The World’s Most Reviled Genius (buck politically correct "science", have your career ruined)

Newsweek ^ | October 9, 2009 | Jeneen Interlandi

[GodGunsGuts]

Can the scientist who denied the cause of AIDS be trusted to cure cancer?

--snip--

...In the past three decades, Duesberg has been described as a genius, a martyr, and a genocidal lunatic—often by the same person, usually amid the fierce debates and international headlines that come with major scientific breakthroughs. In 1971, at the age of 33, he became the first scientist to identify a cancer-causing gene—a biological holy grail that secured his place among an elite group of the country's top researchers. Tenure at Berkeley and a coveted spot in the National Academy of Sciences followed. So did rumors of a Nobel and millions in grant money from the National Cancer Institute.

Then in 1988, Duesberg broke ranks with his colleagues and postulated that the newly discovered human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) was not the cause of AIDS. Rather, he declared, it was a harmless passenger virus, found by coincidence in patients whose illnesses stemmed from a constellation of other factors including malnutrition and substance abuse. For this, he was summarily cast out of Eden: Grant money evaporated. Graduate students disappeared. Nobel laureates stopped inviting him to dinner. Of course, he might have been forgiven—or at least forgotten—were it not for...

[GodGunsGuts]

If you would like to be added to the RETHINKING AIDS PING LIST drop me a FReepmail.**For more information, see my profile page**

[Hans]

The problem is who would trust anything Time Magazine wrote?

[GodGunsGuts]

Very sad. All Duesberg’s risk-AIDS hypothesis predictions were confirmed by science, and virtually all the AIDS establishments predictions turned out to be false, and how does the biomedical research establishment show its appreciation?...by destroying Duesberg’s brilliant career. The global warming fanatics have nothing on these guys. What a shame.

[GodGunsGuts]

It’s not Time, it’s Newsweek...and like all the other leftist, politically correct, anti-science maniacs over there, Newsweek was all for ruining Duesberg’s career for daring to uncover the AIDS scandal. It seems now the AIDS establishment is trying to encourage Duesberg to go in a new direction, as he is still a thorn in their side even after they took away all his grants, censored his papers, and otherwise ruined what was a brilliant career in science.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Then in 1988, Duesberg broke ranks with his colleagues and postulated that the newly discovered human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) was not the cause of AIDS.

His problem was that he couldn't show why keeping the AIDS virus out of the blood supply prevented any new AIDS clinical diagnoses. This is still true 20 years later. No virus, no disease.

As a result he was helping convince future AIDS victims (mainly homosexuals and other sodomists) that they didn't need to worry about contracting the disease in the face of evidence to the contrary. And he still has no evidence for this view.

But his views on cancer are much closer to those of the researchers who work in the field. We'll see.

[GodGunsGuts]

==His problem was that he couldn’t show why keeping the AIDS virus out of the blood supply prevented any new AIDS clinical diagnoses. This is still true 20 years later. No virus, no disease.

Not true at all. In this one study alone Duesberg found 4521 HIV-free AIDS cases:

http://www.duesberg.com/about/pdbiotech93.html

[IrishCatholic]

If you look at the underlying problem in the story is that bureaucracy controls science and personalities control science. Not facts.
If you aren’t popular then you won’t get toys and money. So go with the popular theories if you want funding.

[garbanzo]

There’s an Issac Asimov short story, “The Dead Past” which eerily predicted this state of affairs from the trend of bureaucratic controlled science in the 1950s. Google the term “intellectual anarchy” to find the story.

[GodGunsGuts]

==His problem was that he couldn't show why keeping the AIDS virus out of the blood supply prevented any new AIDS clinical diagnoses.

Wrong again. Look closely. Not only did the number of AIDS cases continue to rise when they began screening HIV out of the blood supply, but the number of AIDS cases continued to rise even though the number of HIV infections were in steep decline. Duesberg predicted this, whereas the AIDS establishment predicted the exact opposite. But because the implications of Duesberg's risk-AIDS hypothesis were not politically correct, Duesberg had his career ruined by the AIDS establishment:

[GodGunsGuts]

You are 100% correct. This is one of the many things that the liberals have done that needs to be reversed when the opportunity presents itself. But you have to be ready for said opportunity when it comes, or said opportunity passes you by.

[Little Ray]

Ummm, if HIV is not the cause of AIDS then why do the treatment protocols based that “flawed” science seem to extend AIDS patients’ life expectancies?

[LaineyDee]

I read his book back in the early 90's and remember he maintained one of the reasons HIV was so devastating to the homosexual crowd was because of their over-use of antibiotics and "poppers" for their pleasure parties.....which compromised their immune systems and made them an opportunistic host for the virus.

Another point I remember......he opposed the use of AZT as a frontline drug for treating AIDS because it was taken off the market as a chemotherapy agent. It was proven to ravage the immune system. Makes you go hmmmmmmm.....

[GodGunsGuts]

Life expectancy is going up, but it has nothing to do with the AIDS drugs. For Modern Conservative reports that:

Ronald B Reisler M.D., M.P.H. did a five-year review (1996-2001) of about 3000 HIV/AIDS patients who took the anti-retroviral cocktails. He found that:

1.332 patients suffered an “AIDS” event, meaning some purported manifestation of the underlying disease, however;

2. 675 patients suffered a “Grade 4” event, meaning a life-threatening illness was attributed to the drugs, not the virus. The most common of these side-effects were:

a. Liver damage
b. Neutropenia (white blood cell loss)
c. Anemia (red blood cell loss)
d. Cardiovascular, including heart attacks
e. Pancreatitis
f. Psychiatric disorders
g. Kidney problems
h. Thrombocytopenia
i. Hemorrhage

In sum, twice as many AIDS patients fell ill from the drugs than from AIDS – which is exactly what Dr. Duesberg predicted would happen in the late 1980s.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/464875

[LaineyDee]

why do the treatment protocols based that “flawed” science seem to extend AIDS patients’ life expectancies?

You have to ask yourself who sets those life expectancies? How did Magic Johnson become "cured" of HIV after refusing those protocols?

My cousin has had HIV for 20 years......and is still kicking. He refused the treatments... but allows himself to be tested yearly.

I remember reading....and I think it was Duesberg...that said there was typically a 2 year prognosis AFTER starting the treatment protocol... It really perked up my ears....and made me look at the disease in a totally different way.

[Logophile]

But even as some of his ideas rise to the top, Duesberg himself remains stuck at the bottom. Few scientists who have turned their attention to aneuploidy bother to cite Duesberg's work. His lab is down to its last $50,000, and this past year Berkeley officials relieved him of his only remaining teaching duty. Even some scientists who don't agree with Duesberg say that he has been treated unfairly. "The ideological assassinations that he has undergone will remain an embarrassing testament to the reactionary tendencies of modern science," Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, wrote in 1996.

Even if it were discovered that Duesberg had been right all along, don't expect anyone to acknowledge him. Once the scientific establishment declared him a persona non grata, his work disappeared down the memory hole.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The problems with Duesberg and his methods were well documented.

If you have access, you can check out volume 266, No. 5191, of Science which is the 12/9/1994 issue, where several of his claims are addressed.

If Duesberg’s claims were true, HIV screening of the blood supply wouldn’t have reduced the rate that recipients of blood, and blood products, get AIDS.

The CDC has plenty of data to show the dramatic decline in AIDS cases in the US since HIV screening was implemented.

[Buchal]

Few people understand that federal funding has virtually destroyed science as an evidence-based process, at least in heavily-funded areas. And so-called peer review, which Republicans often equate with “good science”, is one of the primary means used to impose the political control.

[GodGunsGuts]

That's what they would like to think. But tens of thousands of people are keeping the work of Duesberg and other AIDS Rethinker scientists alive all around the globe. The question is, will Duesberg et al be vindicated in this lifetime. That, I'm very sad to say, almost completely depends on politics, which in turn depends on a popular upswelling of grassroots support. It's a long shot, but it has been many time before, so it is most certainly not outside the realm of possibility. All the best--GGG

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Wrong again. Look closely. Not only did the number of AIDS cases continue to rise when they began screening HIV out of the blood supply, but the number of AIDS cases continued to rise even though the number of HIV infections were in steep decline.

You are incorrect. It's well known that AIDS takes years to develop from HIV infection.

And both your graphs show AIDS cases declining starting in the 90's as you'd expect.

You know the CDC has this data through 2006. I'm wondering why you don't post it in the place of the older graphs? Because of the precipitous decline in AIDS cases?

Duesberg ruined his own career by gambling with people's lives.