Posted on 12/10/2008 8:33:43 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
Top Scientists Ask Medical Journal Science To Retract Original AIDS Papers
SAN FRANCISCO (Rethinking AIDS) Dec. 9, 2008—The international nonprofit scientific organization Rethinking AIDS gave its full support today to 37 senior researchers, medical doctors and legal professionals who are requesting that the medical journal Science withdraw four seminal papers on HIV authored by Dr. Robert Gallo—papers widely touted as proof that HIV is the "probable cause of AIDS." An online posting of the letter can be found here.
"With new findings that undermine the scientific integrity and veracity of Gallo's four papers, the entire basis of the theory that HIV causes AIDS may now be questioned," says Rethinking AIDS president David Crowe.
The letter to the journal comes at a time when the microbiology world is abuzz about Gallo's omission from the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for the discovery of HIV, contrary to an international agreement that the two teams should share credit. French scientists Drs. Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barré-Sinoussi are instead to be given the award, a decision that also implicitly questions the scientific integrity of Gallo's claim of the discovery. Montagnier, however, admitted on camera more than a decade ago that his experiments did not purify any virus.
The four papers were originally published on May 4, 1984, a few days after a press conference by Gallo announcing he had discovered the "probable cause of AIDS." Now, a British investigative journalist has shown that Gallo's claim was based on last-minute alterations to documents that make false claims about the results of his lab work and research experiments. The letter to Science sent by the 37 experts on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008, includes a copy of Gallo’s handwritten changes to the article, a letter from an electron microscopy expert indicating that Gallo’s samples did not contain any virus, and a letter from Gallo to a researcher verifying that HIV could not be purified directly from human materials.
The investigative conclusion prompting the letter to Science was made by journalist Janine Roberts, author of Fear of the Invisible, a book that examines the origin of several disease theories. "I was shocked when I read the original draft of the key scientific paper now widely cited as proving HIV causes AIDS," says Roberts. "Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had reversed what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded. This demonstrates a stunning disregard for the scientific process and a very disturbing breach of public trust."
It is clear that the seminal research published on HIV contained unjustified claims and alterations. In 1993, governmental investigators determined Gallo had so poorly recorded his key and much-cited experiment that it was impossible to repeat and verify it.
In the early 1990s, several highly critical reports on the research underlying Gallo's papers were produced as a result of governmental inquiries working under the supervision of scientists nominated by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that the lead paper of the four was "fraught with false and erroneous statements" and that the “ORI believes that the careless and unacceptable keeping of research records . . . reflects irresponsible laboratory management that has permanently impaired the ability to retrace the important steps taken." Further, a Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations produced a staff report on the papers, containing scathing criticisms of their integrity.
Rethinking AIDS — an international group of more than 2,600 scientists, doctors, journalists, health advocates and others — offers several eminent medical and scientific experts to comment on this and other AIDS issues currently in the news:
Etienne de Harven, M.D.* Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto Saint Cézaire, France Member and professor in cell biology, Sloan Kettering Institute, New York, 1956-1981. Isolated and obtained the first electron microscopic studies of the murine Friend leukemia virus, and retroviral budding. Frequent critic of the "isolation" of HIV, and past president of Rethinking AIDS. Dr. de Harven can comment on the science of retrovirus isolation.
Janine Roberts Investigative Reporter Bristol, U.K. jan@fearoftheinvisible.com Author, Fear of the Invisible, a recent book exposing the fraud in the drafting of one of the original 1984 Science articles by Robert Gallo. Web site: www.fearoftheinvisible.com
Media Contacts:
David Crowe* President, Rethinking AIDS Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Mountain time zone) 1-403-289-6609 (office) 1-403-861-2225 (mobile) david.crowe@aras.ab.ca
Elizabeth Ely Public Relations Chairperson Rethinking AIDS Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. (Eastern time zone) 1-718-704-9672 (mobile) publicrelations@rethinkingaids.com
*Rethinking AIDS board member.
Rethinking AIDS: The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis ("RA" or "the Group") was formed in 1991 to express the concerns of a growing number of renowned scientists and medical doctors about HIV research and the resulting human rights abuses. In 1995, by a letter published in Science, the Group called for a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against the HIV/AIDS hypothesis and recommended that critical epidemiological studies be undertaken.
Among RA's founders and key members are University of Toronto professor emeritus and former cancer researcher Dr. Etienne de Harven; Harvard microbiologist Dr. Charles Thomas; 1993 Nobel laureate for chemistry Dr. Kary Mullis; Nature/Biotechnology co-founder Dr. Harvey Bialy; University of California at Berkeley molecular biologist Dr. Peter Duesberg and the late Yale mathematician Dr. Serge Lang, both members of the National Academy of Sciences; physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos of the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia; and Glasgow University professor emeritus of public health and World Health Organization consultant Dr. Gordon Stewart.
It’s not MY claim! Go read the study! I even gave you the page number!
“Nevertheless, the ABSENCE of seroincident infection over the course of the study cannot be entirely attributed to significant behavior change. NO transmission occured among the 25 percent of couples who did not use condoms consistently at their last follow-up nor among the 47 couples who intermittently practiced unsafe sex during the entire duration of follow-up” (Padian, pg 356.)
What’s even more odd is that when proof of Gallo’s fraud is availble for you to see you choose to ignore it. EVEN Gallo didn’t find a virus. Montagnier gave an interview ON CAMERA where he admitted they didn’t find a virus.
Maybe you’re in denial over how much we’ve been lied to?
That is absolutely and unequivocally untrue.
They observed a 19% transmission rate from men to women and a 4% transmission rate from women to men.
Do you deny that they observed this 19% and 4% transmission rate? Based upon what other than your tendency to misrepresent or ignore contrary information?
You be sure and get back to us when you can demonstrate that death rates from HIV went down in the absence of treatment. Be sure and discriminate between untreated and various early treatments.
LinkCauses of Mortality in Antiretroviral-Treated Patients
Two abstracts presented at the 39th ICAAC meeting demonstrated that in patients treated with combination antiretroviral therapy, AIDS deaths are rare.In 252 patients followed for 2 years by Reiter and colleagues, there were no AIDS deaths among the 154 on combination therapy, compared with 12 AIDS deaths among 98 patients who received no antiretroviral therapy.
Three secondary deaths occurred in the treatment group: 1 from advanced diabetes and coronary disease, 1 from hepatitis C-associated cirrhosis, and 1 from pancreatitis secondary to ddI treatment.
Justice and colleagues reported that in the CHOROUS cohort of more than 4500 patients, less than half the 140 deaths were attributable to progression of HIV disease. Common causes of death in this cohort were liver failure, myocardial infarction/sudden death, suicide, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, pancreatitis, lung cancer, and stroke.
These studies indicate that mortality in antiretroviral-treated patients is now largely secondary to progression of underlying comorbid illnesses and side effects of therapy, findings that powerfully underscore the need to anticipate, prevent, and treat the side effects of such illnesses.
Lets play the GGG game here and assume that anyone who has AIDS automatically dies of AIDS (or that you can't tell the difference).
What we have is 3 of 154 treated patients dying vs 12 of 98 untreated patients dying. This is over a period of two years.
This is scary stuff. I wouldn't want to be in either group, but forced to choose, I'd take the group with a two percent chance of dying vs the group with the 12 percent chance of dying.
Of course You might argue that none of this matters because HIV is harmless. Right?
Good data like Gallo’s original papers?
If you want to ignore everything that would disprove the viral theory of aids and instead just shoot messengers, impugn motives and use scare mongering to try and prevent others from looking into it , that’s up to you.
I guess you’ve chosen not check the drug disclaimers as well.
PADIAN admits she didn’t “observe” it!-——We observed NO seroconversions AFTER entry into the study” [NOBODY became HIV positive]
Look....I gave you the page number to go and see for yourself. The people in the study who were + were + BEFORE the study began. If you only want to read the abstract and ignore the many hundreds of pages that the entire study contains that’s your choice but the fact is that the study is available for anyone to go and see for themselves.
You obviously have not done that. That’s your choice.
Funny how you left out what else I posted “in the mean time”
You obviously are not interested in hearing anything that would disprove the viral theory of aids. I don’t know what your agenda is but it certainly isn’t an interest in hearing all sides of an issue. You won’t even go to the drug manufacturers own sites to check anything. You claim to only be interested in good data but ignore the fact that the entire theory is based on fraudulent data.
That’s your choice.
OUT OF CONTEXT AGAIN. They observed no transmission amid a subset of the experimental group.
They observed a 19% transmission rate from men to women and a 4% transmission rate from women to men. It says so right in the abstract.
Do you deny that they observed a 19% and 4% transmission rate?
Why do you wish to represent these observed transmission of HIV as a zero transmission rate?
I'm holding my breath.
How can you read this and conclude that there was zero transmission? I know you can take a passage where she says there was zero transmission among a subset out of context, but how do you explain away the observed transmission of HIV from an infected partner to the uninfected partner?
Obviously Padian did not observe zero transmission throughout the study, just in a subset. Throughout the study there was a 19% and a 2.4% transmission rate.
Again I ask, why do you feel the need to misrepresent these data?
1: Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Aug 15;146(4):350-7. Links
Heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in northern California: results from a ten-year study.Padian NS, Shiboski SC, Glass SO, Vittinghoff E.
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
To examine rates of and risk factors for heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the authors conducted a prospective study of infected individuals and their heterosexual partners who have been recruited since 1985. Participants were recruited from health care providers, research studies, and health departments throughout Northern California, and they were interviewed and examined at various study clinic sites. A total of 82 infected women and their male partners and 360 infected men and their female partners were enrolled. Over 90% of the couples were monogamous for the year prior to entry into the study; < 3% had a current sexually transmitted disease (STD). The median age of participants was 34 years, and the majority were white. Over 3,000 couple-months of data were available for the follow-up study. Overall, 68 (19%) of the 360 female partners of HIV-infected men (95% confidence interval (CI) 15.0-23.3%) and two (2.4%) of the 82 male partners of HIV-infected women (95% CI 0.3-8.5%) were infected. History of sexually transmitted diseases was most strongly associated with transmission. Male-to-female transmission was approximately eight-times more efficient than female-to-male transmission and male-to-female per contact infectivity was estimated to be 0.0009 (95% CI 0.0005-0.001). Over time, the authors observed increased condom use (p < 0.001) and no new infections. Infectivity for HIV through heterosexual transmission is low, and STDs may be the most important cofactor for transmission. Significant behavior change over time in serodiscordant couples was observed.
PMID: 9270414 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
*Snort*
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