textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000939.txt

HIV/AIDS


Things certainly change in the world of AIDS; a few years ago Dr. Robert
Gallo who discovered HIV told us that HIV alone explained the appeara=
nce
of AIDS: Clearly HTLV-111 (as it was then called) causes AIDS. Anybody
who doesnt say that doesnt know t he facts. Theres just no questio=
n
about it... Theyre avoiding responsibility, or theyre just ignorant o=
f
the data, or they dont understand it. (New York Native 1984) The worl=
d
looked set for a catastrophe as the epidemic grew.  More recently though
Gallo has admitted that his assertion was not based purely on scientific
grounds but on the need to bring the field to another extreme to avoi=
d
confusing people with 'multifactorial' and 'crackpot' theories. It has
also now become clear that it was Frenchman Dr. Luc Montagnier who in fact
first discovered HIV and promptly sent a sample to Gallos laboratory.
Gallo was convicted of 'scientific fraud' in December 1992 and remains
under investigation by the U.S . Congress. Montagnier has moved even
further away from the original direct HIV-AIDS link; speaking to the
audience during last Julys 8th International AIDS Conference in Amsterda=
m
he said: I think we should put the same weight now on the co-factors [as
 we have on HIV]. Two years previously when he first made his views clea=
r
about co-factors and the possibility that HIV can be benign and peaceful=

only 200 of 12,000 delegates bothered to come to listen to his talk;
almost half had walked out by the end. Critics of the H IV-AIDS orthodoxy
have made much of findings of Aids without HIV. As far back as 1986 there
have been reports of Aids cases remaining uninfected with HIV for extended
periods. In 1989 the U.S. Centre for Disease Control reported that 5% of
all U.S. Aids p atients who had so far been tested for HIV were
HIV-negative. Associate Professor Robert Root-Bernstein, one of the
critics who has spoken out, believes that The existence of HIV-free Aids
proves that HIV is not a necessary cause of acquired immunodefici ency. =
A
number of those who have had second thoughts about HIV-AIDS conventional
wisdom tried to get the following short letter published in prominent
scientific journals: It is widely believed by the general public that a
retrovirus called HIV causes the grou p of diseases called AIDS. Many
biomedical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a
thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this
hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further
propose that criti cal epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken.=

Every journal refused to publish it and as a result The Group for the
Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis" was formed with its own
newsletter Rethinking AIDS.=20

Dr. Peter Duesberg: AIDS heretic The most prominent and controversial of
these scientists is Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell
Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has even told Gallo
that he would not be afraid to be injected with HIV if it could be gu
aranteed clean of contaminants. Duesberg argues that HIV is nothing more
than a harmless little hitchhiker along for the ride; he believes HIV=
 is
a marker for AIDS risks found in people who are reservoirs of rare
viruses and microbes acquired by cont acts with many others, either by
transfusions, sex or by sharing needles. AIDS itself is a syndrome of 25
old diseases including pneumonia, Kaposis sarcoma, dementia, diarrhoea,
candidiasis, tuberculosis etc. Though unrelated they are thought to be
'opportunistic' taking advantage of immunodeficiency. Duesberg challenges
this:=20
 Kaposis sarcoma, lymphomas, wasting disease, and dementia are not
favoured by immunodeficiency because they are neither caused by microbes
or viruses or associated with them. Why do they appear in AIDS patients?
The reason for the near 100% correlatio n claimed between AIDS and HIV is,
he writes, that If the (HIV) antibody is not present, the same diseases
in the same risk groups are called by their old names.

AZT is AIDS by prescription Duesberg believes psychoactive drugs are the
true cause of AIDS: Natural and synthetic psychoactive drugs are the onl=
y
new pathogens around since the 1970s and the only new disease syndrome is
AIDS and both are found in exactly the same populations. The hugely
profitable and highly toxic drug AZT which is said to offer an extra year
of life is thought by Duesberg to be the final straw in provoking immune
deficiency. Developed for cancer chemotherapy, AZT cannot distinguish
infected from uninfected ce lls and causes further immunodeficiency and
degenerative diseases. Since 1989 AZT has even been prescribed to healthy
people who have tested positive for HIV antibodies: the basis for the
daily poisoning of 125,000 people, he believes. Studies published
 in April 1993 actually show that AZT has no therapeutic effect on HIV+ve
patients at all. Duesbergs drug-AIDS hypothesis can, he hopes, sol=
ve
many of the riddles of the conventional virus-AIDS hypothesis: - T=
he
sexually active general population that is not addicted to drugs does not
get AIDS because drugs, not a sexually-transmitted virus, are causing it.
Conventional venereal diseases and unwanted pregnancies are on the rise,
indicating there is suffici ent unsafe sex for HIV to spread through
sexual contacts. - Over 80% of AIDS patients are males, because in th=
e
U.S. males consume over 80% of all hard psycho-active drugs. - AIDS
develops only after years of risk behaviour because drugs take years to
cause AIDS diseases, exactly like cigarettes and alcohol take years to
cause their diseases." - Risk group-specific AIDS diseases are the resul=
t
of group-specific drugs. For example the 20-fold higher incidence of
Kaposis sarcoma in homosexuals corresponds to their preference for
poppers. - African AIDS are old diseases - like Slim disease, fever,
diarrhoea, and tuberculosis - under a new name. They are caused by protein
malnutrition, parasitic infections, and poor sanitation - the reasons why
they are distributed randomly between the sex es. - Natural antibodie=
s
to HIV and synthetic HIV vaccines do not protect against AIDS because it
is caused by drugs and clinical deficiencies. We should warn against
drugs, not against sex, if we want to prevent AIDS, urges Duesberg;
Above all, we should terminate the use of the D.N.A. chain terminator
AZT. We could be at the bottom of AIDS very fast if we had some open
minds, he believes. If there were but one open scientific conference,=
 if
Newsweek, Science or the New York Times would once say 'we h ave to
consider alternatives, were not getting anywhere', then we could have
answers very fast. But its so polarised now, and theres so much money=
 in
the HIV business. Its very difficult to go against three billion
dollars.

In Defence of HIV Quite understandably groups which accept the validity of
the HIV-AIDS link, even with new provisos about co-factors, have not
been at all happy about Duesbergs ideas. His message undermines the
hard-work done by groups like the Terrence Higgins Trust i n spreading
their message of safe sex and safe drug use - Duesberg provides=
 a
perfect excuse for not changing behaviour. In spite of this he has not
weakened in the face of criticisms of his irresponsibility" in pushing a
colossal fallacy: Im not
 suicidal. If I could see just one solid argument that I'm on the wrong
track I would back off, but its not there. As a top researcher Duesbe=
rg
has lost his $350,000 National Institute of Health grant to study cancer
genes - hardly surprising as he is i n effect saying that the Institute is
wasting $3 billion on HIV research. Ive paid dearly for my hypothesis=
 -
with my professional standing, with my funding, with a good part of my
career, he says.  Duesberg, an expert on retroviruses like AIDS, has had
his more theoretical claims countered in such journals as Science, Nature,
and the British Medical Journal as well as in the New Scientist. He points
out, for instance, the biochemical inactivity of H IV: it infiltrates or
infects as few as one in 100,000 susceptible cells. When Duesberg raised
this problem a press statement was read from Dr. Gallos assistant, Dr.
Blattner: The mechanisms through which human immuno-deficiency virus
brings about exten sive destruction of immunological functions is
unknown. Duesberg goes as far as saying that Being seropositive again=
st
a virus [a +ve HIV test] is traditionally to your advantage; thats
beneficial. When you have an antibody to a virus you are vaccinated. His
critics on the other hand state that HIV is the single common factor tha=
t
is shared between AIDS cases in gay men in San Francisco, well nourished
young women in Uganda, haemophiliacs in Japan and children in Rumanian
orphanages. They report that s tudies of gay men who did and did not =
use
recreational [non-injecting] drugs have shown no correlation between
recreational drug use and AIDS. They claim a further refutation with =
the
much lower incidence of AIDS in those cities where drug use occurs wi th
minimal sharing of injection equipment. The Terrence Higgins Trust is,
however, the target of a fierce new protest by 'Gays against Genocide'
(GAG) who want the Trust to sever its financial and political links with
the pharmaceutical multinational Wellcome - makers of AZT. GAG point out
that th e Terrence Higgins Trust don't mention that Wellcome was reported
to the Dept. of Health in 1992 for "false and misleading" claims
surrounding AZT and was also condemned by the Committee on Safety of
Medicines over four leaflets it co-produced with the Te rrence Higgins
Trust. They say the Trust has ignored critics of AZT and data which casts
doubt on its efficacy. GAG believe people with HIV/AIDS have been betrayed
by the organisation which gives an impression of producing impartial and
uncensored informa tion and advice.=20

The Cures? Whilst the costly and, supporters admit, severely toxic dr=
ug
AZT, developed at the National Cancer Institute headed by Dr. Gallo, has
been rushed through tests (which gay group ACT-UP believe were riddled
with irregularities) and into production, other less toxic potential cures
have been largely forgotten. One example is AL 721 made from the active
lipids of egg yolks in a ratio 7:2:1. Tests in 1985 were positive and
seconded by Gallo who confirmed that AL 721 was an effective non-toxic
inhibitor of H IV with no side effects. Now owned by a company called
Ethigen, AL 721 was not released for use as the company claimed not to
have the $50 million needed for F.D.A. testing. AIDS activists pointed out
that it could have been quickly marketed as a food su bstance rather than
a more lucrative drug. A number of people claim to have had success in
treating AIDS sufferers as syphilis patients. New York Doctor Stephen
Caizza had noticed the paucity of syphilis cases when all other venereal
diseases were flourishing. Dr. Caizza travelled to Germany to study the
results of two doctors there who had come to a similar conclusion. He says
that between 1982-86 I lost somewhere in excess of 200 patients which I
believe averages out to approximately one a week. When he began working
from the AIDS-as-syphili s hypothesis in one year he lost only one patient
out of 216 who were fully treated with the correct penicillin. When Dr.
Caizza phoned his penicillin suppliers to fix a better-priced deal so that
treatment could be more accessible he was told: Listen, Im going to b=
e
perfectly honest with you. Youre dealing with a generic medicine here.
Were in the process of de veloping some real legitimate AIDS medicines.
Why should we give you $150,000 in order to prove that the medicines that
were working on, which are going to be incredibly profitable, arent
necessary? Joan McKenna, who was one of the first to make the
AIDS-syphilis, link phoned the Center for Disease Control to report her
findings only to be told: Well, this isnt new. The Center had been
getting calls for two years from doctors treating AIDS patient s who
appear to have secondary syphilis which was responding negatively to
tests. When she asked what they were doing about it she was told
Nothing. And what they were going to do? Again, Nothing. Dr. Ca=
izza
concluded that Theres no money in what Im doing. Theres no mone=
y for
the doctor, theres no money for the pharmaceutical house, theres no
money for the researcher, theres no money for the scientist. The only
person who profits is the pati ent. Of only three patents awarded for
AIDS treatments one is for a typhoid vaccine developed by medical
technician Salvatore Catapano which he found worked well alongside
penicillin against AIDS. Doctors across America pay him royalties to use
his regimen. Ca tapano considers the drug AZT, originally developed for
cancer but found to be a dud, to be a death sentence if given to alre=
ady
severely immune-suppressed patients. If the dust were to settle over the
many accusations and counter-accusations we would see that the current
situation is of a spectrum of opinion with Duesberg at one end seeing HIV
as unnecessary and a few virologists at the other still convinced that it
is the sole cause of AIDS; most experts are in the grey area in the
middle arguing about what balance of HIV and co-factors might be
necessary, or sufficient, to cause AIDS. Given such disarray it seems
profoundly wrong that as yet only one toxic and expensive drug is
officially-sanctioned for use, as the U.S. Presidential candidates
themselves pointed out last year in the first of their pre-election
televised debates. Any su ccesses with other methods unfortunately remains
anecdotal for as long as the medical establishment refuses them
comprehensive testing and support. This seems rather like a replay of the
situation with cancer. Though the U. S. Congress recently published a
report into Unconventional Cancer Treatments in response to the upsur=
ge
of public interest, this was only done after decades during which the th
ree profitable orthodox treatments had failed to make much headway at all
against cancer. Celia Farber wrote of her fears in the US magazine Spin:
"Fuelled by billions and accountable to no one, the cancer industry did
exactly what the AIDS industry is do ing. It stomped out any dissent from
the orthodox view, refused to fund research into alternative treatments."
Once again it looks as if thousands of people may be denied potentially
beneficial and harmless treatments by a medical establishment similarly
eager to close ranks; this time around AZT. The prominent AIDS researcher
Dr. Joseph Sonnabend has spoken of his despair at the situation regarding
AZT: "It is beyond belief. I don't know what to do. I'm ashamed of my
colleagues. I'm embarassed. This is such shoddy science, it's hard to
believe nobody's protesting. Damned cowards! The name of the game is to
prot ect your grants. Don't open your mouth. It's all about money. It's
grounds for just following the party line and not being critical when
there are obvious financial and political forces that are driving this."=20


Gays against Genocide - Tel. 081 672 2183. They have copies of "An Urgent
Appeal for Action regarding AIDS, HIV and Human Rights" which was
presented to the U.N. in February 1993. It urges an AZT ban and an end to
the promotion of the "unfounded hypothesi s that HIV is the direct cause
of AIDS." This article is based on "Black Magic/Black Science" to be
published by Zoe Lenska who has also authored "Cancer is now Curable - B17
Vitatherapy". Available from: Hippocrates Advocates, Ste. 12, Enterprise
Centre, Cranbourne Road, Potters Bar, Herts., EN6 3DQ. Selected sources:
How do we know that HIV is the cause? Edward King/National AIDS Manual,
Newsletter Editor, Unit 52, The Eurolink Centre, 49 Effra Road, London SW2
1BZ (Tel. 071 737 2004) Unconventional viewpoints: Alternative AIDS Cures
by GJ Krupey. Steamshovel Press No. 5 Summer 1992; "AIDS: Can We Be
Positive?" 26th April 1992, The Sunday Times; Rethinking AIDS: 2040 Polk
Street, Suite 321, San Francisco, CA 94109