The politics of AIDS in South Africa: beyond the controversies
BMJ 2003; 326 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7387.495 (Published 01 March 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:495All rapid responses
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The "60 or so reputable experts" can effectively be boiled down to
Duesberg, the Perth Group and their followers. Other commentators have
chipped in with one or two specific points (Mullis, De Harven, Giraldo)
but that's about it. Anyone who studies this sad field for more than a
few months will quickly realise that.
If one takes the arguments of Duesberg and the Perth Group out of the
dissident literature, there is very little else. Arguably without their
underlying framework none of the others would have even said anything at
all.
Interestingly, in searching the dissident websites there is almost no
mention of any mainstream researchers except for Ho, Montagnier and Gallo.
The work of Mellors which neatly shows that HIV viral load predicts
progression to AIDS is ignored. That of Pantaleo which states clearly
that lymph nodes are the site to judge HIV infection, rather than
peripheral blood is nowhere to be found. In fact none of the _thousands_
of reputable orthodox scientists are represented in their arguments or
their results explained away according to the dissident logic. Rather
they are simply ignored.
When one such as myself attempts to contribute to the dissident
forums he is silenced, censored, and eventually banned from contributing.
This even when pointing out non-HIV related science such as the link
between cervical cancer and HPV infection (greater than 98% last I heard).
It's as if the moderators prefer to keep their readers uneducated, because
that's the only way the anti-HIV pseudoscience can persist. "Reputable"
dissidents such as Duesberg and Bialy choose to ignore or abuse those who
attempt to confront them (a recent week-long diatribe by the good Dr Bialy
against myself on a public discussion board caused considerable
embarrassment to the dissident cause recently for example). The Perth
Group of course have been repeatedly shown on this forum to have
misrepresented or ignored the literature, and have not accepted or
conceded a single criticism of their "science".
HIV causes a single disease, AIDS. How that manifests will naturally
depend on what other infectious agents are currently likely to infect the
particular individual. It's no different from any other immune deficiency
syndrome. Is that really so hard to accept?
Nick Bennett njb35@cantab.net
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
dear sir, dear madam,
my name is torsten engelbrecht and i am journalist in hamburg
(www.torstenengelbrecht.com). i am following the subject hiv/aids
personally since many, many years. recently i addressed the subject more
closely as journalist with my in-depth media analysis "sex, blood and
death: 'the hi-virus causes aids.'. the universally held acceptance of
this theory demonstrates how scientific journalism disregards significant
inconsistencies to dispel any doubts about authenticity." this analysis
has been published recently in germany's most recognised special interest
media magazine "message" (www.message-online.com). the original version of
this analysis you can find on my website under the following link:
http://www.torstenengelbrecht.com/en/artikel_medien.html. the purpose of
this research was to find out scientifically if all these very respectful
scientists - like the nobel lauretes kary mullis and walter gilbert, harry
rubikn, etienne de harven, "nature-biotechnology"-founder harvey bialy,
eleni-papadopulos from the australian perth group, etc. - are right in
saying that it has never been proven that (1) so-called hiv exists, that
(2) so-called hiv causes aids, that (3) so-called hiv antibody tests
detect hiv, that (4) haart prolong lives, and so on.
so i did an in-depth media analysis which took me several months to
carry out. one of the basis was a worldwide survey asking the most
important media outlets (e.g., "nature", "science", "washington post",
"spiegel", "new york times", "die zeit", "time", "the new yorker",
"newsweek") if they have any experimental proof/clear-cut study for all
the claims the hiv-hypothesis is based on: that (1) so-called hiv exists,
that (2) so-called hiv causes aids, that (3) so-called hiv antibody tests
detect hiv, that (4) haart prolong lives, that (5) pcr- and cd4-tests are
reliable in the context of aids-diagnosis, or that (6) the so called drug-
hypothesis (aids = drugs like poppers or crystal meth, antiretroviral
drugs, malnutrition and/or re-definition of well-known diseases) makes no
sense. the result: not one media outlet could deliver one single proof for
one of these claims. additionally, i wanted to know, to which drgree the
media was dealing with the (obviously justified) criticism of the hiv-
hypothesis. so i checked the coverage of the subject aids of several
german speaking print media ("spiegel", "faz", "nzz", "berliner zeitung",
"sz", "tagesspiegel", and "taz") during the last 10 years. and the result
is unmistakable, as i write in my article "sex, blood and death":
altogether we counted more than 20,000 texts on the subject. of the 60
reputable experts who criticised the hiv-hypothesis during that time, only
nine were mentioned: among them peter duesberg in 20 articles related to
aids and kary mullis in seven, which constitute only 0.135 percent of all
reports about aids. yet even in those few articles, the authors avoided
confrontation with the arguments of the critics, such as the criticism of
conventional aids-testing. which confirms what the us-media critic michael
tracey discovered once (see his analysis "mere smoke of opinion - aids and
the making of the public mind":
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/continuum/article6.htm): "we decided to
interrogate the majpap (major papers) file in the nexis database of 37
newspers, which includes the british broadsheets, "guardian", "times",
"sunday times", "independent", "ft", and the "daily telegraph", as well as
most major us papers. (for some reason the mass circulation british
tabloids, the "sun" and the "star" are not included.) we searched for the
number of stories in which the phrase "aids virus” was employed - a phrase
which he correctly took as representing the notion of causality within the
aids thesis. in 1984 - the year of the heckler-gallo-conference - there
were just 31 mentions of the phrase, but by 1991 it was appearing in more
than 3000 stories a year in these 37 papers. by 1993 there had in fact
been 20,024 uses of the term. of countervailing theories there is barely a
bat's squeak. then we had a look at how gallo had fared. he found that
alongside the hundreds of references were attached phrases such as
'noted', 'superstar', 'famed', 'vindication', 'significant strides', 'the
one scientific hero', 'brilliant, dynamic', 'pioneering researcher', 'who
discovered [or co-discovered] the aids virus', 'gallo's virus', and so
on."
so what we see here is a clear example of the shaping of public
discourse, the construction of a way of seeing aids. and the media made it
possible by sending out the unproven messages that a virus named hiv
causes aids or that a positive hiv test means getting aids (or better: one
of the dozens of well-known diseases like kaposi's sarcoma) sooner or
later. what kary mullis and all the other critics fo the hiv-hypothesis
addresses should also be fundamental to the media: facts count first. but
the media has been having problems with just these facts since the
beginning of the aids-issue, when, in 1983, the "new york times" wrote
about a “worldwide health problem”. at that time, not taking the facts
into account, for example "spiegel" and "bild der wissenschaft" were
already quite sure that civilisation was going downhill and anticipated
that the last german would die of aids in 1996 (see: "aids: die bombe ist
gelegt“, in: "der spiegel" 45/1984; "aids - eine neue krankheit
erschüttert deutschland“, in "bild der wissenschaft" 12/1985). and on what
or whom did the media base this catastrophic scenario? mostly - so the
result of my analysis - on the cassandra-like talk of fame hungry
physicians who turned the subject into a headline from the very beginning.
it must be a contagious disease, following the principle spread by louis
pasteur - “one disease, one cause, one cure” (to quote sociologist steven
epstein)
in 1959 pulitzer-prize winning microbiologist rené jules dubos wrote
that “the search for THE (single) cause would remain a hopeless
enterprise, since most disease-conditions are the indirect result of a
constellation of life circumstances.” Understanding this concept, one must
ponder whether or not the matter is too complicated and at the same time
too mundane, to be turned into an exciting media story.
additionally, the scientific journalists suffer from a fundamental
problem: dealing with uncertainty. in striving to provide their audience
with simple answers, the journalists reduced overly complex aids-issues to
simple, mostly causal patterns of explanation. hence, they created the
superstition that, with “safer sex” or "hiv testings", aids could be
defeated.
thanks for your attention
torstenengelbrecht
journalist
hamburg
www.torstenengelbrecht.com
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Reading Mr Russell's recent responses has been very revealing - in
his zealous quest to deconstruct HIV and AIDS he manages to deconstruct
most of his own arguments as well.
As mentioned in past responses - both ATL and AIDS were described
prior to the discovery of their causative retroviruses.
Duesberg's anti-HTLV arguments are illogical for three reasons:
1. No-one is claiming that HTLV causes all cases of ATL.
Fundamentally, ATL is just T cell leukaemia in adults...you can get the
same thing from radiation exposure.
2. Cancer is not caused by a single mutation - the current
understanding is that multiple errors are required to cause cancer.
Duesberg is arguing from his experience with Src which is the most
powerful oncogene yet discovered. One could argue that it was discovered
first because of the very fact its effects were so profound. HTLV
infection results in an increased risk of further mutations, which may
then later result in cancer. By definition almost, cancer MUST be
monoclonal, or else it's just a hyperplasia (e.g. the B cell mononucleosis
seen in EBV infection is very different from the Burkitt's lymphoma seen
in EBV infection).
The error rate for cellular DNA is so small that statistically
speaking, the number of functional errors (i.e. affecting proto-oncogenes
or tumour supressor genes) required for a human cancer, currently thought
to be at least 5 or 6, could not have occured in a single cell in a single
human being in the history of mankind. One of the most important events
in oncogenesis is the increasing of the mutation rate or a reduction in
the error correction. Such virus-cell interactions are common occurances
in viral infections (e.g. p53 or Rb inhibition, immune surveillance
evasion). This is why cells undergoing cycling are more likely to cause
cancer (e.g. bowel mucosa, repairing sun-damaged skin, activated
lymphocytes). Every DNA duplication has a risk of introducing mutations.
This is also why viral infections that interfere with normal cellular
function increase the risk of cancer.
In addition, certain behaviours are required to form a cancerous
cell. Cancer cells must be able to divide, lack contact inhibition, not
require contact to survive and invade new tissues (hence a good handful of
gene mutations!). Lymphocytes can already survive autonomously in the
bloodstream, invade tissues, and can avoid apoptosis without cellular
contact. This is why leukaemias/lymphomas are so readily created (e.g. a
single 15:17 translocation in Acute Myelocytic Leukaemia) and treated
(retinoic acid for the above cancer results in around an 80% cure rate).
RA-resistant cases have, as you would expect, more complex mutations.
Knowing this, it's not surprisingly at all that the cancers with the best
cure rates are leukaemias, they are very well characterised genetically,
and relatively easily created by environmental exposures (including viral
infections).
3. HTLV is far from a simple retrovirus (it encodes 2 accessory
proteins, so is very different from Duesberg's RSV). It may not encode an
oncogene, but it certainly encodes a another protein (tax) which
interferes with a tumour suppressor - which can be pretty much the same
thing. It targets the mitotic checkpoint protein MAD1.
To paraphrase Mr Russell, Prof Duesberg and Peter Vogt thought that
retroviruses existed as exogenous entities and worked with them all their
lives, presumably they knew what they were talking about. They did after
all discover oncogenes by analysing genomes isolated from retroviruses
which had captured mutated versions of cellular genes... Retroviruses
after all have a life cycle almost perfectly suited to capturing cellular
proto-oncogenes - in fact are required to explain the formation of the
viral versions of genes like src.
Mr Russell cannot persist in cherry-picking the literature to suit
his world view - he would be better off analysing all the literature to
create a more appropriate world view. That would be called: "getting
some form, any form of education at all in the field".
Far from being "trapped in a paradigm", I find that being able to
explain the paradigm is rather liberating.
I should also take the opportunity to point out that I'm an
infectious disease postdoctoral clinical research associate, not yet a
Fellow even if the workload overlaps somewhat.
Nick Bennett njb35@cantab.net
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Peter Flegg stated:
"Russell has merely confirmed this is exactly what Lanka stated - and
further he goes on to detail how Lanka considers that viruses such as
Influenza, Herpes, Vaccinia, Polio, Adenovirus and Ebola virus do not
exist (specifically 'an attempt of fraud committed by the researchers and
medical scientists involved'). Perhaps these viruses also are considered
by Russell to be "endogenous epiphenomena"? I look forward to his
explanation as to how lifestyle factors alone are responsible for the
diseases they cause."
Peter Flegg repeatedly fails to understand what Stefan Lanka and I
are arguing: how do we really know what we are nominating as 'viruses'
really are 'viruses' that is all.
How does Flegg know that: Influenza, Herpes, Vaccinia, Polio, Adenovirus
and Ebola are true 'viruses': or are they really some other mutations that
have not been truly identified and classified correctly? Contrary to
Flegg's claim, I am not nominating these unidentifiable entities as
"endogenous epiphenomena." Also I have not said that "lifestyle factors
alone are responsible for the diseases they cause."
My question to Flegg is: do diseases cause viruses? Does 'AIDS' cause
(endogenous) 'HIV' expression? We know now that 'HIV' is not a 'virus'
because it does not cause a disease: however 'anti-retroviral' drugs are
able to do what 'HIV' never could do: cause 'AIDS'. Flegg will go on at
BMJ rapid responses pretending that 'HIV' causes 'AIDS' because it is his
job to do so and he cannot confess to his patients that he may have made a
tragic error. Flegg is trapped within the 'HIV' Belief System without an
emergency escape exit.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Peter Morrrell asks Alexander Russell regarding the nature of
'viruses':
"Why does he think it is obvious or blatantly obvious that all other
viruses are not also 'epiphenomena,' 'disease markers' or 'endogenous
entities?' Just as he states about retroviruses, these entities are
*assumed* to be pathogenic, they are assumed to be causes of disease
states, NOT the products of disease states. How is the causation of their
pathogenicity so solidly proven? How is it proven that they are not also
products or mere 'associative factors' rather than causes of disease
processes? Why cannot what Alex Russell says about retroviruses also apply
to many other or indeed all viruses? Why are all viruses not 'endogenous
epiphenomena' or 'disease markers' and therefore merely associative
factors and *products* rather than causes of disease processes? What is
the big objection, seeing that he agrees with my previous contention that
deranged cells perhaps produce viruses?"
Peter Morrell's interesting and thought provoking questions are
principally answered in my recent rapid response replies to Peter Flegg.
See: 'Peter Flegg grossly misrepresented Stefan Lanka out of context' (BMJ
rapid response: 24th February 2005) and: 'Reply to Flegg regarding
'retroviruses'…' (BMJ rapid responses: 23rd February 2005).
We have to keep on asking: is the proliferation of an alleged 'virus'
the symptom of a disease or a cause of a disease? We are told that the
rhinovirus causes the common cold but how do people who have been
completely isolated catch the common cold? Where do 'viruses' start? All
'viruses' have to start somewhere: we have to think in terms of how
'viruses' are vectored. But how do we nominate what a 'virus' really is to
begin with? Most of us know now that 'HIV' is not a 'virus' and we also
know now that 'retroviruses' are not 'viruses'. Is the so-called 'Ebola
virus' a true 'virus'? We have to deconstruct the taxonomic classification
system that designates and nominates what a 'virus' really is. Also: we
need to de-subjectivise’ and de-ontologise 'viruses' and relocate the
negativity of 'viruses' in a positive light: the 'negative-dialectic' of a
'virus' as Theodor Adorno might have said.
A 'virus' has a job to do and has its own logic for doing so: a
'virus' needs to erase, eradicate, deconstruct something for its own ends.
As human beings we subjectivise and ontologise 'viruses' (like 'cancers')
as 'bad' things or as 'enemies' to be eradicated. Obviously 'viruses' and
'cancers' are seen in a 'negative light' by most human beings. Yet
'cancers' and 'viruses' are merely doing their own thing as transformers
of being in the world. There is a school of thought that 'viruses' are a
cleansing device expelling waste matter from cells. We need to rethink
what a 'virus' is and learn to relate to 'viruses' as a part of our
evolving being in the world.
As constantly mutating human beings we could be said to be 'viruses'
in ourselves: maybe 'Virus' is the very core of our being just like
'Geist' or 'Spirit'? What are 'viruses' (and 'cancers') trying to tell our
embodied being anyway? What we should be asking is: Why does the human
body need 'viruses' and 'cancers'? That is the question.
Peter Morrell may find Virologist, Stefan Lanka’s succinct summary on
the nature of viruses and virology of interest:
A little virology
Viruses are essentially just packages of genetic information enclosed
in a coat which consists of proteins. They can reproduce themselves only
by infecting a suitable host cell and appropriating the chemical machinery
they find there. The proteins making up the viruses are characteristic for
each species of virus. Apart from enveloping and transporting the genetic
information intact, the composition of proteins for a given virus results
in a specific shape for the virus particle.
This much is generally known. Less well-known is the existence of
other particles which look like viruses but aren't, and are nonchalantly
referred to as "virus-like" particles. Such particles are far from rare,
found, for example, always in placentas, and very frequently in the
artificial environment of laboratory cell cultures. They have served to
muddy the waters considerably as far as AIDS research is concerned,
because particles just like these have been called HIV. To date, none of
these has been characterised and shown to exist as an entity which one may
justifiably call a virus.
No evidence for the existence of HIV
Such evidence has up till now never been produced for HIV. No
photograph of an isolated HIV particle has ever been published nor of any
of its proteins or nucleic acids. No control experiments as mentioned
above have been published to date. What has been shown are photographs of
virus-like particles in cell cultures, but none of isolated viruses, let
alone of a structure within the human body having the shape ascribed to
HIV. What the whole world has seen are models representing HIV with dish
aerials, said to be receptors with which the virus attaches itself to
cells.
(HIV; REALITY OR ARTEFACT?, Stefan Lanka, Continuum April/May 1995).
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
I have quoted Stephan Lanka as saying "viruses which are claimed to
be very dangerous in fact do not exist at all". This statement leaves
little room for misrepresentation, I would suggest.
Russell has merely confirmed this is exactly what Lanka stated - and
further he goes on to detail how Lanka considers that viruses such as
Influenza, Herpes, Vaccinia, Polio, Adenovirus and Ebola virus do not
exist (specifically "an attempt of fraud committed by the researchers and
medical scientists involved").
Perhaps these viruses also are considered by Russell to be
"endogenous epiphenomena"? I look forward to his explanation as to how
lifestyle factors alone are responsible for the diseases they cause.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
For the second time at BMJ rapid responses Peter Flegg has grossly
misrepresented Stefan Lanka by citing him out of context:
"Forgive me if I find it quite ironic that a
writer/artist/philosopher (Russell) suggests to a postdoctoral PhD fellow
in Infectious Diseases (Bennett) that he should sadly obtain "some form,
any form, of education in the field" in order to appreciate that HIV does
not exist, while quoting a "virologist" (Lanka) who believes that "viruses
which are claimed to be very dangerous in fact do not exist at all" as the
source for his evidence."
I do not "find it quite ironic" but merely a public display of
Flegg's ignorance here: one has to study virology in the first place to
realise where virology has gone wrong. Lanka does not lazily accept our
dominant fashionable virological paradigms where as Bennett and Flegg do:
they believe what they are told in text books.
Flegg, as a physician, and Bennett, as a postdoctoral PhD fellow in
Infectious Diseases, have a curiously naïve and layman's 'commonsense'
world view of what constitutes 'virology' and 'viruses': they still
believe what they are told in text books without doing their own
deconstructive critiques. Yet again (see BMJ rapid responses: 1st
November, 2004) Flegg lifts quotes out of context and thus distorts the
meaning of what Lanka and I are actually saying.
My original quote was from Dr, Stefan Lanka was: "I already had a
somewhat critical attitude when I started studying molecular genetics, so
I went to the library to look up the literature on HIV. To my big
surprise, I found that when they are speaking about HIV they are not
speaking about a virus. They are speaking about cellular characteristics
and activities of cells under very special conditions. I was so deeply
shocked…So for a long time I studied virology, from the end to the
beginning, from the beginning to the end, to be absolutely sure that there
was no such thing as HIV. And it was easy for me to be sure about this
because I realized that the whole group of viruses to which HIV is said to
belong, the retroviruses - as well as other viruses which are claimed to
be very dangerous - in fact do not exist at all." (Stefan Lanka
interviewed by Mark Gabrish Conlan, Zenger's Magazine, San Diego -October
1998).
Lanka raises legitimate questions here that need to be addressed:
what exactly is a 'virus'? What evidence is there that 'Ebola' is a real
isolated 'virus'? It could even be argued that Ebola was a man made
laboratory artefact, as Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz has claimed? (See: Dr.
Leonard G. Horowitz, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola - Nature, Accident
or Genocide?, Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 1996).
I ask Flegg: what constitutes a 'virus'? Who authorises the peer-
reviewing and policing of the taxonomic classification of 'viruses'? Who
in authority authorises the authors of 'viruses'? What is a 'virus'? What
are the 'politics' of 'virus' inventing? After all: today science is
totally corrupted by politics. Who says so? To clarify the complex
situation to Flegg I conclude with what Stefan Lanka wrote in December
2001:
"In the case of the influenza- herpes-, vaccinia-, polio-, adeno- and
ebola-viruses each photo shows only a single particle; nobody claims that
they´re isolated particles, let alone particles that have been isolated
from humans. In summary, it must be said that these photos are an attempt
of fraud committed by the researchers and medical scientists involved, as
far as they assert that these structures are viruses or even isolated
viruses. To what extent the involved journalists and authors of textbooks
have contributed to this fraud knowingly or only out of gross negligence,
I don´t know. Everyone who starts a researcher in the medical literature,
will quickly encounter statements and references that Koch´s first
postulate can´t be fulfilled (i.e. Großgebauer: Eine kurze Geschichte der
Mikroben, 1997 ["a little story of the microbes"]; editor: Verlag für
angewandte Wissenschaft). How these authors who claim the existence of
viruses could overlook that, remains a riddle.
Could it be that the term 'Contagium' = 'Gift' (poison/toxin) =
'Virus' from the 18th and 19th century was applied in the 20th century to
the cell components which were named 'viruses' since the electron
microscope was introduced in 1931? And in order to hide this, the 'disease
causing viruses' have often been described but never been isolated? And
then they were used as seemingly logical explanation for poisonings and
adverse affects of vaccination, as Luhmann (1995) (i.e.) writes about the
symptomatic of Hepatitis B, which was observed for the first time in 1985
following smallpox vaccinations, and 1938 following measles vaccinations?
The copies in the textbooks show only structures within cells and nothing
that looks like isolation and thus homogenous. The biochemical
characterization, which is crucial, lacks completely." (Dr. Stefan Lanka
Exposes The 'Viral Fraud': Pictures of 'Isolated Viruses' Debunked,
December, 2001).
Flegg, as a physician, and Bennett, as a postdoctoral PhD fellow in
Infectious Diseases, are obviously not going to admit that they made a
tragic mistake and inform patients and the public alike that 'HIV' is not
an 'infectious virus' but endogenous epiphenomenon: they are interpellated
and seemingly trapped within the 'HIV' paradigm and refuse to re-educate
themselves but continuously repeat the mythical 'HIV' mantra.
The taxonomic classification of 'HIV' (22-23 May, 1986) was
ostensibly a political move and a strategic invention to present a
nomenclature that would unify a diversely identified putative
'retrovirus': human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III ('HTLV-III'),
immunodeficiency-associated virus ('IDAV'), aids-associated retrovirus
('ARV') and lymphadenopathy-associated virus ('LAV'). The not so hidden
agenda behind this politically expedient move was to enforce the 'belief'
that an alleged 'human retrovirus' caused 'immunodeficiency'.
Thus the manufacturing of 'HIV' hegemonic (misinformed) consent
reinforced a 'retroviral' episteme for 'AIDS' causation. However, to date,
'HIV' has still not proved to be a human immuno-deficiency virus. If the
function of a name is to designate its individuality, then clearly 'HIV'
was a baptism by mistaken identity. The moment of fictional baptism was
reported in Science (Harold Varmus et al., 9 May, 1986), in which eleven
of the thirteen members of a subcommittee - ("empowered by the
International Committee on the taxonomy of Viruses") - nominated 'HIV'.
I would like to remind Flegg and Bennett that there was no isolated
evidence then (as now) that this material was a putative 'retrovirus' that
caused 'immunodeficiency'. The acronym 'HIV' is misleading and
meaningless and should no longer be used by scientific journals and the
scientific community and the mass media alike.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
In a recent rapid response, [1] Alex Russell states:
"I thought it was blatantly obvious that not all 'viruses' are an
'epiphenomena,' 'disease markers' and
'endogenous entities'. I was writing specifically about 'HIV' and
'retroviruses' which are these
'epiphenomena', 'disease markers' and 'endogenous entities' - and which
were wrongly classified as
'viruses'..." [1]
Why does he think it is obvious or blatantly obvious that all other
viruses are not also 'epiphenomena,' 'disease markers' or 'endogenous
entities?' Just as he states about retroviruses, these entities are
*assumed* to be pathogenic, they are assumed to be causes of disease
states, NOT the products of disease states. How is the causation of their
pathogenicity so solidly proven? How is it proven that they are not also
products or mere 'associative factors' rather than causes of disease
processes?
Why cannot what Alex Russell says about retroviruses also apply to
many other or indeed all viruses? Why are all viruses not 'endogenous
epiphenomena' or 'disease markers' and therefore merely associative
factors and *products* rather than causes of disease processes? What is
the big objection, seeing that he agrees with my previous contention that
deranged cells perhaps produce viruses?
For example, in my previous post I asked: "what proposed lifestyle
factors, immune system degradations or deeper organism derangements, for
example, might then be adduced as the suspected or proven causes that
induce 'normal cells' to then embark upon this deranged pattern of
prolific virus manufacture?" [2] And then Alex Russell responds with the
following example, he states that "recreational drugs cause immune damage
and premature death," [1]
Likewise, when he says, "in all these cases all the young homosexuals
were heavy recreational drug users, particularly 'poppers' (amyl nitrites)
and the correlation between KS and popper-use is 100%." [1] These are
examples of lifestyle factors degrading the immune system and causing a
disease process, exactly as I requested.
My question then becomes that in clearly describing a lifestyle-
induced *syndrome* rather than an infection, cannot the very same as he
claims applies to so-called retroviruses also apply to many other or even
all viruses?
Could not other lifestyle factors conceivably also cause underlying
syndromes to arise that in turn somehow generate viruses as by-products
masquerading as causes? What specific objection does Alex Russell have to
this view?
Sources
[1] Alexander H Russell, Russell to Morrell: regarding 'epiphenomena'
and Duesberg's drug/AIDS
hypothesis, 21 February 2005
[2] Peter Morrell, Re: Reply to Morrell: Regarding 'endogenous
entities' and 'epiphenomena,' 20
February 2005
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Flegg stated:
"Alexander Russell writes:
What isolated evidence does Nicholas Bennett have that 'retroviruses'
really exist?
and
Sadly if Bennett had some form, any form, of education in the field
he would know better and realise that 'retroviruses' do not exist.
The Friend murine leukemia virus is a retrovirus or should I write a
'retrovirus'.
Make up your mind! Did de Harven record electron micrographs of
Friend leukemia complex or not?"
Yes: whatever kind of particles they were, de Harven recovered them
form mice but they were wrongly nominated as 'retroviruses'. I advise
Flegg that should write 'retrovirus' in single inverted comas as this
nomenclature is a misclassification.
Why were alleged 'animal retroviruses' only found in specific groups
of deliberately bred laboratory animals? Why did alleged 'retroviruses'
only start causing human disease once the intensive study of
'retroviruses' begun. Doesn’t it strike anyone how fortuitous it was that
just as we began to study 'human retroviruses' so carefully we should
discover two new disease – both as 'novel' as the 'retrvoriuses' alleged
to cause them? For one to have been found would have been amazing – but
two? I don't buy it. Or could it be that they had to invent two new
diseases – 'Adult T-cell Leukaemai' and 'AIDS' in order to justify wasting
tax payers money on a hitherto fruitless scientific endeavour:
'retrovirology'?
I suggest that the 'scientific community' stop using the nomenclature
'retrovirus' and the acronym 'HIV' as they are misclassified objects of
taxonomy.
Neither of the two alleged 'human retroviruses' encodes an oncogene.
Again I must refer Flegg to Peter Duesberg's paper of Cancer Research,
March 1st, 1987: he points most emphatically that 'HTLV-1' originally
alleged to cause 'Adult T-cell Leukaemia' (a disease unknown to medicine
before the mid 1970’s) cannot possibly be the cause of cancer for three
main reasons:
1) There is no evidence that cancer is transmissible – infectious
disease
2) The 'HTLV-1' is alleged to infect cells, randomly inserting its
genome so that no two cells are infected in the same place. This should
predict that if 'HTLV-1' were to cause cancer the resulting cancers would
be polyclonal. However, all naturally occurring cancers are monoclonal.
3) 'HTLV-1' is profoundly conventional 'retrovirus' which does not
encode an oncogene.
It is worth remembering that Peter Duesberg and his colleague Peter
Vogt were the discoverers of oncongenes and therefore should know what
they are talking about.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Aspects of 'HIV' testing
All the recent rapid responses to BMJ's Editorial: 'HIV testing' by
Manavi and Welsby (5 March 2005) make the false assumption that the 'HIV'
tests are proof of putative 'HIV infection' and/or that 'HIV' is an
'infectious disease' and that 'HIV' is an STD. These are all unproven
suppositions.
All 'HIV' tests are non-specific and non-standardised. All current
'HIV' tests lack a 'gold standard' against which they could be evaluated
to ensure that 'HIV' is being detected. There is no gold standard 'HIV'
test because there is no gold standard 'HIV' isolate.
In addition to being inaccurate, 'HIV' tests are not standardised.
This means that there is no nationally or internationally accepted
criteria for what constitutes a 'positive' result. Different countries
have different criteria as to what constitutes a 'positive' test result.
Standards also vary from lab to lab within the same country and can even
differ from day to day at the same lab.
Feston Konzani, a 28-year-old African asylum seeker, has has been
jailed for 10 years at Teesside Crown Court for allegedly 'infecting'
three women with 'HIV'. Feston Konzani was accused of inflicting "grievous
bodily harm" on the two women aged 25 and 26 and a young girl of 15.
The three women claimed that they became "infected" with 'HIV' after
having sex between February 2000 and May 2003 with Konzani. How do they
know they were "infected" by Konzani? The horizontal (sexual) transmission
of 'HIV' has never been scientifically proven only ever assumed: it is
only ever a mere supposittion that 'HIV' is sexually transmitted.
Also in 2003 Mohammed Dica was convicted at Inner London Crown Court
of two counts of 'biological' grievous bodily harm allegedly 'infecting'
women with 'HIV' and sentenced to 8 years in prison.
How do we know that Feston Konzani and Mohammed Dica are 'HIV'
positive and really 'infected' these women?
Were viable, active, infectious 'HIV' particles isolated and
recovered directly from their blood? If not we are making a false
assumption that these incarcerated men have an active 'HIV' infection.
Feston's QC, Timothy Roberts, submitted that the convictions were
"unsafe" because of "two legal errors", at the Court of Appeal in London.
The real grounds for appeal should have been that 'HIV' has not been
proven to be transmitted horizontally.
Why should 'HIV' be more readily transmitted male to female but not
female to male? In which case where do heterosexual males get 'HIV' from?
Where does the active (insertive) homosexual get 'HIV' from? How does a
passive (receptive) homosexual transmit 'HIV' to an active (insertive)
homosexual? What is the precise mechanism of hypothetical 'HIV
infection'?.
We have seen huge rises in STD rates and unwanted pregnancies in the
UK and USA without a concurrent spread of 'HIV'. These anomalies convince
me that 'HIV' is not an STD. There is no endemic heterosexual 'HIV'
epidemic in the UK.
Feston Konzani and Mohammed Dica are innocent of the charges laid
against should not be banged up in prison for an alleged crime they did
not commit. It is the 'HIV' test that should go on trial for misdiagnosing
thousands of people world-wide.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests