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Your quoted posts are 20+ years old
Originally posted by Maslo
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux
Wikipedia article on the hypothesis contains refutations:
en.wikipedia.org...
edit on 24/5/12 by Maslo because: (no reason given)
I fact checked the first reference cited in the first quote provided by Wikipedia via RealSpoke and they cited a Deusberg paper of which they grossly misrepresented. Duesberg never said what Wikipedia claimed he said.
Since AIDS also correlates with antibody to a retrovirus, confirmed in about 40% of American cases, it has been hypothesized that this virus causes AIDS by killing T cells.
The hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS is examined in terms of Koch's postulates and epidemiological, biochemical, genetic, and evolutionary conditions of viral pathology. HIV does not fulfill Koch's postulates: (i) free virus is not detectable in most cases of AIDS
About 40% of the AIDS patients in the U.S. (5), and many of those who are at risk for AIDS, have been confirmed to have neutralizing antibodies to a retrovirus (3, 7) that was discovered in 1983 (15). These antibodies are detected by the "AIDS test" (3). Less than a year later, in 1984, this virus was adopted as the cause of AIDS by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the AIDS test was registered as a patent, even before the first American study on the virus was published (16). The epidemiological correlation between these antibodies and AIDS is the primary basis for the hypothesis that AIDS is caused by this virus (3, 7, 12, 14, 17, 18). AIDS is also believed to be caused by this virus because AIDS diseases appear in a small percentage (see below) of recipients of blood transfusions that have antibodies to this virus (3, 12, 19-22). In view of this the virus has been named human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by an international committee of retrovirologists (18) and antibody to HIV became part of the definition of AIDS (3, 5, 7). "... Patients are excluded as AIDS cases if they have a negative result(s) on testing for serum antibody to HIV, do not have a positive culture for HIV" (3). If confirmed, HIV would be the first clinically relevant retrovirus since the Virus-Cancer Program called for viral carcinogens in 1971 (23, 24).
HIV Cannot Account for the Loss of T Cells and the Clinical Course of AIDS. The causative agent of an infectious disease is classically defined by the postulates of Robert Koch and Jacob Henle (66, 67). They were originally formulated a priori by Henle about 50 years before bacteria and viruses were discovered to be pathogens (67). However, their definitive text was formulated by Koch to distinguish causative from other bacteria at a time when bacteriologists applying newly developed tools in the search for pathogenic microbes found all sorts of bacteria in humans. This situation was quite similar to our current increasing proficiency in demonstrating viruses (68). The first of these postulates states that "the parasite must be present in every single case of the disease, under conditions that can account for the pathological lesions and the clinical course of the disease" (67). However, there is no free virus in most-and very little in some-persons with AIDS, or in asymptomatic carriers (69, 70). Virus titers range from 0 to 10 infectious units per milliliter of blood (69, 70). Viral RNA is found in a very low percentage (see below) of blood cells of 50-80% of antibody-positive persons (71-74, 187). Further, no provirus is detectable in blood cells of 70-100% of symptomatic or asymptomatic antibody-positive persons, if tested by direct hybridization of cellular DNA with cloned proviral DNA (73, 75, 187) at the limit of detection by this method (76). Antibody to HIV is confirmed in only about 40% of the U.S. cases and in only 7% of the AIDS cases from New York and San Francisco, which represent one-third of all U.S. cases (5). In some cases, even the antibody to HIV disappears, due to chronic dormancy or loss of the HIV provirus (77, 78)-analogous to the loss of antibody to other viruses long after infection. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control publishes specific guidelines for AIDS cases in which laboratory evidence for HIV is totally negative (5). Thus, although viral elements can be traced in many AIDS patients, and antibody to HIV is, at least by definition, present in all of them, HIV violates Koch's first postulate in terms of a tangible presence, of being "under conditions that can account for" the loss of T cells, and of the "clinical course of the disease" that lags 8 years behind infection.
Far from arguing that a "significant number of AIDS victims had died without proof of HIV infection"
About 40% of the AIDS patients in the U.S. (5), and many of those who are at risk for AIDS, have been confirmed to have neutralizing antibodies to a retrovirus
Antibody to HIV is confirmed in only about 40% of the U.S. cases and in only 7% of the AIDS cases from New York and San Francisco, which represent one-third of all U.S. cases (5). In some cases, even the antibody to HIV disappears, due to chronic dormancy or loss of the HIV provirus (77, 78)-analogous to the loss of antibody to other viruses long after infection. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control publishes specific guidelines for AIDS cases in which laboratory evidence for HIV is totally negative (5). Thus, although viral elements can be traced in many AIDS patients, and antibody to HIV is, at least by definition, present in all of them, HIV violates Koch's first postulate in terms of a tangible presence..
Yes, he also argues that "correlation does not prove causation" and other things, but that does not mean his claims about HIV not being detected in significant number of AIDS victims should be ignored.
The microorganism must be found in all cases of the disease.
Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by Maslo
Yes, he also argues that "correlation does not prove causation" and other things, but that does not mean his claims about HIV not being detected in significant number of AIDS victims should be ignored.
I have never argued any such thing and have instead argued that the Wikipedia article grossly misrepresented Deusberg's paper, as you did too and are now just backpedaling.
Duesberg argued in 1989 that a significant number of AIDS victims had died without proof of HIV infection.
Antibody to HIV is confirmed in only about 40% of the U.S. cases and in only 7% of the AIDS cases from New York and San Francisco, which represent one-third of all U.S. cases (5)
The consensus in the scientific community is that the Duesberg hypothesis has been refuted by a large and growing mass of evidence showing that HIV causes AIDS, that the amount of virus in the blood correlates with disease progression, that a plausible mechanism for HIV's action has been proposed, and that anti-HIV medication decreases mortality and opportunistic infection in people with AIDS.[4]
In the December 9, 1994 issue of Science (Vol. 266, No. 5191),[3] Duesberg's methods and claims were evaluated in a group of articles. The authors concluded that:
it is abundantly evident that HIV causes disease and death in hemophiliacs, a group generally lacking Duesberg's proposed risk factors.[4][45]
HIV fulfills Koch's postulates, which are one set of criteria for demonstrating a causal relationship between a microbe and a disease.[46][47] (Subsequently, additional data further demonstrated the fulfillment of Koch's postulates.[48][49])
the AIDS epidemic in Thailand cited by Duesberg as confirmation of his hypothesis is in fact evidence of the role of HIV in AIDS.[50]
According to researchers who conducted large-scale studies of AZT, the drug does not cause AIDS. Furthermore, researchers acknowledged that recreational drugs do cause immune abnormalities, though not the type of immunodeficiency seen in AIDS.[51]
In terms of your assertion that Deusberg's own assertions about Koch's postulates were "proven wrong", far from doing so, instead what this camp has done is rig the definitions of AIDS in order for the HIV theory to flourish. I have all ready linked a site describing "Non-HIV AIDS", which are those people who are clearly afflicted with AIDS but have never tested positive for the HIV virus. What the CDC has most disingenuously done is take Non-HIV AIDS and call it by another name: Idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia, or ICL. Why have they done this? Why because had they not, Deusberg would be right and HIV does not fulfill this postulate:
Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia (ICL) is a very rare medical syndrome in which the body has too few CD4+ T lymphocytes, which are a kind of white blood cell.[1] ICL is sometimes characterized as "HIV-negative AIDS" by AIDS denialists, though in fact its clinical presentation differs from that seen with HIV/AIDS.[2] People with ICL have a weakened immune system and are susceptible to opportunistic infections, although the rate of infections is lower than in people with AIDS.[3]
In contrast to the CD4+ cell depletion caused by HIV, patients with idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia generally have a good prognosis.[5][9][10][11] The decline in CD4+ T-cells in patients with ICL is generally slower than that seen in HIV-infected patients.[2]. The condition may also resolve on its own.[12]
Well, since Wikipedia simply paraphrases what Deusberg said in the abstract (and body, as you pointed out) of the paper, your assertion that it "grossly misrepresented" the paper is unfounded.
If you want to discuss other claims in his paper, then feel free to do so, but what you are doing now amounts to arguing pointless semantics.
Altrough it seems his other claims were also debunked:
The consensus in the scientific community is that the Duesberg hypothesis has been refuted by a large and growing mass of evidence showing that HIV causes AIDS, that the amount of virus in the blood correlates with disease progression, that a plausible mechanism for HIV's action has been proposed, and that anti-HIV medication decreases mortality and opportunistic infection in people with AIDS
Since not only its causation, but also its clinical presentation differs from AIDS caused by HIV, I dont see anything wrong with categorising it as a different disease. That some conditions are superficially similar does not mean they are the same diseases.
In contrast to the CD4+ cell depletion caused by HIV, patients with idiopathic CD4 lymphocytopenia generally have a good prognosis.[5][9][10][11] The decline in CD4+ T-cells in patients with ICL is generally slower than that seen in HIV-infected patients.[2]. The condition may also resolve on its own.[12]
There are literally dozens and dozens of these types of studies. I don't feel the need to go dig them all up, because this is a non issue.
It is not unfounded at all! Why would Deusberg include in his title of the paper a subtitle that states "correlation but not causation"? Wikipedia did not "summarize" Deusberg's paper, Wikipedia summarized the "AIDS denialists" denialists claims.
Further, this very "debunking" you provide uses language such as "correlates" and "plausible" as their "debunking", of which you expect everyone to accept as proof. Sigh.
The purpose of this website is to debunk AIDS denialist arguments and prevent further harm being done by AIDS denialists to public health. In March 2006, after Harper's Magazine published a feature article by AIDS denialist Celia Farber, a number of scientists and activists joined together to create a website for the purpose of countering AIDS denialist misinformation and debunking denialist myths, while providing truthful information about HIV and AIDS. The result is the AIDSTruth.org website.
There is a substantial body of evidence showing that HIV causes AIDS—and that antiretroviral treatment (ART) has turned the viral infection from a death sentence into a chronic disease.1 Yet a small group of AIDS denialists keeps alive the conspiratorial argument that ART is harmful and that HIV science has been corrupted by commercial interests.
AIDStruth.org is continuing to compile this list. Please send names of denialists who have died from HIV disease and supporting documentation to [email protected] for review and posting.
Perhaps those afflicted with "ICL" have a better prognosis because they were fortunate enough to escape the HIV industry with their toxic drugs.
Effectiveness of antiretroviral medication
The vast majority of people with AIDS have never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to the licensure of AZT (zidovudine) in 1987, and people in developing countries today where very few individuals have access to these medications.[52]
The NIAID reports that, "In the mid-1980s, clinical trials enrolling patients with AIDS found that AZT given as single-drug therapy conferred a modest survival advantage compared to placebo. Among HIV-infected patients who had not yet developed AIDS, placebo-controlled trials found that AZT given as single-drug therapy delayed, for a year or two, the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Significantly, long-term follow-up of these trials did not show a prolonged benefit of AZT, but also did not indicate that the drug increased disease progression or mortality. The lack of excess AIDS cases and death in the AZT arms of these placebo-controlled trials effectively counters the argument that AZT causes AIDS. Subsequent clinical trials found that patients receiving two-drug combinations had up to 50 percent improvements in time to progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to people receiving single-drug therapy. In more recent years, three-drug combination therapies have produced another 50 to 80 percent improvement in progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to two-drug regimens in clinical trials."[53] "Use of potent anti-HIV combination therapies has contributed to dramatic reductions in the incidence of AIDS and AIDS-related deaths in populations where these drugs are widely available, an effect which clearly would not be seen if antiretroviral drugs caused AIDS."[4][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63]
AIDS denialist claims have had a major political, social, and public health impact in South Africa. The government of then President Thabo Mbeki was sympathetic to the views of AIDS denialists, with critics charging that denialist influence was responsible for the slow and ineffective governmental response to the country's massive AIDS epidemic.
Independent studies have arrived at almost identical estimates of the human costs of AIDS denialism in South Africa. According to a paper written by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, between 2000 and 2005, more than 330,000 deaths and an estimated 35,000 infant HIV infections occurred "because of a failure to accept the use of available [antiretroviral drugs] to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in a timely manner."[13] Nicoli Nattrass of the University of Cape Town estimates that 343,000 excess AIDS deaths and 171,000 infections resulted from the Mbeki administration's policies, an outcome she refers to in the words of Peter Mandelson as "genocide by sloth".[14]
Because assumptions in science are inescapable, our hypothetical study can only say that phosphorus concentrations seem to behave a certain way. Thus, a central tenet of the scientific method--science cannot prove anything with 100% certainty. Rather, scientists use statistical methods to say that, with a specific degree of confidence -- for example with 95% certainty -- our study results "are not due to chance." The research team is then left to describe what the results "are due to" through a credible and logical discussion of their methods and reasoning.
So, when scrutinizing scientific statements, it is always wise to ask: "How certain are you of the results? Is there a large margin of possible error? Have other scientists replicated the results? Did the study have adequate controls that ruled out other factors that might be responsible for your result?"
In fact, everything we can observe in this world are only correlations. "Correlation does not imply causation" is often misinterpreted. "Empirically observed covariation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for causality" would be better. In the case of HIV - AIDS we have more than correlations.
The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of causal claims can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred”.
Intuitively, causation seems to require not just a correlation, but a counterfactual dependence. Suppose that a student performed poorly on a test and guesses that the cause was his not studying. To prove this, one thinks of the counterfactual – the same student writing the same test under the same circumstances but having studied the night before. If one could rewind history, and change only one small thing (making the student study for the exam), then causation could be observed (by comparing version 1 to version 2). Because one cannot rewind history and replay events after making small controlled changes, causation can only be inferred, never exactly known. This is referred to as the Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference – it is impossible to directly observe causal effects.[14]
A major goal of scientific experiments and statistical methods is to approximate as best as possible the counterfactual state of the world.[15] For example, one could run an experiment on identical twins who were known to consistently get the same grades on their tests. One twin is sent to study for six hours while the other is sent to the amusement park. If their test scores suddenly diverged by a large degree, this would be strong evidence that studying (or going to the amusement park) had a causal effect on test scores. In this case, correlation between studying and test scores would almost certainly imply causation.
The vast majority of people with AIDS have never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to the licensure of AZT (zidovudine) in 1987, and people in developing countries today where very few individuals have access to these medications.[52]
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Every week, researchers at the 12 centers around the country waited for word to halt the painful tests. They heard nothing. However, after the initial reaction to the drug, some patients seemed to get better--they put on weight, and symptoms such as night sweats, fatigue and neurological problems eased or disappeared. "It became apparent some people were doing better, recalls Paul A. Volberding, a professor of medicine at the UC San Francisco Medical Center who was the PI for the test at San Francisco General Hospital.
Suddenly, the trials were halted after only 16 weeks, two months earlier than planned, because officials felt that it was unethical to withhold a potentially lifesaving drug. Although patients using AZT had suffered horribly at first, their survival rate was astonishing. Nineteen people in the placebo group had died versus one in the group receiving AZT. An NIH press release proclaimed that AZT "showed great promise in prolonging life in AIDS patients.
But in the meantime, there were reports of problems at one of the test sites. The understaffed FDA relies primarily on the honor system when testing new drugs, but the agency does do audits when there are complaints. In this instance, it dispatched an investigator, Patricia Spitzig, to Massachusetts General Hospital.
Spitzig discovered "serious violations of the protocols. People received the wrong medications. One patients who died was listed as part of the placebo group, but he may have been getting AZT. At least 84 vials of medication had disappeared. But after the FDA analyzed her report, officials decided that, despite the violations, the Mass General data was strong enough to include in the final test results.
On the morning of Jan. 16, 1987, an FDA panel convened in the agency's Rockville, Md., headquarters to decide whether to approve the commercial sale of AZT for treating AIDS. The group included a panel of advisers; the approval panel; a contingent from Burroughs Wellcome led by David Barry, the company's vice president in charge of research; half a dozen of the AZT trial's principal investigators and several government officials led by Samuel Broder, who had come to be known around the NIH as "Mr. AZT because of his promotion of the drug.