on morbidity and mortality to accurately show what causes sickness and death in specific African countries. During the past ten years, as the external financing of HIV-based AIDS programs in Africa dramatically increased, money for studying other health problems remained static, even though deaths from malaria, tuberculosis, neo-natal tetanus, respiratory diseases, and diarrhea grew at alarming rates.(30)

While Western health leaders fixate on HIV, 52% of sub-Saharan Africans lack access to safe water, 62% lack proper sanitation, and an estimated 50 million pre-school children suffer from protein-calorie malnutrition.(31)...

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Political Economy of AIDS

The Political Economy of AIDS
Brian K. Murphy


Excerpt

..."Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), one of the supposedly rare diseases that most
definitively marked the onset of AIDS in North America, is neither new nor so very rare.
Identified in 1911, vulnerability to PCP is related to, among other things, prolonged
Vitamin A deficiency in drug addicts and alcoholics, and has been commonly diagnosed
among the malnourished in the Global South, particularly among young children in
Africa and Asia suffering from Kwashiorkor. (Root-Bernstein pointedly asks, “Why do
we call a patient who dies of Pneumocystis pneumonia [independent of HIV] unfortunate,
but one who dies of Pneumocystis pneumonia and HIV an AIDS tragedy?”)..."

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Questioning HIV/AIDS: Morally Reprehensible or Scientifically Warranted?

Questioning HIV/AIDS: Morally Reprehensible or
Scientifically Warranted?
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 12 Number 4
Winter 2007

Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D.

"...As already
noted, from the very beginning defenders of the mainstream
consensus have steadily declined, indeed specifically refused to
engage in substantive discussion.
We will not:
Engage in any public or private debate with AIDS
denialists or respond to requests from journalists who overtly supportAIDS denialist causes. The reasons are:
1. The debate has been settled: HIVcausesAIDS….
2. The information proving the above is already in the
peer-reviewed science literature….
3. Our time is better spent conducting research into
HIV/AIDS and/or educating the general public…."

"...The HIV =AIDS believers insist that the mainstream consensus
is so overwhelming that dissentersmust bewrong. History of science
is not kind to this argument. As scientific understanding has
advanced, sooner or later the most firmly held mainstream views
have been modified, indeed often overturned completely. Near the
end of the 19 century it was the consensus that all the major
discoveries had already been made—just before the Second
Scientific Revolution turned on their heads the firmly held beliefs
about atoms and much else. Medical science firmly believed that
schizophrenia could be cured by infecting the sufferer with malaria
(Nobel Prize, 1927) or by cutting out bits of brain (Nobel Prize, 1949)
before settling—for themoment?—on drugs.Diseases like mad cow
disease were firmly believed to be caused by lentiviruses (Nobel
Prize, 1976) until the firm belief became that they are caused not by
viruses but by prions (Nobel Prize, 1997). The proper, historically
informed questions to ask are:How likely is it that HIV/AIDS theory
will be significantly modified at some future time? What is likely to
stimulate modification?When is that likely to happen?..."

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Isolation of HIV

THE ISOLATION OF HIV: HAS IT REALLY BEEN ACHIEVED?
Dr. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, Dr. Valendar F. Turner , Dr.John M. Papadimitriou , Dr.David Causer
 Department of Medical Physics,  Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia;  Department of Pathology, University of Western Australia.

Excerpt

"...The definite existence of any virus, including a retrovirus, can be proven only by isolating it. For nearly half a century retroviruses have been isolated by banding in density gradients. It is accepted that the procedures incorporated into this method, which is by no means perfect, have not been followed by the researchers who claim isolation of the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-1. Nonetheless, it is said that at present, there is ample evidence that HIV has been isolated and shown to be a unique exogenous retrovirus.1  ..."

"...Although the HIV/AIDS experts, including Montagnier, Gallo and BarrĂ©-Sinoussi claim that RT is "unique to retroviruses" and "the hall-mark of a retrovirus", 6-8 this is not the case, a fact accepted by some of the best known scientists. 9 "Reverse transcriptase (RT) was first discovered as an essential catalyst in the biological cycle of retro-viruses. However, in the past years, evidence has accumulated showing that RTs are involved in a surprisingly large number of RNA-mediated transcriptional events that include both viral and nonviral genetic entities...the possibility that reverse transcription first took place in the early Archean" is supported by a number of facts and "the hypothesis that RNA preceded DNA as cellular genetic material". 10..."

Saturday, November 1, 2008

HIV and "Responsible Journalism"

HIV Science and Responsible Journalism
XVI International AIDS Conference
August 13, 2006

Excerpt

...The reporting of AIDS denialists has highlighted some important differences in the way in which medical scientists and reporters on medical science and their respective editors perceive and assess the import and accuracy of information. Clearly both have essential roles in free societies. But at what point can scientific controversies be considered settled? What criteria should be used in judging the validity of criticisms leveled by outsiders against the scientific establishment? What are the responsibilities of medical scientists, journalists and their editors, as both scientific journal editors and editors in the lay press, in keeping the public informed on these controversies and on the progress of the epidemic...."

"...Dr. John Moore, who is a professor at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, recognized expert on HIV and who’s recent work has focused on the search for microbicides as a preventive measure for HIV infection...

...But let’s have no doubt about this — this is dangerous stuff. AIDS denialism kills. I’m going to review who they are, who they are not, how they operate, what are some of the untold stories, and what journalists need to be on the lookout for...

...Now when I say that denialism kills, thousands of South African adults and children have died of AIDS because of the flawed government policies on HIV and AIDS. Nathan will talk to you more about that, but the South African government has been heavily influenced over the past six or seven years by AIDS denialists...

...Now the AIDS denialists abuse the peer-reviewed literature. They abuse science. They cite only old, long refuted papers as if they still represented state of the art knowledge, which they don’t. So they argue that TB, malaria, leprosy, pregnancy cause false positive tests in an HIV assay.."
Reappraisal of AIDS - 
Is the Oxidation Induced by the Risk Factors the Primary Cause?


Dr. Eleni
 Papadopulos- Biophysicist; Perth, Western Australia


According to Gallo et al, "The epidemiology of this syndrome - that is, the increasing incidence and clustering of cases, particularly in New York and California -suggest the involvement of a transmissible agent (28). However, around the time of the first AIDS report two important changes took place in homosexual's lifestyle in these areas: increase in promiscuity and exposure to drugs, especially nitrites (29,30). Although nitrites came into use in the United States in the late 1960's their use became widespread around 1975. It is of great interest that the latency for appearance of KS in patients treated with immunosuppressive agents for organ transplantation appears to be the same as that between homosexual exposure to nitrites and appearance of AIDS.