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PNG health minister Sasa Zibe says the country is running out of anti-retroviral treatment for
Last Updated: Mon, 17 May 2010 16:29:00 +1000
Papua New Guinea Health Minister Sasa Zibe says the country is running out of anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS patients.
He says medical supplies will be exhausted by August.
The government is appealing to international aid agencies for funding.
Mr Zibe says PNG has the highest number of people with HIV/AIDS receiving this treatment in the Asia Pacific region.
He has also told the National, there's no scientific proof that herbal treatment is a cure for the deadly disease despite herbal treatment being a way of life for 86% of rural Papua New Guineans.
Mr Zibe also says the National AIDS Council is concerned churches may be misleading people with HIV/AIDS into believing they are truly healed if they just pray.
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PNG wake up and read all. Don't follow the mainstream media and think that all they say is the holly word and die from observing and living by it (HIV and AIDS theory). Famouse scientist are debating if there is a real HIV or AIDS. Research the other side of AIDS and see if you knew all that.. In PNG, I see people die becoz of the drugs not HIV or AIDS. 99% of people I have seen dying are people who have been diagnosed as HIV and were on drugs, then get their liver malfundtion by taking of posionous toxins/drugs.. Have wasting syndrome, Have diahrea.. and die.. AIDS definition does not say that you will die from diahrea.. You will die from any sickness but so far 90% of people die having diareah becoz of drugs poisoning the liver.. KLiver malfunctions and give way to diahrea (end result)..
Do more research.. The leading scientist who discovered HIV is now saying that HIV can be cured.. See the lastest documentary.. "THE HOUSE OF NUMBERS" . HIV and AIDS is a disputable issue and we shouldn't be forced to take drugs.. Its better to die from another diseas than wasting away with diahrea and die from drug posioning..
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Anti mainstream,
not only are you an idiot, but you are making ignorance out to be a virtue.
AIDS may or may not be curable. You are correct only about one thing. NO ONE DIES OF AIDS. It ruins your immune system so, that you die of whatever opportunistic infection you contract. The drugs are to stop this happening, for as long as possible.
Therefore it is not the drugs that are killing anybody. It is the "Immunity Deficiency" that does it. Usually cancer, or cystitus of some description. Cystituses are common in people who use immuno-supressant drugs, after transplants also.
The truth will set you free......Ralph.
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Dr. Charles Thomas, Molecular Biologist and former Harvard and Johns Hopkins Professor:
"The HIV-causes-AIDS dogma represents the grandest and perhaps the most morally destructive fraud that has ever been perpetrated on young men and women of the Western world," (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
"AIDS has been a disease of definition. If we said that it didn't exist and didn't pay for it with taxpayers' money, it would disappear in the background of normal mortality." (Penthouse April 1994)
"I feel that for scientists to remain silent in the face of all this doubt is tantamount to criminal negligence." (Spin June 1992)
Dr. Roger Cunningham, Immunologist, Microbiologist and Director of the Centre for Immunology at the State University of New York at Buffalo:
"Unfortunately, an AIDS 'establishment' seems to have formed that intends to discourage challenges to the dogma on one side and often insists on following discredited ideas on the other." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Richard Strohman, Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley:
"In the old days it was required that a scientist address the possibilities of proving his hypothesis wrong as well as right. Now there's none of that in standard HIV-AIDS program with all its billions of dollars." (Penthouse April 1994)
"We need research into possible causes such as drug use and behaviour, not a bankrupt hypothesis." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-Bayati, Toxicologist and Pathologist, California:
"HIV does not cause AIDS. There is no scientific evidence that HIV can kill infected T4 cells. The true problem is that the leaders of the HIV hypothesis have been ignoring important medical facts and are blindly attributing AIDS to the HIV virus. It is very sad and frustrating to know that the AIDS establishment are giving highly toxic drugs such as AZT to pregnant women even with studies that show the depression in the immune system can be reversed by nutrition. Prescribing anti-viral drugs to AIDS patients is like putting gasoline on a fire"
Dr. Alfred Hässig, Emeritus Professor in Immunology at the University of Bern, former Director Swiss Red Cross blood banks:
"The sentence of death accompanying the medical diagnosis of AIDS should be abolished." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
"In the virological research, so much money is invested, and the research people want to stay in that area because if you deviate to research in other directions probably other people come in and must be funded." (Meditel 1992)
"Virologist have nothing new to offer. They keep coming up with excuses, they find constant growth and change in the virus structure, it evades, attacks, strange things, but none of them has the courage to explain properly how these things could possibly be so." (Continuum Jan/Feb 1996)
"AZT (anti-viral AIDS medicine) has, in countless cases, brought about the inevitable and slow asphyxiation of the patient's body cells. The doctors wrongly diagnose the fatal consequences of AZT medication as AIDS following a prior HIV infection. Treatment with AZT and allied toxic substances may be equivalent to joining a suicide squad with a time fuse."
"It is the duty of every doctor to preserve life at any cost -- and not death-curse people based on any test so they are so frightened they kill themselves. I am sad to say that these voodoo methods were practised despite there never being any proof that the detected antibodies are an indication of mortality in all diagnosed people. I consider it medical malpractice to push patients into dying by prophesying an early death. We are medical scientists, not prophets!"
Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and Virology. Former Director of the Department of Viroid Research, Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemy, München. Robert Koch Award 1978.
"The result of my intensive literature research shows that so far not one publication exists, in which is being described that HIV has been isolated, purified, and charaterized by the criteria of classical virology." (Forword Mythos AIDS 2000)
"During the past 20 years HIV-AIDS research has shown to a line of critical scientists again and again that the existence of HIV has not been proven without doubt, and that both from a aetiological (causal), and a epidemiological view, it can not be responsible for the immunodeficiency AIDS. In view of the general accepted HIV/AIDS hypothesis this appeared to me so unbelievable that I decided to investigate it myself. After three years of intensive and, above all, critical studies of the relevant original literature, as an experienced virologist and molecular biologist I came to the following surprising conclusion: Up to today there is actually no single scientifically really convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology." (Letter to Süddeutsche Zeitung Oct. 2000)
Dr. Walter Gilbert, Professor in Molecular Biology, 1980 Nobel prize for chemistry:
"I would not be surprised if there were another cause of AIDS and even that HIV is not involved." (Omni June 1993)
"[Duesberg] is absolutely correct in saying that no one has proven that AIDS is caused by the AIDS virus. And he is absolutely correct that the virus cultured in the laboratory may not be the cause of AIDS." (Hippocrates Sept./Oct. 1988)
"The community as a whole doesn't listen patiently to critics who adopt alternative viewpoints. Although the great lesson of history is that knowledge develops through the conflict of viewpoints." (Meditel 1990)
Dr. Albert Sabin, Virologist:
"I think the views of a person like Dr. Duesberg are terribly, terribly important, and we must pay attention to them." (Oakland Tribune 31 Jan. 1988)
Dr. Rush Wayne, M.A., Molecular Biology, Harvard University, PhD, Biochemistry, University of California:
"While first learning about the AIDS controversy, I read whatever I could on both sides. I have not found an instance, when both sides have been able to state their complete case, where the mainstream AIDS view has held up. On the contrary, much of the mainstream view seems to be based on bad research and fallacious reasoning."
Dr. Andrew Herxheimer, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford:
"I think zidovudine [AZT] was never really evaluated properly and that its efficacy has never been proved, but it's toxicity certainly is important. And I think it has killed a lot of people. Especially at the high doses. I personally think it not worth using alone or in combination at all." (Continuum Oct. 2000)
Michael Ellner, Medical Hypnotherapist, President of HEAL New York:
"I have seen the constant terror, and programming to get sick and die, that people at risk for developing AIDS face. I am certain that the hypothesis that long-term drug use is primary cause of what is now called AIDS is far more likely to prove true than the failed notion that AIDS is caused by a germ." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Steven Jonas, Professor of Preventive Medicine, Suny Stony Brook, NY:
"Evidence is rapidly accumulating that the original theory of HIV is not correct." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Lawrence Bradford, Biology Professor in Atchinson, Kansas:
"The cause of AIDS is multifactorial. HIV is neither necessary nor sufficient." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Neville Hodgkinson, former Science Editor, The Times of London:
"A kind of collective insanity over HIV and AIDS has gripped leaders of the scientific and medical profession. They have stopped behaving as scientists, and instead are working as propagandists, trying desperately to keep alive a failed theory."
Dr. Beverly Griffin, Director of the Department of Virology, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital London:
"It will surely lead to a scientifically healthier society if the burden of proof for HIV as a deadly pathogen is returned to where it belongs - to those who maintain that HIV causes AIDS - and others are allowed to pursue alternative approaches in the battle for eradiction of the disease." (Nature 20 April 1989)
Dr. Etienne de Harven, Professor of Pathology, University of Toronto:
"Dominated by the media, by pressure groups and by the interests of pharmaceutical companies, the AIDS establishment lost contact with open-minded, peer-reviewed science since the unproven HIV/AIDS hypothesis received 100% of the research funds while all other hypotheses were ignored. How many wasted efforts, how many billions of research dollars gone in smoke... Horrible."
Dr. Hiram Caton, Ethicist, Head of the School of Applied Ethics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia:
"The orthodoxy will collapse because it flunks the practical test. The AIDS epidemic was a mirage manufactured by scientists who believed that integrity could be maintained amidst the diverting influences of big money, prestige and politics." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Phillip Johnson, Senior Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley:
"That establishment continue to doctor statistics and misrepresent the situation to keep the public convinced that a major viral pandemic is under way when the facts are otherwise." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
"One does not need to be a scientific specialist to recognise a botched research job and a scientific establishment that is distorting the facts to maximise its funding. That establishment continues to doctor statistics and misrepresent the situation to keep the public convinced that a major viral pandemic is underway when the facts are otherwise."
Dr. Henk Loman, Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at the Free University in Amsterdam:
"There are many people with AIDS but without HIV, and a great many people with HIV but without AIDS. These two facets mean that HIV = AIDS is much to simple. Plausible, alternative, testable causes of impairment of the immune system which may ultimately lead to AIDS should become part of regular AIDS research." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry:
"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document... The HIV theory, the way it is being applied, is unfalsifiable and therefor useless as a medical hypothesis." (Sunday Times (London) 28 nov. 1993)
Dr. Harry Rubin, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley:
"It is not proven that AIDS is caused by HIV infection, nor is it proven that it plays no role whatever in the syndrome." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
"The causal role of HIV in AIDS is certainly not proven."
Dr. Luc Montagnier, Virologist, discoverer of HIV, Institute Pasteur Paris:
"There are too many shortcomings in the theory that HIV causes all signs of AIDS. We are seeing people HIV-infected for 9, 10, 12 years or more, and they are still in good shape, their immune system is still good. It is unlikely that these people will come down with AIDS later." (Miami Herald 23 Dec. 1990)
Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, New York Physician:
"The marketing of HIV, through press releases and statements, as a killer virus causing AIDS without the need for any other factors, has so distorted research and treatment that it may have caused thousands of people to suffer and die." (Sunday times (London) 17 May 1992)
Dr. Fabio Franci, Specialist in Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Trieste, Italy:
"I am not an agnostic; I am well convinced HIV is harmless." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Bernard Forscher, former Managing Editor of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences:
"The HIV hypothesis ranks with the 'bad air' theory for malaria and the 'bacterial infection' theory of beriberi and pellagra [caused by nutritional deficiencies]. It is a hoax that became a scam." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Paul Rabinow, Professor of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley:
"In particular I have pursued the situation of haemophiliacs and HIV because it was the arena least charged with moralism. Systematic attempts to be allowed to look at the data or to find rigorous controlled studies have failed." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Paul Lineback, Counselling Psychologist, Eastern Oregon State College:
"Protecting and promoting the unproven HIV hypothesis as fact is inducing unnecessary stress, probable emotional harm, and maybe even psychological murder." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)
Dr. Arthur Gottlieb, Chairperson of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Tulane University School of Medicine:
"The viewpoint has been so firm that HIV is the only cause and will result in disease in every patient, that anyone who challenges that is regarded as 'politically incorrect.' I don't think - as a matter of public policy - we gain by that, because it limits debate and discussion and focuses drug development on attacking the virus rather than attempting to correct the disorder of the immune system, which is central to the disease." (Penthouse April 1994)
Dr. Casper Schmidt, M.D. New York Psychiatrist:
"There is no way that AIDS can be an infectious disease. Something else must be going on. The more likely interpretation is that HIV and immune dysfunction - rather than HIV being a cause and immune dysfunction being a consequence - are both consequences of something else." (Penthouse April 1994)
Dr. Gordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology University of Glasgow:
"Nobody wants to look at the facts about this disease. It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen. I've sent countless letters to medical journals pointing out the epidemiological discrepancies and they simply ignore them. The fact is, this whole heterosexual AIDS thing is a hoax." (Spin June 1992)
"AIDS is a behavioural disease. It is multifactorial, brought on by several simultaneous strains on the immune system - drugs, pharmaceutical and recreational, sexually transmitted diseases, multiple viral infections." (Spin June 1992)
"The hypothesis that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS simply does not fit the clinical and epidemiological facts"
Dr. Harvey Bialy, Editor of the science journal Bio/Technology:
"HIV is an ordinary retrovirus. There is nothing about this virus that is unique. Everything that is discovered about HIV has an analogue in other retroviruses that don't cause AIDS. HIV only contains a very small piece of genetic information. There's no way it can do all these elaborate things they say it does." (Spin June 1992)
"From both my literature review and my personal experience over most of the AIDS - so called AIDS centres in Africa, I can find absolutely no believable persuasive evidence that Africa is in the midst of a new epidemic of infectious immunodeficiency." (Meditel 1992)
Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular Biology University of Berkely:
"There are no slow retroviruses, only slow retrovirologists." (Spin June 1992)
"They have hyped up HIV into this super-rapist but in reality the damn thing can hardly get an erection." (Times of London 11 May 1992)
"Epidemiology is like a bikini: what is revealed is interesting; what is concealed is crucial." (PNAS Feb. 1991)
"When AIDS patients' bodies finally break down from the effects of these anti-viral drugs, they say, 'Now the virus has become resistant, and the drugs have lost their effectiveness.' What really is happening is the toxicity of the drugs builds up to a point where the patient cannot stand it anymore. And, of course, they say it was the virus -- rather than the entirely inevitable and predictable toxicity of these damned drugs."
Dr. Roberto Giraldo, Specialist in Internal Medicine, Infectious and Tropical Diseases, New York
"HIV tests are meaningless. A person can react positive even though he or she is not infected with HIV. The tests are interpreted differently in different countries, which means that a person who is positive in Africa (or Thailand) can be negative when tested in Australia. There is no justification for the fact that most people have not been informed about the serious inaccuracy of the tests. The error has catastrophic repercussions on thousands of people. Since people are reacting positive on tests that are not specific for HIV, lets please stop labeling them as HIV positive"
Nick Siano, author of No Time to Wait:
"The things that we're feeding people emotionally about this disease are much more deadly than HIV itself. The emotional content of HIV infection is 75 percent of the battle." (Penthouse Dec. 1995)
Dr. James Hudson, Professor of Pathology and Medicine, University of British Columbia
"I stopped going to AIDS meetings several years ago -- I could no longer stand the stress of restraining myself from getting up and shouting, 'Rubbish!"
Dr. Frank Buianouckas: Professor of Mathmatics, Bronx New York.
"I am suspect about everything involved in this AIDS epidemic, because if HIV causes anything, it certainly causes fund-raisers. It sells stocks. It supports dances. It sells condoms. And it keeps the AIDS establishment going." (Penthouse Dec. 1995)
Dr. Michael Lange: Head of AIDS Programme St. Lukes Hospital, New York:
"What I would strongly support is a more open discussion. We do not know the pathogenesis of this disease. And we were very early forced into a very dogmatic view: namely that somehow HIV kills the T-cells." (Spin April 1991)
Dr. Sam Mhlongo: Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care at the Medical University of South Africa:
"The case for a link between HIV and AIDS is not proven. I would like the "orthodox" scientists to acknowledge that in Africa there are 29 or 30 diseases which may mimic AIDS, which are related to poverty. But they will not accept that because poverty does not make them big money but HIV makes them money. If we dissidents had only one hundredth of the funds that the orthodox view has, the orthodox view would probably be dead in less than a year."
Dr. Donald Abrams: Prof. of Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital:
"I have a large population of (HIV + patients) who have chosen not to take any anti-viral drugs. They've watched all of their friends go on the anti-viral bandwagon and die."
Dr. Manu Kothari: Professor of Anatomy, Seth G.S. Medical College, Mumbai India:
"For all we know, it is not HIV that causes AIDS, but the so-called co-factors such as indiscriminate antibiotic use, recreational drugs, poverty, malnutrition, polluted water and pesticised food. AZT and the like (so-called triple therapy) are rank cytotoxic poisons. To give AZT to pregnant women is a crime against the mother and the baby she is making."
Dr. Ralph Moss: Author of The Cancer Industry:
"The paradigm that was laid down for how to milk the cancer problem is basically the same paradigm which is being followed in milking the AIDS problem." (Penthouse Dec. 1995)
Michael Callen: AIDS Activist, died in 1994, 13 years after AIDS diagnosis.
"The HIV paradigm has produced nothing of value for my life and I actually believe that treatments based on the arrogant belief that HIV has proven to be the sole and sufficient cause of AIDS has hastened the deaths of many of my friends" (Meditel 1992)
Dr. Stefan Lanka: Virologist, Germany.
"No particle of HIV has ever been obtained pure, free of contaminants; nor has a complete piece of HIV RNA (or the transcribed DNA) ever been proved to exist." (Continuum Sept./Oct. 1996)
Anthony Liversidge: Science journalist, New York
"The editors of the Proceedings [of the U.S. National Academy of Science] enlisted a phalanx of special reviewers - 26 at last count - to criticize his [Duesberg's] three submissions. None could identify a single uncorrectable flaw in fact or logic, as the editors acknowledged, only a difference of opinion." (Omni June 1993)
Dr. Serge Lang, Professor of Mathematics, Yale University:
"I do not regard the causal relationship between HIV and any disease as settled. I have seen considerable evidence that highly improper statistics concerning HIV and AIDS have been passed off as science, and that top members of the scientific establishment have carelessly, if not irresponsible, joined the media in spreading misinformation about the nature of AIDS." (Yale Scientific, Fall 1994)
Dr. Dave Rasnick, Biochemist, visiting scientist University of California at Berkeley.
"In defending the purchased consensus, HIV researchers use statistical methodologies shown by their inventors to be invalid and conduct experiments without any controls. They take causes for effects, correlations for causations, and constants for variables. Most important, they havent stopped AIDS. What they have done successfully is instilled fear into human sexual relations -- an amorphous fear, which most AIDS professionals as well as journalists argue has been valuable." (Talk Napoli, Italy, April 2001)
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HIV/AIDS denialists causing death and suffering. They are ignorant and dangerous
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May 28 2010, 10:30 AM
HIV, AIDS, and the Distortion of Science
Focus
Martin Delaney
Project Inform, San Francisco, California
In the past year, there has been a noisy resurgence of claims that HIV does not cause AIDS and that AIDS is not contagious. Proponents of this view insist that AIDS is caused by personal behavior, notably drug abuse, or by the drugs used to treat AIDS. This view was first stated back in 1987 by Peter Duesberg, a professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, who today is viewed as the leader of the "HIV denialist" movement.* Duesberg's claims have been debated and refuted repeatedly in scientific journals and even by a special panel assembled by the National Academy of Sciences.
Editor's note: While this issue of FOCUS does not include an article by an "HIV denialist," the Clearinghouse on pages 4 and 5 does include a list of articles and organizations representing both sides of the issue.
Over the years, there have been dozens of new discoveries that further strengthen the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, including most recently, the success of combination HIV antiviral treatment. Today, nearly every physician treating HIV-infected people has seen how suppressing levels of HIV causes the clinical symptoms of disease to disappear. Though there are debates about the optimum time to start treatment, and while its effects may not be permanent and may come at the cost of side effects, the reduction in the death toll has been dramatic, leaving little room to doubt that HIV is the driving factor in AIDS.
Today, a new generation of people, some who themselves have HIV, some who are afraid of getting it, and some with unspoken political agendas, are hearing the denialist story for the first time and finding it attractive. For many, it provides relief from the anxiety induced by a diagnosis of HIV infection or the fear of contracting it. For others, it reinforces the belief that life is full of conspiracies and that "mainstream" views are always wrong. For still others, it supports political and religious beliefs that allow them to condemn people's behaviors, most notably, injection drug use and sex between men. For the politically inclined, it provides a rational-sounding excuse to reject spending public money on the problem. This mix of personal and political needs constitutes fertile ground for keeping the denialist view alive, no matter what the science actually says. But AIDS is not simply a matter of politics or belief. It is a real disease that has already killed vast numbers of people and threatens millions more in the near future.
Nothing would be better than to discover that HIV is harmless and that the nightmare of AIDS has disappeared. But wishing will not make it so. The denialist view-based as it is on the distortion of science-is fundamentally dangerous, since it sets the stage for another wave of transmission and death.
It would take a book to refute all of the denialists' arguments word by word, but it is not difficult to reduce them to a short list of statements they repeat over and over. The denialists' articles and books sound convincing only if the reader is not familiar with the science of AIDS, the natural history of the disease, or the history of the epidemic. Complete, documented responses to denialist arguments are available through the National Institutes of Health.1 Simpler answers to the core claims follow below.
Claim #1: Widespread Scientific Support
The denialists say that there is an "exponentially growing" group of international AIDS experts who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. This simply is not true. There are only a few active scientists associated with this view, none better known than Peter Duesberg. Very few are physicians, and fewer still treat people with AIDS. None, including Duesberg, have conducted any original AIDS research, either in the lab or in patients. Many, perhaps most, work in unrelated scientific fields such as physics, history, or literature. Some who are still claimed by the denialists as supporters long ago changed their views, and others have, themselves, died of HIV disease. There is no evidence whatever of a groundswell of scientific opinion moving toward the denialist viewpoint.
In contrast, there is a body of thousands of scientists worldwide who strongly support the belief that HIV causes AIDS. They have the appropriate credentials in virology, immunology, infectious disease, epidemiology, and often have a great deal of direct experience treating people with HIV disease. Their views and experiments regarding HIV and AIDS have met the test of peer review that guides the scientific process.
Claim #2: An Old Disease with a New Name
The denialists say that AIDS is not a new disease, simply a collection of old ones grouped under a new name. It is true that people with HIV disease do not succumb directly to HIV infection, but to a well-known list of opportunistic pathogens such as Pneumocystis carinii, cytomegalovirus (CMV), and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC). "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" refers to an illness that causes the collapse of the immune system, which in turn renders the body vulnerable to a series of potentially deadly infections that the body would otherwise have little trouble handing. HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, is the cause of the collapse of the immune system.
AIDS is new and different because it affects specific populations of people who have no other reason for being severely immune compromised. AIDS first came to the attention of physicians when large numbers of healthy, young, gay men began coming down with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), an extremely rare pneumonia previously seen only in people with severely suppressed immune systems. As more men came down with PCP and then other rare diseases, it also became clear that the disease was clustered in particular cities, in specific neighborhoods, and even within groups of people who knew each other. Most of these infections were not themselves contagious, but they were suddenly appearing in ways that looked like the outbreak of a contagious disease. Doctors realized that there must be a new, underlying disease destroying the immune systems of these people.
Today, AIDS is far more widespread. But even in Africa, where people have long suffered from malnutrition, poor sanitation, and parasitic illnesses, doctors had not seen such widespread severely compromised immunity until HIV emerged. Moreover, AIDS is also common in urban areas, where malnutrition does not play as large a role as it does in rural Africa.
Claim #3: No Proof that HIV Causes AIDS
The denialists say that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS and no single scientific paper that offers such proof. This myth has been repeated endlessly like a mantra since 1987. The denialists claim that one scientist, Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute, simply called a press conference one day and proclaimed that he had found the cause of AIDS, without having data or undergoing traditional scientific peer review. This is pure fiction.
In early 1983, French researchers isolated a previously unknown retrovirus from the lymph nodes of a person with early symptoms of AIDS, although they did not yet have enough data to prove the virus was the cause of AIDS. In the spring of 1984, Gallo and his team of U.S. researchers submitted a comprehensive series of four scientific papers to the journal Science, papers that were fully peer reviewed (and later subject to one the most intensive review processes ever given to scientific articles).2,3,4,5 The four papers described how the virus was routinely found in people with various symptoms associated with AIDS and was absent in those who lacked either symptoms or AIDS-associated risk factors. The papers concluded to the satisfaction of most scientists that HIV was the cause of AIDS and went on to describe new methods for growing the virus in large quantities and for creating a blood test to detect the presence of antibodies to the virus.
A reporter learned of the impending publication of the Science articles and called the government press office, threatening to "break" the story. In response, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) called a press conference in order to make sure the story was told accurately. Gallo was in France working with the French team on a statement they had planned to make together; DHHS ordered him back to the United States overnight to appear at the press conference. Science published the papers shortly afterwards. Over the subsequent months, various French, British, and U.S. research teams published several more peer-reviewed papers, all of which further strengthened the link between HIV and AIDS. Today, the National Institutes of Health summary document on the relationship of HIV to AIDS cites approximately 500 scientific papers. While no "single" paper is viewed as complete proof that HIV is the cause of AIDS, there is the far more compelling foundation of proof built by more than 500 of them.
Claim #4: The Test Does Not Work
The denialists say that neither the HIV antibody test, used to detect HIV infection, nor viral load and CD4+ cell counts, which measure disease progression, mean anything. These claims are sometimes accompanied by stories of the personal experience of the author of one of the AIDS denialist books, What if Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?6 Christine Maggiore says she underwent a series of different HIV antibody tests and did not get consistent answers. Therefore, she concludes, the tests mean nothing.
It is true that people sometimes get what is called an "indeterminant" test result, often due to temporary changes in body chemistry affecting the antibody test. Because no laboratory test is ever perfect, most test centers never attempt to draw conclusions from a single test result. Usually they begin with the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), which is simple, quick, and cheap. The test's main problem is that it can give false positive results, although improved technology has greatly minimized this possibility to less than 1 percent. When a person gets a seropositive ELISA result, proper procedure calls for retesting with a more complex test called the Western Blot, which has a much lower rate of false positives. Rarely, even the Western Blot can produce an indeterminant result, and then, the whole procedure must be repeated. Maggiore's book seems to indicate that repeated testing in her case confirmed that she was not HIV-positive in the first place. The mistake that Maggiore and other denialists make is that they attempt to draw scientific conclusions based on their personal experiences or that of other single individuals.
Not all versions of the ELISA test are equally accurate, and this becomes particularly clear in other parts of the world. One of the reasons the U.S. government patented the original HIV antibody test in the mid-1980s was to enforce strong quality controls and to ensure the most consistent results. Rather than applauding this effort, writers like Maggiore betray their bias by suggesting the patent was sought out of greed by the researchers. The researchers themselves had nothing to do with seeking the patent, and at the time it was filed, government researchers could not profit from patents issued in their names.
A group of three researchers from Perth, Australia are often cited by denialists as a source of information about flaws in the HIV tests, both the ELISA and the Western Blot. Their basic contention is that the HIV test can cross-react. That is, a substance in the body, for example, mycobacteria or yeast, which is superficially similar to the chemistry of HIV antibody, is detected by the test, making the test's results meaningless. These views-primarily theoretical rather than research-based-are in conflict with those of regulatory agencies and scientists worldwide, who say such concerns are not borne out in the field. Although some body substances can cross-react with the HIV test, with few exceptions, these reactions lead only to "indeterminant" results and not to false positives or false negatives.
More importantly, several large cohort studies have shown a profound and consistent relationship between a positive HIV antibody test result and the eventual development of AIDS. People who lack a positive result almost never experience opportunistic diseases, AIDS-like disease, or a similar decline in CD4+ cells.7,8
In common usage, HIV testing is still more accurate than most of the medical diagnostic tests used for other health problems. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) routinely monitor diagnostic laboratories and tests for quality. While it is true that HIV testing is not of uniform quality worldwide, and some countries do not routinely use confirmatory testing, there is no basis for condemning the value of all HIV tests.
Other denialists like Kary Mullis have raised similar questions about viral load tests, but these concerns are likewise misleading. Mullis, because he won a Nobel Prize for his early work in the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, is probably the second most recognized denialist scientist after Duesberg. PCR is one of the mechanisms used to quantify viral load. While Mullis asserts that PCR was never meant to be used in the way it is to determine viral load, his theoretical concerns cannot contradict the empirical evidence from one of the largest and longest running AIDS studies: the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS).9,10 Through the MACS, John Mellors and his colleagues have followed several thousand HIV-positive people over periods ranging from three to more than 10 years and found a profound and predictable relationship between viral load levels, CD4+ cell counts, and the risk of HIV disease progression or death.
Claim #5: Antibodies Conquer Infection
The denialists say that no infectious disease causes illness years after infection or after the development of antibodies, and that the very existence of antibodies means the infection is over. This often repeated assertion is the most easily refuted of all the denialist claims.
There are many conditions that can lead to severe illness years after initial infection by the causative agent, including hepatitis, herpes, and CMV. Most of these infections, very much like HIV disease, stimulate the body to make antibodies for years without signs of obvious clinical illness. This denialist declaration, perhaps more than any other, demonstrates the profound medical confusion of its proponents.
Claim #6: Drugs = AIDS
The denialists say that drug abuse and HIV antiviral medications are the real causes of AIDS. Canadian, European, and U.S. studies have repeatedly disproved this assertion.11,12,13 Because drug use was common in the gay community, it was one of the very first factors suspected of causing AIDS. Over the years, researchers conducted studies comparing gay men who used drugs over long periods of time to groups of gay men who did not use drugs but had otherwise similar behaviors. They found that drug use was not a predictor of AIDS, except in the sense that it increased the risk of HIV transmission. The only factor that differentiated those who developed AIDS from those who did not was the presence of HIV antibodies.
A more common claim in recent years is the circular argument that since many people who have died of AIDS took HIV antiviral drugs, the treatments themselves caused the illness. It is true that HIV antiviral drugs, like medications used for other serious illnesses, can have toxic side effects and, in some circumstances, cause death. But the data from clinical trials are abundantly clear: side effects do not appear in everyone; they are not always serious in nature; and most significant, when used properly, the drugs do far more good than harm.
Denialists seem to be unaware that people were dying horrible deaths from AIDS before any HIV antiviral drugs were available. In a recent publication, Christine Maggiore conceded she had no idea why people died "of AIDS" before antiviral drugs were available. Denialists like to claim that HIV drugs have only been tested against laboratory markers, such as viral load, and not in terms of their effects on survival. Like many of their claims, this is simply false. The very first studies of zidovudine (ZDV; AZT) demonstrated a statistically significant (though not long-lasting) survival gain. Later studies of two-drug combinations showed up to 50 percent increases in time to progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to people receiving single-drug therapy. In more recent years, three-drug combination therapies have produced another 50 percent to 80 percent improvements in progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to two-drug regimens.14,15 As of today, tens of thousands of people have participated in clinical studies of HIV antiviral drugs, and no one with any memory of the earliest days of the epidemic can believe that the shortcomings of antiviral therapy outweigh the lives extended or saved by these medications.
Claim #7: Still Healthy without Medications
The denialists say that there are HIV-positive people (often pointing to themselves as examples) who do not take AIDS drugs and stay healthy for several years, and that this somehow proves that HIV is harmless. What's missing in this reasoning is any understanding of the natural, untreated history of HIV disease. The denialists confuse the question of whether HIV is the cause of AIDS with the question of whether HIV has yet caused AIDS in themselves.
On average, HIV-infected people who have access to health care and a reasonable diet, will take about 10 years to progress to AIDS. This means that 10 years after infection, about half will have progressed to AIDS and another half will have not. A small percentage progress rapidly to AIDS within two to three years, while some reach 15 years or longer without progressing, even without treatment. At 20 years after infection, the percentage who are still well without treatment becomes vanishingly small.16,17 There is nothing unusual about this. Many other diseases-such as cancer, heart disease, and multiple sclerosis-affect people differently over different periods of time.
Many factors-ranging from access to health care to diet and personal outlook-may contribute to the rapidity of progression. Researchers have also identified at least two different genes that inhibit or slow HIV disease progression, and one that may even make some people "uninfectable." While many people, especially the denialists, like to think their good fortune is due to something they are personally doing (or not doing), it is likely that the genetic package they received from their parents deserves much of the credit.
Claim #8: Fewer Deaths Not Due to Treatment
The denialists say that recent reductions in the HIV death rates are not caused by the new antiviral treatment combinations, and they show misleading charts to prove this assertion. This claim boldly misstates or misrepresents actual CDC statistics.
Denialists state that the number of deaths had already begun to drop as early as 1993, and therefore claim that the reduced death rate we see today has nothing to do with the new treatments. On closer examination, it becomes clear that they are confusing either the rate of new infections or the number of people with AIDS with the number dying from the disease. CDC records show that the number of AIDS deaths in the United States continued to increase yearly until 1996, at which time it began to fall dramatically. That was the year that three-drug combinations became widely used. The number of deaths dropped again in 1997 and in 1998; figures for 1999 are not yet available.18
Conclusion
The denialists almost never directly address or challenge the accumulated data that scientists use to determine that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Instead, they make reasonable sounding but tangential arguments, pointing out and often misunderstanding occasional anomalies, and dwelling on a few eccentric publications, while almost entirely overlooking the real body of data.
Every epidemic throughout history has had its "denialist." Some epidemics have been blamed on rats, some on foreigners, Jews, or other disfavored local ethnic groups. Very often, epidemics have been blamed on the people who suffered from them, their illness being seen as some kind of moral failure. Sound familiar?
There is nothing wrong with holding unpopular or unconventional views, and it is often wise to challenge conventional wisdom. But it is also wise to know when to accept the value, as well as the limits, of accumulated knowledge. Unfortunately, in this case, denialist views result in public disregard for AIDS prevention efforts and undermine increasingly difficult efforts to fund AIDS support and care programs. And, especially today, they threaten the already mind-boggling challenge of coping with AIDS in developing nations.
The debate over whether HIV causes AIDS has been staged over and over again. The answer is not going to change, no matter how many new recruits can be attracted by the balm of denial. There are real problems to be faced in combating AIDS worldwide; the cause of AIDS is not one of them.
References
1. The Relationship between AIDS and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 1995.
2. Popovic M, Sarngadharan MG, Read E, et al. Detection, isolation, and continuous production of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and pre-AIDS. Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):497-500.
3. Gallo RC, Salahuddin SZ, Popovic M, et al. Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk for AIDS. Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):500-3.
4. Schüpbach J, Popovic M, Gilden RV, et al. Serological analysis of a subgroup of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) associated with AIDS. Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):503-5.
5. Sarngadharan MG, Popovic M, Bruch L, et al. Antibodies reactive with human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) in the serum of patients with AIDS. Science. 1984 May 4;224(4648):506-8.
6. Maggiore C. What if Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong? 4th ed. Studio City, Calif.: American Foundation for AIDS Alternatives, 2000.
7. Vermund SH, Hoover DR, Chen K. CD4+ counts in seronegative homosexual men: The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study. N Engl J Med. 1993 Feb 11;328(6):442.
8. Sheppard HW, Ascher MS, Winkelstein W Jr., et al. Use of T lymphocyte subset analysis in the case definition for AIDS. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 1993 Mar;6(3):287-94.
9. Mellors JW, Kingsley LA, Rinaldo CR, et al. Quantitation of HIV-1 RNA in plasma predicts outcome after seroconversion. Ann Intern Med. 1995 Apr 15;122(8):573-9.
10. Mellors JW, Muñoz A, Giorgi JV. Plasma viral load and CD4+ lymphocytes as prognostic markers of HIV-1 infection. Ann Intern Med. 1997 Jun 15;126(12):946-54.
11. Schechter MT, Craib KJ, Gelman KA, et al. HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS. Lancet. 1993 Mar 13;341(8846):658-9.
12. Asher MS, Sheppard HW, Winkelstein W Jr, et al. Does drug use cause AIDS? Nature. 1993 Mar 11;362(6416):103-4.
13. Keet IP, Krijnen P, Koot M, et al. Predictors of rapid progression to AIDS in HIV-1 seroconverters. AIDS. 1993 Jan;7(1):51-7.
14. Hammer SM, Squires KE, Hughes MD, et al. A controlled trial of two nucleoside analogues plus indinavir in persons with human immunodeficiency virus infection and CD4+ cell counts of 200 per cubic millimeter or less: AIDS Clinical Trials Group 320 Study. N Engl J Med. 1997 Sep 11;337(11):725-33.
15. Cameron DW, Heath-Chiozzi M, Danner S, et al. Randomised placebo-controlled trial of ritonavir in advanced HIV-1 disease: The Advanced HIV Disease Ritonavir Study Group. Lancet. 1998 Feb 21;351(9102):543-9.
16. Pantaleo G, Graziosi C, Fauci AS. The immunopathogenesis of human immunodeficiency virus infection. N Engl J Med. 1993 Feb 4;328(5):327-35.
17. Hessol NA, Koblin BA, van Griensven GJ, et al. Progression of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection among homosexual men in hepatitis B vaccine trial cohorts in Amsterdam, New York City and San Francisco, 1978-1991. Am J Epidemiol. 1994 Jun 1;139(11):1077-87.
18. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report. 1999; 11(1): 1-43.
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House of Numbers Documentary - HIV Discoverer & Novel Price Winner
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May 28 2010, 3:23 PM
(NaturalNews) Conventional medicine's explanations of HIV and AIDS are a medical myth at best; and outright quackery at worst. There is no such thing as a virus that "causes" AIDS, since the very definition of AIDS is widely disputed by scientists around the world. (And patients are often diagnosed with AIDS who have no HIV whatsoever.)
In conjunction with the release of the myth-busting documentary House of Numbers (www.HouseOfNumbers.com), NaturalNews has pulled together a collection of fascinating quotes from top health authors and researchers who challenge conventional thinking about HIV and AIDS. If you've been suckered into Big Pharma's lies about HIV and AIDS, you will find the information here absolutely shocking. What's said here calls into question the entire basis of the "AIDS industry" with all their (failed) vaccines and patented prescription drugs.
It seems that the AIDS hoax is about to be publicly exposed. As the House of Numbers documentary explains, "a world without AIDS may be closer than you think."
In fact, it may exist already.
This doesn't mean that people aren't suffering from very real immune suppression disorders; it just means the conventional mythology that attempts to explain the causes of this immune suppression is factually wrong. Read more below to learn the details...
The AIDS myth exposed
The renaming of old diseases as AIDS further supports the hypothesis that the AIDS syndrome is never found in anyone without presence of HIV. By definition, there is no AIDS without HIV, regardless how many non-HIV people may die from the very same symptoms. Accordingly, anything that even remotely resembles immune deficiency plus HIV now counts as an AIDS disease, despite the fact that AIDS patients with Kaposi's sarcoma have been reported to have normal immune systems. It has been argued that wherever there is HIV, AIDS will be the consequence. However, this argument is heavily flawed.
- Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz
Two of the 16 patients in the control group developed AIDS. In another study, 10 HIV positive patients without AIDS took 150-225 mg glycyrrhizin daily. After 1-2 years, none developed symptoms associated with AIDS or AIDS-related complex (ARC), while one of 10 patients of a matched control group developed ARC and two progressed to AIDS and subsequently died. The result of glycyrrhizin in HIV-positive and AIDS patients is almost immediate improvement in immune function. In one study, nine symptom-free HIV-positive patients received 200-800 mg glycyrrhizin in vitro daily. After 8 weeks.
- Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1 by Michael T. Murray, ND
It was obvious that the FTC was not interested in whether Immune Plus helped in the treatment of AIDS; they were only interested in curtailing its marketing. The FTC alleged that Immune Plus was being advertised as a "cure" for AIDS. At no time did True Health or International White Cross claim to have a cure. Test results in the Immune Plus ad were taken directly from the nutritional AIDS test, and True Health sold the exact same formula that was used in their AIDS test to International White Cross.
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Your Knowledge is limited to the mainstream rubish. Hope you're not going to kill others with debatable science discoveries. You haven't put up any scientify evidence to prove it. Give one scientify reference that isolates HIV virus?
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Currently in PNG there is major research into HIV Aids and the effects that the retro viral drugs are having on those who take them.
This is research that the world community is paying for those the Fat F***ers on the hill in Waigani.
The research is necessary because it has been discovered that the retros are not working on some people with HIV.
So some very very caring and well credentialled individuals are working out the best ways to approach this situation they are working tirerlessly in POM to ascertain why they are not working for all and how to best prolong the lives of those people who have HIV.
Me for one applaude these people....
let it be known that the PNG government just keeps putting its hand out for more and more free drugs and then the bastards have the ordasity to try charge the people who depend on it to get it.
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