AIDS Expert Panel
Pretoria, South Africa
May 6 & 7, 2000
Minority Statement and Recommendations to the Government of South Africa
By:
H. Bialy
E. de Harven
P. Duesberg
C. Fiala
R. Giraldo
A. Herxheimer
K. Koehnlein
R. Kothari
S. Mhlongo
D Rasnick
May 7, 2000
Given that the definitions of AIDS in the West and in Africa are so
different and have changed over time that in many cases an African
diagnosed with AIDS would not be considered an AIDS patient in the USA,
Europe and Australia, and that the critical question of whether Africans,
clinically diagnosed with AIDS are in fact HIV positive, the following
assertions are made:
1. AIDS is not contagious although many of the opportunistic manifestations
are,
2. AIDS is not sexually transmitted,
3. AIDS is not caused by HIV,
4. The admittedly toxic anti-HIV drugs are killing people,
5. The drug induced toxic effects are causing AIDS-defining conditions that
cannot be distinguished from AIDS.
These considerations lead to the following recommendations for the
treatment and prevention approaches to AIDS in South Africa and in other
African countries.
1. Devote the bulk of national and international biomedical and other
resources to the eradication and treatment of the predominant AIDS-defining
diseases in South Africa such as TB, malaria and enteric infections; the
improvement of nutrition; the provision of improved sanitation and clean
water.
2. Reject completely the use of anti-HIV drugs. These drugs inevitably
require significant amounts of compensatory medications and are claimed to
produce at best only short term benefits in seriously sick patients.
3. Promote sex education based on the fact that there are many STDs and
avoidable unwanted pregnancies.
4. Suspend dissemination of the psychologically destructive and false
message that HIV infection is invariably fatal.
5. Suspend HIV testing until its relevance is proved especially in the
African context, given the evidence of false positive results in a tropical
setting and the fact that most assumptions and predictions about AIDS in
Africa are based on HIV-tests.
Mbeki's Expert AIDS Panel
Johannesburg
July 3 & 4, 2000
David Rasnick, PhD
Tomorrow in the United States we celebrate our independence. I cannot think
of a better place to celebrate that independence than right here, among the
newly-free people of South Africa.
But to be truly free requires more than simply declaring that freedom.
President Thabo Mbeki and his ministers have shown that it takes courage,
leadership, and hard work to exercise the freedom of thought, the freedom
of speech, and the freedom of action.
There are many people, some of them are on this panel, who would limit
Mbeki's freedom of thought with regards to AIDS. President Mbeki is often
chided by people at home and abroad that he should leave scientific and
health matters to the scientists and physicians. But given the apocalyptic
pronouncements by those very same scientists and physicians, that up to a
quarter of South Africans will get AIDS and die, Mbeki, as head of state,
is duty-bound to involve himself deeply in all aspects of AIDS in order to
know what to do about it.
Mbeki and his ministers have gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to
provide the panel with the means and opportunity to lay out the best
evidence and arguments for and against the main issues in dispute:
1) Is AIDS contagious?
2) Is AIDS sexually transmitted?
3) Does HIV cause AIDS?
4) Do the anti-HIV drugs do more good than harm?
These questions go to the heart of what to do about AIDS in South Africa
because all of the mainstream recommendations assume the answers are yes.
But if the answers to the questions are no, as the minority contends, then
the mainstream recommendations are of little practical value and may
actually be harmful to the people of South Africa.
As these questions continue to go un-addressed and un-debated, the
Orwellian transformation of societal ills continues. On June 28, David
Briscoe of the Associated Press reported that, "U.S. concern for AIDS
abroad has increased with intelligence projections that the depth of the
AIDS crisis correlates with the likelihood of revolutionary wars, ethnic
conflicts, genocide and failure of partial democracies."
Not so long ago we honestly acknowledged that the bulk of the evils in the
world were our own doing. But now we are in the process of shifting the
blame to an innocent virus. The United States, it seems, is trying to add
"revolutionary wars, ethnic conflicts, genocide and failure of partial
democracies" to the already bloated list of AIDS-defining conditions.
Before we accept any of this, the first order of business is to quantify
the magnitude of AIDS in South Africa. Not HIV! I'm talking about AIDS, the
number of people with AIDS and the number who died of AIDS. Are the numbers
on the order of hundreds, thousands, or millions?
In 1992 AIDS peaked in USA
The cover of the CDC's HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Year-end edition, Vol
8, No. 2 (1996) shows a graph of the cumulative number of AIDS cases in the
USA by quarter for 1988 to the end of 1996. The curve is sigmoidal with an
inflection point in 1992, indicating that AIDS peaked in that year.
The cover of the 1997 edition of the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report shows an
estimated incidence of AIDS and deaths from AIDS by quarter-year in the USA
from 1985 to June 1997. This graph is not cumulative. It shows the number
of new cases of AIDS over time with a noticeable bump and peak at the end
of 1992. AIDS in the USA has been going down steadily ever since. The bump
in the graph reflects the CDC's definition change in 1993 of what
constitutes AIDS in the USA.
The graph on the cover of the 1997 edition of the HIV/AIDS Surveillance
Report shows a smooth distribution of what are meant to be taken as data
points that determine the shapes of the AIDS incidence and mortality
curves. However, these "data point" are fictitious. For instance, the
initial linear AIDS incidence curve gets smoothly steeper in 1991
anticipating the 1993 definition change that the CDC was to incorporate in
that year. Figure 6 on page 25 of the 1997 edition of the HIV/AIDS
Surveillance Report shows what the real data (that is, real number of AIDS
cases) looked like. Again, Figure 6 shows that the number of new AIDS cases
leveled off in 1992. Then, dramatically, there was a more than two-fold
boost in the number of new AIDS cases in 1993. Overnight we had twice as
many new AIDS cases.
But even with the tremendous increase in the number of new AIDS cases due
to the 1993 change in the definition of what constitutes AIDS in the USA,
the number of new AIDS cases still continued to decline. There were, and
still are, fewer and fewer new AIDS cases in the USA. In other words, AIDS
peaked in the USA in 1992 and has been going away.
The 1994 edition of the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report makes this point even
more dramatically. Figure 6 on page 25 shows the incidence of new AIDS
cases according to three different definitions of AIDS: the pre-1987
definition, the 1987 definition, and the 1993 definition. Using either the
pre-1987 or even the 1987 definition of AIDS, Figure 6 shows that AIDS is
virtually over in the USA in 1994 (20,000 new cases annually and declining
instead of the 70,000 new cases based on the 1993 definition, but still
declining).
Unfortunately, it is not possible to track the demise of AIDS in the USA
beyond 1997 because the CDC has stopped providing this information. Since
1997, the CDC no longer shows AIDS cases by quarter-year (Figure 6) , or by
definition (Figure 6, Table 11), or by AIDS-indicator conditions (Table
12). Now we are only supposed to think about HIV.
Dave Rasnick
Decline in AIDS deaths
From the previous post entitled "1992 AIDS peaked in USA" the CDC's own
HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports show that AIDS peaked in 1992 and has been
going down steadily ever since. This fact alone is sufficient to explain
the reduction in AIDS deaths since 1993.
I was born during the baby-boom following World War II. It was a fairly
easy calculation to determine that 16 years after the peak of the baby-boom
there would be a peak in driver's license applications in the USA since age
16 is when most Americans start driving. The federal government could
reliably calculate that 65 years after the baby boom there would be a peak
in the number of people who retire from work. And 75 years from the peak of
the baby-boom - well let's just say that morticians will be doing a booming
business.
The point is clear: the mortality rate from AIDS is dropping because AIDS
has been declining in the USA since 1992, years before the introduction of
the HIV-protease inhibitor cocktails. Nevertheless, the mainstream press
and mainstream AIDS researchers have given the credit to the protease
inhibitor cocktails (known as HAART) for the decline in AIDS deaths in the
USA. This is in spite of the fact that there is no clinical data that shows
that these drugs actually prolong life. Indeed, the opposite is true (see
other posts for details).
The apparent life-saving benefits of the HIV-protease inhibitor cocktails
is a consequence of the simple fact that these drugs have appeared on the
scene long after AIDS peaked in the USA, during a period when the mortality
due to AIDS was naturally in decline. Grotesquely, these anti-HIV drugs are
actually slowing the decline in mortality since they are very toxic and
lethal if taken long enough. There would be fewer deaths if the anti-HIV
drugs were not used.
Another reason for the decline in AIDS deaths is a direct consequence of
the CDC's re-definition of what constitutes AIDS in the USA. Well over half
of all new AIDS cases in the USA now represent people who aren't even sick.
As of 1993 all you needed to qualify as an AIDS case is the results from
two lab tests: be immune to HIV, that is have antibodies to the virus, and
have fewer than 200 CD4 cells per microliter of blood or a CD4 percentage
less than 14. In 1997, 36,634 people (61% of all new AIDS cases) were
classified under this non-disease category. Regrettably, we can no longer
follow the trend of including healthy people as AIDS cases because the CDC
no longer lists the AIDS-indicator conditions (formerly Table 12) in its
HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports.
I say the 36,634 new AIDS cases in 1997 are healthy people because the CDC
has a rule that a person is always classified as an AIDS case based on the
earliest definition that he or she qualifies under. Table 12 on page 18 of
the 1997 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report takes up a full page with a host of
diseases and conditions that qualify as AIDS-indicating and the number of
people reported for each. The 36,634 people (61% of the total of new AIDS
cases for 1997) did not have any of those diseases or conditions. Hence,
they are disease and condition-free, otherwise known as healthy.
As a consequence of the CDC's 1993 definition of AIDS, over half of the
people treated with the anti-HIV drug cocktails in the USA since 1996 (the
year the HIV protease inhibitor cocktails became available) are healthy.
The mainstream AIDS press and mainstream AIDS researchers are crediting
HAART with prolonging the lives of these healthy people. Sadly, these
healthy people on HAART don't stay healthy long, and they eventually die
from the drugs if they stay on them long enough.
Dave Rasnick
Animal models of AIDS
I've worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years and have made
protease inhibitors for arthritis, cancer, emphysema and parasitic
diseases. In each case there is at least one animal model (frequently many)
that is used to study the pathology of those diseases. One of the most
valuable uses of animal models is that experimental drugs can be tested in
animals to see if they show any therapeutic benefit. I personally have used
6 different animal models of arthritis to test my protease inhibitors for
that disease.
To my knowledge, none of the anti-HIV drugs has ever been tested in any of
the so-called animal models of AIDS. For example, there are at least 150
chimpanzees that have been infected with HIV for nearly 20 years, yet not
one of the anti-HIV drugs has been tested in these animals. Why not?
Virtually everything we know about the effects of the anti-HIV drugs has
been derived from human use. Increasingly, the lessons we learn are from
people taking these drugs in Africa, South America, and now creeping
towards Asia.
There is no clinical trial in humans that shows whether people who take the
anti-HIV drugs live longer or at least better lives than a similar group of
HIV positive people who do not take the drugs. All of the clinical trials
since AZT have been terminated prematurely, well before it could be
determined if the drugs did more good than harm. (The AZT clinical trials,
by the way, showed that people taking the drug died at a faster rate than
those that did not take the AZT.)
In spite of the lack of evidence that the anti-HIV drugs promote health and
well-being, there is tremendous evidence that these drugs are very toxic
and even lethal. (See my post entitled "Dissidents in the Mainstream" for
evidence supporting the tremendous toxicity of these drugs and lack of
efficacy. More extensive evidence can be found in the paper by Duesberg and
me entitled: The AIDS Dilemma: drug disease blamed on a passenger virus
(1998) Genetica 104: 85-132.)
From my experience in drug development and 19 years studying AIDS, I
suspect the reason that the anti-HIV drugs have not been tested in animal
models of AIDS (at least no reports of these studies if they exist) is that
the animal models are not models of AIDS. (I'm sure this is true for the
HIV infected animals since none has gotten AIDS.) If the anti-HIV drugs
were tested in these animals I predict that the drug-treated animals would
develop AIDS-defining diseases and quickly die.
It is very easy to prove me wrong by simply treating the HIV positive
chimps with HAART as prescribed for humans and see what happens. My
sympathy goes out to the chimps.
Dave Rasnick
Dissidents in the ranks of mainstream AIDS researchers
Jay Levy, UCSF
AIDS surrogate markers, is there truth in numbers?, JAMA vol 276, pages
161-162 (1996)
Commenting in 1996 on Abbott's report of increased survival in its HIV
protease inhibitor clinical trial Levy said:
"can one really report a 50% increase in survival based on only 6 months
of treatment and results that reflect 4.8% (treated) vs 8.4% (untreated) of
the subjects studied?"
"With all the hoopla about antiviral drugs, and you get any virologist
aside and they'll say this is not how we are going to win, it's high time
we look at the immune system"
Two years later Levy is still unconvinced that the anti-HIV drugs do more
good than harm:
The Lancet 352 (1998): 982-983.
"The clinical state (if the person is without symptoms) is not a major
determinant [to administering anti-HIV drugs]: it is the [viral load] numbers
that appear to decide the therapeutic course. I take issue with that
approach."
"[T]hese drugs can be toxic and can be directly detrimental to a natural
immune response to HIV. This effective antiviral immune response is
characteristic of long-term survivors who have not been on any therapy.
[T]he current antiviral therapies do not bring about the results achieved
by a natural host anti-HIV response. This immune response, observed in
long-term survivors, maintains control of HIV replication without the need
for antiviral treatment."
A. N. Phillips and G. D. Smith,
The New England Journal of Medicine 336, no. 13 (1997): 958-959.
"No randomized trials in asymptomatic patients have established that those
treated early survive any longer than those for whom treatment is deferred.
Extended follow-up of patients in one trial, the Concorde study, has shown
a significantly increased risk of death among the patients treated early.
The suggestion is that the situation is different for combination therapy.
But where is the evidence?"
"There is no more hard evidence now of the benefits of early therapy than
there was in 1990. We need new randomized trials to determine whether the
notion that was probably not true in the era of [AZT] monotherapy-that
early therapy prolongs survival as compared with deferred therapy-is now
true."
Don Abrams, SF General Hospital
Tanaka, M. Abrams cautious on use of new AIDS drugs, Synapse vol 4, pages 1
& 5 (1996)
"In contrast with many of my colleagues, I am not necessarily a
cheerleader for anti-retroviral therapy. I have been one of the people
who's questioned, from the beginning, whether or not we're really making an
impact with HIV drugs and, if we are making an impact, if it's going in the
right direction."
"I have a large population of people who have chosen not to take any
antiretrovirals They've watched all of their friends go on the antiviral
bandwagon and die, so they've chose to remain naïve [to therapy]. More and
more, however, are now succumbing to pressure that protease inhibitors are
'it' We are in the middle of the honeymoon period, and whether or not this
is going to be an enduring marriage is unclear to me at this time"
The Italian Register for HIV Infection in Children
"Rapid disease progression in HIV-1 perinatally infected children born to
mothers receiving zidovudine monotherapy during pregnancy" AIDS 13: 927-933
(1999).
"The probability of developing severe disease at 3 years of life was
significantly higher in children born to [AZT+] mothers...than in those
born to [AZT-] mothers... . The same pattern was observed for severe
immune suppression: the probability of developing severe immune suppression
was significantly higher in the children born to [AZT+] mothers... than
born to [AZT-] mothers... . Finally, survival probability was lower in
children born to [AZT+] mothers...compared with children born to
[AZT-] mothers..."
In short, if a mother takes AZT during pregnancy, her newborn is much more
likely to get severely sick and die by age 3 than a newborn whose mother
did not take AZT during pregnancy.
Amanda Mocroft et al.
"Anaemia is an independent predictive marker for clinical prognosis of
HIV-infected patients from across Europe" AIDS 13: 943-950 (1999).
These authors looked at 6725 patients from EuroSIDA, a prospective study in
52 centers across Europe.
They "found a strong relationship between haemoglobin, CD4 lymphocyte count
and risk of death."
Their results showed that patients with severe anemia had from 30 to 90
times the risk of death compared to patients with a normal hemoglobin
level.
There is no mystery to this extraordinarily high risk of mortality since
the authors provide the answer themselves:
"Patients with mild or severe anaemia were significantly more likely to
have taken zidovudine [AZT] at some stage... . In addition, patients with
anaemia, mild or severe, were much more likely to have been diagnosed with
AIDS..."
"We found that 78.2% of the patients with mild or severe anaemia at
baseline had received zidovudine [AZT]..."
O. A. Olivero et al.
"Incorporation of zidovudine into leukocyte DNA from HIV-1-positive adults
and pregnant women, and cord blood from infants exposed in utero" (1999)
AIDS 13: 919-925.
"further study of the biological consequences of [AZT]-induced DNA damage
in the human population is warranted."
R. van Leeuwen, et al.
"Additive or sequential nucleoside analogue therapy compared with continued
zidovudine monotherapy in HIV-infected patients with advanced disease does
not prolong survival: an observational study" R. van Leeuwen, et al. (1997)
The Journal of Infectious Diseases 175, 1344-1351.
"Additive or sequential treatment was associated with an increased risk of
death."
S. Lindbäck, et al.
"Long-term prognosis following zidovudine monotherapy in primary HIV type 1
infections" S. Lindbäck, et al., (1999) The Journal of Infectious Diseases
179, 1549-1552.
"Zidovudine treatment initiated during primary HIV (PHIV) infection did not
improve long-term outcome after symptomatic PHIV infection."
K. Brinkman, et al.
"Mitochondrial toxicity induced by nucleoside-analogue
reverse-transcriptase inhibitors is a key factor in the pathogenesis of
antiretroviral-therapy-related lipodystrophy" K. Brinkman, et al., (1999)
The Lancet 354, 1112-1115.
"nearly all side-effects that have been attributed to the use of NRTIs,
such as polyneuropathy, myopathy, cardiomyopathy, pancreatitis, bone-marrow
suppression, and lactic acidosis, greatly resemble the spectrum of clinical
manifestations seen in inherited mitochrondrial diseases."
Anthony Fauci
1997 Year of the Crash
New York Times, Friday, August 22, 1997, Page 1.
Despite New AIDS Drugs, Many Still Lose the Battle, By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
"'There is an increasing percentage of people in whom, after a period of
time, the virus breaks through,' said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director [NIAID].
'People do quite well for six months, eight months or a year, and after a
while, in a significant proportion, the virus starts to come back.'"
"No one knows the true extent of the problem, but Fauci estimates that when
these cases of 'viral breakthrough' are accounted for, the failure rate of
the new drug cocktails may eventually run as high as 50 percent."
Disclaimer attached to Merck's HIV protease inhibitor
"Crixivan is not a cure for HIV or AIDS. People taking Crixivan may still
develop infections or other conditions associated with HIV. Because of
this, it is very important for you to remain under the care of a doctor.
It is not yet known whether taking Crixivan will extend your life or reduce
your chances of getting other illnesses associated with HIV. Information
about how well the drug works is available from clinical studies up to 24
weeks."
From the 1997 NIH Guidelines to physicians for the Use of Anti-retroviral
Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents
"The physician and the patient should be fully aware that therapy of
primary HIV infection is based on theoretical considerations, and the
potential benefits, should be weighed against the potential risks."
"[N]o long term clinical benefit of treatment has yet been demonstrated."
Theoretical rationale is fourfold:
* to suppress viral replication
* to potentially decrease the severity of acute disease
* to potentially alter the initial viral "set point," which may
ultimately affect the rate of disease progression
* to possibly reduce the rate of viral mutation due to the
suppression of viral replication.
This theoretical rationale is the only basis on which authorities endorse
treatment of HIV infection.
VIRAL LOAD
From the front page, third paragraph of Roche's insert for the AMPLICOR
viral load PCR test:
"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."
False positive or false negative? Depends on the answer you want.
Schwartz D. H. et al.
"Extensive evaluation of a seronegative participant in an HIV-1 vaccine
trial as a result of false-positive PCR" (1997) The Lancet 350: 256-259.
* Tested positive by PCR, but antibody negative.
* Viral load of 100,000 copies RNA per ml, called false positive.
* $5000 worth of PCR to get the "right" answer-negative.
Christine Defer et al.
"Multicentre quality control of polymerase chain reaction [viral load] for
detection of HIV DNA" (1992) AIDS 6: 659-663
"False-positive and false-negative results were observed in all
laboratories (concordance with serology ranged from 40 to 100%)."
Michael P. Busch et al.
"Poor sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of detection of HIV-1
DNA in serum by polymerase chain reaction" (1992) Journal of Acquired
Immune Deficiency 5: 872-877.
"The results indicate that current techniques for detecting cell-free HIV-1
DNA in serum lack adequate sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility
for widespread clinical applications."
"In any event, the levels of viral (and cellular) DNA in serum appear to be
so low that reproducible detection, even with use of PCR, is not currently
possible."
Josiah D. Rich et al.
"Misdiagnosis of HIV infection by HIV-1 plasma viral load testing: a case
series" (1999) Annals of Internal Medicine 130: 37-39.
"The availability of sensitive assays for plasma HIV viral load and the
trend toward earlier and more aggressive treatment of HIV infection has led
to the inappropriate use of these assays as primary tools for the diagnosis
of acute HIV infection."
"Physicians should exercise caution when using the plasma viral load assays
to detect primary HIV infection"
"Plasma viral load tests for HIV-1 were neither developed nor evaluated for
the diagnosis of HIV infection"
M. Piatak et al.
"High levels of HIV-1 in plasma during all stages of infection determined
by competitive PCR" (1993) Science 259: 1749-1754.
"Plasma virus levels determined by QC-PCR correlated with, but exceeded by
an average of 60,000-fold, virus titers measured by endpoint dilution
culture."
In fact, 53% of the viral load positive patients had no culturable HIV.
"For HIV-1 propagated in vitro, total virions have been reported to exceed
culturable infectious units by factors of 10,000 to 10,000,000, ratios
similar to those we observed in plasma."
Haynes W. Sheppard et al.
"Viral burden and HIV disease" (1993) Nature 364: 291.
"the high level of plasma virus observed by Piatak et al. [reference
above] was about 99.9 per cent non-culturable, suggesting that it was
either neutralized or defective. Therefore, rather than supporting a
cytopathic model, this observation actually may help explain the relatively
slow dissemination of the infected cell burden and thus the relative
ineffectiveness of therapy with nucleoside analogues which target this
process.
"we question the longitudinal conclusions some of these investigators have
drawn from cross-sectional data. The results presented are equally
consistent with the conclusion that higher viraemia is a consequence of,
rather than the proximate cause of, defective immune responses."
Anti-HIV drugs fail in children
I have scoured the literature for evidence that the anti-HIV drugs actually
prolong the lives, or at least improve the quality of the lives, of the
children given these drugs. In short: I could not find any support for
either possibility. Below are representative examples of the published
studies.
To begin with, not one study included any control groups of children, i.e.
HIV negative children or mothers from similar backgrounds, or HIV positive
children followed over time who were not given the drugs. In fact, the
following paper was blunt enough to acknowledge these shortcomings.
From O. A. Olivero et al. in their paper entitled "Incorporation of
zidovudine into leukocyte DNA from HIV-1-positive adults and pregnant
women, and cord blood from infants exposed in utero" (1999) AIDS 13:
919-925:
"We show here that [AZT] is incorporated into leukocyte DNA of most
individuals receiving [AZT] therapy, including infants exposed to the drug
in utero. further study of the biological consequences of [AZT]-induced DNA
damage in the human population is warranted."
From a recent Italian study entitled "Rapid disease progression in HIV-1
perinatally infected children born to mothers receiving zidovudine
monotherapy during pregnancy" AIDS 13: 927-933 (1999):
"The probability of developing severe disease at 3 years of life was
significantly higher in children born to [AZT+] mothers than in those born
to [AZT-] mothers. The same pattern was observed for severe immune
suppression: the probability of developing severe immune suppression was
significantly higher in children born to [AZT+] mothers than born to [AZT-]
mothers. Finally, survival probability was lower compared with children
born to [AZT-] mothers."
In short, if a mother takes AZT during pregnancy, her newborn is much more
likely to get severely sick and die by age 3 than a newborn whose mother
did not take AZT during pregnancy.
From the paper by R. E. McKinney et al. entitled "A multicenter trial of
oral zidovudine in children with advanced human immunodeficiency virus
disease" The New England Journal of Medicine 324: 1018-1025 (1991), I
quote:
"Although no control group was available for direct comparison, the
improvement in the children in this study closely paralleled the
observations in controlled studies of adults receiving zidovudine [AZT]."
That is, in addition to no control groups, this study showed that AZT has
similar effects in children as in adults. We have previously documented
that AZT accelerates the deaths of those taking that drug compared to HIV
positive people who do not take AZT.
Further on the authors state that, "Children treated with zidovudine
continued to have bacterial and opportunistic infections. The effect of the
drug on the frequency of these events could not be assessed because of the
lack of control groups." In other words, AZT did them no good. The lack of
control groups is not exceptional but is actually policy.
There are many other wonderful quotes from this paper but I want to leave
it and move on after adding that in the study of 88 children, "One or more
episodes of hematologic toxicity occurred in 54 children (61
percent)óanemia (hemoglobin level,<75g per liter) in 23 children (26
percent) and neutropenia (neutrophil count, <0.75X10^9 per liter) in 42 (48
percent)."
Another example from the literature of pediatric anti-HIV drug studies is
the paper by L. L. Lewis et al. entitled "Lamivudine in children with human
Immunodeficiency virus infection: A phase I/II study" The Journal of
Infectious Diseases 174: 16-25 (1996).
Again, no control groups in this study. The authors acknowledge that the
nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors, including the study
compound Lamivudine, act as a DNA chain terminators. There is no data in
the paper showing that the drug does anything good for the children. On the
contrary, among 90 children in the study, "11 children had been withdrawn
from study for disease progression [in other words, it didn't work for
them] and 10 because of possible lamivudine-related toxicity, and 6 had
died."
In short, about 1/3 of the children clearly did not benefit from the drug
and there was no report of children who benefited other than the lab
reports that p24 and viral load decreased. Those lab tests were the only
positive indicators the authors reported that the drug did anything
desirable from their perspective.
Another example in the pediatric literature is by M. W. Kline et al.,
entitled "A randomized comparative trial of Stavudine (d4T) versus
zidovudine (ZDV, AZT) in children with human immunodeficiency virus
infection" Pediatrics 101: 214-220 (1998).
I quote: "Until recently, zidovudine (ZDV, AZT) was considered the drug of
choice for initial therapy of symptomatic HIV-infected children.
Unfortunately, therapy with ZDV sometimes is limited by intolerance,
toxicity, or HIV disease progression." In other words, AZT doesn't work.
The study showed that Stavudine and AZT were comparable. So, Stavudine is
no advance over AZT.
Another example is by M. W. Kline et al., entitled "A phase I/II evaluation
of Stavudine (d4T) in children with human immunodeficiency virus infection"
Pediatrics 96: 247-252 (1995).
"Thirty-five of 37 subjects experienced serious clinical adverse events,
including infection (33 subjects), lymphadenopathy (19 subjects),
hepatosplenomegaly (15 subjects), chills and fever (12 subjects), and
development of an AIDS-defining condition (four subjects).
"Clinical adverse events of lesser severity that were reported by more than
20% of subjects included rhinitis (76%), cough (70%), diarrhea (68%), rash
(62%), nausea and vomiting (51%), abdominal pain (43%), anorexia (41%),
respiratory disorder (38%), headache (35%), pharyngitis (32%), pruritis
(30%), pain (22%), peripheral neurologic symptoms (22%), and nervousness
(22%)."
In the last paragraph of the paper, the authors had the temerity to
conclude that, "stavudine appears to hold promise for treatment for HIV
infection in children. Its pharmacokinetic properties are consistent and
predictable, and it appears to be remarkably well-tolerated and safe.
Although our study was not designed to assess the drug's efficacy for
treatment of HIV infection, preliminary clinical and laboratory evidence of
activity was observed."
One can only wonder if the authors were talking about their own results.
The last incredible example is by P. A. Pizzo et al., entitled "Effect of
continuous intravenous infusion of zidovudine (AZT) in children with
symptomatic HIV infection" New England Journal of Medicine 319: 889-896
(1988).
The authors studied 21 children. "Transfusion was required in 14 patients
because of low levels of hemoglobin. Dose-limiting neutropenia occurred in
most patients who received doses of 1.4 mg per kilogram per hour or more."
"The major limitation of the therapy was hematologic toxicity - a decrease in
both the hemoglobin concentration and the white-cell count."
"Regardless of the starting dose, nearly all patients had a transient drop
in their neutrophil counts within 10 days of the initiation of AZT
therapy."
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse there is this incredible statement:
"In three of the five children who died, evidence of a response to AZT,
particularly neurodevelopmental improvement, was present at the time of
death."
That is the ultimate example of "the operation was a success though the
patient died" cliché.
Break the Silence
Joseph Sonnabend complains that, "Some of the messages have been
confrontational and to me, as a physician treating a very large number of
AIDS patients, some comments by people who have no responsibility for the
care of sick people have been quite offensive, and thus hardly encouraging
of a reply."
This attitude reminds me of another physician in San Francisco who
responded to my questions by reciting his resume as an AIDS care-giver. He
proudly proclaimed that he had seen 600 of his patients die of AIDS. That
somehow was intended to put me in my place since I'm not a physician and
donít treat AIDS patients. However, if his statement was proof of anything
it was that he didn't know what to do for those 600 patients.
President Mbeki is not a physician; he doesn't treat AIDS patients. Would
Joseph Sonnabend take offense and remain silent if Mbeki personally asked
him why he believes AIDS is contagious, sexually transmitted and caused by
HIV? Or how does Sonnabend know that people taking the anti-HIV drugs live
longer or at least better lives than HIV positive people who do not take
the drugs?
By including the "dissidents" in a Room-C discussion with mainstream
scientists and physicians, Mbeki is asking the majority these very
questions. Why else would he and his ministers go to such great personal
trouble and expense to bring the mainstream and the dissidents together - so
we could split up into rooms A and B and get on with business as usual? I
think not.
If Sonnabend and the other members of the majority are put-off by the tone
of some of the remarks and questions by members of the minority, that is
nothing compared to the outrage the people of the world will express when
they find out that everything they have been told over the years about AIDS
was based on little more than beliefs and "overwhelming evidence" that no
one seems willing or capable of providing. It's not enough for the majority
to simply say "take our word for it."
In the spirit of the International AIDS Conference to be held in Durban, I
ask the majority to BREAK THE SILENCE.
Dave Rasnick
As a reminder, I am making available only my written contributions to
Mbeki's expert AIDS panel. I do not have the time or energy to do this for
the entire panel discussions. There must be hundreds of megabytes of stuff
on that. The Government of SA is making available the taped discussions via
the internet. I have not downloaded that information because each file is
about 10 megabytes or larger. I think the information should be put on CDs.
Dave
Dear Dr. Sonnabend,
You ask, "what kind of evidence would satisfy [me] that AIDS is sexually
transmitted? [You] accept that AIDS is sexually transmitted. An important
reason is that HIV is sexually transmissable."
First things first. Let's start with where I have lived for almost 20
years. Warren Winkelstein of UCB told us just last November that AIDS in
San Francisco is still 99% male after 19 years of AIDS. Nationwide, the CDC
reports that 8 out of 9 AIDS cases are male since 1981. If AIDS is sexually
transmitted in the USA then HIV prefers to cause AIDS in men. A very smart
virus.
A simpler explanation of these facts is that AIDS in the USA is not
sexually transmitted. This simpler explanation is supported by the US Army
and Jobs Corps studies (referenced in Exhibit C for the defense) showing
that the distribution of antibodies against HIV are equally distributed
between men and women yet AIDS in this age group is 85% male? This shows
that HIV (if you accept that antibodies to HIV equals HIV infection)
behaves as you would expect by being blind to whether or not you are male
or female - yet AIDS itself prefers males.
If you have better evidence, I'm all ears.
Second, how do you know that HIV is sexually transmitted. The studies I
have referenced on this site by Padian and others refute that outright.
What evidence do you have that HIV is sexually transmitted?
Again, I'm all ears.
To summarize. You say that you accept that AIDS is sexually transmitted but
you don't offer any reasons why you accept that other than to say because
HIV is sexually transmitted. And I have shown you evidence that HIV is not
sexually transmitted and AIDS is not sexually transmitted. Since you rely
so heavily on HIV, what is your evidence that HIV is sexually transmitted?
You say, "I presume that evidence that HIV is sexually transmissable would
not do much for you, or would it?" It would be a good start. What is the
evidence?
Then you say, "If you accepted this then presumably you would say that HIV
is sexually transmissable but that it does not cause AIDS. Then the issue
would mainly be about the relationship of HIV to AIDS, and not really that
of sexual transmissability."
You still have to explain why this agent that is said to cause AIDS and is
sexually transmitted prefers to cause AIDS in men 8 out of 9 times.
"Would you place any significance on my experience treating people with
AIDS for 20 years as well as that of others who have not infrequently seen
HIV infection, and AIDS appear in previously healthy individuals following
sexual contact with patients with AIDS? "
Simple answer. No! That proves nothing. You might as well say that you have
frequently seen HIV infection and AIDS appear in previously healthy
individuals following a night at the theater or after swimming 50 laps or
eating watermelon or the like.
However, if you were to tell me that you have frequently seen HIV infection
and AIDS appear in previously healthy individuals following anti-HIV
therapy I would be more inclined to accept that because that observation
would be consistent with the published literature.
You ask, "would information that condom use has reduced the incidence of
AIDS be acceptable?"
Why ask? Just provide the evidence.
"Would information that higher HIV viral loads are associated with a
greater probability of infecting a sexual partner mean anything?"
Why ask? Just provide the evidence.
"So would you tell me the kind of evidence you would consider as indicating
that AIDS is sexually transmitted, and particularly whether you believe
that HIV is sexually transmissable."
Any evidence would be a start. A beginning would be to provide the
published evidence that has convinced you that both HIV and AIDS are
sexually transmitted.
Dave Rasnick
Dr. Sonnabend you say, "You have at least clarified for me that you do not
believe that HIV is sexually transmitted. How is it transmitted in your
opinion?"
A world-authority on retroviruses, Peter Duesberg, has published widely on
these wee beasties. In this forum he (and I think Bialy as well) has said
that HIV, like all other retroviruses, is transmitted from mother to child.
That's how all of us acquire retroviruses, from our mothersónot from sex!
A recent textbook (sorry for not having the reference at hand, but I can
get it for you) estimates that up to 2% of the human genome is made up of
retroviral DNA sequences. If that figure is even close it argues strongly
against sexual transmission being responsible for the presence all that
retroviral DNA.
I will let the virologists continue this line of argument.
"I must have been less clear in my proposal on heterosexual transmission as
I did cite evidence that higher HIV viral loads are associated with
enhanced heterosexual transmission of HIV. The paper I referred to is by
Quinn. It is not the only report of this association."
I see the source of your confusion. You equate HIV-viral load test results
with honest-to-God viral load. The only thing HIV-viral load test results
have in common with honest-to-God viral load is the name.
When the FDA approved the Roche viral load test for the monitoring of
anti-HIV therapy it specifically excluded the use of viral load to diagnose
HIV or even AIDS. I refer you to the document that comes with Roche's viral
load test. On the first page, 3rd paragraph, it says that the test is not
intended for use to diagnose HIV or AIDS. The same is true, by the way, for
the ELISA and western blot tests for antibodies to HIV, which you probably
use to determine if a person is infected by HIV.
So we have two bogus tests confirming each other.
A good reason for this prohibition on using the viral load test to actually
represent infectious virus is the report by Piatak et al., in Science vol
259, 1749-1754 (1993), where 53% of their patients with high viral loads
had no detectable infectious virus using the extreme amplification of the
co-culture technique. Among all the patients, the authors found that only
an average of 1 in 60,000 putative HIV viral particles was infectious. They
quoted literature that reported the figure was as low as 1 in 10,000,000.
I have posted other references that refute the use of HIV viral load
testing as representing viable, infectious HIV. HIV viral load testing is a
fraud. It misleads people into thinking that it actually measures
honest-to-God HIV viral load.
"The association of HIV infection with sexual exposure is quite different
in this respect to the association of infection with a night at the theater
or eating watermelon as you suggested."
My point was to show that there are lots of other things going on in
peoples' lives other than sex and AIDS. From your statement, you
apparently considered antibodies to HIV and sex as the only things that
significantly bear on their health. I'm pretty sure that is not true, but
it certainly seems like it.
"How many people treated with penicillin, who recovered from previously
fatal pneumococcal pneumonia would you need to observe to conclude that a
causative link is highly probable?
That is a very confusing question. Let me see if I understand your logic
and question. How many people treated with penicillin, who recovered from
previously fatal pneumococcal pneumonia would I need to observe to conclude
that a causative link is highly probable? Do you mean a causal link between
the use of penicillin and people recovering from pneumococcal pneumonia? I
would say that this is justification for the use of penicillin to treat
pneumonia.
However, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet shown that viruses in
general, HIV in particular, are treatable with penicillin. Therefore, I
don't think you are trying to make the connection between penicillin and
HIV, are you? You did say pneumococcal pneumonia, not HIV pneumonia, right?
Because I've never heard of HIV pneumonia.
"I treat HIV infection with some success in not a few people with the help
of anti HIV drugs."
In order to know how to respond to this statement you need to define what
you mean by success; how you measure it. Is it prolonging life of seriously
ill AIDS patients by 2 months, as you said in Pretoria in early May?
"I do not know of any credible literature that demonstrates that anti HIV
drugs can cause AIDS."
That implies that you know of literature that does show that anti-HIV drugs
can cause AIDS but that literature is not credible. Is that literature not
credible because of what it shows? Perhaps you should let each of us
determine for ourselves what is and is not credible literature.
Dave Rasnick
Dear Dr. Sonnabend,
I want you to know that to me your contributions to this internet
discussion from the majority's position is almost unique and by far the
most useful. Thank you for your efforts.
Back to the anti-retroviral drugs. You say that the reason the anti-HIV
drugs are saving the lives of your patients is because they inhibit HIV
replication. That's one possibility; however, I think there are simpler
reasons.
As Peter Duesberg has said, the nucleoside analog drugs, e.g. AZT, are true
Antibiotics - they are anti-life. They will kill anything that requires
synthesis of DNA. That's pretty damn near everything living, including
people.
Therefore, I have no doubt that these "antibiotics" would reduce the burden
of infectious agents in your seriously ill AIDS patients in the short term.
Perhaps this is the source of the Lazarus effect you are seeing.
You did not answer my question of before which specifically addresses this
point. Do your AIDS patients, who benefit from the anti-HIV drugs, take the
drugs only while they are symptomatic? Or do they continue to take the
drugs for the rest of their lives, religiously every day, to stave off the
dreaded mutants?
This is not a trivial, technical point I'm trying to make. It is crucial.
The current publicly promoted use of the anti-HIV drugs is for the
religious (in some cases observed and even forced) consumption of these
drugs by HIV positive people for life.
If your seriously ill AIDS patients are benefiting from the "antibiotic"
properties of the anti-HIV drugs, then perhaps these admittedly very toxic
drugs could be replaced with conventional antibiotics. If this strategy
worked, it would have profound implications for treating AIDS around the
world.
If the conventional antibiotics are less effective than the D-Day assault
with the anti-HIV drugs, then drug development should be aimed at the
coming up with more effective antibiotics for AIDS patients. Do you know if
this is being done?
One last point. I would love to visit your hospital and meet your
Lazarus-effect patients. I hear about these folks but I have never met one.
I certainly havenít found an authentic example in the scientific, medical
literature. I haven't read everything, so perhaps there are documented
examples. But if they exist, they are rare.
Dave Rasnick
Dear Moderators,
You ask 3 questions that I hope the mainstream participants will feel
comfortable addressing. Here's how I view your questions:
(1) "What is the role of these co-factors in newborn infants who test HIV
positive and progress to AIDS in a short period of time without prior
significant exposure to oxidants?"
Naturally, it would help if you could provide a reference to the literature
that describes these infants to which you refer. That way we have something
specific and concrete to analyze instead of your general, hypothetical
newborn HIV-positive infants.
If you are able to supply such examples of newborn infants, then you must
demonstrate that the HIV-positive infants progress to AIDS (that is, come
down with AIDS-defining diseases and which ones) faster than a similar
group of HIV-negative infants with the same diseases.
(2) "What is the role of immune suppressants in adults who are not
malnourished, are not poor and do not have a significant medical history of
repeated infections but who none the less are HIV+ and also later develop
AIDS."
Again, you need to provide a reference to the literature that describes
these immune suppressed adults to which you refer. Otherwise, your question
is little more than hypothetical speculation.
Nevertheless, I will provide a more than hypothetical answer to your
hypothetical question. What commonly happens to people once they are
labeled as HIV positive? The same thing that happens to anyone given a
death sentence. He's scared to death. And since in your scenario our
hypothetical HIV+ person is not poor, then he will be given a life-time
prescription of the highly toxic and ultimately lethal cocktail of anti-HIV
drugs that guarantees that he will come down with AIDS-defining, diarrhea,
wasting, dementia, generalized immune suppression, lymphoma and the list
goes on. Eventually, our well-nourished, relatively affluent, disease-free
adult dies of drug-induced AIDS.
(3) "Recommendations on the management of HIV are not easy to implement in
developing countries, the suggestion to perform screening tests to assess
nutritional status as well as to evaluate the immune system will be too
expensive. Are there any suggestions or recommendations on how these
evaluations can be conducted in developing countries."
The management of HIV is not an issue since antibody positive people are by
definition immune to HIV. Perhaps you mean recommendations on the
management of people who have antibodies to HIV?
If by evaluating the immune system you mean HIV-antibody testing, then I
refer you to the extensive discussions on this site regarding the value and
reliability of these tests. The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that
these tests are worthless-even worse than that: they are actually lethal
because they label a person with the death sentence of AIDS. See question 2
above for what happens next.
Dave Rasnick
Dear Moderators,
Please identify which of you are sending these posts so that we know who to
credit.
You ask rhetorically, "Are we not all looking with our microscopes at a
part of the elephant and heavily debating whether it white or gray or hairy
or smooth"?
The simple answer is no. Not everyone is looking at the "elephant (AIDS??)"
with a microscope. In fact your analogy goes to the core of the problem.
While focusing on the molecular scale, i.e. HIV, the mainstream believes
itself to be investigating the elephant of AIDS. By using our minds and
unaided eyes, we critics of the contagious, HIV hypothesis clearly see that
the mainstream doesn't even have the species right. What they're looking at
is not an elephant at all but rather the common house mouse.
It is true "that there are many very many things we do not know" but there
are "many very many things" that we do know. For example, we know that
whatever AIDS is it is very different in the USA and Africa. We know that
the reigning HIV hypothesis has not made even one true prediction in 16
years. We know that HIV does not kill CD4+ T cells, or any others for that
matter. We know that the HIV tests and viral load tests do not detect HIV.
We know that the anti-HIV drugs are very toxic and have not saved the first
AIDS patient, Dr. Sonnabend's personal observations notwithstanding.
From your statement that, "many aspects of the truth that currently appear
to be in conflict can live next to one another quite happily", it is clear
that you haven't been paying attention. Since when have the mainstream and
dissident "truths" about AIDS lived "next to one another quite happily"?
Can you provide references in the scientific literature or popular press
and media to support your optimistic statement?
Dave Rasnick
Dear Dr. Whiteside,
Thanks for your contribution. It is greatly appreciated. Naturally, I have
a few comments.
You say that, "The last census in Malawi found about two million fewer
people than was expected."
The moderators of the panel have requested that we all provide references
supporting our statements and claims. We eagerly await your posting of
either a reference upon which you base this statement, or if it is based on
new, unpublished work, we need you to provide a suitable report of the
details to the panel so that we can review it.
About a week ago a South African Journalist told me that the estimates of
the number of people living in South Africa range from 26 million to 40
million-a difference of 14 million. This range in the estimate of the
number of South Africans would make it very difficult to make any
meaningful predictions of or draw any meaningful conclusions from results
of a census conducted in South Africa based on these estimates.
I pointed out to the journalist that such uncertainty in the number of
South Africans before conducting a census could be used to prove almost
anything. For example. If before hand (or even after conducting a census)
one chose to accept the 40 million estimate but a future census result
turns out to be much closer to the 26 million figure, then an unscrupulous
person might interpret this result as evidence that AIDS (or anything else
for that matter, including the importation of AZT) had led to a severe
depopulation of the country.
Conversely, if one chose the 26 million figure and the census result was
much closer to 40 million, another (or the same) unscrupulous person could
conclude that the sex education campaigns, the use of condoms or even
outlawing the use of AZT had led to profound health benefits resulting in a
population boom for South Africa.
My little story is meant to amplify the importance of providing the panel
with the sources of material you used so that we can have a basis upon
which to judge the significance of the Malawi census data. As it stands, it
is meaningless.
There is one other statement that needs clarification and referencing.
You say that, "It should also be noted that two of these preliminary data
sources are Botswana and South Africa - which means that malaria and
malnutrition CAN NOT be held to account for the increase in deaths."
You say this with such certainty, but for those of use who are not experts
on Africa, I would like you to expand on this and provide suitable
references so that we can educate ourselves on the subject. For instance,
it is not clear to me why "malaria and malnutrition CAN NOT be held to
account for the increase in deaths" just because the "preliminary data
sources are Botswana and South Africa"?
Thanks so much,
Dave Rasnick
What they're teaching in schools.
The following quotes are taken from the textbook entitled "AIDS Update
1999" by Gerald J. Stine, published by Prentice Hall, 458 pages, 1st ed.
This sort of instruction perhaps explains the reluctance of the mainstream
scientists and physicians to participate in discussions with the minority.
They have apparently learned their lessons well.
From Stine's book:
"Question for Class Discussion: You have just read some of the evidence
for and against HIV being the cause of AIDS. Assuming you agree with the
vast majority of HIV/AIDS investigators worldwide, that HIV does cause
AIDS, do you think there comes a time at which dissenters forfeit their
right to make claims on other people's time and trouble by the poverty of
their arguments and by the wasted effort and exasperation they have
caused?"
After a leading question like that, my guess is that the average medical
student could probably figure out what answer would most likely assure an A
plus.
From the very same textbook we find this:
"HIV/AIDS DATA DEFICIENCIES
"Neither the United States nor any other country has an accurate count of
the number of people infected by HIV. Much of the testing to date
compromises small samples of high-risk groups, such as prostitutes and drug
addicts, and is therefore unrepresentative of entire populations. Within
countries, infection rates vary widely from region to region, further
complicating the problem of generalizing from a small sample. Counting the
number of AIDS cases and AIDS-related deaths is also difficult,
particularly since health care systems in many countries lack the required
diagnostic ability. Some developing countries have AIDS rates 100 times
higher than reported.
[How does Stine know that AIDS rates are 100 times higher than reported?
Maybe the AIDS rates are actually 100 times lower than reported. I could
make that claim if I had an equal disregard for data.]
"Moreover, some governments suppress what information they have. Further
improvements in data collection may reveal a crisis of even greater
magnitude than is portrayed in this text."
[Or much less, or no AIDS epidemic at all.]
(Note: Considering the last quoted line, the textbook estimated 51 million
HIV infections worldwide in 1999, which is 17 million more than the current
estimate of 34 million infections in Newsweek and the New York Times. So it
looks like the epidemic may be in decline since the time Stine wrote his
book).
I will close with this last quote from Stine's book.
"AIDS is defined primarily by severe immune deficiency, and is
distinguished from virtually every other disease in history by the fact
that it has no constant, specific symptoms."
How convenient!
Dave Rasnick
Six weeks into Mbeki's internet discussion/debate (which was intended to
produce points of agreement and dispute that would determine the agenda of
the second meeting of the AIDS panel in Johannesburg in July) the
mainstream scientists and physicians had not yet participated. Members of
the minority (those of us who dispute the contagious, HIV hypothesis of
AIDS), the moderators, and the government organizers repeatedly urged the
majority to participate in Mbeki's internet discussions.
To encourage the majority to participate, the government extended the
internet discussions a few weeks beyond the scheduled end. The majority
obstinately refused to participate until the last 2 or 3 days, and then
only through indirect email messages to Ray Mabope who added their
postings
to the website. There was no opportunity to respond to those quasi
anonymous postings in the few days remaining. Instead, the majority
published the feeble justifications for their position in the well
publicized Durban Declaration. For whatever reason, the majority chose not
to present the Durban Declaration arguments to Mbeki's panel, where they
were repeatedly asked to do so.
The following contributions were in response to the mainstreams refusal to
participate in Mbeki's internet discussions.
To:
Dr. Abdool-Karim
Dr. Duerr
Dr. Lane
Dr. Makgoba
Dr. Montagnier
Dr. Perez
And the rest of the majority
I've been a scientist for a long time but it is only among "AIDS
scientists" that I have come across the very curious phenomenon of
complete silence.
Up until now, it has been my experience that scientists are a tenacious,
combative group of individuals who, at the slightest opportunity, are more
than willing and enthusiastic to talk the ears off of anyone within earshot
about their work and that of their colleagues. That's why I'm completely
mystified by your total lack of participation in this internet discussion.
President Mbeki and his ministers have provided all of us with an
exceptional opportunity to behave as scientists. Some of us are trying.
From whatever your perspective, the phenomenon of AIDS is truly one of
the most interesting and perplexing in history. How is it then that all of you
remain silent when we read in newspapers and anonymous reports that there
is overwhelming evidence supporting your assertions that:
1) AIDS is contagious,
2) AIDS is sexually transmitted,
3) HIV causes AIDS, and
4) The anti-HIV drugs promote health and wellbeing?
Among scientists, silence is a tacit admission of surrender. Unless you
present your arguments and evidence soon, an observer of this internet
discussion is left with little choice except to conclude that there is
indeed overwhelming evidence regarding HIV and AIDS. The evidence is
overwhelming that:
1) AIDS is not contagious,
2) AIDS is not sexually transmitted,
3) HIV does not causes AIDS,
4) The anti-HIV drugs are killing people.
This overwhelming evidence leads directly to recommendations for public
health policies in South Africa and other African countries.
1. Devote the bulk of national and international biomedical and other
resources to the eradication and treatment of the predominant
AIDS-defining diseases in South Africa such as TB, malaria and enteric I
nfections; the improvement of nutrition; the provision of improved
sanitation and clean water.
2. Promote sex education based on the fact that there are many STDs and
avoidable unwanted pregnancies.
3. Reject completely the use of anti-HIV drugs.
4. End dissemination of the psychologically destructive and false message
that HIV infection is invariably fatal.
5. Outlaw HIV testing.
Dave Rasnick
The Durban Declaration
AIDS is not about science and medicine; it is a political and sociological
phenomenon. That is why the majority refused to present any scientific or
medical evidence during Mbeki's expert AIDS panel internet discussion.
President Mbeki and his ministers have done everything they could to
encourage the majority to lay out their evidence and arguments. But the
majority has uniformly refused to do that. Instead, some members of the
majority have joined the mainstream HIV establishment in a desperate
attempt to quash Mbeki's initiative for a free and open airing of the true
nature of AIDS in South Africa.
Circumventing President Mbeki's initiative, the mainstream plans to
Publish in Nature magazine on July 6 "The evidence that AIDS is caused
by HIV-1 or HIV-2." They will claim that "This evidence meets the
highest standards of science (3-7)."
If that is true, why in the hell didn't the majority present this evidence
to the panel?
Below are the five references to the "exhaustive and unambiguous" evidence
that "meets the highest standards of science".
3. Weiss R.A and Jaffe, H.W. (1990). Duesberg, HIV and AIDS. Nature, 345,
659-660.
4. NIAID (1996). HIV as the cause of AIDS.
www.niaid.nih.gov/spotlight/hiv00/default.html
5. O'Brien, S.J. and Goedert, J.J. (1996). HIV causes AIDS: Koch's
postulates fulfilled. Current Opinion in Immunology, 8, 613-618.
6. Darby, S.C. et al., (1995). Mortality before and after HIV infection in
the complete UK population of haemophiliacs. Nature, 377, 79-82.
7. Nunn, A.J. et al., (1997). Mortality associated with HIV-1 infection
over five years in a rural Ugandan population: cohort study. BMJ, 315,
767-771.
I offer this "evidence" as evidence that this exercise has little to do
with AIDS, health and science. As I have said before, this is really a
battle for the health of our democracies: the ability to have free and
open discourse and debate.
I suggest that the minority draft a statement to submit to Nature for
publication in the July 6 issue. History indicates that it is unlikely
that Nature will publish a statement from the minority. We should
put it to the test, though.
Dave Rasnick
Is there a role for consensus in science?
No!
Apparently, many people assume the answer is Yes. This assumption has led
to the absurd argument that because the vast majority of scientists and
physicians around the world believe (I emphasize believe) that AIDS is
contagious and caused by HIV, it must be true. I am frequently asked: How
could they all be wrong?
That question shows a profound ignorance of the history of science and
medicine, which is replete with colossal blunders, miscalculations,
errors, and monumental hubris. Error is the stuff of science, and it seems even
more so of medicine.
Certainly, scientists periodically meet to agree on nomenclature and
various other housekeeping chores. And scientists accept unifying
theoretical structures, e.g. gravity, electrodynamics etc., when they have
exhausted the problems, questions and imaginations of a particular
generation of scientists.
But a new generation of scientists may ask new questions or find problems
with accepted theories. Their explorations may lead to new discoveries and
understanding that eventually exhaust the imaginations of that generation
of scientists.
As a practicing scientist for 25 years, I have observed that something
that is generally accepted by my colleagues (myself included) is either
sufficiently unimportant that it does not attract their attention, or if
it is important, it is probably wrong. In fact, it seems that the stronger a
view is held by a large number of scientists, the less secure are the
foundations for that view. I have no explanation for this phenomenon. But
there are celebrated examples of it even in the field of mathematics that
support this observation.
Therefore, as a scientist, the weakest argument one can make supporting a
particular view is that the vast majority of scientists accept it. Indeed,
that is no argument at all. It is frequently considered an anti-argument.
Consensus-majority rule-is an excellent way for people to govern
themselves; but it is a demonstrably catastrophic way of determining
scientific "truth", which is always only provisional.
It has been my experience that physicians make bad scientists, and
scientists make bad physicians. I'm certain there are exceptions. But the
glaring difference between physicians and scientists explains, in part,
the almost complete inability of discourse between the minority on Mbeki's
panel, comprised mostly of scientists, and the majority, comprised mostly
of physicians. Scientists and physicians live and work in different
worlds.
Scientists deal with ideas and evidence; physicians, with the life and
death of their patients. Physicians expect scientists to tell them what's
going on; scientists expect physicians to do the right thing.
AIDS has conflated the roles of scientist and physician-a tragic mistake.
This explains the failure of the internet discussion. We have scientists,
by and large, asking questions of physicians. It's like mixing baseball
with ice hockey. It's completely inappropriate and unfair.
The world of scientists is at least as ruthless as that of physicians but
in a different way. Our arguments are what's important, not the courtesy
and decorum with which they are presented. We scientists are direct and
hard in our delivery. That's the way we like it because it limits the
bullshit. Lord knows there's enough of that in AIDS discourse. Inevitably,
our approach must offend physicians, who go about their professional
discourse quite differently from us. But we are thrown together so we must
learn to deal with each other.
It will be interesting to see how the discourse progresses between the
dissidents and the mainstream-if it does-at the next meeting July 3-5.
Dave Rasnick
Is HIV guilty of the crime of AIDS?
Even though the majority of had not participated in the internet
discussions, at one point the moderators insisted that the burden of proof
be shifted from those who support the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS to
those who criticize that hypothesis. The moderators wanted proof that HIV
does not cause AIDS. After a short argument with the moderators about this
shift in burden of proof I decided to put HIV on trial for the crime of
AIDS. This gave me the opportunity to present the overwhelming evidence of
HIV's innocence.
On July 10, 2000, the defendant HIV was represented by the dissidents. The
mainstream scientists and physicians should have been the prosecutors.
However, the prosecution did not present a case so we went directly to the
defense.
World vs HIV
The defense will show that HIV is innocent of the crime of AIDS.
Exhibit A for the defense:
Source is CDC's HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports.
During the period when the incidence of AIDS in the USA rose gradually to a
peak in 1992 and has since been declining steadily the CDC reported a
constant prevalence of HIV in the population (1 million Americans) from
1985 to 1995. In 1996, the CDC revised downward the estimate of the
prevalence of HIV in the population retrospectively from 1992 to now with
yet another constant figure of 650,000.
That is, the prevalence of HIV in the USA has never gone up. It has
remained constant for 10 years or was lowered to a new figure that has
remained constant for 8 years during a period when AIDS increased, reached
a peak, and has since been steadily declining.
Hence, there is no correlation in time between the appearance of AIDS and
the prevalence of the supposed culprit.
Exhibit B for the defense:
Source is CDC's National HIV Serosurveillance Summary, update 1993.
AIDS-Zentrum in Robert Koch-Institut, 1997, 125.
The National Serosurveillance Summary shows that using the HIV ELISA test,
the presence of antibodies to HIV in 55 million blood donations over a
period of years declined asymptotically from 0.025% (about 60,000 Americans
if extrapolated to the population) to about a prevalence of 0.002%, which
translates to fewer than 10,000 people if extrapolated to the population of
the USA. The same decline in the prevalence of antibodies to HIV was
reported in Germany in AIDS-Zentrum.
I want to point out that these figures are not the level of HIV-tainted
blood in the blood supply after being screened by the HIV antibody test.
These figures are for the prevalence of antibodies to HIV in the donated
blood before it is thrown out.
Every chart in the Serosurveillance Summary shows the same downward trend
over time. There is no evidence that the prevalence of antibodies has every
gone up in any report available from the CDC or anywhere else that I know
of.
The most likely explanation for the asymptotic decline in the prevalence of
antibodies to HIV is that the antibody tests got better over time and began
to converge to the background level of antibodies to HIV proteins in a
given population.
Exhibit C for the defense:
Source: D. S. Burke et al., JAMA 263: 2074-2077 (1990)
Source: M. E. St Louis et al., JAMA 266: 2378-2391 (1991)
Source: CDC HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, year end edition (1992)
Source: Dr. Robert Da Prato
US Army
Dept. Of Defense
3127 NE Irving
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 233-8065
1) The number of Army recruits with antibodies to HIV is equally
distributed between men and women (Burke et al.). This has been shown to be
true for Jobs Corps recruits as well (St Louis et al.).
2) The percentage of recruits with antibodies to HIV has remained constant
for 15 years (Da Prato).
Points 1 & 2 predict that AIDS should be equally distributed between the
sexes in this age group if HIV caused AIDS. However, the CDC documents that
85% of the AIDS cases among 17- to 24-year-olds were male (CDC).
Thus, there is no indication that HIV is spreading in men and women in
their late teens and early twenties. If HIV causes AIDS it somehow knows if
you are male or female.
3) Blacks have 9-times the likelihood of having antibodies to HIV than
whites, and a 33-fold greater likelihood than Asians (Da Prato).
4) These proportions have not changed in 15 years. Again, no sign that HIV
is progressing in any of these populations (Da Prato). While HIV likes boys
and girls equally, the virus prefers Blacks to Whites and just plain
doesn't like Asians.
Witnesses for the defense:
Dr. Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati, PhD, DABT, DABVT
President of Toxi-Health International
150 Bloom Dr.
Dixon, CA 95620
Source: "Get All the Facts: HIV Does Not Cause AIDS," by Mohammed Ali
Al-Bayati (1999), published by Toxi-Health International, Dixon, CA
from pages 16-19
Defense: Dr. Al-Bayati, we are repeatedly told by the New York Times,
anonymous HIV reports, and by members of this panel that there is
overwhelming evidence that HIV causes AIDS. Do you agree there is
overwhelming evidence that HIV causes AIDS?
Dr. Al-Bayati: In actuality, the medical literature clearly indicates that
HIV does not cause AIDS in the USA, Europe, Africa, and any other place in
the world. The HIV-hypothesis is incorrect and the CDC, NIH and the leaders
of the HIV-hypothesis overlooked essential medical evidence. My conclusion
is based on the medical evidence.
Defense: Dr. Al-Bayati, Anthony Fauci in his book entitled "Principles of
Internal Medicine" published by McGraw-Hill in 1998, 14th edition and
Robert Gallo in his article entitled "The AIDS Virus" published in
Scientific American vol 256, pages 46-56 (1987) have said that most people
who are suffering from AIDS have tested positive for antibodies to HIV and
that this is sufficient evidence to convict HIV of the crime of AIDS. Do
you agree?
Dr. Al-Bayati: I have found that the majority of people who participated in
the major four AZT clinical trials were HIV-negative prior to their
treatment with AZT and their diagnoses were based on clinical symptoms only
without performing a differential diagnosis. The four published clinical
trials are (1) Fischl et al., The New England Journal of Medicine 316:
185-191 (1987); (2) Fischl et al., The New England Journal of Medicine 323:
1009-1014 (1990); (3) Volberding et al., The New England Journal of
Medicine 322: 941-949 (1990); and (4) Hamilton et al., The New England
Journal of Medicine 326: 437-443 (1992).
Briefly, a total of 2,349 patients participated in these studies, and at
least 77% of them were HIV-negative prior to their treatment with AZT. The
findings of these studies clearly demonstrate that AIDS in 77% of these
patients was caused by agent(s) or processes other than HIV.
Furthermore, there are many HIV-negative cases reported to have low CD4+ T
cell counts with or without AIDS-defining disease and these cases were
diagnosed as having idiopathic CD4+ T cell lymphocytopenia by the CDC and
Anthony Fauci in his book above. I found that the abnormalities in the
immune systems of these patients are identical to patients with AIDS who
are infected with HIV and also HIV-negative patients treated chronically
with high therapeutic doses of glucocorticoids.
Defence: Dr. Al-Bayati, if HIV is not necessary for AIDS, will a person who
happens to be infected with HIV, nevertheless, come down with AIDS and die?
In other words, is HIV sufficient to cause AIDS?
Dr. Al-Bayati: There are thousands of people infected with HIV for more
than 10 years and remain perfectly healthy. Anthony Fauci calls them long
term nonprogressors. This is very clear evidence that HIV is a harmless
virus.
Defense: But Dr. Al-Bayati we are told that HIV causes AIDS by killing CD4+
T cells. Are you saying that this is not true?
Dr. Al-Bayati: Sharpstone et al., published in the European Journal of
Gastroentrology and Hepatology vol 8 pages 575-578 (1996) that the CD4+ T
cell counts of HIV positive homosexual men increased following the
elimination of rectal steroid use. The recovery of CD4+ T cell counts in
these patients indicated that the reduction in T cell counts was due to the
steroids and not HIV.
Another example is the report by Fawzi et al. in The Lancet vol 351 pages
1447-1482 (1998). The CD4+ T cell counts increased in 270 HIV-positive
pregnant women who were suffering from malnutrition during 30 weeks
following treatment with multivitamin supplements. The recovery of the T
cells in these patients indicated that the reduction in T cells counts was
due to malnutrition and not HIV.
And then there is the paper by Hoxie et al., entitled "Persistent
noncytopathic infection of normal human T lymphocytes with AIDS-associated
retrovirus published in Science vol 229 page 1400 (1985). The authors
reported that infected CD4+ T cells remained productively infected with the
virus for more than 4 months in culture. They showed no cytopathic effects.
Muro-Cacho, et al. in the Journal of Immunology vol 154 pages 5555-5566
(1995) isolated HIV from lymph nodes that show hyperplasia of CD4+ T cells,
CD8+ T cells and B cell lymphocytes. This is very direct proof that HIV
does not cause cell necrosis.
In fact, the same authors showed that the necrosis of T cells and B cells
in the lymph nodes of HIV infected patients were found to be independent of
viral load and the duration of the infection.
HIV usually infects 1 in 500 to 300 T cells, about 0.1% of the total number
of these cells. As Duesberg has pointed out (Duesberg Pharmacology and
Therapeutics vol 55 pages 201-277 (1992)), the regeneration rate of T cells
is 3% per every two days. This indicates the unlikelihood of serious HIV
effects.
Defense: I think Robert Gallo has likened HIV infection to being hit by a
truck or something along those lines. If Gallo is right, there should be
many documented cases of AIDS and death where HIV was caught in the act, so
to speak, without the help of other causes of immune suppression. Do you
know of such cases?
Dr. Al-Bayati: I have not found even a single case of an HIV infected
patient who developed AIDS outside of the risk groups (homosexual men, drug
users, hemophiliacs, malnourished patients, patients receiving blood
transfusion or transplanted tissue) and patients with preexisting medical
conditions that required the chronic use of immunosuppressive agents.
Defense: Thank you Dr. Al-Bayati. You are excused for now but the defense
may call upon you again.
Witness for the defense
Mario Roederer
Beckman Center
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, California
Source: "Getting to the HAART of T cell dynamics" by Mario Roederer, Nature
Medicine vol 4, pages 145-146 (1998)
Defense: Dr. Roederer, the defense recognizes that as a supporter of the
contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS you may be reluctant to testify.
Nevertheless, it has come to our attention that you are an outspoken critic
of David Ho's viral dynamics hypothesis. Could you outline for the panel
the significance of Ho's model and what led you to reject it?
Dr. Roederer: The discovery that CD4 is the primary receptor that HIV uses
to enter T cells provided a neat solution to the question of why CD4+ T
cells are progressively lost during HIV disease. According to this theory,
HIV infects CD4+ T cells, then lyses them during the productive phase of
the viral life cycle. A direct corollary of this hypothesis is that removal
of virus from the host should restore CD4+ T cells, leading to
immunological recovery of the infected person. In early 1995, two Nature
papers purported to show exactly this result. Effective anti-retroviral
therapy caused immediate and large increases in the numbers of CD4+ T
cells - putatively, by reducing viral-induced cytolysis while maintaining
high levels of CD4+ T cell proliferation. These results received enormous
publicity in the popular press, with vivid portrayals of a '"massive
immunological war" in which billions of CD4+ T cells were produced and
destroyed daily.
Defense: Time Magazine made David Ho, one of the Nature authors, the 1996
Man of the Year because of this. Was Ho's results welcomed by his
colleagues as lighting a path out of the darkness of AIDS research?
Dr. Roederer: There has been considerable debate about Ho's simple
hypothesis. The Nature paper ignited a heated controversy that resulted in
publication of several well-designed and informative studies, which raised
serious doubts about this "war". In a recent issue of Nature Medicine [ref.
above], reports by Pakker et al. and Gorochov et al. provide the final
nails in the coffin for models of T cell dynamics in which a major reason
for changes in T cell numbers is the death of HIV-infected cells.
Defense: Dr. Roederer can you explain in simple terms what led you to that
conclusion?
Dr. Roederer: I'll try. Within an individual with AIDS, naive CD8+ T cells
decline at the same rate as naive CD4+ T cells. Because CD8+ T cells cannot
be infected by HIV, and naive CD4+ T cells are relatively resistant to
productive HIV infection [Roederer gives references], these declines cannot
be directly attributed to HIV-mediated cytolysis. In later stages of
disease, both memory CD8+ and memory CD4+ T cells decline at similar rates.
Defense: Dr. Roederer I see your point. T cells that are capable of being
infected by HIV and T cells that are not disappear at the same rate.
Therefore, HIV cannot be killing them all. Something else must be
happening. What's the take home lesson, Dr. Roederer?
Dr. Roederer: The facts (1) that HIV uses CD4 as it primary receptor, and
(2) that CD4+ T cell numbers decline during AIDS, are only an unfortunate
coincidence that have led us astray from understanding the
immunopathogenesis of this disease.
Defense: Thank you Dr. Roederer. That will be all.
Witness for the defense
Giuseppe Pantaleo
Department of Internal Medicine
Lausanne, Switzerland
Source: "Unraveling the strands of HIV's web," by Giuseppe Pantaleo, Nature
Medicine vol 5, pages 27-28 (1999)
Defense: Dr. Pantaleo, we just heard from Dr. Mario Roederer on the
experimental evidence that refutes David Ho's viral dynamics hypothesis of
how HIV depletes CD4+ T cells. It has come to our attention that you also
reject Ho's model of T cell depletion.
As with Dr. Roederer, we acknowledge that as a supporter of the contagious,
HIV hypothesis of AIDS you may be reluctant to answer our questions.
Nevertheless, here goes. Could you layout for the panel the pertinent
background and your conclusions?
Dr. Pantaleo: The current working hypothesis of HIV infection proposes
that: high CD4+ T lymphocyte production and turnover is the result of T
cell destruction; a large (10^9) number of CD4+ T cells is infected and
destroyed every day; and an equal number of CD4+ T cell is produced to
compensate for the loss. However, the report by Hellerstein et al. [in the
above issue of Nature Medicine], together with a series of studies by
others [gives references], puts an end to four years of exciting (although
often harsh) debate about the CD4+ T lymphocyte production/destruction
hypothesis.
Defense: So, Dr. Pantaleo, is there destruction of CD4+ T cells?
Dr. Pantaleo: Of course there is, and this may result from direct
HIV-mediated cytopathicity as well as from immune destruction.
Defense: But Dr. Pantaleo, Mario Roderer has testified that the reduction
of CD4+ and other T cells must be due to mechanisms other than HIV killing
them. So how much HIV destruction of T cells is there?
Dr. Pantaleo: Certainly not as much as previously estimated and by no means
enough to explain overall CD4+ T cell destruction.
Defense: Then why did David Ho et al. report an increase in CD4+ T
lymphocytes in those patients given HAART?
Dr. Pantaleo: The initial rise was mostly the result of redistribution of
CD4+ cells from other lymphoid compartments of the blood.
Defense: Thank you Dr. Pantaleo. That will be all.
Harvey Bialy is exactly right with his analysis of Root-Bernstein's
position that HIV is necessary but not sufficient to cause AIDS.
Even if Root-Bernstein was right (Which, by the way, he has done nothing to
show that HIV is necessary; he hopes we will just take his word for that.),
then everything that is currently said about AIDS and everything that is
currently done to deal with AIDS must be drastically altered.
For example, being human is a necessary part of the equation of getting
AIDS. Yet being human is not sufficient for becoming an AIDS case or the
entire population would have AIDS.
Necessary but not sufficient begs the question of what causes AIDS.
Root-Bernstein, in his poorly advertised posting of his hypothesis, claims
to have the answer to what really causes AIDS.
Perhaps.
But Root-Bernstein presents an hypothesis, which I'm all for. But it is
nothing more than that. He begins his hypothesis with the axiom that HIV is
necessary for AIDS, for it is only an axiom since there has been no
evidence presented in the internet discussion that supports that claim.
Dave Rasnick
Dear Dr. Root-Bernstein,
You say that, "The anti-HIV people aren't even in the ballgame yet."
Hell-we're the only ones on the field.
With all of your powers of analysis and genius grants, and with your
ability, "probably more than anyone else on the panel, [to] understand what
it takes to revolutionize science," you failed to grasp the glaring, simple
fact that the purpose of this whole exercise is to help President Mbeki and
his ministers understand the true nature of AIDS and what to do about it.
I guess it completely escaped your notice that when Mbeki called for this
expert AIDS panel he was well aware that most people think, as you do,
that:
1) AIDS is contagious,
2) AIDS is sexually transmitted,
3) HIV causes AIDS, and
4) The anti-HIV drugs do more good than harm.
Mbeki has said that he is suspicious of arguments when the primary
defenders of those arguments completely and systematically exclude critics
from the discussions. The first-line defense of the mainstream position is
to ignore critics. If that doesn't work, then the mainstream scientists,
physicians and their sycophants denigrate and impugn the characters of the
critics.
Mbeki said that one purpose, among others, was to give a voice to the
voiceless. Apparently, you have a problem with that.
You have done little to help Mbeki and his ministers see that the
mainstream position - that AIDS is contagious and caused by HIV - is correct
beyond saying that the majority is basically right. Since the majority, for
whatever reasons, has failed to present to Mbeki and his ministers even a
single piece of evidence to support their case, why don't you try.
As a result of your very courageous initial posting through Ray Mabope, the
Defense will most likely call you as its next witness.
Dave Rasnick
Witness for the Defense
Robert Root-Bernstein
Department of Physiology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI
Source: Rethinking AIDS: the tragic cost of premature consensus, by Robert
Root-Bernstein, published by the Free Press, New York. 512 pages (1993).
From the Preface
Defense: Dr. RB, you recently sent Ray Mabope an email saying that you and
your colleagues are not participating in the internet debate "for a very
simple reason. The criticisms being offered by the anti-HIV people are not
worth responding to."
I wonder how many mainstream AIDS researchers and physicians said the very
same thing in 1993 about your well-reasoned criticisms of the contagious,
HIV hypothesis of AIDS. I have read your previous work and it just doesn't
jibe with your current wholesale writing-off of the dissidents.
Why did you say that to Mr. Mabope?
RB: I say this as the only professionally trained philosopher and historian
of science on your panel. I studied with Thomas Kuhn, the man who invented
the term "paradigm shift" for explaining how revolutions in science occur.
I, probably more than anyone else on the panel, understand what it takes to
revolutionize science."
Defense: Dr. RB that may very well be true. But I don't think the purpose
of Mbeki's expert AIDS panel was to shift paradigms or revolutionize
science.
President Mbeki is not a scientist. But he is a well-informed head of state
who wants our help so that he can better understand this thing called AIDS
and what to do about it. With that in mind, let's see what we can do to
help President Mbeki and his ministers in this regard.
Dr. RB, let's start with a simple question. Do the mainstream scientists
and physicians, the CDC, the NIAID and the rest of the alphabet soup of
organizations understand what AIDS is?
RB: We do not understand AIDS.
Defense: That is a marvelously succinct answer, which is near and dear to
my scientific heart. But I think it would help Mbeki and his ministers if
you explain in a bit more detail what you mean when you say that we do not
understand AIDS.
RB: Epidemiologists must be able to predict accurately when outbreaks will
occur and who is at highest risk. Microbiologists must be able to prove the
underlying causes of the disease. Immunologists must be able to explain how
the immune system fails and what may be done to protect it. Anthropologists
and sociologists must be able to pinpoint behavioral patterns and cultural
environments that put people at risk. And public health officials and
physicians must be able to implement effective preventative measures and
cures. By these criteria, we do not understand AIDS; in fact we are
profoundly ignorant.
Defense: Dr. RB, the majority on Mbeki's AIDS panel would most likely take
issue with your answer and say that most of the central questions about
AIDS have been answered. How would you respond to their assertions?
[from Chapter 1]
RB: Most scientists believe that we understand AIDS and have trumpeted
their belief to each other and to the public as well. The consensus is that
HIV causes AIDS and that when we learn how to vaccinate against HIV or
develop an antibiotic that can treat HIV infection, then AIDS will be
cured. This is the public face of AIDS research. Scientists are much more
reticent about revealing their other face-the one that displays their
ignorance, confusion, and puzzlement over the aspects of this disease that
they do not understand.
The best kept secrets of AIDS are the questions unanswered, the puzzles
unsolved, the contradictions unrecognized, and the paradoxes unformulated.
Yet the degree of our ignorance must be the measure of our understanding.
The existence of significant anomalies or departures from the regular
expectations of the current theory must raise a red flag warning that our
understanding of AIDS is not as profound as we might wish.
Such anomalies do not mean that we have the facts of AIDS wrong but rather
that we have not figured out how to explain all of the facts coherently and
consistently within a single theoretical framework. The failure to explain
AIDS accurately, in turn, raises the possibility that we are not addressing
its causes and cures appropriately. The tragic cost of this failure is the
constantly rising death toll of AIDS.
Defense: Dr. RB, I'm confused. What you just said - raising a red flag
pointing out the anomalies, ignorance, confusion and puzzlement about
AIDS - sounds a lot like what the dissidents on Mbeki's panel have been
saying. Therefore, I don't understand why you treat them so harshly. But
that is your business.
You have recently uploaded without fanfare your 52-page hypothesis about
AIDS where you state flatly without providing evidence that HIV is
necessary but not sufficient for AIDS. That is not what you used to think.
In 1993 you challenged the formal position taken by the US government
Health and Human Services Department, the NIH, the CDC, and even the World
Health Organization that AIDS does not occur in the absence of an HIV
infection and that HIV infection, in and of itself, is all that is
necessary to result in AIDS.
For simplicity let's take these one at a time. What led you in 1993 to say
that HIV is not sufficient to cause AIDS?
RB: If anyone has a stake in proclaiming that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS
and that he is the primary discoverer of that cause, it is certainly
Montagnier. Yet Montagnier has announced that HIV is not sufficient to
cause AIDS.
Defense: As you know, Montagnier is on this panel, but he has chosen to
remain completely silent since the meeting in Pretoria, perhaps giving the
same reason as yourself. But that's not the issue at hand.
How was Montagnier's discovery that HIV was not sufficient to cause AIDS
received by his colleagues in the early 1990s?
RB: The response from most other HIV researchers has been to ignore
Montagnier's data. But an American AIDS researcher who, preferring to
remain anonymous, has said, "I'd bet my professional reputation that
something more than HIV is involved in this disease. But I wouldn't bet my
grants, my ability to work." Nor will most of this man's colleagues. They
remain silent, or they remain skeptics.
Defense: With good reason too. Peter Duesberg has had 24 research grant
proposals in a row turned down since he began criticizing the HIV
hypothesis of AIDS in 1987 by the same funding sources that never turned
him down before.
Now let's address the other side of the coin. What evidence was there in
1993 that led you and others to question whether HIV was even necessary to
cause AIDS?
RB: There were a number of HIV-free AIDS cases documented prior to 1991.
Notably, all of the cases known prior to 1991 were ignored by all but a
handful of AIDS researchers. Most proclaimed with great assurance that, in
the words of James Curran of the CDC, "There is not AIDS without HIV."
Then Luc Montagnier announced in May 1992 that he had three AIDS patients
in whom he could find no evidence of HIV. Two months later, not only
Montagnier, but clinician after clinician rose to tell the audience at the
international AIDS conference in Amsterdam that each had a handful of such
HIV-free AIDS patients. Suddenly AIDS without HIV became big news because
too many cases had surfaced to be ignored.
There is no longer any doubt that HIV is not necessary to cause AIDS. The
question is whether the causes of HIV-free AIDS are also at work in people
with HIV, and therefore what role HIV plays in causing AIDS in anyone.
Defense: Let me repeat that for Mbeki, his ministers, and the panel. In
1993 you said that, "There is no longer any doubt that HIV is not necessary
to cause AIDS." That is a far cry from your current and unsupported
assertion that HIV is necessary for AIDS. Perhaps in the future you will
enlighten Mbeki and his ministers about what convinced you to change your
mind so dramatically.
Since this panel is supposed to address the issue of AIDS specific to
Africa, can you tell the panel what is known about HIV-free AIDS on that
continent?
RB: HIV-free AIDS patients have also been reported in African countries. In
one Ugandan study, 2% of patients fulfilling the WHO criteria for AIDS was
HIV-antibody negative by an ELISA test. These tests are notorious for
giving false positives when validated with the more sophisticated tests now
employed, so the presence of a negative test is all the more telling.
Another study in Tanzania again employed WHO criteria for diagnosing AIDS
and, using tests for both HIV antigen and antibody, found that 12% of
patients were HIV negative on all tests. A controlled study of 1,328
patients evaluated according to the WHO criteria in Uganda revealed that
between 8% and 15% of all clinical diagnoses of AIDS were HIV negative.
In other words, these people had all of the symptoms of AIDS but not the
virus that is supposed to be its cause.
How many such HIV-negative AIDS cases exist? Might these be flukes, without
significance for understanding AIDS? All that is known for certain is that
between 1% and 5% of AIDS patients who are tested for HIV do not
demonstrate the presence of antibody to the virus nor can HIV infection be
demonstrated directly.
Defense: Dr. RB, the CDC acknowledges these HIV-free AIDS cases but they
try to downplay the significance of this fact. Can't we just ignore these
HIV-free AIDS cases?
RB: The actual number of HIV-negative AIDS cases is irrelevant. The
existence of even a handful of HIV negative AIDS cases is sufficient
logically to raise doubts concerning the necessity of HIV as a cause of
HIV.
Defense: Dr. RB I know this hasn't been easy testifying for the defense
knowing your distaste for the members of the minority of this panel. I must
say that it is difficult to know just where you stand regarding HIV and
AIDS since it seems to depend on the date and forum. Nevertheless, your
contribution has been most helpful.
You should know though that the defense may call you in the future. You are
excused for now.
Request Summary dismissal of the charge that HIV causes AIDS.
When the Nobel laureate Kary Mullis was asked what was the best evidence
that HIV does not cause AIDS he immediately answered that, "The best
evidence that HIV does not cause AIDS is that there is no evidence for it."
The Defense requests that HIV be dismissed of all charges that the virus is
responsible for the crime of AIDS because in Mullis' words: "there is no
evidence for it."
Members of the panel, this has been a most unusual hearing, perhaps even
unique. It is a trial without a prosecution. Absolutely no evidence has
been presented by the prosecution known as mainstream scientists and
physicians.
The moderators have set an unusual, if not dangerous, precedent by
declaring that the burden of proof is on the defense to show that its
client, HIV, is not guilty of the crime of AIDS.
Fortunately for the defense, we have almost a century of evidence, over
100,000 documents, and hundreds of witnesses to draw upon to provide the
overwhelming evidence that HIV is clearly innocent of the crime of AIDS.
The Perth Group goes so far as to say that there is reason to doubt that
there is even a defendant called HIV that could be put on trial.
There is some justification for this view since HIV itself has not been
placed at the scene of the crime - only non-specific antibodies, and
fragments of 3% of HIV's genome, but then only after billions- to
trillions-fold amplification.
The defense has presented the mainstreamís own documents that clearly state
that the so-called HIV tests (ELISA, western blot, and PCR viral load) do
not diagnose either HIV or AIDS. Therefore, these tests do not place HIV at
the scene of the crime.
The claimed 100% correlation between HIV and AIDS exists only in the mind.
It is a necessary consequence of the mainstream policy that summarily
states that HIV is the cause of AIDS. In the words of James Curran of the
CDC, "There is not AIDS without HIV."
Following the US government-sponsored press conference in 1984 that
declared AIDS to be contagious and caused by HIV, the CDC redefined AIDS in
1985 to include HIV as the cause. This change led to the Orwellian move of
redefining AIDS as HIV disease. This new disease - HIV disease - has not yet
caught on with the public, but it is prominent in mainstream scientific and
medical journals.
However, in South Africa we may be witnessing the evolution towards this
new disease via the intermediate syndrome called HIV-AIDS. Once the AIDS
part is dropped, the Orwellian transformation will be complete.
Just a few other points in summary.
Even if HIV had been found at the scene of the crime, there is no evidence
that the virus is even capable of committing the crime of AIDS. Virologists
have known for the better part of the 20th Century that retroviruses do not
kill cells that they infect. As Peter Duesberg has pointed out, this is why
retroviruses were once seriously thought to cause cancer - specifically
because they do not kill cells. It turned out that retroviruses are also
innocent of the crime of cancer.
The defense has provided evidence that HIV is nether necessary ("clinician
after clinician rose to tell the audience at the international AIDS
conference in Amsterdam that each had a handful of HIV-free AIDS patients")
nor sufficient (evidence in the mainstream scientific literature as
recently as 1998-99 "provide the final nails in the coffin for models of T
cell dynamics in which a major reason for changes in T cell numbers is the
death of HIV-infected cells.") to cause AIDS.
The defense has provided evidence from the CDC showing that there is no
correlation in time between antibodies to HIV and AIDS. During a period
when AIDS slowly increased, reached a peak in 1992, and has since been
steadily in decline, the CDC's own documents show that the prevalence of
HIV in the USA remained constant; it never went up. The same is true for
Germany.
Finally, the defense has provided an explanation for why there is no
prosecutor presenting evidence that HIV is guilty of the crime of AIDS. The
mainstream "Scientists are much more reticent about revealing their other
face - the one that displays their ignorance, confusion, and puzzlement over
the aspects of this disease that they do not understand."
Unless the prosecution presents its evidence soon, the defense rests.
However, if in the short time remaining, the prosecution ventures to make
its case, the defense reserves the right of rebuttal.
Dave Rasnick
Dr. Makgoba holds it against the dissidents for not having performed any
experiments with regards to AIDS or HIV. The implication is that because of
this, we have not earned the right to criticize the mainstream hypothesis
that AIDS is contagious and caused by HIV. It is time to address this
justification, which is by no means unique to Makgoba, for writing-off
those who question the mainstream view of AIDS.
As I have pointed out previously during this internet discussion, the
federal government of the US provides funding for AIDS research through the
NIH, specifically through the NIAID, and every penny of that money goes
only to grant proposals that accept the mainstream view that AIDS is
contagious and caused by HIV.
Peter Duesberg has had 24 grant proposals in a row turned down since he
publicly challenged the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS in 1987. Five or
six of the grant proposals were designed to experimentally test specific
aspects of the mainstream hypothesis of AIDS. It's difficult to conduct the
experiments that Makgoba wants if you can't get funded. Perhaps the MRC
will fund a research grant proposal from Peter Duesberg and other
dissidents?
Makoba's criticism of the minority for not conducting experiments shows a
lack of understanding of the nature of science and the purpose of
experiments. Science is not primarily what scientists do with their hands,
but rather what goes on between the ears. Science is about ideas and
understanding and questioning. An experiment is simply a question that
scientists put to Nature. The answers Nature gives are interpreted in light
of the biases - hypothesis, theories - of the various scientists.
We have had 16 years of experiments performed by tens of thousands of
scientists and physicians, producing over 100,000 scientific/medical papers
on HIV and AIDS. Both the mainstream and the dissidents agree that all of
the important questions about AIDS have been asked and answered:
Is AIDS contagious?
Is AIDS sexually transmitted?
Does HIV cause AIDS?
Do the anti-HIV drugs do more good than harm?
The mainstream members of the panel flatly assert without providing
supporting evidence that the answer to each question is YES. The dissidents
are divided as to the answers to these questions but most argue from
voluminous supporting evidence in the scientific and medical literature
that the answer to each question is NO. This is very odd since the
mainstream claims overwhelming evidence supporting their position but has
presented none of it. Whereas, the dissidents, on the other hand, have
provided the overwhelming evidence from the same literature that clearly
refutes the mainstream position.
Nevertheless, I propose one more experiment that involves me and a
volunteer from the mainstream. This experiment has been proposed from time
to time by supporters of the mainstream position. I think it's time to do
it.
On national or international television, I will be treated with purified,
infectious HIV. At the same time, a member of the mainstream, preferably a
physician who prescribes anti-HIV drugs, will begin a life-time course of
the three-drug cocktail known as HAART. The experiment is simple: we will
see who comes down with AIDS-defining diseases and who lives longer. Very
simple endpoints.
Every six months both of us will conduct nationally or internationally
televised press conferences about our health and about the evidence for and
against the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS. The biannual press
conferences will continue until we are both dead.
The people who have suggested that Duesberg infect himself with HIV were
willing to risk his life to make their point. I am willing to risk the life
of a mainstream proponent of the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS who is
eager to give AZT to pregnant women and their babies.
Dr. Makgoba, are you willing to volunteer for this experiment? Would the
MRC fund this experiment?
Dave Rasnick
One more experiment revisited
Harvey Bialy's comment about my "One more experiment post" indicates that
he thinks it was meant to be a rhetorical device. Others may share that
impression. Therefore, I want to make it as clear as I know how that I am
very serious about doing this experiment. Below is the experiment for ease
of reference.
On national or international television, I will be treated with purified,
infectious HIV. At the same time, a member of the mainstream, preferably a
physician who prescribes anti-HIV drugs, will begin a life-time course of
the three-drug cocktail known as HAART. The experiment is simple: we will
see who comes down with AIDS-defining diseases and who lives longer. Very
simple endpoints.
Every six months both of us will conduct nationally or internationally
televised press conferences about our health and about the evidence for and
against the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS. The biannual press
conferences will continue until we are both dead.
The people who have suggested that Duesberg infect himself with HIV were
willing to risk his life to make their point. I am willing to risk the life
of a mainstream proponent of the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS who is
eager to give AZT to pregnant women and their babies.
Dr. Makgoba, are you willing to volunteer for this experiment? Would the
MRC fund this experiment?
The purpose of the experiment is to make the people of the world aware of
the catastrophe of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS; the biggest
scientific/medical blunder of the 20th Century.
I have absolutely no fear of HIV. Antibodies to HIV is another matter
entirely. If a person is given the death sentence of being HIV positive, he
is labeled for life, shunned by family and friends which can lead to
divorce; he can't get insurance; he can be fired from his job or is not
allowed to work; he can't travel to many countries. Since 1990, HIV
positive people are not allowed to enter the USA. That's why the
International AIDS Conferences are no longer held in the USA. Finally, an
HIV-positive person is treated with anti-HIV drugs which cause
AIDS-defining diseases and death. In pure Orwellian fashion, his death is
listed as AIDS-related.
In addition to the above, an HIV-positive pregnant woman is treated with
the DNA-chain terminator AZT and her infants are given AZT. An HIV-positive
woman can have her children taken away from her if she refuses to stop
breastfeeding or if she refuses to take AZT while pregnant or if she
refuses to give AZT to her children. All over the world these women are
fleeing the AIDS police to protect their children.
Therefore, antibodies to HIV are quite lethal, while HIV itself is
completely harmless as documented extensively on this internet forum.
I am very serious about this experiment. Let's set it up.
Dave Rasnick
PS: I met William Makgoba at the second expert AIDS panel meeting in
Johannesburg in July and asked him if the MRC would fund my proposed
experiment. I also asked him if he would volunteer for the experiment. He
smiled feebly and walked away. Normally he is very talkative.
No one has mentioned a word about my proposed experiment not even to say
I'm nuts. Perhaps I should make more of this in the future.
What does all of this mean for South Africa?
That is for South Africans to decide. But since President Mbeki has honored
the members of this panel with the opportunity to share with him, his
ministers and the people of South Africa what we know and think, and in
some cases believe, about AIDS, here is my offering.
South Africans are indeed emerging from a true catastrophe - the catastrophe
of apartheid. For 50 years Black South Africans "were placed far from white
cities often without electricity or running water, given inferior education
and granted little access to resources or rights. The result was that the
gap between rich and poor in South Africa grew to immense proportions,
virtually unequalled anywhere else on the globe." (from "The life and times
of Thabo Mbeki" by A. Hadland & J. Rantao, Zebra Press, page 135 (1999))
No sooner had South Africans freed themselves from the tyranny of a
minority from within (Apartheid) than they were subjected to the tyranny of
a majority from without (mainstream AIDS establishment). Almost on a daily
basis (certainly in the USA and South Africa) we read in newspapers and
hear in the media about the pandemic of AIDS, the catastrophe of AIDS - and
this pandemic, this catastrophe is happening in Africa, and in particular
in South Africa.
In these accounts of the AIDS holocaust, we are confronted with 30
million-and more-HIV positive people, most of whom are African. We are
shocked by claims that up to one quarter of the population of South Africa
may be infected with HIV. Yet at the expert AIDS panel meeting in Pretoria
last May, no one, not a single person, not one government official, not one
of the CDC officials, not Dr. Makgoba of the MRC, not one scientist, not
one physician - no one - could even give a rough estimate of the size of the
catastrophe of AIDS that is said to be crushing South Africa. When Peter
Duesberg tried to inject hard WHO data into the discussion it was greeted
by a chorus from the panel to take it down.
Since the close of the first meeting in Pretoria, many of us have been
trying to come up with the number - even a crude estimate - of how many people
are really suffering from the pandemic of AIDS in South Africa. No luck.
Alan Whiteside tried to provide these numbers but Professor Geshekter
pointed out that, "The measurable declines in African healthiness and the
increased frequency of disease rates cited by Whiteside can be cogently
explained by the environmental conditions and non-HIV insults to which many
Africans have been exposed and subjected over the past 20-25 years."
Geshekter cited a recent analysis by John Iliffe in "East African Doctors:
A History of the Modern Profession" (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
that documents how deteriorating political economies (not some rainforest
virus) produced the classic symptoms of sickness - fever, persistent cough,
diarrhea and weight loss - that American researchers re-defined as a new and
distinct illness (AIDS) in 1984, declaring it was caused by a single virus
(HIV) which could be transmitted through sexual contact.
Therefore, until we know exactly what is meant by an AIDS catastrophe and
its scale, it's very difficult to know how to discuss prevention and
treatment. Nevertheless, I think Thabo Mbeki proposed the correct measures
for dealing with whatever is going on in South Africa in his speech to the
National Assembly on June 10, 1997:
"The process of sustained development and transformation from which our
government will not depart remains still the provision of a better life for
all and the comprehensive deracialisation of our country, among other
things, by facilitating the achievement of high and sustained rates of
economic growth, further creating the condition for the integration of our
economy into the world economy, promoting the creation of new jobs,
providing land, clean water and sanitation, making progress towards the
elimination of hunger and poverty, improving the quality of and access to
educational, welfare and health services, and ensuring the availability of
affordable and sustainable energy and the provision of affordable housing."
In his "Two Nations" speech in 1998, Mbeki correctly characterized the true
catastrophe of South Africa that the AIDS establishment has transformed
into the catastrophe of AIDS:
"A major component part of the issue of reconciliation and nation-building
is defined by and derives from the material conditions in our society which
have divided our country into two nations, the one black and the other
white. We therefore make bold to say that South Africa is a country of two
nations. One of these nations is white, relatively prosperous, regardless
of gender or geographical dispersal. It has ready access to a developed
economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure.
The second and larger nation of South Africa is black and poor, with the
worst affected being women in rural areas"
Mbeki's "second and larger nation of South Africa" has been transformed
through "carefully calibrated amnesia" into the AIDS catastrophe of South
Africa. Just as with apartheid, the AIDS catastrophe was "founded on a lie"
and "could only be maintained on the basis of the elaboration and
sustenance of even further lies."
Mbeki has said that, "the restoration of the dignity of the peoples of
Africa itself demands that we deal as decisively and as quickly as possible
with the perception that as a continent we are condemned forever to depend
on the merciful charity which those who are kind are ready to put into our
begging bowls."
During the 1970s, we Americans were shown "the tragic sight of the
emaciated child who dies of hunger or is ravaged by curable diseases
because their malnourished bodies do not have the strength to resist any
illness." In those days we sent CARE packages to those African children.
Nowadays we are shown the same images from Africa, but instead of sending
CARE packages, we send condoms and AZT and preach safe sex.
The predictions in the 1980s of an impending AIDS catastrophe in the USA
did not come true. The predictions of an AIDS catastrophe in Europe did not
come true. I suspect that the claims of an AIDS catastrophe in Africa,
specifically South Africa, are also not true. There has certainly been no
evidence to show that there is an AIDS catastrophe in South Africa. I could
be wrong. All I am asking for is the simple evidence of an AIDS catastrophe
in South Africa.
In summary, I want to be as clear as I know how. Whatever is going on in
South Africa it is not AIDS. That is:
It is not contagious.
It is not sexually transmitted.
It is not caused by HIV.
And it is not treatable with anti-HIV drugs.
Dave Rasnick
Closing Remarks
These are my personal thoughts that I want to share with everyone before
the internet discussions end so that others can respond if they wish.
The internet exercise went pretty much as I expected when it was announced
at the first meeting of the panel in early May. I even anticipated that the
majority-those that accept the mainstream view that AIDS is contagious and
caused by HIV-would attempt to ignore the questions put to them by those of
us in the minority who do not accept the mainstream view of AIDS.
However, the almost absolute silence from the majority came as a surprise
even to me. I thought the majority would at least quote from the anonymous
NIAID document. Another strategy I had envisioned was that the mainstream
would conduct a discourse among themselves and ignore the minority. But
alas, they didn't.
In spite of the apparent failure of the internet discussion to engage the
majority's interest, the exercise was, nevertheless, immensely important.
It demonstrated that while on the surface it appears that this struggle
between the dissidents and mainstream authorities is about AIDS, health and
science, the battle is really about the health of our democracies; the
ability to have free and open discourse and debate. It has been known for
over 200 years that an unavoidable characteristic of a vibrant, healthy
democracy is that it is intrinsically messy. The same goes for vibrant,
healthy science.
The hallmark of totalitarian regimes, on the other hand, is a pronounced
lockstep orderliness of thought, discourse and behavior. The measuring
stick of messiness is the level and diversity of discourse and debate in
both a democracy and science. Using this measuring stick, the internet AIDS
panel discussion clearly demonstrates a healthy cacophony of disorder on
the part of the minority-and by contrast, a uniform crash of silence from
the majority.
George Orwell warned us that powerful institutions will use our very
language as a weapon against us. Orwell even got the date right. AIDS-speak
was born at a press conference on April 23, 1984. Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV), AIDS test, HIV test, viral load, are all frauds. From April
1984 until now, the power, resources and prestige of the US Government have
created, maintained, and protected the fiction of an AIDS pandemic. It
never happened in the USA. It never happened in Europe. And as a result of
the first meeting of the panel in Pretoria last May, I'm beginning to think
it is not happening in South Africa.
The HIV blunder was not the result of a conspiracy but was an unfortunate
consequence of systemic problems inherent in the institutions of the USA.
Few people know that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which includes the NIAID
that is responsible for AIDS, are military organizations. For example,
Anthony Fauci, the Director of NIAID, has a military rank and uniform to
boot that comes with the job. The CDC and the NIH both come under the
Executive Branch of our Government. Their ultimate boss is President
Clinton.
Every penny of AIDS research money goes through the hands of Anthony Fauci
who makes sure that only the HIV faithful receive the sacrament of a
research grant. This fact alone is sufficient to explain why it is that
virtually every one of the more than 100,000 scientific and medical papers
on AIDS accepts without question the contagious, HIV hypothesis of AIDS. If
they didn't, they wouldn't get funded and they wouldn't get published. It's
that simple.
A few weeks ago, President Clinton made AIDS a national security issue.
That action allowed at least three additional federal institutions to play
a direct role in maintaining and protecting the fiction of a global AIDS
pandemic. These institutions are the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Agency
(NSA).
I don't have to point out to the government of South Africa that the
involvement of the FBI, CIA, and NSA in AIDS represents a far greater
threat to our democracies than to HIV. The most astounding thing to me
about all of this is that the greatest threat to our democracies has turned
out not to be goose-stepping soldiers in camouflage but rather the chronic
fear peddled by white-coated scientists and physicians and their sycophants
in the media who have squandered billions of dollars of taxpayers' money
annually.
I close realizing that this is the most provocative, disturbing, and no
doubt most infuriating of my posts. The HIV/AIDS blunder began with a press
conference in 1984. Perhaps it will come to an end at a press conference in
South Africa in 2000.
Dave Rasnick