The Church of HIV: Inventing the AIDS Virus

On June 5th of 1981, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that five young men, "all active homosexuals", were diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in Los Angeles, California. At this point, the government run agency (CDC) had no idea what they had on their hands. In those early days and years, as more homosexual men began showing up in clusters with similar diseases, the CDC would continue with their reports, reporting of "Persistent, Generalized Lymphadenopathy among Homosexual Males", while also reporting of "Opportunistic Infections and Kaposi's Sarcoma among Haitians in the United States". Still, the CDC had no idea what to call this mysterious disease.

It was the New York Times who, in 1982 first brought the name GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) to the spotlight, even though they had also reported that researchers were calling it "A.I.D." for Acquired Immune Deficiency. Finally, on July 27th, 1982 the CDC agreed upon a name for the plauge and because they had found that the sickness was not limited to gay men, they called it AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).

Wikipedia today tells us: "By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness." I am pointing to this because of that sites use of language "properly defined the illness", however as you will see this "proper" definition has changed through the years in order to fit the theory that has been largely presented as fact to the public, but before we get there, please indulge me with a bit more history of this very real and most disturbing disease we now call AIDS.

While the CDC and NIH were scrambling to determine how to handle this new mysterious disease an ambitious retro-virologist by the name of Robert Gallo had long been working with T lymphocytes in his lab. Along with his colleagues Doris Morgan and Frank Ruscetti, the three co-authored a report called "Selective in vitro growth of T lymphocytes from normal human bone marrows." This led to HTLV (Human T cell Lymphoma Leukemia Virus, the first retrovirus identified in humans. This discovery later led to this report: "Natural antibodies to human retrovirus HTLV in a cluster of Japanese patients with adult T cell leukemia."

Gallo and his lab of scientist had found a link between a retrovirus and a form of leukemia. It is generally accepted in modern medicine that cancer, including leukemia, is caused by radical cell growth:

Viruses. Acute T cell leukemia is associated with infection by the human T cell leukemia virus (HTLV); human lymphotrophic virus-1 causes leukemia in humans. In infected individuals, HTLV proteins attach themselves to proteins in the lymphocytes responsible for regulating cell growth and corrupt their functions resulting in the uncontrolled cell growth of leukemia (Uchiyama T 1997). This type of leukemia is rare in the United States and is generally found in Asia and parts of the Caribbean.

However, on May 4th of 1984, Gallo and his associates published four separate papers:

Detection, isolation, and continuous production of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and pre-AIDS.

Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk for AIDS.

Serological analysis of a subgroup of human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) associated with AIDS.

Antibodies reactive with human T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) in the serum of patients with AIDS.

These four papers combined demonstrated that Gallo's lab had isolated a retrovirus they called HTLV III and called such because they believed that somehow this new strain of a retrovirus was related to their earlier work with the retrovirus causing leukemia. Where it was accepted that this leukemia was caused by radical cell growth facilitated by the HTLV, now these scientist were positing that this retrovirus, or a very similar virus was the cause of cell depletion. (AIDS, as it had been posited, was caused by a depletion of T-Cells). More recently, this notion that T-Cell depletion as the cause of AIDS has been challenged: Virally induced CD4+ T cell depletion is not sufficient to induce AIDS in a natural host. For Gallo and his colleagues back in 1984, however, the postulate was made that a retrovirus they had advocated as being a source of radical cell growth was now being advocated as a source of radical cell depletion. This is an oversimplification, but it still begs the question as to why and how these scientists made such a conclusion?

Earlier, in May of 1983, Dr. Luc Montagnier and his team from the Pasteur Institute reported they had isolated a virus strain found in AIDS patients they called LAV. The Pasteur Institute sent a sample to the CDC who then passed it on to the NCI (National Cancer Institute). While Montagnier and his cohorts were the one to isolate the virus, it was Gallo and his cohorts who took credit for it, boldly declaring it was the cause of AIDS, developing an HIV test and patenting that test. Controversy ensued and the Pasteur Institute challenged the patent. This is the standard story told.

What should be noted is that Robert Gallo, on April 23rd of 1984, made an announcement at an international press conference that he had discovered the "probable cause of AIDS". Take note of the dates of the four papers I linked above by Gallo and his cohorts. Each of those papers were published in May of 1984, but before this Gallo had circumvented the rules of the scientific process by making this bold claim before any research had been done to bear out his claim and predictions. The day after Gallo's announcement The New York Times added an air of legitimacy to his claims and with that all funding in the search for any non-viral causes of AIDS was halted and the focus was placed entirely upon the newly named HIV retrovirus.

Continued....

Gallo's own paper, published two weeks after his announcement, admitted that he was unable to find HIV in more than half of the patients he had studied, excusing this because he was able to find anti-bodies in most of them. Antibodies, however, are a sign of immunity, not a sign of weakened immunity, and antibodies certainly do not cause or predict disease. Consider what the Wikipedia article I just linked starts with:

An antibody, also known as an immunoglobulin, is a large Y-shaped protein produced by B-cells that is used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as bacteria and viruses.

Prior to the HIV declaration, antibodies were generally viewed as a sign that a virus or disease had been contained. Since the HIV declaration, all bets are off in most things science, and sometimes up is down and right is left and any scientist who dare question this are dissidents. There is indeed a high correlation between HIV and AIDS, but as every beginning scientist learns correlation does not imply causation...unless, of course, your funding comes from the HIV camp, then what the hell, just go with it.

Since that fateful day on April 23rd, of 1984 HIV has been the Holy Grail of AIDS research. This is what Margaret Heckler, U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services - while standing next to Gallo - had to say:

"Today we add another miracle to the long honor roll of American medicine and science. Today's discovery represents the triumph of science over a dreaded disease.

Those who have disparaged this scientific search - those who have said we weren't doing enough - have not understood how sound, solid, significant medical research proceeds."

She also promised a vaccine by 1986. In 1986 no vaccine was made available but Robert Gallo did, that year, win the prestigious Lasker Award because, as the Lasker committee put it: "determining that the retrovirus now known as HIV-1 is the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).” The following year the heated controversy between the CDC, Pasteur Institute, Gallo and Montignier was finally settled. As PBS put it:

This first stage of the controversy ended in a legal settlement that was highly unusual for the scientific community: Gallo and Montagnier agreed out of court to share equal credit for their discovery. This settlement followed a review of records from Gallo's laboratory and rested on the assumption that the virus Gallo had discovered was different from the one Montagnier had sent him. An international committee renamed the virus HIV, and in what Specter calls "the first such negotiated history of a scientific enterprise ever published," the American and French groups published an agreement about their contributions in NATURE in 1987. In 1988, Gallo and Montagnier jointly related the story of the discoveries in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.

While the dispute between Gallo and Montagnier had been settled, in 1989 journalist John Crewdson reopened the controversy with his Chicago Tribune article: "The Great AIDS Quest; Science under the microscope", which led to ethics investigations on Gallo, findings of scientific misconduct, reversals of those findings, and Gallo has remained a figure shrouded in controversy with looming questions of ethics. It was only a matter of time before scientist would begin to challenge the HIV = AIDS paradigm.

On March 1st of 1987, retro-virologist Dr. Peter Deusberg published Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality claiming that there is no virological, nor epidemiological, evidence to back-up the HIV-AIDS hypothesis. Three years earlier, that fateful year of 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo had written Introduction For Peter Duesberg:

In the next post I will begin with the final paragraph of Gallo's glowing introduction of Deusberg.

Continued....

"These are some of Peter's contributions. There are many more. However, there are things about him that stand out as much as his science. Peter Duesberg is a man of extraordinary energy, unusual honesty, enormous sense of humour, and a rare critical sense. This critical sense often makes us look twice, then a third time, at a conclusion many of us believed to be foregone. However, his critiques are sometimes a major problem for the casual observer. When is he truly debating? When is he only being the devil's advocate? When is he being the devil himself? The casual observer is also often at a loss to determine which of the many weapons he possesses he is using. Peter, it is hard for us to tell when you are using your machine gun or your slingshot, or simply exercising your vocal cords. In any event you are an extraordinary scientist, a man who makes life more interesting and pleasurable to many of us: and it is my good from: fortune to know you as a friend."

Introduction For Peter Duesberg (1984)

(Emphasis added)

The same year Deusberg questioned the HIV = AIDS hypothesis - of which everyone skipped right past theory to law - was also the same year doctors began treating AIDS patients with Zidovudine. While the poop storm was whipping into a frenzy over Deusberg's criticisms of the HIV hypothesis, pharmaceuticals were recycling a failed cancer drug (AZT) as a therapy for AIDS patients.recycling a failed cancer drug (AZT) as a therapy for AIDS patients.

AZT was developed in 1964 in a cancer research lab. It is a chemotherapy drug used to kill the cells that make up living tissue and blood. It works by disrupting cellular replication at the genetic level. DNA is comprised of four bases that combining in pairs. The pairs line up and spiral into a double helix. AZT stops the spiral, breaks the chain and kills the cell. Considered too dangerous even for short term use, AZT was shelved and a patent was never filed. However, over 20 years later in 1986, Burroughs Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) recycled AZT into an AIDS drug. Testing labs it in a package bearing a skull and crossbones on a bright orange background with a "TOXIC" label and warnings against swallowing, inhaling and skin contact. Today, GSK sells AZT under the brand name "Retrovir" and as an ingredient in "Combivir" and "Trizivir." According to the warning label:

"Retrovir (AZT) has been associated with Hematologic Toxicity (blood toxicity), including Neutropenia (loss of neurophils, an essential component of blood) and Severe Anemia (potentially fatal lack of blood production). Prolonged use of Retrovir has been associated with Symptomatic Myopathy (muscle wasting), Lactic Acidosis and Severe Hepatomegaly (liver swelling) with Steatosis (fat degeneration). Fatal Cases have been reported with the use of Nucleoside Analogues (AZT, 3TC, ddl, D4T) alone or in combination, including Retrovir and other Antiretrovirals."

Worse yet, AZT doesn't even claim to work:

"Retrovir is not a cure for HIV infection ...The long-term effects of Retrovir are unknown at this time ...The long-term consequences of in utero and infant exposure to Retrovir are unknown, including the possible risk of cancer."

Where Peter Deusberg was once praised by Robert Gallo, by 1989 Gallo - in a Spin Magazine interview - had this to say about Deusberg:

SPIN: What do you think now of Duesberg's criticism of the theory that HIV causes AIDS?

Gallo: There is no organized body of science that thinks it is anything but comedy with Peter right now. That's the fact. Why does the Institute of Medicine, WHO (World health Organization), CDC (Centers for Disease Control), National Academy of Sciences, NIH, Pasteur Institute and the whole body of science 100 percent agree that HIV is the cause of AIDS?

....

SPIN: Now Duesberg has written a 10-page article in the Proceedings, answering all the ways people have tried to rebut him so far.

Gallo: Yeah, that's nothing. That's O.K. But believe me, it is going to have zero impact. No one believes Peter, except a few people that don't matter. That's the simple fact. Why would anyone go to Duesberg? He is hanging around with some unusual people, isn't he, rather than his own peers. Strange. Very strange. He comes to meetings with guys with leather jackets and the hair and so on in the middle. I mean that's little bit odd. Doesn't it speak of something funny? I just cannot take his arguments very seriously. Either he is not reading something or he is not being honest with us.



Continued....

Gallo had gone from declaring Deusberg as "unusually honest" to "not being honest with us" once Gallo's hypothesis - that skipped theory and became law - was criticized. Gallo, however, has little in the way of scientific criticism to respond to Deusberg's claims and instead relies heavily upon ad hominem attacks.

SPIN: Will you agree, however, that Peter Duesberg is a serious academic critic?

Gallo: Please. You have to know deeply the background. Deeply. I know Peter for 20 years. Infinitely better than you can or will ever know him. I know him as a colleague and friend. He is funny, strange, paradoxical, ironical. But in science, you don't flap, you do. I don't think he is logical, obviously.

On July 29th of 1988, Deusberg published his paper HIV Is Not the Cause of AIDS. In October of that year he wrote Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation But Not Causation, and by 1991 he had fairly killed his career as a respected retro-virologist but published AIDS Epidemiology: Inconsistencies with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and with Infectious Disease anyways.

Although Gallo insisted, in that Spin Magazine interview, that the "whole body of science 100 percent agree that HIV is the cause of AIDS", besides Duesberg there were others questioning this hypothesis. The Perth Group out of Australia began challenging the hypothesis as early as 1988. Of course, Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, who heads The Perth Group is as readily dismissed as Deusberg is by an industry that spends more than $2 Billion a year on HIV research. The United States alone spent $2,913,000 in federal funding on HIV/AIDS research in 2009.

Molecular biologist Harvey Bialy is quoted in The Sunday Times, April 26, 1992 as saying::

"The vast majority of instruments of public information, as well as the majority of scientists involved in biomedical research, have indiscriminately subscribed to a single hypothesis, that a virus called HIV is the cause of the disease syndrome called AIDS."

"The hypothesis has become all things to all people. It violates everything we previously knew about virus disease, and allows any kind of therapy, any kind of research, to generate research bucks."

"What kind of science continues to place all its marbles, all its faith, all its research bucks, in such a theory?"

"The answer I keep coming back to is that it has nothing to do with science; the reasons are all unscientific."

"We have taken sex and equated it with death, and into that mixture we have thrown money. What an ugly stew."

Experts Mount Startling Challenge to AIDS Orthodoxy: AIDS; Can we be Positive?

In that same article, Nobel Prize winning biochemist Kerry Mullis is quoted:

"I can't find a single virologist who will give me references which show that HIV is the probable cause of AIDS," he says.

"On an issue as important as this, there should be a set of scientific documents somewhere, research papers written by people who are accessible, demonstrating this. But they are not available. If you ask a virologist for that information, you don't get an answer, you get fury."

While the HIV/AIDS industry puts its formidable public relations machine into play, dismissing anyone who dares question the paradigm, Continuum Magazine published this article by Martin J. Walker:

Again, I will have to continue in the next post with some of the content from that article:

Continued....

AZT has proved a remarkably persistent poison in the pantheon of orthodox medicine. Between 1987 and 1992, crucial years in the development of research into the causes of what many have accepted as AIDS, AZT was the sole drug licensed for the treatment of a HIV in people who had AIDS diagnoses. In 1992, ddl and ddC were trialled against AZT controls and were later prescribed only in conjunction with it. In 1993, the delayed publication of the Concorde trial results showed conclusively that asymptomatic antibody-positive individuals who took AZT, died more quickly and in greater number than those simply affected by AIDS-defining illnesses. Following these results, the drug went out of fashion as a mono-therapy. Wellcome, its scientists, and public relations staff however, worked hard to rehabilitate the drug and in large part succeeded in burying the implications of the Concorde Trial results.

HIV, AZT, big science & clinical failure by Martin J Walker

The HIV = AIDS paradigm is big business, this much is certain. The international HIV & AIDS charity AVERT, among a plethora of others, put much time and energy into dispelling the criticisms of the HIV hypothesis:

By far the most significant scientist to question the fact that HIV is the cause of AIDS is Professor Peter Duesberg, a virologist at the University of California at Berkeley, who first wrote about this topic in 1987. Throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, as HIV and AIDS researchers announced many new discoveries and amassed huge volumes of data, Dr Duesberg remained unconvinced. He admits that HIV exists, but he maintains that it is harmless, and that AIDS is caused by non-contagious factors including drug abuse, malnutrition, and even the very drugs used to combat HIV.

Other dissidents (often called "denialists" by their opponents) include the Perth Group of medical scientists and physicians from Australia. The Perth Group (led by Eleni Papadopulos) claims that nobody has conclusively proven the existence of HIV, so any proof that HIV causes AIDS has no foundation. Dissident arguments have received attention from the popular media, as well as from scientific journals. And with the rise of the Internet, alternative views have found a much wider audience.

(Emphasis added)

While the word dissident can have broad meaning, it is generally used to describe political agitators. Indeed, Wikipedia spends their entire article on dissident describing political dissidents, which is probably why their article on those challenging the HIV hypothesis is AIDS Denialism instead of dissident but take note how the article is titled AIDS Denialism, as if Duesberg, The Perth Group, Mullis and others are "denying" that AIDS exists. It is amazingly subtle in its not too subtle way, just as AVERT's stubborn use of dissident is. Dissidents tend to rebel against authority. AVERT wants you to understand who the authority is and what you are if you dare question their model.

Even in this site, made famous by its embrace of conspiracy theories, a large community of members will post in outrage at the suggestion that something is amiss with the HIV = AIDS paradigm. People who question it will be lambasted as being "irresponsible" and "dangerous" merely for questioning a hypothesis that not only had dubious beginnings, but has remained questionable to this day.

I have no idea whether HIV causes AIDS, might be a co-factor in the cause of AIDS, or is a tragic conspiracy to make billions of dollars for the medical/pharmaceutical establishment. I do know that a few once respected scientists dared to question the hypothesis and are now no longer respected. I know that there is a massive army of HIV = AIDS proponents prepared to shout down anyone who dares to ask questions that challenge the paradigm. I know in a conspiracy website, that something like this should fairly qualify as a conspiracy theory.

AIDS/HIV/Whatever you want to call it was around in the 1940's and 50's. They have found it in sailors cryogenic frozen blood samples from WWII.

HIV virus was created. Still to this day, its unknown how HIV turns into full blown AIDS. Only thing they can do is take a cocktail of drugs to keep the viral load down in their body. When it gets to a certain level, it's a wrap.

Europeans have a natural resistance to it too, hmmm.

How many other virus's attack the hosts immune system?

Well, I am going to go out on a limb again...I was crucified with a Thread I started...but something stinks when it comes to diseases and the attention they get.

Aids has turned into the sympathetic, throw lots of money at it disease even thought it is now mostly preventable while something like lung cancer or diabetes is looked down upon...less money spent on research....I do believe it has to do with what can make the most money and what is PC at the moment....quite sick if you ask me.


I do believe anyone can get cancer at any time, but part of me wonders if AIDS has bioengineering in it?

First of all. thank you for the well researched tome of factual data and history, on this ATS day of lunacy.

Forgive me, I've got a case of data overload. Is the controversy here whether HIV causes AIDS, Auto Immune Deficiency Disorder Symdrom?

The way I understand it, HIV is a virus that tricks Tcells, thus, causing havoc to the immune system The syptoms of the weakened immune system present differently in various individuals. Is this a questionable hypothesis?

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
I do know that a few once respected scientists dared to question the hypothesis and are now no longer respected.

Funny how that happens to well respected scientists when they decide to back the wrong theory and continue espousing incorrect information, even when peer reviewed, repeatable research backs up their opposition.

reply to post by cenpuppie


we, europeans have natural resistance, because the full blown black plague rampaged here some hundred years ago. I know they are somehow related, and if one of your ancestors survived it, or something like that, you have resistance to it. you are not immune, you can get it, and infect others, but you would not die.

reply to post by cenpuppie


There are a million different strains of immune deficiency viruses in a variety of species.

Bovine immunodeficiency virus

Bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV) is a retrovirus belonging to the lentivirus subfamily. It is similar to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and infects cattle. The cells primarily infected are lymphocytes and monocytes/macrophages.[1]

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a lentivirus that affects domesticated housecats worldwide and is the causative agent of feline AIDS. From 2.5% up to 4.4%[1][2] of cats worldwide are infected with FIV

en.wikipedia.org...

Simian immunodeficiency virus

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), also known as African Green Monkey virus, is a retrovirus able to infect at least 33 species of African primates

Did humans create those too?

reply to post by windword


The controversy, as I see it, is that a vast machine exists to shout down and shut up anyone who questions the hypothesis, regardless of their expertise or knowledge.

Originally posted by Furbs

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
I do know that a few once respected scientists dared to question the hypothesis and are now no longer respected.

Funny how that happens to well respected scientists when they decide to back the wrong theory and continue espousing incorrect information, even when peer reviewed, repeatable research backs up their opposition.

You must be laughing hysterically, then, at how an entire medical establishment bought Gallo's claim in spite of the fact that this claim was made without any peer review as well. Funny, as in ha-ha funny? I don't think so. More like funny, as in funny smelling.

If you want your claim of peer review to hold any validity at all, then it is probably a good idea to acknowledge that in April of 1984, Gallo - without any peer review whatsoever - told the world that he found the "probable cause of AIDS".

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by windword

 

The controversy, as I see it, is that a vast machine exists to shout down and shut up anyone who questions the hypothesis, regardless of their expertise or knowledge.

The hypothesis being that AIDS is the result of a virus?

Wow, thanks for bringing this to my attention. This is one of the best threads I have seen in a while to be honest. I never knew there were scientists who challenged this particular belief. Honestly, from the outside looking in, the scientific documentation from experimental results and other data does seem to cast some doubt on the widespread belief that HIV causes AIDS.

If that is the true reason, then fine, but there should be sufficient evidence to back that up. It's funny how scientists, just like other people, claim they need one thing from those who disagree with them, while not following the same standards when it is their own ideas under fire. That is clearly what happened in this case. Science, true science, is not something that opinions should sway, only experimental information and results. This is clearly a travesty of science in that the scientific method was circumvented in favor of the opinions of researchers, although well-respected.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

Dr Duesberg remained unconvinced. He admits that HIV exists, but he maintains that it is harmless, and that AIDS is caused by non-contagious factors including drug abuse, malnutrition, and even the very drugs used to combat HIV.

Those scientists are discredited because that line of thought is associated with germ theory denialism which is ridiculous.

Béchamp believed that living entities called "microzymes" created bacteria in response to host and environmental factors; he did not believe that bacteria could invade a healthy host and create disease on their own. Pasteur's competing vision became widely accepted by scientists, and Béchamp sank into obscurity, although his beliefs have been continuously promoted by a small fringe of dedicated advocates.[

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by windword


Yes. I suppose at this point we might be able to call it a theory, but in science a theory must be functional and parsimonious. Calling the HIV paradigm a theory is being polite. That this hypothesis is treated as fact is outrageously rude to the scientific method. Ruder still is the proclivity to call scientists who question this hypothesis "dissidents" or "AIDS denialists".

reply to post by JiggyPotamus


The other Immunodeficiency viruses cause AIDS in other species, such as cats. Why is it so hard to believe that it does in humans?