I think I must be in one of my more mischievous moods today.  This is a subject that I personally find fascinating, although I have not actively studied it for a few years.  I thought I would throw this topic out there for discussion.  It is a topic that evokes a lot of controversy, but it seems more tame lately since AIDS has fallen out of favor as a news selling headline theme.  I think people have tired of the “story” and the calls of alarm seem less and less credible the longer time marches into the future.  You still see the topic brought up now and then when politics and economics in Africa are discussed.  Unfortunately for world bankers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, leaders of African nations are also starting to question the generosity of various programs aimed at curbing their nation’s demise by AIDS (by granting large loans to purchase products that are not really doing anything to help their people).

Many people are not aware there is even a controversy in the scientific community about AIDS and HIV.  The basic idea is that HIV is a harmless retrovirus.  It is not responsible for the syndrome of diseases identified as “AIDS.”  All of the diseases associated with AIDS existed before.  They are only labeled “AIDS” when someone has anti-bodies for HIV (which means that their body has successfully defeated the virus).  HIV can not be isolated from patients with AIDS.  It can not be shown to damage the immune system in animals or experiments.  HIV is one of the many thousands of similar viruses that are all around us and continue to survive by NOT creating a lot of damage in our bodies.  There are “HIV positive” people that have rejected drug treatments who have survived decades (they are still alive).

Contrary to the HIV=AIDS theory is the theory from Dr. Peter Duesberg which more accurately explains the occurrence of AIDS diseases in patients.  He claims that the destruction of the immune system in these patients is caused by prolonged exposure to certain recreational drugs, AZT and other anti-AIDS drug treatments, foreign proteins in blood products (hemophiliacs) and other immune compromising substances.

Any thoughts out there on this subject?  Shocked?  Is this too nerdy of a topic?  Is it too controversial for an off-topic game message board?
 

I thought I would try kicking this subject around a bit.
 

-Tref
 

Background Info:

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Dr. Peter Duesberg:

He is a pioneer in retrovirus research.  He is credited with isolating the first cancer gene in 1970 and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.  He is one of the most outspoken opponent of the HIV=AIDS theory.  Here is his very detailed and technical explanation that was published in a peer-reviewed science journal:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/pdphth0.htm


Dr. Kary Mullis

Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry (Biochemistry).  Also an outspoken critic of the HIV=AIDS theory:

"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."  (Sunday Times (London) 28 nov. 1993)

(Dr. Duesberg)
A10:  Contrary to your assertion, the new PCR test does not detect "the virus". Instead it detects a piece of the viral RNA or DNA genome, but not even the complete genome. Typically any virus, whose RNA or DNA must be detected by this method, is neutralized by antibody and is thus latent, and not infectious. It is for this reason that this very expensive method was introduced to detect "the virus" in AIDS patients. It would be much cheaper, and biologically much more relevant if infectious HIV could be detected. The difficulty in detecting infectious virus was reason for the fraud charges of the Pasteur Institute against leading AIDS researchers in the US (Gallo) and the UK (Weiss).

The PCR method was invented by Kary Mullis, who wrote the foreword for IAV, to detect a needle in a haystack. But a needle in a haystack does not cause a fatal disease. This is in fact one of the fatal flaws of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.

Prime evidence of the Drug Toxicity = Immune Breakdown (AIDS) is that in Western Countries (US, Europe, Canada, etc.) around 90% of the AIDS cases are found in male drug users -- either IV drug users (heroin/cocaine) or in the very extreme "party circuit" segment of the male homosexual community that use nitrite inhalants, recreational drugs and many other pharmaceuticals as a part of their lifestyle.

Viruses are dumb biological particles that reproduce endlessly.  They are either neutralized by their host or they kill the host.  There is NO example of any other virus in history that can target just men or just women.  Most of the people who test positive for a past HIV infection are likely to have had it their entire lives.  They most likely received it from their mothers while in utero.  HIV has probably existed since the dawn of man.  We just didn't have a way of knowing about it until the early 1980's.

The often cited issue against what I said above is the problem of AIDS in Africa.  The split there is around 50/50 for men and women.  The problem with these statistics is that the HIV test is very expensive.  The “millions” of cases of AIDS in Africa are not diagnosed with an HIV test.  They are determined based on patient symptoms alone.

The symptoms and diagnoses (the Bangui Definition):

The patient should show two of these major symptoms:

1. Chronic Diarrhea for more than a month.
2. Weight loss of 10% of body weight.
3. Intermittent or constant fever for more than a month.

Included with the above they should also show one or more of the following minor signs.

1. History of herpes zoster.
2. Persistent cough for more than a month.
3. Generalized itchy skin rashes.
4. Thrush.
5. Chronic progressive or disseminated herpes virus infection.
6. Swollen lymph glands.
 

I don’t think you need any particular medical training to see that the above health problems could be caused by many other things besides an HIV infection.  These are all consistent with problems associated with poor sanitation, malnutrition and a host of other problems found in impoverished areas of the African continent.  Parasitic infections also cause the “major symptoms” above.

In spite of the many other possibilities, a patient with the above symptoms is labeled as having AIDS and counted in projecting statistics.