VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE

AIDS SCIENTIST WANTS TO JAIL ME

By Colman Jones

Now 4-10 May 2000

My eyes nearly popped out when I read that Montreal researcher Mark Wainberg wants AIDS dissidents -- people who maintain HIV is not the only cause of the syndrome -- locked up as threats to public health.

After all, I am one of those people. I never imagined simply reporting on other possible sexually-transmitted co-factors at work in AIDS -- like undetected syphilis -- could land me in jail.

But Wainberg's chief anger is directed more towards original HIV heretic Peter Duesberg, who denies AIDS has anything to do with sex at all. To Duesberg and his followers, recreational and medicinal drugs -- especially those used to treat HIV infection -- are to blame.

Unfortunately, most media reports lump together all HIV questioning as subscribing to this non-infectious model for AIDS.

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but such subtleties interfere with the simplistic rhetoric of Wainberg, who claims that "countless" individuals have died as a consequence of this AIDS heresy. Now that South African president Thabo Mbeki is reportedly lending an ear to Duesberg's slant on AIDS, I can see why Wainberg and others are up in arms.

But Mbeki has by no means "endorsed" Duesberg's views, as the Globe and Mail erroneously reported this week. And the controversial HIV/AIDS panel the leader has assembled -- meeting for the first time in Pretoria this weekend -- comprises a diverse cross-section of scientists, including physician Gordon Stewart, emeritus professor of public health at the University of Glasgow and a former World Health Organization adviser on AIDS.

Stewart told me last week that he strenuously objects to Duesberg's assertion that AIDS is non-infectious, warning that other highly communicable infections could easily play a role.

Wainberg has taken medical fascism to new heights -- especially given how little the HIV paradigm has produced after 16 years. Instead, we are being asked to plow further billions into research on a virus with a thousand different lethal strains.

To me, HIV scientists stand just as guilty as Duesberg, by monopolizing all research with their unproven viral construct, while ignoring ancient killers like syphilis. This deadly bacterial disease, rampant among populations first struck by AIDS, remains a potent candidate as a major unrecognized AIDS co-factor.

Research heavyweights like Wainberg remain intent on silencing anyone who dares challenge their comfy HIV-only empire. But they are the last people who should be self-righteous.

Colman Jones was honoured by the Canadian Science Writers Association with a 1999 Science in Society Journalism Award

VIRUSMYTH HOMEPAGE