HIV Skepticism Gets A Day in Court Down Under
Brian Doherty | February 22, 2007, 7:36pm
In an Australian criminal appeal involving a man charged with knowingly spreading HIV by having unprotected sex, the question of whether it is scientifically proven that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease caused by HIV is being aired in court, including testimony from a group of organized HIV skeptics the Perth Group and by Dr. Robert Gallo, the American scientist credited with discovering the virus and its AIDS connection.
See the front page of the "AIDS alternatives" site Alive and Well, the "News and Updates" section, for Austrialian press coverage of the trial and links to Gallo's testimony. The site editors find that testimony damning, as their excerpts from it has him appear to claim that the evidence he gathered when first annoucing HIV had been proven to be the cause of AIDS--40 percent of AIDS patients in his study found with the virus--does not in fact do so.
UPDATE: The larger context of the Gallo testimony, unquoted on Alive and Well's page, shows that what they have him appearing to claim is not exactly what he was trying to claim on the stand. Gallo says "I think we isolated in almost every patient with AIDS that we tried...we didn't get negative results in 70 other people. You may be including the normal controls where it wasn't isolated." Please note: I have not myself read Gallo's original 1986 Nature paper under discussion in writing this blog post.
lunchstealer | February 23, 2007, 10:04am | #
Dear Reason writers and H&R commentors,
I am writing you with much concern after having read Australia's court case to decide whether the alternative theories of AIDS Epidemiology should be presented along with the HIV theory of AIDS. I think we can all agree that it is important for readers to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that readers will only hear one theory of AIDS Epidemiology.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of AIDS Epidemiology. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that AIDS is caused by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards HIV is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be presented in your magazine and blog, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the AIDS Epidemiology theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be presented, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster caused AIDS. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform an HIV test process on a patient. He finds that HIV antigens in the blood of the AIDS patient. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.
I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your readers are presented this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to read about our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of promoting this theory to your readers. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in healthcare practices around the world.
Sincerely Yours,
The Theif of Lunches
Appologies to
Bobby Henderson.
Chris S. | February 23, 2007, 10:14am | #
What!?!?
Honestly, why do you people buy this crap? No one has ever witnessed HIV infecting live human immune cells
in vitro? That's just not true. See, e.g. http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/99/7/1555 (and this is hardly a unique study -- people infect T cells with HIV
in vitro all the time).
Once upon a time there was legitimate doubt regarding this issue, because experimental data was sparse. This was mostly a function of our limited tools in the early 80s. For instance, you can't tag a virus capsid and expect to get any meaningful results about the virus' behavior, as the capsid never enters a given cell and the tag wouldn't be replicated anyway. You need active DNA transcription (DNA-->RNA) in a given host cell after infection to witness the infection in vitro, and after the host cell bursts it isn't easy to seperate the new RNA from the older RNA. For HIV in particular, I understand that the virus doesn't really replicate absent host cell replication, which requires that we induce replication of T-Cells
in vitro, which is apparently a bit of a hassle. To make a long story short, we now have means of dealing with all of the problems once associated with this type of research, so it isn't a big issue anymore. There is currently an enormous quantity of
in vitro and
in vivo data on this issue, and all of the current skeptics are either hucksters trying to sell books to non-scientists or stubborn fools who can't admit that statements they made in the 80s were wrong.
Oh, and you're an idiot, lunatic denier. TB tests are used because they're a very very cheap, fast and simple indicator. This doesn't mean that we don't have more reliable tests, it just means that mass testing in developed nations needs to be cheap to be useful. Like the flu, the RNA coding for HIV capsid protiens mutates quickly, making it difficult to detect and tag HIV by ordinary means. Your comparison with the flu is hilarious because it's just as hard to detect, and flu tests also always rely on indirect indicators, so they're just as uncertain as HIV tests. Ee have HIV doubters and not flu doubters because HIV research has been obfuscated by (1) religious nuts with sexual hangups, and (2) hucksters selling books to these notoriously gullible religious nuts.
Akira MacKenzie | February 23, 2007, 12:32pm | #
The only motive for skepticism must be religious lunacy or stupidity.
Given my well established atheism, I'd say something along the lines of "religious lunacy" and "stupidity" are redundant, but there is another word in this sentence that doesn't belong here.
"Skepticism"
Don't use the word "skepticism" or any variant thereof, mother fucker. You don't even come close. James Randi is a skeptic. Dr. Michael Shermer is skeptic. Hell, Penn & Teller are better examples of skeptics than you and your woo woo friends will ever be. Ashholes such as yourself have misused the word "skeptic" in order to lend credence to their bullshit. That comes to an end here and now. We're taking the term back!
No, you're a "denier." You use fallacy, anecdote, twisted language, and cherry-picked data to make your point. I've heard and read similar nonsense spewed from other species of deniers: I've heard it from evolution-deniers(i.e. Creationists) who dream up all manner of pseudoscience to disprove what is scientific fact in the name of maintaining fundamentalist dogma. The same can be said of global-warming deniers who are usually hired guns from oil-companies or right-wing ideologues who equate any environmental policy with "communism" at the expense of our ecology. The worst of the lot, of course, are the Holocaust-deniers; antisemites who nitpick the tortured memories of survivors and distort the evidence of history in order to vindicate the evil of Hitler and his cronies.
From my experience, HIV-deniers have different motivations. Around here, they seem to be contrarians who think " standing up to the system" and "the man" somehow fulfills libertarianism principle, even when "the man" is right every once and a while. Others are new age loons who have bought into the stupidity of "alternative medicine" from homeopathy to faith healing and want to believe that the big, bad, money-grubbing "medical establishment" has cooked up HIV to sell expensive anti-viral drugs when it could be "cured" by chakras, chiropractors, or crystals. Then there are the scam artists, who prey upon the ignorant (Undeveloped regions, like Africa, are sadly full of such people.) and the fearful (as anyone with a potential fatal disease would be).
Being anti-establishment, superstitious, or a criminal doesn't make you a skeptic. Critical thinking makes you a skeptic. Relying on the scientific method, searching for evidence, and having other experts test that evidence again and again to make sure the data fits the hypothesis makes you a skeptic.
Disbelieving in something because you don't want to believe in it makes you a denier, not a skeptic. HIV-Deniers have nothing to contribute to fight against AIDS. They spread nothing but ignorance which is in turn helps spread the virus which can only spread suffering.
I call upon all rational people to take a stand, here and now, against the ignorance and deceit of the HIV-deniers; indeed, deniers of all stripes. Too much is at stake--human lives, scientific integrity, civilization--not to.
Dave W. | February 23, 2007, 3:55pm | #
For a nice roundup of the literature demonstrating the evidence for the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, see this:
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
Of particular interest are the twin studies, which study the occasions in which an HIV-infected mother gives birth to twins--one twin who is HIV+, the other HIV-. The HIV+ twins historically have developed AIDS, while the HIV- twins have not.
Although I am of the opinion that good sanitation is the best vaccine and cure for AIDS, I have never really had an opinion on whether HIV causes AIDS. I have always assumed it does, but open to the possibility that it is a correlation without causation.
Still, I always wondered what would happen if I tried to pick apart one of these claims that says: "Here, people, here is your proof that that HIV causes AIDS." Going back thru this thd, I found the most interesting comment to be the one I just quoted about the twins. i decided to try to look into what that link really said and how it was supported. My analysis follows, with my words in plain text and the words of the various sources in italics.
First of all, here is the relevant portion of the niaid link regarding twins:
The HIV-infected twin develops AIDS while the uninfected twin does not.
Because twins share an in utero environment and genetic relationships, similarities and differences between them can provide important insight into infectious diseases, including AIDS (Goedert. Acta Paediatr Supp 1997;421:56). Researchers have documented cases of HIV-infected mothers who have given birth to twins, one of whom is HIV-infected and the other not. The HIV-infected children developed AIDS, while the other children remained clinically and immunologically normal (Park et al. J Clin Microbiol 1987;25:1119; Menez-Bautista et al. Am J Dis Child 1986;140:678; Thomas et al. Pediatrics 1990;86:774; Young et al. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1990;9:454; Barlow and Mok. Arch Dis Child 1993;68:507; Guerrero Vazquez et al. An Esp Pediatr 1993;39:445).
Taking the text of the niaid site at face value, my initial question is: why did they decide to test these specific children and mothers for HIV?
Was it because one of the twins got a serious disease? If that was the whole reason that the family was HIV tested in the first place, then what happens to twins when one gets a similar serious disease, and they duly test the family for HIV (or more precisely HIV antibodies, but for simplicity I will just refer to that as HIV testing throughout this response), and all the HIV tests come back negative? My fear is that these non-HIV sick children do not make it into the HIV / AIDS statistics at all. My fear is that there is a selection bias in the HIV / AIDS statistics generally where sick people (in this case sick infant twins) without HIV are ignored, which will tend to create and/or strengthen the correlation between HIV and the diseases we identify as AIDS.
My next step is to look at the primary cites cited in the niaid quote above. However, when I do this I will constantly be wondering: if a twin turned up sick with a similar disease to what the twin in a particular case study had, but the family had all turned up HIV negative, then where would THAT case study be? Would it be published? Would niaid be able to link it if they were HIV deniers, rather than HIV apologists?
(to be continued)
Dave W. | February 23, 2007, 3:56pm | #
Moving now to the first cite at the end of the above-quoted niaid text:
Park et al. J Clin Microbiol 1987;25:1119Transmission of human immunodeficiency virus from parents to only one dizygotic twin.
Park CL, Streicher H, Rothberg R.
The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-related complex was identified in a mother and one of her nonidentical twins. Generalized lymphadenopathy was first noted in the infant at age 17 months, and that of the mother was incidentally discovered 6 months later. The father, who had had homosexual contacts before the conception of the twins, appeared to be in good health. No one in the family had constitutional symptoms or showed signs of opportunistic infection. Both parents and the patient had hypergammaglobulinemia, low T-helper-to-suppressor-cell ratio, and positive serum antibody to human immunodeficiency virus. Attempts to isolate the virus from all family members were unsuccessful. The twin brother was in good health with a normal immunologic profile and negative antibody to human immunodeficiency virus.
So, as I understand this wonderful prose, one twin turned up with "generalized lymphadenopathy" and then the mother turned up with "Generalized lymphadenopathy" and after that they decided to test both twins and both parents for HIV. It turned out that both parents and the "generalized lymphadenopathy" twin were HIV positive, while the twin not having "generalized lymphadenopathy" did not have HIV.
So, the next step was to find out what this "generalized lymphadenopathy" disease really is. Not being a doctor I didn't know. Maybe it was some rare disease that only AIDS patients get. Maybe it was one of those diseases DavidS was talking about above that was virtually unknown before 1984. I knew the WIKIPEDIA could tell me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_generalized_lymphadenopathy
It looks like this disease, while immune system related, is not particularly rare, not particularly new, not particularly fatal, not particularly well understood and not something that one only finds in AIDS patients.
In other words, if this twin and his mother had gotten "generalized lymphadenopathy," but had tested negative for HIV, then there would be no case study, no article in the journal. Even worse, I strongly suspect that if it was the non-HIV twin and the mother that turned up with "generalized lymphadenopathy," then the only person tested for HIV would have been the non-HIV twin with lymphadenopathy. In other words, if this had been a family that made it look a bit less like HIV caused "AIDS" (which in this case is lymphadenopathy), then there would be no published case study -- no linkable data would have been generated.
This case study suggests the exact kind of selection bias I was referring to earlyier in this thread. If the data strengthens the HIV-AIDS correlation, then it is tracked and published. Otherwise, no.
It was now time to move on to the next cite:
Menez-Bautista et al. Am J Dis Child 1986;140:678Monozygotic twins discordant for the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
Menez-Bautista R, Fikrig SM, Pahwa S, Sarangadharan MG, Stoneburner RL.
Monozygotic twin girls discordant for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome were born to parents with antibodies to human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III. One twin had clinical evidence of the syndrome with tests positive 