MortalWombat

In a few other threads (for instance here, here, and here), RoddyM made claims to the effect that there was no evidence that HIV causes AIDS and that no one has ever seen the HIV virus.

In order to place this discussion in a more appropriate forum, and so other threads don't get sidetracked, I felt it was necessary to bring the conversation back to Science and Skepticism.

Leaving aside the claim (made twice, by the way) that no one has ever seen the virus (which people can judge for themselves based on photomicrographs) I would like him to explain the following, if HIV were not the cause of AIDS:

- HIV and AIDS have been repeatedly linked in time, place and population group.

- The appearance of HIV in the blood supply has preceded or coincided with the occurrence of AIDS cases in every country and region where AIDS has been noted.

- Among individuals without HIV, AIDS-like symptoms are extraordinarily rare, even in populations with many AIDS cases.

- Individuals as different as homosexual men, elderly transfusion recipients, heterosexual women, drug-using heterosexual men and infants have all developed AIDS with only one common denominator: infection with HIV.

- Laboratory workers accidentally exposed to highly concentrated HIV and health care workers exposed to HIV-infected blood have developed immunosuppression and AIDS with no other risk factor for immune dysfunction.

- Scientists have now used PCR to find HIV in virtually every patient with AIDS and to show that HIV is present in large and increasing amounts even in the pre-AIDS stages of HIV disease.

- Researchers also have demonstrated a correlation between the amount of HIV in the body and progression of the aberrant immunologic processes seen in people with AIDS.

The above points are taken from here. I would also add the following point of my own:

- Studies of people who have been exposed multiple times to HIV but have not been infected or developed AIDS have shown a common trait: a defective mutation in the CCR5 gene, which just so happens to code for a cellular co-receptor needed by HIV for efficient entry into white blood cells.

Given all of the above, RoddyM (or anyone else for that matter), what explanation can you give if HIV were not the cause of AIDS?

Mad Kally

I'm not a scientist, I'm a hospice nurse (terminally ill) Before that I was an Oncology nurse. I've worked with many AIDS patients. Every patient I've met with full blown AIDS started with having HIV. Same with every other nurse I know. (and doctors) Why would this guy come along and makeup such a crackpot statement? Iwent to college in the 90's and learned a little about retro viruses in Microbiology

Corwin

There has been a group of people pushing the idea that HIV isn't the cause of AIDS for almost as long as AIDS has been identified. The reason is that they have an agenda..... I don't remember what it is but they're very much opposed to.... something.

It's been a long time since I read about these wackos.... but they're a specific group with a specific agenda that colors just about everything they do.

Valentine Pontifex

There is one of those lists of scientists of HIV denier at:

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm

This is, of course, this same tactic the evolution deniers use.

And speak of the devil: Phillip Johnson, Jonathan Wells, and Tom Bethell are on list.

Principia

I guess the only way to convince these people is for them to volunteer themselves for HIV inoculation. I remember reading one guy who went so far as to inject himself with contaminated blood, but only to die from something like a heart attack.

Wyz_sub10

Many African leaders have been blaming the disease on malnutrition in an attempt to link it to imperialism and put pressure on the developed world to increase aid.

South African President Thabo Mbeki is the best example.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/n...20-13un2.story

http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,38121.jsp

http://www.aegis.com/news/irin/2000/IR000703.html

Wyz_sub10

How can you not be persuaded? The list includes experts in the field - dentists, lawyers, authors, and about 100 people with no profession listed.

By gum, that's good enough for me!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my Scientology therapy and I still have to stop at my direct's house to pick up my Amway tapes...

MortalWombat

The thing is, in the early 80s when HIV was first identified, there was indeed a big bandwagon (to push the HIV/AIDS connection), with the initial evidence actually being weak. In those early days, a professional "devil's advocate," such as Peter Duesberg (the main AIDS dissenter) could be useful to stimulate further research in order to clarify things. But what happened is that further research was done and did confirm the earlier identification. In the 20 years since, the evidence from biological and epidemiological studies is overwhelming. And people like Duesberg have gone from being merely annoying to being downright dangerous (for example by influencing government policy in African countries where AIDS is an epidemic).

Just as an aside, Bob Gallo (the co-discoverer of HIV) was generally not well liked in the virology community at the time, and there would have been scores of scientists who would have loved to have made their careers by proving him wrong.

RoddyM

Ooh, my own thread. Thanks MortalWombat.

Last first:

Wyz_sub10,
People go for the paradigm because it promotes what is seen as hygienic moral behaviour and provides the opportunity for parents, teachers etc to do so. The world would be a better place if people didn't stick needles in their arms and if men didn't fuck other men up the ass.

I didn't propose a theory or statement. I do not have a theory for the non-existence of HIV. I do not say that the earth is flat as a response to the assertion that the earth is spherical. I do not say that God does not exist in reply the the assertion that he does. It is up to those that make grandiose claims to prove them if they expect people to act on them. That the earth is spherical I do not consider grandiose. That a God exists I do.

Malnutrition in some cases in some parts of the world may well be fairly blamed on American Imperialism. The protest by some African leaders is based on their reluctance to submit to American propaganda. The propaganda that says "Take our gifts. It is to your advantage."


Principia,
Inoculate oneself with what? How is one going to find serum that contains HIV? There is no serum that reliably has HIV in it. How is anyone going to supply a serum that has HIV virus in it? You would have to buy into the notion that the blood of HIV positives has infectious HIV virus in it. If you injected such a persons blood into your own bloodstream and did not "seroconvert" it would be seen as no proof. If you did "seroconvert" it would be reported as proof that HIV exists and is contagious. Yet even then it could be said by the mainsteam that the person was in the "window period" prior to inoculation or by the dissidents that the test is non-specific. There's a heap of reasons why such an experiment would not be proof of anything.

Val. Pont.,
Of course you get wackos everywhere. Theist, atheist; pro-abortion, pro-life; pro-war, anti-war... so what.

Corwin,
That's OK...

Mad Kally,
Sorry to hear that you're terminally ill [mod's note - she is not terminally ill. She works in a hospice, which is *for* the terminally ill]. Of course they had capital A capital I capital D capital S, because they were ill AND had tested positive on an antibody test. You live in a big enough city and you will have people that satisfy those criteria in your hospital. Thanks for the labelled drawing of the HIV virus.

MortalWombat,
I'm trying to make this post before more posts are made, so I'll try to summarize my answers to your objections.

My claim is that HIV and AIDS (I won't bother to parenthisize sp? the terms) are linked because early reports associated the condition with sick IV drug users and gay men. The initial research was done on the subset of this group that was sick, as was the search for a blood test that was supposed to identify what they had in common that was causing their illness and also able to diagnose and predict illness. This was done by trial and error which is not necessarily a scientific way to predict the future. Predictions made in the '80's on the basis of early theories turned out to be so much crap.

Associations will always remain unfalsifiable especially since the definitions are made by human consensus and subject to change.

PCR was invented by Kary Mullis and patented by his employers. Kary Mullis received the Nobel Prize (Biochemistry) for inventing PCR yet he states that PCR is of no use in diagnosing HIV infection and does in fact state that HIV is so far a non entity.

Diagnosticians talk about the PCR results that tally with their expectations and play down those that don't. Likewise with results of HIV antibody tests.

At one time the HIV test was implemented with the main intention of screening blood donations with the aim of preventing excessive litigation. The test has a cutoff value, arbitrarily set by whatever is seen to be the correct value. Blood donors have been tested HIV negative by their family doctors yet told by blood banks that their donations are no longer required.

All human blood will test +ve for "HIV" (this time I will include parenthises) if you lower the concentration, the amount of diluent used in the testing procedure. Dog blood commonly tests positive using the procedures recommended for human blood at most labs.

To answer MortalCombats last question;
People get sick and people die, is that so surprising. Not at all. Malnourished flaming gays with an axe to grind die like flies. That "previously healthy" stuff that used to always accompany "HIV the virus that causes AIDS" was just fairy tales.

pz

Have you read the NIH site that summarizes the evidence that HIV causes AIDS? The epidemiological evidence is overwhelming, and the causal evidence for the mechanisms of HIV infection and mortality is thorough. I haven't seen you present any evidence that contradicts it.