Mod+ 273. DR. HENRY BAUER, DOGMATIC SCIENCE WRONG ABOUT HIV-AIDS CONNECTION

What I mean by this is people posting links to scientific-y fact pages, as if it's some kind of proof of something and something the individual understands. This happens on both sides, and I don't see the point of it as I'm guessing most people here lack any formal knowledge of the data. Lobbing talking point pages at one another just seems to obfuscate the whole issue: there is nothing murkier and more lame IMO than a strict scientific debate between non scientists. What I'm looking for is an honest discussion about how something like this is even possible (HIV not existing), and is this represented realistically in the world we see before us.

The core problem here, is that practically all scientists lack much formal knowledge about any particular issue - everything is so specialised. That means that even other biological scientists have to take people's word for it! I'd ask you to take a look at this link, if you haven't already - because it illustrates the way in which big scientific mistakes can happen. For example, as I understand it from that article, there was a specific meaning to the phrase "isolating a virus". It means that you get to the point where there is nothing else biological in the sample. Gallo couldn't achieve that with HIV, and nobody else has either, and yet that phrase gets used as if that had been achieved.

I think we all agree that the HIV issue is obscure, but it is also vitally important, because a lot of people are being treated with some really nasty drugs, and if they aren't actually suffering from HIV, or if HIV doesn't exist as an entity! Imagine enduring a lengthy course of chemotherapy, only to be told that you didn't have cancer in the first place!

Eleni's interview also explains extremely clearly at one point why isolation of a virus is important. The point is that you can only discover antibodies that reliably test for a particular virus, if you can test them on samples that are free from contaminants that might themselves react with the antibody. Without that step of isolation there is a real possibility that the HIV test reacts to something in the bodies of some people that isn't a virus at all!

Henry Bauer also has a paper (referenced somewhere above) about HIV which is really easy to read and understand. In the early years of HIV/AIDS, they measured the prevalence of people testing HIV positive, region by region, and also by ethnic type.

The results really are startling because they show no sign of a wave of infection spreading through the US, it would seem that your chance of testing HIV positive in the US is simply a function of where you live, what ethnicity you have, and your age and sex. Those distributions remain constant in time! Now imagine we were talking about an outbreak of some other disease - EBOLA say. Initially people would only test positive for EBOLA near a few epicentres of the disease. This would broaden as time went on, and the numbers would rise - you wouldn't get a static pattern. This in itself is awfully suggestive that something is wrong.

Is it possible for a non-existent virus to appear to exist for so long?

Well I guess it maybe if you manage to skip the actual isolation of the virus - as explained in the above article. I am sure plenty of people tried, but of course, if you try an experiment and it never works, that may be because it is a very tough experiment, but it may also be because you are trying to do the impossible.

Eleni's interview also makes clear that there are all sorts of virus-like particles floating in those preparations - including endogenous retroviruses that are made by the body from genes stored in our genome!

The scary thing is that scientists are human, and science administrators are.....politicians! It is awfully hard to get people to test the unthinkable - or indeed even to think the unthinkable, and it is even harder to persuade administrators to give funds for such an endeavour.

Science gets tidied up for consumption by the masses - including scientists in other disciplines. Think for a moment about another possible scientific error:

We hear that scientists have discovered The Higgs Boson (cue for drum role), but it takes an outsider like Alexander Unzicker to explain all the flaky messy reasons why this might not be what it seems. One detail that impressed me, is that those bosons barely live for enough time to cross the diameter of a proton (even though they are travelling at a fair fraction of the speed of light) and what reaches the detectors is much simpler decay products of decay products like electrons and positrons. Thus a Higgs detection depends on the pattern of arrivals of these particles - but there are so many particles arriving that even CERN can't store the data on a hard disk. Those patterns are detected by electronics in the detectors, and all the other data is discarded. This means there is no sense in asking to re-analyse some CERN data, because the crucial filtering step has already taken place and the vast majority of data has been discarded!

Science needs people who question all its discoveries, and they absolutely need to be listened to, and answered carefully, and that isn't what happens.

David
 
http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/denialists/dead_denialists

AIDS denialists who have died
None of the scientists and journalists who are the most prominent promoters of HIV denialist theories in the mainstream and "independent" media have reported testing positive for HIV; the issue of the cause and treatment of HIV/AIDS is a purely academic matter for those who drive the denialist movement. But a number of people diagnosed with HIV infection – people whose lives are in the balance – have become activists in the "AIDS dissident" movement. Tragically, many of these individuals have died with symptoms and/or infectious illnesses that are characteristic of AIDS.

 
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http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/myths/ltnp

Myth: The fact that some HIV-positive people live in good health without treatment for many years proves that HIV is harmless

Fact: A small percentage of people infected with HIV do live for many years without developing AIDS. They are often known as long-term non-progressors. But such individuals are rare: without proper medical care, including antiretroviral drugs when needed, most HIV-positive people will eventually develop AIDS.

 
http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/myths
Index of Myths We Debunk

  1. HIV does not cause AIDS
  2. AIDS among minorities in the United States and other industrialised countries is caused by recreational drug use
  3. Studies, in particular one conducted by Nancy Padian and her colleagues, show that HIV cannot be transmitted heterosexually
  4. AIDS in haemophiliacs is caused by Factor VIII, a clotting agent in donated blood for haemophiliacs, not HIV
  5. AIDS in Africa is another name for old diseases caused by poverty
  6. There is no serious HIV epidemic in Africa
  7. AZT causes AIDS
  8. Although antiretrovirals work now, AZT when used as a monotherapy in the late 1980s and early 1990s killed more people than it helped
  9. The Concorde trial showed that AZT causes AIDS, or at least that AZT's risks outweigh its benefits
  10. Antiretrovirals have not been tested in clinical trials
  11. Antiretrovirals taken by pregnant women are harmful to the foetus
  12. The Ugandan HIVNET 012 trial that studied the efficacy of single-dose nevirapine for mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention was scientifically and ethically flawed such that its results are unreliable
  13. HIV tests are unreliable and frequently produce false positives
  14. False positive HIV test results are likely in pregnant women
  15. Tests that measure HIV directly are meaningless because they only find dead virus particles
  16. AZT does not triphosphorylate and therefore cannot work
  17. HIV cannot be detected post-mortem
  18. HIV is an endogenous retrovirus
  19. HIV is a harmless passenger virus
  20. The fact that some HIV-positive people live in good health without treatment for many years proves that HIV is harmless
 
http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/myths
Index of Myths We Debunk

  1. HIV does not cause AIDS
  2. AIDS among minorities in the United States and other industrialised countries is caused by recreational drug use
  3. Studies, in particular one conducted by Nancy Padian and her colleagues, show that HIV cannot be transmitted heterosexually
  4. AIDS in haemophiliacs is caused by Factor VIII, a clotting agent in donated blood for haemophiliacs, not HIV
  5. AIDS in Africa is another name for old diseases caused by poverty
  6. There is no serious HIV epidemic in Africa
  7. AZT causes AIDS
  8. Although antiretrovirals work now, AZT when used as a monotherapy in the late 1980s and early 1990s killed more people than it helped
  9. The Concorde trial showed that AZT causes AIDS, or at least that AZT's risks outweigh its benefits
  10. Antiretrovirals have not been tested in clinical trials
  11. Antiretrovirals taken by pregnant women are harmful to the foetus
  12. The Ugandan HIVNET 012 trial that studied the efficacy of single-dose nevirapine for mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention was scientifically and ethically flawed such that its results are unreliable
  13. HIV tests are unreliable and frequently produce false positives
  14. False positive HIV test results are likely in pregnant women
  15. Tests that measure HIV directly are meaningless because they only find dead virus particles
  16. AZT does not triphosphorylate and therefore cannot work
  17. HIV cannot be detected post-mortem
  18. HIV is an endogenous retrovirus
  19. HIV is a harmless passenger virus
  20. The fact that some HIV-positive people live in good health without treatment for many years proves that HIV is harmless
Suppose those are right - wouldn't those discussions be better taking place in a scientific conference where both sides can speak?

One fact/myth that seems to underpin a number of those items, is the question as to whether the HIV virus has been isolated.

Here is a long and highly technical discussion of this issue:

http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/epreplypd.htm

Does it make sense that people at that level can't present their data at major AIDS conferences - so we never get at solid truth!

We can't possibly get at the truth of this subject, but can't we all agree that the dissenters should be heard respectfully, and all the issues they raise should be answered somehow?

David
 
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Postulate 1. Antibodies persist after a pathogen is long gone so they can't be evidence for the existence of the pathogen. These tests do not detect viral particles.

Postulate 2. Culturing is not isolation and purification.

Postulate 3. The original disease is a collection of diseases and many healthy people with HIV enjoy a long life. Many treatments are immuno surpressing.

Postulate 4. PCR test do not necessarily imply the presence of HIV.

http://www.rethinkingaids.com/gallorebuttal/Farber-Gallo-40.html
Very interesting article. If correct, the implications are incredible.
 
3. On a related note, 12% of South Africans and 18% of adults have the disease now. Either they are all lying, or surprise surprise, they are infected with it. Denying it will only condemn those millions to death.

That is just rhetoric. If someone is found to have a disease as a result of a false positive test, neither the patient or the doctor can be said to have lied.

Lots of potential medical science mistakes involve issues of death - whoever is right. Bad science kills people - we simply want to know which side is right.

David
 
That is just rhetoric. If someone is found to have a disease as a result of a false positive test, neither the patient or the doctor can be said to have lied.

Lots of potential medical science mistakes involve issues of death - whoever is right. Bad science kills people - we simply want to know which side is right.

David

It is not rhetoric. It is established without almost any doubt that millions of South Africans have HIV/AIDS. It is also established that 300,000 died because of Mbeki's intransigence. I don't see why this is a point of contention, those 300,000 didn't just drop dead for shits and giggles. I also don't see why it's rhetoric to posit that thinking that those millions were all given false positive tests, it simply isn't possible unless every doctor in South Africa is in on some huge conspiracy.
 
I don't think anyone is making the claim people do not die of AIDS. Or that the T cells are killed off. Apparently it is possible to have AIDS and not have HIV. And it appears it is possible to test positive for HIV and not die of AIDS. HIV may exist, it may not, it may be mislabeled, it may be exogenous, it may be endogenous, it may be produced in a combination. Endogenous ones are activated Btw. HIV may not cause AIDS. HIV may be a contributer to AIDS, HIV may indirectly be a factor, or HIV may cause AIDS. When the definitions changes the statistics do too. It is not so black and white guys, and consider where the one and only line of reasoning has got us, isolated? So where is the vaccine?
 
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What I mean by this is people posting links to scientific-y fact pages, as if it's some kind of proof of something and something the individual understands. This happens on both sides, and I don't see the point of it as I'm guessing most people here lack any formal knowledge of the data. Lobbing talking point pages at one another just seems to obfuscate the whole issue: there is nothing murkier and more lame IMO than a strict scientific debate between non scientists. What I'm looking for is an honest discussion about how something like this is even possible (HIV not existing), and is this represented realistically in the world we see before us.



Before we get into the doc I just want to make sure the one you're talking about is The Emperor's New Virus. I watched that and I don't find it convincing. I would be happy to discuss why, but I want to make sure that's the doc you mentioned above.

Thanks.
I can't reply too fully at the moment, but briefly: I definitely agree with a lot of what you said, though I do have doubts about the whole thing nonetheless. About which video: yes, The Emporer's New Virus was the one I was referring to.
 
I can't reply too fully at the moment, but briefly: I definitely agree with a lot of what you said, though I do have doubts about the whole thing nonetheless. About which video: yes, The Emporer's New Virus was the one I was referring to.
Hey Reece,

Thanks. I don't find the doc convincing for a couple reasons, the most important one being I find it intellectually dishonest and therefore difficult to trust. It's toted as "An analysis of the evidence", but I believe it's an inside job by the Perth group for the following reasons.

1. The doc is 80/20 dissenters to believers, mostly being a stage for Papadopulos-Eleopulos to make all of her key talking points as the interviewer lobs softballs at her.

2. This is a nitpick, but the director or whoever made the doc makes it a point as early as possible to discredit one of the few opposing sides not with fact, but by including a clip of the interviewee getting mad with little context. It served no purpose scientifically, but it's a classic and transparent cheap shot move to instill distrust in the subject.

3. This is the most damning: All of the slides featured in the doc are slides taken from Perth Group power point slides. I know this because the director was dumb enough to include a slide featuring a quote which was attributed to a Perth Group power point slide that was used in the Perenzee trial. This is ironic, considering they didn't "win" the case. Derr. Anyways, a few clicks into some Perth Group power points did indeed reveal that they are all the slides provided in the doc. So basically whoever made the doc didn't do their own research, or again the whole thing was an inside job.
 
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It is also established that 300,000 died because of Mbeki's intransigence. I don't see why this is a point of contention, those 300,000 didn't just drop dead for shits and giggles.
But is this established? The only reference I've seen for this number is the study by Chigwedere et al. This was not an empirical study, but rather an estimation derived from modelling the effect of antiretroviral drugs (taking for granted that HIV causes AIDS). In fact the Duesberg-Bauer article earlier linked by Chris disputes the findings of the Chigwedere article. In a nutshell Duesberg and Bauer study the available data and claim to show that the estimate of 300000 is not reflected in the data.

I could not say with any confidence which (if any) of the two articles is correct. If you have another reference for the number 300000 I would be very interested.
 
But is this established? The only reference I've seen for this number is the study by Chigwedere et al. This was not an empirical study, but rather an estimation derived from modelling the effect of antiretroviral drugs (taking for granted that HIV causes AIDS). In fact the Duesberg-Bauer article earlier linked by Chris disputes the findings of the Chigwedere article. In a nutshell Duesberg and Bauer study the available data and claim to show that the estimate of 300000 is not reflected in the data.

I could not say with any confidence which (if any) of the two articles is correct. If you have another reference for the number 300000 I would be very interested.

I dispute the paper by Duesberg and Bauer due to the fact that the former was an advisor to Mbeki, and enabled the president's AIDS denial. I also dispute their querying of the no. of deaths on basis of South African statistics, given that they were drawn from the time when Mbeki was president, and that South Africa, being notoriously corrupt, tends to fudge results, just look at the ANC today. A reading of the paper to my mind seems to be trying to justify there's and their chum Mbeki's dangerous nonsense.

The following indicates that Mbeki and Duesberg worked together, hence my misgivings about the paper notes; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/26/aids-south-africa.

There is also a counter argument to the paper. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/40895954_AIDS_denialism_and_public_health_practice.

I'd also like to again ask the question as to why the denial on this forum of the link between HIV and AIDS. Is it because you feel that ALL mainstream science is the the epitome of evil, and you pathologically mistrust any MAINSTREAM medicine despite a lot of it being good, or does everyone simply here hate black people and homosexuals.
 
You know what, delete my account, whatever this forum was meant to be, it's long gone, it should have been put down like a sick dog a long time ago. The fact that AIDS denial gets any airtime at all is a pretty good indication of this.
 
You know what, delete my account, whatever this forum was meant to be, it's long gone, it should have been put down like a sick dog a long time ago. The fact that AIDS denial gets any airtime at all is a pretty good indication of this.

I totally understand where your coming from!
 
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