Circumcision and condom idiocies

When children are taught to use calculators, the importance is well recognized of teaching them to THINK about what the result should be, by doing a rough mental or manual calculation, so that they don’t accept a silly order of magnitude through mistaking an exponential or use a stupid number of decimal places as “significant figures”. So too, people who use statistical analyses of possible correlations should THINK about the implied meaning of suspected associations. That could hardly have been the case with those who wrote

“The protective effect of MC [male circumcision] on HIV infection was unchanged when controlling for sexual behaviour, including condom use” [Auvert et al., “Randomized, controlled intervention trial of male circumcision for reduction of HIV infection risk: The ANRS 1265 trial”, PLoS Medicine 2(11) (2005) e298].

THINK about it, please. Circumcision supposedly protects against “HIV” whether or not the male is wearing a condom?!  How could that possibly be?
The claimed protective effect of circumcision can only have something to do with the foreskin. Indeed, it is hypothesized to result from the high density of “HIV”-susceptible cells in the foreskin or from the foreskin’s greater tendency to tear during intercourse. But condoms prevent contact of the foreskin with anything except the condom. How could the foreskin be relevant when condoms are used?

*********************

Those 3 flawed clinical trials of circumcision against “HIV”, with results at best inconclusive and at worst unbelievable, have nevertheless formed the basis for projections, under the auspices of UNAIDS, of how many “HIV infections” could be prevented, and at what minimal cost. Those projections are based, as usual, on elaborate models incorporating innumerable assumptions as well as unwarranted reliance on the clinical studies whose faults are legion.

*********************

Everyone knows, of course, that condom use decreases the risk of contracting “HIV”. But, as so often with HIV/AIDS shibboleths, the facts don’t bear that out [for example, Condoms and HIV: What everyone knows is once again wrong, 10 February 2008; HIV and sexually transmitted disease: it just isn't so, 28 November 2007].

For instance, during a clinical trial of the influence of pregnancy in which the actual incidence of “HIV” was being observed in real time, the rate of becoming “HIV-positive” was greater among those using condoms than among those not using them, in all 3 studied cohorts [as I noted already in Spontaneous generation of “HIV”, 25 October 2009]:

At what straws might the investigators grasp to explain this away?
“HIV incidence rates were lower in non-condom users than condom users, but interpretation was constrained by small sample sizes in the pregnant and breastfeeding groups, and by the fact that female condom use in this population is strongly correlated with multiple sexual partners.”

So condoms don’t protect you if you have multiple partners, and not using them protects you if you don’t have multiple partners. By all means, sign me up for the next time a Brooklyn Bridge goes on sale.

As to sample sizes:
Those never using condoms irregularly or always totaled 2763, of whom 49 became “HIV-positive”, a rate of 1.77%. Those not using condoms totaled 25,440, of whom only 289 became “HIV-positive”, a rate of 1.14%.
It’s not immediately obvious why the samples 49/2473 and 289/25,440 are too small to permit significance whereas 23/997 (pregnant women becoming “HIV-positive”), 40/3,043 (lactating women becoming “HIV-positive”), and 275/24,161 (women neither pregnant nor lactating becoming “HIV-positive”) were sufficiently large to establish that pregnancy is significantly associated with becoming “HIV-positive”, as the study concluded.

I suppose it’s really that when the facts don’t jibe with HIV/AIDS theory, the facts must be wrong, and if the only conceivable reasons are small sample sizes and an association between condom use and multiple partners, so be it, that’s the best explanations there are, and there’s no need to worry about their plausibility because the theory is right and the facts are therefore wrong.

The conclusion that pregnancy is significantly associated with becoming “HIV-positive” is in itself mind-boggling. The researchers “explain” it by postulating hormonal and other physiological changes in pregnancy that enhance the virus’s infective powers! Because, of course, they must not admit that “HIV+” might be a direct consequence of pregnancy, the so-called “HIV” test actually reacting directly to precisely something associated with those physiological changes. That’s why pregnant women everywhere, always, test “HIV+” more often than non-pregnant women.

Laugh, cry, or summon up pity for those caught in this “research” mess, who have to swallow absurdities in ever-increasing amounts in order to maintain their belief in HIV/AIDS theory.

Drug peddlers’ ads ignore FDA

Advertising of prescription drugs direct to consumers is permitted, in the developed world, only in the United States and New Zealand (Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It, Random House, 2004, p. 125). Anyone who watches TV or reads magazines knows how attractive these ads can make their medications seem: radiantly satisfied users are shown, and the “side” effects are hidden in the finest print in magazine ads while on TV or radio they are described in cheery, lighthearted tones and words intended to make them seem ignorable, mild inconveniences at worst. My favorite illustration of that is in the ads for sexual stimulants, where one is advised to consult one’s doctor if experiencing “changes in hearing or vision”, which doesn’t quite acknowledge the occasional cases of irreversible deafness or blindness.

The overwhelming majority of HIV-positive people who have taken antiretroviral drugs have found the “side” effects extremely debilitating. On a number of occasions I’ve cited the gruesome descriptions from the NIH Treatment Guidelines, including that people on HAART suffer more “non-AIDS” events than “AIDS” events, chiefly heart, kidney, or liver failure. A backhanded official acknowledgment of these awful “side” effects is the prominence given to the problem of ensuring “compliance” by patients to taking the pills. An actual demonstration is that in clinical trials in an orphanage, the children found the side effects of the drugs so painful that “compliance” had to be ensured by surgically implanting tubes direct into their stomachs (www.guineapigkids.com, accessed 13 May 2009) for ready insertion of the drugs. Another illustration is that AIDS clinics report a 40% drop-out rate from medication [Drug non-adherence, imaginary epidemics, and sexual nonsense, 30 August 2009].

The drug peddlers nevertheless like to illustrate their advertisements for antiretroviral drugs with photos of radiant men in the pink of condition. This has been so egregious that “In a strongly worded letter, FDA marketing division chief Thomas Abrams ordered pharmaceutical companies to create ads that are more ‘representative’ of the realities of HIV . . . . The ad for Crixivan features three athletic men and one woman who have just scaled a dramatic mountain peak, an athletic feat that many perfectly healthy people probably couldn’t do. Meanwhile, the ad for Combivir shows a muscular and attractive African-American with a towel over his shoulder, hinting that he has just completed a rugged workout. The text tells us he’s ‘living proof’ of the power of Combivir. . . . [T]he HIV drug ads . . .  fail to spell out the potentially deadly kidney and liver problems, diarrhea, nausea and other side effects that are endemic to anti-retroviral treatments” (Daryl Lindsey, 8 May 2001, “The ‘Joe Camel’ ads of AIDS?”).

Despite that “strongly worded” admonishment from the FDA, 3 years later the FDA had to actually ban two advertisements by Abbott Laboratories.

Another 3 years on, and the drug pushers had still not mended their ways:
”Certain omissions in these ads do not technically violate current FDA regulations, but they do violate those regulations’ intent. . . . Current ads [fail to] . . . highlight life-threatening side effects” [Kallen et al., “Direct-to-consumer advertisements for HIV antiretroviral medications: A progress report”, Health Affairs, 26 #5 (2007): 1392-8].

Another two years on, and the apparently toothless tiger of the FDA overlooks or ignores such ads as this one, which appeared recently as a full page on the inside cover in both gay publications in Washington DC, Washington Blade and Metro Weekly.

Perhaps the FDA could insist that photos in such ads always be of people who have been compliantly on the advertised drugs for at least a year?

AIDS activists are immune!

AIDS Activists Issue Grades to Drug Companies, by Duff Wilson; 10 September 2009
“Merck won the highest grade and Abbott Laboratories flunked in a report card being issued Thursday by a prominent group of AIDS treatment activists after a yearlong study of the actions of nine major pharmaceutical companies to address the contagion in the United States. . . . the report card graded the drug makers overall with a below-average C-minus and recommended improvements. . . . The companies were scored on research and development, pricing, patient assistance programs, marketing, and community relations. . . .
The coalition was to some degree biting the hand that feeds it. It receives all of its financing from drug companies, mostly for activists to travel to meetings with them. The executive director, Edward T. Rewolinski, disclosed specific amounts to The New York Times for the last two years. ‘None of our members has the wherewithal to afford this activity,’ he said.
‘People like that would never be influenced by the flow of money,’ Jennifer Flynn, managing director of an unrelated AIDS group, Health GAP, in New York, said.
The top fund provider was Gilead with $100,000, followed by Pfizer, $63,000; Bristol-Myers Squibb, $50,000; Tibotec, $45,000; Merck, $15,000; and Boehringer, $5,000. Abbott gave no money.
Mr. Huff said the grading group was insulated from financing requests. . . . [Bob Huff is antiretroviral treatment director of the Treatment Action Group in New York and a board member of the rating group.]
The coalition was formed in 2001 partly to coordinate contacts with drug companies instead of letting the industry decide whom to invite to meetings” [emphasis added].

Financial conflicts of interest, we’re asked to believe, have no influence on AIDS activists. They’re immune.
We’re not told, however, how they acquired that immunity, which is normally reserved for the gods.

As to the matter of biting the hand that feeds, social activists of various stripes trade on the fact that political correctness has made certain forms of blackmail openly acceptable. Once a group has attained the status of victim-hood, it is not only free to indulge in hyperbolic criticism of mainstream institutions but is actually rewarded for it.

In the present instance, the drug companies profit more than handsomely from the activists’ incessant propaganda for more funds for AIDS treatment. Criticisms like the present ones, that they should do more to develop yet more antiretroviral drugs, are a valuable basis for claiming the need for even higher profits in order to support even more research. If it weren’t all so blatantly open and obvious, one might be tempted to talk of a conspiracy between drug companies and AIDS activists.

Spontaneous generation of “HIV”

In places where claimed outbreaks of “HIV” have had “infected needles” as the only possible source of the supposedly infecting agent, the large but unaddressed question is, how did those needles become infected in the first place? And then remain infected long enough to pass on that infection when the purported contagious agent is supposed to survive for only a brief time outside bodily fluids? [HIV/AIDS in Italy — and “NEEDLE ZERO”, 11 October 2008; “Needle ZERO” again; or, HIV pops up magically out of nowhere, 15 November 2008].
It’s as though this “HIV” were spontaneously generating itself. That would not have seemed absurd a couple of centuries ago, when spontaneous generation of living organisms was an acceptable theory, but HIV/AIDS theory is supposed to be scientifically up-to-date.

An even more direct instance of “HIV-positive” in absence of “HIV” is that of certain elite controllers who have no detectable “viral load” (Compounding HIV/AIDS absurdities, 11 October 2009).

There are at least two other situations where “HIV-positive” pops up without any sign that “HIV” was present in the first place: In clinical trials of circumcision as a means of preventing “HIV-positive” status, and in a prospective study of acquisition of “HIV” by pregnant women.

***************************

Two clinical trials of circumcision both reported that participants in both control and intervention groups acquired “HIV-positive” status during the trial even while abstaining from intercourse:

“there were seven early seroconverters . . . : four in the circumcision group and three in the control group. Three of the four in the circumcision group reported no sexual activity in the month after circumcision. We cannot exclude the possibility that any of these individuals were actually HIV positive at baseline, and that their infection was not detected. Two of the three early seroconverters in the control group also denied sexual activity in the period before seroconversion” [emphases added; Bailey et al., “Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomised controlled trial”, Lancet, 369 (2007) 643-56].

“circumcision  was not protective against HIV acquisition in the few men  who  reported  no  sexual  activity in  a  given  follow-up  interval. There were six incident cases (three in each group)  during periods of reported abstinence. None of these six  participants reported receipt of injections or transfusions  during the follow-up interval of HIV seroconversion; these  participants probably under-reported their sexual activity” [emphases added; Gray et al., “Male circumcision for HIV prevention in men in Rakai, Uganda: a randomised trial”, Lancet, 369 (2007) 657-66].

The mainstream explanation, then, is that the individuals concerned lied, or that they had been “HIV-positive” at enrolment but failed to be detected by those highly specific “HIV” tests. Sherlock Homes might have agreed in general that when all the likely possibilities have been excluded, one must accept those of high improbability — but Holmes would never have come to believe HIV/AIDS theory in the first place. What a coincidence, that about the same number of men in all four groups became “HIV-positive” in absence of sexual activity. Or, alternatively, what a coincidence that the number who not only lied about sexual activity but also became “HIV-positive” should be the same in all four groups.

HIV Skeptics and AIDS Rethinkers, however, understand that “HIV-positive” does not necessarily bespeak an infection transmitted sexually or by other means. These facts are perfectly compatible with the copious data that show “HIV-positive” to be a condition inducible by any number of stimulating influences. Moreover, the tendency to test “HIV-positive” increases with age from the teens into middle age:

Therefore it is only to be expected that in any group of young men observed for any substantial length of time, a few will become “HIV-positive” — perhaps as a result of flu, or malaria, or a vaccination, etc.

******************************

Consistent with these occasional real-time observations of “HIV-positive” incidence among people who have had no sexual activity, no blood transfusions, and no injections is the finding in a large clinical trial carried out over many years that pregnant women become “HIV-positive” at a greater rate than do those who have already given birth and are lactating or those who are neither pregnant nor breastfeeding:

Lest one attempt to explain this away by postulating, counter to common sense, that pregnant women have more sex or more unsafe sex than do non-pregnant women, Gray et al. note that
“The  mean  monthly  frequency  of  intercourse  was  lower  during  pregnancy  (6·7  acts  per month) than during breastfeeding (7·5 acts per month) and  during  non-pregnant  and  non-lactating  intervals (8·0 per month; p<0·05). Therefore, we also estimated the  rate  of  HIV  acquisition  per  coital  act,  which  was higher during pregnancy than in the non-pregnant and non-lactating group (incidence rate ratio 1·42, 95% CI 0·37-3·82). . . . [P]regnant women were  significantly  less  likely  to  report  multiple  sexual partners  than  were  non-pregnant  and  non-lactating women,  and   in   married   couples   the   husbands   of pregnant  women  reported  significantly  fewer  sexual partners  than  husbands  of  non-pregnant  and  non- lactating women. Although there could be misreporting of  sexual  behaviours,  the  results  are  unlikely  to  differ between the three exposure groups, so both female and male  sexual  behaviours  are  unlikely  to  account  for  the excess risk of HIV during pregnancy. . . . [W]e  conclude  that  behavioural  factors  are unlikely  to  explain  why  the  HIV  incidence  rate  is increased  during  pregnancy,  and  we  speculate  that biological factors might have a role. . . . . Hormonal  contraception  has  been  associated  with  increased  risks  of  HIV acquisition   in   some   but   not   all   epidemiological studies” [emphases added].
In overall summary, Gray et al. state:
“Interpretation The risk of HIV acquisition rises during pregnancy. This change is unlikely to be due to sexual risk behaviours, but might be attributable to hormonal changes affecting the genital tract mucosa or immune responses. HIV prevention efforts are needed during pregnancy to protect mothers and their infants.”

How close they come to recognizing the fact of the matter, that “HIV-positive” signifies any one or more of a wide range of physiological conditions, of which pregnancy has long been known to be one. They even cite a study from Malawi that reported higher incidence of “HIV-positive” in pregnancy than post-partum, by a factor of 2.19, and another from Rwanda that reported higher incidence of “HIV-positive” early post-partum compared to later. In South Africa, “HIV-positive” prevalence is persistently higher among pregnant women than among women as a whole [HIV demographics are predictable; HIV is not a contagious infection, 27 August 2008].

********************

But perhaps most remarkable of all is the quite direct evidence in the Gray article that “HIV” can be “caught” in absence of “HIV”. During the study, 338 seroconversions were observed: 23 among pregnant women, 40 among lactating women, and 275 among the others. The article also reports on discordant couples — male partner “HIV-positive”, wife “HIV”-negative — and in those cases there were 77 seroconversions: 6 among pregnant women, 11 among lactating women, and 60 among the rest. The inference is clear that 261 (338-77) seroconversions occurred among couples not known to be discordant — in other words, one partner “caught” “HIV” though the other partner didn’t have it.

Of course, “partners not known to be ‘HIV-positive’” is not the same as “partners known not to be ‘HIV-positive’”. But since the investigators explicitly sought to ascertain the “HIV” status of partners, and were confident enough of their data that they reported separately on “transmission” among discordant couples, it seems unlikely that they would have missed a large enough number to explain all the seroconversions observed in the study; therefore it does seem that as many as 77% (261/338) of the women in the study who became “HIV-positive” did so without any evidence of sexual intercourse with an “HIV-positive” male, indeed, with implicit evidence of LACK of such contact.

Lest this line of inference not be convincing, consider this clear statement in the article’s Summary:
“In married pregnant women who had a sexual relationship with their male spouses, the HIV incidence rate ratio was 1·36  (0·63-2·93).  In  married  pregnant  women  in  HIV-discordant  relationships  (ie,  with  HIV-positive  men)  the incidence rate ratio was 1·76 (0·62-4·03).”
Thus the rate of seroconversions in discordant relationships was very little higher than overall; evidently the rate of seroconversion in non-discordant relationships was appreciable. “HIV” was appearing in absence of “HIV”.

AGAIN: The obvious inference, consistent with large amounts of other data, is that pregnancy per se is a condition that conduces to testing “HIV-positive”. Pregnancy is one of many conditions that conduce to testing “HIV-positive” (see Why pregnant women tend to test “HIV-positive”, 5 October 2009).

********************

Under mainstream HIV/AIDS theory, then,

“HIV” is sometimes SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATED.

An irreverent observer might express this as

“HIV” is IMMACULATELY CONCEIVED

or as Axel put it,

the virgin birth of “HIV”

*****************************************************************************

P.S. re condoms:
Alert and wary consumers of data will have noted in the Table above not only that pregnant women become “HIV”-positive more often than others, but also that women who used condoms (regularly or irregularly) became “HIV”-positive more often than those who never used condoms.
Just another unacknowledged self-contradiction in HIV/AIDS theory.

Public Debate about Leung film

On 28th October, the SPECTATOR magazine (London UK) arranged a debate on the occasion of a screening of Brent Leung’s “House of Numbers”.

I await with high interest a report on that debate, which featured Professor Beverly Griffin (Imperial College London), Dr Joe Sonnabend (founding editor of AIDS Research), Rt. Hon. Lord Norman Fowler (former UK Secretary of State for Health), Charles Geshekter (emeritus, California State University) as well as Brent Leung, Director/Producer.

In the meantime, one can read this preview of the debate by Neville Hodgkinson already published at the SPECTATOR.

STOP PRESS, 26 OCTOBER:  Screening and debate were cancelled at very short notice, will be rescheduled.

“I am writing to inform you that, with much regret, the event on “Aids – realism or denial” due to take place on Wednesday 28 October,  has been cancelled due to several members of the panel having pulled out at the last minute, leaving us with an unbalanced panel which would not make for a rounded discussion on the film.

The purpose of the event was to have a rational and balanced discussion in an area of science too often characterised by hysteria. House of Numbers is a controversial film and we wanted it scrutinised by leading authorities and to follow its showing with real debate encompassing a wide spectrum of opinion. It has proved very difficult to put together a panel which could do this. We thought we had managed but several last-minute defections have defeated us. We will look at staging this event at a later date with another, more dependable panel.

We apologise to you who signed up to attend, however, we have been left with no option but to cancel.

We will be fully reimbursing your ticket fees today and can confirm that the refund should show in your accounts by the end of the week.  We will be in touch should we manage to stage this event in the future.  In meantime, we would like to thank you for your support and encourage you to visit our website on www.spectator.co.uk/events to view our forthcoming events which may be of interest.

Yours sincerely

Phoebe Vela
Head of Corporate Affairs and Events

Events
Events Team
Press Holdings Media Group
22 Old Queen Street
London
SW1H 9HP
T – +44 (0)20 7961 0044
F – +44 (0)20 7961 0100
events@pressholdings.com