MORE HIV, LESS INFECTION: THE BREASTFEEDING CONUNDRUM

Women who are HIV-positive may deliver HIV-positive babies, though in the majority of cases they do not. However, some HIV-negative newborns subsequently, within weeks or months, also become HIV-positive. In most of these cases, the only risk factor is the mother’s milk. So–“obviously”–HIV must have been transferred from mother to child via breastfeeding.

It follows that the more mother’s milk a baby ingests, the greater the likelihood that the baby will become infected.

Wrong! Some studies have reported, for example, that “Infants exclusively breastfed for 3 months or more had no excess risk of HIV infection over . . . those never breastfed” (Coutsoudis et al., AIDS, 15 (2001) 379-87); while other studies have even reported a lower rate of HIV infection among exclusively breastfed babies, for example, “Breastfed infants who also received solids were significantly more likely to acquire infection than were exclusively breastfed children” (Coovadia et al., Lancet, 369 (2007) 1107-16).

That’s puzzling enough, but matters become yet more puzzling when the babies’ health rather than HIV-status is considered: “Risk factors for death included not being breastfed (OR [odds ratio] 8.5, p=0.04 [p < 0.05 is usually taken as demonstrating statistical significance]) . . . . HIV status (maternal or infant) . . . [was] not associated with the risk of death” (HATIP [HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice] #74, 12 September 2006).

So a deadly virus is less efficiently transmitted via mothers’ milk, the more a baby is fed nothing but mothers’ milk; and babies fed that deadly virus in their mothers’ milk are 8 or 9 times less likely to die in infancy than are babies not exposed to that deadly-virus-purveying fluid.

Once again, as with the fact that married women are at the greatest risk of contracting HIV (post of 18 November), if you believe that, then you will also be sending money to Nigeria to someone you had never heard of before and who offers by e-mail to share with you a large unclaimed inheritance. Or perhaps you already are part owner of a Brooklyn Bridge.

However, doctors and researchers and activists who follow HIV=AIDS dogma not only have to believe this nonsense, they are obliged to attempt to act on it. Little wonder that they are confused and that official advice to HIV-positive mothers covers the gamut of “never breastfeed” to “exclusively breastfeed”. In Botswana, “formula feeding among HIV-positive women is virtually universal . . . (~98% of infants in the HIV-transmission study were formula fed)” yet “mortality data shows that something isn’t working . . . . among HIV-positive women, Botswana should do more to support truly exclusive breastfeeding” (HATIP #74, as above). On the other hand, officials in Barbados consider breast-feeding “something no HIV positive mother should do” (“Breast-milk, HIV/AIDS linked”, 5/13/07, Barbados). At International AIDS Conference XVI in Toronto, 2006, “there were over one hundred presentations on infant feeding (mostly posters) – but if there was any unifying theme in the hodgepodge of studies, it was the recognition that safer infant feeding is a growing dilemma in desperate need of a solution. Misconceptions about safer infant feeding practices were common in many of the poster presentations, while frustration surrounding how best to counsel HIV-positive mothers was nearly universal” (HATIP #74, as above).

So the lack of correlation between breastfeeding and HIV “transmission” has occasioned much commenting to and fro. Some defenders of HIV/AIDS theory have tried to nitpick various details of protocol or practice in the reported studies, yet the findings have been confirmed by so many different investigators that the main conclusion seems unassailable. (See http://aras.ab.ca/transmission-BF.html for a collection of quotes about HIV and breastfeeding.) Consequently, most discussion has concerned itself, quite appropriately, with what might be best for mothers and babies in various geographic settings with their varying conditions of hygiene and availability of suitable milk formula. If there is any consensus, it may be this: “The nutrition and antibodies that breast milk provide are so crucial to young children that they outweigh the small risk of transmitting HIV, which researchers calculate at about 1 percent per month of breast-feeding” (“Anti-breast-feeding measure backfires in Botswana, causing more despair”, Craig Timberg, Washington Post. 22 July 2007).

But while it is laudable to make the immediate health of babies the prime focus of concern, that does not entail or permit or excuse any ignoring, sidestepping, evading of the fact that this phenomenon, that more exposure to “HIV” results in less infection, is strong evidence as to what “HIV-positive” signifies.

Earlier posts have pointed out that a positive HIV-test is no proof that virus is present, since virus has never been isolated directly from an HIV-positive person or an AIDS patient. The belief that HIV is transmitted from mother to child rests exclusively on observations that children of HIV-positive mothers are or become HIV-positive themselves, sometimes but far from always (probability about 1% per month, see above). Since this belief makes it necessary to believe also the almost unbelievable, namely, that more virus-containing milk leads to less transmitting, it would seem reasonable to look for an alternative way of coping with these puzzling facts. I say “almost” unbelievable because the suggestion has been made that something in milk formula makes babies more prone to infection when exposed to HIV. Believe that if you will.

A much more satisfactory alternative explanation is at hand. As discussed in earlier posts, “HIV-positive” reflects some sort of health challenge, not necessarily serious or permanent, rather akin to a fever, quite non-specific as to what the cause might be. Under this view, HIV-positive mothers reacted more vigorously to some unspecified health challenge–possibly pregnancy itself–than did HIV-negative mothers. Thus HIV-positive mothers are somewhat less likely to be in the best of health, and therefore somewhat more likely to deliver less-than-healthy babies–who are for that reason likely to test HIV-positive more often than newborns of HIV-negative mothers. That explanation permits breastfeeding to remain the unqualified good thing that it has long been known to be, because of the protection that components of that milk afford. That protection explains why exclusively breastfed children, whether of HIV-positive or HIV-negative mothers, are likely to be healthier–and less frequently HIV-positive–than children who are only partially breastfed or not breastfed at all. Among those not exclusively breastfed, “increased morbidity and mortality . . . was particularly pronounced when the infant was HIV-infected” (HATIP #74, as above)–in other words, HIV-positive infants, being health-challenged in some way, are particularly prone to sickness and death in absence of the benefits conferred by breastfeeding.

The copious literature on breastfeeding in relation to HIV adds further support to the view that “HIV-positive” correlates with a higher likelihood of ill health, but is not the cause of such a prognosis; nor does it demonstrate the presence of a virus that is responsible for the poor prognosis.

TO AVOID HIV INFECTION, DON’T GET MARRIED

“BANGKOK (AFP) – Married people accounted for more than 40 percent of all new cases of HIV/AIDS in Thailand last year, the country’s health ministry said Thursday, despite an overall decrease in infections” (Google Alert, 12 October 2007).

“UN warns of Thai housewife HIV/AIDS crisis”, Apiradee Treerutkuarkul http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/21Aug2007_news12.php
“In Thailand, up to 40% of the 18,000 new cases found each year are housewives, which was previously identified as a low-risk group. . . . The number was high compared to so-called high-risk groups, such as men having sex with men (28%) and sex workers (10%)…. the situation has worsened in Papua New Guinea, where half of new AIDS cases are housewives. Housewives also account for at least 46% of all new cases in Cambodia”

“Press Release: Secretariat of The Pacific Community – SPC
SPC headquarters, Noumea, New Caledonia, Thursday May 31, 2007: Women are most at risk of contracting HIV from the men they should trust the most – their husbands….
This was the sobering message delivered to delegates at the 10th Triennial of Pacific Women, being held at Secretariat of the Pacific Community headquarters in New Caledonia.”

“‘Uganda: Rising HIV infection – where did we lose it?'”, by Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, New Vision (Kampala), 12 December 2006; http://allafrica.com/stories/200612130724.html
[Earlier, government programs had led to] significant behaviour change, especially among the young generation, by delaying sex, reducing the number of sexual partners, using condoms, testing for their HIV status and seeking improved health services. . . . The 2005 HIV survey by the Ministry of Health shows . . . married couples and rich women . . . to be at high risk.”

“‘Married couples top HIV infection rates in Uganda’, Kampala, 4 December 2006 (Xinhua);
http://www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-04 19:19:03
Apuuli Kihumuro, the director general of the Uganda AIDS Commission said . . . [that] between 1996 and 2005, 42 percent of the 130,000 HIV new infections occurred within wedlock. . . . [presumably] caused by unawareness of their HIV status, engaging in sex with multiple partners and their reluctance to use condoms. [Whereas] ‘The low rates of infection among the youth and unmarried people according to the findings are ascribed to their vigilance in having protected sex'”.

“New Vision (Kampala) 3 July 2007, reported by Fred Ouma
A detailed analysis of the 2004/05 Uganda HIV/AIDS Sero-Behaviourial Survey revealed the need to refocus HIV preventive measures to married people. . . . According to the survey, from an estimated 1.1 million Ugandans living with HIV/AIDS, married people were identified as the most risky group…. Contrary to the common perception that young people were at the greatest risk of HIV infection, the report shows an unprecedented shift, with 74% of new infection among people above 25 years of age. Only 10% of new infections were recorded among single people during the period of the study. New infections were highest (66%) among married, followed by 20% in widowed or divorced.”

” ‘A look at HIV – where are we now?’ Sabin Russell, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 August 2006;
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/13/MNGSNKHMRQ1.DTL
In India, for example, 80 percent of women infected with HIV are monogamous married women. ‘The fastest rates of infection are among housewives and young women, because the men who go to sex workers also go home'”

“For a growing number of women in rural Mexico – and around the world – marital sex represents their single greatest risk for HIV infection. . . . because marital infidelity by men is so deeply ingrained across many cultures . . . . These findings are published in the June 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. . . . The article’s lead author, Jennifer S. Hirsch, PhD, associate professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, is principal investigator on a large comparative study showing that the inevitability of men’s infidelity in marriage is true across cultures. . . . in rural Mexico . . . in rural New Guinea and southeastern Nigeria” (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/marital-sex-biggest-hiv-risk-women-around-world-13170.html)

* * * * * *

The greatest danger of contracting HIV, says the official wisdom, comes from having sex without condoms with someone in a high-risk group, namely, injecting drug abusers or highly promiscuous gay men. Yet at the same time, according to the above reports, it is married women who are the group at greatest risk of contracting HIV–“around the world”: India, Thailand, Cambodia in South-East Asia, Uganda and Nigeria in Africa, Mexico in the Americas, Papua New Guinea and the whole Pacific region . . .
If you can believe that, then you will also send money to Nigeria to someone you had never heard of before and who offers by e-mail to share with you a large unclaimed inheritance. Or perhaps you are already part owner of a Brooklyn Bridge.
These reports, absurdly unbelievable on their face, illustrate several features of the misguided notion that HIV causes AIDS:

• The media pass along, without further thought or critical comment, press releases from researchers and official institutions, no matter how contrary to plain common sense the “news” may be.
• Innumerable reported facts and statistics clearly show that HIV-positive is not the sign of a sexually transmitted agent.
• Not the media, not researchers, not official institutions, seem concerned to consider how reported findings could be consistent with the dogma of “HIV, the virus that causes AIDS”.

Would anyone believe it for even a moment, if it were claimed that married women in many parts of the world are at greater risk of contacting syphilis or gonorrhea or chlamydia, than are adolescents, or than are prostitutes (“sex workers”)? In Uganda, we are being asked to believe, the very same generation which as unmarried singles enabled the infection rate to decrease because of their scrupulously careful sexual behavior became, a few years later and when married, riotously and carelessly promiscuous. When it comes to “HIV/AIDS”, hysteria seems to trump thought every time.
Rather than accept such nonsense, one ought to recall certain established facts:

• Testing HIV positive does not prove infection by a human immunodeficiency virus.
• Testing HIV positive signifies only that a few proteins (or bits of genetic material) have been detected that are often found in people who are ill from any one of a large number of conditions, or who display a temporary reaction to a vaccination or a bout of flu, say (see posts of 12 and 16 November).
• In any given group, the probability that an “HIV-positive” reaction will follow exposure to a given health challenge varies according to individual physiology, which correlates with (among other things) age, sex, and race. In every tested group, the probability of testing HIV-positive varies in predictable fashion with age, sex, and race–see The Origins, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory.
  The variation with age follows qualitatively this general scheme (from The Origins, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory):

This explains in quite straightforward fashion why married women and rich women are the most likely to be HIV-positive, followed by the widowed and the divorced, while the least likely to test HIV-positive are women under 25, adolescent women, and prostitutes: married women are on average of middle age, prostitutes and single women are on average younger, and the divorced and widowed who are likely on average to be beyond middle age.
The older women are, from teens into middle age, the more likely they are to be married; and as shown in the diagram, they are more likely to be HIV-positive; therefore married women are more likely to be HIV-positive than are single women. Beyond middle age, since widowed and divorced women are likely to be older than middle age, it follows again predictably that the widowed and divorced are less likely to be HIV-positive than married women. Women who are rich are likely to be older than those who are poor, since some will have acquired their wealth through marriage. And prostitutes (“sex workers”) are of course likely on average to be younger than married women.
That fits all the facts, and is vastly more plausible than the extent of unsafe promiscuity by husbands that the official view and explanation so readily assumes.
The absurdity of the official explanation is seen yet more starkly when one realizes how difficult it is to contract HIV through sexual intercourse: on average, the chance of becoming HIV-positive after unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person is about 1 in 1000; for citations to this fact in the published literature, see pp. 44 ff. in The Origins, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory.

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The following comment was submitted in error to the ”Re Comments” page, but it seems to belong here:

fraorlando Says:
Tuesday, 11 December 2007 at 2:13 pm e
nteresting. I cannot remember such a high number of infections in this group. If I understand you right, you claim that this is because of accumulated exposure to different immune stressors in married or middle-aged woman, so HIV is a factor of time and number of immune stressors; not an actual virus–but why is it that the same pattern hasn’t shown up in all other countries as well? Also, married woman are not necessarily elderly, maybe this is true in Western countries, where more educated women may marry in their late 20 to early 30’s on average, but I don’t believe in those countries described in your article, where marriage is more a matter of survival and other options are limited. Also, I assume that the curve in your diagram works for every other infectious disease, since, as time passes by, chances increase to get infected by one or the other pathogen–so I cannot see why this is an argument against the viral theory of AIDS?
On another front, though, it’s interesting that HIV does not seem to co-vary with other STDs. But also, diseases are very complex, so my question is if it can be reliably shown that, in epidemiological studies, there are co-variations between every other STDs, but not HIV?
Regards,
Roland

hhbauer responds:
Tuesday, 11 December 2007 at 2:56 pm e
Roland, thank you for insightful comments. I think you were responding to the post on “Getting Married” of 18 November?
My view is that HIV-positive may reflect any one of a large number of stresses, not necessarily an accumulation–see the diagram in “HIV TESTS, 16 November.
I don’t know how many countries would show this pattern, because there have never been truly population-wide studies done. Different countries and different researchers carry out tests for different reasons. All we can do is to try to interpret the data that happen to be available.
Certainly the age at which women get married can be very young in many of the countries from which these reports come. But on average they will stay married until death, whereas on average prostitutes tend to leave that profession before they are at the end of their lives. So married women on average will be older than prostitutes and, under my view, more likely to test HIV-positive at some time or other for some reason or other–especially pregnancy (HIV ABSURDITIES, 9 December).
I don’t believe that the age variation in that diagram is the same for other infectious diseases. As to STDs, adolescents and young adults are generally at highest risk; and certainly children below teenage are hardly at risk for STDs. Non-STD infectious diseases do not show a characteristic difference between males and females. So the fact that these variations of “HIV” show up in every group for which data are available, indicates that “HIV” is some non-specific physiological response.
I have a longer discussion in my book about differences between “HIV” and other STDs, including geographic variations. I don’t know about co-variation of STDs in general, I’m afraid.

HIV TESTS: DANGER TO LIFE AND LIBERTY

My first post on this blog made this point: The central issue as to HIV/AIDS is whether HIV tests detect a viral infection. The day after I posted, I received a very informative e-mail from Darin Brown with useful detail about HIV tests.

I wrote on November 12 that it has never been shown that a positive “HIV test” corresponds to the presence of virus particles. That’s a hard fact to swallow, since the whole world seems to assume–at least, the whole official world and the mass media do–that a positive HIV-test indicates actual active and health-threatening infection. To make more believable that the conventional wisdom is wrong about this, let’s look more closely at how these tests were invented and what they really do.

Neville Hodgkinson (among others) has pointed out that the apparent correlation of AIDS with finding HIV antibodies (= a positive HIV test) is the result of a circular, illogical, and unjustifiable set of procedures and assumptions (“The circular reasoning scandal of HIV testing”, 21 May 2006, http://www.thebusinessonline.com):

Virus particles have not been isolated from AIDS patients, nor from the cultures in which their immune-system cells were stimulated in the attempt to grow the virus. But filtered material from these cultures contained “some 30 proteins . . . that gathered at a density characteristic of retroviruses” and some of these were assumed to come from HIV. Which ones? “They selected those that were most reactive with antibodies in blood samples from AIDS patients and those at risk of AIDS”! So “HIV” antigens (proteins) were not “identified” in relation to HIV itself– remember, pure particles of HIV have never been isolated; rather “HIV antigens” were chosen, defined, by their relation to antibodies occurring in AIDS patients. “AIDS patients are then diagnosed as being infected with HIV on the basis that they have antibodies which react with those same antigens. The reasoning is circular.”

There are two types of tests. The more recent and less frequently applied type uses the polymerase chain reaction, PCR, to look for bits of RNA or DNA said (but not proven) to be characteristic of HIV; the inventor of PCR, Kary Mullis, concurs with what the manufacturers of PCR tests say in their instructions: these tests cannot be used to diagnose infection by HIV. Hodgkinson’s comment applies to the more traditional tests which look for proteins said (but not proven) to be characteristic of HIV–the so-called ELISA and the so-called Western Blot tests. The accepted “best practice” is to use ELISA and to confirm a duplicated positive result by the Western Blot.

But the Western Blot is no better than the ELISA. It is anything but well defined or unambiguous.

“HIV” proteins are named by two properties, their molecular weight (for instance, p24) and the viral genes thought to code for their production (env, gag, pol). “Env” proteins include p160, p120, p41; “pol” comprise p68, p53, p32; “gag” have p55, p39, p24, p18.

A naïve lay person might assume that, since HIV tests are looking for actual virus, they would be looking to find all those proteins, moreover in the fixed proportion to one another, since that’s how they presumably occur in virus particles. The standard practice is grossly otherwise, however, quite shockingly otherwise: in different countries, and even in different laboratories in a given country, what is called a “positive” Western Blot may be pronounced upon finding only a few of these proteins!

Valendar Turner of the Perth Group has written detailed analyses of the Western Blot: “in Australia a positive test requires particular sets of four bands [one band per protein]. In the USA, different sets of two or three suffice, which may or may not include the bands required in Australia. In Africa only one designated set of two is required. Put simply, this means that the same person tested in three cities on the same day may or may not be HIV infected” (http://virusmyth.net/aids/data/vtyinyang.htm). In an affidavit for a law suit in Australia in 2006, Turner had this instructive diagram:

(click for larger image)

The naïve lay person might imagine, in line with ordinary common sense, that it would be enough to discredit the tests, that a person can be pronounced HIV-positive in one country but HIV-negative in another on the basis of tests with the same name. But this ambiguity also implies much more, namely, it raises the question whether these “HIV” proteins are even characteristic of HIV. Why does (for example) Australia require that four of the proteins be present? Because one or two of these supposedly “HIV specific” proteins are often found in perfectly healthy, “HIV-negative” people. So those one or two proteins are not specific to HIV, and finding them does not mean that lurking HIV has been detected. So, then: what research has shown that the presence of four of these proteins means that HIV has been lurking?

None! It has never been shown that one can isolate actual virus particles from samples “positive” by Western Blot. Anyway, the very fact that criteria are so different in different places shows that the choice of what to regard as a positive test is a matter of judgment, not of soundly based scientific knowledge. The fact that different criteria have resulted from the judgment of different experts indicates further that none of them represents objective science.

In any case, as said earlier, if actual virus particles were present, and their protein composition were what it is assumed to be, then all these proteins should be found in the same proportion. They are not. A positive Western Blot does not demonstrate the presence of virus.

Perhaps the most consequential corollary is this: so-called “HIV” proteins are often found in people not classed as infected by HIV. What do these proteins signify?

An analysis of the totality of HIV tests in the United States reveals that the probability of testing HIV-positive increases as there are more obvious challenges to health. People ill for any of many reasons are likely to have some of those “HIV” proteins in their blood and therefore to come up “positive” on an HIV test. The diagram below shows how the frequency of positive HIV-tests varies between different social groups. The progression from left to right corresponds to the likelihood that people in that group are experiencing a health challenge; it makes no sense in terms of the frequency of occurrence of a sexually transmitted infection.

 (from The Origins, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, McFarland 2007)

A “positive HIV test” can therefore mean many different things, in terms of the actual substances that have been detected: anywhere from almost any two to almost any four of a set of ten proteins. Turner offers a nice analogy:
“. . . imagine this experiment. In place of the AIDS patient cell culture [with the proteins suspected to be from HIV] someone hands you a test tube containing milks obtained from half a dozen different animals. In other words, a mixture of several different proteins but you don’t know from which animals. Now in place of a mixture of antibodies from AIDS patients you obtain a second test tube containing a number of different acids. You add the mixture of acids to the mixture of milks and produce curdles [a positive finding]. Now you claim you’ve isolated [shown the presence of] a cow.”
The point is that a “positive” ELISA or Western Blot only shows the presence of some mixture of a few of those “HIV” proteins–some or all of which are also found at times in people certainly not infected by HIV. That’s why positive HIV-tests have been found in people with dozens of different conditions other than AIDS, see http://virusmyth.net/aids/data/cjtestfp.htm.
“HIV” tests do not detect HIV and they are not proof of infection by HIV.

* * * * * *

This is why HIV testing is dangerous to life and liberty. Dangers to life are these:

• A positive HIV test does not demonstrate active infection by a deadly virus.
• However: innumerable people have been incorrectly told, on the basis of these tests, that they are infected and that without antiretroviral treatment they will get AIDS and die.
• For those who immediately get treatment, the toxicity of the drugs is likely to produce death within a decade or so, and in the meantime the drugs often produce ghastly side-effects.
• Those judged not to need treatment yet are not really much better off. As soon as they become ill for any reason, no matter how minor–flu or diarrhea, say–this is likely to be taken as a sign that the HIV is starting to do its nasty work, and their toxic treatment regimen will begin.

But even without the physical dangers of antiretroviral treatment, the psychological impact of being told that one is HIV positive can be devastating. Testimonials to that–if any were needed–are legion. Imagine what it’s like to be told that you have a fatal and incurable illness. Imagine what it’s like, to be told that you have a sexually transmitted disease when you know that you have done nothing that makes contracting such an infection possible.
As to danger to liberty: Medical personnel have been accused of negligence, or incompetence, or evil intent, when patients under their care became “HIV positive”. The case of the Bulgarian nurses in Libya is the most notorious example, but there are instances from other countries as well, where doctors and nurses have lost their jobs because some patients became HIV positive.

* * * * * * *

There will be many illustrations in later postings on this blog, of the damage done by the assumption that HIV tests detect HIV, as well as many illustrations of the most implausible claims being given credence just because the media and officialdom do not doubt that positive HIV tests denote infection by a virus.
For more about the lack of validity of HIV tests and the dreadful consequences of that, see for example the Perth Group; material collected on the website of the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society and of HEAL Toronto; essays by Liam Scheff.

Skepticism about HIV and AIDS

Everything about HIV/AIDS depends on one central point: Do HIV tests detect infection by a deadly retrovirus?

There is no published proof of it.

Indeed, manufacturers’ pamphlets point out that their tests have never been approved for diagnosis of HIV infection. “HIV tests” detect either antibodies said (but not proven) to be specific to HIV antigens, or they look for pieces of RNA or DNA said (but not proven) to be specific for HIV. However, since whole particles of “live”, infectious HIV have never been isolated from AIDS patients or from HIV-positive people, these “HIV tests” have never been validated, never been proven to detect the human immunedeficiency virus, HIV.

Anyone who can produce a peer-reviewed scientific publication which proves that HIV-positive means active infection can win $25,000:

Alive & Well will present a cash award of $25,000 to the first person to locate a study that provides us with missing evidence about the accuracy of HIV tests, and in celebration of this important finding, will donate an additional $25,000 to Heifer International, a unique charity working to end hunger in the developing world using a holistic approach to building sustainable communities.
The missing evidence we’re looking for is a study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that shows the validation of any HIV test by the direct isolation of HIV from the fresh, uncultured fluids or tissues of positive testing persons.
[E-mail announcement dated 5 May 2007; http://www.AliveandWell.org; Tel 877-411-AIDS, 818-7801875]

By contrast, a large body of well documented literature reports the fallibility of HIV tests: one may test HIV-positive for dozens of reasons, ranging from trivial, such as a vaccination, to more serious actual illnesses–see the list with specific literature citations given at http://virusmyth.net/aids/data/cjtestfp.htm.

Testing HIV-positive signifies about what having a fever signifies: something is going on that is out of the ordinary, and it may be something trivial and temporary or something more serious. It signifies a non-specific reaction by the immune system, or–what amounts to the same thing–a certain degree of physiological stress (perhaps, as the Perth Group insist, specifically oxidative stress).

My summary and analysis of the data are available in the book published in 2007: The Origins, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory; for details (including reviews) go to http://www.failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com. The chief points supporting my interpretation and contradicting the mainstream view are these:

• HIV and AIDS numbers and rates are not correlated chronologically, geographically, or in their relative impacts on men and women, or in their relative impacts on members of the several ethnic and racial groups recognized officially in the United States.

• The number of HIV-positive Americans has not changed during the two decades since testing began; so this is not an epidemic of any sort.

• The distribution of HIV geographically has not changed in the two decades since testing began. That is not true for venereal diseases–syphilis, gonorrhea, etc. “HIV tests” do not detect a sexually transmitted agent.

• Testing HIV-positive varies in a predictable way with age, sex, and race, which no sexually transmitted infection does.

I had read a number of books by HIV/AIDS skeptics–people who do not believe that HIV is the proven cause of AIDS–when Harvey Bialy’s scientific biography of Peter Duesberg prodded me to look at the literature that reports the results of HIV tests. This became the most astonishing intellectual episode of my life, as it turned out that the accumulated data from two decades of testing in the United States demonstrates beyond doubt that whatever HIV tests detect is not the cause of AIDS.

Then I made another discovery: People who did not already doubt that HIV = AIDS were not prepared to look at my data collection and analysis. That was old news, of course, to those who had understood for some time that the conventional wisdom about HIV/AIDS is wrong. Those “HIV/AIDS Rethinkers” or “HIV/AIDS skeptics” have been called by various names: doubters, dissidents, deniers. Their views and writings are in articles and books listed at http://virusmyth.net/aids/, which was last updated in July 2003. For more recent material, visit the Alberta Reappraising AIDS site which is kept up to date regularly with news of current interest, much archived material, and links to blogs, informational and personal websites, discussion groups, organizations, and pertinent audio and video archives. An AIDS Wiki has also been established.

I’m starting this blog in order to comment on research reports and news items in a relatively timely way. My Google Alert for “HIV” often turns up something that illustrates how wrong is the conventional wisdom, and how everything about HIV can be explained by realizing that “HIV-positive” is a non-specific indication rather like running a fever.

If HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, then what does? What is “AIDS”?

I have no definite answer. It’s a much more complex question than what HIV tests detect. for one thing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have changed the definition of “AIDS” several times since AIDS was first named in the early 1980s. Many matters having to do with AIDS need focused research that has not yet been done because of the preoccupation with retrovirology. AIDS patients manifest a large range of conditions, including cervical cancer, tuberculosis, opportunistic infections, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and much else; there is a crying need for research that examines in detail what may be common among those suffering from those various conditions–because, as shown in many works by HIV/AIDS skeptics, “HIV” is not the common denominator. There may in fact be no common denominator other than being ill.

Research is needed also to clarify why injecting drug abusers are at high risk of AIDS as well as of testing HIV-positive. Gay men seem also to be a high-risk category, but is that true of the whole category “gay men”, or only of those groups of gay men who are most visible and readily identifiable? Extant data don’t offer convincing answers to those questions.

Much else, too, awaits clarifying further work. But such studies are unlikely to be funded and carried out until the conventional wisdom accepts the basic fact that “HIV” does not cause “AIDS”. This blog will therefore concentrate on reiterating and underscoring that fact.