The Chemical Basis of AIDS

Doc Savage

[Doc Savage]

In 1981 I had returned from Alaska having spent two years doing field work on islands in the Bering Straits as a biologist. Then, working for Merck & Co., Inc., in New Jersey, I had the benefit of reading almost every scientific journal available.

I distinctly recall the 1981 NEJM article by Gottlieb et al initially describing an aquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the homosexual community which he, and others, attributed to the use of aphrodisiac nitrite inhalants (poppers) and other so-called "recreational" drugs.

It wasn't until much later that virologists became interested in a possible viral cause of AIDS, an action that eventually led to the "discovery" of a new retrovirus that was closely related to a "hypothetical" human leukemia virus. Human Immunodeficiency Virus was born.

Scientific research and discovery is based upon the principles of the scientific method. Additionally, when a scientific fact or breakthrough emerges in one laboratory, it is the ethical responsibility of other interested scientists to attempt to duplicate the results of the initial experiment. Neither the scientific method, not "peer-review" were followed in the "discovery" of HIV. To this day no original scientific study has ever been published to prove conclusively that HIV is the causative agent in AIDS. And since no such publication ever existed, the "results" could not be "reproduced" by other researchers.

For those of you who were not of sufficient age to either understand or comprehend the "epidemic crisis" that followed this viral hypothesis, it was dramatic, it was swift, and it was worldwide in it's impact. It quickly became evident that such a deadly virus, if easily transmittable, could infect and kill millions of people and ravage our nation's blood supplies.

Since I first visited FR there have been hundreds if not thousands of articles on AIDS posted. Normally questioning adults, the vast majority of Freepers have blindly accepted these articles on faith,...after all, how could so many scientists be wrong??,...how could the homosexual advocates be using AIDS as a propaganda tool in the political war on mainstream society??,...how could the government have spent 93 Billion dollars on AIDS since 1981 and been wrong about the actual cause of AIDS.

I recall the same lessons that every biology and science student has received to this day: Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny,...now proven false. One Gene - One Enzyme,...of course that is not so. Miller & Urey's experiment explains how life formed (not true) and we are the end result of a random evolutionary process,...except that no one can prove the theory and to this day it remains merely that,...a theory.

The point is that many times we blindly accept "truisms" that later turn out not to be so. So many Freepers have invested themselves in the HIV theory that they feel it is socially and scientifically responsible to ridicule anyone who even broaches a dissimilar explanation.

Since the vast majority of Freepers suffer from "The Smartest Guy In The Room" syndrome, I expect many of you will find the following points unsupportive and highly contestable:

Assumption: 1. Since HIV is “the sole cause of AIDS”, it must be abundant in AIDS patients based on “exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases.”

FACT: Only antibodies against HIV are found in most patients. Therefore, “HIV infection is identified in blood by detecting antibodies, gene sequences, or viral isolation.” But, HIV can only be “isolated” from rare, latently infected lymphocytes that have been cultured for weeks in vitro – away from the antibodies of the human host. Thus HIV behaves like a latent passenger virus.

Assumption: 2. Since HIV is “the sole cause of AIDS”, there is no AIDS in HIV-free people.

FACT: The AIDS literature has described at least 4621 HIV-free AIDS cases according to one survey – irrespective of, or in agreement with allowances made by the CDC for HIV-free AIDS cases.

Assumption: 3. The retrovirus HIV causes immunodeficiency by killing T-cells.

FACT: Retroviruses do not kill cells because they depend on viable cells for the replication of their RNA from viral DNA integrated into cellular DNA. Thus, T-cells infected in vitro thrive, and those patented to mass-produce HIV for the detection of HIV antibodies and diagnosis of AIDS are immortal.

Assumption: 4. Following “exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases”, HIV causes AIDS by killing more T-cells than the body can replace. Thus T-cells or “CD4 lymphocytes . . . become depleted in people with AIDS”.

FACT: Even in patients dying from AIDS less than 1 in 500 of the T-cells “that become depleted” are ever infected by HIV. This rate of infection is the hallmark of a latent passenger virus.

Assumption: 5. With an RNA of 9 kilobases, just like polio virus, HIV should be able to cause one specific disease, or no disease if it is a passenger.

FACT: HIV is said to be “the sole cause of AIDS”, or of 26 different immunodeficiency and non-immunodeficiency diseases, all of which also occur without HIV. Thus there is not one HIV-specific disease, which is the definition of a passenger virus.

Assumption: 6. All viruses are most pathogenic prior to anti-viral immunity. Therefore, preemptive immunization with Jennerian vaccines is used to protect against all viral diseases since 1798.

FACT: AIDS is observed – by definition – only after anti- HIV immunity is established, a positive HIV/AIDS test. Thus HIV cannot cause AIDS by “the same criteria” as conventional viruses.

Assumption 7. HIV needs “5–10 years” from establishing antiviral immunity to cause AIDS.

FACT: HIV replicates in 1 day, generating over 100 new HIVs per cell. Accordingly, HIV is immunogenic, i.e. biochemically most active, within weeks after infection. Thus, based on conventional criteria “for other viral diseases”, HIV should also cause AIDS within weeks – if it could.

Assumption: 8. “Most people with HIV infection show signs of AIDS within 5–10 years” – the justification for prophylaxis of AIDS with the DNA chain terminator AZT.

FACT: Of “34.3 million . . . with HIV worldwide” only 1.4% [= 471,457 (obtained by substracting the WHO’s cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000)] developed AIDS in 2000, and similarly low percentages prevailed in all previous years. Likewise, in 1985, only 1.2% of the 1 million US citizens with HIV developed AIDS. Since an annual incidence of 1.2–1.4% of all 26 AIDS defining diseases combined is no more than the normal mortality in the US and Europe (life expectancy of 75 years), HIV must be a passenger virus.

Assumption: 9. A vaccine against HIV should (“is hoped” to) prevent AIDS – the reason why AIDS researchers try to develop an AIDS vaccine since 1984.

FACT: Despite enormous efforts there is no such vaccine to this day. Moreover, since AIDS occurs by definition only in the presence of natural antibodies against HIV, and since natural antibodies are so effective that no HIV is detectable in AIDS patients, even the hopes for a vaccine are irrational.

Assumption: 10. HIV, like other viruses, survives by transmission from host to host, which is said to be mediated “through sexual contact”.

FACT: Only 1 in 1000 unprotected sexual contacts transmits HIV, and only 1 of 275 US citizens is HIV-infected. Therefore, an average un-infected US citizen needs 275,000 random “sexual contacts” to get infected and spread HIV – an unlikely basis for an epidemic.

Assumption: 11. “AIDS spreads by infection” of HIV.

FACT: Contrary to the spread of AIDS, there is no “spread” of HIV in the US. In the US HIV infections have remained constant at 1 million from 1985 (29) until now. By contrast, AIDS has increased from 1981 until 1992 and has declined ever since.

Assu,ptions: 12. Many of the 3 million people who annually receive blood transfusions in the US for life-threatening diseases, should have developed AIDS from HIV-infected blood donors prior to the elimination of HIV from the blood supply in 1985.

FACT: There was no increase in AIDS-defining diseases in HIV-positive transfusion recipients in the AIDS era, and no AIDS-defining Kaposi’s sarcoma has ever been observed in millions of transfusion recipients.

Assumptions: 13. Doctors are at high risk to contract AIDS from patients, HIV researchers from virus preparations, wives of HIV-positive hemophiliacs from husbands, and prostitutes from clients – particularly since there is no HIV vaccine.

FACT: In the peer-reviewed literature there is not one doctor or nurse who has ever contracted AIDS (not just HIV) from the over 816,000 AIDS patients recorded in the US in 22 years. Not one of over ten thousand HIV researchers has contracted AIDS. Wives of hemophiliacs do not get AIDS. And there is no AIDS-epidemic in prostitutes. Thus AIDS is not contagious.

Assumptions: 14. Viral AIDS – like all viral/microbial epidemics in the past should spread randomly in a population.

FACT: In the US and Europe AIDS is restricted since 1981 to two main risk groups, intravenous drug users and male homosexual drug users.

Assumption: 15. A viral AIDS epidemic should form a classical, bell-shaped chronological curve, rising exponentially via virus spread and declining exponentially via natural immunity, within months.

FACT: AIDS has been increasing slowly since 1981 for 12 years and is now declining since 1993, just like a lifestyle epidemic, as for example lung cancer from smoking.

Assumption: 16. AIDS should be a pediatric epidemic now, because HIV is transmitted “from mother to infant” at rates of 25–50%, and because “34.3 million people worldwide” were already infected in 2000. To reduce the high maternal transmission rate HIV-antibody-positive pregnant mothers are treated with AZT for up to 6 months prior to birth.

Fact: Less than 1% of AIDS in the US and Europe is pediatric. Thus HIV must be a passenger virus in newborns.

Assumption: 17. “HIV recognizes no social, political or geographic borders” – just like all other viruses.

FACT: The presumably HIV-caused AIDS epidemics of Africa and of the US and Europe differ both clinically and epidemiologically. The US/European epidemic is highly nonrandom, 80% male and restricted to abnormal risk groups, whereas the African epidemic is random.

The cause of AIDS is or are: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy, and malnutrition. HIV does NOT cause AIDS, and AIDS is NOT a sexually transmitted disease. To believe otherwise in the face of fact and logic is incomprehensible to me.

[tallhappy]

I have agreed with Deusberg since the 1980's when he first spoke out.

But it is a visceral subject.

In 100 years when it is less political and emotional it will be an interesting episode of how scientific rigor broke down.

[I got the rope]

Koch's postulates - Medical Dictionary of popular medical terms

[Doctor Stochastic]

This was the opinion of the Homintern for some years back in the 1980s. The idea that AIDS wasn't an STD allowed them to avoid facing problems with bath houses and multiple partners. These ideas were debated all over the Usenet news groups during the 1980s.

[I got the rope]

Here's the paper they used

[tallhappy]

Robert Koch is long dead. He was one of the pioneers in germ theory a long time ago. He was a German Doctor and his postulates are from 1890. They formed the basis for the miraculous advances there have been in treating disease over the last century.

Your cynicism in quite unfounded.

[Doctor Stochastic]

One can't read all of these. I only read the abstracts of 35 or so (depending on how you count JSTOR) of this list.

[Lloyd227]

ping

[Melas]

Don't forget the decimated hemophiliac population in America. During the 80's they were hit hard.

[Melas]

Don't forget the decimated hemophiliac population in America. During the 80's they were hit hard.

[InterceptPoint]

Koch's 3rd Postulate: The microorganism must reproduce the original disease when introduced into an experimental animal.

"While evidence from one chimpanzee may not seem compelling to the lay person, in the scientific arena and in conjunction with other, cumulative data, it is considered persuasive"

Your one chimpanzee "proof" of Koch's 3rd postulate just isn't good enough for me. It is junk science and nothing else. The HIV=AIDS hypothesis does NOT satisfy Koch's 3rd postulate. Period. It doesn't even satisfy his 1st. HIV is not found in all AIDS patients. All means all. Not 90%, Not 99% but 100%.

[Doctor Stochastic]

It's sad though. The epidemiology is consistent with viral transmission but not with malnutrition nor inhaler use. Those assuming a non-viral causation of AIDS (such as Mbeki) run the risk of helping spread AIDS.

[annyokie]

There is a difference between skepticism and cynicism. I remain skeptical. How is my reading of a 13 year old scientific document refuted by an hundred year old document? I was just chastized up the thread for not be au courant in the literature. Now, I am asked, nay, tasked to take as gospel the opinion of some fellow who is Sigmund Freud's contemporary? The cognative dissonance here is deafening at times.

[I got the rope]

HIV is not found in all AIDS patients. All means all. Not 90%, Not 99% but 100%.

Link please. New PCR techniques disproves this.

[I got the rope]

Yes. It's a childish debate technique. We will never find the "bright-line" to end the discussion if they continually redefine the known limits that we have. Apologists for homosexuals are also trying to redefine science to justify their behavior.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I find it interesting that "Conservatives" seem to be taking over the old Homintern arguments: HIV doesn't cause AIDS; There is a "gay" style of music (or literature, etc.) and some others.

[I got the rope]

Your one chimpanzee "proof" of Koch's 3rd postulate just isn't good enough for me. It is junk science and nothing else.

While you whine...science will go on.

HIV/AIDS Vaccine: Virion-based vaccine protects animals against disease

Control of viremia and prevention of simian-human immunodeficiency virus-induced disease in rhesus macaques immunized with recombinant vaccinia viruses plus inactivated simian immunodeficiency virus and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 particles.

[I got the rope]

It's strange that I haven't run into these "conservatives" sooner. Ping L.J.!

[Doctor Stochastic]

The incidence of AIDS among the victims of needle-stick accidents would also indicate an infectious agent rather than environmental exposure.

Of course, malnutrition is cured rather quickly by eating; AIDS isn't.

[realpatriot71]

So, I suppose that is it just mere coincidence that people who don't test positive for anti-HIV Abs nor HIV viral isolation don't get AIDS. It also must be more coincidence that people who test positive for anti-HIV Abs and have a positive viral isolation DO eventually lose enough T-cells to allow for AIDS defining conditions such as KS and P. carnii peumonia. Furthering to the coincidences the people who test positive can trace they infection back to people who also test positive, and these transmissions can be positively shown to be associated with the tranference of bodily fluids, especially blood. Even more coincidental is that fact that HIV's more specific bodily tagret ligand happens to be the CD4 T-cell receptor, and that it is this particular population of T-cells that become depleted, and it is this particular population of T-cells, when lacking, that leads to the exact diseases directly associated with HIV/AIDS.

but you're right . . . NO WAY HIV CAUSES AIDS *sarcasm*

If you really believe this, then I've got some great oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you, real cheap!

[realpatriot71]

They can't give it to you because it doesn't exist - and they know it. Unfortunately there are now too many careers and too much business at stake for them to give up the myth and so it persists.

You're serious?! What do you want "proven"? HIV binds to the CD4 ligand, which happens to be a receptor on the exact cell population that becomes depleted leading to some of the strangest diseases medicine ever sees including Kaposi's Sarcoma and P. carnii peumonia. The life cycle of the virus is widely understood. People who test positive for anti-HIV Abs GET AIDS, what more do you want?