Apparently, HIV Doesn't Cause AIDS

[Sa_artman]

Myth: HIV is a harmless passenger virus

Fact: Studies in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo all support HIV's ability to deplete CD4+ T-cells.
There are some denialists that argue that HIV does exist but that it is merely a harmless passenger virus and that no evidence exists to claim otherwise. In fact, there are thousands of studies that support the cytopathic properties of HIV. While some aspects of how HIV destroys cells that are not fully understood, that it does so it beyond doubt. This is not unique to HIV, of course, as the effects of many diseases are known despite the mechanisms not being completely elucidated. Some of what is known (and supporting evidence will be cited) is the documented here. Since there are literally thousands upon thousands of papers on HIV, a representative few are cited here. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Evidence shows us that AIDS the CD4+ T-cell depletion is due to HIV.

This can be observed 1) in vitro (in cell cultures), 2) ex vivo (in tissues removed from animal models or patients), and 3) in vivo both in animal models and in infected individuals.

1) In vitro evidence:

Infectable CD4+ cells in culture, when exposed to HIV, become infected and die. This is not limited to cells naturally expressing CD4 such as CD4+ T-cells. It can be induced artificially, as well. For example, HeLa cells (cervical carcinoma cells) are not normally able to be infected by HIV due to a lack of CD4 expression. However, when the same HeLa cells were forced to express CD4, HIV could and did infect the cells, killing them and forming plaques (regions depleted of cells due to death) on soft agar plates [1]. There are numerous papers using HIV in cultures and they show beyond the shadow of a doubt that it kills CD4+ cells. In fact, the very first paper by Montagnier et. al specifically mentioned the decline of lymphocytes in the HIV exposed culture but not in the uninfected control cultures [2]. This is consistent with the decline of that cell subset in infected individuals. Also see here [3].

2) Ex vivo evidence:

So that is all fine and dandy, but is this destruction of CD4+ T-cells by HIV also observed in vivo?

Absolutely. Ex vivo studies (those performed in tissue removed from patients or animal models) recapitulated the depletion of T-cells observed in vitro.[4-7].

3) In vivo evidence:

Does in vivo evidence then support in vitro and ex vivo studies? The answer is yes. Numerous animal models have been generated to test anti-HIV strategies. One such model is the Humanized Mouse. Humanized mice are mice which have been transplanted with human immune systems. That is, their immune cells are 100% human. These cells have been taken from human donors and placed in otherwise immune-compromised mice. In some cases the studies have gone as far as to simulate the route of transmission used in humans. For example, rectal exposure of HIV to humanized mice results in infection and a significant decline in CD4+ T-cells [8]. Other animal models show similar patterns. Some of these references are cited here:[9-12].

How Does T-Cell Depletion Occur?
This is the area where there are still some possibilities being researched. New evidence emerges that yields new clues. However, it should be noted that not a single one puts HIV's causality to doubt.

Destruction of CD4+ T-cells has been documented to occur by two general methods; 1) direct cell killing and 2) indirect cell killing.

1) Direct Cell Killing:

Direct cell killing involves the destruction of infected CD4+ cells [13]. This is readily observable in cell cultures and is a method of cell killing utilized by many viruses. Direct cell killing, however, does not appear to contribute as much to T-cell decline as indirect killing.

2) Indirect Cell Killing:

Indirect killing of uninfected cells is likewise supported by a large body of evidence. Isolated HIV proteins can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) of uninfected cells alone or in combination. For example, the dual expression of gp120 and human CD4 alone is sufficient to cause T-Cell depletion in transgenic mice (despite a lack of infectious HIV) [14]. The protein Tat has likewise been shown to cause uninfected cell death in culture [15]. Apoptosis is observed in uninfected cells as a result of infected cells [16-19] as well as killing of uninfected cells by the host immune system in response to infection [20].

So how can we say with any certainty that the decline in CD4+ T-cells results in the susceptibility to opportunistic infections seen in AIDS patients?

A simple look at other instances of Non-HIV related T-cell decline provides convenient precedents.

Artificially induced CD4+ T-cell depletion due to exposure to monoclonal anti-CD4 antibodies result in immune suppression severe enough to allow for xenografts (tissue grafts from a different species) [21].

Naturally occurring cases include children with Di George's syndrome (an inherited disease which affects, among other things, the production of T-cells) who are highly susceptible to infections. Ataxia telangiectasia, another rare inherited disease, likewise affects the production of T-cells (again, among other things) and results in lowered immunity. Autosomal recessive SCID results in the lack of T-cells and an extreme susceptibility to infections.

Finally, Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia (a rare non-HIV related deficit of CD4+ T cells) leads to extreme susceptibility to OIs as seen in advanced AIDS cases [22].

Summary
HIV causes depletion of CD4+ T-cells in vitro. This cell-specific depletion is recapitulated ex vivo, and in vivo, both in animal models and in infected humans.
Both direct and indirect killing of T-cells has been observed and documented in a) in vitro, b) ex vivo, and c) in vivo both in animal models as well as infected humans.
Finally, depletion of T-cells as shown in non-HIV conditions (especially Idiopathic CD4+ T lymphocytopenia) leads to susceptibility to opportunistic infections as seen in advanced AIDS. Thus, there is no logic in saying that HIV-dependent T-cell depletion should be no different.
Again, there are some aspects of HIV biology that still requires elucidation. No scientist will deny this as it is a normal part of science. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor are all aspects of any disease solved instantly. However, all the evidence, past and emerging, supports HIV as the cause of T-cell depletion and thus AIDS.

References
1. The T4 Gene Encodes the AIDS Virus Receptor is Expressed in the Immune System and the Brain. Cell, Vol. 47, 333-348, November 7, 1986.

2. Isolation of a T-Lymphotropic Retrovirus from a Patient at Risk for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). SCIENCE, VOL. 220 p. 868-870.

3. HIV-1 infection, apoptosis, and CD4 T cell depletion in vitro and in hu-PBL-SCID mice. Int Conf AIDS. 1996 Jul 7-12; 11: 9

4. CXCR4 utilization is sufficient to trigger CD41 T cell depletion in HIV-1-infected human lymphoid tissue. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 96, pp. 663–668, January 1999 Medical Sciences.

5. Dual-tropic (X4R5) HIV-1 preferentially use CCR5 OR CXCR4 in human lymphoid tissue ex vivo: correlation with CD4+ T cell depletion. Int Conf AIDS 2000 Jul 9-14; 13

6. Depletion of CD4 T lymphocytes in human lymphoid tissue infected ex vivo with doxycycline-dependent HIV-1. Virology. 2004 Oct 10;328(1):1-6.

7. CCR5- and CXCR4-tropic HIV-1 are equally cytopathic for their T-cell targets in human lymphoid tissue. Nature Medicine 5, 344 - 346 (1999)

8. Intrarectal transmission, systemic infection, and CD4+ T cell depletion in humanized mice infected with HIV-1. J Exp Med. 2007 April 16; 204(4): 705–714.

9. HIV-1 infection and CD4+ T cell depletion in the humanized Rag2-/-γc-/- (RAG-hu) mouse model. Retrovirology 2006, 3:76

10. A novel small animal model for HIV-1 infection. The FASEB Journal Vol. 19 July 2005.

11. A Macaque model of HIV-1 Infection. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0812587106

12. Mucosal transmission of R5 and X4 tropic HIV-1 via vaginal and rectal routes in humanized Rag2−/−γc−/− (RAG-hu) mice. Virology Volume 373, Issue 2, 10 April 2008, Pages 342-351

13. HIV-1 Directly Kills CD4+T Cells by a Fas-independent Mechanism. The Journal of Experimental Medicine Volume 187, Number 7, April 6, 1998 1113–1122

14. Induction of CD4' T cell depletion in mice doubly transgenic for HIV gp120 and human CD4. Eur. J. Immunol. 1997.27: 1319-1324

[Mr. Bill]

HIV is Not the Cause of AIDS
A Summary of Current Research Findings

by James DeMeo, Ph.D.

In the early 1990s, Burroughs-Wellcome Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of AZT, was shaken under growing criticism of the drug. New studies demonstrated no benefits to AZT users, but documented negative health effects. Burroughs-Wellcome therefore proposed to reduce the dosages -- Duesberg's critique of this proposal was, simply, with less poison, the patients would take a bit longer to die.

Major scientific journals, such as Science and Nature, have published seriously flawed studies purporting to demonstrate that illegal drugs are not the causative factor for AIDS, alongside of condemnations of Duesberg and other AIDS critics.

The editors of these journals have often refused to print pointed criticisms of the studies which demonstrate where they are flawed, and likewise refused to allow letters of rebuttal against the personal attacks. (The 11 March 1993 Commentary in Nature, by Ascher, et al.,"Does Drug Use Cause AIDS?", and associated 16 April 1993 Editorial in Science are cases in point -- both were seriously flawed and attacked Duesberg by name, but no published critique or rebuttal was allowed.)

It is Big Science at work, in an unholy collusion with Big Medicine, Big Government, and Big Media.

Some HIV Fundamentalists have even called for the forced silencing of AIDS critics, on the grounds that they are "confusing the public" and "causing deaths" by getting in the way of the AZT medication, HIV vaccination, and safe-sex programs.

While these same conference gatherings and research journals will invite comments from homosexual activist groups, and spotlight the discredited Gallo and other HIV/AZT millionaires, Duesberg and the AIDS critics are forbidden access to the podium, and threatened or physically attacked.

continued...

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[Sa_artman]

Still Crazy After All These Years: The Challenge of AIDS Denialism for Science
07 December 2009


AIDSTruth contributor Nicoli Nattrass writes in AIDS and Behavior:

In his new book, Denying AIDS, Seth Kalichman observes that people are surprised by the persistence of AIDS denialists: “Are they still around?”[1, p. 1] he is often asked. And it is a good question. Given the large body of scientific and clinical evidence on HIV disease and treatment (expertly summarized by Chigwedere and Essex in this issue of AIDS and Behavior) it is indeed strange that Peter Duesberg and his followers still claim HIV is harmless and that antiretrovirals cause rather than treat AIDS. While such dissident views were intellectually respectable in the 1980s when HIV science was new, they make little sense today. Thus Joseph Sonnabend, a doctor who treated some of the earliest AIDS cases in New York and was well known for arguing that environmental factors may be more important than a virus in driving AIDS, was quick to change his mind once antiretroviral treatment was shown to act against HIV and transform the health of his patients [2, p. 25]. Peter Duesberg, by contrast, refused to accept the evidence, thereby earning the label ‘denialist’ rather than ‘dissident’ [1, 2].

Duesberg may be pathologically contrarian in this respect, but he has an enduring appeal. Kalichman [1] argues that this is in large part because his claim that HIV is harmless reinforces the normal process of denial most people undergo when faced with traumatizing information—such as a positive HIV test result. Another reason is that Duesberg’s views are promoted in books, on denialist websites and blogs and by a persistent trickle of ‘Duesberg-as-oppressed-hero-scientist’ stories from independent film-makers and journalists. It is precisely because he holds a post at Berkeley and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, that Duesberg has been able to build the media profile that sustains him. As Epstein argues, by ‘using his scientific credentials to buy him popular support, then using the popular support to push for recognition by his colleagues—Duesberg gained staying power’ [3, p. 142].

This has resulted in HIV science being represented as fundamentally contested in ways which it actually is not. And because of the threat AIDS denialism poses both to public health and to the authority of HIV science itself, scientists have found it necessary, time and time again, to respond to Duesberg’s claims, despite their long having been demolished [see e.g. 4–8]. Chigwedere and Essex’s paper in this issue is one more such refutation in a long line of refutations. What makes their paper different is that in addition to marshalling the key evidence in support of the scientific consensus on HIV, they criticize Duesberg for inspiring South Africa’s ex-President Mbeki AIDS policies (thereby causing hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths) and they take him to task for suggesting (in a co-authored paper initially published in Medical Hypotheses but subsequently withdrawn by the publisher) that the African AIDS epidemic does not exist.

Chigwedere and Essex are clearly angry—the emotion is evident on every page. This is not merely because of the dangers Duesberg’s intransigence poses for public health but because of his refusal to change his views when the evidence demands it. This has long been a source of frustration for HIV scientists. For example, Robert Gallo, the co-discoverer of HIV, has described him as ‘like a little dog that won’t let go’ [in 6, p. 1644] and John Moore [9], an eminent virologist at Weill Cornell Medical School, has likened Duesberg to Monty Python’s black knight who keeps fighting despite having all of his limbs cut off by his opponent. And the problem is far more than intellectual because disregarding evidence not only undermines scientific progress, but it threatens the social basis which makes such progress possible. Respect for the evidence and for the people who generate it is a core value in the scientific community—and it is precisely this that Duesberg flouts. Warren Winkelstein, one of the early HIV epidemiologists, recalls how, at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington to discuss Duesberg’s theories, Duesberg would frequently get up, wander around the room and start talking to reporters. In his view, Duesberg simply ‘wasn’t listening to what was being said’ [in 10, p. 131). The message Duesberg was broadcasting then, and in all his statements on AIDS, is loud and clear: he alone is correct and the work of others is not worth considering.

[Mr. Bill]

HIV is Not the Cause of AIDS
A Summary of Current Research Findings

by James DeMeo, Ph.D.


There is growing public knowledge of the circus atmosphere, pseudo-science and vested interests at work behind the HIV hypothesis of AIDS, and the public has generally become better educated and skeptical of the new poisons being peddled by doctors and pharmacy companies.

A new AIDS criticism group, "Project AIDS International" has been formed, apparently for the main purpose to bring criminal charges and class-action lawsuits against officials of Burroughs-Wellcome Pharmaceutical.

The allegation is made they knew AZT was both highly toxic and worthless against AIDS, and continued to promote it even after thousands of people began to sicken and die from the treatment.

The above facts are testimony to the general death of science and critical science journalism in the USA. Where is the independent news media? Where are the independent scientists and scientific scholarly societies? The answer is, they are all emotionally contracted and too intellectually incapacitated to effectively deal with this burning sexual issue, or they have been bought off, threatened into silence, or fired from positions of public influence.

A deep culture-wide emotional anxiety and paralyzing anti-sexual hysteria has silenced most people on the AIDS issue -- they simply parrot what comes through the television or newspapers. A cadre of loud and vocal anti-sexual zealots now dominates the discussion. Their political agendas have been publicized, and sometimes written into law.

Nearly everyone, from right-wing conservatives to left-wing radicals, has fallen lock-step into brainless nodding approval of the public anti-heterosexual brainwash.

Also, there is a tight collusion of moneyed special interests controlling academe, medicine, politics, and the press. Dissenters to the "Official Truth" that "HIV causes AIDS" have been effectively silenced. This collusion of emotional and economic factors have dovetailed to barricade rational public discussion and debate on the issue.

continued...

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[Sa_artman]

Killer syndrome: The Aids denialists
01 December 2009


Rob Sharp reports in The Independent on the presistence of AIDS denialism

A middle-aged man walks into an East London café and apologises for being late. With his clipped hair and bus-driver's uniform of thick overcoat, shirt, and branded tie, he looks like any other public service employee. But soon he delivers a speech of startling ferocity against the medical establishment.

Mike explains that he runs a London-based health website on which he posts articles and links to information that questions whether HIV causes Aids, disputes the existence of HIV, and denies the fact that unprotected sex helps to spread it. He offers support for those who, he says, are "negotiating with medical authorities over taking a different approach to dealing with their circumstances." He claims to get thousands of hits on his site and has helped advise several people who have been diagnosed with HIV and are launching legal action against their local health authorities, in the belief that they have been unfairly treated by the doctors who are trying to help them.

Mike is an Aids denialist. He shares the view of a global network of academics and campaigners that follow the proclamations of Peter Duesberg, a cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who believes HIV does not cause Aids. And, alarmingly, 2009 has been a good year for the denialist community.

In the first week of November, a record number of Aids denialists from 28 countries, including Britain, attended the Rethinking Aids conference in Oakland, California. One of the main draws of the conference was a screening of a controversial new documentary by Canadian-born director Brent Leung, House of Numbers, which gives a platform to denialist theories.

Over the last two months it has been screened at the Cambridge and Raindance Film Festivals - decisions that provoked a storm of criticism online. The Spectator was forced to cancel a debate and screening of the film on 28 October after some of the participating speakers pulled out. And yet despite widespread outrage, the film has undoubtedly encouraged those who espouse denialist theories in the UK.

So who are the Aids deniers and what do they believe? According to Seth Kalichman, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, whose exposé of the movement, Denying Aids, was published in March, denialists anywhere in the world generally share several common beliefs. They say that the "myth" that HIV causes Aids is the product of conspiracies between governments and the pharmaceutical industry; that antiretroviral medication is toxic; and that one day the orthodox medical theories on HIV will crumble.

So far, so typically crackpot. But the movement has gained some damaging traction - and the propagation of denialist theories can have deadly repercussions. Aids charities warn that reading material which argues that HIV does not cause Aids can dissuade potential sufferers from getting tested for HIV, and even lead HIV-infected people to ignore HIV-positive results and cause them to reject antiretroviral therapies.

"Denying the link between HIV and Aids is scientific illiteracy," says Yusef Azad, director of policy and campaigns at the National Aids Trust, Britain's leading HIV/Aids charity. "But worse than that, it is profoundly dangerous and has caused countless unnecessary deaths. Just because something is on the internet does not mean it is even remotely true. More than two decades of peer-reviewed scientific research demonstrates in some detail how HIV attacks the immune system and causes Aids if left untreated."

[Mr. Bill]

HIV is Not the Cause of AIDS
A Summary of Current Research Findings

by James DeMeo, Ph.D.


The Big Lie of the "heterosexual AIDS epidemic" satisfies the most deep emotional fears and hatreds of gratified genitality in the average individual.

The emotional component is the only factor which explains how and why this disastrous lie has become a new Official Truth, why to question it publicly is to risk social isolation or attack from "believers" -- and why the mythology has worked to reinforce the most pleasure-fearing and censorious aspects of human personal relationships and social contact.

"AIDS" was the emotional plague's deceitful response to an un-focused and chaotic, but potentially healthy sexual revolution, and it has been a most effective deceit, of sweeping, global proportions.

There is no valid scientific proof or even suggestive evidence to support the huge public investment in the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS.

As Duesberg says, the HIV hypothesis fails to explain or predict the epidemiology and pathology of AIDS. It is a failed hypothesis which has cost thousands of lives, and billions of wasted dollars. The HIV hypothesis of AIDS is not supported by science, but is rather maintained by big money pharmacy investments, by political hardball tactics from groups with clear political agendas, and by a lot of bad science, often undertaken by those who profited handsomely from the carnage.

The campaign to inform the public that "HIV causes AIDS" and "everyone is at risk for AIDS" is, bluntly, a Big Lie, and should be openly exposed and corrected at every possible level.

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[Sa_artman]

YOU ARE HEREMcGill Daily on the dangers of denialism

McGill Daily on the dangers of denialism
26 November 2009


Stephanie Law writes in the McGill Daily:

Christina Maggiore died of an AIDS-related illness on December 27, 2008. She was a successful businesswoman who started a multimillion-dollar import/export clothing company, and a freelance consultant for U.S. government export programs. Maggiore is most notorious for her role as an HIV-positive activist who promoted the idea that HIV is not the real cause of AIDS. She was an HIV-denialist.

Maggiore was diagnosed with HIV in 1992. In 1994, she met Peter Duesberg, a molecular biology professor at the University of California at Berkley. Duesberg convinced Maggiore that HIV does not lead to AIDS. A year later, Maggiore started one of the largest networks of HIV-denialists and skeptics, called Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives.

Maggiore refused antiretroviral treatment for HIV because she did not think HIV would lead to AIDS and AIDS-related illnesses. She did not take the recommended treatment for pregnant HIV-positive women to prevent mother-to-child transmission. Her child died at the age of three from Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. The Los Angeles County coroner and various other independent pathology experts concluded that the death was a direct result of her untreated HIV that had progressed into AIDS.

W hen asked about Maggiore, Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS Centre, becomes enraged: “Christina Maggiore and her daughter died because they didn’t get treated…. Their story is tragic, but the reality is, Christina Maggiore was so misguided in believing this concoction of bullshit, that it cost not only her life, which is her business, but also the life of her three-year-old kid, and that is everybody’s business.”

Maggiore and her daughter’s deaths are only two of many that result from denying the causal link between HIV and AIDS.

[Sa_artman]

How to spot an AIDS denialist
13 November 2009




by Seth Kalichman (Originally published in the New Humanist)

Imagine that you or someone you love just received an HIV positive test result. The news is devastating. After a short time you begin to face the diagnosis. You turn to the Internet for answers. Searching the words “AIDS diagnosis” brings up thousands of websites. A whirlwind of information spins your mind. One credible-looking website, Aids.org, reads: “There is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus and slow down the damage to your immune system. There is no way to ‘clear’ HIV from the body. Other drugs can prevent or treat opportunistic infections (OIs). In most cases, these drugs work very well. The newer, stronger ARVs have also helped reduce the rates of most OIs. A few OIs, however, are still very difficult to treat.”

With a click of the mouse, an equally credible-looking site, Aliveandwell.org, asks: “Did you know … Many experts contend that AIDS is not a fatal, incurable condition caused by HIV? That most of the AIDS information we receive is based on unsubstantiated assumptions, unfounded estimates and improbable predictions? That the symptoms associated with AIDS are treatable using non-toxic, immune-enhancing therapies that have restored the health of people diagnosed with AIDS and that have enabled those truly at risk to remain well?”

Which do you trust? Which do you believe? Which would you want to believe? Would you choose to believe there may be hope offered by medical treatments or would you prefer to believe that HIV is harmless? This simple example illustrates the lure of AIDS denialism.

AIDS denialism tells us what anyone would want to hear – that HIV does not cause AIDS and that if you live a “healthy lifestyle” (whatever that is) you won’t get AIDS. None of which is true. In fact, there are an estimated 33 million people in the world living with HIV infection. In 2007 there were nearly three million new HIV infections and two million people died of AIDS. People are living longer and healthier lives with HIV infection as a result of earlier detection through HIV antibody testing and the remarkable success of HIV treatments. Indeed, countries that launched aggressive testing and treatment programs, such as Brazil and Botswana, have reduced suffering and prolonged life. In contrast, South Africa delayed testing and treatment programs as a result of former President Thabo Mbeki’s AIDS denialism, policies that resulted in over 300,000 unnecessary deaths and over 35,000 infants senselessly infected with HIV. There is no rational basis for disputing these established facts, and yet rejecting the reality of AIDS is the mission of AIDS denialists.

AIDS denialism is one of several incarnations of denialism. All denialism is defined by rhetorical tactics designed to give the impression of a legitimate debate among experts when in fact there is none. Holocaust deniers claim that historians disagree about the evidence for Nazi mass gassings and systematic murder of Jews. Global warming denialists say that climatologists are torn by the evidence about climate change. 9/11 “Truth Seekers”, as clever a piece of branding as “pro-life”, say the collapse of the Twin Towers resulted from controlled demolition. Vaccine hysterics tell us that the science is split on whether vaccinations cause autism. And AIDS denialists say that scientists are in disagreement about whether HIV causes AIDS.

It is easy to be fooled by AIDS denialists. Not only do they tell us what we want to hear, they use methods of persuasion to create the illusion of debate. Just as HIV attacks our immune defences that would otherwise destroy it, AIDS denialists appeal to our sense of scepticism. Indeed, AIDS denialists refer to themselves as dissident scientists and sceptics. Denialists misuse science and rely on pseudoscience to call established fact into question. Denialists also exploit what is not known about how HIV causes AIDS to suggest that HIV may not cause AIDS at all. The more sophisticated efforts of AIDS denialism, like the “documentary” House of Numbers, are most disturbing because they use every trick in the denialist playbook to juxtapose pseudoscience with established science. The best way to recognise AIDS denialism is to know their common tricks of persuasion.

There are two sides to every debate. But just asserting there is a debate does not mean there is one. AIDS denialists rely on a small band of fake experts, mostly retired academics who proclaim that HIV does not cause AIDS. There is not a single instance of an “expert” offered by AIDS denialism that has ever actually done research on AIDS. In rare examples, denialist experts have a history of credible science only to have later gone off the deep end. The most credentialled AIDS denialists are Nobel Laureate Kari Mullis, who developed the PCR technology for sequencing the genetic code, and Peter Duesberg, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California-Berkeley and member of the National Academy of Science. Although credentialled, neither is credible. Aside from saying HIV cannot cause AIDS, though he has done no research on AIDS, Mullis has shared his experiences on LSD and encounters with an alien fluorescent raccoon, and Duesberg, who did important work on cancer in his early career, now claims that there is no genetic basis for any cancer. Both have demonstrated an outright disregard for scientific evidence.

But beyond these two high-profile mavericks most of the “experts” in AIDS denialism are out-and-out pseudoscientists. My favourite is Henry Bauer, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Science Studies at Virginia Tech University, who claims to have proven that HIV cannot cause AIDS. Professor Bauer is also a self-proclaimed international expert on the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Detecting fake experts requires looking beyond college degrees and achievements from decades gone by. Do not confuse credentials with credibility. Saying that there is no genetic basis for any cancer, describing extraterrestrial experiences, and searching for big green monsters in Scottish waters should matter when examining the credibility of someone making important claims about the causes of a devastating disease.

In the 1980s legitimate scientists disagreed about AIDS. For AIDS deniers, everything old is new again. AIDS denialists rely on selected research findings from the days when not much was known about AIDS. The first tests for HIV antibodies were less reliable than current testing technologies. There were early debates about what caused AIDS and good ideas that turned out to be dead ends. The drug AZT was prescribed in massive and often toxic doses. But none of this is true any more. Though there remain many debates in medical science about how HIV causes AIDS, there is no longer a debate about whether HIV causes AIDS. Unfortunately, outdated scientific literature is not purged when new knowledge emerges. AIDS deniers use this information to create the illusion of a live debate. Denialists select old findings that support their flawed logic because they have no evidence of their own. Cherrypicking is another favourite rhetorical technique of denialists. This involves selecting a lone scientific finding, presenting the results out of context, and deploying it as evidence for their own conclusions.

Another popular denialist manoeuvre is to call for a definitive single study, analogous to the creationist demand for a definitive transitional fossil to prove evolution. Peter Duesberg for example, asserts that “There is not a single controlled epidemiological study to confirm the postulated viral etiology of AIDS.” He is right about this. No one scientific study ever “proves” anything. Scientists are cautious to draw conclusions from even a series of experiments. To establish that HIV causes AIDS required countless laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies, all converging to a definitive conclusion. There is no single scientific paper proving that HIV causes AIDS, just as there is also no single physics experiment proving that a man could land on the moon, no single study that proves excessive exposure to the sun causes skin cancer or one study that proves smoking causes lung cancer. Rather there are tens of thousands of studies containing a wide range of evidence that, taken together, make an overwhelming case.

AIDS denialists will also demand even more specific evidence, only to change the demand once the evidence is produced. One example of this “pushing back the goalpost” technique was the former Sunday Times journalist and prominent AIDS denier Neville Hodgkinson’s claim that HIV tests are invalid because HIV has never been isolated. When scientists provided evidence that HIV has been isolated, the demand changed; Hodgkinson argued that the isolated virus was “impure”. Denialists now demand that the virus be isolated in “pure form”, that is uncontaminated by proteins. The demand for a pure virus devoid of cellular proteins is impossible to meet as it defies the biological nature of viruses. Such shifting of the grounds of debate allows denialists to claim that they are the ones following the evidence, and it is the AIDS establishment – an alliance of careerist researchers and greedy drugs companies – who are propagating pseudoscience.

All denialism is entrenched in conspiracy thinking. A spectrum of such thinking motivates AIDS denialism, covering everything from a government conspiracy to invent HIV for genocide against Africans and gays to a pharmaceutical industry conspiracy to sell toxic drugs. One of my favourites is the flamboyant conspiracy thinking of vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath, who said “The people and the governments of the world have to decide whether they are ready to stop being manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry and embrace instead the scientific knowledge that is now available to fight the global HIV/AIDS epidemic with effective, safe and affordable natural means.” The “natural means” Rath is referring to, of course, are the useless vitamins that he peddles to the poor. Though Rath has now been prevented from marketing his phony cure in Africa, and famously lost his libel suit against Ben Goldacre when he exposed his fraudulent practices, great damage was done and he continues to agitate for AIDS denialism through his spurious Health Foundation.

But while some denialists are clearly charlatans out to make a quick buck out of other people’s misery, many are perfectly genuine, which is what makes them especially dangerous. They can be persuasive because they actually believe what they say. Evidence means nothing to them. Their thought process resembles what psychiatrists call an “encapsulated delusion”, where despite what appears to be otherwise rational thinking there is an intractable maladaptive belief system that is impermeable to contrary evidence. Many of these people have themselves been diagnosed with HIV, and cling to the hope that this is not a death sentence. This adds a particular poignancy to their claims. A potent irony also hangs over denialism; year on year AIDS deniers who have tested positive for HIV succumb to AIDS-related illnesses. The most visible of such cases was Christine Maggiore, the founder of the Alive and Well movement that claims there is no causal link between HIV and AIDS. Maggiore believed that HIV does not cause AIDS even after the AIDS-related death of her three-year-old daughter and right up until her own death of AIDS in 2008. AIDS denialists are therefore a mixed bag of rogue scientists, pseudoscientists, conspiracy theorists, and snake-oil salesmen. There are also vocal AIDS denialist activists, primarily HIV positive people who are in deep denial of their diagnosis and seek the insulating bubble offered by AIDS denialism.

So, what can we do about AIDS denialism? There will always be crazy people who say crazy things. AIDS denialists only do harm when people listen to them. The best defence against AIDS denialism is improved public understanding of science and medicine. We all need to know how to recognise cranks and crackpots and their sinister rhetorical devices. When searching for reliable information make sure it does not rely on old, most likely outdated, sources. Find credible sources of current information and trust them, but keep pressing them with questions. Familiarise yourself with the basic facts of HIV and AIDS and be sceptical of far-fetched conspiracies. Be informed and think critically, but don’t fall for global conspiracy hysteria or accept pseudoscience because that is what you want to hear. We know that drugs companies make huge profits, and that scientists rely on research grants and can be fallible. This does not mean there is a global conspiracy to misrepresent the science. AIDS researchers and the pharmaceutical industry, believe it or not, are in it to save lives.

And finally, hard as it might be for believers in free speech and open debate, if you encounter AIDS denialism, do not enter into a debate. AIDS denialists want to create the impression that there is a debate regarding HIV causing AIDS and debating feeds the illusion. This debate was exhausted years ago. Now it merely serves as a distraction from the ongoing struggle to explain how and why HIV causes AIDS and trying to prevent it. In the words of The Who, and the title of Richard Wilson’s excellent book on scepticism, “Don’t Get Fooled Again”.

To see the AIDS Denialist Hall of Fame, visit the article at New Humanist.

[Sa_artman]

AIDS denialists who have died

A partial list of HIV-positive HIV/AIDS denialists who have died from conditions, and with symptoms, characteristic of AIDS None of the scientists and journalists who are the most prominent promoters of HIV denialist theories in the mainstream and "independent" media have reported testing positive for HIV; the issue of the cause and treatment of HIV/AIDS is a purely academic matter for those who drive the denialist movement. But a number of people diagnosed with HIV infection – people whose lives are in the balance – have become activists in the "AIDS dissident" movement. Tragically, many of these individuals have died with symptoms and/or infectious illnesses that are characteristic of AIDS. Their friends in the denialist movement have in every instance insisted that HIV had nothing to do with their deaths. The medical records of dead denialists are, of course, not publicly available, but obituaries and reports of their untimely deaths almost always include descriptions of symptoms and conditions that are typical of late-stage HIV disease and extremely rare in uninfected people, along with statements attributing their deaths to "unknown causes," to secret illicit drug use, and to immune system damage caused by the "stress" of supporting the unpopular cause of AIDS denialism. It's worth noting that none of the HIV-negative denialists have died from these ailments. The numbers and stories speak for themselves, and we hope that readers who test positive for HIV will heed the warning in these deaths. What is the likelihood that so many individuals would die with AIDS-like symptoms at relatively young ages without their HIV infection playing the causative role?

Many, many other people with HIV have died of AIDS-related causes because denialist disinformation persuaded them (or their parents or their government) that antiretroviral treatment, and not the virus, was the danger to their health. (AIDStruth.org has not included here the names of perinatally infected HIV+ children who have died from HIV/AIDS because their denialist parents chose not to seek appropriate medical care for them.) The linked article by Bruce Mirken, Bad science: They once thought HIV was harmless. Now, they say, AIDS has forced them to reconsider, from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, February 2, 2000, reveals that many HIV+ denialists who have no public visibility have died from AIDS, and that many more see the error of their thinking and when they start getting sick and can no longer sustain the denialist fantasy. These individuals are regularly attacked by denialists verbally, in the press, and on the internet when they go on ARVs and their health improves.

AIDStruth.org is continuing to compile this list. Please send names of denialists who have died from HIV disease and supporting documentation to deathbydenial@earthlink.net for review and posting.

Ken Anderlini
Ken Anderlini was a co-moderator of the "AIDS Myth Exposed" message board on MSN. Anderlini died in April of 2007. Denialist David Crowe from the "Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society" wrote an announcement of his death, saying: "Over the past couple of years his health had declined rapidly with a strange neurological disease for which nobody could pinpoint the cause (except doctors who claimed it was HIV related, of course)."

https://home.live.com/
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the great Nigerian music star, "died in 1997 of a disease he claimed didn't exist, and certainly not in Africa: AIDS. No matter that Fela's older brother, Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, had served as the country's health minister and launched Nigeria's much-lauded early AIDS program. . . . There was hardly an illness African herbs couldn't cure, Fela maintained, and he dismissed condoms as unnatural, unpleasurable, and a white plot to reduce the black birthrate. He believed, says Olikoye, that "all doctors were fabricating AIDS, including myself." Fela was 58.

(Mark Schoofs, "A Tale of Two Brothers Part 2: Fela Didn't Believe AIDS Existed. But then he died of the disease. His brother is still trying to convince Fela's fans that HIV is real." Village Voice, November 10 - 16, 1999.)

Michael Bellefountaine
A member of the denialist ACT UP/San Francisco, Michael Bellafontaine died on May 10, 2007. He was 41. His Bay Area Reporter obituary said that "According to Andrea Lindsay, a friend and fellow activist, Mr. Bellefountaine died of a sudden systemic infection, though the exact cause has not been determined."

http://ebar.com/obituaries/index.php?sec=ob&article=252
Sophie Brassard
Sophie Brassard, a Canadian, was the HIV-positive mother of two HIV-positive, perinatally-infected sons. Citing the influence of HEAL, Alive and Well, Duesberg and Mullis, she refused to allow her children access to medical care when the became ill and fled the country with them. She consequently lost custody and parental rights. She died of AIDS on September 16, 2002, at age 37.

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/...ML/000186.html
Ronnie Burk
Ronnie Burke was a member of the dissident group ACT UP/San Francisco (which has been denounced by other legitimate ACT UP groups). He died from AIDS in March of 2003 at the age of 47.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DGEAJ9IH61.DTL
Jerry Colinard
Jerry Colinard, a board member of San Diego HEAL, died on July 4, 2009, at the age of 55, of AIDS. His webpage recalls that “Jerry supported the HIV community and was honored by a San Diego agency, ‘Being Alive,’ for his commitment. However by 2001 he had rejected traditional Western drug centered HIV medicine. He referred to himself as an ‘AIDS dissident’ thereafter.”

Sylvie Cousseau
Sylvie Cousseau contributed to a list of testimonials from people who tested HIV positive but embraced AIDS denial and rejected HIV treatment. This list of testimonials features on several different websites, including HEAL Toronto and the personal web pages of Rudolf Werner, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Miami:

http://molbio.med.miami.edu/HIV-Aids/stories.htm
http://healtoronto.com/testimonials.html http://www.garynull.com/documents/Co...eapOfFaith.htm
Sylvie Cousseau was the partner of Mark Griffiths. Sylvie died in 2001 at age 41. Cousseau's death was reported in postings to AIDS denial message boards in France.

Boyd Ed Graves
Boyd Graves was an HIV-positive lawyer who promoted the false view that HIV was developed by the US National Cancer Institute as part of a military programme to develop biological warfare agents for use against targeted communities. He found an NCI "flowchart" which he misinterpreted as demonstrating the existence of this programme, and initiated several unsuccessful lawsuits against the US government. While he believed that this manufactured HIV causes AIDS, he questioned the science of antiretroviral therapy and instead promoted as an "AIDS cure" a substance called "Tetracyl" or “Tetrasil” -- a silver compound with no known medical benefits and no evidence to support its use in HIV. According to an email circulated by his supporters he died in June 2009, apparently of AIDS, after several "Tetracyl" injections failed to reverse his illness. As far what we are aware he never took antiretrovirals.

Mark Griffiths
Mark Griffiths ran a denialist website called Altheal (along with a French version, Sidasante), until he died in October 2004. In the article linked below, the AIDS denialist Liam Scheff ponders the cause of his death, suggesting Griffiths may still have been using heroin (because he seemed a "bit groggy" sometimes); this is despite the fact that Griffiths had undergone successful recovery in the late 1980s. Scheff ultimately concluded that Griffiths died because he was abusing alcohol.

http://www.altheal.org/altheal/markmemorial.htm
Another associate, Emma Hollister, suggests Griffiths' death was related to a course of antibiotics taken several months before for dental work: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp
Robert Johnston
Robert Johnston was a co-founder of HEAL Toronto and a co-author of the self-described "rebuttal" of the Durban Declaration that was posted to HEAL Toronto's website in 2000. At the time, he wrote: "Robert Johnston is a co-founder of HEAL Toronto, and has been HIV-positive since 1985 yet has suffered no unusual illness since that time. He attributes his good health to not taking any anti-HIV medications and to not believing that his positive antibody test has much significance."

Johnston died three years later on April 3, 2003. As with all other similar cases, Johnston's colleagues claim his death was not caused by HIV infection. David Crowe wrote that he died of "liver failure completely unrelated to AIDS."

John Kirkham
John Kirkham, an HIV+ denialist who managed the altheal website, died of pneumonia in 2008. His friends attribute his death to having survived lymphoma, a difficult personal relationship, and a chilly, damp house.

Kelly Jon Landis
We regret to report that Kelly Jon Landis died December 3, 2007 in Santa Monica, CA, at age 39 after suffering for several months with lymphoma and other AIDS symptoms. Self-described as the "dissident saint," he was a health food fanatic and avid bicycle rider who avoided standard medical care and sought alternative therapies. He felt that simply leading a drug-free healthy lifestyle would protect him from disease.

Although a "dissident" himself, Kelly Jon Landis vocally opposed the homophobia rampant among HIV/AIDS denialists.

http://people.tribe.net/aca8f528-05d...e-1e64320fd60a
http://www.ldsfiles.com/link/?1030952187
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum....b-saltlakecity
Sandi Lenfestey
Sandi Lenfestey, a member of HEAL San Diego, died on January 11, 2009. She was 47, and had two children. To understand the real cost of denialism, see her young son’s shattering message to his mother.

Jack Levine
Jack Levine was a regular poster to the "Virusmyth" message board. When he became sick and began to question denialism, the other board members turned on him, which eventually led to the Virusmyth message board being taken permanently offline in order to hide the appalling record of what happened. Levine died from AIDS in March of 2002 at the age of 47.

http://www.thebody.com/cgi-bin/bbs/s...g&Number=41833
Raphael Lombardo
Raphael Lombardo was a gay man who believed Peter Duesberg's claims that HIV was harmless. Lombardo wrote to Duesberg on May 30, 1995, noting that he had never used any recreational drugs or pharmaceuticals and was not sick, despite testing HIV positive (the letter was titled "Life without AZT !"). Duesberg published the entire letter in his book "Inventing the AIDS Virus" and wrote of Lombardo: "His letter proves that true science does not depend on institutional authority." (The letter is posted at http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/pdazt.htm.)

Raphael Lombardo died of AIDS a little over a year later, on June 11, 1996. When asked about Lombardo's death, Duesberg wrote: "In hindsight, I think his letter was almost too good to be true. I am afraid now, he described the man he wanted to be [e.g. that he did not use recreational drugs] and his Italian family expected him to be, but not the one he really was. I think he died from Kaposi's." (Source: Email to Richard Jefferys from Peter Duesberg, Wednesday, April 05, 2006) When this correspondence was published on the internet, Duesberg was contacted by Raphael Lombardo's sister, Regina, who was incensed by Duesberg's claim that her brother had covertly used poppers or other recreational drugs (as Duesberg was implying). Duesberg wrote back to her and told her that she was wrong, too.

Peter Mokaba
Peter Makoba, a senior politician in South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, and a prominent denialist, died in 2002 at the age of 43 from AIDS-related pneumonia after a "long illness." He denied that he had AIDS and rejected antiretroviral drugs as poison.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/...bituaries.aids
Christine Maggiore
Christine Maggiore was an HIV-positive denialist who founded the "Alive&Well AIDS Alternatives" denialist organisation. She wrote and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong? Her 3-year old daughter Eliza Jane Scovill died of AIDS-related pneumonia after Maggiore had refused to take medication to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV or to have the child tested for HIV. Christine Maggiore died at the age of 52 in December 2008. She died of AIDS. Read AIDSTruth's editorial on her death: Christine Maggiore's Death: Lessons from a Tragedy. (Note 2009-12-15: Maggiore's death certificate states that no autopsy was performed. However, a document by the discredited pathologist Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati recently published on denialist websites appears to be a secondary interpretation of an autopsy performed by Dr David Posey. The autopsy report has not been released, and the coroner's office apparently never notified that it took place. It is not known why Maggiore's family commissioned a private autopsy and then withheld the report and findings of the licensed pathologist who performed the autopsy. You can read more here.)

These articles provide further details on Maggiore and the death of her daughter:

The HIV Disbelievers: Christine Maggiore is a different kind of AIDS activist—one who tells people to forget safe sex and stop taking their lifesaving drugs.
A Mother's Denial, a Daughter's Death:"The HIV-positive mother of two laid out matter-of-factly why, even while pregnant, she hadn't taken HIV medications, and why she had never tested her children for the virus... Seven weeks later, Eliza Jane was dead."
A report on Eliza-Jane Scovill’s death, in rebuttal to that of Mohammed Al-Bayati
Coroner's Report regarding Eliza-Jane Scovill’s death
Marietta Ndziba
Marietta Ndziba was used by the vitamin salesman Matthias Rath to market multivitamins as an alternative to antiretroviral treatment. In a pamphlet distributed by Rath and his agents in Cape Town, South Africa in September 2005, she was quoted as saying that her CD4 count rose from 365 to 841 due to Rath's vitamins. She implied that these vitamins treated boils on her arm, her grey skin, diarrhoea and vomiting. She said "I just thank God that he brings vitamins here to South Africa to help our lives." As far as the South African AIDS activist organisation Treatment Action Campaign could ascertain Ndziba never took antiretrovirals. She died in about October 2005. One family member reportedly claimed that she died of a stress headache. Rath's vitamins clearly did not help Ndziba. She should have been treated by qualified doctors in the public health system, not Rath or his agents.

Astoundingly, a video recording of Ndziba claiming the benefits of Rath's vitamins continued to be available on the front page of Rath's South African website until January 2006. (Source: TAC)

David Pasquarelli
David Pasquarelli, a leader of the denialist group "ACT UP San Francisco" developed PCP, anemia, thrush, meningitis, mycobacterium and disseminated CMV before he died in March of 2004. He was 37.

http://www.davidpasquarelli.com
Casper G. Schmidt
Casper G. Schmidt was a psychiatrist who published "The Group-Fantasy Origins of AIDS" in the Journal of Psychohistory in 1984. The article, which claimed that AIDS was not a real disease but a product of "epidemic hysteria," is still regularly cited by AIDS denialists. Schmidt died from AIDS in 1994.

Karri Stokely
Karri Stokely was a prominent denialist, member of Rethinking AIDS and active on a number of denialist websites. She was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1996 and died on April 28, 2011 after receiving hospice care, apparently for a serious pneumonia infection. Stokely's AIDS denialism is on display in her own words at the following links:

Stokely on being diagnosed HIV-positive at "Living without HIV Drugs"
Video of Stokely speaking at the 2009 Rethinking AIDS Conference*- Part 1 and Part 2
Stokely's blog (last post: January 10, 2011) and her website.
Tony Tompsett
Tony Tompsett wrote for the denialist newsletter Continuum from 1993 until just before his death in 1998 at age 39 from Kaposi's sarcoma, toxoplasmosis and possible pneumonia.

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/...psett&offset=0
Huw Christie Williams
Huw Christie (Huw Christie Harry Williams) was an editor of Continuum, a long-running AIDS denialist newsletter from the UK that folded when all the editors died. Huw Christie developed Kaposi's sarcoma and died in August of 2001. He was 41.

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/mbobituaryhc.htm
In an email, Peter Duesberg described Christie's death as follows: "Did you know Hugh* Christie? Also a gay friend of mine from London, filmmaker and editor of the very popular British gay-interested journal, Continuum. Christie campaigned actively against the health and AIDS hazards of poppers in Continuum. Like me, he was invited by Mbeki, to discuss the causes of AIDS in Africa in 2000. And a year or two later he passed away with Kaposi's, from long-term over-use/addiction to poppers!"* (Source: Email to Richard Jeffreys from Peter Duesberg, Wednesday, April 05, 2006. *Name misspelled and exclamation point in the original.)

Jody Wells
Jody Wells was the founder of the U.K. denialist newsletter Continuum. He had multiple bouts of PCP before he died in August of 1995.

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/continuum/obituary.htm
Scott Zanetti
Scott Zanetti, Morristown NJ, died October 6, 2002 at age 52. Scott Zanetti is another contributor to the list of testimonials mentioned in the entry on Sylvie Cousseau, above. Zanetti also wrote to POZ magazine about being inspired by the writings of Celia Farber, and contributed to the "personal stories" on the HEAL San Diego website.

http://healtoronto.com/testimonials.html
http://www.poz.com/articles/203_10274.shtml
http://healsd.bravehost.com/scott.htm

[Sa_artman]

Myth #13: HIV tests are unreliable and frequently produce false positives
Fact: HIV tests for antibodies or the virus itself are highly reliable (both in terms of sensitivity and specificity).

There are two important measures when considering the accuracy of an HIV test or any screening or diagnostic test: sensitivity and specificity.


HIV Rapid Test

Sensitivity is a measure of how likely it is that the test will return positive results if the person being tested has HIV. A highly sensitive test is calibrated to capture every positive sample, but will probably produce some false positives because it is so sensitive that may react to other substances as well.

Specificity is a measure of how likely it is that the test will return negative results if the person being tested does not have HIV. A highly specific test will only react to the substance being tested for and exclude all true negatives, but it will also produce false negatives.

All medical screening and testing procedures—not just for those HIV but for cancers, for pregnancy, for diabetes, for Lyme disease, for everything—must balance sensitivity and specificity: it is inherent in the nature of testing. Ideally a test should have both high sensitivity and specificity. However, using two tests, one with high sensitivity and another with high specificity, is also fine and this is usually what is done with HIV.

HIV tests are calibrated to be extremely sensitive, in order not to miss any positive cases. This is because these tests are used to ensure that the blood supply is safe, and because it is important that people who are HIV-positive not be misdiagnosed as negative, because they will then not seek medical monitoring and treatment, and they may inadvertently spread the virus.

There are two categories of HIV tests: those that detect antibodies [ELISA and Western Blot tests) and those that detect the virus itself (viral load or PCR tests). It is the antibody tests that are usually used when people older than infants are first tested.

In the United States, the first step in HIV testing is usually the inexpensive ELISA screening test. The ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay) can be used with blood or oral fluid (not saliva), and determines, with over 99.5% accuracy, if there are antibodies to HIV present. A rapid test produces results in less than half an hour; other test types require from several days to two weeks to get results. These tests are considered screening tests, not diagnostic tests: additional confirmatory testing is considered necessary to determine that an individual is HIV-infected. This is because the tests are so sensitive, they may in rare cases produce false positive or indeterminate results. Antibody tests are not accurate in people who have been infected with HIV very recently, because it typically takes 6 to 12 weeks, and can take as long as 6 months, to develop the antibodies to HIV that the test reacts to. People recently exposed to HIV should seek a PCR test to determine if they are in the stage known as “active infection.”

Most people in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-poor settings are tested using rapid antibody tests that give results in 20 to 30 minutes. Occasionally these tests give indeterminate results. In those situations a blood sample from the person being tested is sent to a laboratory where a different test is carried out.. Different testing, screening and diagnostic protocols reflect the reality of economic and health services inequality, not ambiguity about the existence of HIV and its causative role in AIDS.

The following is a typical way in which HIV infection is identified in people older than infants in South Africa:

First the Abbott Rapid Determine antibody test is performed. It has been evaluated as 100% sensitive and 99.4% specific. In other words it is not expected to give a false negative (except for in the window period of course), and it gives a false positive 6 in every 1,000 tests. (Assuming a person has a 50-50 chance of being HIV-positive.)
If the Abbott test is negative, the patient is assumed to be negative. If it is positive, then a PMC First Response confirmatory test is done. This is also 100% sensitive, but 98.8% specific.
If either of the above tests are indeterminate or contradict each other, then an ELISA test is performed in a laboratory. [1]
A list of common rapid HIV tests (as of 2003) and their accuracies is available on this page of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).

The Western Blot test is considered the gold standard against which other HIV tests are evaluated. But it is important to understand that a person is not diagnosed HIV-positive on the basis of one test alone, even the Western Blot. Instead, a testing algorithm, involving at least two tests, is used to make a positive HIV diagnosis.

Infants born to women known to be HIV-positive are tested directly for the virus itself, not antibodies, because all newborns of HIV+ women carry their mothers’ antibodies. Women who do not know their HIV status may choose to have their babies tested for antibodies—if the results are positive, a follow-up PCR test can determine if the child is actually infected. Mothers of HIV antibody-positive children should seek additional testing and, if necessary, treatment. Even without treatment, about 2/3 of children born to HIV-positive mothers are not infected and will clear their mothers’ antibodies in 6 to 18 months; the other 1/3 will be infected, and will therefore develop antibodies of their own in response, just as adults do. Antiretroviral treatment and other interventions can reduce the HIV infection rate in babies of HIV-positive womenfrom about 25-30% to below 2%.

We know HIV testing is a valid, reliable procedure because AIDS almost never occurs in people who do not test positive for HIV antibodies or the virus itself. The sensitivities and specificities of the HIV tests on the CDC page linked above were determined by independent evaluations against multiple HIV-1 and HIV-2 subtypes.

To see how unusual it is for AIDS to be diagnosed in someone found to be HIV-negative, consider this 1993 study of US AIDS patients (which has a simpler explanation here). Of 230,179 people clinically diagnosed with AIDS, only 299 were HIV-negative. 172 of the 299 were then re-evaluated. Of these 299, 131 were actually found to be HIV-positive, and 34 died before their status could be verified. That leaves 168 unexplained cases, fewer than one in a thousand. So already more than 15 years ago, HIV tests were very accurate. [2]

HIV tests have become even better since then. This is from a 2005 review of HIV testing in the United States:

The use of repeatedly reactive enzyme immunoassay followed by confirmatory Western blot or immunofluorescent assay remains the standard method for diagnosing HIV-1 infection (44, 45). A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% for enzyme immunoassay (45), and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99% (46, 47). With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000) (48).

For more information about HIV testing and diagnosis, and responses to the misrepresentations of HIV testing made by HIV denialists, see AIDStruth’s critique of “The AIDS Trap.” [Coming soon]

Notes

1. Assuming this procedure is carried out correctly, the probability of a false positive diagnosis is 0.0006. In other words, only 6 in 10,000 people who are HIV-negative will be incorrectly diagnosed as HIV-positive. This is based on the estimate that 10.8% of South Africans over the age of two are HIV-positive, determined by the HSRC's 2005 Household Survey and confirmed by the recently released 2008 one. In practice, people at risk of HIV are more likely to be tested and the risk of a false positive is even smaller than calculated here. By the standards of medical accuracy this is extremely high, much better than a pregnancy test for example.

[Munchmasterman]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bill

I tend to ignore bullshit, childish attacks, and assholes in general - however, since your request included the word *please*, I'll make an exception in this instance.

1. Annual death statistics attributed to AIDS in the US, Europe (and in other countries) are not conclusive. Mortality rates cannot be trusted since any number of other historically referenced diseases are classified by the CDC as being AIDS.
While statistics may be inconclusive, it is not because of the CDC historically referenced diseases. There are @27 diseases associated AIDS by the CDC. A few names I recognised but the majority are strictly medical text stuff. All are required to have qualifying criteria before being classified as an AIDS death.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00018871.htm
There are well over 100 lymphomas. Not stating which type is the cause of death is like paying the car dealer $1500 to fix your car because it was “broken”.

As for treatment, the therapeutic remedy for "AIDS" (and most illnesses) is to address the underlying true cause of a disease, improve nutrition and hygiene, abstain from drug abuse and chemical exposure, avoid antibiotics and reduce stress levels.

2. Whether it exists or not, comparative data analysis, personal experience and common sense tells me that HIV is harmless - and it certainly doesn't cause 'AIDS.'
I’m a pretty smart guy. I know a lot about the field I’m in, I know a lot about things in general, and I know how to work with the internet and research on said same. More importantly, I know what I don’t know. My common sense tells me without intensive study that this subject is beyond my ability to argue data analysis with the millions of people, who have personal experience in all aspects of this disease.
I think if the drugs used to fight aids caused aids, those results could be tracked and reproduced making symptoms predictable for any given concoction.
3. Given the nurturing support it requires, I think the mind, body and an intact, strong immune system are together sufficient to successfully combat any disease. With regard to HIV, see #2 above.
Having a healthy body isn’t that simple. Many years ago, influenza, polio, small pox, measles, strep throat, an infected wound etc., etc., killed many people (mostly kids. If you go look at old cemeteries you’ll see if you made it to 20 you’d probably make it to 60). Because there were no antibiotics and many people’s immune systems weren’t quite up to the job.
Plus I love simple health solutions. Like if we let hemophiliacs bleed to death, there wouldn’t be any to pass on the trait.

4. I have already suggested to a few people that they cease taking deadly antiretroviral chemicals and/or protease inhibitors; and I will make the same recommendation whenever possible.

5. I think you'll find me (and others) more receptive to debate when you confine your inquiry/refutal to the subject at hand - without the ad hominem inferences of which you're so fond.


Now if I may, please allow me ask you a few questions.

If through discerning judgement, reason and logic you discovered that HIV was a hoax, that millions of lives have been subsequently destroyed due to this fraud and still millions more people were in danger of being poisoned with deadly AIDS 'drugs,' how would that make you feel?

This couldn’t possibly happen. There will always be someone, more qualified in every aspect of a subject that won somebody a Noble Prize (which he accepted in good faith at the time), than me. The farthest I’m willing to stick my neck out is if they come on the intercom and ask if anyone knows how to fly a plane, I will raise my hand. Because if someone who doesn’t know how to fly a plane is going to land the plane, that someone is gonna be me.
What, if any, actions would you take to prevent such a genocide from continuing?

Are you so invested in popular dogma, the religion of HIV=AIDS, to the point that your faculties of reason and moral judgement have been impaired?

Is it more important for you to somehow discredit me (the messenger) instead of learning the truth about HIV/AIDS and thus possibly sharing this information with others to help your fellow humankind?

Thank you.

.

You’ve stated numerous times you feel it is important that you disseminate this info. That’s fine with me.
I have a question though.
You don’t seem like a “sit on your hands” kind of guy. This thread is 3 weeks old. You feel like you’ve learned enough conclusive information to tell people to go against the advice of the vast majority of the medical profession. Most of who are in the field because they want help people, not cash in on some hoax. In 3 weeks.
How do you deal with the thought of what damage your 60 hours of training might cause? I can see suggesting a person ask more questions or do some research of their own. But to stop taking the medication?

[Mr. Bill]

HIV tests a farce? False HIV positives produced by western blot tests

by Mike Adams


Did you or someone you know test positive for HIV? If so, they probably weren't told that they might test negative if a different test were used... or even if the same test were conducted in another country. HIV tests, as you'll see here, are a wishy-washy, pseudoscientific gimmickry that has unfortunately ensnared many innocent victims into a false AIDS diagnosis.

This is now being revealed in some rather shocking video footage released by Brent Leung, creator of the House of Numbers documentary (www.HouseOfNumbers.com) which tears apart the inconsistencies and dogmatic non-science found in the conventional HIV / AIDS industry.

Watch the footage yourself right now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA62D4E91BB913C8CCC 3CC8C2A35F

There, you'll see world-renowned scientists discussing the so-called "western blot," a highly subjective test that is now being used around the world to falsely diagnose people with HIV and, subsequently, AIDS. This western blot, as you'll learn below, is a spectacularly laughable test that seems to have been designed to make "positive" criteria as loose as possible in order to label perfectly healthy people as having AIDS.

"I don't think the western blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don't think it's worth doing," argues Dr Robin Weiss in the video clip.

Val Turner, an MD from Australia, adds, "It's ludicrous that you can be [HIV] positive in one country and not positive in another."

Neville Hodgkinson, the Medical and Science Correspondent for The Sunday Times (London) adds, "Some people argue that we have a confirmatory test in some western countries, and that repeated testing can lead you to a safer diagnosis. But if the very basis of the test is faulty, then nothing works in fact. ...Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries, you can test HIV positive in one country and be given an AIDS diagnosis as a result of that, whereas in another country you won't test HIV positive and you won't be given an AIDS diagnosis."

A full-blown AIDS patient will almost always show nine different "bands" on an HIV test. But in the 1980's, only one band was required -- P24 -- to diagnose someone as HIV positive (and subsequently having AIDS). The problem is that perfectly healthy people can also test positive for P24, even if they aren't HIV positive.

"In the early days, people developed criteria that were too much like a screening test. So if you had just P24 [band], they might have called it a positive," said Robert Redfield MD, Director, Clinical Care and Research, Institute of Human Virology.

Doctor Val Turner adds, "Many people were diagnosed using these criteria, and then it was realized that forty percent of people who are completely healthy have one or more western blot bands, most commonly a P24 band."

A few years later, the FDA changed its diagnosis criteria for HIV, upping the requirement beyond a single P24 band. But people who had already been diagnosed as having AIDS were never re-tested!

Dr Val Turner explains, "We don't know how many thousand people were testing using that western blot criteria before 1987, but ... shouldn't they all have been tested when the criteria changed in 1987 in case they were no longer positive? So there are probably people out there who would not be positive under the criteria which developed subsequently. Using the FDA criteria which existed before 1993, only 80 percent of AIDS patients had a positive HIV test, which means 20 percent were not positive."

HIV tests depend on personal opinion, not rigorous science

Even today, HIV tests are conducted in a wishy-washy, non-scientific manner where the results depend largely on the opinion of the lab technician reading the test results! (It's absurd, of course, but this is what's happening right now.)

In House of Numbers, Brent Leung visited Claudia Kücherer, MD, a Molecular Biologist at the Robert Kock Institute in Berlin. There, he recorded this conversation:

Brent: "When you're looking at this western blot, how do you determine what is a positive [result]?"

Claudia: "You need a certain number of bands being present. It depends a little bit on the producer of the test."

Brent: "It depends on the manufacturer?"

Claudia: "Yes"

Brent: "Is there a different criteria for what might be a positive?"

Claudia: "Yeah, there are different criteria from the manufacturer."

Manufacturers of the HIV test, in other words, differ in how they define a "positive." You might be "HIV positive" on one test, but negative on another. And the decision on which manufacturer's test to use is based on the opinion of the clinic, hospital or doctor ordering the tests.

Astonishingly, this House of Numbers footage also includes a scene featuring two different HIV test lab technicians working in the same lab who disagree on the criteria for a positive HIV test result. While one lab workers says two bands are needed for a positive diagnosis, another worker says three are required. And they work in the same lab!

Watch this footage yourself right here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA62D4E91BB913C8CCC 3CC8C2A35F


Western blot HIV test called into question

But some scientists feel the western blot is not just a good test, but a great one! Robert C Gallo MD, Director of the Institute of Human Virology, says "This has a margin of error if done properly that's extremely low. In other words, it's one of medicine's better tests."

One of medicine's better tests? Really? And yet it can be interpreted in different ways by different lab technicians, different definitions in different countries, different manufacturers and different medical opinions?

The HIV tests, it turns out, is more a matter of opinion than scientific fact. And if you or someone you know has tested positive for HIV, maybe they should get a second opinion.


Why not make the test more accurate?

So why doesn't the industry tighten up its guidelines and require five, six or even all nine bands to show up before diagnosing someone as HIV positive? No one seems to know.

I do, though. Isn't it obvious? The AIDS industry is much like the cancer industry in that it's focused on diagnosing as many patients as possible whether or not they actually have the disease. More patients equals more profits and a bigger "scare story" to feed the media propaganda machines.

We already know that the AIDS industry fabricated evidence to try to exaggerate the scope of the AIDS scare (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=D35F0FFB30FA5AB31FA918 A6F6BF326C). So it's not surprising they would be promoting a "loose" test that potentially has already ensnared potentially tens of thousands of innocent people into a false AIDS diagnosis.

Once a person is diagnosed with AIDS, you see, they become a profit generating machine for Big Pharma. AIDS pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive, and because they are protected under an FDA-enforced monopoly, they can be sold at practically any asking price.

Even better, once innocent "healthy" people start taking AIDS drugs, they begin to show AIDS symptoms such as compromised immune systems. These side effects are caused by the drugs, of course, not by the disease, but in the minds of doctors and patients, the emergence of these scary symptoms proves that "they really had AIDS."

It's all just loopy, circular logic with a single purpose: To earn more money for Big Pharma at the expense of human suffering.

Now, I'm not saying there's no such thing as a genuine person with immune deficiency. Thanks mostly to our toxic environment, there are certainly people who suffer chronic immune system malfunctions. But it is in the AIDS industry's interests to convince even healthy people that they are ill and need pharmaceutical intervention to survive. And, by sheer coincidence (not!), today's HIV tests are specifically designed in a way that produces a disturbingly high number of false positives.

See the complete collection of exclusive clips from House of Numbers at NaturalNews.TV: http://naturalnews.tv/Browse.asp?memberid=4745

.

[Mr. Bill]

HIV = AIDS, Fact or Fraud?




Too many people are making too much money out of it, and money is much stronger than truth. One of the most powerful video documentaries of our time boldly reveals the modern medical-industrial complex’s dire descent into utter corruption.

This feature-length expose explains exactly how the 300-Billion-dollar AID$ fraud began, why HIV can NOT be the cause of AIDS, what the real causes could be, and who manipulates the public’s good intentions while poisoning hundreds of thousands with toxic drugs that cause the very disease they are supposed to prevent.

This is a systematic dissection of the HIV/AID$ machine and how they hijacked a program designed to fight a worldwide plight of human suffering and drove it down the road to hell. Yet this program offers hope, inspired by the courage and articulate arguments of a group of growing voices internationally challenging the HIV=AIDS=DEATH hysteria. A MUST SEE for anyone interested in truly understanding the facts about HIV/AID$.

You will meet a number of highly reputable scientists who all agree that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, including Dr. Peter Duesberg, who was the first scientist to map the genetic structure of retroviruses. He is joined by Nobel Prize winners Dr. Kary Mullis and Dr.Walter Gilbert, along with Dr. David Rasnick, an expert in the field of protease inhibitors.

Is HIV/AIDS the golden idol of junk science? Judge for yourself. Professionally produced, written and researched, acclaimed by physicians, scientists, journalists and humanitarians internationally, this is the video encyclopedia of HIV/AIDS dissident movement! THE defining documentary on the HIV/AIDS fraud.

Watch the full documentary now

.

[Munchmasterman]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bill

HIV tests a farce? False HIV positives produced by western blot tests

by Mike Adams


Did you or someone you know test positive for HIV? If so, they probably weren't told that they might test negative if a different test were used... or even if the same test were conducted in another country. HIV tests, as you'll see here, are a wishy-washy, pseudoscientific gimmickry that has unfortunately ensnared many innocent victims into a false AIDS diagnosis.

This is now being revealed in some rather shocking video footage released by Brent Leung, creator of the House of Numbers documentary (www.HouseOfNumbers.com) which tears apart the inconsistencies and dogmatic non-science found in the conventional HIV / AIDS industry.

Watch the footage yourself right now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA62D4E91BB913C8CCC 3CC8C2A35F

There, you'll see world-renowned scientists discussing the so-called "western blot," a highly subjective test that is now being used around the world to falsely diagnose people with HIV and, subsequently, AIDS. This western blot, as you'll learn below, is a spectacularly laughable test that seems to have been designed to make "positive" criteria as loose as possible in order to label perfectly healthy people as having AIDS.

"I don't think the western blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don't think it's worth doing," argues Dr Robin Weiss in the video clip.

Val Turner, an MD from Australia, adds, "It's ludicrous that you can be [HIV] positive in one country and not positive in another."

Neville Hodgkinson, the Medical and Science Correspondent for The Sunday Times (London) adds, "Some people argue that we have a confirmatory test in some western countries, and that repeated testing can lead you to a safer diagnosis. But if the very basis of the test is faulty, then nothing works in fact. ...Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries, you can test HIV positive in one country and be given an AIDS diagnosis as a result of that, whereas in another country you won't test HIV positive and you won't be given an AIDS diagnosis."

A full-blown AIDS patient will almost always show nine different "bands" on an HIV test. But in the 1980's, only one band was required -- P24 -- to diagnose someone as HIV positive (and subsequently having AIDS). The problem is that perfectly healthy people can also test positive for P24, even if they aren't HIV positive.

"In the early days, people developed criteria that were too much like a screening test. So if you had just P24 [band], they might have called it a positive," said Robert Redfield MD, Director, Clinical Care and Research, Institute of Human Virology.

Doctor Val Turner adds, "Many people were diagnosed using these criteria, and then it was realized that forty percent of people who are completely healthy have one or more western blot bands, most commonly a P24 band."

A few years later, the FDA changed its diagnosis criteria for HIV, upping the requirement beyond a single P24 band. But people who had already been diagnosed as having AIDS were never re-tested!

Dr Val Turner explains, "We don't know how many thousand people were testing using that western blot criteria before 1987, but ... shouldn't they all have been tested when the criteria changed in 1987 in case they were no longer positive? So there are probably people out there who would not be positive under the criteria which developed subsequently. Using the FDA criteria which existed before 1993, only 80 percent of AIDS patients had a positive HIV test, which means 20 percent were not positive."

HIV tests depend on personal opinion, not rigorous science

Even today, HIV tests are conducted in a wishy-washy, non-scientific manner where the results depend largely on the opinion of the lab technician reading the test results! (It's absurd, of course, but this is what's happening right now.)

In House of Numbers, Brent Leung visited Claudia Kücherer, MD, a Molecular Biologist at the Robert Kock Institute in Berlin. There, he recorded this conversation:

Brent: "When you're looking at this western blot, how do you determine what is a positive [result]?"

Claudia: "You need a certain number of bands being present. It depends a little bit on the producer of the test."

Brent: "It depends on the manufacturer?"

Claudia: "Yes"

Brent: "Is there a different criteria for what might be a positive?"

Claudia: "Yeah, there are different criteria from the manufacturer."

Manufacturers of the HIV test, in other words, differ in how they define a "positive." You might be "HIV positive" on one test, but negative on another. And the decision on which manufacturer's test to use is based on the opinion of the clinic, hospital or doctor ordering the tests.

Astonishingly, this House of Numbers footage also includes a scene featuring two different HIV test lab technicians working in the same lab who disagree on the criteria for a positive HIV test result. While one lab workers says two bands are needed for a positive diagnosis, another worker says three are required. And they work in the same lab!

Watch this footage yourself right here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA62D4E91BB913C8CCC 3CC8C2A35F


Western blot HIV test called into question

But some scientists feel the western blot is not just a good test, but a great one! Robert C Gallo MD, Director of the Institute of Human Virology, says "This has a margin of error if done properly that's extremely low. In other words, it's one of medicine's better tests."

One of medicine's better tests? Really? And yet it can be interpreted in different ways by different lab technicians, different definitions in different countries, different manufacturers and different medical opinions?

The HIV tests, it turns out, is more a matter of opinion than scientific fact. And if you or someone you know has tested positive for HIV, maybe they should get a second opinion.


Why not make the test more accurate?

So why doesn't the industry tighten up its guidelines and require five, six or even all nine bands to show up before diagnosing someone as HIV positive? No one seems to know.

I do, though. Isn't it obvious? The AIDS industry is much like the cancer industry in that it's focused on diagnosing as many patients as possible whether or not they actually have the disease. More patients equals more profits and a bigger "scare story" to feed the media propaganda machines.

We already know that the AIDS industry fabricated evidence to try to exaggerate the scope of the AIDS scare (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=D35F0FFB30FA5AB31FA918 A6F6BF326C). So it's not surprising they would be promoting a "loose" test that potentially has already ensnared potentially tens of thousands of innocent people into a false AIDS diagnosis.

Once a person is diagnosed with AIDS, you see, they become a profit generating machine for Big Pharma. AIDS pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive, and because they are protected under an FDA-enforced monopoly, they can be sold at practically any asking price.

Even better, once innocent "healthy" people start taking AIDS drugs, they begin to show AIDS symptoms such as compromised immune systems. These side effects are caused by the drugs, of course, not by the disease, but in the minds of doctors and patients, the emergence of these scary symptoms proves that "they really had AIDS."

It's all just loopy, circular logic with a single purpose: To earn more money for Big Pharma at the expense of human suffering.

Now, I'm not saying there's no such thing as a genuine person with immune deficiency. Thanks mostly to our toxic environment, there are certainly people who suffer chronic immune system malfunctions. But it is in the AIDS industry's interests to convince even healthy people that they are ill and need pharmaceutical intervention to survive. And, by sheer coincidence (not!), today's HIV tests are specifically designed in a way that produces a disturbingly high number of false positives.

See the complete collection of exclusive clips from House of Numbers at NaturalNews.TV: http://naturalnews.tv/Browse.asp?memberid=4745

.

Check out these numbers. As well as positive or negative indications on test.

Do these guys know there are better tests? Or are they unaware?

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/testin...CA_Branson.pdf

[rickyjames]

Retarded thread....sounds like a bunch of people reaching for a way to rationalize risky behaviors. What's next? Are you going to tell me that we didn't evolve from apes, the world is only 3,500 years old, the earth is flat, and leeches are still the best way to treat diseases?