What do we really know about AIDS?

News Weekly, September 11, 1993

Is AIDS caused by a virus known as HIV? The early and continuing consensus among medical scientists is that indeed it is.

However, a small but growing group of specialists believes that this consensus was premature, and that the HIV-AIDS link is not as clear cut as first believed. These dissenters count among their numbers some of America's leading scientists.

They are not unanimous in anything except the belief that the HIV-AIDS link has as yet to be properly established.

In fact, their opinions on what causes AIDS vary widely. Some believe that HIV is implicated but does not act on its own; others such as Dr Peter Duisberg, the Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of California — and the most well-known of the dissenters —believes that HIV is simply a marker of high-risk behaviour, that it is basically harmless, that it has been present in human populations for eons, and that AIDS is probably the result of the frenzied sexual activity and accompanying drug-taking which characterised the homosexual 'bathhouse scene' over the past two decades.

He argues that anal intercourse, rampant veneral disease (and consequent taking of huge and continued doses of antibiotics), the use of carcinogenic and mutagenic drugs to improve sexual performance, and the widespread abuse of narcotics all will lead to a suppression of the immune-system.

Moreover, the powerful drug AZT provides to assist sufferers, is actually 'AIDS by prescription'. 

News Weekly is not endorsing the views of these dissenters because it is not a specialist scientific magazine with the biomedical expertise to weigh the evidence. However, it is familiar with what has happened to anyone who has deviated from the 'orthodox' view of AIDS enunciated by governments in thrall to the AIDS lobby.

As FREDRICK TÖBEN Ph D, here argues, if AIDS is to be beaten, then a return to objective scientific methods is indispensable.

The Media assumes that HIV causes AIDS. There's no reason for them to accept this hypothesis because scientific research as early as 1983 'established' this link. French scientist Luc Montagnier reported his discoveries during 1983, and in early 1984, US scientist Robert Gallo reached the same conclusion.

In March 1985, the first test to detect the 'AIDS virus' in human blood became available.

Besides screening blood for HIV, authorities all over the world began to launch massive sex-health campaigns. Safe sex, in the form of a condom, and needles sterilisation programs began to consume millions of dollars.

Predictions based on the HIV-AIDS theory were also made. By the end of the century — so the experts said —AIDS would not only decimate the homosexual communities but also devastate mainstream heterosexual societies.

These wild predictions have so far not come to pass.

While governments, under the sway of the vociferous AIDS lobby, spent millions on AIDS prevention programs, a number of scientists — in truly scientific enquiry style — began to question the validity of the prevailing HIV-AIDS hypothesis. In 1992, this small group of scientists wished to have the following four-sentence letter published in a number of prominent scientific journals:

It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biomedical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for an against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken.

Not a single reputable journal accepted this letter for publication. And so was born 'The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis', now consisting of over 100 scientists and activists and writers around the world.

When in May 1992, ABC-TV's Lateline informed Australia of this group's activities, it was ironic that its spokesperson, Dr Charles Thomas, appeared in voice only. The satellite link-up could not be made to Keystone studio because a door key had been lost.

Dr Thomas, a member of the executive committee of The Group, is a molecular biologist and virologist who heads the Helicon Foundation at San Diego, California. he is also a former professor at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities.

In an interview with the editors of Heterodoxy, Dr Thomas claimed that the anti-AIDS drug, AZT, actually causes AIDS because "DNA synthesis and cell division are essential to mount an immune response. AZT kills replicating cells. AZT in a sense can be a cause of AIDS diseases. The patient loses hair and the proliferating intestinal epithelia are destroyed."

As early as March 1987, AZT was approved by both US and Australian health authorities as an effective anti-AIDS drug. As there are over 20 illnesses covered by the acronym AIDS, it is understandable that AZT was hailed as a major break-through in treating AIDS sufferers.

To this claim that AZT kills HIV, Dr Thomas says: "AZT kills any bit of DNA that tries to replicate. it is a crazy way to try to kill the HIV virus ... Besides, where is the evidence that the incorporated virus is doing any harm at all? Yet Burroughs-Wellcome's figures [the manufacturers of AZT] indicate that 200,000 people world-wide receive AZT every day at a cost of US$2300 [per person per years]"

Popular press reports continue to refer to HIV as the AIDS-causing virus, despite the well-known fact that there are AIDS-sufferers with no HIV in their bodies.

INFECTION

Proponents of anal sex remain silent about the fact that semen in the rectum, often accompanied by tissue tearing, is an ideal breeding ground for infections. Therefore a person whose body already suffers from drug toxicity will have difficulty fighting additional infections within the anal passage. The normal immune system begins to suffer from overload leading t its total shut-down.

Dr Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular Biology, University of California, is a member of the National Academy of Science and an executive, member of The Group. He has been questioning the validity of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis since early 1987. Duesberg finds it "surprising that AIDS epidemiologists prefer the 'enigmatic mechanism of HIV pathogenesis to AIDS' over the straightforward chemical drug toxicity".

He claims that "the 10 years of recreational drug use that is necessary to cause AIDS is a rational explanation for what is claimed to be the 10 year latent period of HIV by the proponents of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis".

Duesberg has been severely criticised for holding the drugs-AIDS hypothesis.

The 'true believers' see Duesberg as a dangerous man whose views are undermining the safe-sex and clean needles campaigns.

In a recent issue of Nature there appears an article by Michael Ascher, et al., which specifically refutes Duesberg's claims about recreational use of drugs causing AIDS.

Although the article mentions Duesberg by name 19 times, Nature has to date refused to give him right of reply. Worse still, its editorial of May 13, written by its editor Sir John Maddox, is titled 'Has Duesberg the right of reply?" The editorial then goes on to justify its censorship of Duesberg's view.

Here are the first two paragraphs of Duesberg's response which Nature  refuses to publish:

Asher, et al., challenge my hypothesis that injected and orally consumed recreational drugs and AZT cause AIDS. Based on a one-time enquiry about the use of marijuana, nitrate inhalants, cocaine and amphetamines 'for the 24 month period before entry into the study' of mostly homosexual men from San Francisco, they claim the incidence of AIDS diseases over 8 years is independent of drugs.

"However, their study is worthless for a scientific appraisal of the drug-AIDS hypothesis, because it fails i) to study the AIDS risk of HIV-positive, drug-free controls; ii) to quantify recreational drug use; iii) to observe drug use long enough to detect toxicity; and iv) to report AZT use altogether." 

It seems that Duesberg's claims deserve airing. I view such censorship of scientific debate with trepidation. But then 'politically correct' forces aiming to stifle open debate on numerous topics are alive and well.

Soon light will be shed on the truth content of the 'politically incorrect' Duesberg drug-AIDS hypothesis. In England, a woman is suing the British manufacturer of AZT in the belief that the drug killed her haemophiliac husband.

How sad, though, for the scientific ideal of open enquiry, when the legal system has to make scientific decisions.