From: Pat Fallon (pfallon@noln.com)
Date: Wed Mar 05 1997 - 08:17:58 MST
I said:
>>1. Unlike conventional infectious diseases, including venereal diseases,
>>American/European AIDS is nonrandomly (90%) restricted to males,
>>although no AIDS disease is male specific.
Steve Edwards, former virologist, said:
>The list above contains some inaccuracies--
>1) AIDs is not at all male specific. The over abundance of male cases in
>the U.S. is entirely due to....[snip]
If I'm being inaccurate in saying that males make up roughly 90% of
American and European AIDS cases, why do you feel it necessary to
explain the "over abundance of male cases"? Isn't that self-contradictory?
>From the statements that you make following that, I assume that you accept
the statement that for over a decade roughly 9 out of 10 American AIDS
patients have been male, and that you explain this by arguing:
(a)>The over abundance of male cases in the U.S. is entirely due to its route
>of entry onto American soil via a homosexual community that was
>incredibly promiscuous
and that:
(b)>New cases of HIV infection not attributable to needles show a
>female dominant pattern
But I don't understand your statement that
>Aids is not at all male specific
in light of your very next sentence which seeks to explain WHY males make
up an "over abundance of AIDS cases in the US".
Anyway, in regard to point (a) I would point out that viral AIDS should have
long since entered into the general population just like all authentic infectious
diseases, even if its point of entry 15 years ago was an incredibly promiscuous
gay flight attendant, as, I believe, the book The Band Played On speculates.
According to the hypothesis that AIDS is a sexually transmitted viral disease,
AIDS should have long equilibrated between the sexes-exactly as predicted by
AIDS establishment. The failure to leave specific risk groups in more than a
decade poses serious challenges to the virus hypothesis.
Additionally, your argument that AIDS has been restricted to males
because the virus first got its foothold in the US in male homosexuals
and has remained with homosexuals until recently is inconsistent
with the following:
The U.S. Army [Burke, D.S., J.F. Brundage, M. Goldensaum,
M. Gardner, M. Peterson, R. Visintine, R. Redfield, and the
Walter Reed Retrovirus Research Group. Human immunodeficiency
virus infections in teenagers; seroprevalence among applicants for
the US military service. J.Am.Med.Ass. 263 (1990):2074-2077]
and the US Job Corps [St. Louis, M.E., G.A. Conway, C.R. Hayman,
C. Miller, L.R. Peterson, and T.J. Dondero. Human immunodefiency
virus infection in disadvantaged adolescents. J.Am.Med.Ass. 266
(1991): 2387-2391] report, based upon millions of tests, that HIV
has been equally distributed between the sexes among 17 to 21
year olds of the general population.
This data predicts that among 17 to 24 year olds, AIDS risks should
be distributed equally between the sexes. However the CDC documents
that 85% of the AIDS cases among 17 to 24 year olds were males
(CDC, 1992).
HIV seems equally distributed between the sexes, yet males make up
almost 9 out of 10 AIDS cases. Paradoxical to the theory that HIV
causes AIDS.
As for (b) the recent increase in AIDS cases among non IV drug using
women, in 1993 the CDC changed the definition of AIDS to include
cervical cancer in the list of indicator diseases. This was the first
gender specific AIDS disease and it had the predictable result of
increasing the number of non IV drug-using women AIDS patients,
although they make up a very small % of total AIDS cases.
>2) There is something strange about the latency period.
Agreed. The basis for the 10 year latent period of the virus, which
has a generation time of only 24 to 48 hours, is entirely unknown.
There is no precedent for an infectious agent that causes primary
diseases on average only 10 years after transfusion in adults and only
after 2 years in children. The diversity of these latent periods is
inconsistent with one infectious agent and their magnitude is
characteristic for diseases caused by chronic exposure to toxic substances.
>Nevertheless, the vast majority of HIV positive people eventually
>die of opportunistic infection, a fact that needs explaining.
About 38% of all AIDS diseases, i.e. dementia, wasting disease,
Kaposi's sarcoma, and lymphoma are neither caused by, nor necessarily
associated with, immunodeficiency [World Health Organization, 1992;
and CDC, 1992]. In these AIDS indicator diseases that
are not caused by immunodeficiency, HIV is not even present in the
diseased tissues, e.g., there is no trace of HIV in any Kaposi's sarcomas
[Salahuddin, S.K., S. Naecamura, P. Biberfeld, M.K. Kaplan, P.D.
Markham, L. Larsson, and R.C. Gallo. Angiogenic properties of
Kaposi's sarcoma-derived cells after long-term culture in vitro. Science
242 (1988): 430-433] and there is no HIV in neurons of patients with
dementia, because of the generic inability of retroviruses to infect
nondividing cells like neurons.
>people eventually die ...a fact that needs explaining.
>From its recognition in 1981, AIDS has been restricted in Europe and
America to patients from abnormal risk groups whose health had been
severely compromised prior to the onset of symptoms. About 60% of
AIDS patients in America are male homosexuals who have abused
psychoactive and aphrodisiac drugs (including nitrate inhalants),
about 33% are IV drug users and their children, 2% are transfusion
recipients, and 1% are hemophiliacs. Only about 3% of American
AIDS patients are from "undetermined exposure categories". (CDC 1992)
It is argued that health risks associated with these groups, and not HIV,
is causing AIDS.
HIV is correlated with AIDS because IV drug users who share needles,
for example, are collecting viruses the way some people collect stamps.
The higher the consumption of unsterile drugs, the more accidentally
contaminating microbes will be accumulated.
>3) HIV, by itself, is not what kills you. It only destroys your immune
>system. Hence it is not odd that different risk groups should have
>different symptoms.
The existence of risk-group-specific AIDS-defining diseases in the absence
of HIV challenges your assertion. Controlled studies indicate that the
incidence of AIDS-defining diseases in IV drug users and in male
homosexuals engaging in high-risk behavior and hemophiliacs
is independent of HIV. Each health risk group has nonviral health risks
that are necessary and sufficient causes of AIDS
>The AIDs infrastructure has at time been alarmist and overconfident of
>research claims. It wants money thrown at it. Nevertheless,
>one should not throw out all the HIV/AIDs research
>on that grounds.
I don't. I reject the theory that HIV causes AIDS on the grounds
that it violates so many established principles of virology.
>Duesberg can't be trusted... he's into publicity for it's own sake...
"Peter Duesberg has fought with courage and tenacity to drag
a reluctant scientific community back to AIDS sanity since
detecting falsehoods in the HIV story more than a decade ago.
His efforts have earned him much personal abuse, but may
ultimately save countless lives"
Neville Hodgkinson, editor, The London Sunday Times
Dr. Peter Duesberg's courage and his book Inventing the AIDS
Virus will save millions of lives. He is not only one of the few
people in the world qualified enough to see through the scientific
'AIDS scam', but he is the only one who has sacrificed his
career to save the world from it."
Tony Brown, host of PBS's "Tony Brown's Journal"
Both these observers note the price that questioning the accepted
wisdom has taken on Duesbergs' career. From having his
Outstanding Investigator Grant from the NIH canceled, to being
censored by the editor of Nature (John Maddox), and being insulted
("It's the virus, stupid" from Ho, current Time Magazine 'Man of the
Year'), Duesberg could have certainly chosen an easier path to
publicity. I think he is a bit of a modern-day Galileo in that regard.
Best Regards,
Pat Fallon
pfallon@bigfoot.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:13 MST