From: Steve Edwards (SAlanEd@concentric.net)
Date: Wed Mar 05 1997 - 11:24:02 MST
At 10:17 AM 3/5/97 -0500, you wrote:
>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:
>
>
>>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.
1) AIDS is entering the general population.
2) It hasn't equilibrated as yet because of a) the long latency period, b)
there are more male IV drug users than females, and c) it is still being
spread by male homosexuals.
3) Eventually it will equilibrate between the sexes. Be patient.
>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.
You seem to think that the US is the only country with an AIDs problem.
AIDs is far more prevalent in Africa, where IV drugs are rarely used, and,
if you believe the Africans, homosexual behavior is less common. In Africa,
AIDS is distributed equally between the sexes. Ditto in Asia, where HIV and
AIDs cases are skyrocketing.
>>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.
The latency period seems to differ with different sub-types of the virus, of
which there are at least six. Parts of Africa have a latency period of
about two years. Some persistent viruses can be dormant for years before
causing disease. Herpes can cause disease only periodically even though
the patient is chronically infected.
>
>>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.
Kaposi's sarcoma is almost non-existent in people with a functioning immune
system. Similarly, most people don't get fungus growing on their lips and
tongue, but AIDs patients do. This has to do with a broken immune system,
not with HIV infecting their lips. Neurons don't divide but other nervous
system cells, like glia, do.
>
>>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.
Bullshit. Many people are perfectly healthy before they come down with AIDS.
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)
And at one time, 99% of AIDs patients in America were homosexuals. How do
children get AIDS if not by the virus? Are the effects of nitrate inhalants
on to children?
>
>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
That's exactly my assertion, that misfunction of the immune system makes it
much more likely that you will come down with and die from diseases specific
to your community. Most people can fight off TB (the non-resistant variety)
with a little help from antibiotics, for instance. AIDs patients have no
chance. However, even an AIDs patient will not die from TB if he is not
exposed to it. Hence, each risk group will have its own constellation of
AIDs defining diseases.
>
>>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.
I suspect that the situation is a little more complicated than simply HIV=AIDs.
Luc Montagnier, the real discoverer of HIV has proposed a model which
involves two components, with the other component not yet identified,
possibly some for of mycoplasma. But that HIV is clearly implicated in the
worldwide AIDs epidemic, I have no doubt.
>>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 of these qualify as AIDS experts?
>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.
Or he may be a stubborn fool. Time will tell.
Steve Edwards
SAlanEd@concentric.net,
SAlanEd@aol.com,
http://users.aol.com/salaned/cyberplace.html
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