|
The AIDS Crisis:
The Other Side
(Reprint from Townsend Letter for Doctors, January 1995 issue)
In April 1984, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler announced
to the world at a press conference that an American scientist, Dr. Robert Gallo,
had discovered the “probable cause” of Acquired Immune Deficiency (AIDS): the retrovirus
subsequently named Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Since this announcement, the AIDS epidemic and our understanding of it has been fought
on a politicized landscape.
Margaret Hockler, a politician, made this announcement before one single American
study on HIV had been published. In addition, no discussion, review or debate of
its merits occurred in any medical or scientific journals. This process of science
by press release violated conventional scientific procedures and customs.
The political decision to credit Gallo with the discovery of HIV failed since subsequent
investigations have established that HIV was discovered in 1983 by Dr. Lue Montagnier
of France, who sent a sample of his discovery to Gallo! The retrovirus Gallo claimed
to have discovered was the same retrovirus he had received from Montagnier.1
Immediately following Heckler’s announcement, Gallo published four articles in Science
(May 1984) that showed correlations between HIV and AIDS. These articles, which are
the basis for the current hypothesis that HIV is the sole and direct cause of AIDS,
were proved fraudulent on many counts critical to their scientific validity by recent
investigations conducted by the National Institute of Health and the National Academy
of Sciences.2
Since the April 1984 news conference, there has not been a single scientific research
publication that purports to prove that HIV causes AIDS. In addition, there’s been
a lack of discussion and debate both outside and within the scientific community
specifically addressing the contradictions and inconsistencies which the current
HIV AIDS hypothesis and the epidemiological research on which it is based. To compound
this, the current HIV-AIDS hypothesis has been entirely unproductive in terms of
public health benefits, including AIDS prevention, treatment, and even in predicting
the course of the disease within each individual or the course of the epidemic within
the general population.
Even though we don’t know the exact mechanisms by which viruses cause disease, the
current HIV-AIDS hypothesis claims that HIV lies dormant in these T-cells for up
to 15 years. Then, by way of some unknown mechanism, HIV is activated to destroy
additional T-cells. This latency period is unexplainable by the scientific community
since no known virus or retrovirus takes 10-15 years or more to cause disease,4 and
contradicts other long established principles of virology.13
In spite of its political notoriety, HIV is scientifically a run of the mill retrovirus.
It is genetically so similar to other non- pathogenic retroviruses that no one within
the scientific community can explain or show that HIV exhibits any characteristics
that would distinguish it from any of the other retroviruses.4 There are approximately
100 retroviruses in the human germ line. After over 20 years of intensive research
on retroviruses, (Nixon’s War on Cancer), none has ever proven to cause disease.4
To date, there has been no scientific evidence that explains why this retrovirus
should be an exception.
Epidemiological Evidence
Because no one knows of a mechanism by which HIV could perform all the destructive
activities associated with full-blown AIDS, the HIV-AIDS hypothesis has always depended
solely upon epidemiological evidence.
Epidemiology is a branch of medicine studying the course a disease takes in a population.
In short, epidemiology is a “soft science” based on survey research. The main reason
for believing that HIV causes AIDS is statistical correlation: Most persons suffering
from AIDS also test positive for antibodies to HIV. This correlation is much less
impressive than at first appears. Indeed, to a large extent it is a product of the
HIV hypothesis itself. AIDS is defined as prior HIV infection plus symptoms like
T-cell depletion and diseases like Kaposi’s sarcoma, pneumonia, candidiasis and so
on. In many cases, HIV is presumed where the indicator diseases have been diagnosed,
even though the HIV test has not been performed.
The statistical correlation of HIV and AIDS is thus built into the definition of
AIDS. If the epidemiological evidence is evaluated without a pre-existing bias in
favor of the HIV hypothesis, however, many facts emerge which cast doubt on HIV as
the sole and direct cause of AIDS.
Current State of Affairs
Currently 1 billion dollars is spent on AIDS research each year by the U.S. government
alone. This money is devoted almost solely to projects based on an unproven and so
far, entirely unproductive hypothesis with mounting inconsistencies and contradictions.
Specifically, most of the research dollars are spent on vaccines and anti-virals
which may be of little value considering; A) Antibodies to HIV have already vaccinated
the blood of PWA’s, and B) Such minuscule amounts of HIV are found in the blood of
PWA’s that anti-virals would have little efficacy.
In consideration of the evidence presented, The HIV Connection? calls on our AIDS
establishment to immediately reassess the current HIV-AIDS hypothesis and to encourage
research into other possible causes of AIDS. The group hopes this reassessment will
lead to a more productive AIDS hypothesis in terms of public health benefits including
AIDS prevention, treatment and prediction of the course of the epidemic within the
population at large, and the course of illness within each individual.
Organizations:
Cure Now P.O. Box 29386, Los Angeles, CA 90029, Jerry Tarranova, (213) 660-7563,
Quarterly Bulletin $4.
Project AIDS International, 8033 Sunset Blvd., #2640, Los Angeles, CA (213) 467-3352
The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis, Charles Thomas
(619) 272-3884
Rethinking AIDS, Quarterly Bulletin, 2040 Polk Street, Suite 3221, San Francisco,
CA 94109 (A. James Trabulsi, Publisher)
Articles:
AIDS: Why is Science Failing? B. Elswood, Dr. R. Striker & W. Neves, San
Francisco Sentinel Newspaper, May 14-28, 1992, (415) 281-3745 ext.11, ask for Tina
Louise, please.
AIDS & The Media, Spin Magazine, October 1992
Fatal Distraction, Celia Farber, Spin Magazine, May 1992
The Role of Drugs in the Origin of AIDS, P.H. Duesberg, Department of Molecular and
Cell Biology, 229 Stanley Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, 1992
AIDS Criticism in Europe, John Lauritsen, New York Native, June 15, 1992
The San Francisco Medical Research Foundation
20 Sunnyside Avenue, Suite A-156
Mill Valley, CA 94941
|
