From: Pat Fallon (pfallon@ptd.net)
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 13:00:17 MST
> Please, people, a bit of respect for the Bard. Blaming death by
iatrogenic
> AIDS on "science" is quite unfair to science. This wasn't a flaw in the
> science, it was a coincidental and unrelated flaw in the medical
> implementation. Asimov died because we didn't know how to cure AIDS, and
> that's the only sense in which science failed him.
I respectfully disagree. I think the Perth Group
[http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/perthgroup/index.html] provides a good
argument that there are indeed major flaws in current AIDS science.
People are dying of AIDS indicator diseases, but the question is, is the
cause a single, common infectious virus? The past is littered with
assertions of scientific truth and experts who ridiculed anyone who
disagreed. Infectious theories of scurvy, beriberi, pellagra, and more
recently, SMON and retroviral theories of cancer to which nearly all doctors
once subscribed have collapsed.
As I understand their argument:
In 1983 Montagnier's group claimed they had isolated a virus from cultures
obtained from patients at risk for AIDS, banded it in density gradients, and
that this band consisted of purified virus.(5)
However, neither Montagnier's group nor anybody else published electron
micrographs of this band showing that it contained only objects with the
characteristics of viral particles. When Montagnier was asked in July 1997
by French Journalist Djamel Tahi why such photos were not published, his
answer was because, even after "Roman effort", they could see no particles
with "morphology typical of retroviruses. I repeat we did not purify..."(6)
Also in 1997 the leading science journal Virology published two papers that
provided stunning new data on the "isolation" of HIV.(7)(8) For the first
time, electron microscope images of "HIV" banded at the density required for
retroviruses were published. They revealed "major contaminants" in "pure
HIV", consisting of an excess of vesicles - particles of cellular
proteins.(9)
The samples Montagnier and Gallo called "viral isolates" contain a few
objects that resemble retroviruses (the "HIV") plus lots of other things,
which clearly aren't viruses. Without a pure isolate of virus-like
particles, there is no way to extract proteins and genetic material out of
a molecular soup and know that they came from one group of particular
looking objects rather than another.
How then could Montagnier and Gallo claim "isolation"? Their papers cite
three pieces of evidence: detection of reverse transcription activity,
detection of retroviral-like particles in cell cultures, and antibody
reactions.
However, reverse transcription activity is not unique to retroviruses, and
in fact RT activity in normal cells is promoted by the very conditions which
Montagnier and Gallo subjected their patients' T-cells to.(10) Therefore,
detection of RT activity in these cultures was not proof that there was a
retrovirus present.
Secondly, Gallo and Montagnier offered as evidence photographs of particles
in impure cell cultures and asserted that not only were they retroviruses,
but they were a specific retrovirus, "HIV." However, as even Gallo
admits,(11) retroviral-like particles that are not infectious are common in
cultures, especially those subjected to the conditions that Gallo and
Montagnier used in order to cultivate "HIV." Pointing to particles in impure
cell cultures that are viral-like was hardly proof that those particles were
a retrovirus, let alone a specific retrovirus, "HIV."
Thirdly, Gallo and Montagnier offered antibody reactions as proof of
isolation of their virus from AIDS patients. They identified certain
proteins in these cultures as "HIV proteins." This was done not by
extracting those proteins from the viral isolate, because there was no viral
isolate. They had a soup containing a few virus-like objects and a lot of
contaminating cellular debris. To decide which proteins extracted from this
mix were from the virus-like objects, they exposed the proteins to blood
samples from both AIDS patients and non-AIDS patients. If a protein caused
an antibody response from an AIDS patient, and no antibody response from a
non-AIDS patient, they said that one was an "HIV protein." These proteins
were then used in the antibody and Western Blot tests. A Positive result is
interpreted as indicating the presence of "HIV antibodies."
However, antibodies cross-react, and AIDS patients have a much higher level
of circulating antibodies than in normal, healthy individuals. Thus AIDS
patients were likely to have antibody cross-reactions with any given protein
more often than non-AIDS patients. Also, false positives may be caused by
vaccinations against other diseases or current or past diseases.(12)
Moreover, antibodies can be raised against a non-viral protein, e.g. that of
endogenous nature (arising from within, not from infection). Identification
of certain proteins as "HIV proteins," simply because they reacted with
antibodies of AIDS patients and not non-AIDS patients was insufficient proof
that these proteins were actually from a new virus, "HIV."
The insufficiency of this evidence was first pointed out by Eleni
Papadopulos-Eleopulos, a medical physicist at Australia's Royal Perth
Hospital. In 1988 she published her paper, "Reappraisal of AIDS: Is the
Oxidation Induced by the Risk Factors the Primary Cause?", in which she
stated, "Unlike other viruses [HIV] has never been isolated as an
independent stable particle."(13) With the recent release of the photos
showing no viral isolation, and Montagnier's admission that ".we did not
purify"(6), it is hard to deny the logic of her argument.
The inability to isolate the virus means no proteins which are viral and
free from contaminants have ever been obtained, thus no one can be certain
what the antibodies are that bind to the proteins. This is the heart of the
problem facing all HIV tests. The manufacturer of the most popular HIV test
kit openly acknowledges, "there is no recognized standard for establishing
the presence or absence of antibodies to HIV in human blood."(14)
So if a positive "HIV" test does not detect antibodies to a virus, why then
is it correlated with a higher incidence of developing AIDS diseases, at
least in high-risk groups?
Eleopulos had noticed a link between the AIDS risk groups in the US and
Europe. Gay men, drug users and haemophiliacs are exposed to foreign semen,
nitrites, illicit drugs and factor VIII (the blood clotting protein that
haemophiliacs must inject). These substances are potent cellular
oxidants.(15) When oxidation is prolonged or excessive, cells become
abnormal, injured and susceptible to diseases. In Eleopulos' view,
oxidative stress produces biochemical signals that have been misinterpreted
as evidence of a new virus. The immune system produces antibodies in
response to stress, but these antibodies are to products of the disordered
cells, not to an invading virus.
(5) Barré-Sinoussi F, Chermann JC, Rey F. (1983). Isolation of a
T-Lymphotrophic Retrovirus from a patient at Risk for Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Science 220:868-871
(6) http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/dtinterviewlm.htm
(7) Bess JW, Gorelick RJ, Bosche WJ, Henderson LE, Arthur LO. (1997).
Microvesicles are a source of contaminating cellular proteins found in
purified HIV-1 preparations. Virol. 230:134-144.
(8) Gluschankof P, Mondor I, Gelderblom HR, Sattentau QJ. (1997). Cell
membrane vesicles are a major contaminant of gradient-enriched human
immunodeficiency virus type-1 preparations. Virol. 230:125-133.
(9) See the photos for yourself at
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/award.htm
(10) 149. Tomley FM, Armstrong SJ, Mahy BWJ, Owen LN. (1983). Reverse
transcriptase activity and particles of retroviral density in cultured
canine lymphosarcoma supernatants. Br. J. Cancer 47:277-284. 150.
(11) Gallo, R. C., Wong-Staal, F., Reitz, M., Gallagher, R. E., Miller,
N. & Gillepsie, D. H. 1976. Some evidence for infectious type-C virus in
humans. pp. 385-405, in Animal Virology, edited by D. Balimore, A. S. Huang
and C. F. Fox, Academic Press Inc., New York.
(12) Factors Known to Cause False-Positive HIV Antibody Test Results.
Continuum; 4(3): 5. 64 references to conditions that can cause
false-positive HIV test results.
(13) Medical Hypotheses (1988) 25: 151-162. Full text online at
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/epmedhypo.htm
(14) Abbot Laboratories, HIVABtm HIV-1 EIA, May 1998
(15) Montagnier L, Olivier R, Pasquier C, eds. Oxidative stress in cancer,
AIDS and neurogenerative diseases. New York: Marcel Dekker Inc, 1998.
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