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Molecular biologist is not a virologist or epidemiologist. Yes he invented PCR which by the way is not a test. It is a way of replicating DNA so that small quantities can be tested. It had nothing to do with disease transmission.

he is certainly qualified to comment on how the test he invented works

Here is the introduction from one of Duesberg's books. The only link to PCR is that he was doing work with PCR when he started asking questions. His issue is that he could not find someone who could point to a smoking gun at that time and became a Duesberg believer after one lecture. Take a look at this page and you see many smoking guns that show HIV needs to be present for AIDS yet neither Duesberg or Mullis have changed their views. In 1988 there may have been lack of proof but today there is plenty of proof.

These stories are rutinely removed from the web very quickly, this is one of the few I could find:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/suppressed-report-shows-cancer-link-to-gm-potatoes-436673.html

So ... anything can be true so long as there's an article somewhere on the Internet, right?

In that case I'm guessing this guy is the only person who knows the real truth about AIDS, yes?

What they may be referring to is the fact that one prominent researcher's study came to the conclusion that HIV was not highly correlated to AIDS which suggested that HIV was not the causing the AIDS. Immediately he was kicked out of the scientific community as they stated that he should be jailed for life for trying to disprove a current hypothesis (which is the point of being scientific).

Are you talking about Peter Duesberg, by any chance?

The name of the scientist you are reminded of is most likely Kary Mullis. He got a Nobel prize for inventing PCR. An interview with him on the topic of AIDS can be found here http://www.virusmyth.com/aids//hiv/cfmullis.htm

Possibly, you were thinking of Peter Duesberg, a Berkley professor. He has a website on AIDS here http://www.duesberg.com/

It requires solid raw data to establish the HIV->AIDS causative link because the symptoms of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) can have many potential causes. For example, stress and malnutrition can also leave your immune system in tatters. So it is certainly reasonable to question the evidence and call for more data.

I was going to mod this thread too, but decided I wanted to respond instead. If you look at my past postings, you'll see 95% of them are +4 or +5.. I make a concerted effort to only post to slashdot when I feel I have something useful to share. I am not a troll, and I hope you can read my post with all of this in mind.

Sharing needles isn't a factor? That's exactly how my sister caught it...

I'm sorry to hear your sister died-- it's difficult to lose anyone you care about, especially long before you'd expected to have to prepare for their loss. That said, his point was that sharing needles isn't a factor *if* AIDS (the breakdown of the immune sistem) isn't a bloodborne illness. No one disputes that hiv exists (afaik), just that hiv is the true cause of AIDS. I am not a doctor, a medical researcher, or a virologist-- my understanding is that of a lay person. If I recall, Duesberg has pointed out that hiv is in a family of retroviruses that are all rather benign. It definitely exists, and I don't think Duesberg or others are denying this; just contesting the correlation between hiv, and persons dying of immune system breakdowns.

So some HIV-positive people never get AIDS? Stop the presses! It's a miracle! No one in the history of the world has ever been a carrier of disease and never shown symptoms of it before... [SNIP] A disease that simulates another disease? Oh, how extraordinary!

Again, I'm not a virologist, and the last time I knew any of this information with better than an extremely casual recollection was a long time ago (when I watched a documentary centered around Duesberg and his contentions). That said, Duesberg has some pretty elegant arguments about various rules and tenets of virology (tenets that are held true by all scientists, afaik), and hiv does appear to break several of them. In previous instances (such as Scurvy), when medicine *thought* it had finally found a virus that broke these rules, eventually it was revealed that indeed the rules remained unbroken and the cause was elsewhere. Combine that with the curious way in which statistics are gathered (people who die of "AIDS" but don't have hiv, and are nicely lumped into some other statistical category to keep the status quo).

The fact of the matter, in my opinion, is that there is some compelling, or at least interesting evidence in support of Duesberg-- and no one can say he is not intelligent, respected, and qualified enough to raise these sort of questions. I'm not a virologist, so I can't refute or support them, but I can listen with an open mind. I sure as hell still practice safe sex, and I definitely would not inject myself with hiv tainted blood (but some doctors have, and afaik none have died of AIDS yet-- although I occasionally google trying to see if the status on this has changed). The point is that there is some argument to be made in support of Duesberg and his theories, and there is no harm in listening and examining these theories with an open mind (and for this reason he has the support of several Nobel prize winners, etc). I find it a little upsetting that some doctors and researchers who do not support the party line about where AIDS comes from, are ignored, their careers tainted, and all research continues in one direction. These are intellectuals dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and advancement of medicine-- they aren't making these claims for attention: they genuinely believe we've made a mistake somewhere along the line, and it's probably in our best interest to at least hear them out (which is why a host of publications have featured articles by Deusberg.. as wikipedia notes: "His letters and commentary on the subject have since been published in other journals including Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmaco

Start here and perhaps follow follow up.

Myself is completely undecided with regard to this issue, though I naively think that a Nobel prize laureate (Kary Banks Mullis, which I definitely cannot compete with) might have something on his mind.

This might be of interest as well -- !.

And, for the records, I did not intend to troll.

CC.

Professor Duesberg and may others think its time top rethink AIDS. HIV probably does not cause AIDS. Nobody knows this so we can continue to stuff these poor suckers full of Chemo... That 'll make em die allright.

Please review the findings of Prof Duesberg http://duesberg.com/

Or download the movie "HIV, Fact or Fiction" for 10 (ten) scientific reasons why HIV does not cause AIDS.

Reference?

O-kay Look under bullets 1 - 4(which support the conclusion the pure HIV culture has caused AIDS in laboratory workers(i.e. humans) which is actually a stronger case than animals.

Duesberg, in fact, doesn't argue that at all. You're just so horribly confused here I don't even know what to say. Actually, Duesberg has probably offered the strongest arguments *against* the position you impute to him here of anyone involved.

Actually, he does argue that Koch's criteria have not been fulfilled, which is what I said he had argued against.

OK, you've got a number of people with severely degraded immune systems. They're a homosexuals, part of a 'scene' that involves unprotected sex with many partners (and you can put that 'many' in capital letters and use the blink tab, it was several people a night, every night) as well as heavy hard drug use. You can't think of a single hypothesis to explain this besides an infectious agent? Please.

I can think of lots of hypotheses but the fact remains that a simple hypothesis(the infective agent is HIV) is the most simple, most accurate, most backed-up hypothesis there is.

If your only answer is "drug use" you have a very weak argument. There are very very many cases of people who are not drug-users and who do not engage in promiscuous sex developing AIDS from exposure to HIV through unprotected sex or transfusions. Read the book "Borrowed Time" for instance. There are also very very many cases of heavy drug-users who do not end up with AIDS and are also, incidentally, HIV negative. Asserting that all gay people who develop AIDS are also hard drug users verges on statistically unfounded prejudice , the kind that the Reagan administration used to deny any obligation to help them.

Nor is there any logical reason to deny that there may be different causes for different cases.

Then the cases not caused by HIV but by other immune deficiency syndrome are not AIDS. I suggest you read this. Look under the justification for the fulfillment of Koch Rule 1. Scientists discovered that a small number of people having a clinical diagnosis of AIDS-like disease actually had a different disorder. Also look at the surveillance statistics.

The immune system is a complex system, and it's hardly inconceivable that it might break down for a number of reasons.

It does break down for a nubmer of reasons. Those are separate illnesses. The most coherent, simple, and productive explanation is that the constellation and development of AIDS-related illnesses and this kind of immune deficiency are caused by HIV, not any other cause. The simplest answer is usually the right one, as a guiding principle. IN this case, we have a simple answer and the data supports this answer. The fact it is complex points to the idea that one source capable of affecting it in its entirety is responsible - otherwise we have to assume that many different forces are responsible, an idea that on its face and statistically is untenable and violates Occam's razor.

As to Duesbergs lack of results, results require experiments, experiments require money, and the day he opened his mouth and questioned Gallos claims his money has been cut off. And THAT is what we should all be outraged about. Duesberg has submitted countless grant proposals with good research designs that would have settled the issues he raises, one way or the other, with good solid data. Up until he opened his mouth on this issue, he was a top rank grant writer, and he's done a lot of first class science. But now all he can do is write, because experiments take money, and no one is willing to fund experiments that might prove the paradigm

Here. And here.

I was going to just foe and filter you as a crank/troll ("lol thers no AIDS hurh"), but this post convinced me you're interesting enough to keep around.

Heh, I get lucky every now and then. :) I must correct you: my argument is NOT one of "There's no AIDS". I believe that "AIDS" is actually the mis-diagnosis of many other diseases and clincal symptoms. My position is that I do not believe that HIV exists, and I do not believe that HIV causes AIDS.

My position is also that AIDS is a huge part of Western culture, and it is practially a religion to many people who believe in it. It is *much* more offensive to say, "I do not believe in HIV" than it is "I do not believe in Jesus", even in the Southern USA where I live.

However, I'm not even going to bother reading a PDF(!) on a website called "sparks of light". Find some better references next time, or just copy-paste the interesting bits into your post.

There is simply not enough space in Slashdot to post every "interesting bit" about AIDS. I can probably convince anyone that the War on Drugs should end, but it will take me 30 minutes.

30 minutes is not nearly enough time to explain to you why HIV has not been proven to exist and why you should never get another "HIV test" under any circumstance. It would take me hours and I would probably have to fight through many layers of resistance and scorn.

But here is something that I consider "juicy" -- maybe a good intro to AIDS for you.

AZT is still the #1 "retroviral therapy" used to "treat" HIV. AZT was *not* invented for this purpose. In fact, AZT was invented decades ago for cancer chemotherapy and then shelved because it was deemed too toxic for use. It was un-shelved during the AIDS panic of 1984-5 and then given quick FDA approval after a very unscientific trial.

AZT is what is called a "DNA chain terminator". It works by substituting itself for thymine in the DNA chain and thus DNA chains stop being build during cell synthesis. The result is that the cell dies. It targets all cells in this manner.

In other words, AZT is strictly poison. Its use is reasonable in the case of cancer chemotherapy ("Poison you until the cancer dies, and hope that all the cancer cells die before you do"), but not for AIDS ("You're going to die anyway, so keep taking the poison until you die").

The manufacturer of AZT provides this warning about AZT: "prolonged use of Retrovir [AZT] has been associated with systematic myopathy [body wasting] similar to that produced by HIV". How do you know that the body wasting is NOT coming from the AZT rather than from the HIV? How do you know that AZT is not "AIDS by prescription", as many have called it?

Here's the warning label for AZT. This is the label that patients do not see:

http://www.duesberg.com/articles/azt.html#label

Here's the text on the warning label:

"TOXIC. Toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organ(s): Blood bone marrow. If you feel unwell, seek medical advice (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing."

Notice that it targets the "bone marrow"? This is where our white blood cells are produced. In other words, AZT targets the immune system.

"AIDS by prescription"? Juicy enough for you?

... what if one of the various "environmental factors" models is right rather than the "single pathogen" model? IE, retroviruses start multiplying in people whose immune systems are shot already -- it's the symptom; not the cause.

I know we like single-pathogen disease models but frankly those are pretty rare. Especially with autoimmune and immunodeficient disorders, it's not as easy as people think to even define the given disorder in the first place, let alone establish a pathogenic cause. Take lupus: the diagnostic criteria is a list of 11 symptoms of which the patient must present 4. AIDS *was* like that for a long time, now it's defined by presentation of a short list of symptoms and presence of HIV antibodies. But then again, any death in Africa by pneumonia is counted as an AIDS case; antibodies are not even tested for. At any rate, there are numerous other that stress environmental factors.

Single pathogens are sexy for epidemiologists. They let you focus funding on a single area and clean up a mess with some drugs (which, btw, makes lots of money for pharmaceudical companies, who fund a lot of the research in the first place). Environmental causes are less sexy. They are hard to identify. They are hard to correct. And correcting them can cost a lot of money to the people funding your research.

Thank God I'm not the only one. My own wake-up call happened when I stumbled on Peter Duesberg's paper The Chemical Bases of the Various AIDS Epidemics: Recreational Drugs, Anti-viral Chemotherapy and Malnutrition. (pdf). In other words, destruction of the body's immune system is reasonably caused by:

* Pounding the body with massive doses of intoxicants, most notably nitrite poppers (anyone up for gay anal sex?)

* Highly toxic anti-viral medication, such as AZT, which is sure to cause death if ingested.

* Malnutrition, or the shutting down of the body's systems though sheer neglect, mostly seen in Africa.

In other words, when you consider that statistically, all early AIDS patients were gay, most of them used "batteries of recreational drugs" before sex, all were told they were going to die, all were given toxic AZT, all died, and that poor Africans have nothing to do with this, then you can neatly explain the AIDS "epidemic" in you armchair without even hitting reload.

Problem is, AZT and other retrovirals cost $25,000 per year, and if you explain away the AIDS epidemic, then you destroy everyone's profit and research incentives. Meanwhile, the gay community is complicit in this deception, because no gay man wants to admit that he is a drug addict or gave the disease to himself.

Remember Richard Nixon's "War on Cancer?" This was a viral research program that concluded in the late 1970's with nothing to show for its efforts. Except that a few years later, along came HIV and a massive new round of research funding. Convenient?

As the OP says, debunking HIV/AIDS takes a lot of reading. But that's also kind of the point: the evidence against HIV is so massive that even paraphrasing it would leave you breathless.

Actually, you're wrong, and there are no papers that prove that HIV causes AIDS. AIDS exists, no question. HIV exists, no question. HIV is a retrovirus, and it is being scutinised by the scientific community, no question. Does researching HIV also research AIDS? Maybe, possibly not, this has yet to be proven. For further reading try: a paper on the issue and a [Documentary].HIV-AIDS-Fact.Or.Fiction.avi

To everyone reading this thread, I suggest you check out http://www.duesberg.com/, the website of Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley.

I found his site when researching a paper on AIDS, and after extensive reading of the site and the associated studies, it completely changed my understanding and outlook in regards to the 'AIDS epidemic'.

Continuing in that vein, you don't need a 'cure' for HIV... the HIV test already used today tests for antibodies to HIV... in other words, your body has already fought off the virus (and won, hence the antibodies). Why would you need a 'cure' for something you're already immune to?

I'm amazed that more people haven't heard what Dr. Duesberg has to say... it could very well change the entire AIDS research industry. There's no way I could summarize everything his site in this one post, so please check it out yourself if you get the chance.

• The article (interview) is over ten years old. Just a bit has happened in medical research since then. As it happens Duesberg hasn't changed his mind, at least not as of 1998
  
• The article leans heavily on the respectability of a single expert as a proof mechanism. For example, I might cast doubt on the value of the article by observing that it was written by a notorious pornographer, Bob Guccione, the editor of Penthouse. But that would be just as invalid.
  

...may as well mention the true causes of aids

I'll bet it has little effect since AIDS is not caused by a virus.

Interestingly, this "HIV==AIDS myth"-thing appears in a "6. Profit"-thread.

There are some scientists (like the (in-)famous Peter Duesberg, see here and somewhere in here) who strongly argue against the fact that HIV usually causes AIDS. They even argue that drugs against HIV (like AZT) cause AIDS.
Especially some african governments appreciate this view.

So, here we go...

1. Deny that HIV causes AIDS
2. Say that drugs against HIV cause AIDS
3. Ban all those drugs from your (banana republic) country
4. Profit !!! -> less uneducated, sexual (over-)active people to care about
5. Even more profit -> no need to pay for drugs against HIV and a working infrastructure to bring them to the patients and ensure a steady treatment

Notez bien: The "???"-step is not necessary, instead you get two "profit!"-steps!

Read more here about the corporate drug scamsters:

The HIV-Aids Farce

Be Patriotic: Re-elect Al Gore !!

It is strange that not everyone with AIDS has HIV, and not everyone who has HIV seems to get AIDS, even after many years. Barring other evidence, this should lead one to think HIV does not cause AIDS. Other evidence doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

Basically, AIDS is just a disease of definition -- when you die of particular diseases, and happen to have HIV, you are declared to have died of AIDS. In Africa you can die of TB, have HIV, and be declared to have died of AIDS. The AIDS epidemic in Africa is in fact just a horrible amount of traditional (and often curable) diseases -- it is indeed a tragedy and deserves a great amount of attention, but they need antibiotics, clean water, basic medical care, and mosquito control. They don't need AZT.

They've been talking about a 30%-50% HIV infection rate in Nigeria for 10, maybe 15 years. They should all be dead! They aren't. A lot of people are dead, but it's from all the same old reasons -- all the problems we, as a world and as a species, haven't been willing to attack since the 60s.

Hey, I'm down on how Western Medicine is about Profits over healing as much as the next guy, but there are bigger issues here...

There is NO correlation between the so-called HIV virus and the AIDS syndrome... Don't they teach the Scientific Method in medical school anymore?

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/

http://www.duesberg.com/

Too often in academic circles, certain views can be taken as correct, without being proven.

Here are a few examples of things that "everybody knows" with the responses from heretics in the field.
(btw, I don't necessarily agree with these views, but can you imagine what would happen if just one of them were true?)

1. A virus called HIV causes AIDS. AIDS is certain death.
Yup. that's right. There are quite a few respected scientists and even nobel prize winners who think this is either an oversimplification or even a complete myth.
Unlike most hypotheses, the AIDS-HIV hypothesis wasn't published first in a scientific magazine. It was announced on a press conference, in a rush, before someone on the other side of the atlantic had the chance to do it first. It became "instant truth" and trying to claim otherwise was a good recipe to get ridiculed by your peers an even ruin a career.
Some of the AIDS heretic's claims:
* HIV isn't a sufficient condition for AIDS.
Some people have been living with HIV for over 10 years with no treatment and apparent symptoms. The response of AIDS mainstream research has been to update the AIDS incubation period several times, from a few months to 3 years, 5 years and even more.
* HIV isn't even a NECESSARY condition for AIDS.
People have been diagnozed with AIDS without testing as HIV antidote positive.
* AZT and other drugs used in AIDS treatment attack the immune system, creating the exact same symptoms that HIV is alleged to cause. The justification for giving such highly toxic drugs to AIDS patients is that AIDS is invariably fatal.

The radicals like Peter Duesberg claim that AIDS is caused solely by behavioural and environmental factors and that HIV is harmless. The more moderate claim that it might be a contributing factor, but has not been proven to the the only cause.

2. CFCs deplete ozone. Less ozone=more UV. More UV=more skin cancer.

Some of the heretic's claims:
*Volcanos and other natural sources release several orders of magnitude more ozone-killing chlorine and bromides into the atmosphere that all of man-made CFCs.
*The correlation between ozone and UV levels is in fact POSITIVE, not negative as might be expected. People often forget that ozone not only blocks UV, it is GENERATED by UV.
*The antrarctic ozone hole is a periodic phenomenon which has been observed at similar levels back in the 50s.
*The patents on the original CFCs alleged to destroy the ozone have expired. The same companies now own the patents on the ozone friendly replacements.
*Changes in UV levels due to altitude and latitude are much larger than those predicted by worst-case ozone scenarios and yet skin cancer levels closer to the equator aren't noticably higher.

3. Cold fusion was either a hoax or gross measurement error.
*Many scientists around the world, including researches in US government national labs have been generating significant amounts of unexplained excess heat, are they all charlatans or totally incompetent in operating a calorimeter?
They claim to get much more consistent results than the original Fleischman and Pons experiment.
*Helium and other fusion byproducts have been measured and are accumulating over time.

4. No amount of radiation is safe. It is a purely accumulated risk.
* Some evidence shows that low levels of radiation (still significantly higher than ambient) are actually good for your health
* It's a well known response of the immune system where small amounts of something are actually beneficial in preventing the symptoms caused by large amounts of the same thing. (This is called hormesis)
* Statistics of cancer in nuclear industry workers are actually much lower than average, especially after subtracting those which can be traced to high exposures in accidents.
* Cancer in US states with higher levels of average background radiation due to altitude or radioactive materials in the grounds is noticably lower.


In all of these cases it's easy to see the role of the media, popular hysteria, politics or political correctness in determining what is considered an inappropriate viewpoint. It's much easier to believe in something which won't get you in trouble.


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