Lowest common denominator — Wikipedia and its ilk

Peer review and other forms of regulating publication or broadcasting do not guarantee that what gets disseminated is reliable or truthful. On the other hand, the lack of any review guarantees that much untruth and much rubbish and much hate-inspired invective will be distributed; that has been copiously illustrated with innumerable examples on the Internet, for example, in Wikipedia and its ilk. For a book-length discussion of harm done by the Internet, see Elias Aboujaoude, Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality (W. W. Norton, 2011); for a synopsis, see New York Times Book Review, 13 February 2011, p. 17.

The phrase, “lowest common denominator”, originated in mathematics: it’s whatever number can be divided without remainder into the set of numbers under consideration.
In social matters, the phrase was adapted to mean what is shared by a great range of individuals or institutions. In that latter sense, there is often a tinge of associated disdain: what appeals to the masses is often regarded as less worthwhile than what is valued by the experts.
In politics, on questions relating to democracy, disagreements and controversies are of long standing: for instance, should elected “representatives” rubber-stamp the relatively uninformed wishes of their constituents, or should they use their own better informed judgment? Or, should voting be compulsory so that it is truly the “wish of (all) the people” that counts, or should those who can’t be bothered to vote be allowed to self-disenfranchise?
The case for compulsory voting has long been accepted in Australia; a fine is imposed if an eligible voter fails to vote. Perhaps the principle that every voice needs to be heard owes something to Australia’s history, of being founded as a prison colony and settled in the beginning largely by convicts who had served out their terms, people who had learned a very healthy distrust of authority as a result of being convicted and transported for such crimes as stealing a loaf of bread with which to feed their children.
Some benefits of compulsory voting were demonstrated after World War II. The unions were very strong. Union membership was required in many industries. There were many strikes as union leaders tried to achieve all sorts of ends, some of them political rather than in the best everyday interests of unionists as a whole, because several of the most powerful unions — dock workers, for example — were led by avowed Communists. As is quite usual in groups of all sorts, the most fanatical gain ascendancy because they are willing to put in the most sustained effort, by contrast to those of moderate view and temperament whose lives are in better balance and who, for whatever reason — “my vote can’t make a difference”, say — let others take leadership positions. The solution was to have compulsory universal voting by secret ballot in union elections, and the Communists lost control.
An acknowledged failing of the political system in the United States is that party insiders select candidates who are then not found particularly appealing by the electorate as a whole, as illustrated by a succession of conservative gatherings and Republican primaries.

It is therefore only to be expected that the openness of the Internet means that fanatics will gain control whenever there is no effective mechanism for sifting truth from lies. I’ve discussed this in the past in relation to Wikipedia, based in part on what I learned when a friend told me that a “bio” of me had been posted there. We soon found that there is no effective mechanism for getting the truth into Wikipedia if someone is determined to keep lies there. The established mechanisms require one to “negotiate” with anonymous people of ill will and ignorance, with ultimate decisions made by again anonymous individuals of questionable intellectual credentials. In my case, the “bio” is wrong on simple facts and easily checked chronology, despite attempts by several people to have those rectified.
I soon learned to ignore Wikipedia. Those who haven’t learned that it’s untrustworthy have to learn that for themselves. But the matter was brought back to my attention by the recent comment from artwest saying that my website was red-lined in “Web of Truth” (WOT). I had never heard of WOT. Google quickly corrected my ignorance, and I see that WOT is based on the same misguided premise as is Wikipedia, namely that a consensus among the lowest common denominator would bring reliability. What it brings in actuality is the lowest of the low, dogmatists oblivious to evidence and intent only on enforcing their own views.

Caveat lector.

Searching for truth at Harvard

Harvard Magazine published the standard sort of HIV/AIDS propaganda in its issue of September-October 2010, “The Social Epidemic — Battling HIV in sub-Saharan Africa”.  The piece is strong on local color and personal interest, a tribute to the “generous gift for international reporting” that enabled the author, associate editor Elizabeth Gudrais, to visit Tanzania, South Africa, and Uganda. But the article is woefully ignorant about HIV and AIDS, and this ignorance is reflected in such absurd repetitions of official nonsense as that 39% of KwaZulu-Natal residents “have HIV” and, in some places, “two-thirds of pregnant women have HIV”. First, of course, no test demonstrates the presence of “HIV infection”, only the presence of certain antibodies or bits of DNA or RNA. Second, the official early story of HIV/AIDS describes “HIV infection” as deadly, on average of about a decade after infection. As this article acknowledges, antiretroviral drugs treatment is still not available in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Those two mainstream assertions taken together would make it quite impossible that any country could have reached 39% infection, with a majority of pregnant women infected, without an earlier total collapse of the population — whereas the population of the whole region has continued to increase throughout the “AIDS” era  at a healthy (or unhealthy!) rate of several percent annually, without death rates rising noticeably [Rian Malan, “AIDS in Africa — In search of the truth”, Rolling Stone Magazine, 22 November 2001; “Africa isn’t dying of Aids”, The Spectator (London), 14 December 2003].
Gudrais’s “research” about HIV itself evidently consisted of being indoctrinated by the Harvard people who are, with the best but misguided intentions, bringing antiretroviral treatment to sub-Saharan Africa. Gudrais mention that many Africans stop coming for treatment, but fails to ask why this might be; yet anyone familiar with the literature would know that the dreadful “side” effects of antiretroviral drugs bring high drop-out rates also in the United States [“Avoiding life-saving treatment”, 2010/10/28].
I found it sad to read of the many well-meaning alumni, faculty, and students who are mentioned as having contributed time or funds to Harvard’s mission in Africa, which includes vaccine research. What reaction will there be from those who have been hoodwinked by officialdom for decades, once it becomes generally realized that HIV = AIDS is without a basis in fact? How will the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spin its long participation in this intellectual scam? How will the National Institutes of Health handle the fury of Congressional investigations after it is realized that NIH was actually a driving force in maintaining expensive programs that had long been discredited by the evidence, much of it published under NIH grants?

John Lauritsen wanted to give readers of Harvard Magazine the opportunity to think about these issues, but the concise, to-the-point letter he sent in August has not been published:

25 August 2010
Harvard Magazine
yourturn@harvard.edu
“The Social Epidemic: Battling HIV in sub-Saharan Africa” by Elizabeth  Gudrais (September-October 2010) echoes the prevailing myths about  “AIDS” in Africa, without ever coming to grips with the real issues. Although Africa has supposedly been devastated by “AIDS”, the population  in South Africa, Uganda and elsewhere on the continent has grown.  “AIDS” in Africa is not the same as “AIDS” in Europe and North America;  in both it is a new name for old diseases.  <http://www.altheal.org/statistics/fiala.htm>
The sad reality is that most people in Africa are poor — so poor they  can’t even get clean drinking water. The goal should be to eliminate  poverty and unsanitary living conditions, rather than providing  unvalidated “HIV” tests and harmful and worthless drugs.
The sub-article (“The Politics of Paying for HIV Care”) gets to the  point: “Harvard’s PEPFAR program has paid for antiretroviral therapy  (ART) for more than 130,000 people….” That is, profits for Big  Pharma. The drugs being marketed to Africa — AZT and Nevirapine — are  toxic and have no benefits demonstrated through honest, double-blind,  placebo-controlled studies.
To my knowledge there is no proof that “AIDS” is caused by HIV-1 (North  America and Europe), by HIV-2 (Africa), or by any other infectious  agent. If there is such proof, Harvard Magazine would do us all a  service by publishing an article stating the HIV-AIDS hypothesis in a  clear and falsifiable manner, marshalling evidence for that hypothesis,  and answering criticisms made by AIDS critics (dissidents/rethinkers)  like myself.

John Lauritsen
Harvard College Class of 1961 (AB 1963)
Author: _The AIDS War_ (1993)
http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/AIDS.HTM

No help from Gallo on HIV tests

The boxer Tommy Morrison, after a mandatory pre-fight test, was told in 1996 that he was HIV-positive and would therefore not be permitted to continue with his boxing career.   Subsequently he has claimed to have had a number of negative tests, and to have learned that the tests do not diagnose actual infection anyway.

Morrison has now scheduled a fight in Canada on February 25th. To demonstrate that he is not infected with HIV, he wants to take a test that is guaranteed  capable of detecting actual virus, veritable infection. He has asked publicly that Robert Gallo advise him as to the existence and availability of such a test. In mass-mailed e-mails, Morrison has complained about Gallo’s failure to respond. For example, he wrote recently to Gallo’s assistant:

From: Tommy Morrison <tommythedukemorrison@yahoo.com>
Subject: RESEND Re: RESEND…URGENT RESEND -Re: RESEND… resend…Fw: HIV VIRUS TEST VERY IMPORTANT Dr.Gallo please respond.
To: ngrannell@ihv.umaryland.edu
Date: Thursday, February 3, 2011, 11:39 PM
Ms.Granell:
I appreciate DR Gallo is a busy man…but would it be possible to please have a reply?..perhaps you can direct me
to a website with the information I need being: a 100% accurate test detecting the presence or absence of the HIV VIRUS ? along with a copy of the scientific papers so that the local doctor can identify the VIRUS?
If Dr Gallo can tell me WHICH test to take to detect the presence of the HIV VIRUS – that’s all I need………..
God Bless
Tommy Morrison

So far the only response he has received has been indirect, via Jean-Marc Emond, Director of Operations for SP PROMOTION, a boxing firm in Quebec:

De : “Grannell, Nora” <NGrannell@ihv.umaryland.edu>
À : Jean-Marc Emond <jm99emond@yahoo.ca>
Envoyé le : Lun 24 janvier 2011, 12h 38min 49s
Objet : RE: HIV TEST VERY IMPORTANT
Dear Mr. Emond,
Dr. Gallo believes that the HIV tests are highly accurate and that Morrison was properly diagnosed as HIV-infected.
Best regards,
Nora
Nora Grannell
Director, Public Relations & Marketing
Institute of Human Virology
University of Maryland School of Medicine
725 W Lombard St., S307
Baltimore, MD 21201
W: 410-706-1954
F: 410-706-1952
ngrannell@ihv.umaryland.edu
http://www.ihv.org

Of course, that tests are “highly accurate” does not mean that they can be relied upon to detect active infection, let alone with any certainty. I would rank this evasive Gallo statement on an intellectual par (i.e., intellectual garbage) with his assertion in the Parenzee case that there was no need for him to purify “isolated” HIV because his cultures produced it in such profusion as to make impurities irrelevant.

For discussion pertinent to the Morrison story, see Terry Michael’s piece in the Montreal Gazette and subsequent comments.

No help from federal agencies

Official websites purport to offer useful information to the public. That becomes much less appealing when one recognizes that they typically also disclaim any responsibility for the accuracy of the information.
Still, it seems natural to presume that a specific request might bring specific help. Not when it comes to HIV/AIDS, it appears.
A friend of this blog sent the following query (slightly edited) to the Food and Drug Administration:

Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 9:54 AM
Subject: AIDS.
Dear Drs.
Why do all HIV tests have disclaimers like this?
“At present there is no recognized standard for establishing the presence and absence of HIV-1 antibody in human blood.”
The same with WB, for which there is no universal criterion; and Viral Load tests also have this kind of disclaimer.
This is a test that, if positive, destroys lives. Please think about it, it’s not a matter of money and power, it’s about the lives of millions of people.
And will there be in a few years better alternatives to the very toxic (sometimes lethal) and expensive HAART?

The reply was interesting if somewhat evasive:

From: OSHI@FDA.HHS.GOV
To: ………
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:53:19 -0500
Subject: RE: AIDS.
Hello–
No HIV test is perfect.  All tests have a potential for “false-positive” or “false-negative” results.  These tests are the best that are currently available, but they are not perfect.  FDA is working with medical product manufacturers to facilitate their development of better tests.
I do not understand your comment that “it’s not about money and power.”  What is your point?
Researchers are working to develop a cure for HIV, but such a cure is not likely to appear soon.  I guess we’ll see—
David Banks
FDA Office of Special Health Issues

Youngest person sexually infected with HIV? How are pre-teens infected?

“Teenaged boy contracted HIV through intercourse — A 13-year-old boy has become the youngest patient to contract HIV through sexual intercourse, health officials said. It is suspected the boy became infected while working part-time for a 50-year-old male, who used money to lure him into having sex, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Lin Ting . . . said”.
This report is from China (Taiwan), but the same sort of nonsense could have come from anywhere.
The demographic characteristics of “HIV” — that is, of testing “HIV-positive” — make quite plain that “HIV” is not an infectious agent, let alone a sexually transmitted one. The evidence for that is set out in considerable detail in The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, and more such evidence has been presented many times on this blog.
Consider the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from all public testing sites in the USA for the period 1995-98, as published in The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory [“F(HIV)” means the frequency of positive “HIV” tests, a term I used to avoid speaking about “HIV infection” or “HIV prevalence”]:

Now ask,

How did those people of various ages
become “HIV-positive”?
In particular, ages up to the teens?

At birth, babies carry antibodies generated by their mothers; 75% or more of “HIV-positive” babies got their “HIV” antibodies direct from their mothers, and lose them in less than a year; see  “Mother to child transmission of HIV and its prevention with AZT and Nevirapine — a critical  analysis  of  the  evidence” (2001) by the  Perth  Group, available at www.theperthgroup.com/monograph.html.
By age 1, let alone ages between 1 and 12, babies and young children can therefore be “HIV-positive” only for some other reason than maternal antibodies. What could that reason be?
Note that the rate of “HIV-positive” continues to decline into the early teens. That was not owing to deaths reducing the number of “HIV-positives”, because in the 1990s no appreciable number of American babies or young children were dying of “HIV disease”.
Mother-to-child “transmission of HIV”, including via breast milk, had essentially ceased in the USA by the 1990s, so the only remaining means of infection would have been sexual transmission, dirty needles, or transfusion with contaminated blood. But, again, in the USA the two latter modes were almost unheard of by the mid-1990s, and sexual transmission (via sexual abuse, of course) is incredible at such high rates.
In any case, actual “infection” by any mechanism at all could not be the reason why these pre-teens tested “HIV-positive” since the rate of “HIV-positive” declined steadily, reaching a minimum in the low teens, and could not have been owing to deaths, as already remarked.
The only feasible explanation for the manner in which “HIV-positive” varies with age from birth into the teens is that testing  “HIV-positive” represents detection of substances that are associated with physiological stress, not an infectious agent. Birth is stressful, and children become physiologically stronger as their immune systems develop increasingly for years after birth. The Perth Group has published copious evidence that “HIV” tests are sensitive to and tend to test positive in the presence of oxidative stress.
That conclusion is underscored by the fact that the same variation of “HIV-positive” with age was found in healthy African subjects:

As a number of other posts on this blog have also illustrated, the manner in which “HIV-positive” varies with age is the same wherever and whenever such data are gathered, though the exact ages of the maxima and minima vary somewhat, in particular by race.

“HIV” tests do not detect a human immunodeficiency virus,
as consideration of the tests themselves already shows:
“HIV tests are not HIV tests”.

The mistaken belief that testing “HIV-positive” represents infection by a sexually transmitted agent has led to innumerable tragedies for some uncountable number of people: for instance, being needlessly fed toxic drugs, or being incarcerated for supposedly spreading a deadly infection, or becoming depressed upon being told that one is infected.