TELLING TRUE STORIES ABOUT HIV/AIDS

How to entice into “rethinking AIDS”, into questioning the conventional wisdom, people who have been thoroughly brainwashed by the constant repetition of “HIV, the virus that causes AIDS”?

A large part of the problem is that the rethinkers’ case is not readily made in a convincing way via self-evident sound-bites. “The ‘HIV’ tests don’t detect a virus”, or “ ‘HIV’ tests have never been proven to be specific for ‘HIV’”, while perfectly true, are based on evidence that is too technical for most people to feel comfortable with; to appreciate the strength of the case against HIV/AIDS theory, to appreciate that those mainstream-contradicting sound-bites are really true, requires prolonged immersion in much data. Even the most concise as well as documented overview, say, Christine Maggiore’s excellent What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?, or Rebecca Culshaw’s similarly concise yet also comprehensive Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, are hardly bed-time reading. A promising alternative approach is through “fiction”.

There’s a long and respectable history of literary fiction that aims to acquaint readers with important facts. (Most good literature teaches at least indirectly about people and about human life, of course, but I’m now referring to deliberately didactic treatments of specific issues.) Sinclair Lewis in Martin Arrowsmith conveyed important truths about medical practice and medical research and commercial conflicts of interest. Upton Sinclair revealed through novels some ugly truths about the meat-packing industry (The Jungle), the oil industry (Oil), and others, and his Lanny Budd series can serve as a descriptive political history of the era of Nazism, the Second World War, and its aftermath. Most recently, Michael Crichton exposed the lacunae and fault lines in the current obsession with man-caused global warming in State of Fear.

HIV/AIDS seems a natural candidate for this sort of treatment, and Stephen Davis has put his hand, head, and heart into the endeavor. His first novel, Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial, was published in 2006; the second, Are You Positive?, appeared this year.

Both books feature legal trials, and are thereby consistent with my growing suspicion that HIV/AIDS theory will only be overturned when the mainstream is forced, in a court of law, to reveal the extent to which the theory is like an Emperor wearing no clothes at all.

Wrongful Death tells the story of a class-action suit brought by relatives of those who died needlessly because “HIV-positive” people were treated with AZT. The novel was exceptionally timely, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was just then recommending that “HIV”-testing should become routine. If that were to happen, then a few perfectly healthy people in every thousand would be misguidedly told that they harbor a deadly virus and should begin taking drugs whose “side” effects make the rate of “adherence to treatment” quite low and which ultimately reward compliant adherence with serious illness and often death.

Davis follows, for legal reasons, the convention of claiming fictional character for the protagonists (except for a few well-known public figures), but readers at all familiar with HIV/AIDS matters will recognize many of the characters, most of whose names are faithful to the initials of their real-life models. The story is told in quite a straightforward manner, an appropriate vehicle for acquainting readers with the facts in a steady succession of digestible pieces. Though the story is straightforwardly told, there are also a couple of ingenious twists in the plot.

Are You Positive? features a trial that has, unfortunately, some real-life precedents: an HIV-positive man on trial for transmitting the virus to a sexual partner. As in the earlier book, the real-life models of some protagonists are recognizable, including by their initials. The evidence is unfolded at digestible pace: the lack of validity of “HIV” tests, the racial bias of the tests, the particular likelihood that TB patients and pregnant women will test “HIV-positive”. The recommendation that everyone be tested is mentioned, and the gruesome story of the orphans used as guinea pigs in clinical trials. The Padian study revealing lack of sexual transmission is dissected expertly. Gallo’s scientific failings are described accurately, as well as his self-incriminating testimony in the Parenzee trial in Adelaide (Australia). The role of conflicts of interest in the HIV/AIDS industry is brought out. An Appendix has a recommended “Informed Consent” form that people should require their doctors to sign if they are being asked to take an HIV test.

The story is told very accurately indeed in this novel. Because I already knew that every detail is correct, I found it emotionally difficult reading–I know of a dozen people languishing in jail for the crime of making love while testing “positive” for a supposedly active infection that the tests cannot actually establish, and there are surely many more in jail of whom I am not aware. HIV/AIDS-naïve readers, however, may not experience that emotional burden as they are led slowly to doubt what the conventional wisdom insists on.

My respect for these books and their author was only increased when, toward the end, I found cited one of my favorite epigrams, one I had used myself for years as the motto of a newsletter I once edited:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

Both these books are paperbacks published via automated “on demand” printing. Their material quality is comparable with such productions from large publishers, but in their lack of typographical errors they are far superior to most contemporary works, including in hard covers from long-established and respected presses.

Rethinkers ought to consider giving these books to their friends and acquaintances who scoff at the possibility that the mainstream could be wrong about HIV/AIDS. Leading HIV/AIDS-naïve people through salient details of the evidence in measured and linear succession is likely to make it easier for them to begin to shake off unthinking acceptance of the conventional wisdom than trying to argue all the scientific issues in concentrated form. Wrongful Death cites hundreds of supporting published sources; Are You Positive? relegates them to the website. In both cases, you can assure those to whom you give these books that the cited evidence is solidly supported in the mainstream literature and that the cited sources represent fairly the totality of what has been published and what is known.

BABIES INFECT MOTHERS; CRAZY THEORY RUINS LIVES

What can one say about tragedies like these?

“Kyrgyz Babies Pass HIV to Mothers
OSH, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Not long ago, she was a wife, mother and teacher. Now Dilfuza Mustafakulova is HIV-positive and has lost her husband and her job. Mustafakulova’s baby son was among 72 children infected with the virus at two Kyrgyz hospitals. Sixteen mothers also have contracted it — in some cases by breast-feeding their children. . . .
The scandal has led to charges of negligence against 14 medical workers in the impoverished former Soviet republic, where investigators suspect the children were infected by tainted blood and the reuse of needles. . . . Although HIV infection from breast-feeding is rare, it is possible, usually when the baby has mouth sores and the mother has lesions on her nipples, according to AIDS experts. Mustafakulova, whose son was 7 months old at the time, said her breasts were cracked and bleeding. . . . Some 1,600 people are infected with HIV in the Central Asian nation of 5 million people, according to official figures — 15 times more than in 2002. AIDS experts estimate the real number is closer to 6,000. The majority of cases stem from intravenous drug use. . . .
Mustafakulova’s troubles began in June, when her son developed a high fever. She took him to the Nookat hospital, where she said doctors put him on an intravenous drip. When he did not get better, she took him to the hospital in Osh, the country’s second-largest city. After more than a month in the hospital, her son still was not well and she was also feeling weak, so they returned to their village . . . . In October, they both tested positive for HIV. . . . It has not been established where the infection originated. Of the 72 children infected, some were treated only in Nookat and others only in Osh, so both hospitals are suspected. ‘Where else could my child and I become infected if I don’t use narcotics and don’t live an immoral life?’ Mustafakulova said during a recent visit to the Rainbow center. ‘This could only be the irresponsibility of doctors.’ She was abandoned by her husband . . . .  No longer welcome in her in-laws’ home, she and her children moved in with her parents. She sold her only possession, a small plot of land, to pay for her son’s medical treatment. . . .  The story of Mustafakulova’s fellow villager, Zarifa Shamshiyeva, is remarkably similar. “

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On what evidence do the experts rely for the view that mothers can be infected in this way?

Even the higher estimate of 6000 infected in a country of 5 million makes the rate only 1.2 per 1000, which is typical for low-risk populations in non-African countries where there has been no epidemic during the two decades of the AIDS era, despite continual prediction of such epidemics by “AIDS experts”.

Here’s an assignment:

In 2002, only about 100 people were infected.
Most new infections have come via needles.
Construct a plausible scenario to account for how this mechanism brought a 15-fold increase in infections in half-a-dozen years.

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The tragedies here are not only the wrongly diagnosed babies and mothers. What about the doctors and other medical personnel who are being charged with negligence, when they did nothing to bring about this situation?

“Four health officials from southern Kyrgyzstan were fired for their alleged roles in the outbreak, including the directors of the two hospitals. The Kyrgyz General Prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation into the incident.”

“Kyrgyz medical workers charged with infecting children with HIV”  [Associated Press, March 20, 2008]
“BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan: Fourteen health professionals in Kyrgyzstan will face trial for allegedly infecting children with HIV”

HIDING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

For years now, universities have been a little hesitant to accept research grants or contracts from tobacco companies. Faculty too have been queasy about it—except, of course, those faculty who would be taking advantage of the money. Entrepreneurs at Weill Cornell Medical College came up with a nice scheme for masking the source of funds and hiding the associated conflict of interest:

Set up a foundation.
The foundation receives the funds.
The foundation makes research grants.

Outside academe, this is known as money laundering. Inside academe, it is a way of not letting principles interfere with getting things done, as it was once put it in my presence by an academic vice-president who later became one of the longest-serving and most highly paid university presidents (p. 167, To Rise Above Principle: The Memoirs of an Unreconstructed Dean).

At Weill Cornell Medical College, “Dr. Claudia Henschke . . . jolted the cancer world with a study saying that 80 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans” (Cigarette company paid for lung cancer study, by Gardiner Harris, New York Times, 26 March 2008).

The work had been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and credited support from the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment—whose funds came almost entirely from “the Liggett Group, maker of Liggett Select, Eve, Grand Prix, Quest and Pyramid cigarette brands”. President of the Foundation was Dr. Henschke, her assistant was Treasurer, and directors included the Dean of Weil Cornell (Antonio Gotto) and a member of the College’s Board of Overseers. Cozy.

“Dr. Gotto said . . . that Dr. Henschke, Dr. Yankelevitz and another colleague set up the foundation initially without the university’s approval . . . . He and Mr. Mahon joined the board some weeks or months after its creation to ensure that the Vector grants were handled correctly . . . . We think we behaved honorably. There was no attempt to set up a foundation to hide tobacco money.”

“The Cancer Letter . . . recently reported that Drs. Henschke and Yankelevitz had failed to disclose in articles and educational lectures a patent and 10 pending patents related to CT screening and follow-up. . . .Jonathan Weil, a Weill Cornell spokesman, said Dr. Henschke did not disclose the patents in some articles and lectures because she did not deem them relevant.”

“An increasing number of doctors and institutions are setting up foundations to accept money from companies without having to disclose its source, said Dr. Murray Kopelow, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.”

Please refer to the post of 15 December 2007, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

THE ONLY SAFEGUARD AGAINST THE POSSIBLE INFLUENCE
OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
IS TO HAVE NO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.
PERIOD.

INSTITUTIONS OF HIV/AIDS

I knew HIV/AIDS was big business for drug companies, activists and activist groups, researchers, and others. But I hadn’t realized how institutionalized it has become in the medicine-related professions until I saw this on a blog:

“AAHIVM Announces Pilot Credentialing for HIV-Expert PharmDs

WASHINGTON, D.C. March 1, 2008 — The American Academy of HIV Medicine (AAHIVM) has announced a one-year pilot program that will enable HIV-specialized Doctors of Pharmacy (PharmDs) working in clinical practice settings to participate in its widely known HIV Specialist™ credentialing program. The Academy’s pilot credentialing initiative for PharmDs is being developed in response to the large number of inquiries that the organization receives from PharmDs who have extensive day-to-day involvement with HIV treatment, and who want to attain a valid measure of recognition for their expertise in this sub-specialty.

For the 2008 credentialing program only, PharmDs who serve a substantial number of HIV patients may apply for a credentialing process that is similar to that currently offered to physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants who specialize in HIV. Eligibility criteria for PharmDs will vary slightly from the current provisions for frontline providers, and successful completion of the program will yield an ”HIV Subject Matter Expert” designation (“AAHIVE”), distinct from the AAHIVS HIV SpecialistTM designation currently awarded to primary medical care providers. This one year pilot program will be open to all eligible practicing PharmDs, irrespective of membership with AAHIVM.

The criteria for entry into this pilot program will be similar to the current credentialing eligibility requirements for physicians, NPs and PAs, and are as follows:
Licensed PharmD in the state of practice
Direct involvement in the care of a minimum of 20 HIV/AIDS patients over the 24 months preceding the date of application (this requirement may be fulfilled by direct retail or clinic client service, inpatient or out-patient service in a clinic or hospital consultative role, or other treatment team roles, varying by the scope of practice in the PharmD’s home state)
Completion of a minimum of 30 hours of HIV-related CEU in the 24 months preceding the date of application”

… and more

Through that, I learned of the existence of the American Academy of HIV Medicine, which offers a trademarked “HIV Specialist” credential. However, the Academy and the HIV Specialist credential are not among the 24 specialties for which the American Board of Medical Specialties has approved Boards that certify specialists in those areas.

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This is a reminder of what’s involved in trying to bring out the truth about HIV and AIDS. Thousands of doctors, nurses, and assistants have been indoctrinated as HIV Specialists. They cannot afford, psychologically as much as or more than professionally, to admit to themselves that what they have been taught might be wrong.

That’s true also for the hordes of PhD and MD researchers, and the vast number of administrators and facilitators and activists.

It’s true for a large number of “HIV”-positive people who have suffered through awful “treatments”; and it’s probably true for a large proportion of the relatives of those who died under those “treatments”.

We desperately need to discover plausible strategies by which this bandwagon might be brought to a halt (HOW CAN THE HIV/AIDS BANDWAGON BE STOPPED?, 27 January 2008; STOPPING THE HIV/AIDS BANDWAGON—-Part II, 1 February 2008).

These are my present thoughts:
1. Anyone who is not already a “dissident” greets the dissident view with utter disbelief and is therefore not willing to look at the evidence.
2. Therefore, non-dissidents can only be persuaded to look at the facts by people whom they fully trust.
3. Consequently, a chain or bridge needs to be constructed between, at the one end, dissidents who can explain and document the facts, and at the other end a person or persons whose influential position makes it possible to start an official reconsideration. That chain or bridge has to be a series of people who already know and respect and trust one another implicitly.
4. Can anyone identify people at the influence end of the bridge as well as a plausible chain from us to them?

STOPPING THE HIV/AIDS BANDWAGON—-Part II

My earlier post about this [HOW CAN THE HIV/AIDS BANDWAGON BE STOPPED?, 27 January 2008] brought a gratifying number of useful comments.

There seems to be general agreement that the mainstream scientific community will not spontaneously or willingly change its view on HIV/AIDS, even as the evidence against it continues to mount and anomalies and incongruities accumulate. That’s the lesson of some two decades. This is then a natural starting point for considering strategies that might help toward producing change.

There’s also general agreement over the somewhat related point that it’s not just a matter of what the science does or does not prove, because such a vast array of people and organizations apart from the scientific community benefit in some manner from the present situation. Not that they are willfully selfish or that they deliberately ignore the evidence, it’s a matter of cognitive dissonance, a psychological phenomenon that makes it difficult if not impossible to grasp anything that runs too severely against deeply ingrained beliefs. People came to benefit from the HIV/AIDS industry because they believed HIV/AIDS theory, and they believe they are doing worthwhile things.

Scientists are no less subject to cognitive dissonance than everyone else, and that serves as a partial explanation for the fact that unorthodox claims in science are routinely resisted (see, for example, Hook, “Prematurity in Scientific Discovery”).

For one example among innumerable available ones: Max Planck placed the foundational piece of what became quantum theory, but—like most great innovators—he was initially opposed vigorously by the pooh-bahs of the Establishment. In his memoirs, he made the remark often cited by dissidents in all fields but apparently not known to run-of-the-mill journeymen scientists: “New truths do not triumph by convincing their opponents, they win out because a new generation replaces the old one” (a free translation from German); which has also been paraphrased as “Science progresses funeral by funeral”.

At any rate, it seems evident enough that change as to HIV/AIDS will only come as the result of pressure from social or political forces external to the medical-scientific establishment. Those forces must be sufficiently influential to stand against the colossal combination of interests vested in HIV/AIDS. They must be able to force a public discussion of all the evidence in a way that allows full airing of the variety of interpretations. Where might dissidents turn to enlist such forces?

Obvious places to look are among those who are being most hurt by what’s presently happening. That means anyone who tests HIV-positive or may at some future time test positive. Here everyone is truly at risk, for anyone might be unfortunate enough to have a test administered just after they’ve been vaccinated against flu, or when pregnant, or when they are more likely to test HIV-positive for some other of the many possible reasons. And if someone tests HIV-positive, they will at once be emotionally shattered, and thereupon almost certainly debilitated physically by antiretroviral drugs.

Though everyone is truly at risk in this way, the danger is greater for some people than for others. As a class, gay men are particularly at risk because they tend to be tested more often than most, and they tend to test HIV-positive more often than most; as do drug abusers; as do TB patients; as do hemophiliacs; as do African Americans. Might any of those groups offer the possibility of forceful organized action against HIV/AIDS dogma?

The trouble is, these high-risk people understand no better than the general public what the risk is. They think it’s “HIV/AIDS”. Only after experiencing what goes with testing positive do some people learn that HIV = AIDS is a dreadful illusion that has caused them tangible harm. Some learn it from personal experience of series of inconsistent tests; some learn it through being unable to tolerate the antiretroviral drugs and trying to live without them and finding that to work; some learn it through losing friends and loved ones. But few people even in the highest-risk groups come to question HIV/AIDS dogma before it affects them directly in some way.

So: The endeavor to enlist the people who would most benefit from toppling the paradigm, who are most at risk under current circumstances, presents the same problem as that of convincing the media and the general public; they have to be made to understand what’s wrong with HIV = AIDS before they have a really direct incentive to question the orthodox view. This starts to look like a circular discussion. Anyone who voices the dissident view is automatically dismissed as either crazy or an old fool (both terms recently applied to me by a medical scientist asked by a friend to comment on my book). What’s needed is an emotional, psychological, human-interest hook so powerful that it is at least competitive with the belief that’s been ingrained in almost everyone by the constant media refrain of “HIV, the virus that cause AIDS”. The emotional hook must also be strong enough to shake the general belief that official statements about medicine and science can be relied on.

Are there candidates for such psychologically powerful hooks?

I can think of two: for gay men, the issue of homophobia; for African Americans, the matter of racism.

I can suggest two other possible avenues for change that don’t entail such strong emotional charge but enlist forces in society that have the requisite power:

1. Legal actions. Maybe HIV/AIDS “science” could be forced to defend itself in a court of law where dissident arguments could be aired. Perhaps it might be possible to sue a laboratory that carries out HIV tests, since it presumably certifies—against the manufacturers’ test-kit disclaimers—that those tests detect infection by HIV; or perhaps in some case where an HIV-positive person is charged with endangering sexual partners, a lawyer might find a way to have the scientific issues argued. The Parenzee case represents one such attempt, so far unsuccessful (”Can we learn from Parenzee?”).

2. Perhaps Congress could be persuaded to hold hearings about the utterly disproportionate amount of research funds directed towards HIV/AIDS in comparison to diseases that affect vastly more people, like heart disease, diabetes, cancer:

(data from http://www.fairfoundation.org/factslinks.htm)

Even once the scientific issues are raised publicly, however, there will still remain a matter over which dissidents must come to agree if there is to be truly coherent action: which part of the scientific story should be emphasized as decisive disproof of HIV/AIDS theory? While all dissidents agree that HIV has not been proven to be the cause of AIDS, there are differing views on just about everything else: Does HIV even exist? What caused AIDS? What causes AIDS now? What does a positive HIV-test signify? And more.

I’ve suggested (”Can we learn from Parenzee?“) that the best strategy will be to concentrate on the simplest point, the most readily proved one, the one most readily understandable by the largest range of people. Recent e-mail discussions indicate that the most appropriate point, and one generally acceptable among dissidents, might be the lack of validity of HIV tests for diagnosing infection by HIV. After all, the instructions accompanying test kits (aras.ab.ca/HIVTestInformation.zip at http://aras.ab.ca/test.html) acknowledge that they cannot be used to diagnose infection. Further to that, the data collected in my book show that HIV tests do not track an infectious agent