Notes From The Field: HIV/AIDS Denialists

They'd be less cowardly if they didn't beat around the bush.

jonrawlinson

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. There are surely about 17,000 better ways I could spend a Thursday night than debunking a poorly-written article that denies HIV causes AIDS. I mean, for Christ's sake, 30 Rock is on, and here I am Googling things like "HIV isolation" and "Koch's Postulates."

I suppose I should start by stating, for the record, I am not a doctor. Nor am I a medical researcher. Nor did I take more than two science classes in my four years at college. But I did make it most of the way through Species IV: The Awakening, so I've got that going for me.

Anyway, David Crowe's "The Potemkin Village of Essex and Chigwedere" is the poorly-written article I'm talking about, published a few days ago on Celia Farber's website, The Truth Barrier. I'd say David Crowe is a … well, actually I don't know what I'd say about Crowe because I don't know who the hell he is. And I don't know who the hell Crowe is because in "The Potemkin Village" Crowe doesn't say things like, "As a respected virologist at the National Institute of Health … " or, "During my years spent studying communicable disease in Africa … " or, "Back when I was a janitor at MIT secretly solving complex math problems …" Nor is there one of those helpful bylines at the end of the article telling me, for example, what kind of familiarity Crowe may have with the topic of HIV and AIDS. And really, in an article where you're accusing pretty much the whole scientific establishment of orchestrating an elaborate conspiracy "that is destroying lives through the pronouncement of death sentences, the use of toxic drugs, and the demonization of gay men, Africans and the association of sex with terror, shame and death," shouldn't you have a credit line?

And yet I'm sure that Crowe is some kind of scholar, because in the concluding paragraph of "The Potemkin Village" he makes a point to talk about his careful methodology:

I have to emphasize that my method of analyzing this paper was to first read it and to highlight the major claims. I then started over again and examined each highlighted item. I have only got to my marks on page 2, leaving four more pages.

Wow. Must be a Princeton man.

I won't go into all the specific errors Crowe makes, and all the lies about HIV he perpetuates, because way more qualified (read: medical degree holding) bloggers have already done that. I don't know how Crowe thinks he can get away with saying, for example, "HIV has never been purified," when he knows someone like JT Deshong at Dissidents@Dumbees is gonna come right back with 10 specific examples proving him completely wrong. As Deshong writes:

If one were to go to PubMed and search for “HIV Isolation” one would get over 18 thousand published articles. “HIV Purification” gives just shy of 17,000 articles.

The articles date back to 1984 (when it was still called HTLVIII) and come from scientists all over the world.

The articles demonstrate that HIV has been isolated from every fluid imaginable from tears, to synovial fluid, to menses to bronchial lavage.

The articles demonstrate that the people HIV has been isolated from are whites, Africans Asians and Europeans.

Then of course there's Crowe's questionable statistics on South Africa:

But [Essex and Chigwedere's] self-reference is based on a mathematical model under the control of the authors (and mathematical models do tend to validate the prejudices of their designers) and flies in the face of a rapidly increasing population in South Africa, small numbers of AIDS deaths documented by Statistics South Africa and a major confounding factor—a rapid improvement in the reporting of black deaths since the fall of apartheid which has produced the illusion of a rapidly increasing death rate.

Really? I can't find anything that supports that claim on the Statistics South Africa Website (and of course Crowe doesn't include a citation, because I guess that would be too easy or something). When I do search through Statistics South Africa for things like "AIDS South Africa," all I find are articles like this one (pdf) by James Ntozi of the Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics at Makerere University in Uganda entitled "Impact of HIV/AIDS on Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," the first lines of which read: "Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced HIV/AIDS pandemic for over a quarter century. The pandemic has devastated the continent’s development in many ways."

Or there's Crowe's mention of three laboratory workers accidently infected with "a pure, molecularly cloned strain of HIV" as reported by William Blattner at a 1993 AIDS conference. Crowe writes:

The clone might have been pure, but where did it come from? Not from pure virus because there has never been any. Despite the seminal importance of these three cases they have never been reported in any detail in any journal, peer-reviewed or not.

Again, really? Because it took me all of about 20 seconds to find this report (pdf), in part written by the same William Blattner, and published in the February 1997 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. And I quote: "The subjects of this study were three laboratory workers (LWF, LWR, and LWS) who were accidentally infected with the IIIB strain of HIV-1. At the time of infection, all three laboratory workers were working in facilities engaged in preparation of highly concentrated HIV-1."

But what really strikes me as pathetic about "The Potemkin Village" (and I guess the reason I'm writing about it instead of watching 30 Rock) is the way Crowe sets his article up as nothing more than a defense of a brave research scientist, Dr. Peter Duesberg, who was unfairly crucified for his work (his work being to suggest that HIV does not cause AIDS):

The Chigwedere and Essex paper would be described by most people as “scientific” but, despite this, the emotional term “denialist” is used throughout. They call Dr. Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley, “the most well known AIDS Denialist,” for example.

The motivation for them is an earlier paper by Duesberg and others that was published on the website of the journal Medical Hypotheses in anticipation of printing but then quickly withdrawn after AIDS drug pushers leaned on the publishers who overrode the journal editor and pulled it (even threatening to close the journal’s doors) [Duesberg, 2009]. Chigwedere and Essex are here seen cursing at the graveside of their enemy while knowing that his body has been thrown to the wolves so dangerous is he even in death. But the grave, the PubMed entry, cannot be removed or their hatred would have no focus and their victory would have no trophy.

But of course Duesberg and the Chigwedere and Essex paper aren't really the point, are they? The HIV/AIDS conspiracy is the point, and as Crowe says of Seth Kalichman, the editor for AIDS and Behavior, the journal that published the Chigwedere and Essex paper: "Kalichman has good connections among South African AIDS treatment activists and is paid by the US government to infiltrate ‘denialists,’ even using the false name Joseph Newton (since his cover was blown he may be using other names—beware)." Presumably every AIDS researcher since the early 80s has been taking a cut, paid off by drug companies who manufactured not only an illness but also a treatment. Somewhere, Crowe thinks, there's a drug company CEO laughing maniacally and throwing piles of money into the air.

If Crowe had said just that, I wouldn't think he was such a coward.

Connie Howard

commented Mar 26, 2010, 01:20PM

Beat around the bush? Cowardly? Are you kidding me? There’s way too much to say in response to this post; I’ll just pick a couple of things. You say that because Crowe is challenging the medical establishment and calling AIDS drugs toxic he should be a PhD or something, have better credentials. But he didn’t pull what he knows out of thin air; he’s relaying what many scientists and doctors know to be true. AIDS drugs are in fact highly toxic, and no matter how well people like Deshong do on them for a period of time, that fact is indisputable. The fact that people using them are all too often still dying either of AIDS or drug-induced AIDS-like symptoms calls their efficacy and safety into serious question. The fact that you’d give someone like Deshong more weight than you would Crowe is telling—I know of very few who take personalities as abrasive as Deshong’s seriously. And finally, your mocking of the idea that AIDS researchers make their living off an industry highly motivated to promote illness is telling—the pharmaceutical industry immensely powerful, and we are the most diagnosed and medicated people in the world (and suffer the most chronic degenerative disease). I’m a health writer, insufficient credentials to you I’m sure, but I often talk to those with acceptable credentials. I also sometimes talk to those who attend pharmaceutical marketing conferences. Medical reporter Helke Ferrie, writing in Dispatches, writes about one she attended. One of the first overheads at the conference read, “As a marketer: which is better for business? Steady continuous use of your drug, or occasional use of your drug?” I asked her if it was really as blatant as all that. She told me, “Yes…In fact it was much worse.” Medical science is business, no matter what nervous, fearful, and faithful drug-salvation fundamentalists say.

Responses to this comment

zkauf1

commented Mar 26, 2010, 01:58PM

1) "Are you kidding me?" No. 2) "But he didn’t pull what he knows out of thin air..." I'm pretty sure I included at least a couple of examples of when he did just that. 3) "...he’s relaying what many scientists and doctors know to be true." Names? 4) "The fact that people using them are all too often still dying either of AIDS or drug-induced AIDS-like symptoms calls their efficacy and safety into serious question." Are you somehow under the impression we have a cure for AIDS or that anyone thinks of AIDS drugs as anything but life-extending treatments? Chemotherapy is also toxic drug treatments that drug companies make money from, would you like to deny the existence of cancer too? 4) "I know of very few who take personalities as abrasive as Deshong’s seriously." As opposed to the huge number of people you know who take David Crowe seriously? 5) "...an industry highly motivated to promote illness..." Riiiight. 6) "...and we are the most diagnosed and medicated people in the world (and suffer the most chronic degenerative disease)." I love that you used "diagnosed" as a pejorative. Look, I get it, really I do. The pharmaceutical industry is out to make money. They do sneaky fucking things like ever-so-slightly altering a drug so that they can re-patent it and jack up the costs. BUT THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE HERE. Good Christ, more red herrings than I could shake a stick at (or something). Look, HIV causes AIDS, to think that it doesn't, to recycle outdated and dismissed research, to make false claims about the flimsiness of the science involved, to invent an outrageous conspiracy theory about drug companies manufacturing a connection when there isn't one, makes you as much of a hosebag loon as the people who say Martians built the Egyptian pyramids. Worse, in fact, since at least those people aren't doing anyone any harm.

commented Mar 26, 2010, 02:03PM

Oh, I forgot one -- 7) " I’m a health writer, insufficient credentials to you I’m sure..." Yep.

DavidRCrowe

commented Mar 26, 2010, 02:05PM

I have read almost 1,500 scientific publications on HIV/AIDS. If status is your game, I'm not your man. I would never base conclusions on a PubMed search, nor even a reading of the abstract. Both can be highly misleading. What does "HIV isolation" mean? Well, if you read the papers (which I have done) you will find that it means taking impure materials (such as blood serum) and then adding it with a variety of toxic and stimulating chemicals and compounds to a culture of cancerous cells and then looking for the cells to do something unusual, such as show indirect signs of reverse transcription, grow very big (Synctitia), produce certain proteins (such as p24) or even just die. That's it, that's "isolation". You don't start with pure virus, you don't end with it. The results of my research have been made public to encourage people to actually familiarized themselves with it: http://rethinkingaids.com/quotes/azt.html http://rethinkingaids.com/quotes/haart.html http://rethinkingaids.com/quotes/test.html http://rethinkingaids.com/quotes/progression.html http://rethinkingaids.com/quotes/drug.html Regards, David Crowe President, Rethinking AIDS

commented Mar 26, 2010, 02:11PM

One addendum. It is totally wrong to say that there are over 18,000 citations for "HIV isolation" and over 17,000 for "HIV purification". If you put the terms in quotes, necessary to look for the phrase, as opposed for the words "HIV" and "isolation" or "purification" the counts are .... "HIV isolation" - 103 "HIV purification" - 0 - David Crowe

commented Mar 26, 2010, 02:26PM

zkauf1: 1) Crowe didn’t in fact pull anything out of thin air. It’s all in the literature. But single articles taken in isolation to support an argument mean nothing when the very premise they started with is flawed. 2) I don’t need to give you names—you and I both know those who have gone public are readily available, and that many more have to wait for retirement to go public. 3) “Are you somehow under the impression we have a cure for AIDS or that anyone thinks of AIDS drugs as anything but life-extending treatments?” No. But when they sharply diminish health and quality of life, their efficacy and safety must be questioned. And I know people who have been on death’s door until the discontinuation of their medications and who are now well, and I know doctors who treat AIDS without ARVs, and whose patients do just fine. 4) “Chemotherapy is also toxic drug treatments that drug companies make money from, would you like to deny the existence of cancer too?” Nobody is denying the existence of cancer, or of AIDS. Some of us are just questioning HIV as the omnipotent and only cause of AIDS. Further, cancer patients don’t remain on chemo therapies for life. 5) I do know many who take Crowe seriously, just not many in fundamentalist circles. 6) There is no conspiracy theory, just an honest admission that sometimes the treatment is as bad as, or worse than, the cure. 7) Get over your fundamentalist zeal. It’s time to admit that AIDS medications, and the search for a vaccine (normally not decades in the making), are riddled with very grave problems.

commented Mar 26, 2010, 03:02PM

Thank you for drawing attention to the 1997 paper by Blattner. It does not, however, report these three cases in anything approaching detail. It does not, for example, list what diseases these three people had that qualified as AIDS, and leaves open the possibility that AIDS was diagnosed based solely on low CD4 counts (which occur in healthy people). It does admit that for the first person, "the event that caused the infection has not been defined" and states that they "developed AIDS in 1993 as the CD4 count dropped below 200". Since the definition of AIDS was changed in that same year to include CD4 counts below 200 and no illness is mentioned it seems almost certain that this person did not have any illness, merely a low lab marker. They also remark that the CD4 count hardly declined after that point - still being 190 in 1995. The second person was classified as AIDS in 1991. HIV infection was, "possibly because of a contaminated needle injury" six years before. Since this was before the 1993 definition change they presumably were sick, but with what? After a few years of AZT their CD4 count had dropped to near zero. Only the third person had a known heavy exposure to "a highly concentrated preparation of HIV-1". They are reported as having "rapid disease progression" but again it doesn't say if this is a rapid drop in CD4 cell counts or a real illness. In addition, no information is given on what drugs these people were given apart from AIDS drugs nor how powerful was the psychological shock of being told they had a fatal illness. One of the biggest ironies is that this paper was published in February 1997 and talks about "concentrated HIV-1". It was only one month later in the journal "Virology" that two separate Electron Microscopy teams showed that "concentrated HIV-1" was at least 90% impurities. And, since you can't tell if something is a virus just by looking at it, possibly 100% impurities. What were these people injected with? Even for the third person we still don't know. It is conclusive that these three people were NOT injected with pure HIV and therefore Blattner's paper does not help determine whether HIV fulfils Koch's postulates. Furthermore it is hard to explain why so little information about these people was ever given in this paper or elsewhere. I encourage readers to read this paper for themselves (the only relevant section is one paragraph at the top left of the second page so it doesn't take long).

SmokeSustiva

commented Mar 26, 2010, 05:01PM

I read your comments about David Crowe and Celia Farber with interest. Based upon those comments and stories like this, it is clear that your blog values sexual orientation more than mainstream values like journalistic competence and integrity. Let me introduce you to Eneydi Torres and Tony Perkins. Last year, Florida prosecutors charged Eneydi with numerous counts of exposing men to HIV. When her attorney told prosecutors that they would have to prove that HIV tests detect HIV (and HIV antibodies), they reduced their offer of 15 years in state prison to five days of unsupervised probation. They surrendered because they couldn’t find ANYONE to testify, under penalty of perjury, that HIV tests actually detect HIV. They dropped the charges and the story all but disappeared. Tony is now in the same boat – except that he faces life in prison for exposing 17 women (so far) to HIV. His attorney plans to file similar motions in Indianapolis and force prosecutors to find someone willing to risk a perjury rap to swear that HIV tests detect HIV (or HIV antibodies). Although we expect those prosecutors to surrender as well, we’re prepared for trial if they refuse. The problem for the industry you propagandize for is that Indianapolis isn’t Kissimmee and the media has already stirred up a hornet’s nest. If prosecutors there suddenly drop all seventeen charges against Tony, the public and the media will demand answers – answers that the court will be happy to share. But let’s say that the NIH and CDC somehow spike the story in Indianapolis, there are currently 30+ other cases like Tony’s throughout the US and Canada. It is my hope that gay bloggers like you will blog these cases and explain why they helped the pharmaceutical industry poison thousands of gay men to sell their HIV advertising. Sooner or later, mainstream Americans will demand answers, leaving you with your unspent epithets and unfunded gay blogs. You hate Farher and Crowe because they represent an ethical standard that your parents, teachers and associates never bothered to instill. As Mark Steyn writes, you are the children you will never have. How very tragic for you.

TableMountain, Mar 26, 2010, 05:39PM

TableMountain

commented Mar 26, 2010, 05:39PM

In your zeal to discredit Zach Kaufmann for having, God help him, an opinion, you show you have zero knowledge of his writing or this website. I don't always agree with the content, but its integrity I don't call into question. It's obvious this is the first time you've seen this site. That's fine, but how could you possibly know that Kaufmann "hates Farher [sic] and Crowe" because of his upbringing. Talk about unsubstantiated charges. How very tragic for YOU, Smoke!

In response to

SmokeSustiva, Mar 26, 2010, 05:01PM

Seth Kalichman

commented Mar 27, 2010, 08:12AM

This is a great post! David Crowe knows me beyond my role as Editor of AIDS and Behavior. I communicated quite a bit with him while researching my book Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy. I used my nickname, Joe Newton, for obvious reasons. I also knew that infiltrating the AIDS Deniers would fuel their paranoia, but that seemed a minimal cost. Crowe is not just upset about my betrayal of his trust - trust does not come easy to Denialists> He is also rattled by the royalties from Denying AIDS paying for HIV medications in Africa - a donation that is meant to undo the very harm Rethinking AIDS is perpetrating. Crowe has never attended graduate school, has no training in science beyond his BS degree and is not only an AIDS Denier but a Cancer Denialist and Global Warming Denialist as well. Ask him, as a free thinker, whether he defends questioning the Holocaust is legitimate and see what he says. Denialism is a mental health problem and the bubble makers like Crowe should be recognized for what they are.

commented Mar 27, 2010, 09:07AM

Here we go again. The best you can offer are ad hominem arguments. Denialism is a mental health problem? That’s rich. Crowe’s views have been informed by the reading of some 1,500 scientific papers on the topic. As to money going to HIV medications and undoing the harm caused by HIV skeptics—why is then that Bauer’s analysis of CDC data revealed that the mortality rate of largely untreated HIV positive people in the developing world is about one-fifth that of HIV positive people in the developed world with access to the best antiretroviral medications?

B Carter

commented Mar 27, 2010, 08:28PM

This is a great post [sic]. Wonder if it'll get any attention? I thought maybe I'd have something better to do on a Saturday night, but this absolutely wonderful blog post beckons. Doesn't everybody love the term denialist? Is there even such a word? Repeat after me: "Denialism" - Has such a nice ring to it? River in Egypt? Laughable to say the least, but I'll have to share this. When one really takes the time to think logically, outside the wonder box the AIDS apologists have built for themselves, there's only one way denailism should be applied. Really I mean, the dreams these people have... lets just keep on denying that tide of popular opinion is not ever going to change. That unabated funding will always continue be there for continuing this 27 year go nowhere, old dead and dying cult like fellowship. Lets keep reminding ourselves, it's alright, nobody' going to listen to a denailist. It's alright. I get it. Better to be stuck in a negative circular logic compound with the all the other sheep than to ask the important questions. Nice but quite delusional I'd say.

eureka

commented Mar 28, 2010, 07:49AM

wow, get a life you two (crowe and connie). you're clearly unfamiliar with kaufmann's work. zach wins again while you remain apoplectic in front of your computer screens.

Timothy

commented Mar 30, 2010, 12:28PM

Hmm. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a Denialist! Actually, pretty good name for a political party. If Sarah Palin's riches get her expelled from the Tea Party (or Teabaggers), maybe she could do the GOP a favor and lead the Denialists to a 2012 showing that'd make Ralph Nader look like Ross Perot or George Wallace (in vote count, if not views).

onecleverkid

commented Mar 30, 2010, 03:52PM

Zach, your tone in this article is snotty and obnoxious and your absolute ignorance on this complex subject is an embarrassment. For you to act like David Crowe must not have the qualifications to make the claims he has made (without knowing how much research he has done over several years) while you go on to make claims that you are not qualified to make is a joke. If you care so much about credentials, then why do you hold up JT DeShong as a more reliable source of information than Crowe? Try having an intellectual conversation (or debate) with both men and see which one is crazy. I dare you.

glassman

commented Apr 07, 2010, 12:55PM

Zach try familiarise yourself with the science before you just pile misinformed nonsense on top of more pseudoscientific nonsense. Newsflash - just because an opinion or belief is a mainstream one doesn't mean it is correct. If all that matters to you is the approval of respectable society that know as much about AIDS as you do ie less than nothing (and most doctors aren't going to know anything pertinent here), if all you seek is the kudos of know-nothings like Seth Kalichman who appears to have made a career for himself spouting out AIDS industry gibberish, well then you are doing just fine. The thing is Zach one would never know the first thing about AIDS dissidents (not denialists) and what they are actually saying (on HIV testing, HIV isolation, gay AIDS, ARVs, African AIDS etc) going by your clueless rant, one never does from you guys, Kalichman included. That's because when it comes to the facts, you guys don't have any answers - so you censor, lie and misrepresent what AIDS dissidents actually say on absolutely everything relating to this topic. It's all you can do. AZT, one of the most widely administered ARV drugs, is highly toxic, it is a cytopathic drug -a deadly poison. It has a skull and cross-bones on the label, this label in not on the GlaxoSmithKline bottle they give to patients (gee I wonder why), but on the bottles they use in the lab, the exact same drug. Then again it is a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (nothing you would understand Zach), so that sets the alarm bells ringing. AZT was used as a cancer drug in the 60s but discontinued because it was so deadly, so can you tell me why you think it just hunky dory to prescribe it to pregnant women? onecleverkid - Zach and Kalichman and their ilk never do debate, for the reasons you know all too well, they come off very very badly. Just look at John Moore and his debate with the Perth Group, I could give plenty other examples. It's why the censorship is so pervasive, they can only lose. Zach do you know what projection is? You embody it as do all the unwitting pawns of this disastrous scam and fiasco that is possibly unprecedented in scale in the history of medicine (and that's saying a lot).

Snout

commented Apr 09, 2010, 03:12PM

Glassman above provides a perfect example of why hardly anyone bothers to "debate" HIV/AIDS denialists any more. Fact is, denialists simply regurgitate over and over the same dishonest factoids and argumentoids they read on denialist websites, and refuting them gets tedious after the first few dozen times. Cases in point: Yes, laboratory AZT came with a skull and crossbones on the label - so does virtually any laboratory chemical for experimental use, including ethanol. The only time I've seen a skull and crossbones on a bottle of ethanol outside the lab was on a bottle of "Jolly Roger Rum". And AZT was never used to treat cancer - that's rubbish. It was trialled against cancer on mice but found to poorly inhibit cellular DNA polymerases - which means it doesn't work against cancer and is why it rarely causes clinically significant bone marrow suppression when used in usual doses. However it is a very efficient inhibitor of retroviral reverse transcriptase- at least until viral resistance develops. It's kind of ironic that Glassman gets to whine about "censorship" in a published comment which is utter drivel. But then detecting irony was never the denialists' strong point.

commented Apr 10, 2010, 04:00AM

On the bottles of AZT in the lab along with the skull and crossbones, it says "Toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Target organs(s): Blood Bone marrow. If you feel unwell, seek medical advice (show the label where possible). Wear suitable protective clothing". The manufacturers ADMIT it's toxic in contact with skin!! wear protective clothing! and toxic if swallowed. Read that again. It's really not difficult to understand this unless you are in denial. Projection anybody? AZT aka Suramin was synthesised in the mid-60s, it was developted as an experimental cell poison for the treatment of cancerous tumour cells. That's why it was developed. It was abandoned for cancer research because it was discovered to be so deadly to cells, it is a DNA chain terminator - it kills the cancer along with the healthy cells, so no good at all and it was abandoned on this front. My first statement in this regard was way too vague, sweeping and misleading. AZT was developed for cancer research, but discontinued because it killed cells in vitro. In other words the reason it never got patented as a cancer drug was precisely because it was discovered to be so deadly to healthy cells, and not just damaging to the cancer. Snout doesn't mention that naturally. Or the tens of thousands of "HIV positive" people who have died (way more than a hundred thousand) and were users of AZT and other RT inhibitors. The package insert of AZT admits how deadly the drug is, it admits AZT use "may be associated with hematologic toxicity including granulocytopenia and severe anemia" as well as "symptomatic myopathy". Translation, it destroys your red blood cells, immune system and wastes your muscles. All this acknowledged on the package insert. So what is it going to do to pregnant women, and babies administered AZT and similar drugs shortly after birth, if it is a drug admitted by the manufacturers to cause severe damage to the vascular system!? There is a growing literature in the peer-reviewed medical journals on the damage AZT does to infants, all of it makes for horrific reading - brain damage, convulsions, stunted growth, general organ damage, cardiamyopathy, gastrointestinal disorders and higher rates of infant mortality and weakened immune systems and higher rates of serious diseases than among those so-called HIV positive infants not subjected to AZT and other ARVs. Then again AZT is a DNA chain terminator and it is known to cause mitochondriopathy (ie it damages the mitochondria in cells, mitochondria are like the engines of the cells, responsible for cellular respiration and thus the regulation of cellular metabolism, you damage the mitochondria of enough cells, your metabolism is shot). A study published in the JOurnal of Infectious Diseases in 2000 showed that infants administered AZT had a rate of death in their first year of life almost twice that of "HIV positive" infants not administered the so-called life-saving drugs. In a study done in Thailand over several years in the nineties it was acknowledged by the lead researcher that up to forty percent (yes 40%) of the infants and babies subjected to ARV "therapy" were dead before they turned three. In a paper published in Lancet in '99, researchers acknowledged the deaths of babies from AZT and AZT analogues in France, caused by mitochondrial dysfunction and related complications. "Eight children had mitochondrial dysfunction. Five, of whom two died, presented with delayed neurological symptoms (epilepsy, massive cortical necrosis, cortical blindness, spastic tetraplegia, cardiomyopathy and muscle weakness) and three were symptom-free but had severe biological or neurological abnormalities." Researchers admitted none of these children were infected by HIV, unlike (supposedly) their mothers. In 1994, the Harvard School of Public Health, reporting on AZT treatment in asymptomatic HIV positive individuals in the New England Journal of Medicine, found “a reduction in the quality of life due to severe side effects of therapy” and that these were “life-threatening in some cases.” Jay Levy at the University of California at San Fran, an HIV resarcher was quoted as saying on the drug: "I think AZT can only hasten the demise of the individual. It's an immune disease," he said, "and AZT only further harms an already decimated immune system." Given the severely flawed and corrupted clinical trials of AZT in the mid-80s in which the proper procedures for placebo controlled double-blind studies were not followed in multiple ways, in which Sam Broder's Phase 1 clinical study was a fiasco and the Phase 2 study saw multiple breaches of basic protocols, Burroughs Wellcome had its own researchers co-author the study results. Data obtained under FOI requests revealed fudged and altered data. Placebo patients had taken AZT whereas some AZT patients had to be taken off the drugs because of their toxicity. In fact the toxicity of AZT was proving to be extremely high, much higher than Broder's previous safety trials. It was recognised that AZT was killing bone marrow cells and causing aplastic anemia in subjects, this is deadly. As Broder himself admitted "There was enormous pressure to stop". "People said, 'My God, what's going on, we're getting these anemias, what's going on?' We never saw this level of anemia before." As Peter Duesberg wrote on this: "Drug therapy was temporarily discontinued or the frequency of doses decreased... if severe adverse reactions were noted," admitted [senior researcher] Fischl in the fine print of her paper." The study medication was withdrawn if unacceptable toxic effects or a [cancer] requiring therapy developed." This astonishing slip reveals that the doctors did indeed know who was using AZT. But never did Fischl tell how many "AZT" patients were taken off the drug, nor for how long." So why was the drug given the greenlight? Hysteria, political pressure and BigPharma bullying and profiteering. GlaxoSmithKline admits the following severe side-effects of AZT (among others): abdominal pain, chest pain, flu syndrome and other side-effects, hyperalgesia; Cardiovascular: syncope, vasodilation; Gastrointestinal: bleeding gums, rectal hemorrhage; Haemic and Lymphatic:lymphadenopathyMusculoskeletal: arthralgia, muscle spasm, tremor, twitch; Nervous: anxiety, confusion, depression, dizziness, emotional lability, loss of mental acuity, nervousness, paresthesia, somnolence, vertigo; Respiratory: cough, dyspnea, epistaxis, hoarseness, pharyngitis, rhinitis, sinusitis; Skin: acne, changes in skin and nail pigmentation, pruritus, rash,sweat, urticaria; Special senses: amblyopia, hearing loss, photophobia, taste perversion; Urogenital: dysuria, polyuria, urinary frequency, urinary hesitancy. AZT does enormous damage to the liver (hepatotoxicity) and other organs, including resultant fatal lactic acidosis. In fact liver damage, including of course fatal hepatotoxicity is widely reported on patients prescribed AZT and other ARVs. The NIH admitted this in the early 90s and the FDA in '93 ordered an advisory to be given to disease specialists that AZT caused liver toxicity. In 1999 Dr B McGovern, at Tufts University School of Medicine reported at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America that HIV patients who take highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were at particular risk because of the drugs’ potential toxicity to the liver. Also in 1999 in their paper "HIV Treatment-Associated Hepatitis", AIDS researchers Orenstein and LeGall-Salmon wrote that “Severe hepatitis has been reported with all of the currently available classes of antiretroviral agents.” There is a significant ever-growing medical literature on ARvs and liver toxicity alone. Resultant complications include aside from lactic acidosis, ketoacidosis, secondary diabetes mellitus and hyperglycemia and additional adverse complications. The following celebrities, including high-profile AIDS activists/victims were all on AZT and/or similar ARV drugs, and died either from them or inspite of taking the ARVs - Liberace, Rock Hudson (pre-AZT meds), Nureyev, Makgotha Mandela (Nelson Mandela's son), Ryan White, Keith Haring, Arthur Ashe, Freddie Mercury, Elizabeth Glaser, Pedro Zamorra, Bruce Voeller, Nkosi Johnson, Lance Loud, Barbara Garrison, Javier Contreras, Carlton Hogan, Peter McWilliams, Charles Clifton, Debbie Runions, Jeff Getty, John Granger, John Campbell, Thomas Morgan, Kim Bergalis, Brett Lykins and so many others. I haven't even gotten onto the other ARV Nevirapine, which the CDC itself admits can cause adverse liver toxicity, the European Medicines Evaluation Authority remarked on “life-threatening skin and liver reactions” and other “potentially lethal side effects” regarding Nevirapine as well. That's just for starters. I haven't even gotten into HIV testing and I had barely gotten started on the ARV drugs. Like I said you don't hear this from the AIDS orthodoxy except their denial that AZT, a cytopathic and mutagenic drug, is just that. You would think AZT is like aspirin, some minor side-effects, nothing to get worked up about. In other words, a whitewash of the real science here, the real horrible facts about the drug. Snout let's see you or any other drug pushers acknowledge what AIDS dissidents ACTUALLY say are the facts on the multiple and complex causes of gay AIDS (GRID)? You guys never do, because your whole HIV shebang falls apart right there. You simply misrepresent the facts here, when not simply censoring it all.

commented Apr 10, 2010, 03:28PM

You can waste hours refuting the outright lies of HIV/AIDS denialists, and the task is never done - they simply copy-paste the same lie to another website and start over. Case in point: Glassman's claim that "the reason it never got patented as a cancer drug was precisely because it was discovered to be so deadly to healthy cells, and not just damaging to the cancer. Snout doesn't mention that naturally." The truth is that AZT was never used as a cancer drug because it doesn't work well enough to suppress cell division - in cancerous or normal cells. Its affinity for DNA polymerase is very low, compared to its affinity for retroviral reverse transcriptase. The claim that it was TOO efficient at DNA polymerase inhibition is an idiot lie originating I believe with Duesberg, and endlessly copy pasted by morons like Glassman who are too lazy to check whether the claim is true or not. Or to check how safety labels are developed for laboratory chemicals. There are probably as many mutually contradictory HIV/AIDS denialist hypotheses about what they think causes AIDS as there are HIV/AIDS denialists. Such theories are bound to multiply when each of them lacks adequate supporting evidence and flies in the face of the facts. Truth is, denialists aren't really interested in what causes AIDS - they're only interested in denying that HIV is its cause. And some of them deny that AIDS even exists.

commented Apr 10, 2010, 03:46PM

SERIOUS REACTIONS: anaphylactic/anaphylactoid reactions angioedema bronchospasm bleeding GI ulceration/perforation Disseminated intravascular coagulation pancytopenia thrombocytopenia agranulocytosis aplastic anemia hypoprothrombinemia nephrotoxicity hepatotoxicity (high-dose ASA) salicylism Reye's syndrome COMMON REACTIONS: dyspepsia nausea vomiting abdominal pain rash tinnitus dizziness hyperuricemia bleeding ecchymosis constipation diarrhea. This is the side effect list for... Aspirin. Point being that lists of side effects alone tell you very little about the risk-benefit equation. AZT is far from side-effect free (there are better substitutes for many people these days), but HIV/AIDS is a serious disease. Denialists post copy-pasted side effect lists without context in an effort to deliberately deceive people in need of medical treatment. Such deception is not only idiotic, but morally reprehensible.

commented Apr 10, 2010, 06:24PM

...and... err... how exactly did Rock Hudson die on "AZT and/or similar ARV drugs" when he died in 1985 and AZT (which was the first ARV) wasn't released until 1987? And what is the difference between dying FROM a treatment and dying DESPITE a treatment? Did you think no-one would notice that bit of misleading rhetorical trickery?. And no, I am not interested in systematically "debating"every single one of your tedious lies and argumentoids. Again. Hopefully the small sample I've chosen from your drivel will allow any competent reader to discern the pattern of dishonesty, misrepresentation, cherry picking, ignorance, deception, and lethally stupid mendacity that characterises the HIV/AIDS denialist project.

commented Apr 12, 2010, 02:32AM

Snout continues to project his denial of the terrible horrors of AIDS drugs and the AIDS fiasco as a whole onto AIDS dissidents (who he contines to mislabel denialists and always will). I never wrote that Rock Hudson died from AZT, I made it clear he was on pre-AZT meds. Here is what I wrote, "the following celebrities, including high-profile AIDS activists/victims were all on AZT and/or similar ARV drugs, and died either from them or inspite of taking the ARVs - Liberace, Rock Hudson (pre-AZT meds), Nureyev, Makgotha Mandela... " So I made it very clear in plain English that Hudson was not on AZT. He was however on toxic meds, something the orthodox AIDS drug pushers conveniently ignore. Everything else Snout writes is the usual misinformation and irrational denial and tiresome projection. The side-effects of AZT and Nevirapine are seriously adverse to health, bodily and organ functions in general and potentially fatal, as admitted by numerous health authorities, NIH included and the drug manufacturers themselves, yet to Snout this is out of context! That doesn't even make any sense. Out of what context? The context of liver poisoning and severe anemia, muscle wasting and mitochondrial dysfunction, bone marrow suppression, vital organ damage, general nervous system damage on top of vascular and endocrinal dysfunction? How is Stevens-Johnson syndrome (potentially fatal condition in which there is a blistering and sloughing of the mucous membranes, the dermis can seperate from the epidermis! internal organs are badly affected) and toxic epidermal necrolysis ( both S-J syndrome and epidermal necrolysis "side-effects" of the drugs ADMITTED to by the manufacturers) out of context? The deaths, and agonising deaths I might add, of men and women from AZT poisoning is out of what context exactly? Infants with poor and subpar motor skills and poor co-ordination (ie brain and nerve damage) and stunted growth is out of what context? Infants suffering epileptic-like convulsions, gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders and dysfunction and high rates of mortality is out of context? Asymptomatic pregnant women both dying and experiencing miscarriages while on the drugs is out of context? Out of context for drug company profits and the careers and reputations of those pushing for the dispensing of these toxic ARVs, for sure. Out of that context I guess. I could give examples, of numerous case studies of what AZT and Nevirapine and the like have done to asymptomatic ie AIDS-free "HIV pos" people ( their subsequent deteriorating health and in many cases deaths associated with complications and conditions known to be caused by the ARVs and not AIDS defining illnesses), but it wouldn't make any differences to those in major DENIAL ie Snout and his ilk. He would just tell us that it isn't so and is 'out of context'. Snout writes: "And what is the difference between dying FROM a treatment and dying DESPITE a treatment? Did you think no-one would notice that bit of misleading rhetorical trickery?" Uh what trickery? If AZT is such a life-saver how come tens and tens of thousands of people who took the drug died while on them? My point is that to those who had AIDS and were given the drug and other ARVs, it didn't do them any good, since they still died from AIDS-related complications, and many of them of complications from AZT and ARV poisoning as well. So obviously the AZT doesn't work (given all the people who died from AIDS while they were on the drugs - AZT included. That's my point that is over the heads of people like Snout.) Also plenty people started to get very sick and waste away and die ONLY after taking AZT and other meds (since AZT and other RT inhibitors were later insanely prescribed as prophylactics). They were only "HIV positive" but NOT sick with AIDS symptoms (ie asymptomatic) and their health only started to detoriorate after going on the meds from conditions and side-effects associated with the ARV meds themselves. I could give so many examples and cite so many statments in this regard from people on the inside of this AIDS horror, who witnessed this iatrogenic slaughter of their friends and loved ones, but it would make no difference to the Snouts of the world. Psyche 101. I noticed Snout you didn't refute the facts about a single study, trial or paper I cite (but then you can't of course) and I haven't even brought up the comprehensive Concorde ARV Study from Europe (from way back when) and the fiasco that was the corrupt HIV 012 AZT and Nevirapine trial with pregnant women in Uganda. And much more besides. If the skull and crossbones on the label of bottles of AZT in the lab also telling us that AZT is toxic by inhalation and toxic if swallowed and if brought into contact with skin is not such a big deal (as Snout would like to pretend, talk about denial) why is this label not on the Glaxo bottles they give to people/patients including pregnant women? Would anybody here take a drug that has a skull and crossbones on the label and warns that it is toxic if swallowed? Anybody? As well as having no problem recommending such a drug to pregant women? Anybody? A drug that the warning label on the lab bottles admits targets the bone marrow and thus among other things severely disrupts and weakens the immune system? You don't ever hear about any of these easily verifiable easy to understand FACTS about AZT (admitted to by the manufacturers) from the likes of Snout and the other AIDS drug pushers, any more than they will ever acknowledge what AIDS dissidents ACTUALLY SAY about HIV testing, isolation, HIV stats and gay AIDS for that matter, and much more besides. In fact pretty much everything about HIV/AIDS that there is to discuss, the whole big house of horrors. I wrote in my previous post in fact the following: Snout let's see you or any other drug pushers acknowledge what AIDS dissidents ACTUALLY say are the facts on the multiple and complex causes of gay AIDS (GRID)? You guys never do, because your whole HIV shebang falls apart right there. Still waiting... Of course Snout and all others just like him cannot even acknowledge what dissidents say on this front ALONE, since they cannot refute it and the whole HIV/AIDS horror is totally exposed for what it is right there. For the same reasons you will hear nothing from Snout and his ilk on what dissidents ACTUALLY SAY about haemophiliacs, HIV testing, the horrors of the ARVs (and I have barely waded into it), African AIDS etc simply because they cannot refute it and their whole house of lies comes crumbling down. Instead it's just projection. Snout can't even face up to basic facts about the adverse toxicity of ARVs, it is recognised as a cytopathic and mutagenic drug by the health authorities and the drug companies themselves. Snout and his ilk can't even make this basic concession (dismissing this all euphemistically as "side-effects" which doesn't tell us much of anything) because it opens up a Pandora's Box and their whole HIV/AIDS edifice begins to crumble, as all big lies do when they face just a little scrutiny. You will be waiting for hell to freeze over before Snout and other Kalichman wannabes will acknowledge what AIDS dissidents are ACTUALLY SAYING in totallity on HIV testing and gay AIDS alone, never mind anything more than that (like ARVs). They cannot refute any of it so they simply can't acknowledge any of it, hence the pervasive censorship, misrepresentations and the like.

commented Apr 12, 2010, 03:02PM

What were the "similar ARV drugs" Rock Hudson was on before he died of AIDS on October 2 1985, Glassman? Fact is, you are lying. Gosh, who'd have thought that an AIDS denialist might be lying. "Similar ARV drugs" did not exist then. Perhaps he started taking them after he died?

commented Apr 12, 2010, 03:46PM

Or Liberace for that matter - he died on 4th February 1987, six weeks BEFORE zidovudine (AZT) was first licensed? Is he another one whose AIDS was posthumously caused by AZT and "similar ARV drugs"?

commented Apr 12, 2010, 04:50PM

Here's another example of denialist lies from Glassman's "celebrity" list - Kim Bergalis. Denialist-in-chief Peter Duesberg claims that Bergalis was healthy before she started AZT and that "none of her occasional diseases differed from the common health problems many HIV-negative people encounter". He makes this claim in order to support his idiotic theory that AIDS is caused not by HIV but by AZT (and other drugs). He is lying. Bergalis was hospitalised at the end of 1989 with life-threatening AIDS-defining PCP, weight loss, candidiasis and a CD4 count of 41. It was only AFTER that that she was tested for HIV (not "out of the blue" as Duesberg dishonestly claims) and subsequently started on AZT - two months AFTER her first presentation with PCP. She survived another two years after her initial AIDS-defining illness. Gee, did AZT somehow reach back in time and retrospectively cause her AIDS? That's what the denialists would have you believe. Anyone notice a pattern here?

commented Apr 12, 2010, 06:02PM

Glassman complains that I haven't acknowledged what the HIV/AIDS denialists "are ACTUALLY SAYING in totallity". The fact is that after more than 25 years of fighting among themselves the denialists have been unable to work out whether HIV even exists. That's the level of stupidity we're dealing with.... "Ridicule is he only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them..." - Thomas Jefferson.

Politics & Media

Mar 26, 2010, 10:42AM