The Chemical Basis of AIDS

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.

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.

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.

Thanks. This is a perfect example of the problem. In no way do surveys such as these, in terms of experimental design, even come close to evaluating pathogenic spread.

And as they note, these are hand-wavy numbers and estimates.

Note. These numbers do not represent actual cases in persons with a diagnosis of HIV infection or AIDS. Rather, these numbers are point estimates of cases diagnosed that have been adjusted for reporting delays and for redistribution of cases in persons initially reported without an identified risk. The estimates have not been adjusted for incomplete reporting.

Data include persons in whom AIDS has developed and persons whose first diagnosis of HIV infection and the diagnosis of AIDS were made at the same time.

Johnson does not have full-blown AIDS. To maintain his health, he takes a cocktail of GlaxoSmithKline drugs as well as drugs made by other companies. A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said the message they're trying to get across is that Johnson looks good because he takes his medications every day.

So why the mystery about what he is taking? He could be taking a GlaxoSmithEline cocktail of vitamins and the statement above would still be true and it would prove nothing.

The specific medication that he takes, if any, should be published in medical journals so we can see what works in at least this one case. Until Magic comes out and tells the world what he is really taking and stops hiding behind all that medical record nonsense then nobody outside the AIDS profession is going to believe he is really taking your drugs. I don't.

Again: Why isn't Magic the subject of serious articles in medical journals. He should be your best "proof" that you can manage AIDS. Or alternatively, he could be the best example that an HIV positive test in a healthy non-drug using man like Magic is meaningless.

After Mass today I spoke with some men who were new. I saw one of them in mass and he looked like something was odd about him -- druggie, alcholic, or a mental patient. He also looked somewhat like an older "cholo".

After mass I intro myself to him and he intro's his young friends. All 3 live in a drug rehab center (halfway house?) for addicts less than two blocks away. (BTW, I attend St. John the Evangelist Parish in Stamford Ct.)

We talk and I happen to mention how I saw herion addicts shoot up in jail -- and share needles. I mention the risk of AIDS and the older man tells me he has been HIV positive for 20 years -- he got it through sharing needles.

He also tells me that he has had two children in the mean time -- both HIV free. His wife is HIV free. He says he doesn't take any medicine. He looks worn out, but not from AIDS/HIV but from drugs. (I've seen plenty of druggies and they all have this beaten worn down aged look.)

Now, this doesn't mean anything, since I can't tell if he's telling the truth. He could be telling partial truths. That seems to be the weakest link in the the HIV/AIDS debate -- how to tell if someone is telling you the truth. He could indeed be positive, but he could be lying about how long. He could be lying about his kids, etc. Who knows.

However, it was a very intersting meeting. It doesn't disprove that HIV causes AIDS. It doesn't prove it either on the other hand. Can some people's immune system survive HIV, and not get full blown AIDS? Could he have had a false positive? Did his HIV mutate to a "harmless" form?

I am still convinced that HIV is directly related to AIDS. I myself wouldn't chance a HIV infection on the belief that it's not related. Better safe than sorry. This guy may be the exception to the rule.

I do have one question however. Even IF HIV was not the transmitting factor, and there is no such thing as heterosexual aids, then how would the rampant infections in Africa and Asia be explained.

Although this has been discussed for several years, there was just something within the past couple of weeks in the news from some organizations in Africa admitting that the numbers for AIDS cases in certain regions there have been overblown. AIDS in Africa, a continent awash in disease generally, receives more money for AIDS than for any other specific medical condition and almost more than for all other diseases combined. Organizations there are motivated to describe as many cases of disease as AIDS or HIV-related as they possibly can. Not only that, there are organizations in those countries that are created specifically for the purpose of taking advantage of all the money from the West being made available to fight AIDS/HIV.

This is not to say that there is not a higher rate of AIDS among heterosexuals there than in the US, just that the overall number is overstated. Also, the reason for the high rate of heterosexual AIDS is due to certain sexual practices--notably the desire of men in various African cultures for quick, rough, dry penetration. This, combined with the associated physical trauma such intercourse causes and a man with HIV, makes it far more likely there than in other parts of the world that there will be enough blood and trauma for infection to occur.

Ooops wrong link, but you can check out all of the CDC data yourself, but I would like to give you a direct link to the Technical notes on the reporting and surviellence data . . . please note the 6th paragraph from the top:

"Over time, HIV infection may progress to AIDS and be reported to surveillance. Persons with HIV infection (not AIDS) who are later reported as having AIDS are deleted from the HIV infection (not AIDS) tables and added to the AIDS tables. Persons with HIV infection may be tested at any point on the clinical spectrum of disease; therefore, the time between diagnosis of HIV infection and diagnosis of AIDS differs. In addition, because surveillance practices differ, the reporting and updating of persons’ clinical and vital status differs among states. Completeness of reporting for HIV infection (not AIDS) is estimated at more than 85% [4]. By matching data in the national surveillance database, CDC estimates that approximately 2% of cases of HIV infection (not AIDS) are duplicates."

The people on these tables who have AIDS, by definition of the data, had HIV first, as reported! (With a few exceptions noted; ~20 cases of AIDS without any detectable HIV Ab). You do the math.

So what is the viral pathology. What is the current theory of the mechanism that cause T-Cells or other immune cells to all die out?

Good question, but one for the sake of time, I cannot type out completely here in this forum, besides it'd be VERY tedious. If you're really interested in the "whole story" go to your local library and ask to see Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine - read ad naseum :-)

Here's the reader's digest version: the virus binds to a specific receptor sites on a specific subset of T cells known as CD4 cells (Helper T's). It is this specific population of T cells that is diminished during the course of AIDS, and since this particular subset of T cells is responsible for directing and controlling most immune functions, you start to see the strange infectious and malignant phenomenon of AIDS. It has been shown that the virus in an effected indivdiual is latent in the exact cells that are deficient during AIDS, and that the body's own immune/response mechanisms to viral infections are alive and working to destroy these same cells when the virus is active.

Dr. Peter Duesberg of UC Berkley covered this stuff years ago and got trashed by 'the establishment' for doing it. He covers in great detail alternative explainations for AIDS. But has since given up evangelizing the issue (at least to my knowledge).

I don't think Ryan White proves your case. As far as we know he was properly nurished, didn't have chemo, nor take recreational drugs. He was HIV positive and died from AIDS (though I do not know what ailment actually killed him.)

Ryan White was a hemophiliac and years of put foreign proteins into his blood can crash his immune system.

The most damning argument against your claims is that I have failed to see where AIDS has been produced from "poppers" and other drugs in lab specimins. If this were the case, it would be a tremendous discovery and the word would be out on the street. Bath houses would reopen (sans poppers) and anonymous orgies would once again rule the gay world. Condoms would fall by the wayside. Yet, this hasn't happened! Is this another FDA/CDC conspiracy to side with drug corporations?

It's my understanding that poppers are an integral part of the promiscous sex scene (esp. gay sex). It's also my understanding that homosexual men are the chief users of poppers in terms of quanity. Certainly heteros and lesbians if users tend to use the substance with alot less frequency. If they did than this population would be an excellent test to see if poppers do cause AIDS.

The other problem I have always had is that AZT has a laundry list of side effects many which end up in death. So your mortality rates for patients using the drugs would be high. Then when protease inhibitors arrive more people live longer, but these drugs are less dangerous than AZT (even though they are still pretty bad themselves in terms of side effects). So now we have people living longer so the new drugs appear better.

It's been a while since I did any medline searches on this stuff. But to my knowledge no double blind studies have been done on the current protocols for AIDS. Only randomized trials against previous treatment protocols. So once AZT was established all you have to do is beat AZT. You never have to go back and see if you're better than placebo.

I was thinking something more along the lines of this, Nef Harbors a Major Determinant of Pathogenicity for an AIDS-like Disease Induced by HIV-1 in Transgenic Mice but thanks anyhow

LOL - You were wanting a complete listing of every scientific paper that pertains to every particular area of the virology and pathophysiology of HIV in humans - PLEASE! - I don't that kind of time to spend on thsi forum.

Look, I'm a med student, currently immersed in this subject matter, and I've studied every aspect involved from the biochemistry to the cellular pathology. I can tell you without any doubt in my mind: HIV causes AIDS.

If that doesn't convince you, then read what I told you to. It's not a textbook, so much as a compendium of internal medicine knowledge that has kept up with as much scientific medical discovery as possible. If you read the few pages or so on HIV/AIDS abd still don't "buy it," nothing I'm going to say (or any other physician for that matter) will change your mind.

It's hard to understand where you are coming from or your rationales for thinking attributing the higher rates of disease and death in the homosexual community to unhealthy activities is somehow part of the homosexual agenda.

What's hard to understand is why they continue their behavior in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is harmful to their health.

Wait...let me guess your response..."What evidence?" LOL.

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