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The Human Genome: More Viruses than Genes?
jmulvey writes "A new University of Georgia study shows that most of the human genome contains a huge historical record of retroviruses. The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that viruses were instrumental in the evolution of chimps into humans."
Once again my post is going to sound like a troll when its not ment to,but isn't this old news. Now don't get me wrong I love UGA (Go Dawgs!), but I remember reading about this in high school. Maybe the story is that there is so much evidence, and not that its a new idea. End Ramble
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
Just a detail: humans are not theorized to have evolved form chimps. Rather, chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor.
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A person of moderate zeal
Does this mean that Outlook will eventually evolve into a secure MUA?
"Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
anyway, the idea of latent viruses remaining in the genome is a rather old idea, most notably for transposons (aka 'jumping genes') which seem to randomly re-arrange themselves within the genomes and 'jump' from one part of a DNA strand to another... also, more recently the idea of viruses actually serving an advantageous purpose for humans has been put forth with the finding of the importance of transposon-like activity in specific instances, such as the HyperVariable region in B-cells (FYI the hypervariable region is a piece of DNA which eventually codes for the binding region of antibodies, which is important for making them recognize foriegn antigens (which will be highly random by nature))... but the point of this paper being that they are/were a driving force for evolution, specifically the evolution of homo which is an interesting, and to the best of my knowledge, new idea.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
Computer viruses have been instrumental in the evolution of MS Windows.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
no.
Darwin's Radio is a poor book with a purely bogus concept of what evolution is.
The central conceit of the book is that the evolution from Neanderthal to human was designed into the genome, in the 'junk' DNA, and set to express itself at some pre-set (designed) time. The story revolves around a further designed evolution from human to a new (and presumably 'better') species.
The central point is that the 'junk' is designed. That's not evolution, but some variant of creationism. It's also implausible crap.
Taken purely as art, the book isn't much good either -- the basic plot is that the evolution of the 'over-man' will occasion much Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. It's not worth wasting time on.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Damn, and there I thought I had a good idea for a Sci-fi story until I read this and found that someone had already beat me to it.
Still, it's an interesting idea to contemplate:
Aliens/Deities come down and notice some pre-hominid primates.
"Boy, these guys got potential, but not a lot. Why don't we KICK 'EM UP A NOTCH! BAM!"
Okay, sorry. I should be shot for the gratuitous catch phrase.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
My wife used to teach a high school science class, and many of the students (many of whom were admittedly biased against learning evolution because of their religious parents) had such a mass media education in this field that they couldn't separate the "obvious" truth from the mass-marketed "truth". So, in this case, the misinformation that is spread is possibly misleading generations of people. And just think about the impact on those who have never taken a science class, but regularly vote, for instance.
I think it would be in everybody's best interest if they would drop this metaphor in favor of the truth.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
Humans are biological weapons put on earth to infect each other!
Oh wait...
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
So what is HIV doing to human evolution?
* In the Darwin's Radio sense, perhaps our genes have looked at our actions, and decided, "It's time for us to go."
* In a punctuated equillibrium sense, I've always heard that evolution through natural selection *really* kicks in when you have 90%-type mortalities. Do we know for sure that the death rate from AIDS is 100%? How about the "sufficient to procreate" rate? Left completely unchecked, would AIDS kill off the human race, or would a tiny fraction of us evolve past it, and their descendents inherit the Earth?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If you haven't, read the article. It says that these retroviruses have been a significant driving force for evolution.
Some people claim that evolution has stopped in humans, but this shows us that maybe it hasn't. Maybe through more retroviruses getting into the system, and this "giant game of chess" being played in our DNA, we will continue to evolve. For better or for worse, I don't know, but I see it as a major chance for improvement.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
"So, what you're saying is that open-source is helping to cure cancer in the same way that the pencils the scientists are using are helping to save cancer."
Let's review your syllogism:
A pencil is a tool.
Clinical research generated at a cost of billions and shared in an open and standard fashion is a tool.
Proven algorithms are tools.
Therefore, open source bioinformatics data and tools have the same worth as a pencil.
You remind me of Steve Martin's routine "How to turn a fortune in real estate into $25 in cash!", but he was being funny as a jerk.
It is unfortunate that some people were given brains when a spinal chord would suffice. - Albert Einstein
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
Okay, IANAB (I am not a biologist) The mitochondria (essentially the power plants of our cells) were actually an origionally independent life form. Sometime very early in our evolution they found themselves inside our cells and have been integrated in as a necessary part. I could be mistaken but I believe they are essentially inherited purely from the mother as they just stick with the egg and the number coming in with the sperm is trivial. They also have their own DNA.
I stole this Sig
It is interesting, this step of evolution.
If you have ever seen the matrix, and caught the ramble of one of the agents about how humans are a virus, spreading out and distroying the earth for it's own good.... it is true. And now to think (although this isn't a new and fresh idea) that humans took that step because of a virus... could some of the disposition of that virus or any virus effect our behavior?
> It goes against the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics
This has never been demonstrated, or even argued well, in spite of the fact that creationists have been appealing to it for decades. (Quick, taftman - can you even tell us what units are relevant to the 2LoT without looking it up? Hint: it it's a law of thermodynamics. It doesn't say a heck of a lot about speciation.)
> and is still a theory
As is atomic theory and electromagnetic theory and the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity and all the other big stuff that gives shape to our knowledge in the empirical sciences. Don't confuse a scientific theory with the conversational use of the term as a synonym for "wild ass guess". "Theory" is as high as you can go in the empirical sciences; once a theory, always a theory - unless refuted. So yes, the theory of evolution is still a theory, since no one has come close to refuting it. (Indeed, the supporting evidence keeps pouring in.)
> and unproven
We don't prove things in the empirical sciences. (As the saying goes, "Proof is for mathematicians, alchohol, and gunpowder.")
> in these hundred or so years since its inception.
143 years since the first publication on the topic, if I subtract correctly. That's 143 years of continual attempts by creationists to refute it, but instead of going away it is now better established than ever.
You may want to get yourself a bit better informed on these topics before posting on them again, if you don't like to come off sounding like a fool in public.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If the science in it is as silly as that in Bear's "Blood Music", I'll give it a pass, thanks.
-- Alastair
I'll pass. Sounds like it bears as much relation to real biology as Star Trek does to real physics. Lots of nice buzz phrases that sound like they might make sense, but totally meaningless in actuality.
(Not that that can't make for a good story if you're willing to suspend disbelief, a lot of folks like Greg's writing -- it's just his style tends not to match my taste.)
-- Alastair
And also, you should look up what a mule is. You would be suprised at how different two things can be and still produce offspring. (sterile in this case but amazing nonetheless.)
mule -- (sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse)
t.
And different races do not end up in the same place by chance. When people live in an area long enough, certain changes are quite common in order to better cope with the environment. Skin color is one of those.
The purpose of the mule example, which you did not even bother to research at all, is that they exist at all considering their parents have differening dna lengths. And no, a mule is NOT a mutation, merely an offspring, an unsuccessful offspring, which is NOT uncommon in evolution. Evolution is NOT a direct path to success. Evolution is trial and error. The mule is an error obviously since it is sterile.
Look, it is obvious that you know very little about what you are claiming is bunk. If you truly wish to argue against something then you must know more about the material then the people you are arguing with. That does not mean you have to believe it, but merely that you know it.
sinfully yours, t.
We're not in a closed system. That's where your thinking is going wrong, and that's why the second law doesn't apply.
Also, entropy is a global value. Locally, entropy doesn't have to always increase. That's why it's possible for you to pile up bricks and call it a wall. If entropy always increased, then you wouldn't be able to build a house!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
> As I understand it, its the law of gravity, but I may be wrong, i'm no scientist.
If by "it" you mean the 2LoT, then no, it's about limits on our ability to extract useful work from heat. Since you say you're no scientist, please be informed that the 2LoT tells us nothing useful about evolution, and the people you heard that argument from don't understand it any more than you do. You would do well to get your information from more reliable sources, such as college textbooks.
> We are both seeking truth, I am coming from the faith and biblical angle, and you are coming from the humanist angle and science is our common element.
Actually, I'm coming from the angle that evidence trumps tradition. That has nothing to do with humanism.
Also, science is not our common element. You have been misinformed by people who use pseudoscientific claims to validate their beliefs, but it isn't science. (I suspect that most of them do it from ignorance rather than mendacity, simply repeating what they've heard their own authority figures say. But dressing myth up in scientific jargon doesn't make it true.)
I'm sorry if I gave offense. Please understand that I am quite offended by people trying to use pseudoscience to justify teaching their religion in public schools, and I am going to refute it everywhere I see it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A lot of human illnesses stem from our close proximity to animals. If I recall, the flu virus is supposed to have originally affected horses (or is it pigs? it doesn't matter for the example), and then the virus eventually evolved to affect humans, because we were always around the horses, and presented an opportunity for the virus to adapt to a new enviroment (us).
,myself included, are mischaracterizing the nature of viruses affect on evolution as explained by the researchers. It's not that the viruses cause any benign change per se, but that the body mutates to defend against them, thus increasing complexity of the organism.
Your mentioning the feline "HIV" makes me wonder if maybe the AIDS shouldn't be blamed on monkeys, but on cats.
On an unrelated note, I've often wondered if there are any viruses out there that are good for us, sort of like the symbiotic bacteria in our stomaches that help us digest, and that help yogurt marketeers. Instead of making one sick, wouldn't it be cool if there was a virus you could catch that made you healthier.
And as a side note, I believe most people
Weird stuff when you consider that this is delving into the nature of life itself.
What am I, half French, half Russian, one quarter virus? (Yes that adds up to more than one, they're not mutually exclusive sets.)
And it's kind of interesting that people aren't talking about the ramifications of this idea regarding computer viruses.
Does the existance of computer viruses ultimately benefit us, by forcing the development (in this case entirely conscious, as opposed to biological evolution) of more complex computer systems.
evanchik.net
a link to some material on whether the widely-spread convention that there is a retrovirus called HIV that causes AIDS is true.
a quote from that site :
this page on the site links to the best introductory articles on the 'virus myth'
an excerpt from one of the articles on the site
note to moderators : please note that the assertions against the conventional thinking on HIV -> AIDS are being made by respected scientists as shown in the above two excerpts. This comment is not made as flamebait or as a troll. The ideal of science is informed debate, not willful dismissal of dissenting opinion.
You bring up an interesting point, but its pretty well established that Duesberg & other "non-retroviral" theorists are wrong on many counts here.
First of all, Duesberg's claim that "poverty, malnutrition and parasitic and tropical diseases" cause AIDS in third world populations, while "recreational drugs, irradiation and AZT" and nutrition are responsible for the syndrome in the Western world are patently false -- disproven repeatedly. AZT and other anti-retrovirals have been shown to increase lifespan and decrease symptomatology in AIDS patients. HIV is a heterosexual epidemic in many places, and viral loads do seem to correlate with diminished T-cell numbers.
Other "non-viral" theories of AIDS put forth, such as Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos' "oxidizing agent" theory have been equally disproven. It seems that, if there is an viable, alternative theory to the retroviral HIV of AIDS, nobody has presented it yet.
Secondly, it would be very difficult to demonstrate that the retroviral HIV theory of AIDS completely fulfills all the requirements of Koch's postulate in a human model (in fact, it would be an immoral and unethical act to test it this way), but the evidence is pretty strong in the support of it. People who show no evidence of HIV do not have AIDS (although similar syndromes exist). As far as I know, all people with AIDS have been shown to have HIV infection. Furthermore, people who have had AIDS and have begun antiretroviral therapy have shown dramatic regression of symptoms, while no other therapies (directed or not) seem to be effective.
The "non-viral" people -- Duesberg supporters in particular -- tend to argue against strawmen, using old data, and demanding that the HIV camp disprove negatives.
> Evolution is akin to a tornado hitting a junkyard and creating a fully functional 737
No, evolution is more like a genetic algorithm that slowly refines a solution that does not conform to any human design at all.
> these are the kinds of trial and error odds we are talking about.
No, not at all. Evolution usually works by very small tweaks, which accumulate over time. Probability arguments are irrelevant because (a) there's not "correct" target to calculate the odds of hitting - anything that survives will do, and (b) the odds of different outcomes are not at all uniform, partly because life is based mostly on chemistry, which definitely plays according to rules rather than absolute randomness, and partly because whatever randomness the chemistry does produce is passed through a filter - natural selection - which greatly biases the distribution of the mutations that get passed on to the next generation.
If you want to debate the theory of evolution you have to start by understanding it, and if you want to understand it you have to start by realizing that it is nothing like human design processes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> A mule is a mutation, the fact that its sterile and that there NEVER has been a good mutation is more evidence against the evolution theory.
Actually, a mule is the product of mating two species that have diverged so much that the chances of having a fertile offspring between them is extremely small, but have not diverged so much as to make a viable offspring unlikely.
IOW, mules are exactly the kind of thing you expect from the theory of evolution. As usual, even the tiniest knowledge of biology stands the creationist argument on its head.
> One more thing, as I understand it we have more in common with frogs and pigs genetically than we do with apes anyway.
Not so. You need to start getting your "facts" from more reliable sources.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A suggestion:
Evolution is breeding. As in, breeding programs. As in, something that we've done with horses, wolves, and bunny rabbits. And the bunny rabbit breeding can be done at a school relatively easily.
The only real difference is that in breeding the traits that humans like are the ones that are brought out, but in the wild the traits that allow a creature to best survive (eat/mate/breed/notgetkilled) are brought out.
_HISTORICAL_ evolution is the only thing that religion can possibly have a problem with--and by splitting the two, you can ignore the religous debate and focus on learning science.
(A good short rebuttal to "God created the universe, so you're wrong" might be "if the universe was created, it was created looking a lot older than it is, probably so we could learn about how it would act for the next X years.")
Wildcard explanations are useless to science because they don't really explain anything at all. A good theory makes testable predictions, or at least tells you where to look to find more interesting stuff. But the creationists' knee-jerk "Goddidit" explanation for everything tells you there's nothing more to see. It's a recipe for ignorance, not for science.> Why would a creator feel the need to come up with unique ways of doing the same things for all organisms?
Unfortunately, that convenience is a blow against creationism as a scientific explanation. As I said last time this topic came up, creationism is a wildcard explanation:
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Evolution teaches that life increases in complexity, and therefore defies the second law.
Actually, the 2LoT doesn't say anything about complexity at all. Look up the units used in the formula that expresses the 2LoT, and let us know if you can explain how a quantity with those units is relevant to biological evolution. (Or about complexity, for that matter.)
Also, for a purely intuitive notion of complexity like you're working with, genetic algorithms produce it all the time. I know people who produce amazing things with genetic algorithms, turning piles or random numbers into the controllers for intelligent agents. The 2LoT doesn't interfere in the least.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
well i notice from the amber light next to yr name that i have now made yr lists of foes - the first time anyone on slashdot has made me one - that's fine by me, and of course you have the right to do so, however you seem by yr action to be continuing the long held practice of ignoring dissent on the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis - i.e. by my speaking out i am now on yr ignore list
thankyou for linking to a paper - i will have a look at it - however i do not feel i have the expertise necessary to judge it's validity - and this is why i listed the names of some fairly respected scientists in my previous comment - these are obviously people who do have the expertise and who are questioning the hypothesis - however i have never heard this mentioned in the mainstream media - like you, the media have set their filters to 'ignore' - their dissent may or may not be good science - but why is the dissent not even acknowledged? - very few people even know that there is dissent from credible scientists on this issue and this is what i wanted to bring to people's attention by my post
the website i linked to in my first post has a large repository of scientific papers contesting the HIV->AIDS hypothesis including at least one paper for every name that i listed in my second post - they are all easily accesible from the whistleblowers page from which i excerpted my list - i imagined that people would go directly to the source rather than expect me to try to paraphrase their arguments - i wonder whether you yrself visited the site?
in relation to the list of 5500 names - these are listed prominently on the major HIV->AIDS dissident page on the web - I would imagine that legal action would have quickly ensured removal of the names of any people who were being wrongly touted as sceptics of the HIV->AIDS hypothesis
my position on the HIV->AIDS hypothesis is simply a sceptical one - in the late 70's and early 80's a syndrome was documented as aquired immune deficiency syndrome - several years later an assertion was put forward that a retrovirus had been found and was the cause of the syndrome - the website i linked to has the papers of highly eminent people questioning both of these claims - science is all about questioning 'common sense' assumptions - so why have these people been continually left out of the debate? - indeed there has been no debate as mostly they have struggled to be published or have coverage in the mainstream media
i wish you luck in a medical profession that due to massive abuse of power and an increasingly marked desire to enter the pay of the drug companies is rapidly losing the trust and confidence of the common people
finally i'll end with a quote from a fellow named hippocrates - he doesn't seem to have much to say about whether HIV causes AIDS or not - but he does seem to have some commentary on the course that the mainstream medical community has followed in treating the syndrome :
ok i've now had a brief look at the paper you linked to - it's by tim teeter RN (RN = registered nurse) - is this really the best you can do? - i give you papers by people with 20+ years in the exact field of virology or nobel scientists in related fields and you come back with a paper by a registered nurse?!! - furthermore not even a disinterested party but a member of the AIDS lobby group - i quote - Tim Teeter is Associate Director of Treatment Support and Publications at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. - my scepticism only grows...
ok some brief responses to material from the paper
AIDS is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the presence of a positive HIV antibody test and one or more of the illnesses known as opportunistic infections (OIs) or a CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm3.
so even though AIDS was on the scene first it appears to have now been redefined to include a positive result to the 'HIV antibody test' - summary : something is documented as Acquired Immunde Deficiency Syndrome - a hypothesis is put forward that this is caused by something called HIV amd all dissenting opinion is crushed - the originally defined AIDS is redefined in terms of the later 'discovered' HIV - isn't this a gross breach of empiricism?
this is the very first sentence - however two paragraphs down the author flatly contradicts his own definition of AIDS i.e. requiring a positive result to the 'HIV' test
The vast majority of people with AIDS in resource-poor countries have not had an HIV antibody test; even in developed countries, not all people with AIDS have had viral load tests. Those who have had viral load tests showing nondetectable virus generally have no additional tests to confirm the presence of HIV genetic material.
i won't go on - as i said before the burden of proof is on the originators of a theory and not on the sceptics - this paper you've given me is doing a very bad job of convincing me with major logical inconsitencies in it's first three paragraphs
in response to yr point 2
Its not that the scientific community ignored Duesberg's and other views on AIDS, nor were they left out of the debate.
well my experience and those of the general public around me is that they were left out of the debate - despite being a sceptic from the early days of the AIDS story i had never heard that emminent scientists were also sceptical of the theory through the mainstream media - it was never reported - even now with the fact of the president of south africa's scepticism difficult to ignore, media reports on the president's stance never in my experience mention support from major western scientists - i only discovered the virus myth page after hearing an interview with eleni papadopoulos on an independent community radio station and then doing a web search on her name
i can imagine the mainstream media's rationalisation of this blackout goes something like this - there's this awful thing called AIDS, some of our clever scientists tell us that it's caused by a retrovirus they call HIV - some other clever scientists are indicating some sceptisism about HIV being the cause of AIDS - but really we can't report this because it's going to be hard enough to get the great unwashed public to perform safe sex and if we let them know that there's some doubt in the scientific community then our message will not be listened to
maybe you agree with this rationalisation - i certainly do not as it is not how science is meant to be done - and risks the danger that a truly massive crime against humanity may have been practised by feeding people highly toxic drugs on the basis of a flawed hypothesis that was not allowed to be examined with due scientific rigour - you do not seem to appear to realise that instead of a proper scientific culture we live in what could better be described as a 'church of science' culture where scientific dogma is handed down from on high and the media blindly parrots this dogma from the established 'experts'
with respect to your 3rd point - i do not keep on bringing up the 5500 names - i simply responded to a query in yr reply, rather than bringing it up again independently - now as to your assertion that the names may be false i find this rather implausible as it would be giving the other camp a very big stick with which to be beaten as the names are easily checked - i myself just did a web search on three of the names i randomly extracted from the top of the list - they are :
Steven Jonas, M.D.Hansueli Albonico, M.D.
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
all three returned numerous hits from google searches relevant to them being experts in the AIDS domain of knowledge - please check for yrself - again i assert that if their names were being used without their permission they would rapidly have been withdrawn from the site and/or the website's owners heavily sued
you do not seem to understand my reason for using these people's names as i have previously explained it - it goes back to a policeman's logic - understanding people's motives - in a world where vast amounts of funding and prestige are given to members of the scientific and medical establishment who subscribe to the established theory it makes little sense for members of this same community to attack the conventional thinking - if a large number are doing so then this suggests to me that there may indeed be some substance behind their claims - it does not convince me, nor should it convince others, however it should serve to inculcate some level of scepticism in people with non-expertise if it is allowed to be reported
further on this point i find your assertion that people showing dissenting opinions will be showered with money highly naive or disingenuous in the extreme - look at the example of peter duesberg which i quoted in my first comment who had exactly the opposite experience
finally on point four i did not quote the whole oath in full - i quoted the part that seems readily ignored by the medical establishment and yet to me still seems to be a very noble and necessary ideal to hold on to - the idea of 'first, do no harm' - and yes i do consider chemotherapy 'deadly medicine' - how could anyone not?
1) Duesberg was listened to, and his ideas were proven wrong. His statements on HIV and AIDS causation have almost universally been shown to be false. He has not been "showered with money" or given media attention because his theories on AIDS are repeatedly proven incorrect.
2) When AIDS was initially reported, there was plenty of confusion in the media. People were linking it to being Haitian, with being gay, with living on the coasts of the US...and a dozen other things.
3) None of the people you mentioned seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. They don't appear to have training in areas like molecular biology or virology (one is a semiotician and a toxicologist!?!). They seem to have no stated theories on why AIDS takes place, or why HIV could not be the causative agent for AIDS. I have no reason to think they are "experts" on AIDS in any way.
4) 5,500 random people with some scientific training is not a significant number when compared with the number of experts who espouse the retroviral theory. Additionally, I never asserted that the names on your list were fake or forged, merely that they could be, and that it was entirely irrelevent.
5) Your classification of antiretrovirals as "extremely toxic drugs" is disingenuous and smells of trolling. This is equally true of your statement on chemotherapy, and your suggestion that the medical establishment is espousing harming patients.
6) Your glossing over of activist groups like Act Up! or GMHC that would love to find a cover-up in AIDS research only further classifies your posts as trolling.
I'm wasting to much time on this -- you don't want to learn enough about the subject to make an informed decision, but you doubt what is almost universally accepted among experts to be true. You say you don't trust people just because their deemed "experts", but you are going to consider alternative theories to the retroviral postulate because the people questioning it are experts?
yes i too am wasting too much time on this discussion - yr level of discussion is disappointing me and you are now repeatedly accusing me of being a troll when yr behaviour is more amenable to such an accusation
to wit : the three names i pulled out of this list at random according to you don't "seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. "
after a web search i found the following information from pages at or near the top of the returned google searches
STEVEN JONAS, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.professor of preventive medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written eight books of his own and edited/co-authored another ten, on personal health promotion, health policy, and national politics. He has also published over 100 professional articles and book reviews, and numerous popular articles on the same subjects. He is editor of the Springer Publishing Company Series on Medical Education, an associate editor of Preventive Medicine, and a member of the editorial boards of several other professional journals in health promotion/disease prevention. A Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, the New York Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association
so he does not seem to be a specialist, but he does however seem to be a highly respected generalist as he sits on a number of editorial boatds and would seem to be well equipped to understand and appraise the scientific arguments
the second person is harder to search on being of swiss background - however here are the names of two papers he has published directly on HIV/AIDS
Albonico, H. (1991a) Lichtblicke zum zweiten Jahrzehnt in der AIDS-Forschung. Schweizerische Ærztezeitung 72: 379-380.
Albonico, H. (1991b) Relativierung des HIV-Dogmas-Ein Beitrag zur Erweiterten Sicht von AIDS. Pädagogische Arbeitsstelle, Dortmund
the third person is yes you are correct an expert on toxicology - he is listed on the faculty of the joint graduate program in toxicology at rutgers university as
Sungchul Ji: Associate Professor of Pharmacy, CP; Ph. D. SUNY (Albany).
contrary to your labelling me as a troll for describing the drugs used as highly toxic there seems to be little doubt that drugs such as AZT are heavily toxic - i cannot understand your attempting to deny this, it is readily admitted by the proponents of the drug treatment - and so the views of an expert on toxicology would seem to be highly relevant to a debate on the conventional treatment of AIDS with highly toxic drugs
your point about there being a great deal of debate when AIDS was discovered sidesteps the conspicous lack of debate and rapid development of hegemony over the HIV hypothesis when it was first asserted several years after the early debate on AIDS
finally you repeatedly claim that the dissidents views have been proven incorrect however the best evidence of these claims that you have offered me is a paper by a registered nurse and member of the AIDS lobby (as i responded in an earlier comment, it is almost laughable againt the large repository of papers i offered you by emminent experts and the odd nobel laureate)
you still do not seem to understand that the size of a majority is largely irrelevant - it is very easy and usually the safest option to subscribe to groupthink - while the size and constition of a minority is extremely important, and this is why i detailed the significant number of well-credentialled dissidents to the hypothesis who are happy to publicly express their scepticism when it is clearly not in their own best personal interest to do so
anyway we'll consider the discussion closed - i thank you for yr input, however the interchange seems only to have hardened both of our positions - i guess we will have to leave it for time to tell the eventual answer - an answer which will show the death of millions of people was caused by a mysterious virus unlike all viruses discovered before or perhaps the alternative possibility - that millions of people were poisonously treated by a medical establishment that long ago discarded the ancient hippocratic axiom of first, do no harm