Thanks for the story Danielle.

I have to agree with Nightbloom that greed is the motivating factor behind the pharmaceutical/AIDS lobby. We should also look at South Africa as an example where non-pharmaceutical treatments are being used successfully to treat people with AIDS. Drugs like AZT and nevirapine have long be known to be deadly, although the mainstream media likes to deny the science, so it is little wonder that once Africans have the information to give informed consent to "ARVs" they are now rejecting them. HIV infection is not fatal and AIDS (which is defined as HIV infection plus one or more of 29 opportunistic infections, conditions or cancers) is treatable without toxic pharmaceuticals. Treatment related deaths are the number one cause of death among the HIV positive in the west. See aras.ab.ca for the horrendous record of antiviral treatments.

Given the record of the AIDS pharmaceutical lobby there is no reason to believe they have the best interests of sex trade workers at heart. Given the record of failure of vaccines there is also no reason to believe this trial would result in positive outcomes. There is no justification for risking the health of people in vaccine trials.

Tyndall needs to watch the numbers he tosses out, as given the current rate of transmission of HIV in Canada it will take another 17 to 20 years before another 40,000 people become HIV-positive.

I agree with Velijkovic that from "a scientific point of view the story is finished." I hope DES groups can get this across to the pushers of the vaccine trial. There is an old feminist saying worth recalling in this context: "No means no."

Danielle,

The key word is "experimental". Thank you for defending the rights of free humans everywhere. Your work is like a splash in the pond and the ripples are felt everywhere. You are not spreading misinformation, you are infusing the atmosphere with truth. Sabin himself asked for the scientific establishment to stop with these insane "vaccine" trials. I would really like to read about an anti-vaccine march and protest, right in front of AIDS Inc's main office.

Why can't the multi-billion dollar AIDS business just make a vaccine composed of dead virus? Do they even have a virus? I doubt it.

I look forward to the day when those fiends are put out of business. Housing, jobs, nutrition, and an end to discrimination and racism is what we need in this world.

Thanks again.

As an immunologist who is seriously considering going into the field of ethics of health research know a little more about what is at stake and what makes cases such as these so difficult. Just like the concept behind the "four pillar approach" - the same kind of all inclusive solution is needed for populations at risk of contracting HIV. I would like to know why it would be such a burden on our immune system (from the above experts who cited it as such) to develop a vaccine specifically against the viral capsid (essentially equivalent to an "inert" virus without its genetic material - you can't technically have an anti-viral DNA vaccine since HIV is retrovirus - thus its genetic material is RNA which is then uses host machinery to transcribe its protein) - is there something about this protein capsid that would make it a greater liability than other vaccines that are widely applied and which ultimately ended the small pox epidemic? I would think it would be possibly more harmful to the billion dollar drug industry serving the HIV community which often have each patient on triple therapy that ultimately becomes useless as the virus mutates. What Canada needs is an independent research group that implements such trials after consideration of the ethics and priorities behind the pros and cons of what the research could yield. Currently, there is no arms-lenghth group that conducts and deciphers drug and vaccine trials - which is why we have the problems we do with our health industry.

Avincenna writes "Just like the concept behind the "four pillar" approach- the same kind of inclusive solution". The four pillar approach is really a one pillar approach, harm reduction, you still have to wait for long periods of time to get into treatment, enforcement hasn't changed its the same status quo and no more money is going into prevention.
It wasn't an inclusive solution, they asked the advice of using addicts while ignoring the suggestions of anyone who had gotten off drugs from the DTES and had long term absinence.
Surely you can find better examples than the four pillar scam that saw 28 percent more people dies of overdoses in the DTES last year than the previous year when the safe injection site wasn't in operation.

barryjo, I entirely agree the implementation of the four pillar approach for drug addicts in Vancouver hasn't been applied in the best manner. When I used the term - I meant that those at risk who enroll in the HIV vaccine study should also get information and resources focused on minimizing the acquisition of the virus in the first place. This is neither the responsibility or interest of the clinical scientists doing the study, but it should be the goal of society at large. Unfortunately, there is no incentive for anyone in the short term to ensure this venue is taken - correction: anyone with the money to fund the initiative.

A lot of good points here. The example of the misapplication of "4 Pillars" dogma is an appropriate demonstration of good intentions gone wrong. Much the same has occurred with HIV/AIDS. It took me a long time to grasp what was happening, but once you see the big picture it's pretty appalling.

It's become such a breathtaking money-bonanza for everyone from grant-funded "community" agencies (always on the lookout for more grant money) all they way up to multinational pharmaceuticals.

Vancouver alone is bursting at the seams with boyz on subsidized anti-viral regimes. Then they need expensive anti-depressants to deal with their reality (also at no cost to them). Then they need pricey testosterone supplements to help keep "fit" and maintain a "healthy" sex drive to stay happy (also at no cost to them). Then of course they need a steady cocktail of Viagra, Cialis & Levitra to combat the penis-softening affects of the anti-depressants (also subsidized) so they can have a "normal" sex life. And after all that, why not just self-medicate with a little splash of GHB, a little snort of crystal, a bump of k, and head down to the bathhouse for a nice self-fulfilling all-nighter of unprotected sex with several dozen men (who may or may not be 'positive').

What a monumental failure. I really can't think of a more pampered & over-indulged constituency. There's gotta be another way.

I wonder why the same sort of controversy hasn’t been stirred up by advocacy groups for gay men? Merck is currently doing a trial in CDN cities and continues to recruit gay men, see the recruitment site featuring buff guys in Out Magazine http://www.stepstudies.com/about_step.html. And for the other CDN trial currently recruiting, see http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00095576?order=5 and this one recruiting in TO, http://www.hivnet.ubc.ca/e/clinicaltrials/N055.html

Regarding big business and $, Merck has been plagued by lawsuits since they pulled Vioxx off the market. To bolster stock investors, recently discussed budget slashes and rah-rahed a variety of new vaccines, including one against cervical cancer which was recently submitted to the FDA for fast-track approval; theirs and various other adenovirus HIV prevention vaccines were recently touted by the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition which says Merck has doubled the size of its “Phase II-B clinical trials. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20051201-17404600-bc-us-hiv-vaccine.xml. But you have to wonder, if it’s so good, why no info on their website? Where are the clinical trials lists?

Of course, many other pharmacorps are also cheerleading their HIV prevention vaccines, typically in investor sections of media. Apparently drug stocks took a beating in 2005 mostly due to lawsuits in the US. They most likely wouldn’t have this problem in developing nations. But, CDNs have to wonder whether we are just as vulnerable to the pharmacorps. Have we become a developing nation in terms of health care?

Barryjo, I agree about the patronizing attitudes of at least some people in community-based support groups who ignore feedback and advice from their CLIENTS. While the local feminists are doing a good job on this specific issue of HIV vaccines, there were many women from the DTES at that HIV forum and they weren’t asked to speak. So, no doubt there’s a high level of mistrust in that hood. But the clinical trial investigators know which DTES advocates have gained the trust of locals and they find all sorts of creative ways to go after these people. In fact AVAC’s “Getting The Global House in Order recommends steering away from the usual print and radio ads to recruit patients and instead using “the ‘shoe-leather’ approach to recruiting -‘barbershopping’ through word of mouth at hubs of community activity.”

Does this statement reflect a sort of desperation or are they simply getting more crafty? We might look at statements like this as a positive singe as long as they’re blocked out of the hubs.

Danielle Egan, I am very grateful that you have written these articles. Without your last article I would have never found out that the entire HIV/AIDS hypothesis is incorrect.

Google "virusmyth."

Correction: I meant, google "virusmyth.com"

Hi, Yarrow. If you want to really understand how the drug companies spin their anti-viral therapy failures go to, "US government stops HAART enrollment." Or, "NIAID stops SMART trials enrollment."

These trials were stopped on January 11, 2006, (yes a few weeks ago). They were the largest trials of anti-viral drugs ever undertakan and subjects were enrolled from many countries around the world. The NIAID (National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, I think) stopped the trials supposedly because they found out that interrupted therapy resulted in serious and fatal side effects, and that uninterrupted therapy was probably safe.

A huge opportunity to do randomized placebo-based trials was lost here, which would, of course, proven once and for all that the best treatment for HIV infection is "WATCHFUL WAITING." Not to mention the fact that HIV infection may be as common as uncolonized staphlococcus, and entirely harmless. At least one researcher found that he could find the virus in all undiluted blood samples. (The Elisa test uses blood diluted to 1/400 because in undiluted blood everyone tests positive.)

This, of course boggles the mind. We are asked to believe that short term therapy with such things as protease and nucleoside inhibitors will kill you, but long term treatment is safe.

Studying these news releases (which, as far as I know never made it into the mainstream press, in spite of the fact that the stopping of the trials should have been a major newsstory.) is a must in understanding the lengths to which these people will go to protect their investments and continue the disgusting twin scams of HIV vaccines and HIV highly-active anti-retroviral therapy.

Danielle – Good question. Virtually every agency in the gay community is dependent on funding that is contingent on their participation in the AIDS/HIV “sector”. Moreover, these agencies are not really representative of the community (which has become surprisingly apathetic, nay medicated, since the heyday of militant activism during the 1980’s). A lot of these agencies are now run by twenty-something kids and grey-haired ideologues with no interest is upsetting the status quo. It's too profitable.

Also, the AIDS/HIV industry represents a windfall in revenue for gay publications, so dialogue for change isn't going to originate from that quarter. For example, just flip through any gay magazine (like “Genre”, which is linked on the first website you referenced) and you’ll see that these publications are replete with glossy full-page adds for Glaxo-Welcome’s anti-viral therapies or Pfizer’s erection medications (other prominent adds are for expensive holiday cruises and Circuit Parties in Vegas & NYC). Pink Triangle Press (which operates Canada’s three English language gay papers) is dependent on revenues generated by its sex phoneline venture. The journalism is ancillary. The columnists I’ve spoken with all attest to the unwritten policy of not printing any material which seriously challenges the sex/drug sub-culture or the current status quo on HIV/AIDS or the grant funding that upholds it. It’s too good a deal.

So in short everyone’s got their hand in the piggy-bank.

The publicly traded drug companies need to constantly be seeking new avenues where they can apply trials and therapys etc. to find ways to expand their empires. There only responsibilty is to the shareholder and that responsibility is to increase market share and share price.
As Trunman states the whole notion around the cause of AIDS is flawed. Make no mistake, this is only one instance of the evils of corporate Pharma companies.
They never used to target regular folks through the media bit now they do. Used to be you went to the doctor and the doctor would tell you what was probably wrong and offer a medication, now the drug companies come on TV and tell you if you've got so and so symptom ask your doctor for this, marketing all the way to the bank trying to increase market share.
You ever notice with all these commercials they have a disclaimer at the end. One of the ones I watched for anti-depressants states at the end that some people have a tendency to want to commit suicide while on the medication...I thought the mediction was supposed to make you feel better. And what about the Viagra one.. if you have an erection that lasts for over four hours go to the hospital... let me tell you folks I've never used Viagra and I haven't had a drink of alcohol in fouteen years but if I did try Viagra and that happened it might be my last day sober. I don't think I'd be humble enough to walk into a hospital sober in that condition...
Anyways the drug companies only care about money and if you think that isn't all they care about, think again. Actually most if not all publicly traded companies are evil and that is why the world is in the shape it is in, increase market share at all costs...look at Iraq.

The National Institute for Healthcare Management posted a brief on this phenomenon a while ago: http://www.nihcm.org/DTCbrief.pdf

Direct marketing to the public has led to skyrocketing sales for Big Pharmacy.

Thanks Truman Green. I will check it out. I've got one for you and for Avicenna in particular. May be one reason it's difficult to find ethics in this immunology "industry"... only some of these recently deceased researchers were involved in AIDS/HIV (i've certainly heard some say they believe these are two completely different diseases) which shows the extent of this problem

http://freepress2005.blogspot.com/2005/01/author-theorizes-40-microbiologists.html

A vaccine for cervical cancer? They actually believe vuruses cause cancer? HPV, the wart virus, causes cancer? They believe viral infections cause cells to somehow go haywire and grow cancerous?

Cancer is one uncontrollably dividing cell, one. Viruses infect millions of cells, wouldn't there be millions of uncontrollably dividing cells? Would there not be "many" tumors.

Line up women of the world, get your cervical cancer vaccine. In the USA only 3000 women per year die of this disease, almost all are over 40, and most were heavy smokers. Vaccinate 140,000,000 American women?

And childhood vaccines are laced with mercury, causing an epidemic of autism.....

When will the bubble burst on this madness.

Dannielle, thanks for the scare - if I disappear off the boards for more than a year then I either got knocked off by the American gov't (which is not an unlikely scenario... I hear they despise ethicists more than scientists specialized in infectious diseases). I had actually read about 11 "mysterious" deaths of scientists working on some gov't disaster-inducing program - that should teach those in the know to use their information for good rather than destruction. However, being human, when we learn something - like the energy contained within a hydrogen atom - we figure out how to use it to kill ourselves (brilliant species - I am doubting the whole goodness-of fit theory).
I have to interject with rethinkit - HPV does cause other types of cancers - however, cervical cancers gets the most attention because it is the main cause of this type of cancer partly due to the turn-over rate of cervical cells (i.e. other cells don't divide as rapidly as thus have less chance of the virus screwing up with the cell-death pathway). It isn't the only microbe that causes cancer - H pylori infection causes stomach cancer (this I can confirm on a personal level). That doesn't mean that I endorse vaccinating all females - I rather that safe-sex practices be endorsed because there are certainly other diseases (such as HIV) which can be more serious in its outcome. However, the fact that a vaccine is available may be something a sexually active female finds attractive. It is good to be cynical - but it is also important not to let that cynicism cloud the facts from fiction. It is disheartening that this marriage of private industry to public health has caused such a chasm between public trust and scientists. As someone who hurls enough criticism towards drug-pushing industries - I'm always greatful for those antibiotics when someone I care about gets strept throat or pneumonia, and polio is no walk in the park - and thanks to its vaccine - it isn't something most of us have to worry about now. There needs to be a balance - but there also needs to be an assessment on the way we have set things up. Is it wise to have the "free-market" bloom like a mushroom on our communal ill health? ... and before you answer that - remember we just elected a right-wing gov't to take care of our health care system.

I understand that HPV can cause pre-cancerous cervical dysplasia. There has been mention of immunizing teen girls through the usual school channels. False sense of safety just like the HIV vaccines?

Veljko made an interesting statement about cancer and vaccines:"It is reasonable to expect significant harmful effect of these clinical trials [since the] cancer potential of adenoviral vectors was first demonstrated in children who had gene therapy for severe combined immunodeficiency diseases.”

Good point on the system. I think that privatizing would certainly make the situation here much worse. I'll have to look into it further but I have heard that Australia has a decent two-tier system. Perhaps something like that would still allow for a strong safety net but also let us all choose alternative health care such as NDs and TCM practicioners alongside the conventional GPs? At this point, these alt avenues are too expensive for most people so we already have a two-tier system.

Danielle Egan, thanks for the heads-up. I haven't seen that particular website but it certainly doesn't surprise me.

Will you indicate if you have been able to find the Virusmyth.com website and started to work your way through the more than 850 articles.

I've been studying evolutionary theory for about twenty-five years and it has always seemed particularly strange to me that nature would have evolved a virus by way of species jumping (Simian Immune Virus) from monkeys or chimps, to human beings (HIV) in such as short period of time.

It has seemed even more strange that humans could have facilitated the species-jumping by Africans eating chimps, in light of the fact that Africans have been eating chimps for thousands of years. (It's far more likely that the virus originated in America)

And more strange that this species-jumping occurred at exactly the time in history when western pharmaceutical researchers were using Africans as human guinea pigs for their polio vaccine trials.

At the risk of seeming flakey, I admit that I thought scientists had invented the virus, or that they caused species-jumping themselves, either accidently or by design. The human immune system is among the marvels of the universe. This wimpy virus could never destroy it with such ease.

Now it seems that I was probably correct in a way that I could never have imagined.

Please got to virusmyth.com

Looking forward to any comments regarding virusmyth.com

Avicenne, you might revisit the latency and supposed rapid replication and therefore sophisticated mutation creating abilities of this phantom virus.

I fell for that stuff too, but now realize that it's all mere speculation and comes in very handy to explain why protease inhibitors, AZT and vaccines are so likely to fail.

Truman Green, this site is fascinating and mind-boggling
also worth checking out this site at fsmail.net
interesting info here, let me know when you've had a read at
dcube at

Truman, there is quite a bit of virology that would have to be covered - but the basic synopsis is that when a virus life cycle takes place within 2 hosts (which can occur by ingestion of an infected organism), and the greater the similarity between the eaten and the "eatee" - then the greater the chance that a rapidly mutating virus will adapt to the new species in no time. That's the advantage of being a virus with no "check" mechanism (HIV and related viruses don't double check the fidelity of their replicated genetic material). Although, I will admit it is fairly easy to "play with" and introduce new properties to existing viruses. My little conspiracy theory adheres less to HIV than it does to this "new" bird-flu "epidemic in the making" - largely because those who would benefit already have a "cure" even before the virus exists (and the fact that Rumsfeld is a large stakeholder - that's a red flag as far as I'm concerned).

Bottom line: Montaigne and Gallo blew it. They found a harmless little virus popular in "at risk" populations, notable American homosexuals who were using poppers and other nitrites to destroy their immune systems.

Researchers descended on Africa where the entire population is at risk because of the poverty and poor nutrition and hygiene.

Because of the non-specificity of the Elisa and Western Blott HIV tests, they again found the HIV virus everywhere they looked. The proteins on both the Western Blott bands and the Elisa test are entirely NON-SPECIFIC TO THE HIV VIRUS. That is they respond to, as one researcher claims, at least 70 different particles; bacterial, fungal and other viruses, not to mention malaria and tb and pneumonia.

The African President has been waging a lonely war, which I fear he is losing, to tell the world that aids in Africa is caused by poverty and not the virus.

Any starving person can be diagnosed with Aids because the immune system is destroyed as the starvation progresses.

The most important thing to know about the epidemic in Africa is that 90% of the Africans who have been diagnosed with HIV have never been tested.

I'm at the internet cafe without my notes so I'm going home to retrieve them. There's a few more things I want to say about AIDS IN AFRICA.

Be right back. (Unless a gravel truck appears out of nowhere)

Hi Avicenna. One of the notes I made to myself is to study the question: "Does the virus really become resistant or are the drugs destroying the immune system."

If you work your way through the virusmyth.com website you'll find ample evidence that it is the latter which is in operation here.

Especially: "Concerns About Haart (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) by David Crowe.
Additionally, you're going to have to supply me with some actual micrographs (electron microscope images) of newly resistant mutated hiv proteases or at least some reverse transcriptases (seeing as how hiv is supposedly an rna virus) before I'm accepting a single sentence of the mutation mantras. In fact I've had it up to here with the entire "mutation" theoretical industry.
I've been ranting and raving for twenty years about the unworthiness of the natural selection-mutation hypothesis as the engine of speciation, and I think the rapidly-mutating hiv virus nonsense is a perfectly overlain analogue of this aspect of what should be by now discredited darwinism.

I think this applies likewise to the scare-mongering H5N1 supposed inevitability. As any serious scientist should tell you viral mutations remain a black box, and in spite of the claim that scientists have either reverse engineered a l918 virus or merely "polymerase chained reactioned" its dna, nobody knows anything about the likelihood of h5n1 mutating into a human virus--like the virus of l918. Otherwise they'd just trot out the two genomes and compare their sequences.

This whole area requires intellectual vigilance.

Danielle, I'm trying to get the word out about virusmyth.com and am extremely pleased that you're working through the articles.

The entire subject of AIDS reappraisal seems to be censured from the mainstream media.

Hope you enlighten your friends in journalism.
Thanks to Tyee, also.

Truman Green, as to your initial query, "Does the virus really become resistant or are the drugs destroying the immune system." I would say a combination of both - and then some. HIV actually has a tropism for cells with the CD4 receptor - which happen to be your T cells (i.e. your main cell mediated immune response). The drugs aren't as specific as one would hope (and most human-made drugs are rather pathetic in design in comparison to the ingenious medicine - although unpatentable - made by nature) - so proteases happen to attack both viral and human proteins. Despite the inherent difficulty of getting EM photographs of viral particles (viruses can only replicate and assemble inside other living cells) - there have been EMs published see [url] http://www.virology.net/Big_Virology/BVretro.html[/url]. The field of virology - and HIV research - has taken leaps and bounds over the last 5 years - and the quotes and research presented on virusmyth.com were awfully dated. I do, however, applaud your skepticism. I even agree that there is ill-advised overtreatment and tendency to take often unnecessary or prophylactic measures (often with quite adverse side-effects - another case of such a scenario is chemotherapy - which I actually faught against being administered to someone close to me after I reviewed her case. I put her on a regimine that would weaken her cancer cells and strengthen her innate immune response against tumours - and she not only beat her cancer, but is now healthier and happier then she was prior to her malignancy). However, medicine is no longer tailored to each individual, there is a one-size fits all approach - whether or not you fit the bell-curve.
In regards to the rate of mutation of HIV - I can hardly convince you - but I can say I have an associate who spent long hours performing PCR of virus infected folks at St. Pauls - and I can attest to the fact that this virus has been tracked to undergo amazing rates of mutations that the wild type strain is no longer even detectable. In an HIV-infected person, about 10.3 x 10e9 virions are produced per day. These have a half life of about 6 hours, and a fixed mutation rate of 3 x 10e5 per base per replication cycle in an HIV genome of 104 base pairs. This means that at least one mutation may occur in each nucleotide of HIV in a day. This has more to do with the type of genetic material HIV (single stranded RNA - using host machinery for replication).

Avicenna,

I am curious about those pictures of HIV in the above link. I understand Montagnier is quoted to have said "we did not isolate".

I have heard that some type of cloning is involved and there is no "gold standard" in regard to HIV.

Are you familiar?

Avicenna,

A link if you have time to read, be sure to check out the reply by the Perth group.

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/dtinterviewlm.htm

rethinkit, science (like many other "industries" nowadays) is partly built on politics and ego. Montagnier (French) and Dr. Gallo (American) were essentially quite embittered with each other because they both wanted the credit for "discovering" (as in isolating) the human immunodeficiency virus. We now know that there are (not surprisingly) many subsets and related viruses belonging to the "HIV family" - including the related monkey version (SIV). Anyhow, when it comes to detection - antibody based methods were considered the gold standard until newer and more specific (based on genetics) methods were developed. The HIV test kits presently in use actually have a greater than 96% sensitivity I believe - which is higher than many other viruses including chlamydia (there aren't many - if any - that have a sensitivity and specificity assay that reaches 100%). These facts could be verified by WHO. There were a group of AIDS dissidents early on (who emerged when the whole "discovery" fiasco was going on) that claimed HIV did not cause AIDS. Montagnier's proclamation that there were other "co-factors" which caused AIDS added fuel to this fire. AIDS is an assessment of the immune system CD4 T cell count - so it essentially is a criteria giving you the synopsis on how well one is doing in regards to maintenance of their immune system. In theory, there could be other factors that negatively impact one's immune status - but when taken in context of HIV - AIDS is often looked at in correlation of the CD4 T cell count and viral load. In the early days, the dissidents were largely ignored by the "mainstream" science community who thought they were just a fringe group - but their movement grew within political circles (including the South African president) so the "mainstreamers" had to give a response. There was an investigation done by Science (the highly regarded science journal) which was published in an 8 page(in 1994) response to the HIV controversy. Their findings can be read at: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf

It might be of interest to readers of this forum to note that very recently The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis has reactivated, and envigorated, its website,
Rethinking AIDS (rethinkingaids.com).

Other dissident websites which readers may be interested in perusing:

http://www.virusmyth.net
http://www.rethinkaids.info/body.cfm?id=1
http://www.aras.ab.ca
http://www.healaids.com
http://www.reviewingaids.org/awiki

There is also a more comprehensive list of roughly 80 dissident websites, available at:

http://www.reviewingaids.org/awiki/index.php/List_of_dissident_websites

Avicenna, you are mistaken on a number of points:

1. Antibody tests are/were not (and could not be) a "gold standard", then or now.

2. Neither Gallo nor Montagnier succeeded in isolating HIV in 1984. Pretty much everyone agrees on this today.

3. Specificity and sensitivity are not really enough to determine how "useful" the HIV tests are. The problem is that being HIV+ (assuming a gold standard exists...) is a rare event. 100% specificity means all healthy people are recognized as such, and 100% sensitivity means all sick people are recognized as such. It is quite possible, by giving a simple example, to show that with a rare condition, a test can have very high specificity and sensitivity and still be virtually worthless as a diagnostic tool: Suppose roughly 1% of a population is sick (against some gold standard), the other 99% not sick. Now suppose that a test is given to detect sickness, and all sick people are correctly identified as sick. But suppose also that 1/99th of the healthy people are incorrectly identified as sick as well. In this case, our test has 100% sensitivity and 98/99 > 98% specificity, yet the test is patently worthless, as its positive predictive value (probability of a positive test result indicating sickness) is just 50%, hardly comfort to a patient. This is just another example of HIV/AIDS people routinely overlooking well-known ideas.

4. The above discussion pertaining to the tests is moot, in any case, as HIV has never been isolated and no gold standard exists. A good gentle introduction to why was written by Etienne de Harven, one of the world experts on electron microscopy, 1998:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/edhrecol.htm

5. The dissident movement has not grown primarily "within political circles". I'm afraid you rely too heavily on news and editorial pieces in Nature and Science for your gossip. It has grown primarily among scientists, doctors, academics, and professionals, as even a cursory glance at the following list will show:

http://aras.ab.ca/rethinkers.htm

6. The 1994 Cohen hatchet job in Science is the best you can come up with? That was 12 years ago, dissident knowledge has been greatly updated and enhanced since that time. Besides, Cohen is only a reporter. (What, you don't think those criticisms are fair? I hear apologists use them all the time.)

Excellent, Darin Brown, I was going to make several of those points, but I couldn't improve on your comments. Thanks for your new lists. I had no idea that this movement was so widespread.

Avicenna, I've been to that site many times.
I ended up there every time I googled, "images of hiv" etc. Nice cartoons and computer-generated stuff, even a few suspicious micrographs of HIV PARTICLES. I was kinda hoping for a complete virus, though. Incidentally how come they're in colour? I think electron images are in black and white, eh.

Klambert, they just invented a new disease for you: "Idiopathic Aids", which of course, explains nothing, but probably is very satisfying for the Aids Cartel. This is undoubtedly very personal, but I wonder how you were diagnosed. Was it a "clinical case definition" like they use in Africa?

Avicenna, I only suggest that mutations might be retrograde, eh.

Darin, you are obviously much more well-informed regarding the HIV fiasco than I am. I admit that most of my information is from institutionalized classes, conferences and peer-reviewed science journals - I've been brain-washed to both submit and devour information from those sources solely - though I'm fairly attuned and open-minded to things going on outside the box. Perhaps you could enlighten me then regarding what type of tests were primarily used previously to detect and identify infectious agents if not ELISAs? Having made such assays myself - variability between the specificity and sensitivity of such assays vary widely depending primarily on the target antigen and the type of antibodies used. Anyhow, there seems to be much dissent between your assertions and those posted by labs publishing their EMs (presumably they are TEM and not SEM for the sake of resolution - but I haven't researched this fact) - as well as your information and others sources stating that the Pasteur Institute is where HIV was isolated (its even stated in the holy wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier. And your last point, I don't think that the Science response is the best I can do - I can't even claim to be trying - I simply came across the link from the series of articles on the AIDS dissidents from the wikipedia site - and I'm impressed that they actually acknowledged the uproar. This is not the only controversy within the life science realm - and if only Koch knew way back when he stated his postulates in the late 19th century what a headache he would give virologists who are still debating if viruses can be considered living organisms themselves since they are unable to replicate outside of another living cell.

Truman Green, if you really want to "see" the virus - you would need to go to crystalography data. I know the virus has been solved in terms of crystal structure and deposited in the National Library of Medicine. I can get you a link to the list of studies that have crystalized the virus and its parts (often complexed since it is not easy to isolate just things if you've ever tried). Alrighty, you can see for yourself at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Structure&cmd=search&term=HIV+. You may need a protein structure visualizer program to assemble the structure (but its quite cool to play with these structures - even design your own mutations...). Have fun.

>>Darin, you are obviously much more well-informed regarding the HIV fiasco than I am. I admit that most of my information is from institutionalized classes, conferences and peer-reviewed science journals - I've been brain-washed to both submit and devour information from those sources solely.

I'm not sure you're being sarcastic ("brainwashed") here or not. In the case of HIV, there has been suppression and fraud, certainly, but it's not as simple (or as conspiracy-minded) as that. The questions posed by dissidents strike at the core of the beliefs of modern virology developed over the past 40 years, so one would not expect them to be encouraged. It's just an institutional mindset that puts dissidents through 100 hoops to jump through to get a word in, but publishes patent nonsense like the 1995 Ho/Shaw articles without a second thought. As for getting your info "solely" from classes, conferences, peer-reviewed journals, etc., most of the evidence you need to falsify HIV is right there in the literature, nowhere else. I'd put less faith in conferences and textbooks if you want to be critical -- conferences are often just vehicles to promote new articles, papers, or studies, and textbooks are just repeating conventional wisdom.

>>Perhaps you could enlighten me then regarding what type of tests were primarily used previously to detect and identify infectious agents if not ELISAs?

There's nothing wrong with using ELISA, provided you have actually identified the infectious agent in the first place.

>>Anyhow, there seems to be much dissent between your assertions and those posted by labs publishing their EMs (presumably they are TEM and not SEM for the sake of resolution - but I haven't researched this fact) - as well as your information and others sources stating that the Pasteur Institute is where HIV was isolated (its even stated in the holy wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier.

I'm beginning to venture a bit from own expertise (mathematics), but my understanding is that it is not enough just to "publish a picture" using EM and say that is enough to claim isolation. The problem is that lots of things band at the density where retroviruses band (1.16 gm/ml), so you should also be able to take a preparation of pure particles, introduce them into fresh, uninfected cells and see the same particles growing furiously. After all, if HIV is supposedly growing furiously and only held in check by the immune system for so long ("virological mayhem") certainly it would soon explode in a sample of fresh uninfected cells? I'm not aware when this has been done.

Regarding Pasteur/Montagnier/Gallo/1984, etc., I'll just comment on the Gallo isolation paper in Science 1984. Montagnier's approach was (almost) the same. What Gallo really did was to pool together fluids from several patients, as he was unable to find sufficiently high concentrations of RT in individual's fluid. Furthermore, the culture was reinoculated at least twice, so Gallo was lying when he said the T-cell line could "continuously produce HTLV-III". This all (eventually) came to light when Gallo was found guilty of scientific fraud several years later. It took so long, possibly because Gallo took the unscientific step of bypassing your esteemed process of peer review by going straight to the press a few weeks before publication of his papers. Interestingly (but perhaps not surprisingly!) this and other egregious behaviour has done little to damage his reputation in HIV science.

PART DEUX (original post too long)

>>And your last point, I don't think that the Science response is the best I can do - I can't even claim to be trying - I simply came across the link from the series of articles on the AIDS dissidents from the wikipedia site - and I'm impressed that they actually acknowledged the uproar.

Generally, there are only a handful of "rebuttals" which are recycled endlessly:

1. The Cohen 1994 editorial.
2. The Steve Harris 1994 Skeptic essay.
3. "The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS", a publication of the U.S. government. (updated continuously)
4. The Durban Declaration (2000), an unreferenced paper.
5. Various "Answering Denialist" columns in AIDS journals. (recent years)

That's it. If you can find more, I'd love to know. These are about the only things I know even acknowledging there's a debate.

>>This is not the only controversy within the life science realm - and if only Koch knew way back when he stated his postulates in the late 19th century what a headache he would give virologists who are still debating if viruses can be considered living organisms themselves since they are unable to replicate outside of another living cell.

It may not be the only controversy, but arguably the most important. The HIV/AIDS programme is the most expensive scientific endeavour in human history...nothing else even touches it. And if it's on the wrong track, the consequences are obvious...

I have heard that Montagnier himself admitted in a 1997 interview with Djamel Tahi, a French TV journalist, that "we did not purify" [read: isolate] the virus and added that he did not believe Gallo had done so either. However, I have not been able to find the source of this quote personally yet.

I have to admit I'm enjoying this insight exercise - and I would be much more willing to bite the concept of HIV being a figment of mad researchers' imagination if there wasn't just a plethora of funded work and research by various independent groups (who would love nothing better than to refute or expose the faulty or fraud riddled work of a competitor) that find only supportive evidence that adds to previous work done on the HIV knowledge base. Science does not take place in a vaccuum and we have large groups of scientists working together on specific projects - like the HIV research done in downtown vancouver. Looking at the raw data of the T cell count and the viral load - I would be an extreme skeptic to think they are all bullshitting the whole thing. I'm an immunologist - not a microbiologist - though I grudgingly had to go through a thorough innoculation (pun intended) of bacterial and viral experimental paradigms. One doesn't "culture" viruses like they do bacteria - viruses are measured indirectly by a plaque assay. For HIV, one would have to use CD4 T cells for doing the assay since these are the primary targets for the virus. How would you explain all the crystal structure deposits in Medline? I may look with some cynisicm at dubious microbiologists, but protein chemists are another breed altogether, and they aren't one to dabble in the non-linear side of science.

My clinical diagnoses are: "viral syndrome of unknown etiology", "idiopathic CD8 lymphocytopenia", and "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome".

I have an idiopathic immune disorder, and I am linked to others through "acute infections", "dormancies", only to lead to very "symptomatic, progressively-worsening physical demises". All within a 2.5 year period.

What I have definitely is not new, as I have read about similar cases just like me (some right here in downtown Boston) dating back to 1992 -- which just infuriates me even more. I also speculate that whatever we are carrying is becoming more powerful, because it has gone undetected for so long.

I also have very severe secondary problems and opportunistic infections. My doctors are AIDS doctors, one of whom also has yet another ICL patient just like me in his practice.

My blood was flown to CDC-Atlanta twice last year. I have tested negative on HIV (antibody, viral load, and Western blot, and AMP-RT (retroviral transcriptase-all known retroviruses). I have tested negative for every other viral pathogen which there is currently a test to test for. I am officially 100% undiagnosed.

lemonfoundation.blogspot.com

klambert, first off - I'm sorry that you are in this limbo. I had previously assisted with a research project looking at the possible role of heat shock proteins in women diagnosed (by virtue of elimination) of chronic fatigue syndrome. Up until recently - doctors (MDs) considered it a "state of mind" and not an illness. Stress, hormones, and infections all use the same resources in the body - the acute phase response by the liver is the same when launched either with infectious or noninfectious stress. This is the area that I'm most interested in - and especially looking into the gender discrepency between the outcome of chronic states of adrenal exhaust. I study innate lymphocytes - of which CD8 T cells are more closely related. The fact that they are being depleted may be an actual case of self-senescence. Cytolytic T cells recognize stressed cells, under chronic exposure, the immune system is programmed to shut itself off by activation induced cell death (AICD). First off, you should rule out that you don't have an underlying malignancy - do you have anemia? HIV is highly unlikely since it is the wrong subset of T cells that is being depleted - I would first ensure that there is no other cause of this internal stress (autoimmune disorders comes to mind - look into symptoms of MS and lupus - and ask about your thyroid and endocrine hormone levels). In the mean time, you should focus on re-strengthening your immune system through diet which has an amazingly huge impact. There actually compounds in tea (such as threonine) which actually help stimulate your innate T cells. Support is aided with zinc and glutamine rich foods. Stay away from highly processed foods since they overly stimulate the release of insulin which is an immunosuppressant - as is frustration. The last bit you can do for yourself is exercise - we found that a significant number of people coming in with depressed immune systems improved when they exercised for 30 min (walking) - even though they had chronic fatigue. T cells are a component of your blood - so circulation and pumping your blood flow obviously has a positive impact.

Thanks for the thoughts and advice, Avicenna.

My immunologist at Mass General Hospital (Boston MA) tells me that some patients with CD4 lymphocytopenia also have low levels of CD8 lymphocytes as well, as CD4s have dipped quite low. To answer your question, no diagnosed malignancy, yet. My doctors have been watching the tumors on my lungs and thyroid pretty closely, as I have been told by scientists that they have never seen anyone with CD8s so low that didn't have cancer. Nothing surprises me one way or the other anymore, as I have read journaled ICL cases in downtown Boston dating back to 1993, all with no CD8s -- all deceased. Docs are definitely more concerned about the reoccurring infections, however. My NeuroAIDS doctor put me into his PML study because he thought it would help us better understand my CD8 dysfunction. My body is overdrive and is currently at war with something. Lord knows what...

I differentiate my clinical care from my plight, though -- which is to detect my systemic undiagnosed viral illness. My doctors have been truly amazed at the political attention my case have garnered. I have been working with a number of different scientists. All autoimmune illnesses have been ruled out. I spent over a year listening to doctors tell me that my symptoms were a "figment of my imagination", and that "nobody cares about you." and that I needed to "stop fighting" and "stop writing letters". I tell ya, it is pure - bittersweet - relief that I am too objectively ill that people are forced to listen to me when I talk.

I agree, HIV is unlikely with all the negative tests, which puts me where I am at today (undiagnosed and a paradigm doubter). But, it only adds to my inquiry that I have read articles about researchers isolating HIV strains that can infect CD8+ T cells in the absence of CD4. So, I believe that it's possible that it could be HIV. Who knows...not I.

It's stupid to me that my disorder is called HIV-Negative AIDS. And why does HIV get the exclusivity of causing AIDS, when clearly so many other viruses cause immune deficiency too. And, if HIV is not the cause of my AIDS-like illness, what is?

I have been researching the HHV6's (a & b variants) as well as the newly discovered Human Intracisternal A-Type Particle-Type II (HIAP2).

I have the links on my blog. Thank you for your continued thoughts.

Avicenna, you mentioned work being done "like the HIV research done in downtown vancouver."

Which group are you talking about? BC Centre for Excellence?" Which is funded by Merck/Frosst and also Providence which is a "faith-based" group

The other factor for the breakout among NYC gay men was that there were so many STDs circulating alongside the synthetic drug mixes which can cause all sorts of dietary/nutrition issues and potentially starvation. Advocacy groups didn't necessarily like the picture being painted but why ignore the scientific clues, as well as the social issues.

The articles by a journalist about pregnant women testing postive for HIV and the resulting "AZT babies" is heart-breaking
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/tour/step12.htm

Important caveat from her piece: "(Critics remind us that what is tested for is not, in fact, HIV, but antibodies to HIV.)"

Avicenna, could a woman wrongly test positive for HIV while pregnant?

Good luck Klambert. I will check out your site.

The latest CDN stats on HIV and AIDS are here….

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/aids-sida/haic-vsac0605/pdf/haic-vsac0605.pdf

The report lists the first CDN AIDS case in 1979. The highest rates were in 1993 at over 1,800 cases. By 2004, down to 299 even though HIV + cases remain relatively steady through the 90s and until now. (Except for increases among women.) As for deaths due to AIDS, the highest rates were again in the mid-90s, peaking at 1,500 in 1995. By 2004 there were 74 AIDS-related deaths. These stats are bizarre considering that these are classified as deadly viruses. (See links/info below for more.)

Another disturbing stat: Pregnant aboriginal women are now seven times more likely to test HIV + than non-aboriginal pregnant women.

Going back to the issue of HIV vaccines, but it illustrates the issues of HIV in general, one group of scientists is calling for a watchdog org and discusses the use of these viruses as bio-weapons
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMbioWeapons.php

Also check out these papers by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of The Institute of Science in Society http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_aids_virus.php. Ho cites one Merck study of immunized Macque monkeys: two out of 15 monkeys became sick with AIDS-related symptoms six months after receiving a “pathogenic HIV-SIV hybrid virus (SHIV)” which is “routinely used in such studies, is an especially virulent form of the AIDS virus that kill victims in weeks, and its safety has been strongly questioned.” Ho cites more than twelve human and primate trials where HIV virus mutations escape immune recognition and he singled out the above-mentioned pathogen development as a “dangerous research project” used as an AIDS vaccine challenge in all United States NIH-funded research.” http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMBioweaponControl.php

The official year development began with HIV vaccines was 1987. Yet this document mentions that in fact a French group started testing vaccines in 1986…
http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=6669

“…Moreover, this section arrogantly suggests that abrogations of the rights of subjects in developing country trials are safely behind us. Have we already forgotten the relatively recent vaccine studies of Dr. Daniel Zagury in which Zairian children were injected with a putative HIV vaccine, leading to several deaths, without adequate informed consent? (A source close to the group told the New York Times that a major reason the trial was conducted abroad was that it "was easier to get official permission [in Zaire] than in France."(9)) Or the lack of adequate informed consent in the CDC perinatal study in Cote d'Ivoire?(10) Or the lack of adequate informed consent in the Case Western isoniazid study in Uganda?(11) History should have taught us not to be so complacent….

The power imbalance is relevant relevant to the informed consent process itself. As a Zimbabwean virologist who wrote to us in the context of the controversy over the AZT perinatal trials said: "In an environment where the majority can neither read nor write and is wallowing in poverty and sickness, hunger and homelessness, and where the educated, the powerful, the rich or the expatriate is a semi-God, how can you talk of informed consent?" Rather than acknowledging these on-the-ground power dynamics, the authors of the Guidance Document would rather hide behind such meaningless slogans as protectionism and paternalism….”

Danielle, I've been wondering all weekend about the connection between Merck and the so-called "BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS." Thanks for answering this question. Just as I thought: Merck funds the centre.

When you mentioned Bio-weapons I certainly took notice. I wrote a fiction piece in l997 called "Smart Animals" in which the lead characters speculate that the hiv virus was invented as a form of biological warfare. In my fictionalized account the inventors used the melanin gene as a link in order to construct a virus which would be fatal to dark-skinned people only. By one account I read on Virusmyth.com, 5% of black Americans are HIV positive, but only 1 in 7000 white Americans are HIV positive. I don't know if this is true, but if it is it must follow that in ten or so years, given that there's 35 million black people in the US, that 1.7 million of them are going to die of AIDS. Assuming that HIV causes AIDS, of course. And assuming that a HIV positive status is a death sentence as claimed by the AIDS cartel.

Which of course, begs the question: If they can engineer SHIV, why not the original HIV virus? (Which was my one-time seriously-held belief). This is not unreasonable. Did you know that SHIV--simian-human immunodeficiency virus is a totally genetically engineered virus? It doesn't exist in nature! This is at least as frightening as your "heads-up" link.

The rationale for inventing SHIV was to have a virus that was actually fatal to monkeys and chimps because in spite of the claim that HIV is just a mutated SIV, only SHIV is fatal to simians. So they invented SHIV (supposedly) in order to have a lethal virus to study.

Which of course begs an infinite number of questions, not least of which is: If you so strongly believe that HIV causes AIDS, why do you need SHIV?

Darin,

Regarding the link to montagnier admitting he never isolated HIV, check out my earlier posts where there are two links. I ask, is Montagnier saying he did not isolate, or that pure isolation would destroy the virus, thus they would not be able to take a EM?

Good stuff TG. Maybe someone on the boards knows about this, whether fact or myth or conspiracy theory: that descendents of western europeans exposed to the "black plague" have genetic resistence to "HIV" unlike other ethniticies? Is there any science behind this idea? As for bio, google "Larry Ford" (CA gyno, incredible story) "Project Coast" and "Wouter Basson" AKA "Doctor Death"

Nana, are you still out there? I'd like to know more about HIV+ tests and pregnancy.

Danielle, I've been clipping from newspapers on HIV/AIDS for ten years and I remember clipping an article claiming that 1% of white people have a genetic immunity to HIV. I'll try to find it. If I do I'll get back on it.

Your mention of Wouter Basson is very synchronistic. I started writing a comment on him an hour ago but decided it was too strange and erased it. He was the South African doctor who worked for the aparheid regime in South Africa. It was claimed that he was working on a project to develope a disease that would only be lethal to black people. He was tried, but acquitted about three years ago of an assortment of crimes against black South Africans. I'll try to find my clippings about him.

I too hope Nana is still available for comment. She is the one who turned me around on the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. (After your first article)

On the western European resistance, I saw a film documentary on PBS (I think) regarding this subject, a couple of years ago. The claim was that the plague supplied the resistance, as you suggest. I think the documentary suggested it was mostly speculation, without any scientific support, but I'm not sure.

For klambert's question about HIV causing AIDS and other causes of AIDS - acquired immunodefiencey syndrome is just a description of the state of one's immune defense mechanism. "Acquired" is used to differentiate between those who are born (due to a genetic cause) immunocompromised. Both drugs and illness can induce acquired immunodeficiency - but since HIV hit the radiowaves - AIDS has become more synomonous with HIV. The secondary effect of CD8 T cell decline in HIV is due to the death of CD4 T cells which provide the main source of a particular growth factor (called IL-2) that keeps all T cells alive. This is not your case. I would be more interested to know whether the doctors have checked your other cytolytic lymphocte levels (in particular NK cells and gamma/delta T cells). It is both frustrating and difficult to find the cause of rare disorders - especially if tests and assays have not been produced for routine analysis. There are indirect means by which it can be determined if you are actually infected with a virus or if there is another reason that your CD8 T cells are being depleted. The first is assessing the levels of inflammatory cytokines circulating (these are released during infection - including IL-2), the second thing I would test is the levels of MHC class I surface expression. This receptor binds the CD8 receptor and its expression level would be important in understanding the cause of CD8 T cell level decline. I am thinking as an immunologist, not an MD - so it may not be something your general practioner would think of doing - but a researcher may. I do hope that you find a solution and resolution to your problem.

In regards to Mercks (and other big pharma funding) major research centres - this has become more and more de facto simply because research is so expensive and we (as taxpayers) would rather dole out the responsibility of conducting it to private industries than paying for it ourselves. It isn't up there on the priorities list - which of course leaves us vulnerable as to the way research is done. If gov't was funding it - they may want to move towards preventative measures and away from keeping people hooked on expensive drugs for preventable chronic disorders. This is why I am moving towards ethics in health research and policy. Nobody is advocating for the people and there is significant conflict of interest. However, in regards to industry funding, Canada (and our trainees who do most of the work) isn't as integrated (yet) into doing work directly for companies. The CIHR has just recently started up with the public-private research - and much of the work done at individual centres has been done by independent and small labs up to this point. The one area that has been unsavoury to me is the fact we don't have an independent gov't research lab who conducts clinical trials - thus, the company developing drugs designs, intereprets, and markets the drug for Health Canada and the FDA in the US - that is just screaming conflict of interest and may insight a little more than an incentive of data fudging. It isn't perfect - but I'd love for people in our society to come up with a solution.

Danielle,

Any chance you could do a story on the Autism epidemic that has swept America? Did you know there are serious allegations the spectrum of disorders is caused by the mercury based preservative Thimerasol(sp?)?

I wonder what is the Autism rate in countries that vaccinate compared to those who don't. What are the countries that eschew vaccination? Are there any?

Danielle, you wrote, "These stats are bizarre considering that these are supposed to be deadly viruses."

I think the stats are, in fact, the "SMOKING GUN."

As I suggested for projecting HIV deaths in the black American community, if we try to extrapolate HIV correlation to AIDS in Vancouver's downtown eastside where it is claimed that 30% of the sex-trade workers are HIV positive, one has to ask:

If HIV is really a high risk for AIDS and if the AIDS death rate really continues to spiral downward (from approximately l500-1800 in all of Canada in the 90's) to 74 in 2004, where is the direct ratio support for claims of HIV being the cause of a deadly AIDS illness?

More simply: If there are 1000 sex-trade workers in downtown Vancouver and they have a 30% positive HIV rate, that would mean that 300 of them are going to eventually die of AIDS. What if the actual death rate for AIDS for all of Canada is only 50 in 2010? Doesn't this prove that something is drastically wrong with the supposed HIV-AIDS link?

What if the number spirals down to 5 or 10 as the stats suggest could possibly happen in a few years?

I ask this question but I already know that the AIDS cartel is going to claim that their highly activated anti-retroviral drugs are the cause of the diminishing of the epidemic, or are going to attribute the decline to mutations of the virus, as they routinely do for the drug failures. They would have loved to use AZT but I think even Avicenne would agree that it is a poison which interferes with the ability of mitochondria to process energy in the cell, and has already killed many unsuspecting patients, especially in the homosexual community.

Unfortunately millions will believe them.

The stats and fraud over Aids in Africa where AIDS is diagnosed by something called a "clinical case definition" makes the local inconsistencies seem miniscule.

Mr. Tyndale, if you are reading, it would be very good to hear from you as apparently you have experience in Kenya. I once read that in Kiberia (a massive slum) in Nairobi, 50% of the population is claimed to be HIV positive. How are these numbers determined without statistically ANY of these people being tested for the virus?

Avicenna, thanks for responding to my request for micrographs of protease and reverse transcriptase. I went to your site but I only found more atomic structure models of protease and reverse transcriptase. I'd be particularly interested in images of mutated protease being able to resist the artifical inhibitors as is supposedly the case, according to the pharmaceutical apologists. Sorry for the sarcasm. I do respect your knowledge and experience in this field, but I'm hardly convinced by atomic modelling.

Proteases, as you know are facilitator enzymes.
Where's the evidence that mutated proteases are better able to do what the
original viruses could not do--resist the artifical inhibitors. I'd suggest that mutations caused by protease inhibitor stressors, if not entirely inept, are likely to do damage that could be considered unintended consequences, like damage many other cells in the body and precipitate patholgy in many other body systems. For evidence of this read: "Inhibitors of HIV protease useless against Aids" by David Rasnick.

Also more recently--and a real smoking gun regarding the lethality of anti-retroviral drugs: "International HIV/AIDS Trial Finds Continous Antiretroviral Therapy Superior to Episodic Therapy" published by the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases of the NIH (National Institutes of Health of the American government.

This was published on January 18, 2006.

Avicenna, I'd really like to know what you think of this story. It is really about the NIAID stopping enrollment in the huge anti-retroviral trials because it found out that the drugs were sickening and killing people. The story, of course, never made it into the mainstream press as far as I know. The NIAID managed to spin these failures into a success story. From the article:

"The trial involved an international collaboration of 318 clinical sites in 33 countries. It began enrollment in January 2002 and had successfully recruited more than 90 perrcent of its target of 6,000 participants."

TG, I definitely agree that more often than not the treatment is worse than the disease - and it is often an exercise in seeing what gives first - the disease or the organism. This is exactly the same case for cancer and chemotherapy (which incidently also causes cancer).
I have to clarify that the crystal structures found in Medline aren't exactly atomic models - small molecules - such as enzymes and viruses - are studied in terms of structure by crystalization. It isn't easy to solve cystal structures - but essentially the macromolecule has to form a lattice and once this is accomplished, the biochemist can see the molecular formation of the atomic arrangement of the proteins in the structure. This is very useful to see the points of interaction and gives an idea how the molecule may bind its receptor or substrate. The atomic model is generated from this raw data so that site-specific mutations (by amino acid substitution etc) will show how the interaction could be disrupted. I am obviously a glutton for punishment - and understand now why scientists in the field don't bother to respond to public enquiry - it isn't easy to explain.
Anyhow, in regards to your second question - a protease is actually (or more precisely) an enzyme which works on (read: chews up or digests) a protein (like a peptidase "chews up" a peptide). Enzymes are very specific and recognize their target substrate by certain sequence or conformation in its structure. When a protein that is prone to mutations is subjected under selective conditions - such as the presence of a protease - eventually only those proteins which have mutated or changed their conformation so that the enzyme no longer can attack the substrate will be present (very similar to what happens when we breed antibiotic resistant bacteria). I'm not sure if this made any sense - but that is the gist of the whole "drug resistance" phenomenon. Of course the drugs themselves are pretty brutal and primitive in their lack of specifity - and I've seen some awful side effects (and honestly, I rather just let the disease take its course if I ever got either AIDS as a consequence of HIV) - but people seem to value the number of years rather than the quality of them more than I.

Avi, do you tell your patients that its more than even odds that the treatment will kill them? This is what I think has often been the case with AZT and protease inhibitors.

I think that we are in great disagreement about the degree to which HAARTs (highly activated anti-retroviral therapies)have killed and damaged people who began taking them when they had no symtoms besides HIV positivity. That is precisely why I recommended to you the NIAID site outlining the results of the HAART trials.

What is your opinion of AZT?

Avi, I'm finding discrepancies in every vantage point from which I view the HIV/AIDS hypothesis--not only the controversy surrounding mutations and drug efficacy, but also regarding demographics, media censorship, statistical anomalies, highly-respected scientists who are dissidents, clinical case histories in Africa, which are in fact meaningless because the entire continent is full of people with compromised immune systems and whose pathogens react to the HIV tests as readily as the HIV virus.

The hypothesis is wrong, and I know that some day you are going to acknowledge it.

For example, Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel prize for the invention of polymerase chain reaction (to which we both referred) is probably the most famous of the dissenters. (Remember him at the OJ Simpson trial?

This brings up more questions: Mullis has written that the use of PCR to amplify the viral loads of PWAs is a misuse of his discovery.

If the "virtual" viral loads are so precise, why not just use them instead of CD4s to indicate the progression of the infection?

Rethinkit, yeah autism is an interesting topic. I’ve looked at a bit of data but nothing in-depth. Do you have any suggestions? Here are a couple of interesting ones I’ve found.
http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/autism/vaccine.htm
http://www.know-vaccines.org/autism.html

TG, MT would have all sorts of info on Kenya since he worked with the Nairobi project. Have to wonder if HAARTs are as bad as AZT.

Avi, thanks for all the comments and I agree the issue of clinical and research funding is an issue and might corner ethical scientists. But Canada is throwing tons of money on HIV, and with prevention vaccines has given over 60 million to AIVI since 2001 and over 45 million for the Canada Fund for Africa. And that’s just one pocket of the health care industry. Are we just looking at the US funding and dividing by ten?

Also, what about microbicides? Know much about their development? I found a bit on them at these sites. Geared towards women which is a nice idea, but dangerous?
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/504671_print
It touts the HAART treatments, but discusses the different “HIV strains” and subgroups and immune responses in detail.
http://www.aidsinfonyc.org/tag/science/immunePipelineJuly05.html
Mentions Pasteur dev’t of … “ALVAC is an HIV vaccine candidate manufactured by Aventis Pasteur that uses a bird virus called canarypox as a vector. ALVAC has the dubious distinction of being the longest-studied viral vector vaccine candidate, with more than 1,000 people having participated in phase I and II studies over the last ten years.”

Klambert, I typed your diagnosis of "idiopathic CD8 lymphocytopenia" into pubmed. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi. (Great place to monitor publishing by the AIDS-related researchers. In which case type in their last name then first initial.)

Two pages of article summaries related to your diagnosis came up on the website. Check it out. This one is interesting….

Med Hypotheses. 1995 Jan;44(1):1-9.

The solution to the seven mysteries of AIDS: the 'Trojan horse'.

Erlander SR.

It is concluded that the sperm is the cause of AIDS but that HIV may slightly alter the symptoms of this disease, as compared to idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia, or ICL, where the sperm, but not HIV, is assumed present. In the proposed mechanism, the sperm selectively accepts into its interior only macrophage-tropic HIV through its CD4+ antigens and carries this HIV into a person through four possible pathways: rectum (anal sex), genital ulcers, blood transfusions, and female circumcision. Then the sperm acts as a 'Trojan horse' by entering HLA-DR+ CD4+ T cells and releasing the HIV into these cells. The released HIV in turn mutates to a form capable of attacking CD4+ T cells. Thus the sperm by a 'Trojan horse' mechanism has changed the tropism of HIV. However, experimental evidence indicates that this mutated HIV is essentially non-toxic. In contrast, it is concluded that the sperm is extremely toxic since it is capable of inducing autoimmune reactions (by means of its CD4+ antigens) and is capable of entering and destroying HLA-DR+ CD8+ and HLA-DR+ CD4+ T cells in either the presence or absence of HIV (AIDS or ICL). Hence, the mysteries of AIDS can be explained by the presence of the toxic sperm and its complicated interactions with HIV (the 'Trojan horse' mechanism).

Also plugged HAART into pubmed and tons of articles came up. Interesting one related to HAART and cancer. Many more so check them out.

Bull Cancer. 2006 Jan 1;93(1):37-42.

[Non-AIDS-defining malignancies in HIV patients: clinical features and perspectives]

[Article in French]

Spano JP, Carcelain G, Katlama C, Costagliola D.

Departement d'oncologie medicale, GH Pitie-Salpetriere, AP-HP, Paris, France.

Eventhough the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has dramatically improved patient outcome and provided a significant shrinking of the cases and severity of opportunistic infections, AIDS malignancies have become responsible of a new vexing challenge in HIV patient care and cure. Indeed, malignant tumors currently rank among the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients infected with HIV. In addition to the AIDS-malignancies, non-AIDS defining tumors have a higher incidence than the general population such as Hodgkin disease, lung cancer, cutaneaous cancer and anal cancer. These malignant tumors are generally characterized by a more aggressive behaviour at diagnosis and a poorer outcome compared with the same tumors in the general population. Although recent therapeutic advances have been made in chemotherapy, combinations with antiretroviral agents, for many of these malignancies the pronostic remains poor and there is a deeply lack of current therapeutic guidelines for these cancer patients care and cure. These recommendations might be the fruit of a new networking between HIV specialists and oncologists and of an improving knowledge of the pathogenesis and clinical features of these AIDS non-defining tumors.

Danielle and everybody, there's a very interesting story in the Salt Lake Tribune today, entitled" Has BYU found AIDS cure? Compound could be long-sought breakthrough, by Bob Mims. Go to sltrib.com

Compounds are called Ceragenins.

Stephen Lewis, a special UN envoy for Aids in Africa has been one of the greatest sources of massive projections of HIV infection and coming Aids deaths in Africa. In l998 Baffour Ankoma, an African doctor, wrote of such figures gathered up to the time of his writing: "The biggest lie of the century."

My belief is that Lewis' figures can be similarly described, although I'm convinced that if Lewis is found to have been in error, he will be seen to be acting out of gullibility and in good faith, and not as a toadie of the pharmaceutical companies.

A few weeks ago I watched a Jim Cantelon interview with Lewis in which Cantelon asked him how he explained the huge success that the Ugandans have had recently in stopping the Aids epidemic in that country.

Lewis answered that it was due to new-founded awareness and more adequate response by the Ugandan government.

The real answer may be in an alteration in the way the Ugandan government decided to report Aids deaths. According to the article, "Are 26 million Africans dying of AIDS?" by Baffour Ankomah, the UN agencies were claiming that "Uganda was the hardest hit in Africa and how Uganda's heavily infected population would be wiped out in a matter of years."

This didn't happen of course and Cantelon's question to Lewis was in response to this bizarre discrepancy.

Very few Africans have ever had a HIV test, and the massive projections were all done by means of the dubious "clinical case definitions", by which as few as three symptoms such as weight loss, diarrhea and persistent cough could be enough to result in a positive AIDS diagnosis.

Hi Truman et al,
I'm just back from my trip and haven't had a chance to do anything but skim all the comments. I am so heartened to see that all my input on the last article was not in vain since most of you can now see through one of the major scams of the age.

As for Stephen Lewis....he cries far too easily while pushing nevirapine. I no longer trust him.

I'm sorry if I missled you, TG - but I am not a physician doctor - I am a basic scientist who specializes in immunology (immunologist). I already mentioned that many chemotherapeutic agents do harm to do their deed, and I would personally not assault my body with such (I don't even take tylenol). In regards to your question why the CD4 T cells are counted for diagnosis - simply because their count would give a better indication of immune status - and the extent of virus spread since this particular clever bug binds specifically to the CD4 receptor. Their count and the viral load is not static - it fluctuates in regards to the viral life cycle. I was motivated to come back to this thread after reading an interestingly parallel blog written by a scientist http://politics.scienceboard.net/archives/2005/03/10/31/. I think many on this forum would have something to say that chap.

Welcome back, Nana. I can't exaggerate how important your input has been to me. Thank you so much. I would have hated going through the rest of my life supported the HIV/AIDS direct ratio correlation as naively as I once did.

And thanks to Yarrow, too.

Avi, I wonder what you think of the Salt Lake Tribune article regarding the engineering of a naturally occurring immune compound which can kill HIV, (they claim it might eventually cure Aids) and Danielle's last comment regarding the possible trojan effect of HIV. Both of these possibilities are very interesting to me as they fit my personal evolutionary view that it is absurd to think that nature would have evolved a virus whose sole job is to attack CD4s.

Avi, I just your your politics-science link. I spent a long time researching the polio-hiv theory and first believed that HIV was an engineered form (purposefully engineered) of either SIV or SV40, the fortieth rhesus monkey virus studied and one of the most studied viruses of all time.

I can't discard any of these possibilities especially since it is a fact that scientists have engineer SHIV (simian-human-immunodeficiency virus), a virus which is a constructed hybrid of SIV and HIV, and is lethal to chimps and monkeys in a matter of weeks.

Are you not concerned about the ability to engineer such a lethal virus as SHIV?

My opinion of the blog to which you referred is that it is just another attempt to denigrate the HIV/AIDS reappraisal movement and presents no scientifically useful information.

Avicenna,

I read your link, and sorry to say but the message was a bit confusing. The politics of AIDS? does the writer suggest that more money is needed to avoid millions of AIDS deaths in Africa?

Population of Sub-Saharan Africa
1980- 368 Million
2000- 652 million
The population grew by 274 million, the entire population of the USA. It is projected to reach 990 Million by 2025.

Also,funding for AIDS already outstrips other diseases by a fantastic amount. Rian Malan reported in "Africa isn't dying of AIDS"(2003), Spectator magazine, that "spending on AIDS research exceeded spending on TB by a crushing factor of 90 to 1".

If there is anything politicol about AIDS is that the notion of a lethal sexually transmitted disease is propagated by both liberals and conservatives. For liberals its provides a base to secure gay rights and expand healthcare, for conservatives a platform is created to trump the importance of monogamy. Either way there is a manipulation of the public that occurrs on a massive scale.

For instance in the USA there have only been 24 nurses whom claimed to have contracted HIV on the job. Oddly enough the CDC does not report that 21 of them are male, even though profession is 80% female. None have died or progressed to AIDS (CDC.gov) (See:populations at risk.) Those three women, however, are on speaking tours recommending increased precautions and mandatory testing of drug addicts and other person "at risk".

The politics of AIDS largely means increased funding to interest groups.

Danielle,

I don't have any specific sources for the autism - vaccine link, all my information has been generated by simple web searches.

I recently read on whale.to/vacines/krasner1.html
that there were about 40 cases of autism in 1955, and there are now 200,000 children affected. The FDA denies any link between a mercury based preservative Thimerosol and the increase.

Avicenna, the above link has articles which question the infectuos disease model.

oops! sorry spelled vaccines wrong!

whale.to/vaccines/krasner1.html

Nana, I'm starting a nevirapine study. So far it looks like another AZT-like horror story. I'm very interested in the Stephen Lewis-nevirapine link. Any headsup on this issue?

I think it was 1 or two years ago that he touted it on the CBC morning show with Anna Maria Tramonti. Last time he was on he went on about "lifesaving drugs", but didn't mention it by name.... he did cry again. Since he speechifies so often to numerous groups, I have a hunch that it has now become part of the act.

Since the link between vaccines and autism has been raised, I do have a sad tale to tell about a friend's grandchild. My friend and I tried to disuade her daughter from either vaccinating her little boy or circumcising him. Unfortunately the boy's father had been a drug company rep. and his father is an MD. Our worst fears were realized and the boy was diagnosed at 2 1/2 as autistic. The mom found a pediatrician who understood about chelation to get the mercury out and orthomolecular methods for the behavioral problems. The child is much better and has progressed psychologically. The problem is that he still has horrible, painful bowel problems. According to Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a much maligned and persecuted UK physician, one of the organisms in the MMR shot establishes itself in the intestines.

Another childhood vaccine produced tragedy is so called "shaken baby syndrome". See the National Vaccine Information Center:

http://www.909shot.com