tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34036463284784398442024-03-14T07:39:44.492+11:00Reckless Endangerment...conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of a small sample of AIDS denialist pseudoscholarship on the internet...Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-5143068071673777932012-03-30T00:00:00.032+11:002013-08-13T18:43:29.267+10:00More pseudoscholarship from the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wvFOV6Jrgcw/Twk110LjESI/AAAAAAAAAS4/tEO8OBD34IU/s1600/yoghurt+cart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wvFOV6Jrgcw/Twk110LjESI/AAAAAAAAAS4/tEO8OBD34IU/s320/yoghurt+cart.JPG" width="262" /></a></div><br />
<i>(originally published 8th January 2012, now updated)</i><br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>H</b></span>IGHLY COMPETENT, Even Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Marco Ruggiero of the University of Florence has scored another coup... in his ongoing campaign to embarrass his university and draw the disgust of the few people who can be bothered watching his self-promoting antics and those of his fellow clowns from Rethinking AIDS.<br />
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(Marco's teaching<a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2011/02/hivaids-denialism-at-university-of.html"> achievements are celebrated here.)</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/</span><br />
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Apparently his and coauthor Henry Bauer's brilliant scheme to secure fame and fortune through promoting <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/a-cure-for-aids/">Mad Marco's Magic Yoghurt Cure For AIDS</a> over the internet has fallen through, despite the free advertising to the target demographic provided by Leading Scientific Discussion Forum <a href="http://forums.questioningaids.com/showthread.php?t=7588">Questioning AIDS</a>. So Marco and Henry have gone back to writing inept epidemiology papers with their friends Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick, Christian Fiala and the other AIDS denialists, and trying to get them published.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Their latest effort is called <a href="http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ijae/article/view/10336/9525">AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic - not even in Africa.</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">To get it into print Ruggiero has had to call in yet another favor from his dear and close friend Paolo Romagnoli, editor of the prestigious <i>Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology</i> - lauded by <i>Nature</i> news editor Brian Owens on Twitter as <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/BL_Owens/status/154980610438479873">"a journal you've never heard of"</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xyt2Zb3z_Mc/Twj1A6INB1I/AAAAAAAAASo/xRLwd6thdXM/s1600/brian+owens.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xyt2Zb3z_Mc/Twj1A6INB1I/AAAAAAAAASo/xRLwd6thdXM/s400/brian+owens.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Romagnoli has also put his hand up to confess that he was one of the two "peer reviewers" who okayed this drivel for publication. The other wisely remains anonymous.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7mZDiNDNTx0/T3UNfrcou5I/AAAAAAAAAVM/NMi8QlO5mfM/s1600/icanhazpeerreview.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7mZDiNDNTx0/T3UNfrcou5I/AAAAAAAAAVM/NMi8QlO5mfM/s400/icanhazpeerreview.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is now the third AIDS denialist pseudo-epidemiology paper published by Romagnoli's IJAE in the past couple of years, or fourth if you include a recently published <a href="http://hivskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/clinicalsignificance.pdf">conference abstract</a> by Ruggiero et al that probably could be classified as "denialist" if it were remotely intelligible. The other two papers are discussed <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2010/06/aids-denialism-at-italian-journal-of.html">here</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As more than one commentator has observed, Romagnoli seems to be trying to convert his journal from a respectable but somewhat obscure anatomy and embryology publication into the <i>Italian Journal of Amateur Epidemiology</i> - a vanity journal for his personal friends in the AIDS denialist movement to gain access to coveted NIH library listing despite the fact that they are - well there's no kind way of saying this - completely nuts.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That seems to be Henry Bauer's idea, anyway:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kqDv3WNHkY8/TyniDHEae7I/AAAAAAAAATw/4e1NuJ3duug/s1600/itjanatepidemiolgy1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kqDv3WNHkY8/TyniDHEae7I/AAAAAAAAATw/4e1NuJ3duug/s400/itjanatepidemiolgy1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BaUS24PEP-0/T9-9YpzPCxI/AAAAAAAAAW4/3Cg9zmBpXGQ/s1600/1a+ijae.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BaUS24PEP-0/T9-9YpzPCxI/AAAAAAAAAW4/3Cg9zmBpXGQ/s400/1a+ijae.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span></b>HE SIX SENIOR AUTHORS OF THE PAPER - Duesberg, Rasnick, Bauer, Koehnlein, Fiala and Ruggiero - comprise about half the board members of <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Default.aspx?tabid=60">Rethinking AIDS</a>. The other three are recent graduates who have worked under Duesberg and Ruggiero. Of the six, Ruggiero was appointed to the board in 2010, according to a <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Content/QA/tabid/194/Default.aspx">press release</a> put out by the organisation: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"In a recent <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Content/RA2009VideoSeries/tabid/177/Default.aspx">talk </a>at an Italian conference, Dr. Ruggiero speaks of present day AIDS as a scandal and a hoax, a creature of the pharmaceutical-medical complex. He stated that the drugs that are used to treat AIDS cause cancer. He claimed billions are uselessly spent in search of a vaccine for AIDS.</i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ld96cmzSsvM/T_KPQUhTuRI/AAAAAAAAAXg/7DJyFrHArqs/s1600/ruggiero+hiv+hoax.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ld96cmzSsvM/T_KPQUhTuRI/AAAAAAAAAXg/7DJyFrHArqs/s320/ruggiero+hiv+hoax.JPG" width="268" /></a></div><i>"Dr. Ruggiero stated that in the past three years definitive evidence has accumulated demonstrating that HIV cannot be considered the sole cause of AIDS. For example, a ten year meta-analysis of anti-retroviral therapy published in the Lancet showed that, although the medicines decreased HIV levels, they did not decrease the rates of AIDS or death. Ruggiero concludes that the virus does not cause AIDS, but instead arises as a result of a lowered immune system, thus reversing the cause-effect relationship between HIV and AIDS.</i><br />
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<i>"Dr. Ruggiero referred to Nobel Prize winner <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/more-lies-from-brent-leung.html">Luc Montagnier</a> who stated that someone with a healthy immune system can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected. It is possible for someone infected with HIV to get rid of the infection by naturally building up their immune system, without the use of anti-viral medicines."</i></blockquote><br />
Now, to get an idea of just how seriously deranged the "Board of Rethinking AIDS" really is as a group, have a look at the homicidally negligent <a href="http://theaidstrap.com/The-AIDS-Trap-English.pdf">Patient Information Leaflet</a> they publish and distribute to people with HIV/AIDS, or who are at risk:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ByJxwQyvQ9c/Tw4kCXKKu1I/AAAAAAAAATA/uYVrWJiCl_Y/s1600/aids+trap.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ByJxwQyvQ9c/Tw4kCXKKu1I/AAAAAAAAATA/uYVrWJiCl_Y/s320/aids+trap.JPG" width="205" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"AIDS doctors accidentally killed an estimated 300,000 people during the AIDS hysteria years of 1987-1997 (by prescribing heavy doses of AZT or similar drugs). It was a mass iatrogenic (doctor caused) massacre, claiming the lives of Arthur Ashe, Rudolf Nureyev, Keith Haring, Kimberley Bergalis, Freddie Mercury and many others.</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>“They were healthy until convinced to take the medicines. This danger is still with us. Modern AIDS drugs are less toxic, but still life threatening, just not as quickly. Today, 2009, those taking the modern-day ARV therapy are dying at an average age of 45.”</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>etc... </i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">See also the <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Content/QA/tabid/161/Default.aspx">Press Release</a> these geniuses put out to promote this piece of garbage, which RA president David Crowe described as targeted at "<a href="http://www.tig.org.za/The%20AIDS%20Trap%20as%20an%20illustration.htm">people with limited language skills</a>":<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXji3Nm1COY/T7MCx06KgdI/AAAAAAAAAV0/X_Lm2I1gATk/s1600/aids+trap+press+release.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXji3Nm1COY/T7MCx06KgdI/AAAAAAAAAV0/X_Lm2I1gATk/s400/aids+trap+press+release.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Or check out coauthor Dr David Rasnick's medical "advice" about HIV testing, originally posted on the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYXM6fqPsXA">Rethinking AIDS channel</a> on Youtube:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jy-ghltPzKQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"People ask me all the time. I don't volunteer - I only answer if they ask. I say: Don't take the test. If unfortunately you take the test don't find out what the result is. If you come back positive I say forget it. If you can't forget it, the test is so unstable keep taking it until you get a negative one and then stop."</i></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Or floridly loopy Rethinking AIDS President Emeritus <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDjFuXeHqtU#t=9m00s">Roberto Giraldo </a>explaining to the youtube audience that George W. Bush admits that the US government knows HIV does not exist, only they can't say so publicly:
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>‘In year 2000, when George Bush was candidate to be President of the United States, [then South African president] Mbeki came to the United States to try to do some business. And George Bush told him that they knew, that the government knew, that HIV was not the cause of AIDS, that they knew that HIV didn’t even exist, but that the problem was that they couldn’t say that to the public because the public was going to get crazy. Or that the countries of the world were going to [get] united against those lies that were spread by the government of the United States.’ </i></blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnWb6VTS46g#t=55m26s">Marco Ruggiero</a> explaining in the AIDS denialist youtube "documentary" <i>The Science of Panic</i> that "the origin of AIDS is chemical in Europe and the Western world, and lack of potable water and malnutrition in Africa and in developing countries". <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnWb6VTS46g#t=23m07s">Earlier in the film</a> he tells us that the antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS don't improve survival with the disease, and are themselves "the cause of AIDS, or at least some types of AIDS".
Unfortunately, Ruggiero's medical advice didn't help the film's director Isabel Otaduy Sömme. She died with HIV/AIDS in 2009, before her propaganda project was completed.
She was 44 years old...
Or have a look at the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/RethinkingAIDS/">Rethinking AIDS facebook page</a>, where Rethinking AIDS board members do much of their internet "outreach" to people with HIV/AIDS all over the world. For example, here is the advice given by current RA president David Crowe to a South African lady with AIDS whose last T cell count was 107:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ulpF-lxu_80/T8awwLmN3uI/AAAAAAAAAWs/A_LSrNFsWSw/s1600/crowe+fb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ulpF-lxu_80/T8awwLmN3uI/AAAAAAAAAWs/A_LSrNFsWSw/s400/crowe+fb.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>In reality, Duesenggiero's IJAE paper is just a rehash of the woeful <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19619953"><i>Out of Touch With South African AIDS</i></a> fiasco, a work so negligently inept that even the publishers of <i>Medical Hypotheses</i> rejected it. And your paper has to be pretty bad if even <i>Med Hype</i> refuses to accept your payment to print it. </div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yep, it's a stinker.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No serious epidemiologist or HIV/AIDS scientist or clinician would consider either the original paper or its latest incarnation even remotely credible, but <b>that's not the point of it.</b> The paper wasn't written and published for a scientific readership: rather the idea is to provide a veneer of credibility for the benefit of their unsophisticated target audience on youtube, facebook and elsewhere on the net - to be able to say "Look! There really is a genuine <i>scientific</i> controversy here about whether HIV causes AIDS!"
And when people with HIV/AIDS get sucked into the Rethinking AIDS propaganda, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/feb/21/death-denial-hiv-aids">the consequences are often devastating</a>.
See also <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/how-aids-denialism-can-kill-you-part.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-science3-2009jan03,0,1010654.story">here</a>, <a href="http://www.resistanceisfruitful.com/blog/2011/02/28/what-really-happened-to-emery-taylor/">here</a> and <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/death-by-denial-maria-papagiannidou.html">here</a>.
And <a href="http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/dead_denialists">here</a>.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>While Romagnoli and his University of Florence might like to pretend to themselves that they are simply providing a platform for genuine and sincere scientific debate about an unresolved issue, in reality they are merely supporting a cynical propaganda campaign targeted at those people who are least able to critically examine the claims of the AIDS denialists, and who can be most harmed by their misinformation.</b> <b></b>
<a href="https://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/cognitive-dissonance-a-human-condition/">Henry Bauer makes the strategy of Rethinking AIDS perfectly clear</a>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"At any rate, AIDStruthers [ie the scientific mainstream] are not the audience to be courted. Their arguments must be countered with <i><b>answers directed to the media and the general public</b></i> in terms that are understandable by and clearly convincing for unengaged observers. That means the points cannot be too technical."</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And when generally credible scientific media outlets like <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/paper-denying-hiv-aids-link-secures-publication-1.9737"><i>Nature News and Comment</i></a> provide publicity - even negative publicity - they are playing into the Rethinking AIDS strategy, which is to try to convince their target audience that there is a legitimate scientific controversy going on. Especially when they trumpet a headline like <i>"Paper <b>refuting</b> HIV–AIDS link secures publication: Work by infamous AIDS contrarian passes peer review" </i>without making any attempt to explain the background to the paper's publication. (A day or two later someone at <i>Nature</i> changed "refuting" to "denying", but this makes little difference).
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Because as former "public relations chairperson" of Rethinking AIDS Elizabeth Ely gloats on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/RethinkingAIDS/">RA's facebook page</a>:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tvYGqKvBngI/Tw9bS-PGguI/AAAAAAAAATQ/-4Fsz3F7Vsw/s1600/ely.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="53" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tvYGqKvBngI/Tw9bS-PGguI/AAAAAAAAATQ/-4Fsz3F7Vsw/s400/ely.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>S</b></span>NOUT WON'T BORE HIS READERS with a <strike>blow by blow dissection</strike> thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational reading of the whole paper, but here's a small sample of the Burning Stupid that Romagnoli thought worth publishing. As Actual Epidemiologist Max Essex remarked, when faced with bilge like this "it's hard to respond in an intelligent way". Coauthor on the paper Christian Fiala, of course, excitedly interprets this as meaning <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/paper-denying-hiv-aids-link-secures-publication-1.9737#comment-35853">"there is no argument against what we have presented"</a>, and in a way that's true - after all as Thomas Jefferson once said,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."</span> <i>
</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Fiala, of course, is the guy who gained recent notoriety for announcing on the right-wing fundamentalist christian website <a href="http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?entry_id=2233972">WingNut Daily</a> that he not only denies that HIV causes AIDS but also that HPV causes cervical cancer. So anyway, the paper begins with the proposition that:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"The germ theory of disease predicts that a new (relative to a population) pathogenic virus or microbe causes an exponentially spreading epidemic of new microbe-specific illnesses and deaths <i>within weeks to months of the arrival of the new pathogen </i>(<a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/230610/germ-theory">Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010</a>)." [italics added]</blockquote>The online encyclopaedia entry they cite says nothing of the kind, because Duesenggiero's statement is made-up nonsense. But no matter, they use this "citation" to conclude that that the AIDS epidemic cannot have been caused by a virus, because:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"A new viral epidemic would have risen and declined exponentially <i>within weeks or months</i> after its discovery in 1984." [italics added]</blockquote>Pardon?
Next the authors express surprise that "the WHO/UNAIDS does not list any numbers on '<i>Reported </i>HIV cases' and '<i>Reported</i> AIDS cases'" in South Africa, and just in case you don't believe them, they include an image of the blank data boxes.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-izOChtks0S8/T08jm07n2gI/AAAAAAAAAU0/_QBT0RsbQAM/s1600/blank+boxes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-izOChtks0S8/T08jm07n2gI/AAAAAAAAAU0/_QBT0RsbQAM/s400/blank+boxes.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Golly gee. Could that have anything to do with the fact that neither HIV infection nor AIDS are <i>notifiable</i> conditions in that country?
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Then we come to the main thrust of Duesenggiero's argument: that because the estimated populations of various African countries have continued to increase during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there can't possibly have been significant HIV/AIDS mortality.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That's essentially it.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No, really. It's that dumb.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">These amateur epidemiologists have apparently never considered the impact of high birth rates, migrations, and other factors on total population estimates. Nathan Geffen points out the obvious:
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"The annual number of births in South Africa over the last two decades has been between 1 and 1.2 million. By the best estimate the number of deaths rose between 1997 and 2006 from about 400,000 to about 650,000 annually. This rise in deaths, as I explain below is entirely consistent with our large HIV epidemic, but it is still far below the number of births: hence South Africa's population has risen."
<div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.quackdown.info/article/what-do-we-know-about-aids-deaths-south-africa/">- What do we know about AIDS deaths in South Africa?</a></div></blockquote></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kYc-0kM_aIk/TzBiWh76rsI/AAAAAAAAAUY/tIZce_NE6R0/s1600/lion+facepaw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kYc-0kM_aIk/TzBiWh76rsI/AAAAAAAAAUY/tIZce_NE6R0/s400/lion+facepaw.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For example, our geniuses state:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Unexpectedly we found that the population of South Africa had increased by 3 million from 2000 to 2005, based on concordant statistics from South Africa and the US Census Bureau.</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Duesenggiero et al appear to be unaware that the Statistics South Africa and US Census Bureau population figures they are citing are not head counts, but <i>estimates </i>that <i>explicitly modelled</i> the impact of HIV/AIDS on mortality.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WsakMFiCC6A/TzGy7H9qGfI/AAAAAAAAAUg/YDRJQBIf1N8/s1600/ssa2005ul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WsakMFiCC6A/TzGy7H9qGfI/AAAAAAAAAUg/YDRJQBIf1N8/s400/ssa2005ul.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022005.pdf">Source: Statistics South Africa: Mid-year population estimates, South Africa 2005</a>
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Then they tell us that:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In all countries where testing was introduced the prevalence of HIV-antibodies was soon found to be steady as it would be expected if HIV were a long-established endemic retrovirus (Duesberg, 1996; Duesberg, 1992; Duesberg et al., 2003).</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is an unbelievably ignorant claim. It is so wrong you can only wonder what morons provided the three references used to support it. And - you guessed it - Duesberg mines this stupid factoid out of <i>his own</i> fundament on all three occasions, despite the authors contradicting themselves only a couple of paragraphs earlier when they inform us that in South Africa:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">anti-HIV antibodies were first detected in 0.7% of the population. This percentage then increased gradually (not exponentially!) over about 10 years until 2000 when it levelled off between 25 and 30%.</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hmm. Let me see. A forty-fold rise in seroprevalence in a demographic between 1990 and 2005 is what Duesenggiero mean by <i>steady</i>? Furthermore, they also appear not to have noticed that the figures they are citing were not for the South African population as a whole, but rather were annual surveys of antenatal clinic attendees. In 2005, for example, the whole population (over 2 years old) prevalence was estimated at <a href="http://www.avert.org/south-africa-hiv-aids-statistics.htm">10.8%, not 30.2%</a>
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Then the authors wheel out the Bedrock Factoid of Denialist Pseudo-epidemiology, namely:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the US, for example, 1 million have been HIV-antibody-positive since 1985 (Curran et al., 1985; Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 1986; Duesberg et al., 2003; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007, 2008).</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is nonsense that has been refuted over and over again - for example see <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2006/02/outtie.php#comment-15265">here</a> - and yet they bring out their favorite poor dead horse for yet another flogging. Aside from the fact that they are seriously misrepresenting <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2994217">Curran et al's 1985 estimate</a> (which was based on taking the 10,000 notified AIDS cases to 1985 and guessing what percentage of the total HIV positive population they represent) it is disingenuous if not outright dishonest to suggest that the CDC estimates a steady 1 million prevalence. The CDC's US HIV prevalence and incidence estimates over the course of the epidemic to 2006 are shown here:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cDc3ljCkkt8/TwjoXy-u3kI/AAAAAAAAASg/J-DT4s5R-M0/s1600/incidence.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cDc3ljCkkt8/TwjoXy-u3kI/AAAAAAAAASg/J-DT4s5R-M0/s400/incidence.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20101203183433/http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/PDF/us.pdf">Source: CDC Fact Sheet <i>HIV in the United States</i>, July 2010</a>
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And so on. You get the idea - the paper is unutterable crap, even if you disregard the nauseous arrogance of the authors sitting on their fat arses in Berkeley or Firenze or Blacksburg Virginia and telling African communities that have buried far too many of their young adults that - hey! never mind, these deaths never <i>really </i>happened...
... Have some of our yummy yoghurt!
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yet another FAIL for the University of Florence. Please report to the Unsatisfactory Academic Progress Committee.
<div style="text-align: right;"> Further Reading:</div><div style="text-align: right;">
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.quackdown.info/article/what-do-we-know-about-aids-deaths-south-africa/">What do we know about AIDS deaths in South Africa?</a></div><div style="text-align: right;">
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.quackdown.info/article/what-do-we-know-about-aids-deaths-south-africa/"></a> <a href="http://debunkingdenialism.com/2012/01/11/debunking-the-new-duesberg-hiv-aids-denialist-paper-in-ijae/">Debunking the new Duesberg HIV/AIDS Denialist “paper” in IJAE</a></div><div style="text-align: right;">
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://debunkingdenialism.com/2012/01/11/debunking-the-new-duesberg-hiv-aids-denialist-paper-in-ijae/"></a> <a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/hiv-contrarian-still-publishing-still-wrong.ars">Fighting on after the war is over, HIV contrarian publishes yet another paper</a></div><div style="text-align: right;">
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://complottismo.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/aids-il-complotto-dellhiv-alluniversita.html">AIDS - the HIV conspiracy at the University of Florence (in Italian) </a> </div><div style="text-align: right;">
</div><div style="text-align: right;">- Google <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcomplottismo.blogspot.com.au%2F2012%2F04%2Faids-il-complotto-dellhiv-alluniversita.html&act=url">English translation here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: right;">
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<b>UPDATE (1st February 2012):</b>
Looks like there's <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/paper-denying-hiv-aids-link-sparks-resignation-1.9926">TROUBLE AT' MILL</a> with the editorial board of the <i>Italian Journal of Amateur Epidemiology. </i> Editor-in-chief Paolo Romagnoli tells us that the peer reviewers for Duesenggiero's silly essay "were chosen on the basis of 'scientific competence' and 'impartiality of judgement'". Given that he himself was one of the two "reviewers" he chose, it's nice to know he has such a high opinion of himself. Unfortunately, it seems, not all the members of his editorial board share this view.
<b> </b></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> </i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b> </b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<b>UPDATE (30th March 2012)</b></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yet another example of the misrepresentations of Duesberg, Ruggiero and their coauthors in their recent IJAE paper. In the Acknowledgements section of the paper they state:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>We are grateful to Colonel Frank Anders, Lieutenant Colonel Clinton Murray and Major Jason Okulicz for encouragement, critical comments and for preliminary results on “HIV-Elite Controllers” (HIV-positives) from the US Military.</i></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This seems to be news to Lt. Col. Murray and Maj. Okulicz.
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jason Okulicz, you might recall, was the lead author of a <a href="http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/200/11/1714.long">study</a> that Henry Bauer misrepresented in his <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/aids-denialism-at-italian-journal-of.html">previous IJAE offering</a>, to support his stupid claim that half of US HIV positives are elite controllers. Apparently Henry has trouble telling the difference between 0.55% and 50%. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Okulicz and Murray, it seems, are <a href="http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ijae/article/download/10682/10082">Not Pleased</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Prof. Paolo Romagnoli,</i> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> </i> <i>We were recently acknowledged in a manuscript written by Peter H Duesberg et al. titled AIDS Since 1984: No Evidence for a New, Viral Epidemic - not Even in Africa. <b>We would like to indicate that we were never asked to participate in the development of this manuscript including providing encouragement or critical comments. In addition, we do not concur with the findings of the manuscript.</b> Finally, the opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense or the US government.</i> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> </i> <i>Clint K. Murray, MD</i> <i>Jason F. Okulicz, MD</i> <i>Infectious Disease Service</i> <i>Brooke Army Medical Center</i> <i>Fort Sam Houston, TX USA 78234</i> [bold added]</blockquote>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-13700229504653926142012-02-04T14:06:00.012+11:002012-02-11T22:56:54.590+11:00Crackpot Vs Crackpot<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>O</b></span>NE OF THE FEW PLEASURES of watching the AIDS denialist conspiracy movement in action is seeing the different factions slugging it out with their equally stupid but mutually contradictory claims.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Best known, of course, is the dispute between the Perth Group (and their supporters) who claim that HIV <strike>does not exist</strike> has not been proven to exist, and Peter Duesberg's supporters who are unable to deny the existence of HIV, but claim that it's a "harmless passenger virus" and that the real cause of progressive depletion of CD4+ cell mediated immune function in AIDS is illicit drug use.<br />
<br />
Or AZT if you have never taken illicit drugs.<br />
<br />
Or malnutrition if neither of the above apply.<br />
<br />
Or something-or-other that's non-infectious in factor VIII if you are a well-nourished haemophiliac who's never taken AZT.<br />
<br />
Or their latest "theory" - AIDS is just a manifestation of a mysterious condition called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bowel_syndrome">Gay Bowel Syndrome</a> . This designation apparently applies to people with HIV/AIDS who (a) happen to be gay and (b) have a bowel.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But for sheer wackiness it's hard to go past the third main school of thought within the denialist/conspiracist movement - the <i>AIDS is a bioweapon developed by the US government </i>theory, propounded all over some of the more weirdass corners of the internet (eg <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aids+bioweapon&oq=aids+bioweapon&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1546l5727l0l6652l14l14l0l4l0l1l480l2743l0.3.3.2.2l10l0">youtube</a>).</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now, from a military standpoint, a bioweapon that takes a median of ten years or so to cause serious illness in adults seems to Snout to have rather limited usefulness in a conflict situation. This is especially so given that HIV is only transmissible in a limited range of... well... <i>fairly specific</i> ways. Presumably the intention was to deploy it on the battlefield in conjunction with the infamous <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/gay-bomb-plan-by-us/story-e6frf7lf-1111113741476">Gay Bomb</a>, by which "enemies would left helpless by mass gay orgies, as soldiers were irresistibly attracted to one another."<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In reality, the story behind the <i>AIDS is a bioweapon developed by the US government</i> theory is almost as strange as the theory itself. It has its origins in the murky depths of 1980s-era cold war disinformation campaigns, in which both the US and Soviet bloc tried to outdo each other spreading rumors in each other's spheres of influence hoping to destabilise popular support for the respective enemy governments. The AIDS-bioweapon theory was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_INFEKTION">well-documented initiative </a>of the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi, and was eventually so successful that it has managed to outlast the communist eastern bloc itself by a couple of decades.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Foremost among its promoters in the US have been the deliciously crazy Lenny Horowitz, and the now-deceased lawyer Boyd Graves, who died of AIDS in 2009.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But here's the best bit: Horowitz not only accuses Robert Gallo of engineering this Crime Against Humanity (Gallo is of course the AntiChrist Incarnate for all denialist whackjobs), but he also points the finger at Peter Duesberg. As his <a href="http://boydgraves.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/dr-peter-duesberg-indicted-in-aids.html">INDICTMENT OF SPECIAL VIRUS CANCER PROGRAM VIROLOGIST DR PETER DUESBERG</a> attests:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I, Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, respecting and representing thousands of scientists and physicians worldwide whose voices have been neglected and silenced; as a Diplomat for the World Organization for Natural Medicine; as a representative of God, Knighted emissary for the Sovereign Orthodox Order of Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, and as a Levitical priest in the bloodlines of Moses and YaHShuaH, the Messiah, I hereby INDICT YOU, Dr. Peter Duesberg, FOR THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE, THROUGH YOUR ROLES IN THE CREATION OF AIDS AS WELL AS THE DISINFORMATION THAT SUSTAINS THIS AND RELATED MEDICAL GENOCIDES." <i>[shouting in original]</i></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now Duesberg is of course a famous <a href="http://americanloons.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/115-peter-duesberg.html">belligerent loon</a> in his own right. So it's only with the slightest touch of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude">schadenfreude</a> that Snout records that Duesberg has managed to attract a <a href="http://americanloons.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/179-leonard-len-horowitz.html">belligerently loony parasite</a> of his very own. Or as Irish essayist and poet Jonathan Swift noted in 1733:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZvR8jjhCSis/Ty3Ry0eINtI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/Je5DK1s6A9A/s1600/swift.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZvR8jjhCSis/Ty3Ry0eINtI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/Je5DK1s6A9A/s200/swift.JPG" width="153" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"So, naturalists observe, a flea</i><br />
<i>Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;</i><br />
<i>And these have smaller still to bite 'em,</i><br />
<i>And so proceed ad infinitum."</i></blockquote><br />
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<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-78967718055580374432011-02-11T14:29:00.032+11:002013-08-13T12:44:07.463+10:00HIV/AIDS denialism at the University of Florence<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>N OPEN LETTER TO PROFESSOR ALBERTO TESI, Provost of the University of Florence in Italy:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Prof. Alberto Tesi</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Magnifico Rettore</div>
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Università degli Studi di Firenze </div>
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Piazza S. Marco, 4 </div>
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50121 – FIRENZE</div>
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ITALY</div>
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Dear Professor Tesi,</div>
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I am writing to express my deepest admiration for your University’s courageous stance in defending the academic endeavors and teaching standards of your Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientists and Scholars, Prof. Marco Ruggiero and Prof. Stefania Pacini, as <a href="http://truthbarrier.com/2011/01/19/celia-farber-over-the-rainbow-with-marco-ruggiero/">reported recently</a> by the award-winning American medical science journalist and humanitarian, Celia Farber.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OUZ_685pOxI/TVSstZFbc-I/AAAAAAAAAQQ/_O9873eKFkk/s1600/truth+barrier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OUZ_685pOxI/TVSstZFbc-I/AAAAAAAAAQQ/_O9873eKFkk/s400/truth+barrier.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It is especially gratifying to note that thanks to their efforts and those of their friends in the international AIDS denialist community, the traditional and culturally vital Art of Plagiarism is being so vigorously promoted, endorsed and it seems actively taught at your University, and also that this is apparently - <a href="http://theoctopushunter.com/essays/40-general/213-over-the-rainbow-with-marco-ruggiero">according Ms Farber's report</a> - with institutional support and approval.</div>
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For far too long the time honored discipline of copy-pasting the work of others and passing it off as ones own has been discouraged, frowned upon and indeed cruelly persecuted within so-called academic circles. And while the Internet was initially a boon to practitioners of Plagiarism worldwide, with the recent development of <a href="http://www.unifi.it/notiziario/CMpro-v-p-121.html">anti-plagiarism software</a> there have been concerns raised that it could soon become a dying Art in the schools, colleges and universities where it has previously flourished.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It is therefore a pleasure to read on the Internet the published <i>tesi di laurea</i> (graduation theses) on AIDS denialist theory from two of your students - mentored by the<i> </i>Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientists and Scholars <b>Professor Ruggiero</b> and <b>Professor Pacini</b>, along with <b>Dr Vincenzo Crupi</b> of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and<b> Dr Henry H. Bauer</b>, Professor Emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA.</div>
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<a href="http://aras.ab.ca/articles/scientific/20100714-BrancaThesis.pdf">This is from the title page of one of them</a>:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPIR9ofJI/AAAAAAAAAP8/mjGFAZG6bKw/s1600/branca+title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="341" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPIR9ofJI/AAAAAAAAAP8/mjGFAZG6bKw/s400/branca+title.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPWZ8CKkI/AAAAAAAAAQA/3G926uZDHGQ/s1600/branca+relatores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPWZ8CKkI/AAAAAAAAAQA/3G926uZDHGQ/s400/branca+relatores.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://aras.ab.ca/articles/scientific/20101021-Thesis-ChiaraMatteuzzi.pdf">And this is from the title page of the other:</a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPpZ5OSkI/AAAAAAAAAQE/2vB27h-mdMQ/s1600/matteuz+title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUPPpZ5OSkI/AAAAAAAAAQE/2vB27h-mdMQ/s400/matteuz+title.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></div>
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These scientific papers have been made available and indeed have been extensively promoted for several months now on the World Wide Web as shining examples of the excellent student work at your University, including on Professor Ruggiero’s personal website and also on the websites of his numerous friends in the AIDS denialist community.</div>
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See for example the entries for 7/13/2010 and 10/21/2010 on the website of Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist and Scholar <a href="http://www.aras.ab.ca/">David Crowe</a>, President of the international scientific think-tank Rethinking AIDS (of which Professor Ruggiero has recently been honored by his <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Content/QA/tabid/194/Default.aspx">election to the board</a>).</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDtbsc2PfI/AAAAAAAAAPY/qPjphwMHrBo/s1600/Aras+-+jacopo%27s+thesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDtbsc2PfI/AAAAAAAAAPY/qPjphwMHrBo/s400/Aras+-+jacopo%2527s+thesis.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"July 13th – <b>New insights into the role of HIV in the aetiology and pathogenesis of AIDS</b></blockquote>
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University of Florence: [Presented July 14, 2010 at the University of Florence for a thesis defence] “In the first part of this thesis I analyze current hypotheses on AIDS aetiology and pathogenesis using the deconstructive analytical approach proposed by Jacques Derrida, i.e. I <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9bYlBVIW8HgJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida+%22conducting+thorough,+careful,+sensitive,+and+yet+transformational+readings+of+philosophical+and+literary+texts,+to+determine+what+aspects+of+those+texts+run+counter+to+their+apparent+systematicity+%28structural+unity%29+or+intended+sense+%28authorial+genesis%29%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&source=www.google.com.au">conducted thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of scientific texts on HIV and AIDS, to determine what aspects of those texts run counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis</a>)... etc.""</blockquote>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDtwp1zU5I/AAAAAAAAAPc/jC2s0lbFclI/s1600/aras+-+chiara%27s+thesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDtwp1zU5I/AAAAAAAAAPc/jC2s0lbFclI/s400/aras+-+chiara%2527s+thesis.jpg" width="362" /></a></div>
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"<b>10/21/2010 - Endogenous retroviruses as confounding factors in the pathogenesis of AIDS</b></blockquote>
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"A new thesis from the University of Florence approved with high marks on October 20, 2010, studies the issue of human endogenous retroviruses in signs and symptoms usually interpreted as being from an exogenous virus - HIV"</blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span">... or the website of Investigator, Student of Humanity and Self-Taught Pharmacologist </span><a href="http://www.omsj.org/nih/further-hivaids-enlightenment-from-italy"><span class="Apple-style-span">Clark Baker</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span">:</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDuWwYfFwI/AAAAAAAAAPg/PPG-CkXdxnA/s1600/osmj+promotes+chiara%27s+thesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDuWwYfFwI/AAAAAAAAAPg/PPG-CkXdxnA/s400/osmj+promotes+chiara%2527s+thesis.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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... or the widely read and influential web log of leading US academic <a href="http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2010/05/16-henry-bauer.html">Professor Henry Bauer</a>, a <a href="http://henryhbauer.homestead.com/lochnessfacts.html">Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist and Scholar</a> of such brilliance that I’m sure you need no introduction:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDuz2AYZyI/AAAAAAAAAPk/21dEX69L1-A/s1600/henry%27s+blog+chiara%27s+thesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDuz2AYZyI/AAAAAAAAAPk/21dEX69L1-A/s400/henry%2527s+blog+chiara%2527s+thesis.jpg" width="363" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/further-hivaids-enlightenment-out-of-italy/">Further HIV/AIDS Enlightenment out of Italy</a></div>
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Posted by Henry Bauer on 2010/10/21 </div>
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"That HIV does not cause AIDS is again demonstrated, this time in a doctoral thesis, “Endogenous retroviruses as confounding factors in the pathogenesis of AIDS”... mentored by Dr. Stefania Pacini and Dr. Marco Ruggiero. The work has just been accepted (with maximum marks) at the University of Florence, is in English, and is publicly available. The presentation was in Italian.<br />
<br />
"The literature review mentions Montagnier’s longstanding view that sound immune systems withstand HIV, unpublished work of Dr. Christl Meyer suggesting that HIV is an evolutionary adapted and partly active variable and heritable gene construct of our immune (MHC/HLA)-system, De Harven’s discussion of human endogenous retroviruses as confounding factors in AIDS pathogenesis, and Yamamoto’s demonstration that stimulation of the immune system can eradicate HIV..."</blockquote>
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It is particularly encouraging to note that there is nothing half-hearted about the Plagiarism in these dissident student works. Each paper consists almost entirely of passages copied from the net - mostly from a variety of AIDS denialist websites, "scientific" and other papers and lecture slides readily downloadable from the web, and even from wikipedia. Here are the first twenty or so pages of the first thesis, with the copy-pasted material highlighted in various colors according to the original sources, blue for wikipedia, red for Ruggiero, brown for Crupi, green for Bauer, purple for Duesberg, etc:</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDwxwZc5eI/AAAAAAAAAPo/0aB-X1aknLs/s1600/Branca+pages+1-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDwxwZc5eI/AAAAAAAAAPo/0aB-X1aknLs/s400/Branca+pages+1-21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here are the first pages of the second thesis, similarly highlighted. Note that the extended red section of what Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Professor Bauer has described in glowing terms as a "literature review" is copied verbatim (and without any distracting comments by the student) from an article by Dr Etiene De Harven and recently published the highly respected first rank US science periodical <a href="http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/91/strange-bedfellows"><i>Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons</i></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDxj4QHwwI/AAAAAAAAAPs/Vnz5Ast0_sI/s1600/Chiara%27s+thesis+pp1+to21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDxj4QHwwI/AAAAAAAAAPs/Vnz5Ast0_sI/s400/Chiara%2527s+thesis+pp1+to21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">As you can see, both Graduation Theses (</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Tesi di Laurea</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">) are almost entirely uncontaminated by any actual original work from either student, and represent some of the finest and purest examples of the Art of Plagiarism as taught at your University. Bravo! The University should be proud to have awarded these AIDS denialist papers the highest honors, and to see them distributed so widely to the world in the University's name as examples of quality scholarship one might expect as standard for the Università degli Studi di Firenze - thanks to the tireless efforts of Professor Ruggiero, Professor Bauer, Mr Crowe and their friends.</span></span></div>
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It is a rare pleasure to note such diligent efforts as those shown by these fine and exemplary mentors and tutors of undergraduate students. Usually when an academic is confronted with evidence of plagiarism in a student’s paper that he has hitherto lauded and recommended I understand it is customary to sheepishly deny any knowledge of the original publications from which it was lifted. Prof Ruggiero, Dr Crupi, and Prof Bauer have unequivocally eschewed such pusillanimity, and stand justly proud of the skills of their protégés with the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keys, even actively promoting the fruits of their work over the World Wide Web. Indeed, they have no choice but to proudly acknowledge the Plagiarism, given that the bulk of the material in each thesis was stolen largely from <i>their own</i> previously published work, and from other well known AIDS denialist sources, including an article of Mr Crowe's. This is, of course, well established practice amongst the AIDS denialist intelligentsia.</div>
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Might I also congratulate your University on its courage in officially approving and funding Prof Ruggiero’s recent course entitled “The Chemical Bases of AIDS”, lecture slides of which are freely available as a gift to the world from his website. (See "One chemical AIDS", "Two chemical AIDS"... "Last chemical AIDS", etc).</div>
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Here he proudly shows off the evidence of the University's endorsement of his course:</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDz0YEXJAI/AAAAAAAAAPw/SxQlhf-gk8A/s1600/invitation+to+lecture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUDz0YEXJAI/AAAAAAAAAPw/SxQlhf-gk8A/s400/invitation+to+lecture.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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As you will note if you review the slides,</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUD0p_XReaI/AAAAAAAAAP4/94jprsG5dvg/s1600/Lecture+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TUD0p_XReaI/AAAAAAAAAP4/94jprsG5dvg/s400/Lecture+cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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the content of the course is not so much in the area of chemistry or cell biology but rather consists of a remarkably fearless and creative re-imagining of the history and epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in order to press upon his students his firm personal conviction that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. It is an especially brave example of the quality of teaching at your University to publicize to the world, particularly since it is more than obvious from these lecture slides that neither Professor Ruggiero nor either of his co-lecturers <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-rasnick-how-to-lie-with.html">Dr Rasnick</a> and Dr De Harven (both past Presidents of Rethinking AIDS) are encumbered with even a passing acquaintance with the basic methods of epidemiology or any familiarity with the history of the disease which is their subject of interest. Or indeed, with elementary logic as it is conventionally understood.</div>
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The immensely positive influence of Prof. Ruggiero’s teaching on his young and eager students is best exemplified in the "Conclusions" sections of both theses, which in each case consists of a verbatim transcription of Prof. Ruggiero’s lecture slides 28 to 32 from the<a href="http://www.dissensomedico.it/.../Last%20Chemical%20AIDS_Ruggiero.pdf"> last of his six-lecture series</a>. What educator would not be thrilled and delighted that his students’ work could so faithfully reproduce his own teachings, particularly when such opinions risk being unkindly characterized by a bigoted and mean-spirited scientific world as “profoundly ignorant” and “intellectually dishonest” and their active and direct promotion by scientists and academics to people at risk of HIV/AIDS as “grossly unethical” and “a serious threat to public health”?</div>
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As I mentioned before, what prompted me to write to you was the <a href="http://theoctopushunter.com/essays/40-general/213-over-the-rainbow-with-marco-ruggiero">recent interview</a> published by award-winning American medical science journalist and humanitarian, Celia Farber. From this interview it is clear that a certain so-called “<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=La%20Placa%20M">Italian professor of microbiology, now retired</a>” has had the temerity to write to you to draw your attention to the Plagiarism proudly endorsed by Professors Ruggiero, Pacini, Bauer et al, and to the innovative, imaginative, and highly original content of their teaching. An English translation of your cogent and entirely appropriate reply to this alleged “professor of microbiology” was published in full in Ms Farber’s article, as forwarded to her by Prof. Ruggiero:</div>
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“<i>Dear Professor La Placa,</i></blockquote>
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<i>I acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 16, 2010 (registered with n. 20.10.2010). As far as the substance of your letter is concerned, I cannot but state that, as you should know, freedom of teaching is in our corpus of laws and it is related with the amplest sphere of freedom of expression and communication of thought guaranteed by our Constitution. Such a freedom, by the way, concerns all dimension of free cultural expression of the profession of teaching that is realized within the laws and rules concerning the matter.</i></blockquote>
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<i>Sincerely yours,</i></blockquote>
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<i>Prof. Alberto Tesi,</i></blockquote>
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<i>Rettore dell’Università di Firenze.</i>”</blockquote>
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I want to thank you for publicly putting this upstart “professor of microbiology, now retired” in his place. Bravo!</div>
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Reading your reply brought tears (of almost unbelieving gratitude) to my eyes, and I urge you to stand firm in dismissing any pressures from the prejudiced reality-based community to try to get you to address what might be called in institutions less liberated and enlightened than yours “gross academic misconduct” or “a major public embarrassment” or “bat-shit insane”. It was also reassuring to read your opinion that it is actually illegal under Italian Constitutional Law for your University to intervene in cases of plagiarism and obviously deranged or incompetent teaching. I only wish that the rest of the world could one day enjoy such freedom from narrow-minded and oppressive restrictions on academic conduct as is enjoyed in the City of <a href="http://galileowaswrong.blogspot.com/">Galileo</a>.</div>
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With the most extremely warm wishes from the Land Down Under, and in the spirit of <i>the amplest sphere of freedom of expression and communication of thought</i>, made possible over such distances by the Electric Internet.</div>
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I am your servant,</div>
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Snout.</div>
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PS: As you can see from your letter reproduced in Ms Farber’s article, it is now customary (in the interests of transparency) to routinely publish correspondence on these matters on the net. I have therefore taken the liberty of publishing this letter on my own website, http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/.<br />
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<b>UPDATE July 2012</b><br />
<br />
In response to a number of complaints by a group of Italian activists associated with the website <a href="http://hivforum.info/">HIVforum.info</a>, in February 2012 Professor Alberto Tesi set up a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/inquiry-launched-over-aids-contrarian-s-teaching-1.10250">commission</a> to investigate the teaching activities of Professor Ruggiero at the university.<br />
<br />
On 25th July, the university issued a press release outlining the results of their investigation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Firenze, 25 luglio 2012</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>/Comunicato stampa/</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>*Università, caso Ruggiero*</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>*Conclusa l’indagine dell’Ateneo sull’attività didattica del docente*</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Conclusa l’istruttoria nei confronti di Marco Ruggiero, ordinario di</i><br />
<i>Biologia molecolare presso la facoltà di Scienze matematiche, fisiche e</i><br />
<i>naturali dell’Università di Firenze, chiamato a fornire nei mesi scorsi</i><br />
<i>spiegazioni su alcuni aspetti della sua attività didattica all’interno</i><br />
<i>del corso di laurea in Scienze biologiche, a seguito di apposite</i><br />
<i>audizioni e delle osservazioni svolte da una commissione incaricata di</i><br />
<i>acquisire elementi di valutazione.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Alla fine del procedimento non sono emersi elementi di responsabilità</i><br />
<i>tali da richiedere l’emanazione di sanzioni disciplinari. Il rettore</i><br />
<i>dell’Ateneo fiorentino Alberto Tesi, titolare del procedimento stesso,</i><br />
<i>ha però scritto una lettera al docente, formulando alcune precisazioni</i><br />
<i>sui temi oggetto di contestazione. In particolare, ricordando le</i><br />
<i>difformità rilevate tra le lezioni di Ruggiero e il programma dei corsi</i><br />
<i>di studio del Corso di laurea in Scienze Biologiche, il rettore, pur nel</i><br />
<i>rispetto della libertà di ricerca e di insegnamento, ha riaffermato la</i><br />
<i>necessità per il docente di concordare i programmi di insegnamento con</i><br />
<i>il responsabile del Corso di laurea, soprattutto qualora si intenda</i><br />
<i>indirizzare le lezioni destinate agli studenti di biologia su aspetti</i><br />
<i>clinici. Il rettore ha anche preso atto dell’intenzione del docente di</i><br />
<i>rivedere il proprio programma di insegnamento.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Analogamente il rettore Tesi ha chiesto che gli argomenti delle tesi di</i><br />
<i>laurea assegnati da Ruggiero – inerenti aspetti di interesse clinico –</i><br />
<i>siano sottoposti a modalità di verifica più stringenti per garantire la</i><br />
<i>loro compatibilità con le tematiche specifiche del Corso di laurea in</i><br />
<i>Scienze biologiche. Il docente è stato, inoltre, ammonito dal pubblicare </i><br />
<i>o far pubblicare online notizie inesatte che coinvolgano l’Ateneo e ne </i><br />
<i>ledano l’immagine, come già avvenuto in passato.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Circa la presunta effettuazione da parte del docente di sperimentazioni</i><br />
<i>cliniche attraverso somministrazione della proteina GcMAF, il rettore ha </i><br />
<i>ritenuto opportuno segnalare la vicenda all’Ordine dei Medici per quanto </i><br />
<i>possa sembrare rilevante riguardo alle funzioni di tale organismo.</i></blockquote>
Snout's translation of this release is as follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Florence, July 25, 2012</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>/ Press release /</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>* University, Ruggiero case *</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>* The investigation of the University on the professor’s teaching concludes *</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>The investigation has concluded with regard to Marco Ruggiero, professor of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences at the University of Florence, who in recent months provided explanations of some aspects of his teaching in the undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences, as a result of special interviews and observations conducted by a commission appointed to evaluate elements of these aspects.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>At the end of this procedure, no elements of responsibility emerged which require the issuance of disciplinary sanctions. However, the rector of the University of Florence, Alberto Tesi, in charge of the proceedings, has written a letter to the teacher, making some clarifications on the issues in dispute. In particular, recalling the differences detected between the lessons of Ruggiero and the program of courses of study of the Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, the rector, while respecting freedom of research and teaching, has reaffirmed the need for the professor to arrange his university teaching program with the director of the degree course, especially when considering direct lessons for students of biology on clinical aspects. The rector also took note of the professor’s intention to revise his program of teaching.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i><b>Similarly, Professor Tesi has asked that the arguments of the degree theses assigned by Ruggiero related to aspects of clinical interest are subjected to more stringent verification procedures to ensure their compatibility with the particular basic themes of the Bachelor in Biological Sciences course. Furthermore, the professor was also admonished for publishing or causing to be published incorrect online news implicating the University and adversely affecting its image, as was done in the past.</b></i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Regarding the allegations that the teacher conducted experiments on GcMAF through clinical administration of the protein, the rector considered it appropriate to bring this to the attention of the Medical Board as possibly more relevant to the functions of that body</i>.</blockquote>
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Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-34802254114325083032010-07-10T13:25:00.018+10:002011-07-29T19:16:14.587+10:00Time to pay up, AIDS Inc!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A</b></span>CCORDING TO AN ULTRA RELIABLE dissident source, namely one Clark Baker of the world-renowned </span><a href="http://www.omsj.org/blogs/in-defense-of-aids-critics#more-1728"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Office of Medical and Scientific Justice</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">,* it appears that the shadowy but extremely well funded organisation of PharmaSluts known as </span><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/aids-denialist-bingo.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">AIDS Inc</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (#14 on the list) has so far paid Seth Kalichman 17 million dollars for his blog, <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/">Denying AIDS and other oddities</a>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Celebrated writer, producer, US Marine, private eye, pilot, divemaster, retired LAPD officer and father of a US Marine and public school teacher and general all-round great guy, Clark studied humanity on the streets of Calcutta, Nairobi, Rio, San Salvador, and Los Angeles (according to one of his numerous blogs). So he must be telling the truth here.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As the recipient of such PharmaLargesse it's no wonder Kalichman's smiling!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDkYc_eS5rI/AAAAAAAAANc/AMMRgaFQDFY/s1600/seventeen%20million[1].jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="351" rw="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDkYc_eS5rI/AAAAAAAAANc/AMMRgaFQDFY/s400/seventeen%2520million%5B1%5D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://www.omsj.org/blogs/in-defense-of-aids-critics#more-1728 (accessed June 23 2010)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is an outrage! F<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">or all his hard work slaving over a hot dial-up connection, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;">Snout has yet to be offered so much as a cheap plastic ballpoint pen, or a pad of post-it notes emblazoned with the brand name of the latest <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: line-through;">stiffy pill</span> evidence-based erectile dysfunction therapy.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">Nor has Snout ever been permitted to scoff down the dried-out scraggly remains of the sweaty cheese and mystery meat sandwichettes usually left over after one of AIDS Inc's blatant and corrupt "luncheon" meetings (PharmaFeeds). *whimpers*</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">Enough is Enough!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Snout hereby demands that the goons of AIDS Inc immediately forward an appropriate and commensurate recompense for his efforts on this blog. About $5 - $10 million would be acceptable, given the current going rates. Used unmarked bills in a plain brown paper package, K?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And in US or Aussie dollars, please, not those Zimbabwean notes you tried to fob him off with last time.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDkiePjUoBI/AAAAAAAAANk/BGj9qX7kwn8/s1600/zimbabwe_100_trillion_dollar_bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDkiePjUoBI/AAAAAAAAANk/BGj9qX7kwn8/s320/zimbabwe_100_trillion_dollar_bill.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You know where his kennel is. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, -webkit-fantasy; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">OMSJ is supported by attorneys, scientists, physicians, researchers, investigative journalists and individuals throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and in particular by residents of the planet Xyphron. Because of the nature of their work and the well-documented retaliation that comes with exposing corruption within the pharmaceutical industry, most of these individuals provide support - well, who'd have thunk it - anonymously. Senior Contributor Liam Scheff and Clark Baker are exceptions, as are several of their imaginary friends.</span></span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-29631759036598510162010-07-08T20:09:00.018+10:002010-10-02T08:58:44.581+10:00David Rasnick - how to lie with Powerpoint<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">H</span></b>ERE'S A QUICKY, from H<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, -webkit-fantasy; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">ighly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist and Scholar </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">David Rasnick’s execrable little lecture on antiretroviral drugs - the one he gave at last year's HIV/AIDS denialists' conference RA 09, and which Celia Farber later posted on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAw7oot55tY">youtube</a> so he can mislead and misinform the general web-surfing public. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, -webkit-fantasy; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">It begins with him rehearsing many of the usual denialist canards such as the "skull and crossbones label on laboratory AZT" (that's Canard #016 for<a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/aids-denialist-bingo.html"> AIDS Denialist Bingo players</a>) but <i>this</i> malodorous little nugget is toward the end of the video, starting at 4.30.</span></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDWV45twMsI/AAAAAAAAANM/MNxdhzppr90/s1600/onthenose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDWV45twMsI/AAAAAAAAANM/MNxdhzppr90/s400/onthenose.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"> and Scholar David Rasnick.</span></span></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He tells us:</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Aids peaked in the USA years before the availability of so-called Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy became available. This is the Centers for Disease Control data:"</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At this stage, Rasnick points to one of his Powerpoint slides, which is unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - not visible on the video. But as luck would have it, some kind soul slipped a copy into Snout's kennel. Here it is. </span></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVvZSZgRxI/AAAAAAAAAM8/3Qj7pjEUUUo/s1600/rasnickgraph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" rw="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVvZSZgRxI/AAAAAAAAAM8/3Qj7pjEUUUo/s400/rasnickgraph.jpg" width="400" /></a>t</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><b><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"You can see that AIDS peaked around 1992 - the years are down here - years before as I said the appearance of HAART - which is shortened to ARV these days, for antiretroviral drugs."</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, yes the estimated annual <i>incidence</i> of new AIDS diagnoses did, in fact peak in the years 1992 and 1993 at around 76,000 and 75,000 respectively. This is most likely due to a peak in incident HIV infections a little under a decade earlier. However, the US AIDS <i>prevalence</i> has yet to peak: it’s currently over half a million.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"The important thing to notice here is that there was a natural decline in AIDS and AIDS deaths</span></b><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> prior </span></b></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to the appearance of these antiretroviral drugs – these combination drugs."</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here’s where Rasnick stuffs it up completely. First of all, he has not read the y-axis scale correctly. The peak in AIDS </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">deaths</span></b></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> is the data point representing the 12 month period to the end of 1995. The next data point is for the <i>year ending</i> December 31 1996, the next for the <i>year ending</i> 1997, etc. Death numbers began to fall in 1996, with the </span><a href="http://archive.hhs.gov/news/press/1997pres/970227h.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">first decline being noted in the first six months of 1996</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, in comparison to the first six months of 1995.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They fell even further during 1997, and a little more during 1998 before more or less leveling out at around 16,000 to 18,000 per year, despite the rapidly rising <i>prevalence</i> of AIDS.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"But even more – uh <i>sinister</i> I guess – is notice that within months </span></b></span><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">of the appearance of these therapies, the natural decline in AIDS and AIDS deaths stopped abruptly</span></b></span><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. This is exactly the opposite of what you would expect if these drugs were actually uh promoting health and reducing mortality."</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Rasnick places the “appearance of HAART” in “late 1996”. In fact the first protease inhibitor </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saquinavir#History"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">saquinavir</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> was licensed by the FDA in December 1995, and the second, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritonavir#History"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ritonavir</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, less than three months later on 1</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">st</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> March 1996, and both drugs had limited availability pre-approval. Bizarrely, he places the line on the graph representing the licensing of the first protease inhibitors just before the data point representing deaths to year end 1997.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"And in fact the CDC’s own data makes a strong case for the fact that the antiretroviral drugs are very dangerous things and causing AIDS and killing people."</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fail, David. In fact, the CDC’s own data shows the opposite. The first recorded decline in AIDS deaths occurs in the period </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">immediately</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> following the licensing of the protease inhibitors that made the first HAART combinations possible, and deaths continue to decline markedly with the rollout over</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the following two to three years. Even after that, when total death <i>numbers</i> remain fairly stable, they are occurring in an ever increasing population of PLWAs: the risk of death per person is actually continuing to fall.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Oh well, perhaps it's time for David to give up his lecturing career, and return to his true calling as boom operator and gopher for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">House of Numbers</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> director Brent Leung.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Jzp3C9hQd7A/SskSEQTN1xI/AAAAAAAABx8/ijxTxZWi0cc/s1600/n40491054861_1540222_5356872.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Jzp3C9hQd7A/SskSEQTN1xI/AAAAAAAABx8/ijxTxZWi0cc/s400/n40491054861_1540222_5356872.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Highly Competent, Even Distinguished Scientist And Scholar </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">David Rasnick lends a hand on</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">the set of <em>House of Numbers</em>, financed by his "Rethinking AIDS" organisation.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo credit: </span><a href="http://houseofnumbers.com/site/behind-the-scenes"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://houseofnumbers.com/site/behind-the-scenes</span></a></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-1375113298507575532010-06-13T20:06:00.058+10:002013-08-13T19:13:38.392+10:00AIDS denialism at the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">L</span><span style="font-size: small;">AST YEAR HIV/AIDS DENIALISTS TRIED to publish their nonsense in the (rather dubious) journal <i>Medical Hypotheses</i> in two articles – the first was what appeared to be<a href="http://hivskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/ruggieromedhyp09.pdf"> a “critique”</a> by Marco Ruggiero and some of his colleagues and students at the University of Firenze targeting the HIV/AIDS surveillance policies of the Italian Ministry of Health, and which (perhaps facetiously) proposed that the Ministry might actually be themselves AIDS denialists. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The second was a <a href="http://hivskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/duesbergmedhypothesessa.pdf">piece of pseudoscholarship</a> by various then board-members of the internet-based denialist support group Rethinking AIDS (including Peter Duesberg, Henry Bauer, David Rasnick and Christian Fiala) together with some kid who was working in Duesberg’s lab at the time. See <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/coming-aids-denialist-civil-war-henry.html">the second part of an earlier <i>Reckless Endangerment</i> post</a> and the comment thread for a discussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The attempted publication of both papers in <i>Med Hype</i> led to a furore which culminated the withdrawal of the articles concerned by the publisher, and later in the sacking of hitherto <i>Med Hype</i> editor Bruce Charlton, when he refused the publisher Elsevier’s demands to institute some semblance of competent review of articles prior to their publication. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">For a brief overview of how obtuse and fatuous the Ruggiero <i>Med Hype</i> paper was, see the comments <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/2009/07/vito-mbeki-aids-denialism-at-italian.html?showComment=1247879105667#c9163655525790735346">from Fulano de Tal here</a>. Chris Noble also nails a <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/2009/07/vito-mbeki-aids-denialism-at-italian.html?showComment=1247800927911#c5113015699918477566">neat example</a> of Ruggiero's hopeless maths and logical fallacies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">While Bruce Charlton tried to make out that Ruggiero’s Med Hype paper was an <a href="http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2010/05/medical-hypotheses-affair-times-higher.html">“innocent bystander”</a> in the fracas that arose from the more prominent <i>Duesberg et al</i> debacle in the same edition, and that he was merely “teasing” the Italian health authorities with his supposed analysis, it has since become clear that Ruggiero is a true HIV/AIDS denialist rather than conducting a cheeky spoof of them (as Snout had originally thought possible). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TCnu1qmE4SI/AAAAAAAAAKw/1NjDB3dgqIw/s1600/cheesyfail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" ru="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TCnu1qmE4SI/AAAAAAAAAKw/1NjDB3dgqIw/s400/cheesyfail.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">In December Ruggiero exhibited <a href="http://www1.unifi.it/plrna/media/Poster%20Ruggiero.pdf">a poster at a cell-culture conference</a> in Firenze in which he claimed:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"For more than 25 years it was assumed that HIV was the sole cause of AIDS. Although there have been a few voices of dissent since the early days (Science 1988: 241:514-17. J Biosci 2003: 28:383-412. See also: Bauer HH, "The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory"), in the past three years definitive evidence has accumulated demonstrating that HIV cannot be considered the (sole) cause of AIDS. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"In 2006, a large meta-analysis of ten years of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) demonstrated that "the virological response after starting HAART has improved steadily since 1996. However, there was no corresponding decrease in the rates of AIDS, or death" (Lancet 2006: 368:451-8). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"In 2008, Professor Luc Montagnier, after having been awarded the Nobel Prize, stated: "We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected. Our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system" (quoted in the documentary "House of Numbers", 2009. URL: http://liamscheff.com/daily/2009/ 04/ 0l/ house-of-numbers/), thus reversing the long-assumed cause-effect relationship between HIV and AIDS whereby HIV inevitably brings on AIDS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Therefore, HIV infection itself reflects an already deficient immune system; it is the immunodeficiency that causes chronic HIV infection and not vice versa, as commonly believed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Finally, a review in 2009 demonstrated that HIV has been present in humans since at least the early 1900s, thus definitely ruling out the possibility that it could have been responsible for a syndrome that appeared only at the beginning of the 1980s (Curr Opin HIV AIDS 2009: 4:247-52). Quite obviously, if HIV caused AIDS, then AIDS should have been observed in earlier periods, when the hygienic and nutritional conditions of human populations were much worse than in the 1980s (i.e. during the two world wars and the depression in between. The very fact that AIDS was never described before the 1980s despite the persistent presence of HIV in humans, clearly demonstrates that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now Snout’s first opinion of this poster was that it was intended as a prank to liven up a boring conference, and to see if anyone was awake enough to spot an obvious absurdity. After all, what serious scientist would try to claim that HIV was not the cause of AIDS based on referencing:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">1) the notorious and <a href="http://momentofscience.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-dean-esmay-dishonest-or-just.html#links">long-discredited</a> misrepresentation by denialists of the conclusions a 2006 <i>Lancet</i> paper by May et al and the ART Cohort Collaboration? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">2) A <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-lies-from-brent-leung.html">clumsy and dishonest campaign</a> conducted on youtube and various other websites intended to quote mine and misrepresent some comments and opinions by Montagnier, and which he has since clarified as intending <a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/2010/02/killing-aids-denialists-montagnier-rant.html">nothing like the denialist fabrication</a>?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">3) An absurd argument that AIDS should have been identified decades sooner than it was, given that the preponderance of molecular evidence is that HIV-1 first evolved and crossed over to humans decades earlier than 1981? (Presumably the virus ought to have spread instantaneously and in large numbers to all continents following its original crossover into humans in West Africa, which most likely occurred early in the 20th century).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_QfajHq51aM/TmNdKdCBNMI/AAAAAAAAASA/gOVRkRMhnKM/s1600/ruggieroposter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_QfajHq51aM/TmNdKdCBNMI/AAAAAAAAASA/gOVRkRMhnKM/s400/ruggieroposter.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Even sillier was the poster's sidebar on Derrida in which Ruggiero propounds:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“It is easy for any reader to realize that most articles on HIV and AIDS demonstrate that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, if the articles are read using the deconstructive approach proposed by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9bYlBVIW8HgJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida+%22Derrida's+method+consisted+in+demonstrating+the+forms+and+varieties+of+this+originary+complexity,+and+their+multiple+consequences+in+many+fields.+He+achieved+this+by+conducting+thorough,+careful,+sensitive,+and+yet+transformational+readings+of+philosophical+and+literary+texts,+to+determine+what+aspects+of+those+texts+run+counter+to+their+apparent+systematicity+(structural+unity)+or+intended+sense+(authorial+genesis).%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=safari">Derrida's approach consisted in conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis)</a>. Deconstruction is the way to bring to light contradictions hidden in commonsense opinions and ideas.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now the first sentence is the sort of gibberish you might expect from someone who was either brain-damaged, or inebriated, or a tenured cultural studies academic in certain institutions, or more likely all three. The second sentence appears to be <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9bYlBVIW8HgJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida+%22Derrida's+method+consisted+in+demonstrating+the+forms+and+varieties+of+this+originary+complexity,+and+their+multiple+consequences+in+many+fields.+He+achieved+this+by+conducting+thorough,+careful,+sensitive,+and+yet+transformational+readings+of+philosophical+and+literary+texts,+to+determine+what+aspects+of+those+texts+run+counter+to+their+apparent+systematicity+(structural+unity)+or+intended+sense+(authorial+genesis).%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=safari">plagiarised from wikipedia</a>. But on a scientific poster? And printed in Comic Sans? No, he <i>had</i> to be taking the mickey, thought Snout. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5ioqRBRUhw/TyfXvXbu6NI/AAAAAAAAATg/TWCd0HM3o1g/s1600/wtf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5ioqRBRUhw/TyfXvXbu6NI/AAAAAAAAATg/TWCd0HM3o1g/s400/wtf.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately, it seems, Snout was wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There’ve been a couple of interesting developments over the past few months. Both Ruggiero and Bauer have managed to get HIV/AIDS denialist papers published in the allegedly "peer reviewed" and (currently still) PubMed listed journal the <i>Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Ruggiero’s paper, entitled “On the risk of contracting AIDS at the dissection table”, (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20198822">PubMed listing here</a> and readable <a href="http://www.marcoruggiero.org/pdf/On_the_risk.pdf">in full from here</a>) manages to reprise the interpretations of Italian public health policy he put forward in his sadly demised <i>Med Hype</i> essay, and concludes that:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"...HIV infection is not necessarily associated with AIDS and most HIV positive subjects do not develop AIDS provided they do not assume toxic drugs or engage in risky behaviours (Chamberland et al., 1995; Duesberg et al., 2003), whereas AIDS can occur even in the absence of HIV infection (Italian Ministry of Health official instruction No. 9 of April 29 1994)." </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">We won’t go into this particular paper in much detail here, except to point out that it appears to be a rather ham-fisted attempt to cite as many times as possible Duesberg’s thoroughly discredited 2003 <i>Indian Journal of Biosciences</i> outing, as well as a rehash of Ruggiero’s earlier cogitations about Italian public health policy revealed in <i>Med Hype. </i>Note, however, Ruggiero's blatant misrepresentation of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7482134">Chamberland et al 1995</a> to claim that "most HIV positive subjects do not develop AIDS provided they do not assume toxic drugs or engage in risky behaviours".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Also notable was Ruggiero’s recent appearance (June 4th 2010) on the <a href="http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-gary-null-show-wnye/">Gary Null radio show</a> in the US, and on the internet everywhere, on a program in which Null interviews various HIV/AIDS denialists associated with Rethinking AIDS, interspersing these with readings from a page on RA President David Crowe’s personal website. Vitamin salesman Null, of course is, according to Stephen Barrett's <i>Quackwatch</i> website <a href="http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/null.html">"one of the nation's (the US's) leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease".</a> Not only is Null an (alleged) quack, he is also <a href="http://lee-phillips.org/null/response.html">notoriously litigious</a> - even to the extent of <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/health_guru_nearly_killed_eating_hGIit27zRFN0UP3eMLWgKL">suing recently</a> when <i>he poisoned himelf</i> <i>with his own product</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, this is the venue that Ruggiero chooses to announce to the world:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BQtYCYJpONQ/TCwU1Ozuj-I/AAAAAAAAEtQ/r6SdK8mUiNI/s1600/Quack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" rw="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BQtYCYJpONQ/TCwU1Ozuj-I/AAAAAAAAEtQ/r6SdK8mUiNI/s400/Quack.jpg" width="296" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“And so we reverse the dogma: it’s not HIV that causes AIDS, but it is immune deficiency that causes chronic HIV infection, plus all other types of infection, of course. And so, if you can potentiate and strengthen the immune system you can get rid of the virus, but you know the virus is probably harmless, so it’s not a big point getting rid of that virus. But also you can get rid of all other harmful pathogenic microbes.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And in answer to Null’s question about what he would say to people diagnosed with AIDS, Dr Ruggiero’s medical advice is:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“Yes, well a person diagnosed with AIDS means that her or his immune system is not working, so I think that trying to kill a virus with drugs that are very toxic to the immune system couldn’t be the best idea. Sometimes some of those drugs they work because they are potent bactericidal, anti-mycotic drugs, so they can work against other pathogenic agents. But the best thing for a person with a deficient immune system is to stimulate the immune system...”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Snout is wondering: does the University of Firenze have a policy on its tenured professors using the university's name to provide pharmacologically ignorant - if not lethally negligent - medical advice over the airwaves and the net?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">T</span><span style="font-size: small;">HE SECOND <i>It J Anat Embryol</i> ARTICLE was authored by Henry Bauer, together with Ruggiero’s sometime student Matteo Prayer Galletti. It’s called “<a href="http://hivskeptic.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/galletti-and-bauer.pdf">Safety issues in didactic anatomical dissection in regions of high HIV prevalence</a>” It’s even more woeful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Now the first question is what is a paper which is mostly about pretending to examine the <b>epidemiology</b> of HIV/AIDS in South Africa doing in an Italian <b>anatomy</b> and <b>embryology</b> journal? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Henry himself <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/hiv-has-never-been-isolated-from-aids-patients/#comment-7978">seems to be confused </a>about the difference between embryology (the study of the early development of organisms) and epidemiology (the study of patterns of disease) ...</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IF_id7X0xag/TysMhe2-3zI/AAAAAAAAAT4/9N8UQc39kZI/s1600/it+j+amatuer+epidemiology1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IF_id7X0xag/TysMhe2-3zI/AAAAAAAAAT4/9N8UQc39kZI/s400/it+j+amatuer+epidemiology1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">... but that doesn't excuse the journal's editors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Similar to Ruggiero’s earlier effort, Bauer bizarrely tries to justify this by bookending his inept ruminations about HIV/AIDS in South Africa in terms of the HIV transmission risk posed to medical students in that country through didactic dissection of cadavers. This is a transparently specious “framing” of his agenda. Bauer evidently has not the slightest idea about what goes on in a dissecting room, let alone the infection control policies and procedures in place in South African medical schools. If he had, he would have been aware that cadavers and specimens for student dissection are routinely pickled in formalin for months and sometimes years. A competent exploration of the issues of infection risk to students would examine the selection criteria for corpses for dissection, the handing procedures for bodies and the effectiveness of preparation, preservation and time in inactivating any potential infectious hazards that might have been present at the time of death. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Laughably, his "research" on this doesn’t appear to extend beyond a quick glance at the home page of the Anatomy Society of South Africa’s website and imperiously giving his nod of approval. No doubt the medical faculties of universities in Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemein, Durban and elsewhere in RSA are heaving a collective sigh of relief at receiving the Great Man's endorsement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Instead, as Bauer highlights <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/aids-rethinking-in-pubmed/">on his blog</a> and <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=411902">elsewhere</a>, his purpose in writing the piece is to find a new and hopefully PubMed-listed venue for the drivel that was so incompetent it was even rejected by the publishers of <i>Med Hype</i>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Henry H. Bauer</b> </span><span class="date" style="color: blue; font-size: small; margin: 4px 0px 0.8em 5px; padding: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">4 June, 2010</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It may be pertinent to note that the substance of the withdrawn [Med Hype] articles, to which adherents of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis objected, has now appeared in the well-established mainstream peer-reviewed Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology:</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ruggiero et al., "On the risk of contracting AIDS at the dissecting table", 114: 97-108</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Galletti and Bauer, "Safety issues in didactic anatomical dissection in regions of high HIV prevalence", 114: 179-192</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">That drivel being...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>...that the HIV prevalence in South Africa has been overestimated: </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here he begins by contrasting the 2007 UNAIDS seroprevalence estimate of 18% with the 2008 HSRC estimate of 10.6%, intending to highlight the apparent discrepancy to cast doubt on their reliability. In fact the two figures are completely consistent: the UNAIDS estimate is the <i>adult</i> seroprevalence, while the 10.6% figure is for the <i>whole population</i>, demonstrating yet again <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-not-to-read-vital-statistics_27.html">Henry’s inability to read his sources</a> accurately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">He then moves on to a long and rambling discussion of the uncertainties (and there are many) around underlying causes of death in notifications to Statistics South Africa. While a competent discussion of this could be potentially interesting (Bauer's is neither) it is of no relevance at all in estimating the prevalence of HIV, which for some years now is done by large and extensive nationwide seroprevalence surveys amongst <i>the living</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>...that HIV diagnostic testing in South Africa yields a high rate of false positive diagnoses:</i></b></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">According to his blog, “this publication (his <i>J It Anat Embryo</i><i>l</i> outing) adds estimates of the rate of false positives”. In fact it doesn’t, for the simple reason Henry has not the slightest clue about how HIV diagnoses are made in South Africa or elsewhere, or about how the accuracy of such diagnoses is evaluated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“The overwhelming majority of HIV testing has been and continues to be done only via antibody tests (ELISA), which were designed and approved for screening and not for diagnosis.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Leaving aside the fact that screening tests are always part of diagnostic algorithms and that ELISA tests are approved worldwide for this purpose, this is complete nonsense. In fact South African diagnostic testing algorithms employ at least two different tests before a positive diagnosis can be confirmed, and Western Blot testing (together with other tests) can be used to help resolve any clinical situations where there is doubt as to the predictive value of the two-test algorithm. See also <a href="http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/myths#tests">here:</a></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>...that seroconversion to HIV-positive occurs without exposure to HIV:</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here Bauer makes a series of laughable misrepresentations of published papers. For example he cites the observations by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17321310">Bailey et al</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17321311">Gray et al</a> that a small handful out of many thousands of men in African circumcision studies seroconverted within the first 1-3 of months following surgery, despite denying sexual activity <i>during that period</i> - not realising that seroconversion occurs weeks or sometimes months after the time of infection: these men most likely tested HIV negative at the time of surgery because they were still in the window period. Given the relatively high incidence of new infections in the study populations, it would be surprising if both teams had observed no cases at all in this time frame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Even more ridiculous is the claim that because pregnant women in Africa have higher seroprevalence than the community as a whole this means that pregnancy itself must be causing false positive reactions. Henry doesn’t seem to have considered that pregnancy in women of childbearing age who are not using contraception might in fact correlate with unprotected heterosexual activity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">For further information on this, consult the groundbreaking research of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Babies-Come-Learning-about/dp/0570035635">Hummel and Skivington (1998)</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>...that a high proportion of people with HIV are elite controllers or long-term non-progressors:</i></b></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Official data indicate that this proportion is much higher than commonly assumed, perhaps as great as 50%.” - <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/what-numbers-mean-50-of-hiv-positives-are-long-term-non-progressors/"><i>HIV Septic</i></a> 4th June 2010 </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Bauer first misrepresents a 2009 study by <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19852669">Okulicz et al</a>, suggesting that the authors found that 6.2% of people were long term non progressors <i>at 20 years</i> after infection. In fact, Okulicz found that only 3.32% of HIV positive armed services personnel had no disease progression <i>at 7 years</i> and only 2.04% <i>at 10 years</i>. Elite controllers (those who consistently maintain a plasma HIV RNA less than 50) were even rarer at 0.55%.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Then he goes off on a strange and self contradictory chain of misrepresentations of US seroprevalence estimates, beginning with the <i>bedrock factoid</i> of denialist epidemiology, Duesberg’s <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080210075933re_/deanesmay.com/posts/1105628771.shtml">fatuous and thoroughly discredited claim</a> that HIV prevalence in the US is supposed to have been 1 million in 1985 (and has been constant ever since). In fact, current estimates put the HIV seroprevalence for the end of 1985 at closer to 420,000, and no credible studies done since the early 90s have put it at anything like a million in 1985.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wOUZdw4NFz0/TmQ4xj3CewI/AAAAAAAAASE/q2jKCLGmS3c/s1600/incidence.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="356" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wOUZdw4NFz0/TmQ4xj3CewI/AAAAAAAAASE/q2jKCLGmS3c/s640/incidence.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Source: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20101203183433/http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/PDF/us.pdf">CDC Fact Sheet: <i>HIV In the United States</i> July 2010</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Next, he forgets the whole point of Duesberg's bogus claim - that HIV prevalence is supposed to have been flat because HIV is a "passenger" virus of longstanding. This is strange, because he was a co-author on the most recent paper (the <i>Med Hype</i> fiasco) where Duesberg has tried yet again to flog the flyblown remains of this particular dead horse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Bauer projects from that supposed 1985 figure of 1,000,000 a prevalence for 2007 of 1,572,000, assuming a constant annual incidence of 55,000 and substracting the 583,000 recorded AIDS deaths. This is half as much again as the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_272683286">CDC's </a><i><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5739a2.htm">estimate</a> </i>of 1.056-1.156 million for 2006, which includes an estimated 21% who had yet to be diagnosed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Along the way, he fails to notice that even the most recent CDC <i>surveillance reports</i> are nothing like a complete count of all HIV diagnoses – only 34 states had long term confidential name based reporting by 2007. Then he adds the 264,000 <i>reported</i> HIV (not AIDS) cases to the 469,000 PLWAs, subtracts this from his made-up "true" prevalence figure and ends up concluding that there must be 839,000 undiagnosed HIV positives among the US population. And the reason they're undiagnosed? Why, because they're elite controllers, of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>...that HIV testing produces a particularly high rate of false positive diagnoses in black people:</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“this publication adds estimates of the rate of false positives, with special attention to the racial bias of existing “HIV” tests, a bias that stems from a failure to base the tests on appropriate control groups. That bias causes Africans to test “positive” about 20 times more often than they would under properly calibrated tests, and people of recent African ancestry also test positive about an order of magnitude more frequently than they would with appropriately calibrated assays.” [ibid <i>HIV Septic]</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Bauer begins by trotting out his standard explanation for the relatively higher HIV seroprevalence among African Americans compared to white Americans, dealt with <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2010/06/bauer-and-race-part-1.html">in the previous article</a>. Then he waves his hands about claiming that positive HIV diagnoses among Africans might have something to do with HLA types, but doesn’t elaborate on how. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Finally he suggests that Africans and people of recent African origin need to have special tests that have been “calibrated” in some way so that the resulting kits produce similar rates of positive results among black blood donors as the current tests do among whites, irrespective of the actual infection rates among such donors or the reasons why. Bizarre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>... and sundry other ludicrous claims that readers of Henry’s HIV Septic website have been laughing at for years.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">...Such as the claim that:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“trauma and perhaps death itself can apparently produce substances that cross react with HIV tests – seroprevalence was found to correlate with degree of critical illness...”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">What? You mean people with AIDS or at risk of AIDS might be more likely to become critically ill than other people?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“...it was higher in emergency rooms...”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Gosh. Sick people ending up in hospital? Who'd have thought it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">“...and it seemed to correlate with penetrative trauma.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yes Henry. Gunshot wounds and stabbings tend to be particularly prevalent hazards in the US among some of the most socially disadvantaged groups (including injecting drug users) where HIV prevalence is highest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TCdLkEmfhaI/AAAAAAAAAKI/iO63Om5Yhl0/s1600/shipoffail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" ru="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TCdLkEmfhaI/AAAAAAAAAKI/iO63Om5Yhl0/s400/shipoffail.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://icanhascheezburger.com/</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">T</span><span style="font-size: small;">HE REAL QUESTION HERE is how does the kind of drivel like Bauer’s and Ruggiero’s articles end up in a "scientific journal" that alleges that its articles have been peer reviewed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It should be obvious to any competent reviewer or editor that the pretext for submitting these pieces - which are about Italian and South African HIV/AIDS <i>epidemiology </i>respectively - to a journal of <i>anatomy and embryology</i> is from a point of view of academic relevance so tenuous as to make a mockery of any selection process for a specialised journal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It is possible that the journal's referees, whose specialties are presumably in the areas of, well, <i>anatomy and embryology</i>, are insufficiently familiar with HIV <i>epidemiology</i> to have recognised what utter codswallop they were approving for publication. Although it’s difficult to believe that anyone with a even a basic science education couldn’t have spotted it, one would have thought that anyone so lacking in competence to assess the subject matter of the pieces should have had the humility and insight to disqualify themselves from the task. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">However, Snout’s view is that the editors and reviewers of the <i>Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology</i> were probably fully aware that the trash they were publishing was junk science and in Bauer’s case at least consists of nothing more than the half-baked ramblings of a <a href="http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2010/05/16-henry-bauer.html">notorious loon</a> who is completely ignorant of his purported subject - but still chose to go ahead with publication anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The question is, why did they deliberately publish what they knew, or should have known, was nothing more than the kind of pseudo-scholarship that belongs on crank websites like <a href="http://www.whale.to/a/aids4.html">whale.to</a>, and not in a scientific journal: Why did they embarrass themselves in this way, particularly when Bauer himself <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/aids-rethinking-in-pubmed/">makes it perfectly clear</a> he is simply using them to get his junk science into a PubMed listed journal - <i>any</i> PubMed listed journal? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"HIV/AIDS vigilantes tried to keep out of Medical Hypotheses and out of the database and abstracting service of the National Library of Medicine (PubMed) the publication by Duesberg et al. pointing out that AIDS deaths in South Africa are egregiously exaggerated — 20-fold times! — by the WHO computers.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"As earlier noted, this is now published in a well-established, peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed journal, together with calculations using mainstream data showing that about half of all positive “HIV” tests in the USA are false in the sense of not presaging illness; and other tidbits."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Why have the editors of the <i>Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology</i> allowed their publication to</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> be used in this way?</span></div>
Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-81769030256391501502010-06-08T09:15:00.098+10:002012-01-14T14:54:31.342+11:00Henry Bauer, HIV/AIDS and race<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>T</b></span>HERE IS NO DISPUTE that in the United States HIV has hit African Americans harder than whites and Americans of other ethnicities. According to the CDC, among the 34 states with long term HIV/AIDS reporting, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2007report/table9.htm">an estimated 48% of people living with HIV in the US in 2007 were black</a>, compared to 33% who were non-Hispanic white. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Furthermore, among new (incident) HIV diagnoses notified to the CDC in 2007, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/resources/factsheets/pdf/aa.pdf">51% were among blacks</a> compared to 29% among whites.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Given that African Americans comprise only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States">12.4% of the US population</a> compared to non-Hispanic whites who are around 66%, the rate of new (incident) HIV diagnoses in 2007 was nine times higher for blacks than whites, and the estimated prevalence of <i>diagnosed</i> HIV was over seven and a half times higher among blacks as compared to whites.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This racial discrepancy in HIV seroprevalence is used by Henry Bauer to argue that HIV <i>cannot</i> be the cause of AIDS, and nor can what is diagnosed using HIV testing algorithms be a sexually transmissible agent. Bauer goes one step further, and argues that "racist" stereotypes are <i>inherent</i> in HIV/AIDS theory. See: <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/racist-stereotypes-are-inherent-in-hivaids-theory/">http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/racist-stereotypes-are-inherent-in-hivaids-theory/</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Bauer’s race argument boils down to his assertion that the higher HIV seroprevalence among African Americans could <i>only</i> be explained by proportionately higher rates of "promiscuity" and drug use, if what is detected by HIV tests were a sexually transmitted and blood borne infection. He argues that evidence is lacking for such behavioural differences generalisable to the African American community as a whole, and that therefore positive HIV tests cannot indicate such an infection (see chapters 5 to 7 in <i>The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory</i>).</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Instead, he hypothesises that African Americans are more likely to test HIV positive because of supposed racially-determined genetic variations that result in an extremely high rate of false positive HIV diagnoses. What precisely these variations might be and how they cause clinicians to make false diagnoses - well, he's more than a little vague on this, possibly because he seems to be clueless about the details of how HIV diagnoses are in fact<i> </i>made. Bauer ignores other factors that can result in a relatively higher seroprevalence such as levels of undiagnosed infection (which results in a greater probability of secondary transmission) and the fact that infectious epidemics spread exponentially - very small and localised subepidemics within a community can spread to larger and more generalised ones over time, depending on the relative effectiveness of control efforts, particularly early on.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Remember that HIV has been in the US for well over 30 years. This is plenty of time for even the slowest spreading epidemic to accumulate substantial differences in prevalence rates in different subpopulations: you only need very small differences in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number">reproduction number</a> (the average number of secondary infections per single infected case) to result in very large and exponentially increasing differences in prevalence and incidence after multiple generations of transmission. There can be numerous factors affecting the reproduction number, but one of the most important is the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100202070658/http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/2009icr/croi/docs/021709_ff.html">rate of infections that are undiagnosed</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">To put it simply, people who are not aware they have HIV are much more likely to pass it on than people who are.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is not necessary to posit substantial differences in rates of unprotected sex, "promiscuity", or needle sharing as the only way to account for the substantially higher HIV seroprevalence rates we see among African Americans in the late 2000s. Bauer appears to favor this explanation not only because of his almost complete ignorance of basic epidemiology, but also because of its rhetorical value in dog whistling anxieties about racial stereotyping - anxieties which perhaps lie close to the surface in the audience he is targeting with his pseudo-scholarship.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But even more obviously, Bauer ignores evidence that African Americans diagnosed with HIV progress to AIDS at much the same rates as HIV positive people of other ethnicities: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2007report/table4.htm">47% of incident AIDS diagnoses</a> in 2007 and <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2007report/table8.htm">49% of AIDS deaths</a> were among blacks, compared to 28% of AIDS diagnoses and 29% of AIDS deaths which occurred in non-Hispanic whites. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Per capita, then, African Americans are not only seven to nine times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV, but in 2007 were nine times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS or to die with AIDS than their white countrymen. If, as Bauer claims, the relatively high HIV seroprevalence among US blacks is because the overwhelming majority of HIV diagnoses are false positives due to cross reactions to race-specific antibodies, he is then left with the problem of explaining how it is that US blacks get otherwise rare AIDS-defining opportunistic diseases and die with AIDS at almost exactly the same ninefold higher rates that they supposedly test “false positive” to HIV.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>What is arguably "racist", then, is to deliberately ignore or deny the excessive mortality and suffering of African Americans due to HIV/AIDS, and furthermore to seek for ignorant ideological reasons to undermine competent efforts to address the causes of the problem (such as efforts to reduce the rates of undiagnosed HIV). It might not be deliberate "racism" on Henry Bauer's part, but it sure is dumb.</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A</b></span> SECOND CENTRAL ELEMENT of Henry’s thesis is his “analysis” of the ratio in the US between blacks and whites of AIDS incidence over time, comparing that with HIV incidence. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here the argument is that the ratio between blacks and whites for rates of incident AIDS does not match that of incident HIV infection. In the earliest years of the epidemic, rates of AIDS per black person and per white person were fairly similar. However, the impact of AIDS has increased over the course of the epidemic much faster for African Americans than for whites: by 2000, black people were six times as likely to be diagnosed with AIDS as whites (and as mentioned above, by 2007 they were nine times more likely to develop AIDS).</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That is not in dispute. But what Bauer claims is that the relative incidence <i>of HIV</i> among blacks compared to whites <b><i>has not changed</i></b> over that period – and that therefore “HIV and AIDS are not correlated in their relative impact on white and black people”.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“In other words, the racial disparities as to AIDS were appreciably less than the disparities with respect to HIV; that again speaks against a correlation between HIV and AIDS...<br />
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...In the United States, the proportion of AIDS victims who are black has increased more than three-fold from the first appearance of AIDS to the present: from 14 percent in 1981 (KSOI 1982), to 25.5 percent for the period 1981-87, to 31.2 percent for 1988-92, to 38 percent during 1993-95, to 44.9 percent for 1996-2000 (MMWR 2001a)... Thus the ratio of black cases of AIDS changed from 0.20 to 0.43 to 0.62 to 0.90 to 1.32 – in other words by a factor of more than 6 over the course of 20 years. <b>By contrast, the black to white ratio of F(HIV) has remained the same with no obvious change, for 20 years (Table 28</b>).” (bold added)<br />
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- The Origin Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, p 106.</blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This of course is also an example of pseudoscholarship. “F(HIV)” is a term of Henry’s own invention which he uses variously and indiscriminately to stand for the <i>incidence</i> or sometimes the <i>prevalence</i> of diagnosed HIV, or specifically for the ratio of positive and negative diagnoses <i>in a given study of a certain selected population at a particular time</i>. Sometimes he uses it to refer not to HIV diagnoses, but the <i>results of the initial antibody screening test</i> – for example in infants born to HIV infected mothers, and in whom the presence of HIV antibodies is not diagnostic (you can’t distinguish between the infant’s own antibodies and those of maternal origin). It is not clear if he understands that these are (at least) four quite different things, and mixing them up botches the analysis and the conclusions you can validly draw.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In this case, he seems to be using the pseudo-term to stand for HIV prevalence (or maybe incidence?) throughout the black and white populations in the US over the period 1981-2000. He’s claiming that the proportion of the HIV positive population who are black has remained constant over that period. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In reality, it is very difficult to accurately estimate HIV seroincidence or seroprevalence over the whole country from early contemporaneous data for the simple reason that unlike AIDS diagnoses, HIV diagnoses were not notifiable on a consistent nationwide basis. They still aren’t: the most recent data on the CDC website estimates HIV diagnoses only for the 34 out of the 50 states that had long term confidential name based reporting. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Instead, what “Table 28” on p 107 of <i>OPFHAT</i> consists of is a collection of various studies performed at various times among disparately selected populations (army recruits, antenatal clinic attenders, gay men, college students) and not surprisingly the black/white ratio of incident diagnoses varies widely between different studies at different times in different populations, from as low as 1.5 in one study to 15.5 in another. There is <i>no discernable pattern over time</i> for the simple reason that each study is measuring completely different populations. They are not validly comparable. But <i>no discernable pattern over time</i> is not the same thing as <i>constant over time.</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even here, though, Henry appears to have been somewhat selective in his choice of studies to support his contention, despite his insistence that “<a href="http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/ToIntJStdAIDS2.pdf">I did not omit any contradictory data about HIV test results, nor am I aware that any exist; I would appreciate being given the citation to any that I had failed to find</a>.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Not included in "Table 28" is, for example, a study by McNeil et al in 1991 of seroconversions among US military personnel. This is the follow-up study by the same authors of the very first reference of "Table 28", and is readily available in full free text on the net. This study is salient here, because unlike the mish-mash of studies in "Table 28" of OPFHAT which try to compare completely disparate groups in different study settings, McNeil et al compare seroconversions during three different periods between 1985 and 1989 <i>in essentially the same population</i>: soldiers in the US army, who were <i>recurrently </i>tested. And not surprisingly given what we know about changing racial patterns of <i>AIDS</i> diagnoses over time, what they find is that the ratio between white and black <i>HIV</i> diagnoses changes noticeably, even over that 4-5 year period:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TA17to88lBI/AAAAAAAAAJo/VkM_k7TAuW0/s1600/mcneil_fig1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" qu="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TA17to88lBI/AAAAAAAAAJo/VkM_k7TAuW0/s400/mcneil_fig1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/265/13/1709">Source: McNeil et al: Trends of HIV seroconversion among young adults in the US army, 1985 to 1989: JAMA 1991; 265: 1709-1714.</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, you cannot take a single study of the observed change in black/white ratio for seroincidence in the US army over a short period during the 1980s and extrapolate that to the entire US population over the entire course of the epidemic. But what McNeil et al found is <i>at least consistent</i> with the mainstream view that HIV incidence ratios by race have changed significantly over time, and is inconsistent with Henry’s utterly baseless claim that they have remained stable.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In summary, Bauer’s claim that “<b>the black to white ratio of</b> [HIV incidence or prevalence – I’m not sure what <b>F(HIV)</b> is supposed to refer to here] <b>has remained the same with no obvious change, for 20 years</b>” is not sustained by his data. The problem is that while it is almost certain that the disproportionate rates of HIV infection among African Americans has become more marked year by year over the past 30 years or so, there are no reliable notification data about HIV incidence in the US (and the relative proportions of African Americans and whites infected) from the earliest days of the epidemic. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This trick of finding a gap in the reliable surveillance data and then cherry picking studies or making up figures to fit the hypothesis is a common rhetorical strategy among HIV/AIDS denialists. Bauer does it frequently, and it’s the basis of much of Duesberg’s epidemiological argument. It is, for example, the basis of <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/06/introduction_to_hiv_and_hiv_de.php#comment-525467">their notorious “1 million constant US seroprevalence ever since 1985” canard</a> – a nonsense argument constructed from the fact that 1980s US HIV prevalence estimates were made not by counting HIV notifications (let alone actual infections in a given year), but were based largely on very rough back calculations from a relatively small number of notified AIDS cases and as a result had huge ranges of error.</div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-87423813069726230332010-05-15T12:22:00.006+10:002011-07-30T15:12:03.733+10:00SPECIAL REPORT: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">Yes.</div><br />
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.Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-87960287181606139722009-12-03T15:32:00.066+11:002012-04-14T11:32:34.502+10:00"House of Numbers" - dishonest and unscrupulous misrepresentation of Montagnier<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">L</span></b>YING ABOUT LUC MONTAGNIER and misrepresenting his statements is a favourite pastime among the HIV/ AIDS denialists – for the Perth Group, for example, it’s almost a full-time occupation. Montagnier is a serial target because English is not his first language, and he often doesn’t pick up when he is being led to make statements that are perfectly sensible in the context he’s intended them, but which can be edited and shoehorned into appearing to support a denialist agenda. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As well, while his fundamental views on HIV as the cause of AIDS are entirely conventional, he also advocates some hypotheses that are less well supported by evidence, such as a possible role for antioxidant supplementation in reducing susceptibility to HIV transmission, and as a </span><a href="http://www.anti-oxidant-enzyme.com/montagnier.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">possible adjunctive treatment</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> for HIV disease - in addition to antiretrovirals – particularly among malnourished populations.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So it is no surprise that one of the chief promotional tools of Brent Leung and the House of Numbers production team was to take an interview with Montagnier, carefully edit it, misrepresent his statements and trumpet this all over the net, not only on his own House of Numbers sites (including Facebook) but also on other HIV/AIDS denialist sites like the </span><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/foye9.1.1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lew Rockwell</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> right-wing "libertarian" conspiracy site and Mike Adams’ quack site </span><a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/027354_AIDS_HIV_immune_system.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Natural News</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And when Leung gets challenged on this misrepresentation, what’s his response? To post another edit of the interview and misrepresent some more.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Leung is no newcomer to HIV/AIDS denialist wingnuttery. In 2000 he was listed as the director for a </span><a href="http://www.devvy.com/aids_20001206.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">documentary project</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to publicise the "theory" propounded over the internet by Boyd E. Graves and his followers that HIV was the product of a secret US government biological weapons program. Graves also pushed the idea that HIV/AIDS could be cured by injecting the patient with the swimming pool disinfectant <a href="http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-PEST/1997/July/Day-09/silver.pdf">tetrasilver tetroxide.</a> Apparently this simple "cure" was being hidden by a vast conspiracy. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-__SA_hRXk80/TyfabcYpdAI/AAAAAAAAATo/7vIZyJ-bjHg/s1600/leung+wingnuttery.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-__SA_hRXk80/TyfabcYpdAI/AAAAAAAAATo/7vIZyJ-bjHg/s320/leung+wingnuttery.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sadly, Graves </span><a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/cia-drugs@yahoogroups.com/msg12827.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">died in 2009</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of AIDS despite making extensive use of his "cure".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Canadian-born Brent W.Leung, appears to be serially gullible when it comes to reading self-evidently barking mad claims on the internet. He combines this superficial aw-shucks naivete with an evasiveness which is more suggestive of of calculating dishonesty. For example at a question and answer session reported by Boston-based gay magazine </span><a href="http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc3=&id=90259"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bay Windows</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, he was less than forthcoming when asked who funded his film:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"During a post-film question-and-answer session held before the panel Leung claimed that his film took a neutral stance on the question of what causes AIDS. He declined to say which side he represents.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">""The purpose of the film is to present a broad range of ideas, and those ideas are for you, the audience, and for scientists to take and to create a catalyst for more discussion," said Leung.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"One audience member asked Leung who funded the film, noting that Leung seemed to have a large budget for travel. Leung declined to name the sources but described them as a group of "funders from all over the world." When Bay Windows later asked him if most of his funders supported the viewpoint of AIDS denialists, Leung claimed that they did not."</span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TEq3aH5FbzI/AAAAAAAAAOA/zspqE4DU19c/s1600/git.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TEq3aH5FbzI/AAAAAAAAAOA/zspqE4DU19c/s320/git.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neutral independent film maker Brent W. Leung, who</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> denies that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">House of Numbers </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">was substantially funded</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">by the HIV/AIDS denialist organisation whose</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">members are featured in it.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">Of course, while Leung has been trying to present himself as an "neutral" film maker "just asking questions" it is obvious that the film has its ideological and financial origins with the internet-based HIV/AIDS denialist group Rethinking AIDS. For instance, the minutes of the June 11th 2006 meeting of the board of RA records:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Bob Leppo (the principal financier of RA) moved that RA board authorities authorize the RA foundation to make grants for a wider range of purposes, including films and video. Seconded by Charles Geschekter...</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Robert Giraldo moved that the RA foundation make grants for Brent Leung's film based on available funds (Leppo's money). Seconded by Christine Maggiore. Unanimous agreement..."</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Hat tip to <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Minutes_RA2006.htm">Anthony Brink</a>)</span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CV74lTaVOGc/TjDQ2QtcQoI/AAAAAAAAAR4/0R0tJ1NhODY/s1600/RA+fund+leung.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CV74lTaVOGc/TjDQ2QtcQoI/AAAAAAAAAR4/0R0tJ1NhODY/s400/RA+fund+leung.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And they were true to their word. According to the 990-PF filed by Rethinking AIDS for 2006 to the IRS, $25,000 was paid to a recipient by the name of "Brent W. Leung" for the purpose of "AIDS documentary funding". </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UQqZAjJWFn0/TVsdxY5Q56I/AAAAAAAAAQU/-WGjjw-Lm1U/s1600/ra+return+2006+top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="97" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UQqZAjJWFn0/TVsdxY5Q56I/AAAAAAAAAQU/-WGjjw-Lm1U/s400/ra+return+2006+top.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1vGq3Ll6xBM/TVsd_mrn-3I/AAAAAAAAAQY/yIpBDQGjzM4/s1600/brent+gets+25K2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1vGq3Ll6xBM/TVsd_mrn-3I/AAAAAAAAAQY/yIpBDQGjzM4/s400/brent+gets+25K2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">S</span></b>O WHAT IS IT THAT MONTAGNIER said that has the denialists indulging in this orgy of triumphalist mendacity? Here’s the full transcript of the latest edit, together with some explanatory commentary in <span style="color: #990000;">red</span>:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung:</b> You talked about oxidative stress earlier. Is treating oxidative stress one of the best ways to deal with the African AIDS epidemic?</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Note the vagueness of “deal with the African epidemic”. Is Leung talking about treatment for those already chronically infected with HIV, or is he talking about ways of slowing down the rate of transmission? Note also that this is a segment culled from a much longer interview.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier:</b> I think this is <b>one way</b> to approach, <b>to decrease the rate of transmission</b>,</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Montagnier is talking about treating oxidative stress as one way of reducing the chances getting chronically infected with HIV following an exposure</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">because I believe HIV we can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected, our immune system can get rid of the virus <b>within a few weeks</b>,</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>ie in the few weeks between exposure and possible seroconversion.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">if you have a good immune system;</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LM is a little vague about what constitutes a “good” immune system here</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and this is the problem also of the African people. Their nutrition is not very equilibrated, they are in oxidative stress, even if they are not infected with HIV; so their immune system doesn't work well already.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>well, this is perhaps a questionable generalisation about "Africans" and their immune systems</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So it's prone, it can, you know, <b>allow HIV to get in and persist</b>.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Again, Montagnier make it clear that he is talking about the factors that lead to persistent or chronic infection following exposure</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So there are many ways which are not the vaccine, the magic name, the vaccine, <b>many ways to decrease the transmission</b> just by simple measures of <b>nutrition</b>, giving antioxidants -- proper antioxidants -- <b>hygiene </b>measures, <b>fighting the other infections</b>. </span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here LM is voicing his frustration at what he sees as the excessive attention paid to the vaccine (which we don’t have yet) as the main preventive, at the expense of more mundane and less "spectacular" preventive measures which do exist, and which do work to reduce HIV transmission.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So they are not spectacular, but they could, you know, decrease very well the epidemic,</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ie, the rate of new chronic infections with HIV</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to the level they are in occidental countries, western countries.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well maybe, but the factors that have resulted in the relatively high numbers of HIV infections in Africa are probably more complex than that...</span></i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><i>A small but important point: the subtitling on this clip has Montagnier saying, "our immune system <b>will </b>get rid of the virus..." when in fact he says "<b>can</b>".</i></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVceu_JTmI/AAAAAAAAALk/-yAOX8qFQ2Y/s1600/montagnier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" rw="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVceu_JTmI/AAAAAAAAALk/-yAOX8qFQ2Y/s400/montagnier.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: So if you have a good immune system, then your body can naturally get rid of HIV?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: Yes.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He has just been talking about a “good immune system” being <b>one of the variables</b> that allow a person to clear the virus <b>in the first few weeks</b> following exposure, before seeding of the lymphoid organs and chronic infection is established. This is obviously what he thinks Leung’s question refers to.</span></i><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: Oh, interesting. Do you think we should have more of a push for antioxidants, and things of that nature, in Africa than antiretrovirals (AIDS drugs)?</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Leung presents a false dichotomy between ARVs and other measures. He also seems to be subtly shifting the topic from <b>prevention of chronic infection</b> (what Montagnier has been talking about throughout the interview segment) possibly to treatment. Montagnier doesn't pick up this sleight of hand, as is clear from what he goes on to say</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: We should push for more, you know, <b>a combination of measures</b></span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LM rejects the false dichotomy, and emphasises that multiple approaches are needed to reduce HIV transmission</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>antioxidants</b>, nutrition advice, <b>nutritions, fighting other infections</b> -- malaria, tuberculosis, parasitosis, worms -- <b>education </b>of course, <b>genital hygiene</b> for women and men also, very simple measures which [are] not very expensive, but which could do a lot.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Montagnier is reiterating his comments in his first answer, which addressed the question of <b>prevention </b>of chronic HIV infection, not its <b>treatment</b></span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And this is my, actually my worry about the many spectacular action for the global funds to buy drugs and so on, and Bill Gates and so on, for the vaccine. But you know those kind of measures are not very well funded, they're not funded at all, or they are, you know, it really depends on the local government to take charge of this, but local governments they take advice of the scientific advisors from the intelligent institutions, and they don't get this kind of advice very often.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Again, Montagnier is voicing frustration at what he sees as neglect of the basic public health measures already proven to <b>reduce the incidence</b> of new</i><i> HIV infections in favour of more expensive and "spectacular" approaches.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: Well there's no money in nutrition, right? There's no profit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: There's no profit, yes. Water is important. Water is key.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And indeed it is, especially for reducing mother to child transmission in third world settings</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: Now one thing you said, you were talking about the fact that if you have a <i>built</i> [indicates his pectorals] immune system, it is possible to get rid of HIV naturally.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>during the “few weeks” following the exposure and before seroconversion to HIV positive status, but not after chronic infection is established</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If you take a poor African who's been infected and you build up their immune system, is it possible for them to also naturally get rid of it?</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: I would think so.</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Montagnier is clearly talking about them “naturally getting rid of it” in the few weeks post exposure. This is what he has been talking about throughout this segment. It doesn’t occur to him that Leung is suggesting that Africans (why only Africans?) might be able to clear the virus following the establishment of chronic infection. Not realising that Leung is a denialist, he takes for granted that <b>everyone</b> knows that following seroconversion for HIV, the infection is permanent.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: That's an important point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: It's important knowledge which is completely neglected. People always think of drugs </span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">well, to be fair, it hasn't been "completely neglected". But perhaps Montagnier is right to point out an excessive emphasis on post exposure prophylaxis and reducing the infectivity of HIV positive partners</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and vaccine.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><i>Although this film clip is promoted as "uncut" and "unedited" on some websites, there is some obvious and less than seamless editing at this point. In the interim Leung's microphone has been switched off, and a surprised-looking sound recordist can be seen in the background pulling off his headphones and starting to pack up his equipment. This last section is culled from awkward post interview banter, not the body of the interview itself. So what "this message" refers to is not clear.</i></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVbgfAJJlI/AAAAAAAAALc/veOVkQgHfZY/s1600/sound+recordist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" rw="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/TDVbgfAJJlI/AAAAAAAAALc/veOVkQgHfZY/s400/sound+recordist.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier:</b> So this is a message which may be different from what you heard before, no?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: The closing?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy; font-style: italic;">Leung is apparently referring to the "closing" section of the interview, which has been edited out of this clip.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: No, no, yes, my message, it's different from what you heard from Fauci or...</span><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here he seems to be having a dig at Fauci for apparently favoring drugs and vaccine as preventives rather than more basic public health approaches to preventing HIV infection he thinks are being neglected</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Leung</b>: Yes, it's a little different.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Montagnier</b>: Little different.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And what does </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKyIBYKoT20"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Leung say Montagnier is talking about</span></a>?</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Professor Luc Montagnier, 2009 [sic] Nobel Laureate for the discovery of HIV, reveals his views on</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the treatment of HIV</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and its relationship to nutrition and profit with House of Numbers documentary Director, Brent Leung. The clip includes footage not previously seen in the documentary.”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">No he doesn’t! He is not talking about the treatment of HIV disease, he is quite clearly talking about ways to decrease the transmission as he makes absolutely clear from the very start of this section. What Leung does in the exchange is subtly shift his questions to the topic to treatment of established infection, without Montagnier realising that he’s changed the subject. This is dishonest and reprehensible on Leung’s part. You could argue that perhaps Leung didn’t understand what Montagnier was saying in the heat of the interview, but the footage has gone through hours and hours of editing and careful perusal that were required to produce this repulsive piece of disinformation.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The House of Numbers production and promotion team and their supporters are intentionally trying to deceive HIV positive people, and twisting the words of a respected scientist to make this case. Their intent becomes clear when you read the comments of supporters. For example, Mike Adams on Natural News informs his readership:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"The pharmaceutical industry operating today is largely a cabal of unindicted criminals who are guilty of crimes against humanity, and one of their favorite methods of multiplying their profits is to push a disease, then sell a vaccine they claim "treats" the disease. It's the same old scam, whether we're talking about cervical cancer, swine flu or even AIDS.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Getting back to Brent Leung and his film House of Numbers, when the AIDS-pharma promoters saw his film, they knew they had to attack the messenger and try to discredit him as quickly as possible. So they claimed Leung quoted the scientists in the film out of context, thereby distorting what they were saying. In particular, Leung was attacked for his interview with Dr. Luc Montagnier, the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">who explained to Leung during the interview that AIDS can be overcome (cured) with nutrition</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, and that the vaccine approach is entirely overblown."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<a href="http://www.naturalnews.com/027631_AIDS_House_of_Numbers.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Shocking truth about AIDS exposed on World AIDS Day with “House of Numbers” un-cut footage</span></a></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Or Celia Farber, who tries to make out that Montagnier's words are some kind of "mea culpa" - a confession that HIV, the virus - for whose discovery he shared the Nobel with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi in 2008 - is not the cause of AIDS:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"It’s “World AIDS Day,” and although I despair of this impossible subject, I submit that with this concession from Montagnier, the war is as good as over. It has reached mass public saturation and we can’t wait around forever for the “orthodoxy” and its obedient “media” to admit complete, shattering defeat. Brent Leung’s multi-award winning documentary House of Numbers has penetrated mass public awareness beyond that all previous reportage combined, mine included, since 1987, ever managed to do."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[...] "Read the comments on Health Ranger’s video-blog and start imagining a world where no citizen is abused, accused, fired, harassed, or labeled, as Michael Specter said recently, “homicidal” for saying the same thing </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the discoverer of what came to be known as “HIV,” says clearly and openly: HIV is not deadly</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. Oxidative stress, malnutrition, poverty, toxic assaults, and many other things conspire to create illness–</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">not a sexually transmissible retrovirus</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<a href="http://deanesmay.com/2009/12/01/montagniers-mea-culpa-a-healthy-immune-system-can-handle-hiv/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Montagnier’s Mea Culpa: A Healthy Immune System Can Handle HIV</span></a></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Farber, of course, appeared in the film as an interviewee. She tells us, "This word AIDS, I don't know what it is any more," implying that she once did - which is doubtful - and appears mouthing a handful of similar inanities. But according to her own words she was more than just a spokesmouth whose vacuous pronouncements were used to punctuate the film. As </span><a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Farber_replies.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">she writes to Val Turner and Eleni Papadopulos</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> when they tax her on her "Montagnier's Mea Culpa" article:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Why are you lecturing me about supporting Brent? I did. I do. That caused your irritation as well, as everything I say or do or don't say or don't do does. I am on good terms with Brent </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and I helped him a whole lot on his film</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and I am proud of his success. Stop creating problems.” </span></blockquote><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Or self-described </span><a href="http://reducetheburden.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Might-Monty-by-Liam-Scheff-quote-from-House-of-Numbers.jpg"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"investigative journalist"</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Liam Scheff, who is also cast as a commentator in the film, </span><a href="http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/05/hubbub_surrounding_nashville_d.php#comment-3927087"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">who demands on the Nashville Scene</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> film critic’s blog:</span></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ask yourself what Luc Montagnier is talking about, when he talks about</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> improving the immune system of AIDS patients, in order to help them ‘get rid of the virus,’ and recover</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">…</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“That is, if debate is ALLOWED regarding the AIDS industry. Is the AIDS Industry honest? Is it even remotely honest?”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;">Or <a href="http://www.scienceguardian.com/blog/montagnier-punctures-world-aids-day-balloon.htm#comment-8280">Anthony Liversidge</a> , who tells us that:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"...Montagnier freely admits, indeed even emphasizes, that anyone with a healthy immune system has nothing to fear from the so called AIDS virus, which will be quickly defeated by the immune system."</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Liversidge's precise role in the House of Numbers production is not clear. Like Farber and Scheff <a href="http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2009/09/week-of-humble-pie.html?showComment=1253931452300#c472146315128839758">he tells us he was interviewed</a> for the film (although he doesn't appear in the final cut) and has actively promoted both the whole film and the Montagnier segment in his Duesberg-adulation website Science Guardian. He insists that:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Brent Leung was and is open to all comers and new information on any aspect of this topic, and in no way did he start his film as some kind of propaganda exercise peddling anti-science."</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Which is an odd thing for Liversidge to say, given that he was present at the June 2006 meeting in which the RA board voted to fund the film.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUtgelmyH3M/TjDRO5EaR2I/AAAAAAAAAR8/sdryQyg5Kn4/s1600/Liversidge+at+RA2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUtgelmyH3M/TjDRO5EaR2I/AAAAAAAAAR8/sdryQyg5Kn4/s400/Liversidge+at+RA2006.jpg" width="392" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But the prize for most creative misrepresentation of Montagnier’s words must go to “Valendar”, a commentator on the film blog of <i>the Tennessean </i>which carried a positive "critical review" of the film written by someone called Arienne Holland. Now, Adrienne Holland is not a film critic. She describes herself as a "communications manager" for a Nashville outfit called <a href="http://raventools.com/about/">Raven Internet Marketing Tools</a> . In other words, she's paid to <a href="http://www.houseofnumbers.com/site/reviews/reviews/66-house-of-numbers-the-tennessean">write advertising copy for her clients</a> and try to get it out on the net. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">Ouch.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The original piece Holland wrote has since died of embarrassment on <i>the Tennessean</i> and now gets a 404 message along with its attached comment thread, but fortunately “Valendar’s” wisdom has been preserved </span><a href="http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/05/hubbub_surrounding_nashville_d.php#comment-3929574"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> :</span></span></span></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“FROM Valendar @ the Tennessean Blog:</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Luc Montagnier says “we can be exposed to HIV many times without getting chronically infected. Our immune system can get rid of the virus in a few weeks, if you have a good immune system”. So Montagnier is telling us people are getting infected all the time but shrugging it off as long as they have a healthy immune system. But any HIV expert will tell you by the time the person is HIV positive, (antibody positive, the only proof experts accept), HIV has insinuated itself permanently into the host DNA. From where nothing can get it out. Once infected, always infected. However, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">according to Montagnier</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, if your immune system is unhealthy, you can fall prey to HIV. Which is putting the cause (HIV) after the effect (immune deficiency). If you put all this together, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">a person </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">who looks after his/her immune system</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> could have sex with every HIV positive person on the planet and </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">never get infected</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Is this the message Professor Montagnier wishes to convey?”</span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now Snout is not suggesting for a moment that the author of this bit of inspired sophistry - this particular blog commenter called “Valendar” - has anything to do with any of the major players in the HIV/AIDS denialist movement. It’s obviously just a coincidence that another “Valendar” appears prominently in HoN. But what’s interesting is that </span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/useless-imaging-tests-and-the-aids-scam/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Henry Bauer</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> has picked up the theme, alluding to</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Luc Montagnier’s view that HIV is a consequence and</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> not a cause of immunedeficiency</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">”</span></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Hat tip to the December 15 2009 comment below from Fulano de Tal)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #2a2a2a;"></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
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</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">N ESSENCE. WHAT MONTAGNIER SAYS is actually quite unremarkable.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are multiple well-identified factors influencing the likelihood that a given exposure to HIV will result in chronic infection (HIV positive status). Treating concomitant infections, particularly genital ulcer disease is vital. Good hygiene, including condom use and even circumcision have been proven to reduce transmission. Clean water is Public Health 101, particularly for preventing the diarrheal illnesses of children that increase their susceptibilty to HIV infection. Calling for better education and awareness to help prevent HIV infection is not exactly "paradigm-busting". Bedrock basic public health measures that “are not spectacular, but they could, you know, decrease very well the epidemic”. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Montagnier says, quite rightly, that “we should push for more, you know, a combination of measures” to “decrease the rate of transmission”, and while a safe, effective, affordable vaccine is the holy grail for the prevention and even possible eradication of any infectious disease, the fact is we don’t have one yet, and we need to focus on whatever methods we do have to stop people getting infected, because preventing people getting infected is actually more effective than trying to treat the disease the infection causes.</span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">STOP THE PRESSES!! Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier thinks that preventing people getting infected with HIV is a Good Thing. Furthermore, he reckons that the best way of achieving this, particularly in high incidence populations, is to use "a combination of measures."</span></b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, there goes the Paradigm.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Where Montagnier wanders off into his own particular interest is in his views about the importance of nutrition (particularly antioxidants) in supporting the immune factors that can prevent an exposure to HIV progressing to chronic infection. He clearly believes that widespread malnutrition may be a factor in reducing people's resistance to developing chronic HIV infection following exposure to the virus, and is thus is a significant factor in the way the HIV epidemic has progressed in sub-Saharan Africa compared to elsewhere. There may be some truth to this, but not a great deal of evidence – the factors involved in southern and eastern Africa’s epidemic are complex and include the particular prevalent subtypes of HIV there (particularly subtype C, which appears to transmit more easily from female to male during vaginal sex), lack of testing and awareness of HIV status, perhaps poor infection control in some medical and quasi-medical settings, other diseases which facilitate HIV transmission, widespread migration for work and its disruption of traditional social structures and sexual mixing patterns, stigma and secrecy, lack of access to treatment, etc, etc.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But to get back to the HoN team's fundamental dishonesty – they are telling HIV positive people that Montagnier claims they can clear their infection through diet. And to judge from the highly selected feedback on Leung’s Facebook page there are individuals - including some who say they have been diagnosed with HIV - who are falling for this spin. The intended message of HoN is not only dishonest - it poses a direct threat to health.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To tell HIV positive people and even people with AIDS that they can clear their infection through diet is a lie – a cruel and negligent lie – from an utterly unscrupulous filmmaking team and the pseudoscientists who financed them.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', fantasy;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;">------------------------------------------------------------ </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><b>EXTRA: </b>Not directly relevant to Montagnier's views on HIV as the cause of AIDS, but it looks like Post Nobel Syndrome has carried off yet another victim:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/luc_montagnier_the_nobel_disease_strikes.php">Oh dear.</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', -webkit-fantasy;"><a href="http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/nobel-laureate-luc-montagnier-md-to-present-at-autism-one-generation-rescue-conference.html">Dear oh dear oh dear.</a></span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-20439720285660004992009-11-26T21:22:00.023+11:002012-07-03T12:50:03.907+10:00The seriously dysfunctional family of HIV/AIDS denialism<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The Rethinking AIDS 2009 Conference is now over, and in honour of this illustrious event Snout is announcing a prize* of $50,000† and a signed copy of Henry Bauer’s magnum opus <b>The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory</b>‡. This will be awarded to the first person who can provide a coherent account of what, for the love of Mike, conference presenter Marco Ruggiero was on about in his talk <b>HIV and the Italian Ministry of Health</b>.</span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">[Note: * conditions apply, see future post for details; † Zimbabwean dollars or its equivalent in a nominated currency; ‡ unit offered as prize is slightly soiled, and some of the binding has come adrift. A bit like its author].</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the afterglow of RA09, Henry has been <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-family-of-rethinking-aids/">waxing lyrical on his blog</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"RA2009, the conference held by Rethinking AIDS (RA) in Oakland, 6-8 November, was an extraordinary success in every possible way. It exceeded wildly any reasonable expectations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"That’s not just my opinion. The RA Board meeting on Sunday evening, the later get-together for speakers at the Duesberg’s, various "au revoir"s on Sunday, all assured me that my own feelings were fully shared by many others. In the last few days, e-mails and Facebook threads and the like have further underscored how many of us remain incredulous over the blessing of having participated in this unforgettable bit of human history."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So blissed out by this <i>unforgettable bit of human history</i> was Henry that he declared:</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We discovered ourselves to be members of a very large and very close-knit FAMILY."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And oh boy, what a <i>family</i> the "rethinkers" are. A deeply <i>dysfunctional </i>family, as anyone who has been following the goings-on between the Perthians and the RA mob will have realised by now. See, notably absent from the Love Fest in Oakland were the Perthians and their supporters, including Anthony Brink, Claus Jensen, Michael Ellner and many more. Apparently they were unhappy with RA’s decision not to allow Eleni Eleopulos-Papadopulos’ chosen representative Brink a slot to speak. Seems there was no room on the program, even after Noreen Martin pulled out at the last moment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ellner himself delivered a <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Ellner_flyer.pdf">bunch of flyers</a> to Oakland under the HEAL letterhead outlining his own reasons for "boycotting" the shindig, and finished off by quoting a brief exchange between Eleni and Val of Perth, and RA president David Crowe:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"In closing, I offer you a brief statement from the Perth Group. It was sent to David Crowe with a request that he make their disassociation from RA public.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i>Perth Group</i>: '<b>Because of irreconcilable scientific and ethical differences we wish to formally disassociate ourselves from the Rethinking AIDS Group</b>. Signed: The Perth Group'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i>David Crowe</i>: 'Dear Val, no, I will not read this statement at the conference. It is not true, for example, to state that differences are irreconcilable when there has been no attempt to reconcile or even to determine whether differences do actually exist.'"</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s worse - you get the picture. But <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-family-of-rethinking-aids/#comment-4780">Celia Farber doesn’t</a> (or is pretending not to):</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Today I turned myself over to a healing place high in the hills, where they have built a box capable of emitting the same frequency as pure love. I plan to get myself into this box every day I am here, and twice on the last day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"My point, Henry: I told you in person, and I want to say it again: What you have already been through is what makes you unique in this "movement," which is, I believe, turning its pyramid structure inside out, FINALLLY, thanks to the very forces, frequencies, and real people you mentioned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I thought your talk was not only "excellent," but connected to a spirit movement I was able to perceive. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It was not lethally academic, as I feel most of the dissident elite wishes to be, to its great detriment if not downfall."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This person who has turned herself over to spend a long weekend in a <a href="http://www.lifevesselarizona.com/about_the_life_vessel.html">magic box</a> claimed to douse her in <i>the frequency of pure love</i> - apparently it’s 3 Hz, in case you were wanting to try it at home - is the same person who announced a <a href="http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2011/11/new-york-court-rejects-journalists-defamation-claim-against-aids-activist.html">meritless libel lawsuit</a> in the gossip pages of the <i>New York Post</i> (where else?) accusing her detractors of unfairly claiming that she is lacking in... well... umm.. well, lacking in scientific rigor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope the box helps, Celia, but Snout isn't sure that "spirit movements" are acceptable witnesses in libel cases. Snout also loves the euphemism <i>not lethally academic</i>. Perhaps it means <i>ill-informed, rambling and half-witted. </i>Certainly neither Farber nor Bauer could ever be accused of being <i>lethally academic</i>...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So anyway, despite the brave faces in the rethinkers' "family" of Bauer, Farber and others, the <i>reality</i> is that it's divorce – ugly, messy and very, very public . So what's behind all this?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, it's been brewing for a while now, coming to a public head with Anthony Brink's <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Tokoloshe_letter.html">"tokoloshe" letter</a> published on <i>AIDS Myth Exposed</i> and its subsequent thread back in July-August, in which he shoves RA president David Crowe into a hessian sack, drags him out into the street and proceeds to lay into him first with fists, then with steel capped boots, and finishing off with a sturdy bit of four-by-two. (For legal reasons then AME site owner and Perthian sympathiser Rod Knoll removed the thread, but it can still be read on Brink’s <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Rethinking_%27Rethinking_AIDS%27_at_AME_main_cuts.html">TIG</a> site).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the unpleasantness has been going on a lot longer than that, probably dating back to Peter Duesberg's pointed and contemptuous snubbing of Eleni Eleopulos-Papadopulos in South Africa back in 2001. Duesberg makes no effort to conceal the fact he thinks the Perthians are incompetent fools in stubborn denial of the obvious fact that HIV exists (only it’s a harmless passenger virus). The Perthians think that Duesberg's "HIV science" is woeful, and that the supposed non-existence of HIV should be the central argument of the HIV/AIDS denialists. The Perthians have been feeling increasingly marginalised from Rethinking AIDS, which has been touting itself as the centre of gravity of the denialist movement. They want their debate about the existence of HIV with Duesberg and his supporters, and they’ve been denied not only this but what they see as their rightful place among the denialist cognoscenti. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So who are the Perthians and their supporters? Well, there's Mrs Eleopulos-Papadopulos and Dr Turner in Perth, of course. There’s Claus Jensen in Phuket, Thailand. There’s Brink in South Africa, and numerous lesser supporters like Sadun Kal, former AME site owner Rod Knoll, Ellner from HEAL and a number of others. And they are Not Very Happy At All about the direction "Rethinking AIDS" has taken under the presidency of Crowe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The RA board is principally a US/Canadian affair, gathered around their tarnished hero Duesberg in California. Although Crowe has been the principal target of the Perthians, other board members like Etienne de Harven, our mate Henry H. Bauer, David Rasnick and even former board member and sycophantic biographer of Duesberg, Harvey Bialy have all been the targets of their animus, as revealed by the chief architect of the divorce, Anthony Brink.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Things came to a head during the run up to RA09. Mrs Eleopulos-Papadopulos wanted to present what her supporters see as the centrepiece of the Perthian position – that HIV does not exist and all the rest of the science... umm... *<i>waves hands around dramatically</i>* umm... falls down from there. Rasnick, who was choosing the speakers, wanted none of this, particularly as Duesberg was presenting his "in sum HIV is a harmless passenger virus" South African crap (see previous entry). Rasnick offered to let Eleni speak provided she submitted to limiting herself to the subject of HIV testing, but EPE suddenly remembered she had to wash her hair that weekend, and suggested the Perthian attack-dog Brink might be a suitable replacement to speak on behalf of her and her followers. Rasnick said, umm... no, and so Brink went ballistic, initially on the semi-private <i>HIVAIDS Paradigm</i> email list frequented by most of the prominent denialists of both camps, then later on <i>AIDS Myth Exposed</i>, and then on his own TIG site where he has preserved some of the choicest exchanges for posterity and for the amusement of anyone with an internet connection and an appreciation of colourful invective. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Brink's Index page is called <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/RA.htm">The Unbelievable Mediocrity of David Crowe</a>. Snout highly recommends a visit it to anyone who wants to truly understand the depths of denialist psychopathology and has a couple of spare days to <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fossick">fossick</a> around the sludge piles).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, in a note to Henry Bauer, Brink is his usual <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Paradigm%20posts.htm">diplomatic self</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"If you are referring to Crowe's delegation of Rasnick to pick the topics and the speakers for the conference (presuming Rasnick didn't just give himself the job), then his delegation of this critical, extraordinarily politically sensitive function to Peter's lapdog guaranteed disaster. And it resoundingly demonstrates Crowe's utter incompetence as a director. The worst of it was Crowe's lack of appreciation for the potentially explosive consequences of rejecting Eleni's request that I present her science on her behalf, concocting and putting up the most stupid and transparently dishonest justifications for supporting Rasnick's shit-brained, mala fide decision (she had to present herself in person to be interrogated on whether a lot of semen in your backside may be immunosuppressive (as the literature tells))."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Brink would have it, the differences between the Perthians and RA go beyond the mutual personal contempt shared by Duesberg and Eleni, his refusal to publicly debate their "science" with them or their feeling of being snubbed by the mainstream of RA. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s also the matter of the embarrassingly inept "public relations" fiascos that RA churns out on a regular basis. Prime among these have been:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<b>The Letter to <i>Science</i>"</b>, a ridiculous letter to the editors of <i>Science</i> by half-baked "journalist" Janine Roberts demanding they retract the four 25 year old papers by Gallo’s team claiming to have demonstrated that the retrovirus that became known as HIV was the likely cause of AIDS. The grounds for retraction however (as many of the more scientifically literate denialists realised, some after they signed) were based on Roberts’ complete failure to understand the papers in question (it’s not clear if she even knew there were four of them or read any but the first). The net result was that many of the senior denialist "scientists" red-lighted themselves as ignorant loons, as a few of them later realised to their regret. The letter was never published in <i>Science</i>, of course, and Snout's guess is that it’s still pinned up in the lunchroom noticeboard in their “cranks corner”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The pamphlet <i>The AIDS Trap</i></b>, penned by some medical and scientific illiterate and "endorsed by the board of Rethinking AIDS". This piece of idiot disinformation (with illustrations by R. Crumb that are as stupid as they are insulting) is a tort-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen if anyone actually acted on its advice. Snout's first thought on seeing it was to check if there were any actual practising physicians on the RA board (with the possible exception of Christian Fiala there aren't) because for a physician to <i>endorse</i> such drivel is to invite a hearing with ones relevant Medical Board for incompetence. Apparently Valendar Turner was thinking the same thing, and he pointedly asked to be distanced from it describing it in a private note as <i>'second grade primary school pathetic'</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The grossly incompetent Duesberg <i>Medical Hypotheses</i> paper</b>, co-authored by three of his colleagues on the RA Board including Henry Bauer, and ignominiously retracted shortly after its net publication. Readers might recall its skewering on this blog and others back in July. Now Perthian Claus Jensen has published his own critique, and it is Not Kind, although much of it seems to be cribbed from <i>Reckless Endangerment</i>, albeit more elegantly written, and obviously from an HIV-doesn’t-exist perspective.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>That’s not to forget the bumbling takeover of the Semmelweis Society</b> in order to engineer a <i>Clean Hands</i> award to Duesberg and Farber – a PR nightmare that quickly turned to red faces, farce and lawsuits. As if anything involving Clark Baker in a prominent role could end up otherwise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>And of course there’s the repulsively dishonest <i>House of Numbers</i></b> which has drawn the ire of film critics, physicians, public health officers and the general public, not to mention the 17 scientists who claimed <a href="http://www.houseofnumbers.org/Scientists_Denounce_HON.html">they were deceived into taking part</a>, including Nobel laureates Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and David Baltimore. The media and the blogosphere have been scathing, particularly in the UK.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the number one bone of contention between the Perthians and RA, particularly with its president, is to do with<b> its handling of the Parenzee appeal hearing</b> back in 2006-7. Apparently, the Perthians believe that their failure to have themselves taken seriously as "expert witnesses" in HIV/AIDS has nothing to do with the fact that they are entirely uncontaminated by actual training, qualifications or practical experience in <i>any</i> relevant discipline, nor their complete lack of insight into the role of expert witnesses in a legal setting. Nor did it have anything to do with the fact that the presiding judge, <a href="http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/AIDS/2007-SASC-143-Parenzee.pdf">John Sulan</a>, twigged very early on that:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The evidence given by Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos about the Perth group demonstrates that she is promoting a cause. She is not independent. She is motivated to create a debate about her theory. The Perth Group will use whatever means available to promote that debate, including encouragement of persons such as the applicant, to promote their theories in courts of law."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Gothic';"> </span></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Something of a no-no for a would-be "expert witness" Snout thinks. Or that she...</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"...lacks independence. She is an advocate for a cause. She chooses to rely upon opinions of others which she often takes out of context and misinterprets. She lacks objectivity. If faced with evidence which does not support her views, she simply refuses to acknowledge it, or dismisses it without any basis for so doing. Examples of her refusal to acknowledge evidence which does not support her views include her response to the epidemiological evidence which she says is not proof and which she dismisses as unreliable."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, apparently the reason the Perthians failed at getting recognised as expert witnesses was because of <i>something David Crowe did</i>. Apparently Crowe contacted Parenzee's barrister during the case and suggested involving Duesberg and de Harven as back up expert witnesses, thus confusing the thrust of the defence which was supposed to be <i>HIV doesn’t exist</i>, not Duesberg's <i>well it does, but it doesn’t cause AIDS</i> or de Harven’s <i>yup, that’s definitely a retrovirus, but I reckon it’s endogenous</i>. And in <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Paradigm%20posts.htm">Brink’s words</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"...the President of RA scored the most catastrophic own goal in the history of the dissident movement since Harvey Bialy fucked up Mbeki's AIDS Panel experiments."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The obvious question is why Brink is choosing to make the conflict so public, posting the dirty laundry where anyone can read it and marvel at the depths of stupidity, narcissism, incompetence, ignorance and sheer bloody-minded viciousness that characterise the principal activities of the HIV/AIDS denialist movement. Brink is no fool (well he <i>is</i>, but not in <i>this </i>way), and is perfectly aware of how damaging this is to the reputation of the movement as a whole, and particularly to those individuals - Duesberg, Crowe, Bauer, de Harven, Rasnick - he has singled out to haul into the town square for a public kicking. Erstwhile allies are at each other’s throats (see fellow moderators <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/What%27s_happened_to_AIDSMYTHEXPOSED.COM.htm">Brian Carter and Rod Knoll on AME</a> for example), and the rank and file are becoming distressed and demoralised (or as Sadun Kal would put it "demotivated").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Brink is <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Paradigm%20posts.htm">quite clear</a> as to his intentions, and those of his Perthian friends:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Yes, I propose to <i>reduce</i> RA in the <i>military</i> sense of the word."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To answer this it’s worth going to the homepage of what they call <i><a href="http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090914075148/http://theperthgroup.com/">The Perth Group HIV-AIDS 'Debate' Website</a></i>. Of course it is nothing of the kind – they don't allow comments and the closest they come to real debate is when they publish their long tedious trolling emails to actual, you know <i>working</i>, scientists and the replies they receive which are generally on the lines of "piss off and stop wasting my time with your undergraduate-level existential sophistry. I’ve got real work to do".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090914075148/http://theperthgroup.com/">Perthians </a>make their "strategy" crystal clear:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"What is needed to prove or disprove the HIV theory of AIDS?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are four ways to resolve this debate: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The first is to perform isolation experiments to prove whether or not a retrovirus HIV truly exists in AIDS patients or in anyone. These experiments are documented in the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel report. The report can be read or downloaded HERE. The cost of such experiments would be modest by AIDS research standards. Approximately $US50-100K and take 6-12 months to perform."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The "isolation experiments" proposed by the Perthians will never be performed for the simple reason that they are impossible to do to their satisfaction in practice ("<i>nope, that’s not pure enough for our liking</i>") and no <i>actual</i> virologist considers them necessary in establishing the presence of any virus. They’re a classic example of what Caj on the <i>Daily Kos</i> calls "the eternal request" beloved by denialists of all stripes from Obama birthers to 9/11 Troofers. You know: the <i>one</i> study, the <i>one</i> experiment, the <i>one</i> document that will “<i>prove</i>” things one way or another. Classic crank stuff. In fact, the existence of no pathogenic human virus has ever been demonstrated according to the Perthians' criteria.</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The second is to garner enough public opinion to mandate a public debate between a small number of protagonists and dissidents. This debate should be international, public and adjudicated by a number of disinterested scientists of Nobel Laureate class who must present the international community with a resolution as to the way forward." </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Way forward for who? It's the Perthians who have been stuck in a 1983 timewarp, not anyone else. It ain't gonna happen. The Perthians can't even get their fellow denialists to "debate" them, let alone <i>real </i>scientists who are well aware that such public spectacles have never resolved any scientific controversies, merely provided a platform and vicarious credibility to cranks.</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The fourth is to perform EXPERIMENTS--Click HERE for details and an invitation to donate funds for experiments." </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, this is basically the same as the first, only trying to hit you up for donations. Oh, and they won’t tell you exactly how they intend to spend your dosh. <i>Coz It’s A Secret</i>. But point three is the revealing one:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The third is for HIV seropositive individuals to have the evidence for their diagnoses of "HIV" infection examined in courts of law."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah, here it becomes clear. Having failed utterly to convince any literate scientists of their hare-brained beliefs, the Perthians are taking the well-trodden path of all serious nutcases with a chip on their shoulder – they want their day in court. And if they bomb out spectacularly as they did in Adelaide in the Parenzee hearing they want <i>another</i> day in court. And then <i>another</i>, and <i>another</i>. As many as it takes, irrespective of the damage they do in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the future, Snout plans to write a little more about how this strategy plays out in practice, in particular the denialists' history of serially grooming vulnerable HIV positive people to act as forensic fodder for their own personal quixotic tilt at scientific glory – via the courts. Parenzee wasn’t their first attempt, and if the Perthians and other denialists have their way he won’t be their last. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But understanding this strategy makes clear what former barrister Brink is up to in very publicly distancing the Perthians from the "tumbling farting clowns" (as he puts it) of Rethinking AIDS. They’re an embarrassment to the Perthians’ grand legal ambitions. As <a href="http://www.tig.org.za/Paradigm%20posts.htm">Brink puts it</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"When the useless results of the [Mbeki's AIDS Panel] experiments he screwed up came out, Harvey [Bialy] phoned me in the blackest depression over what a total failure they'd been. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Later he claimed they were brilliant and put them up on his blog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I should have realized then that whatever we do, wherever we live, no matter how distant, the Californian Mafia and their stupid henchmen will always come charging in uninvited and screwing everything up."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bialy and the AIDS panel fiasco is another story for another time, but you get the point. The "rethinkers" movement is anything but the one big happy family that Henry Bauer is trying to make out it is. And as with just about every deeply, screamingly unhappy dysfunctional family there is a large amount of – well - denial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, fresh from the Rethinker’s conference, Henry <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-family-of-rethinking-aids/">gushes</a>:</span><br />
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<blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There could not be a more convincing demonstration that the endless diversity among human beings need be no barrier to productive commitment to a shared purpose."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a tool. What a "family". What a bunch of narcissistic, self-important, delusional cranks.</span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com170tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-3768447628045665552009-08-10T15:19:00.007+10:002010-06-23T17:02:58.640+10:00Your comment is awaiting moderation... (part two)<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sn-xQn2yU4I/AAAAAAAAAJg/jnfKeLhiAB8/s1600-h/Fulano.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368204179983717250" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sn-xQn2yU4I/AAAAAAAAAJg/jnfKeLhiAB8/s200/Fulano.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 132px;" /></a><br />
<div><em>Three more comments from Fulano de Tal, submitted to Henry Bauer's "HIV/AIDS Skepticism" weblog, in response to his posting <strong>The Science of AIDS </strong>on 28th July.</em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said</span></div><div><em>Your comment is awaiting moderation</em>. </div><div><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/#comment-4149">Thursday, 30 July 2009 at 11:46 am</a> </div><div><br />
Querido Dr. Bauer:</div><div></div><div></div><div>I was very happy to see that you did not get anything wrong in your description of the HAART and bone loss paper from the SMART study.Good work!But it looked like you were recommending that people shouldn’t take HAART because it can cause bone loss and increased risk of fractures. You left out the information comparing this risk to the benefits of the treatment, which is the only way to justify your recommendation. Can you supply that information?</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Thank you. Abrazos,</div><div>Fulano de Tal </div><div>----------------------------------------------</div><div></div><div><strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation</em>. </div><div><a href="http://www.surf-anon.com/?q=aHR0cDovL2hpdnNrZXB0aWMud29yZHByZXNzLmNvbS8yMDA5LzA3LzI4L3RoZS0lZTIlODAlOWNzY2llbmNlJWUyJTgwJTlkLW9mLWFpZHMvI2NvbW1lbnQtNDE1NQ%3D%3D#ttp://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%e2%80%9cscience%e2%80%9d-of-aids/comment-4155" title="">Friday, 31 July 2009 at 10:47 am</a> </div><div><br />
Querido Henry:</div><div></div><div></div><div>As I mentioned before, I am surprised to reach this conclusion about someone so knowledgeable about the ethos of science, but the evidence is piling up. As I already mentioned, you allow many people with false identities to post comments, but not people whose identity you think is false and who happen to criticize your work. Now it is also clear that you post the most vile ad hominem attacks from people who agree with everything you write, but refuse to post polite constructive criticism from people like me, who have never made an ad hominem attack on anyone. As ”exhibit A” I include, while blushing, the following quote from someone calling themselves Sabine Kalitzkus:</div><div><br />
</div><blockquote>Just the other day a friend of mine approached me with the rumors, that<br />
Hitler and Mussolini were lovers. He went on telling me, that the favorite hanky-code color of those two sweethearts was … yes … brown. I told my friend of the well documented fact, that Hitler used to engage himself in this caviar- and golden-rain-business not with Mussolini but with several German actresses.<br />
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I was just about to kick this former friend of mine out of my house (I don’t like liars), when he pushed his foot into the door to force me to listen to another lie. He told me, that it has been scientifically proven, that a thoroughly practised blow-job could cure you from almost all signs of frontal lobe damage. But for this kind of cure to be effective the assistant should be male, because — my former friend explained — a woman cannot know what a man is feeling during this procedure, because she could never experience these feelings herself.<br />
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And, Seth, perhaps you should simply accept the fact (though it certainly must be very painful for you) that Henry Bauer is married and that he is not gay. But I must confess, that I admire your strategy to seduce him thoughout the Internet. Yours is the most unique pick-up-strategy I ever came across. Congratulations!</blockquote><div><br />
I’m sorry to dirty your site again with this truly disgusting quote (you probably don’t know what the brown hanky refers to, or ”caviar and golden rain,” so you are fortunately spared the full depth of ”Ms. Kalitzkus’s” depravity). But you must see how I feel when such garbage appears on your site while you insist on deleting my respectful and constructive dissection of your work.</div><div></div><div></div><div>Abrazos,</div><div>Fulano de Tal.</div><div><br />
By the way, I have a few more comments about your long post on the science of AIDS:</div><div></div><div></div><div>1. I am puzzled by your discussion of the NIH recommendations regarding NRTI monotherapy. You seem to be saying that the recommendation against such treatment is a belated acknowledgment of safety issues associated with this class of drug. First, you should know that the NIH has recommended against such treatment since at least 1997. This was because these drugs, particularly the most popular one, Zidovudine, when used as monotherapy slow down the disease progression, but ultimately do not prevent progression to AIDS and death when compared to placebo. Second, the quote you provide clearly states that it is NRTI monotherapy, not NRTI per se that should not be used, and that this is because it is not effective, not because of any dangerous adverse reactions. Most drugs have side effects, so you should not use any drug that is not effective. Further proof that this is not an acknowledgment of safety problems with NRTIs is the fact that the preferred HAART includes two NRTIs plus a third drug.</div><div></div><div></div><div>2. Thank you for publicizing some interesting results of research on HIV/AIDS treatment. But I don’t see how these studies are ”highly damaging to HIV/AIDS theory.” I would think that by showing that these drugs are systematically tested, and that treatment guidelines are evidence-based, would portray the scientific approach to HIV/AIDS in a positive light. </div><div>---------------------------------------------</div><div><br />
<strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em> </div><div><a href="http://www.surf-anon.com/?q=aHR0cDovL2hpdnNrZXB0aWMud29yZHByZXNzLmNvbS8yMDA5LzA3LzI4L3RoZS0lZTIlODAlOWNzY2llbmNlJWUyJTgwJTlkLW9mLWFpZHMvI2NvbW1lbnQtNDE1Ng%3D%3D#ttp://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%e2%80%9cscience%e2%80%9d-of-aids/comment-4156" title="">Saturday, 1 August 2009 at 2:36 am</a> </div><div><br />
Querido Henry,</div><div></div><div></div><div>This is very discouraging. I came to your site because I was eager to find out what HIV/AIDS denialism was all about. I saw some things that made sense, but lots of mistakes in interpreting the scientific literature. I thought you could use some constructive criticisms. If you really want the scientific establishment to listen to you, you should probably pay attention to people like me, who can tell you where you may have gone wrong.</div><div><br />
But since it now looks like you are not really committed to the scientific process, and would rather remain in your echo chamber, I will have to go elsewhere. If you can’t post and address at least some of the points I’ve made, I will have to post them on Snout’s blog. I know you don’t like Snout very much. He did say some things about you that were not very nice, like calling you “utterly clueless,” and referred to your writings as “hopelessly confused, contradictory and downright ignorant pontification”, “tedious drivel”, and referring to a recent paper you coauthored as “self-serving incompetence and mind-blowing ignorance”. But what can I do? After putting a lot of time into checking your references and carefully reading your analyses — the kind of scrutiny that many scientists would pay for — I don’t want my comments to just disappear into the ether, victims of your vanity.</div><div><br />
I know I gave you a lot to contend with in my various comments on just one post. But my comments really boiled down to the following 5 ways in which you, perhaps inadvertently, mischaracterized the scientific literature:</div><div><br />
1. You took a quote from the NIH treatment guidelines out of context and tried to turn it into an admission that antiretroviral treatment is killing HIV/AIDS patients. The quote is actually saying that more than half of HIV patients are now dying from non-AIDS causes because they have lived long enough, thanks to HAART. And these non-AIDS causes of death, rather than being the result of HAART, occur less frequently in patients who start HAART earlier and take it continuously. You took statements that are strongly supportive of HAART and tried to spin them into saying the exact opposite. </div><div><br />
2. You (and MacDonald) ridiculed a study for being self-contradictory and for recommending nevirapine only for patients who needed it the least, when you simply misunderstood the study due to a simple logical fallacy and a failure to read it carefully.</div><div><br />
3. You say that AIDS-related Kaposi’s Sarcoma is not an HIV/AIDS-related condition. I didn’t mention this before, but you also suggest that a reference showing that KS was an AIDS-defining condition in 1987 is out of date, when the reference is there to prove that KS has been an AIDS-defining condition for over 20 years, since it remains one today.</div><div><br />
4. You present a more than 10-year-old NIH recommendation against NRTI monotherapy (because of limited efficacy) as a belated warning against NRTIs in general due to safety issues. In fact NRTIs are part of the NIH’s preferred HAART. </div><div><br />
5. You present a variety of studies of the efficacy and adverse effects of various HAART modalities as though they are evidence against ”HIV/AIDS theory.”</div><div><br />
If you would just be kind enough and brave enough to address a few of these issues, I will not have to resort to the unsavory alternative of posting on Snout’s site.</div><div><br />
Abrazos,</div><div><span style="font-size: small;">Fulano de Tal</span></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-57362969866273688142009-08-03T15:02:00.012+10:002010-06-23T17:04:12.301+10:00Your comment is awaiting moderation... (part one)<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SnZyRxPo4cI/AAAAAAAAAJY/k54JLKxR0zg/s1600-h/Fulano.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365601655660798402" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SnZyRxPo4cI/AAAAAAAAAJY/k54JLKxR0zg/s200/Fulano.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 132px;" /></a><br />
<em>The following bundle of notes was delivered to Snout's kennel a few days ago, apparently from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Fulano de Tal</span> (who from this photograph seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to Antonio Banderas). </em><br />
<em>Señor de Tal has suggested they may be of interest to Reckless Endangerment readers, and so we're publishing them in two installments over this and the next RE post. - S.</em><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><strong>Fulano de Tal’s comments on “<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to The “science” of AIDS">The “science” of AIDS</a>” by Henry Bauer</strong></span> (<em>HIV/AIDS Skepticism, Tuesday 28th July 2009)</em><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">Fulano’s generous assistance to the denialist cause has been spurned! He says it is because I promised to reveal my true identity, but that I reneged. But this is a lie! I sent Dr. Bauer a genuine Fulano de Tal birth certificate. But this was not good enough. He is an HIV/AIDS denialist and a Fulano birther on top of it!<br />
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I have come to the startling conclusion that he does not post my contributions to denialist literature because they are critical of his “work”! So I am forced to air my contributions here. This is very long, but that is only an indication of the rich “growth medium” for correction and criticism provided by just one single post of Dr. Bauer.<br />
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<strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation</em>.<br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/#comment-4137">Wednesday, 29 July 2009 at 12:01 am</a><br />
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Dear Dr. Bauer, I am wondering if you could clarify your interpretation of the quote from the NIH treatment guidelines:<br />
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“In the era of combination antiretroviral therapy, several large observational studies have indicated that the risk of several non-AIDS-defining conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, liver-related events, renal disease, and certain non-AIDS malignancies [14-19] is greater than the risk for AIDS in persons with CD4 T-cell counts >200 cells/mm3; the risk for these events increases progressively as the CD4 T-cell count decreases from 350 to 200 cells/mm3.”<br />
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As I read it, this passage is making two points: 1) antiretroviral therapy has drastically reduced the morbidity mortality in HIV+ persons from opportunistic infections, so that they are now more likely to get non-AIDS diseases; and 2) the risk of these diseases increases with the degree to which the immune system is compromised.<br />
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The very next paragraph in the treatment guidelines cites the SMART study results, showing that the risk of dying from non-AIDS conditions (hepatic failure, renal failure, cardiovascular disease, non-AIDS malignancy) was greater in those that received intermittent HAART compared to those who received it continuously, and was greater in those who delayed initiation of treatment until their CD4 T-cell count dropped below 250, compared to those who initiated immediately. It looks like the more HAART people get, the less their risk from dying of these non-AIDS conditions. The reason for the increased risk of some of these conditions in HIV patients is a hot area of research, but the data provide no reason to suspect that HAART is the culprit.<br />
Why do you use this as a basis for claiming that HAART kills? Would you say that antibiotics, vaccines, and modern sanitation kill because they have allowed millions of people to live long enough to be cut down by heart disease and cancer?<br />
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Yours respectfully,Fulano de Tal<br />
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<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/?replytocom=4137#respond">Reply</a><br />
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<strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation</em>.<br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/#comment-4143">Wednesday, 29 July 2009 at 1:49 pm</a><br />
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Querido Henry, and MacDonald:<br />
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I’d like to help you understand the nevirapine study. You are reading the results as self-contradictory because you are misinterpreting this statement:<br />
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“Our results suggest it may be relatively well tolerated to initiate NVPc in antiretroviral-experienced patients with high CD4 cell counts provided there is no detectable viremia.”<br />
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As a simple matter of logic, this statement does not imply that antiretroviral therapy with nevirapine is not relatively well tolerated in patients with low CD4 counts. I am familiar with this problem since I run into it with my wife. If I say “I like the way you’re wearing your hair,” she sometimes makes the same fallacy you are making and replies “So what’s wrong with the way I had it yesterday?”<br />
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But looking at the context, it is clear that the authors are adding this group of patients to those in whom nevirapine has already been shown to be safe enough. They point out that there has been a recommendation not to use the drug in patients with high CD4 counts. That is why they make their statement, suggesting that that recommendation be revised in the case of antiretroviral-experienced patients with high CD4 and undetectable viral load.<br />
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In their introduction, the authors provide the rationale:<br />
<br />
“Among HIV-positive patients, the risk of hypersensitivity reactions is highest in patients with higher CD4 cell counts, with a lower CD4 threshold observed in women. Asians may also be at an increased risk [12]. This has led to the recommendation not to use nevirapine in HIV-1-infected patients starting nevirapine at higher CD4 cell counts (>400/ml in men, >250/ml in women) [13], unless the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. This recommendation is based on data from clinical trials in treatment-naive HIV-1-infected patients. It is, however, unclear whether the risk of potentially fatal toxicities is increased similarly in other patient groups starting nevirapine-based cART (NVPc), for instance treatment-experienced patients starting NVPc for the first time with high CD4 cell counts.”<br />
<br />
This is why they conclude, based on their new data, that the risk of reactions is sufficiently low in this one class of high CD4 patients, adding this group to all low-CD4 patients in whom the safety of nevirapine is already established. No contradiction here. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
I hope this helps to clear things up.<br />
<br />
Abrazos,<br />
Fulano de Tal<br />
<br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/?replytocom=4143#respond">Reply</a><br />
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<strong></strong><br />
<strong>Fulano de Tal</strong> said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation</em>.<br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C5%93science%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%C2%9D-of-aids/#comment-4144">Wednesday, 29 July 2009 at 9:35 pm</a><br />
<br />
Dear Dr. Bauer,<br />
<br />
I am starting to feel like you are deleting my posts because you don’t like criticism. I know that is not a nice thing to think, or say, but it’s the natural conclusion to draw. I have never argued that HIV is the cause of AIDS, or that it is not. I have only pointed out mistakes and problems in things you have posted. When I first did this, you were grateful to have some peer review. Maybe some of my criticisms were harsh, but they were never wrong. It was you and Darin Brown who said that I was trying to prove HIV/AIDS and disprove denialism, but you can look closely at everything I’ve written and you will see that I only criticized specific claims and analyses on your blog.I know you don’t delete all my posts because you don’t believe I am really Fulano de Tal, because you allow posts by “Cytotalker,” “SkepticThough,” and “Dave.” I can only believe it is because I point out problems with your work, which the other commentators almost never do. This is unfortunate and of course contrary to the open discussion and spirit of inquiry you wanted to foster on your site. I am sorry you won’t take advantage of the sharp scrutiny of someone who knows much more about research methods and biostatistics than you.<br />
<br />
Abrazos,Fulano de Tal<br />
<br />
By the way, why did you write that KS is “a non-HIV/AIDS condition”? Kaposi’s sarcoma is caused by KSHV. But the virus is generally latent except in immune-compromised persons. “AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma” is a medical term for KS when found in patients who are immunocompromised due to HIV. So the problem kind of is HIV, since the likelihood of developing KS in KSHV infected people without HIV is exceedingly low.<br />
<br />
Now for the paper in question: It looks at only HIV+ patients with KS. The paper cites five existing studies that show a decline in the incidence of KS in HIV patients with access to HAART. Now they want to show what happens in patients that do get KS and are treated with HAART. These are not healthy people. Pre-HAART-era prognosis for AIDS-related KS is about 10-20 months median survival, i.e. 50% are dead in 10-20 months. This study shows that the overall survival of AIDS-related KS patients treated with HAART after 5 years was 90% — that’s 10% dead in 60 months.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;">---------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><em>Note: Installment number two should be published in a few days.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>-S.</em></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"></span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-7825886046416049462009-07-25T13:48:00.042+10:002010-06-23T17:08:30.317+10:00The coming AIDS Denialist Civil War: Henry Bauer chooses sides<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;">FOLLOWERS OF THE POLITICS of HIV/AIDS denialism will be familiar with the fact that there are two main competing schools of what passes for thought among "rethinkers": those who gather around Peter Duesberg (based at Berkeley in California), and who contend that HIV does exist but it is harmless, and those who support Eleni Eleopulos-Papadopulos (based in Perth in Western Australia) who claims that HIV doesn't even exist. Probably. Umm, well it hasn't been <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">proven</span> to exist. Umm, to her <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">personal</span> satisfaction.<br />
<br />
Duesberg's main arguments (like Henry Bauer's) centre on a highly cherry-picked and, well, eccentric interpretation of the epidemiology of AIDS, and a steadfast conviction despite all the evidence that retroviruses cannot cause disease. Which will be a great comfort not only to humans with HIV or HTLV, but also to pussy cats with FIV or feline leukaemia virus, cows with bovine leukaemia, horses with infectious anaemia, goats with caprine arthritis, sheep with... well, you get the picture: look up "retrovirus" on Wikipedia to get an overview, or check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsAWzk81aJ4">this excellent little video</a>.</span><br />
<div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><br />
The Perthians, who consist not only of Eleni but also one Valendar Turner and occasional other hangers on over the years developed a theory many years ago that many diseases, and particularly AIDS, were caused by disturbances in the redox states of cells - the "oxidative stress hypothesis". They have spent 25 years developing their arguments, which are centred on trying to show that all the evidence that has accumulated about HIV is a mirage. It simply doesn't... well hasn't been proven... to exist. It has never been "isolated"... umm according to their own definition of what "isolated" means. Which is not shared by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">any</span> working virologists, and according to which, in fact not a single human pathogenic virus exists, because none of them meet the Perthians' stringent and utterly impracticable criteria. It's worth mentioning at this point that neither of the Perthians has any formal qualifications or experience in virology, neither has conducted any actual research in the field, nor even treated an AIDS patient.<br />
<br />
However, for the casual observer of AIDS denialism, there is one obvious and inescapable fact about the claims of the Duesbergians and those of the Perthians: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">they are fundamentally and irreconcilably, mutually incompatible</span>. The only thing they have in common is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">denial</span> of a particular reality - that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Which is why we in the reality-based community call them <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">denialists</span>.<br />
<br />
For years now, the AIDS denialist movement (or movements) have at least publicly tried to avoid mentioning this obvious problem, and hoped that no-one would notice. But recently, the dispute has been getting more heated, and has spilled out from the private emails of the main denialists on to the public interwebs, where anyone can observe their dirty laundry flapping in the breeze. And what a ragged, skidmark-stained, floppy-gusseted collection of smalls it is.<br />
<br />
As a choice example of the infighting, Val Turner wrote this a couple of months ago in an group email to the "gurus" of rethinking (the <a href="http://snoutselk.blogspot.com/2009/07/hivaids-rethinker-valendar-turner.html">full text of his rant is available here</a>) :</span><br />
<blockquote>“…We wrote: “Moreover, RA was never made up of two groups, “the Duesberg group and the Perth group” as suggested by Christopher Black”. This is true. At its<br />
inaugural meeting the first thing the Board of Directors did was to get rid of the Perth Group by an unanimous vote. Yet, we are told that you put out press releases in the name of several people including Eleni, and even more incredible, that you are all the co-founders of The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis. All one has to do to see the enormous difference between the original Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis and your Rethinking AIDS group is read the former’s monthly publication entitled Reappraising AIDS. The publication was about science, both orthodox and dissident. More importantly it was about the different scientific views the dissidents held and which were openly debated. It appears that some of the members of Rethinking AIDS are prepared to sacrifice scientific debate for the sake of unity.<br />
<br />
“You wrote: “Val and Eleni amalgamate Peter with the CIA! This is unacceptably insulting for Peter for whom we all share an enormous admiration and respect”. All we can say is please read the email again. We hope others share our extreme annoyance of this vexatious comment…”<br />
<br />
“…As we said to David Crowe, how is it possible for the dissidents who belong to the group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis to expect their efforts and sacrifices to bear fruit when the people who claim to represent them and talk on their behalf are ignorant of scientific facts, or for personal or other reasons choose to ignore them?...”<br />
<br />
“…Henry, you wrote: “I support in the strongest possible terms the plea that we concentrate on what unites us and ignore, as far as possible and for the time being, issues on which we hold differing views”.<br />
<br />
“It is about time we stop pretending to be united and, in the name of unity, use arguments against the HIV theory which lead us nowhere. Everybody knows that we are not united. For example,<br />
<br />
<strong>“Snout, 2009-05-01 18:54:01 [Bay Windows]</strong><em>And like Allen, I demand public debates on these issue too. I want to see Duesberg debate the Perthians on whether HIV exists, and I won’t be satisfied until they end up agreeing with each other. I want to see a debate between those who claim AIDS cannot be the result of a sexually transmissible infection and those who claim it’s really untreated syphilis</em>”.<br />
<br />
"You wrote: “I implore the Perth group, who have published such vital material and done such sterling work, to clarify for us what it is that they believe to be specific issues that need to be resolved and that are more important than presenting a united front against the HIV causes AIDS dogma”.<br />
<br />
"As the HIV protagonists (Snout) stated the most important specific issue which needs to be resolved is the existence of HIV. Nearly 10 years ago, Paul Philpott, the editor of Rethinking AIDS, said: “I think the points that most effectively refute the HIV model have not been taken up as the principal weapons of our most visible advocates”. Nothing has changed since then. Please read <a href="http://www.rethinkingaids.com/Portals/0/RaArchive/1999/RA9912PapadopFinalAct.html">The Final Act.</a></blockquote>["The Final Act" is well worth reading for anyone interested in the genre of Apocalyptic Literature of the Utterly Insane. Note the combination of delusional self-aggrandizement and poor spelling as the two (count them) Perthians describe themselves as "biophysicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and the phycicians [sic] who sit with her on the faculty of the University of Western Australia's medical school", when in fact they have no academic connection with UWA at all. Or with anyone, for that matter. UWA has sent this pair increasingly terse "cease and desist" letters to try to stop them bringing that venerable institution into disrepute, with only limited success so far.]<br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span></div><div>And now Anthony Brink has caused to be published on AIDS Myth Exposed a letter he wrote to a lady in Botswana, describing Rethinking AIDS and its president David Crowe in less than flattering terms. The full text is reproduced on Seth Kalichman's blog "Denying AIDS", but here are a couple of tidbits of this Call To Arms:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>“ ...'Rethinking AIDS' is basically a support group for Professor Peter Duesberg at the University of California, Berkeley, California in America, to promote and defend his scientific views on AIDS...”<br />
<br />
“...In 2006 a Canadian businessman called David Crowe decided to form a new organization under his control.<br />
<br />
“He collected around him a handful of AIDS dissidents that he knew wouldn't give him any problems, and he formed a 'board of directors', most of whom are either active Duesberg partisans or 'sleepers' in the sense that they don't actively conduct themselves as directors should and do not express any disagreement with Mr Crowe (when one tries, we'll read below, Mr Crowe fixes him.)<br />
<br />
“This makes it easy for Mr Crowe to run things pretty much on his own along American lines.”<br />
<br />
“...Rethinking AIDS is funded by the same rich person who funds Duesberg, and do you know this same person even sits on the board of Rethinking AIDS, meaning he has the clout to govern its scientific policy? Can you believe such a thing, Onnie?<br />
<br />
“When one of the Rethinking AIDS board members tries breaking ranks and privately challenges Mr Crowe recently in a small closed internet forum about the things he says and does, whether in his opinion they're right or wrong, true or false, do you know that Mr Crowe sends him a demand by email that he should shut his mouth and in future submit any communications to that forum for him for prior censorship, just to make sure that the disobedient board member doesn't challenge Mr Crowe ever again? Can you believe your ears, Onnie?!<br />
<br />
“...He wanted to make sure that Rethinking AIDS doesn't do any rethinking about anything important, anything really important such as whether 'HIV', which is at the core of the 'HIV-AIDS' construct, even exists.<br />
<br />
“No, we can't have that, Onnie! We must stay off that matter!<br />
<br />
“This is why Mr Crowe made a point of snubbing the Perth Group and rejecting their request for representation on the board when they got to hear what he was up to behind the scenes…”</blockquote><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Brink continues on with a tedious and rather condescending little allegory about a tokoloshe, in which he is quite clearly blaming Crowe and his friends at Rethinking AIDS for the fiasco that occurred in Adelaide when Mrs Eleopulos-Papadopulos and Dr Turner fronted up to the Supreme Court of South Australia claiming to be expert witnesses in the field of HIV and AIDS. This was in an appeal hearing following the conviction of Andre Parenzee for endangering life by exposing three women to HIV through unprotected sex while claiming that he was suffering from cancer, not HIV disease.</span></span><br />
It's pretty clear that the AIDS denialism is going into meltdown phase, as the two sides prepare to belt it out over the issue of whether HIV exists. As Scienceblogger ERV would put it, we're in for a... Denier Fight!! And hopefully the winner will go on to take on Lenny Horowitz and the others who claim that HIV was created in a government lab...<br />
<br />
<br />
SO WHAT HAS BEEN HENRY'S position in all this? Well, devotees of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">HIV Septic</span> would be scratching their heads up till now. Henry's bluster and woolly waffle has tried to studiously avoid the umm... existence issue. As Val reports him saying on the Rethinker's list:<br />
<br />
“I support in the strongest possible terms the plea that we concentrate on what unites us and ignore, as far as possible and for the time being, issues on which we hold differing views”.<br />
<br />
But fortunately, we now know where he stands. You see, Henry is now one of the authors of a new article called <em><a href="http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(09)00447-2/abstract">HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS - A new perspective </a></em>. The authors are Pete Duesberg, Josh Nicholson (who? see below) Dave Rasnick, Christian Fiala and of course, our mate Henry.<br />
<br />
While the title is uncharacteristically frank about how "out of touch" denialists are in their hypothesising, particularly when it comes to AIDS in Africa, the authors (including Henry) make their stand very clearly:<br />
<strong></strong><blockquote><strong>"In sum, we conclude that HIV is a passenger virus."</strong></blockquote><br />
This new Medical Hypotheses article by Duesberg, Bauer and others sets a new benchmark for self-serving incompetence and mind-blowing ignorance by HIV/AIDS denialists. The really sad thing about it is the second author: young Josh Nicholson is a 22 year old (former?) student who Duesberg has obviously been grooming. I suspect that when he grows up he will have substantial grounds for suing Berkeley for failing in their duty of care to protect young people on their campus.<br />
<br />
Highlights from Duesbauer's drivel include:<br />
<br />
<strong>...South Africa had 12 million HIV positives in 2000-2005, or 25-30%</strong>. Oops, no that that's the percentage among antenatal clinic attenders: the whole population prevalence was about 10.8%, or around 5 million.<br />
<br />
<strong>...SA's HIV prevalence has remained stable at 25-30% since 1985 </strong>(and they provide a graph, figure 1b). Oops, figure 1b shows near zero prevalence in 1990, rising steeply year by year to peak at 30% in 2005, before falling slightly to around 28% in 2007. Oh, and it's antenatal attenders, not the whole population.<br />
<div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sm0oYu1n2ZI/AAAAAAAAAIg/CnFstamyzsc/s1600-h/med+hypoth+graph.jpg"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362987136623040914" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sm0oYu1n2ZI/AAAAAAAAAIg/CnFstamyzsc/s400/med+hypoth+graph.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 227px;" /></span></a><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Duesberg PH et al. HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS - A new perspective. Med Hypotheses (2009), doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.024</span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></div><br />
<strong>...South African statistics record an average of 12,000 HIV deaths per 12 million HIV positives per year</strong>. Well, yeah it's true that not many HIV deaths are recorded as such: HIV is not a notifiable infection, and as Stats SA makes abundantly clear, most HIV related deaths are recorded according to the fatal opportunistic disease, not its underlying cause:</div><blockquote>"HIV death rates have a distinctive pattern by age in which there is an increase to a given age and then a rapid decline at older ages. This peak occurs at 30-34 for females and at 35-39 for males. Many HIV deaths are registered as being due to some other cause of death. This problem is aggravated by the fact that HIV is not a reportable disease in South Africa, unlike some other communicable diseases. Based on the age pattern of death rates by sex, it is likely that a high proportion of deaths registered as due to parasitic diseases, parasitic opportunistic infections, certain disorders of the immune mechanism and maternal conditions (females only) are actually caused by HIV. Some registered causes of death rise to a peak with age but then decline at older ages more slowly than HIV, especially for males. For these registered causes of death, some of the deaths are likely actually due to HIV, but some of the deaths are likely due to something other than HIV. These causes of death include all infectious diseases, tuberculosis, malaria and nutritional deficiencies."<a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/PublicationsHTML/Report-03-09-052004/html/Report-03-09-052004.html">http://www.statssa.gov.za/PublicationsHTML/Report-03-09-052004/html/Report-03-09-052004.html</a> </blockquote><div><br />
<br />
<strong>...South African statistics provide no evidence for the huge losses of South African lives from HIV during 2000-2005</strong>. Ummm, except for the total increase in annual deaths from 317,000 in 1997 to 607,000 in 2006. While part of this was due to overall population increase, there was a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">doubling</span> of the death rates in young to middle aged males, a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">tripling</span> in young to middle aged females, and a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">near doubling</span> among infants under 5.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span></div><div> No evidence?</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
</span></div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sm0oivYvNLI/AAAAAAAAAIo/RKmkC87Nzu8/s1600-h/sa+deaths.jpg"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362987308569015474" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/Sm0oivYvNLI/AAAAAAAAAIo/RKmkC87Nzu8/s400/sa+deaths.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 308px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></a><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
</span><a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/Publications/P03093/P030932003,2004.pdf">www.statssa.gov.za/Publications/P03093/P030932003,2004.pdf</a><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></div><br />
Among other gems we discover that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">pathogenic viruses spread exponentially and then decline exponentially within a few months due to antiviral immunity</span>... err, like herpes simplex or hep B or hep C; <br />
<div><br />
<strong>...that HIV DNA synthesis has never been detected in HIV positive people because replication is suppressed in the presence of antibody against HIV...</strong> even though HIV is in fact never virologically latent in chronic HIV infection;</div><div><br />
<strong>...that AZT is used against cancer...</strong></div><div><br />
Of course, that's just for starters. For the full idiocy of this piece of dross, you'll have to read the whole article. </div><div><br />
I wonder if Henry did, before he put his name to it as an author?</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(Additional note: Fulano de Tal and others point out several more of the most seriously egregious errors in Duesenbauer's article in the comments section below)</span></span></span></div><div><br />
Of course, no denialist paper would be complete without the obligatory whining about being rejected or silenced by the reality-based community, and accusations of “ad hominem”. This one is no exception, and Duesenbauer finish off by saying:</div><br />
<blockquote>“A precursor of this paper was rejected by the Journal of AIDS, which published the Chigwedere et al. article, with political and ad hominem arguments but without offering even one reference for an incorrect number or statement of our paper (available on request)”</blockquote><br />
Gee. A reputable scientific publication rejects a self-serving paper written to try to deny responsibility for one of the largest avoidable public health catastrophes of recent times, a piece that actually <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">denies</span> that catastrophe happened and does so using at best an inept and ignorant reading of the data, and worst is deliberately lying. Well, I’m shocked.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"></span><br />
<br />
</div></div></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com107tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-68630844901009062382009-07-13T18:40:00.017+10:002011-08-30T12:15:42.206+10:00HIV, HCV, organ transplants and surgery - Henry Bauer is utterly cluelessIN EARLY 2007 IN CHICAGO a 38 year old man was brought into hospital suffering unspecified traumatic injuries. Sadly, attempts at resuscitation failed and he died. The one apparent positive from his death was that he was an organ donor, and that the organs which were now useless to him could be used for transplantation to provide a new lease of life for a number of otherwise seriously ill people with organ failure such as in severe kidney, liver or heart disease.<br />
<br />
There was a problem though. The donor screening questionnaire revealed he was in a “high risk group” for HIV – he was sexually active with other men. Although donor organs are routinely screened for blood borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C through antibody testing, such tests are not absolutely failsafe: antibodies may not be detectable for up to three months after initial infection, (although with modern HIV antibody tests they are generally reliable some weeks sooner than that). Donations from “high risk” individuals can therefore be in the early stages of infection with HIV or hep C without this showing on the usual screening tests, during the “window period”. The chances of that happening are very small, but still there. Even among people with no identified “risk” for HIV this can potentially happen: in the US there are now almost as many people infected heterosexually with HIV each year as males infected homosexually: an increasing proportion of new HIV infections occur in people outside the traditional “risk groups”.<br />
<br />
The routine antibody tests for HIV and hep C were done on our Chicago man, and they came up negative. The four transplants went ahead.<br />
<br />
Since 2004 there has been a second type of screening test (nucleic acid testing) which looks for the viral RNA or proviral DNA rather than antibodies, and which reduces the false negative period still further, but which is again not quite failsafe, as there is still a short period of several days between infection and the test becoming reliable – the “eclipse period”. Another issue is that the test takes time to perform – several hours – which can be critical in the time frame required for organ transplantation. Nucleic acid testing wasn’t done for the four organs donated by our Chicago man.<br />
<br />
Organ transplantation carries risks – it’s major surgery – as well as often lifesaving benefits. As well, the supply of suitable organs is very limited and many people die on the waiting list for transplants. It’s not altogether unreasonable to use organs from a “high risk” individual: after all the chances that a donor would die within 22 days or so of becoming infected with HIV are pretty slim. So slim, in fact, that not a single case of HIV transmission through organ transplantation was known to have occurred since 1986 in the US, among hundreds of thousands of transplants, including from an unspecified number of donors fitting the “high risk groups” for HIV.<br />
<br />
Of course, ethically and medico-legally there is a principle that consent for a medical procedure is accompanied by information of any salient risks. The transplant coordination team say they told the three hospitals involved of the donor’s risk status. What is not clear is whether the hospitals informed the four organ recipients. Which could become problematic on the very slim chance anything went wrong.<br />
<br />
<br />
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, one of the recipients was undergoing assessment for re-transplantation – the organ was apparently failing. As part of the assessment s/he was routinely screened for HIV and hepatitis C – and came up positive for both viruses. As part of the epidemiological investigation, stored samples from the donor were tested – this time with the more sensitive nucleic acid tests that can identify HIV and HCV during much of the window period where the antibody tests will miss a recent infection. He was positive for both. The three other organ recipients were then tested, and they too tested positive for both viruses. The dreaded but very unlikely event – almost a freak occurrence - had happened, and left four people with dual blood borne virus co-infections to add to their other health problems.<br />
<br />
This case raises numerous technical and ethical issues, not the least of which is whether consent for the transplants was truly informed if, as at least one recipient claimed, she was not told of the donor’s risk status, and would have refused the kidney had she known. And how, exactly, should the transplant teams have quantified such a risk, which was at the time only theoretical? How much do recipients have the right to know about the donor? Should organs from “high risk” donors even be used? Who, exactly, is “high risk” these days? Should nucleic acid testing be part of the routine donor screen, given the low probability that any given donor will have infections not picked up by standard screening, and the potential for the extra delay to compromise the viability of the transplant?<br />
<br />
However, raising those important issues was not the point of this post. This is a blog about Henry Bauer’s bizarre theories about HIV and AIDS, and his take on this case , <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/hiv-organ-transplants-surgery/" title="Permanent Link to “HIV”, organ transplants, surgery">“HIV”, organ transplants, surgery</a> is a fine illustration of his hopelessly confused, contradictory and downright ignorant pontification about the significance of HIV test results.<br />
<br />
FOR OBVIOUS ETHICAL REASONS, deliberately conducted experiments to demonstrate the transmissibility of HIV in humans can never be done. While some of us might take a certain secret pleasure in seeing some of the more prominent denialists publicly demonstrating the courage of their convictions by injecting themselves with a reliably infectious dose of blood from an HIV positive person, it’s not going to happen. Well, actually it kind of did once. A barking mad Florida doctor called Robert Willner stuck himself with a needle coated in allegedly HIV positive blood in <a href="http://www.whale.to/c/willner4.html">several media stunts</a> during the 1990s. This was some time after he had been <a href="http://www.doah.state.fl.us/ros/1991/91006795.PDF">struck off for repeated infractions amounting to gross professional misconduct</a>, including claiming to cure people with HIV/AIDS by injecting them with… ummm… ozone.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, we will never know the results of Willner’s publicity stunts, because he died a few months later, apparently from causes unrelated to HIV. [Incidentally, also of interest would be an explanation from denialists about how pumping ozone (a highly oxidative chemical) into people’s veins is supposed to treat a condition that according to the most currently popular denialist account is supposedly the result of “oxidative stress”. But I digress.]<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The Chicago cases provide a kind of “natural experiment” that demonstrates the transmissibility not only of HIV but also HCV. It was a tragic and unfortunate series of events that modern medicine does its damnedest to try to prevent, usually successfully, which is why this case was so singular. If you were an evil scientist trying to test the transmissibility of HIV, it would be hard to come up with a better “experimental design”.<br />
<br />
So what does Henry say about it?</span></span><br />
<blockquote>This sad story illustrates the sorts of tragedies that follow from regarding a positive HIV-test as proof of infection by a pathogenic virus. What those tests (ELISA, Western Blot) actually detect is a variety of antibodies to a whole range of proteins, or (PCR test) bits of RNA and DNA, none of which have ever been shown to constitute part of an authentic virion of HIV. On the other hand, there is copious evidence that a great range of conditions can deliver a “positive” on an HIV test. In the present context, most pertinent are the reports that TRAUMA is associated with positive tests — see for example reports from emergency rooms and autopsies, p. 85 in<a href="http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/" target="_blank"> The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory</a>. When a person who has had surgery subsequently tests HIV-positive, it’s immediately assumed that infection resulted from blood transfusion or infected instruments; but perhaps the positive test merely reflects the trauma of the surgery or whatever manifest illness later ensues, as with<a href="http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/02/2012" target="_blank"> a 65-year-old Indian patient</a> .</blockquote>The 65-year-old Indian patient, by the way, was a guy who believed that he was infected with HIV through blood transfusions during cardiac bypass surgery. The news article provides few clues as to whether this was or wasn’t the case, but there’s nothing implausible about it. One thing you can be fairly sure of is that in large countries such as India or China it is inevitable that there will be occasional cases of HIV transmitted by transfusions. The probability that any single unit of blood will carry HIV missed by standard antibody screening is extremely small, but in countries with populations of the order of a billion where there are many hundreds of thousands of such donations every year, you can be certain just on statistical probability that someone is going to be unlucky. And you can bet that sometimes this will make the news.<br />
<br />
Snout posted a comment for Henry on this post, and – you guessed it – Henry deleted it. Never mind, here it is:<br />
<blockquote><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/">Snout</a><br />
said<br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em><br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/hiv-organ-transplants-surgery/#comment-3959" title="">Friday,<br />
10 July 2009 at 9:09 am</a><br />
<br />
Henry, don’t you think it’s odd that out of 400,000 transplants since 1986 in the US that only four recipients (0.001%) are known to have acquired HIV through the procedure? Surely if it were the trauma of surgery itself causing HIV antibodies to appear as a “non specific reaction” you would expect more, wouldn’t you?<br />
<br />
And don’t you find it odd that those exact same four recipients also seroconverted for hepatitis C – the only known cases ever of post transplant HIV/HCV coinfection in the US?<br />
And that those four recipients all received organs from the one donor in February 2007. No transplants from any other donor have resulted in post transfusion HIV seroconversion since 1986*, or HIV/HCV coinfection ever.<br />
<br />
And strangely, when the donor’s stored serum was tested for HIV and HCV by nucleic acid testing he was positive for both viruses?<br />
<br />
Far from supporting your theory of HIV antibodies indicating a “non-specific response to stress”, this tragic freak occurrence is virtually iron-clad evidence that what is detected by both HIV and HCV testing are transmissible agents.<br />
<br />
“Standard testing” for organ donation at the time (early 2007) was antibody testing. The limitation of this is that antibody tests are not reliable until the window period following infection has passed: up to about 3 months for both viruses. The very small risk of a donation during the seroconversion period is well known, which is why blood banks refuse “high risk” donors despite the fact the samples are tested for HIV. Unfortunately, the demand for transplantable organs far exceeds supply, and transplant teams sometimes take a calculated risk. The medico-legal issue in this case was that the recipient says she was not informed of the risk status of the donor, and would not have agreed to the transplant had she known.<br />
<br />
In the last few years many blood banks have added nucleic acid testing to the screening regimen. This reduces, but does not entirely eliminate, the risk of infected donation being missed by the screening process. Nucleic acid testing for HIV and HCV has also recently been introduced for cadaveric transplants in many parts of the world, partly in response to the 2007 events in Chicago.<br />
<br />
I’m staggered that you can read this story as confirming rather than utterly refuting your “non-specific response to stress” theory. </blockquote><br />
<em>Notes: an article about this case was published in November 2008 in Liver Transplantation:</em><br />
<em><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18975294">Transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus through liver transplantation.</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></em><br />
<br />
Other media reports include a series of articles from November 2007:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span><br />
<blockquote><em><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21770889/ns/health-health_care/">4 transplant patients infected with HIV</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Experts: Case signals patients’ need for more information on donors</span></span></em></blockquote><blockquote><em>Nov. 13, 2007</em><em><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21837326/ns/health-health_care/">Transplant patient a ‘mess’ after HIV diagnosis</a> Woman was not told her kidney was high risk, attorney says<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> </span></em></blockquote><blockquote><em>Nov. 16, 2007 </em><span style="font-size: 130%;"><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21837488/ns/health-health_care/"><em><span style="font-size: small;">Federal officials investigate tainted transplants</span></em></a><br />
<em><span style="font-size: small;">At issue is what hospitals knew and told four patients about high-risk donor </span></em></span></blockquote>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
*Since this was written in July 2009, there has been another case reported, this time from a living donor in <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6010a1.htm">New York</a>.Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-43264234216367511842009-03-29T19:03:00.018+11:002016-06-05T11:39:53.869+10:00AIDS Denialist Bingo™ and the DenierList™<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: 130%;"><b>UPDATE: THE NEW IMPROVED DENIERLIST™<br />
Now with <strike>100</strike> 150 AIDS Denialist Canards and Argumentoids, for your AIDS Denialist Web-surfing pleasure!</b></span> <br />
<div align="left"><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">SNOUT IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE to his readers a <span style="color: #cc0000;">New Improved</span> <b>DenierList™ </b>of the <strike>100*</strike> 150 Most Popular AIDS Denialist Canards and Argumentoids, all in the one convenient, numbered package.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Here they are:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
001. Non specific HIV tests<br />
002. Show me the one paper<br />
003. The petition(s)<br />
004. Gallo was a fraud<br />
005. Epidemiology proves it can’t be an infection<br />
006. Never been isolated<br />
007. Poppers cause KS<br />
008. Anything quote mined from a test kit<br />
009. No EMs of HIV<br />
010. Magic Johnson is really HIV neg<br />
011. “Everyone tests positive”<br />
012. Hardly any deaths in South Africa<br />
013. Dissidents have been persecuted/silenced<br />
014. AIDS Inc / AIDS Mafia<br />
015. AZT too toxic for cancer chemotherapy<br />
016. Lab AZT has a skull and crossbones on the label<br />
017. Pharma Shill<br />
018. HIV is really (endogenous) HERV<br />
019. AIDS Truthers won’t debate with us<br />
020. Padian<br />
021. Rodriguez<br />
022. The Bangui definition<br />
023. Intestinal dysbiosis/Gay bowel Syndrome<br />
024. No gold standard<br />
025. 1 million flat graph US prevalence since 1985<br />
026. AIDS is really untreated syphilis / mycoplasma<br />
027. The Continuum award<br />
028. Galileo was right!<br />
029. Just a new name for old diseases<br />
030. AIDS is a category not an illness<br />
031. Kuhn or any use of the word “paradigm”<br />
032. Antibodies mean immunity<br />
033. No vaccine proves there’s no virus<br />
034. There are no FDA approved HIV tests<br />
035. HIV only rarely detected in people with AIDS<br />
036. HIV rarely progresses to AIDS<br />
037. Follow the money!<br />
038. AIDS theory is racist<br />
039. Age distribution of HIV means it can’t be an STI<br />
040. Haemophiliacs never got AIDS – they were going to die anyway<br />
041. Anal douching causes AIDS<br />
042. Henry Bauer gets candidal balanitis from Bactrim (don't ask, just mark it off)<br />
043. Anything can cause immune deficiency<br />
044. Just about any disease is an aids-defining illness<br />
045. Audrey Serrano<br />
046. AIDS is just a nocebo effect from the Voodoo Curse<br />
047. Harsh overly-deterministic diagnosis<br />
048. Ad Hominem!<br />
049. What about long term non-progressors?<br />
050. The AIDS establishmet destroyed Duesberg's career<br />
051. Where’s the study of HAART vs placebo?<br />
052. AZT monotherapy killed everyone who died of AIDS before 1996<br />
053. HAART (including AZT) is less toxic than AZT alone<br />
054. High dose AZT monotherapy was used until HAART came in<br />
055. What’s wrong with asking questions? I'm just looking for guidance<br />
056. No, of course I’m not really Michael Geiger.<br />
057. Gallo dishonestly published EMs of debris in Science – and none of its readers noticed for 24 years until Janine Roberts came along.<br />
058. The 1984 Science papers weren’t peer reviewed<br />
059. Why won’t you reveal your real identity?<br />
060. Buy my book! I answer everything there, with lots of tables.<br />
061. Steroids are prescribed for STDs<br />
062. The CDC kept rewriting AIDS definitions to keep the money flowing in.<br />
063. Viruses always infect both genders equally<br />
064. TB bacteria make you test HIV positive<br />
065. HIV is endogenous...errr exogenous...wait whats the difference again...?<br />
066. Bone pointing causes AIDS, except for those who find out they are HIV+ only after the symptoms have shown, they must be druggies<br />
067. We are not published because we are censored.<br />
068. It is a mistake to confuse science with medicine.<br />
069. EM’s of HIV are contaminated by cellular proteins.<br />
070. The virus has not been purified<br />
071. Nature, Science, the BB fucking C and the New York Times censor dissident information<br />
072. Complicit in the genocide of gays and blacks<br />
073. AIDS affects mainly risk groups in the west, but is generalised in Africa<br />
074. HIV + TB = AIDS; TB - HIV = TB<br />
075. GcMAF cures AIDS (and cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibroyalgia, spermatorrhea, etc)<br />
076. 70 different cross reacting factors<br />
077. Cord blood is full of HERVs, unlike “peripheral” blood<br />
078. HIV=AIDS=CERTAIN DEATH<br />
079. HIV-p24 is the same as the golgi transmembrane transport protein coz they’re both 24 kiloDaltons<br />
080. Economic crisis on Wall Street<br />
081. Reference please… and no PubMed contests! <br />
082. Black Box Drugs<br />
083. Lancet 2006 ART Cohort study<br />
084. Montagnier quote mine “We can be exposed to HIV many times…”<br />
085. PWHAs can reduce their risk of death by moving from the US to Canada<br />
086. No occupationally acquired AIDS by needlestick<br />
087. Popovic originally wrote that the cause of AIDS has not been identified<br />
088. Koch’s postulates<br />
089. “Medical Hypotheses” publishes peer reviewed evidence<br />
090. Never demonstrated by EM in uncultured blood stream<br />
091. None of the predictions have come true<br />
092. AIDS doesn’t occur outside the original risk groups<br />
093. Western Blot interpretation isn’t standardized<br />
094. Conflict of interest!<br />
095. 1984 press conference<br />
096. No difference in life expectancy between medicated westerners and unmedicated Africans<br />
097. Factor 8 causes AIDS immunosuppression<br />
098. People with persistently less than 200 CD4 counts are perfectly healthy<br />
099. Christine Maggiore tested HIV negative, as well as positive and indeterminate<br />
100. I’m not denying anything. There’s no such thing as a denialist.<br />
101. Africa’s population is increasing<br />
102. People had immunodeficiency before AIDS was discovered<br />
103. The water quality in Africa is terrible<br />
104. Drug labels admit that antiretrovirals don’t cure or prevent HIV<br />
105. Where are the official African notifiable diseases statistics for AIDS?<br />
106. Pregnant women are likely to test false positive for HIV<br />
107. Liver disease is the main cause of death for people on ARVs<br />
108. This is MY bullshit theory – not Etiene’s, and definitely not Stefan’s. MINE MINE MINE!<br />
109. Efavirenz (“Sustiva”) is an addictive drug<br />
110. Germ theory predicts that viral epidemics always rise and fall within weeks.<br />
111. Derrida or any mention of “deconstruction” or “post structuralism”<br />
112. AIDS doctors killed a whole generation of gay men <br />
113. ARV side effects = AIDS<br />
114. Where, when and who proved HIV causes AIDS (one paper please)<br />
115. Stress = AIDS<br />
116. Untreated syphilis, gonorrhoea, Chlamydia, etc = AIDS<br />
117. Treatment for syphilis, gonorrhoea, Chlamydia, etc = AIDS<br />
118. Exposure to uninfected semen = AIDS, but only if it’s rectal<br />
119. Malnutrition = AIDS<br />
120. People don’t get AIDS unless they’re druggies*<br />
121. HIV/AIDS Science is anti-sex Puritanism<br />
122. The incubation for untreated HIV used to be months – now it’s 20 or 30 years<br />
123. Scientists and clinicians don’t embrace AIDS denialism because they’re in it for the money/status<br />
124. Escape the AIDS Zone! / Take the Red Pill!<br />
125. HIV sequences/proteins can be found in dogs and mice<br />
126. ARVs seem to work because they kill bacteria, fungi, and all kinds of viruses (except retroviruses)<br />
127. ARVs seem to work because they are a mineral supplement<br />
128. AIDS deaths dropped before HAART became available, and stopped dropping when it did.<br />
129. HIV evolved in the early 20th century, AIDS was first noted in 1981. Therefore HIV can’t be the cause of AIDS<br />
130. South African cause of death notifications<br />
131. Black people test false positive more often than others because...<br />
132. Sick people in emergency departments have a higher HIV prevalence than healthy people. Therefore being sick makes you test false positive.<br />
133. Blacks in the US and Africa have higher HIV rates. Therefore they must as a group be having more sex.<br />
134. Californian porn stars (who are PCR tested monthly) rarely get HIV at work. Therefore sex can’t transmit HIV.<br />
135. The black to white HIV ratio hasn’t changed over the course of the US epidemic, but the AIDS ratio has.<br />
136. KS is unrelated to HIV infection<br />
137. Tommy Morrison<br />
138. Selenium <br />
139. Hivex Electromagnetic frequency treatment cures AIDS<br />
140. Eugenics<br />
141. HIV doesn’t kill T cells<br />
142. HIV doesn’t infect enough T cells to cause AIDS<br />
143. HIV doesn’t have a special AIDS-gene<br />
144. There is no such thing as a slow virus<br />
145. Robert Willner<br />
146. a small subgroup of nitrite huffing promiscuous bath house meth trannies <br />
147. Farr’s law<br />
148. AIDS-defining conditions have nothing to do with immune function<br />
149. Only gay men get KS<br />
150. Love boxes, the Secret, or any other new age wingnuttery from Celia Farber<br />
<br />
The <b>DenierList™</b> will be an invaluable resource for participants in internet discussions about whether HIV is the cause of AIDS, whether it is sexually transmissible, whether HIV testing is meaningful, and whether the treatments are nothing but toxic poisons promoted by teh Evil PharmaGenocideDeathCult.<br />
<br />
This will be a boon to <b>HIV/AIDS</b> <b>"rethinkers"</b>. No longer will they need to go through the trouble of trying to construct coherent logical arguments around the standard canards, or remember which are the copy/paste keys for spamming third party websites. Now it is as simple as:<br />
1. choose one or more Canards from our comprehensive <b>DenierList™</b><br />
2. select the unique <b>Canard Identifier Number (CIN)</b> from 001 to <strike>100</strike> 150 best corresponding to your favorite Canard(s)<br />
3. post <b>CIN</b><br />
<br />
The <b>DenierList™</b> is also ideal for players of <b>AIDS Denialist Bingo™</b> (played along the same lines as </span><a href="http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2007/09/bingo-creationi.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Creationist Bingo</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">) .<br />
<br />
It’s as easy as:<br />
1. Choose the array of your <b>AIDS Denialist Bingo™</b> card.<br />
2. Set up your game card using randomized allocation of listed Canards to each space in the array.<br />
3. Log on to your chosen thread, and as denialists spout each Canard, mark it off on your card.<br />
4. When you have marked off a complete line of Canards either horizontally, vertically or diagonally from corner to corner you have... Bingo!<br />
<br />
*Note: Most novice players select a 25, 36 or 49 Canard card, but serious players on threads like some of the longer discussions on <i>Aetiology</i> or the <i>BMJ Rapid Responses</i> might prefer the challenge of an 81, 100, 121 or maybe 144 Canard Bingo card. Even a single post by Andrew Maniotis ups the ante to at least a 64 canard game.<br />
<br />
Get Playing!<br />
<br />
(Thanks to Seth and Poodles for your contributions to the DenierList™ Sorry Michael: your idiocy about stress=shrunken thymus=AIDS will have to be held over till the 121 or 144 Canard DenierList™ <strike><span style="color: #990000;">COMING SOON!</span></strike>) </span></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-68521520960034543412009-03-28T11:57:00.050+11:002011-08-23T13:21:29.451+10:00STOP PRESS: Henry Bauer knows bugger-all about epidemiology, and HATES IT when you correct him on his own blogFAIRLY STANDARD BIT OF BAUERIAN NONSENSE on <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/">HIV Skeptic </a>the other day.<br />
<br />
The occasion was the release of the (United States) District of Columbia’s <a href="http://www.dchealth.dc.gov/doh/lib/doh/pdf/dc_hiv-aids_2008_updatereport.pdf">HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Annual Report for 2008 </a>which announced that 15,120 prevalent adult/adolescent cases of HIV infection had been notified up to the end of 2007, giving a prevalence rate in the District of 2.98%. This was an increase from the previous year: only 12,428 cases had been notified up to the end of 2006, for a prevalence rate of 2.49%.<br />
<br />
Henry’s gripe was with the way this was reported in the main news media as DC’s HIV prevalence rate “hitting” 3%, as if the change from 2006 to 2007 represented new actual seroconversions occurring in that 12 month period. In fact, much of the apparent rise was the product of a belated but fairly concerted testing campaign to identify previously undiagnosed cases, and also to tighten up the HIV surveillance notification system, which has been basically non-existent until quite recently. Readers from countries such as Canada or Australia might be surprised to note that the 2007 report (compiling data to the end of 2006) was the <em>first ever</em> to try to tally actual HIV diagnoses in the District. Prior to that, HIV prevalence rates were fairly rough estimates based to a large extent on AIDS notification rates, and a figure somewhere around one in twenty has been generally accepted for some years. (DC's AIDS (not just HIV infection) rate in 2006 was 2.0% (2,016.5 per 100,000) <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/pdf/map1-2.pdf">according to the CDC estimate</a>.)<br />
<br />
This prompts Henry to fume:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Ignorance of the past is exemplified here by the report, from January 2008, that <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/01/07/hll20107.htm" target="_blank">“One in 20 Washington, D.C. residents is HIV-positive”</a> . One in 20 equals 5%. Fifteen months later, the media trumpet the alarming “news” that the rate has “hit” 3%. They should rather have been celebrating the <b>40% decrease from 5 percent to only 3 percent</b> in not much over a year. With the media, it’s a lack of familiarity with the data and the history of these press releases. With officialdom, it’s that every string must be pulled to remind everyone how serious the situation is and how desperately the pertinent agencies, offices, and workers need continual infusion of funds.</blockquote>Now media reporting about HIV/AIDS is like media reporting about other important issues: some of it is <a href="http://www.10news.com/health/5577993/detail.html">ignorant, sensationalist crap</a>, and some of it is more intelligent, informed and nuanced (See Craig Timberg’s <em>Washington Post</em> article linked below, as an example of the latter). But here <strong>Henry is completely missing the mark</strong>: the 5% figure is an <em>estimate</em> <em>of the actual prevalence</em>, the number of people walking round with HIV whether they know it or not, while the 3% figure is a <em>count</em> of actual <em>diagnoses notified</em> up to a particular date. The fact that the count could increase from 2.5 to 3% in a single year indicates that the testing and notification figure is still underestimating the true prevalence, and actually suggests that the 5% estimate may not be all that far from reality. Nationwide, the CDC estimated in <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5739a2.htm">2006 that 21% of HIV cases </a>in the country were as yet undiagnosed, using back calculation methods based on the disease progression at the time of new diagnoses. DC’s unreported HIV figure is almost certainly higher than that, not just because many are still undiagnosed, but also because the name-based notification system is only a couple of years old, and has yet to fully mature.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032001761.html">AIDS IN THE DISTRICT IS SERIOUS BUT NOT CRITICAL </a>according to the <em>Washington Post's</em> Craig Timberg, but it depends on what you call "critical". While it’s an order of magnitude higher than the country as a whole, and is similar to the <em>national</em> prevalence of some sub-Saharan African countries, much of this is an artifact of DC's unique geography in the US. DC is a small (177 km²) densely populated inner urban parcel of land smack bang in the middle of a large metropolis which is itself only one of several in one of the most urbanized regions on the planet. HIV is disproportionately an inner urban phenomenon in most Western countries because that’s where the relevant sexual and drug using networks tend to concentrate. You can’t directly compare DC’s rates with those of whole states or countries that include not only inner urban but also suburban, small town and rural populations.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, a slowly rising <em>true</em> prevalence is not <em>all</em> bad news. Prevalence is cumulative incidence minus deaths: and while a rise in prevalence reflects disease transmission and new infections, it is also a function of improved survival: HIV positive populations are increasing, but they’re also getting older – the treatments are working and more people are <em>living</em> with HIV/AIDS rather than <em>dying</em> from it. <br />
Those considerations aside, a three to five per cent seroprevalence is still substantial and concerning even for an inner city district in the first world, and indicates longer term failures in public health, exemplified by the fact that no one knows how many HIV positive cases remain uncounted, even in 2009. You can't have a flexible and targeted respose to prevention if you can't follow trends in new infections because you are still playing catch-up counting the old ones. And if substantial numbers of people have HIV and are unaware of it then they are more likely to infect others, and individuals will often miss the optimum window for commencing treatment. <br />
One issue has been that Congress has obstinately and perversely blocked city funding for needle exchange services until recently - this is an absolutely bedrock-basic public health measure that's been accepted in most comparable parts of the first world for years if not decades. Injecting drug users have sexual partners (and babies) like everyone else. A lack of ready access to clean needles threatens the health not only of IDUs themselves but the community generally. A lack of reliable prevalence and incidence data means that potential threat is hard to track.<br />
One fallacy that arises from dividing people into "risk groups" for infection - gay men, IDUs, high risk heterosexuals - is that it fosters the illusion of separate parallel epidemics in separate groups. In reality, this is not necessarily the case: for example an infant may be perinatally infected by a mother who contracted HIV heterosexually from a partner who contracted it sharing a needle with a male who got it homosexually from another male and so on down the chain of transmission. When you ignore IDUs in your public health efforts to prevent HIV transmission for whatever political reasons, you undermine everything you've been trying to do to prevent heterosexual, homosexual and perinatal transmission as well. Politicians just don't seem to get this.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
LIKE MANY CRANK DENIALISTS, Bauer is going off half cocked at mainstream press reports that he hasn’t bothered to understand. <strong>This becomes clear in the comments section of his post</strong>, which is interesting reading in itself with several different themes, including Michael Geiger’s bizarre psychologising (see my previous post <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/michael-geiger-applies-his-own-brand-of.html">here</a>) and Henry’s ongoing obsessive fascination with the mechanical and microbial integrity of the Gay Male Lower Intestinal Tract (which deserves a RE post in itself). But for now let’s stick to the epidemiology, which was the subject of his header post.<br />
<br />
The weirdness begins at comment #2 with “Jonathan” (resistanceisfruitful or RIF) announcing that he is <a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/resistanceisfruitful/2009/03/19/stop_the_press_40_decrease_in_hiv_in_washington_dc">quoting Henry’s nonsense on his own blog </a>on <em>Open Salon</em>. Then a poster called MG18 turns up on RIF’s <em>Salon</em> blog, and makes critical comments about Henry’s understanding of the figures and posts a link to <em>Reckless Endangerment</em>. RIF wrongly assumes MG18 is yours truly Snout, and huffily accuses him/her of stalking him. Fine, says MG18, <a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/mg18/2009/03/21/has_dcs_hiv_rate_declined_40">I’ll do my own post on the subject </a>on <em>Salon</em> and makes a pretty good fist of deconstructing Henry’s nonsense figures.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in his dial-up-internet-connected kennel in the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/1075854028808.html">World's Top City</a>, Snout is relaxing after a hard day at Pharma Shills Inc., and has been indulging in his favorite secret vice of vanity googling. He discovers that his name is being taken, well, in vain, and that he has already been banned from a blog he’s never in fact visited. Curiosity piqued, he checks out the various threads, and reads the following comment, #5, on <em>HIV Skepticism</em>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><em><strong>Henry Bauer said<br />
</strong></em><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2829" title=""><em><strong>Monday, 23 March 2009 at 5:17 pm</strong></em></a><br />
<em><strong><br />
</strong></em>Que?<br />
The anonymous blogger [MG18] merely confuses things by mixing numbers of<br />
cases and rates. Whenever rates are cited, it’s the number of HIV+ RELATIVE TO THE NUMBER TESTED. Since rates are cited for 2008 and for 2009, one can legitimately compare those directly. Trying to calculate between rates and numbers can’t be done without considering the numbers who were tested in each case. Everything is consistent with what I wrote, that the “epidemic of HIV” is an epidemic of TESTING. This anonymous blogger is typical of the HIV/AIDS groupies and vigilantes in trying to evade facts by red herrings and obfuscations.</blockquote>At this point, Snout’s irony meter spins into overdrive, and he cannot resist the temptation to send a post to Henry, despite the unlikelihood it will pass his “moderation”. Surprisingly, it does, and appears as comment #8:<br />
<blockquote><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/"><strong><em>Snout</em></strong></a><strong><em> said<br />
</em></strong><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2837" title=""><strong><em>Monday, 23 March 2009 at 11:51 pm</em></strong></a><strong><em> </em></strong><br />
<strong><em><br />
</em></strong>“<em>Whenever rates are cited, it’s the number of HIV+ RELATIVE TO THE NUMBER TESTED</em>.”<br />
<br />
No it’s not, Henry.<br />
<br />
The 3% figure (2.98% to be precise) is the percentage of the entire adult population of DC who<br />
(a) are currently living, and<br />
(b) have been diagnosed with HIV.<br />
<br />
In round figures, 15,000 are currently living with an HIV diagnosis out of a<br />
population of a little under half a million. Around 3% in other words.<br />
There is also an unknown number of people who have HIV antibodies (and thus HIV infection according to mainstream science) who have yet to be diagnosed. Some estimates put their numbers at around 10,000. If that is the case, then the total number of people with HIV (diagnosed or undiagnosed) would be 25,000 or around 5% of the half million population of DC.</blockquote>And Henry’s reply?<br />
<blockquote><strong><em>Henry Bauer said<br />
</em></strong><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2843" title=""><strong><em>Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 10:28 am</em></strong></a> <br />
<br />
Snout:OK, I should have said, ““Whenever rates are cited, that OUGHT TO BE the number of ‘HIV+’ RELATIVE TO THE NUMBER TESTED.”If one merely takes the number of “HIV+” people DETECTED after testing x% of the population, it isn’t valid to divide tha number by that of 100% of the population to derive a rate, because you don’t know how many “HIV+” people there may be in the (100-x)% of the population that was not tested. If all the tests were carried out among the high-risk groups, then the true rate for the whole population would be lower, for example.The official estimates were given as 5% at the end of 2007 and 3% now. If those were derived by invalid calculations, it would merely be another instance where official HIV/AIDS numbers are not to be trusted, for quite a variety of reasons.The whole population of Washington DC wasn’t tested in 2007, and it wasn’t tested in 2008 or in 2009. The increase reported was an increase in the NUMBERS of HIV+ people detected AMONG THOSE WHO WERE TESTED. So the “epidemic” increase is not in the RATE but in the NUMBERS. It’s an EPIDEMIC OF TESTING — as also in other parts of the world.<br />
<br />
<em>(And in Comment #30 he adds):</em> “Please note also in the story you linked to, that the official position ALWAYS is that the “true” numbers and rates are (probably/almost certainly/surely…) greater than what was actually observed.”</blockquote><br />
It’s hard to know where to start with such a garbled and confused analysis. But never one to shirk a challenge, Snout replies with:<br />
<blockquote><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/"><strong><em>Snout</em></strong></a><strong><em> said</em></strong><br />
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em><br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2896" title=""><strong><em>Thursday, 26 March 2009 at 12:27 am</em></strong></a><br />
<br />
<strong><em>"The increase reported was an increase in the NUMBERS of HIV+ people detected AMONG THOSE WHO WERE TESTED."<br />
</em></strong> <br />
Henry, I think you are getting quite confused here. The number of people known to be HIV+ prior to them testing and getting a new incident diagnosis recorded in 2007 was zero. If you already know you have HIV you don’t usually bother retesting. If you do happen to retest after already having an HIV diagnosis then your extra positive diagnosis isn’t added to the year’s incident diagnoses, because it is already known and recorded.<br />
<br />
The prevalence numbers are calculated by adding all the new diagnoses for the year to the previous cumulative tally, minus deaths. The prevalence rate is found by dividing prevalence numbers by the whole population each year. You seem to be implying that the prevalence rate is calculated by dividing the number of positive tests by the total number of tests. This is only true if you are conducting a seroprevalence survey with a truly random sample of the population you are trying to calculate the rate for. That’s not what they’re doing in DC.<br />
<br />
Part of where you’re getting confused, I think, is in assuming that HIV positivity following a confirmed diagnosis is a transient phenomenon that changes from year to year, which is why I addressed this misconception very early in “Reckless Endangerment”. People who have a confirmed diagnosis of HIV infection one year don’t become HIV negative in subsequent years. The 15,120 HIV positive DC residents counted at the end of 2007 are all the adults and adolescents first diagnosed not only in 2007, but every year since testing began, minus all the deaths over the years. <br />
<br />
<strong><em>"So the “epidemic” increase is not in the RATE but in the NUMBERS. It’s an EPIDEMIC OF TESTING — as also in<br />
other parts of the world.”<br />
</em></strong><br />
The “epidemic” increase from 12,428 in 2006 (2.49% of the adult/adolescent population) to 15,120 in 2007 (2.98% of the adult/adolescent population) is an increase in prevalent cases <em>identified and counted</em>. It almost certainly doesn’t represent a 22% increase in actual infections out there, but is mostly an increase in the <em>proportion</em> of actual infections that have been identified and counted. We don’t know exactly how many people with HIV infection there are in DC. Some estimates have put it as high as 25,000 or 5% of the adult/adolescent population. So far, they’ve found 15,000 or 3%. The number and rate of identified cases is likely increase over the next few years, because if you find two or three thousand previously unknown cases in one year, most of whom are not newly infected that year, then there are almost certainly a lot more to be found. <br />
<br />
<strong><em>"Please note also in the story you linked to, that the official position ALWAYS is that the “true” numbers and rates are (probably/almost certainly/surely…) greater than what was actually observed."<br />
</em></strong><br />
True numbers will always be more than actual case counts observed, when there is still a proportion of the population yet to be tested. If you find 15,000 cases after testing say 60% of the population, then the true number of cases in the whole population can’t be less than 15,000. It’s 15,000 plus however many there are in the untested proportion. The true rate of HIV prevalence in DC at the end of 2007 was (15,120 + x)/506,722, where “x” is the number of people with HIV who have not yet been diagnosed.<br />
<br />
</blockquote>Needless to say, this comment failed Henry’s moderation criteria. If it had passed, it would have been comment #33.<br />
<br />
<br />
BY NOW, ASTUTE READERS OF <em>Reckless Endangerment</em> and Henry Bauer’s <em>HIV Skepticism</em> will have realized one of the main reasons I set this blog up.<br />
<br />
Henry’s <em>HIV Skepticism</em> was created partly as an author’s blog to promote his 2007 book <em>The Origin Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory</em>, and he uses it to try to reach a wider audience for his beliefs about HIV and AIDS which are founded on his own rather eccentric interpretation of HIV/AIDS epidemiology. He also uses it to uncritically repeat many of the standard Canards of AIDS Denialism, and to rail about the generally poor state of modern science, whose principal deficiency has been a failure to recognize Henry's self-evident iconoclastic genius. By some accounts <em>HIV Skepticism</em> has become something of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person)">a full time hobby for him in his retirement</a>. Next thing you know he'll be <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/open-letter-to-my-representatives-in-congress/">penning furious letters </a>to his congressman.<br />
<br />
In truth, Henry’s grasp of HIV epidemiology is<strong> ill-informed, confused and hopelessly inept</strong>. The reason his “insights” have been largely ignored by the scientific mainstream has nothing to do - as he claims - with self-interested scientific cartels or knowledge monopolies. It’s because his thesis is just plain woeful, and would be a miserable failure if submitted even at undergraduate level in any competent statistics or epidemiology course.<br />
<br />
Henry uses “moderation” in his blog to create the illusion that thesis has never been answered, and is, in fact, unanswerable.<br />
<br />
Que?Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-87946420270996140262009-03-25T19:30:00.021+11:002011-08-30T12:39:18.520+10:00Michael Geiger applies his half-baked pop-psychology to SnoutI'M TRYING TO KEEP FOCUSED on the substance of Henry Bauer’s argument, but the following <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/">exchange </a>yesterday between Henry and Michael Geiger on HIV Skeptic is so precious it deserves copying and pasting here, to preserve it on the off chance case Michael and Henry realize how creepy their discussion is and delete it.<br />
<br />
Now I'll say at the outset that I don't think Henry hates gays. In fact, I think he has made a sterling effort for someone of his generation to publicly "rethink" <a href="http://henryhbauer.homestead.com/Iwaswrong.html">his previous unreconstructed attitudes</a> and deserves full credit for that. But it's pretty obvious that when faced with a kook like Geiger he is absolutely out of his depth. <br />
<br />
I don't think it needs any more commentary than that. Enjoy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote><strong>Michael said</strong> <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2856">Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 2:23 pm</a><br />
<br />
[…] Minor PS to Snout: YOU are a traitor to our gay community. <br />
<br />
<strong>Henry Bauer said</strong> <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2858">Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 3:12 pm</a><br />
<br />
Re your “minor PS”: Do you know who Snout is, to know that he is gay? I only know that his e-mails come from Australia. <br />
<br />
<strong>Michael said </strong><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2860">Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 3:41 pm</a><br />
<br />
Henry,<br />
<br />
As regards Snout, he has admitted on other blogsites that he is gay. I do not know him personally, only that he has stated that he too is a gay man.<br />
<br />
I myself truly consider gays such as Snout, whoever he is, who have been thoroughly exposed to all of the discrepancies in HIV/AIDS theory and to the disaster of AZT, to be <a href="http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/">very much like a Jew who survived extermination by the Nazis </a>by volunteering as a guard at Auschwitz, telling his fellow Jewish brethren to go on in and get a nice shower while all the time knowing he was leading them to their deaths by gassing and chemical extermination.<br />
<br />
Though I am also aware that he is likely a true believer in an HIV threat and that his zealousness is likely driven by a moral crusade that is likely founded in both his paranoia of AIDS and a deep internalized self-loathing for being gay that would create a lack of compassionate understanding of the self-destructiveness inherent in so many self-loathing gay men. I also find that many gays seem to have a need for the boogeyman of HIV to be real, in their own efforts to keep themselves from acting out sexual addiction that they may also often be prone to. When one does not feel good about themselves, which, due to internalized homophobia, so many gay men are prone to, they often seek relief from the uncomfortable emotional pain of self-loathing internal shame via drug, alcohol, or sex addiction, which unfortunately leads them back to even greater internal shame and guilt. The threat of impending death by HIV/AIDS is oftentimes the only tool that many of these do-gooder gay men have at their disposal and they often use it to hold themselves back from such intense sexual desires and internal sexual addictions.<br />
<br />
A 12-step recovery program would be far more useful and helpful, but few will take such a route because it is a serious commitment and they often loathe the spiritual aspects that the 12-step programs are based upon.<br />
<br />
So, I do understand, but nonetheless, a spade is a spade, and should be called such. Such behavior as hiding behind the false HIV/AIDS theory to keep from addressing one’s internal propensities for sexual addiction is overall very destructive, and certainly is not beneficial to anyone either. And all who do so, just as a spade is a spade, are traitors not only to themselves, but are traitors to their community, and traitors to all of mankind at large. <br />
<br />
<strong>Henry Bauer said</strong> <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2861">Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 3:54 pm</a><br />
<br />
Michael:Thanks for the answer re Snout; though I confess to not feeling able to accept as necessarily true what he says about himself. It’s awfully difficult not to judge people by their actions, in fact I suppose there’s no other way; yet the sort of intense emotions you describe could surely lead to “they know not what they do”… Cognitive dissonance keeps them from understanding the evidence, so they continue in their holy crusade.Sad and tragic as well as harmful. <br />
<br />
<strong>Michael said</strong> <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/stop-press-40-decrease-in-hiv-in-washington-dc/#comment-2862">Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 4:00 pm</a><br />
<br />
Henry, you are quite correct. It truly is “Sad and tragic as well as harmful”. And I believe it to be all the more reason to point it out directly to Snout, as one cannot begin to address what they themselves are not even aware of.</blockquote>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-9319749367185738802009-03-14T14:47:00.033+11:002013-07-09T11:28:29.985+10:00HIV/AIDS Denialism meets medical ignorance: Henry Bauer on Christine Maggiore’s death<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">EVEN MORE DEPRESSING than the news this week of Christine Maggiore’s immediate cause of death in late December are the predictable cognitive contortions and misrepresentations of AIDS “dissidents” as they try to maintain their denial in the face of plain and evident fact. </span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/eliza-jane-lawsuit-settled/#comment-2676"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Here’s Henry Bauer’s contribution</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">, which I think is a fine a specimen as I’ve seen of weasel words, distortion, medical ignorance, obfuscation and Henry’s very own brand of alterno-bizarro probability statistics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">I’ve interspersed it with my own comments.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
First point, directly as to what caused Christine’s death: The death certificate is unequivocal. There is no mention of HIV or AIDS. That’s the official verdict, and her death will not be reported as an AIDS death and will not be included in AIDS-death statistics.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The fact that Maggiore’s HIV infection wasn’t mentioned on her death certificate does not “unequivocally” mean that it wasn’t, in reality, the underlying cause of death. The doctor who completed the death certificate, according to Maggiore’s own words, was “</span><a href="http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=328"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">really smart and very well versed in natural health care and <b>not at all into the HIV paradigm</b></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">”. Disseminated herpes in an adult <i>always</i> has an underlying cause of immunosuppression severe enough to allow that illness to manifest. And no, pneumonia in itself is not sufficient cause. The fact that no medically credible cause of Maggiore's immunosuppression is mentioned on the death certificate is an obvious and striking omission, but not evidence that it was absent in reality.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
She died of “disseminated herpes viral infection”, with “bilateral bronchial pneumonia” as an underlying cause, and “oral candidiasis” as an accompanying symptom not contributing toward cause of death.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Wrong, Henry, but nice try characterising oral candidiasis as <i>an accompanying symptom</i>. The oral candidiasis was listed as a <i>contributing cause of death</i>, but not <i>contributing to the pathogenesis of the main immediate cause</i>. A fine distinction that your readers will probably miss. Incidentally, if oral candidiasis was of a severity to be listed as <i>contributing </i>cause of death, we’re not just talking about a few soft palate spots here.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The continuing hysteria over “HIV/AIDS” tends to allow people to forget that there are a great number of possible reasons for immune deficiency, including<br />
just about any illness or disease.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Nope. Causes of immune deficiency sufficient to cause disseminated herpes infections in a 52 year old are very, <i>very</i>, few. A few specific cancers and their treatments, transplant anti-rejection drugs and HIV/AIDS are the only plausible candidates. Maggiore did not, according to her death certificate, have cancer, and nor had she had a transplant. That narrows it down a bit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Unless, of course, her MD was "not into the<b> cancer paradigm</b> or the <b>transplant paradigm</b>" and therefore decided such details were of not worth mentioning in her official death notification.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The original 1980s AIDS included 3 specific conditions: Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), candidiasis (thrush, yeast), and Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS). Much<br />
later it was realized that PCP — now more properly termed Pneumocystis jiroveci<br />
— is a fungal infection of the lungs, not a microbial one.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Pneumocystis was reclassified as a fungus rather than a protozoan following analysis of its genome and as part of recent and ongoing shakeups of the taxonomy of microorganisms. Not sure what Henry means by “not a <i>microbial </i>one”.</span><br />
<blockquote>
Candidiasis is fungal. KS, it’s now acknowledged, is found in many individuals who are neither immune-suppressed nor HIV+. So the original “HIV-associated” AIDS was comprised of opportunistic FUNGAL infections</blockquote>
. <br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Aside from Kaposi's sarcoma, whose direct cause aside from immunosuppression we now know is a herpes virus, and PCP - a fungal disease, there were eleven other broad "AIDS defining" opportunitistic infections predictive of an underlying immunosuppression in the initial case definition, including other fungi such as cryptococcus, protozoal infections such as cerebral toxoplasmosis and chronic cryptosporidiosis, the mycobacterial infection disseminated MAC and other viral diseases such as end-organ CMV disease and PML. It's not clear why Henry thinks the reclassification of Pneumocystis as a fungus is so significant.<br />
<br />
Seven of the 25 AIDS-defining opportunistic diseases in the 1993 CDC AIDS case definition are unusually severe and otherwise rare manifestations of common human herpes-virus infections such as HHV1 and HHV2 (herpes simplex) or HHV5 (cytomegalovirus), or are tumors aetiologically associated with herpes-viruses such as the not-rare HHV8 (KS-associated herpes-virus) and the almost ubiquitous HHV4 (Epstein Barr Virus). The occurrence of these severe manifestations of infection and tumors all indicate an underlying cause of <i>serious</i> immunodeficiency. HHV3 (Varicella Zoster Virus) is also a common cause of illness (shingles) in people with HIV/AIDS, but shingles is not itself AIDS-defining.<br />
<br />
Kaposi’s sarcoma, it is true, can occur in relatively immunocompetent individuals and in a generally indolent form. Such “classic KS” rarely killed the mostly elderly Mediterranean and Jewish men it has afflicted ever since Moritz Kaposi himself first described the condition in Vienna in 1872. However, disseminated disease always indicates severe underlying immunosuppression. KS was one of the first AIDS defining conditions identified because it appeared at rates and severity and in a population not previously seen. KS was common among gay men in the 1980s because they had both unusually high prevalence of KSHV (it’s sexually transmissible) and also the immunosupression underlying the development of severe tumor disease.<br />
<br />
Popper use, incidentally, doesn’t predict KS or any other AIDS defining illness independently of HIV and KSHV. Popper use does, however, correlate with both HIV and KSHV seropositivity, since poppers are used as sexual stimulants in the subcultures where the incidence of both viruses is high, and HIV and KSHV are both STIs.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
As Tony Lance’s literature reviews have revealed, the chief part of the immune system that protects against fungi is provided by intestinal microflora. There are reports that disturbing, damaging, these microflora allows fungal infections to take over. That’s why anal douching is positively correlated with AIDS<br />
incidence among gay men…</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Utter nonsense. The correlation between anal douching and AIDS (or anything that looks remotely like AIDS) in the absence of HIV infection is zero. Anal douching correlates with receptive anal sex which correlates with HIV infection which correlates with AIDS. Silly.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
…and why vaginal douching conduces to yeast infections in women. </blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Vaginal douching can change the local pH and local commensal bacterial flora which can predispose to thrush overgrowths. It has nothing to do with the intestinal microflora, and nothing to do with the T cell immune deficiency characterising AIDS.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
My personal experience has been of antibiotic treatments bringing on<br />
candidiasis: a few weeks on Bactrim seems guaranteed to deliver me episodes of<br />
penile or oral thrush.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Too much information, Henry. Candida species are normal flora of the skin, parts of the gastrointestinal tract and vagina. Mild candidal overgrowths of skin and orifices are extremely common for any of a number of reasons including excessive moisture (particularly around skin folds) and use of broad spectrum antibiotics which knock out competing normal bacterial flora. AIDS defining candidal infections (of the lungs, trachea, bronchi or oesophagus) are not <i>mild overgrowths</i>: they are serious diseases and pathognomonic of a severe deficiency in cell mediated immune function.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Christine Maggiore had been under tremendous stresses for years. She had been using naturopathic treatments including fasting and “holistic cleansing”,<br />
procedures that might well be counterproductive in terms of the intestinal<br />
microflora. There are ample reasons why Maggiore was immune deficient in absence<br />
of “HIV”.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">No there aren’t, not for immunodeficiency of this severity.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
It’s also often forgotten that, by the early 1990s, so many HIV-negative cases of clinical “AIDS” had been reported that a new condition was defined,<br />
“idiopathic CD4-T-cell lymphopenia” (ICL): low CD4 counts for unknown reason,<br />
and NOT AIDS.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">ICL of sufficient severity to cause disseminated herpes infections is as rare as hen’s teeth.</span><br />
<blockquote>
Christine Maggiore had a history of positive, negative, and indeterminate “HIV” tests.</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: small;">The canard that Maggiore had negative diagnostic test results following her positive diagnosis is an extraordinary claim that is regularly trotted out to support assertions that HIV testing is unreliable, and has never to my knowledge ever been supported by even ordinary evidence. Such claims are almost always the result of misunderstanding the nature of what tests were done, such as confusing a viral load level below the limits of detection for a negative HIV diagnostic test. If you make an extraordinary claim like this you need to be able to provide evidence for it, Henry</span>.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
There is therefore at least as much basis for ascribing her death to ICL as to anything else, including HIV/AIDS. The official conclusion, however, is neither of these, it is disseminated herpes brought on by bronchial pneumonia.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The probability of a random person dying from opportunistic disease due to ICL is infinitessimal. The probability that a person with untreated HIV infection will die with AIDS within 15 to 20 years of diagnosis is greater than 75%.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
An honest, evidence-based statement from HIV/AIDS believers might be: Although the official verdict is that the death was not owing to AIDS…</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">No, the question of whether AIDS was an underlying cause was not addressed, because the "MD" who filled in the certificate was "not into the HIV paradigm".</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
…we question the credibility of the attending physician, and suggest that the opportunistic herpes infection that caused death might have resulted from an<br />
underlying HIV infection of long standing.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">There is no other plausible explanation of T-cell immunodeficiency sufficient to cause disseminated herpes.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Admittedly, since on many occasions Maggiore did not test HIV-positive...</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Extarordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, not copy-pasting from other internet sites that make the same claim with a similar lack of evidence.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
...we have to acknowledge that this suggestion is not objectively conclusive. Indeed, since positive and negative tests were experienced in about equal<br />
numbers, the odds are no more than about 50:50 that the death was owing to<br />
HIV/AIDS.</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: small;">Bauerian mathematics strikes again. Wow</span>.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
An honest, evidence-based statement from HIV Skeptics and AIDS Rethinkers might be: All the evidence is compatible with the conclusion that Maggiore succumbed to an opportunistic herpes infection consequent on multiple possible reasons for immune deficiency, including intense stress, bacterial or viral pneumonia, and practices unfriendly to the essential microflora that provide so much of the immune system.</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">An honest evidence-based statement from "HIV Skeptics" and "AIDS Rethinkers" would be, well, very surprising. There are very few “possible reasons for immune deficiency” of a severity capable of resulting in disseminated herpes virus infections in a 52 year old, and essentially only one for a 52 year old with a 16 year history of untreated HIV infection and no history of transplantation or cancer treatment.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
While we cannot definitively exclude the possibility that there was an<br />
underlying long-standing “HIV” infection, if that were the case then “HIV” tests<br />
failed to reveal it on many occasions.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Such as when, exactly?</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The odds that Christine did NOT die of “HIV/AIDS” are certainly much greater than 50:50, we suggest appreciably greater than 90:10. </blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Bauerian mathematics str…<br />
…oh, never mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">UPDATE: February 3rd 2010</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">By now we know there is no doubt at all that Christine Maggiore died with PCP resulting from AIDS. On the other hand, it is less clear the relevance of the "herpes virus infection" that appears on her death certificate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Until recently, you could hold small doubts as to her exact cause of death, but over the past year or so her denialist "friends" have unwittingly made public the whole story, even as they were frantically trying to deny it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Back in January 09 Celia Farber posted on the net a private email written by Maggiore on December 19, during her final illness. It <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KLOS_Impact/message/11922">detailed her symptoms</a> - insidious onset of breathlessness and severe lethargy over several weeks, with an X-ray showing bilateral pneumonia, despite the evidence of clinical signs on chest ascultation.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i>
Regarding my health, I finally figured out what’s going on…but it got really scary. Here’s the scoop I just sent a friend:I have been through the absolute worst health nightmare ever. The cleanse, while definitely bringing about some profound benefits, left me feeling weak and dehydrated. I lost my appetite almost completely about 10 days ago and for some weird reason could only tolerate hot tea and hot chicken broth. I had been in touch with the cleanse doc who said all was typical, uncomfortable but typical. Not one to quit, I kept going. Then I started to have trouble breathing, I was feeling winded after the most simple task like making the bed. This last Sunday, I stopped being able to sleep at all. So finally, genius that I am, I made an appointment to see my MD who is really smart and very well versed in natural health care and not at all into the HIV paradigm.I could only get in to see her yesterday.</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i>
She said I was totally dehydrated and having a reaction to the herbs in the cleanse which she thought were suspicious. I asked her to check my lungs and she said they sounded clear. I told her I thought I should have a chest Xray anyway, just to be sure, but she was skeptical because I hadn’t had a cold, flu, cough or fever. But I insisted so she wrote me up to go to a radiology place that would give an immediate reading. By then I felt so ill I had to ask my neighbor to drive me and thank god he was there with me because I never would have made it to the radiologist without his help. As it turned out, the Xray showed a very serious case of bi-lateral bronchial pneumonia. The doctor immediately gave me IV rehydration, IV natural cortisone, and IV antibiotic. She said if I did not improve by the next day, I would have to go to the hospital which I argued would give me worse treatment, lousy food and maybe a MRS infection as a parting gift. I went back again today, had more IV treatments and she said if I can make it through the weekend without having to go to the hospital, she will be very happy. She also said I’m pretty tough to have had such severe pneumonia and keep going. I have three natural cortisone treatments I am to take everyday, and today I started with another antibiotic called Z pack which is different from the one used in the IV.</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i>
It’s a little scary because she asked me if I am allergic to the antibiotics she’s giving me but I’ve never taken them, so I don’t know. She stayed next to me during the IV antibiotic to make sure I was not going into reaction which sort of made me feel like I might be having a reaction! But I didn’t and I slept for the first time since Sunday last night.My appetite is getting back to normal and I am on total bed rest for two weeks. I can’t imagine doing otherwise.</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><i>
Christine</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">A competent physician would have a high index of suspicion of PCP on that alone, even without knowing that she had had untreated HIV infection for over 16 years (as is clearly documented by her </span><a href="http://www.houseofnumbers.org/Maggiore_s_Labs.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">test results shown in House of Numbers</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> released later in 2009). She was treated ineffectively with three different broad spectrum antibiotics (ceftriaxone, gentamicin and azithromycin) which would cover most causes of community acquired pneumonia - but not PCP. She died nine days after starting this treatment, refusing her doctor's advice to seek competent specialist treatment in hospital. It's not clear why she wasn't given treatment for PCP such as cotrimoxazole. Perhaps it was because her physician was not, as Maggiore put it, "into the HIV/AIDS paradigm".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Following her death, and unknown to the coroner or the treating doctor who completed the death certificate, her family arranged for a private autopsy, completed by a properly licensed pathologist, </span><a href="http://www.glenoakspathology.com/about-dr-posey.shtml"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Dr David Posey</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">. The family have never publicly released this report - it's clear they did not like the results: Posey apparently insisted in taking the ante-mortem clinical history into account in formulating his conclusions, as any competent pathologist would. This pathology report was to be kept under wraps, but Celia Farber spilled the beans back in July on the "New Scientist" thread. She made it clear that she knew that contrary to the information on the death certificate, the family had in fact arranged for an autopsy, and she further made clear that she did not accept the results, demanding a "panoply" of pathologists' opinions before she was prepared to accept plain and evident fact.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Ultimately, </span><a href="http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/2010/02/kill-child-lately-not-to-worry-call-dr.html"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Moe Al-Bayati</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"> was engaged to produce a whitewash of the actual report for public consumption. It consists of his usual implausible, selective and specious reasoning including pointing the finger at antibiotics and steroids, and most notably omits any salient details of Maggiore's final illness. However, he makes it quite clear that Dr Posey found and demonstrated PCP in his examination: according to Al-Bayati, Dr Posey made the following observations:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"There was marked alveolar distention by frothy eosinophilic proteinaceous exudates. Diffuse alveolar damage was noted in both lungs. There was also proliferation of type 2 pneumocytes with modest infiltrates of acute and chronic inflammatory cells... In addition, growth of Pneumocystis jiroveci (carinii) was observed on the H & E stained sections of lungs, liver, pancreas,spleen, kidneys and bone marrow, and confirmed on the Gomori methenamine silver (GMS) preparation."</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Al-Bayati also tells us that the December 18th Xray taken after Christine had been sick for several weeks and before she commenced treatment showed </span>"patchy interstitial infiltrates in both mid and lower lung fields"- a finding typically associated with PCP, and virtually diagnostic in a 52 year old with insidious onset severe breathlessness and a 16 year history of untreated HIV. Bizarrely, Al-Bayati disregards all this and tries to make out that the pathological findings (which amount to a <i>definitive</i> diagnosis of Pneumocystis pnemonia) must have developed after she died, or were perhaps the result of the treatment she received.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">For reasons that remain a mystery to this Snout, the public release of Al-Bayati's whitewash was assigned to Celia Farber and Clark Baker. Farber announced it on her Dean Esmay blog post <i>Christine Maggiore's cause of death</i> on December 10th last year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">It went down like a lead balloon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Even Dean Esmay himself (a close friend of Celia's and a notorious denialist) noticed that Al-Bayati's "analysis" was being presented in place of the real report by David Posey MD. The thread was deleted on December 14th and replaced by a histrionic tirade by Farber entitled “<i>People Have Died On All Sides of the HIV Causation Belief Spectrum</i>”. It lasted less than two days, before Farber deleted this one too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Snout's guess is that Maggiore's surviving family have told Farber in no uncertain terms they want her to STFU. If so, that's pobably good advice. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Moe Al-Bayati is of course the "veterinary toxicologist" retained by Maggiore to "reinterpret" her daughter's autopsy report from the Los Angeles Coroner's office, and which found that EJ had died from PCP secondary to AIDS. He was on the "advisory board" of her <i>Alive and Well</i> organisation, and is the author of a book he published himself through his company called <i>Get the Facts - HIV Does Not Cause AIDS.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Medical science commentator <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/christine-maggiore-and-eliza-jane-scovill-living-and-dying-with-hivaids-denialism/">David Gorski</a> predicted this fiasco as early as January 2009:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Indeed, if there is an autopsy and it shows that Christine Maggiore died of AIDS-related pneumonia, expect a replay of the Eliza Jane Scovill story. Expect more dubious attempts to spin the results as being something else. Expect HIV/AIDS denialists to trot out Dr. Al-Bayati again, who will dutifully examine the autopsy report and come up with an equally inane “explanation” for Maggiore’s death as he did for Eliza Jane’s."</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Many of us care about Christine's and especially her daughter's death. So much so, that we don't want to see this happen to anyone else again. Both deaths were horrible and unnecessary, and no-one deserves to suffer like that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Which is why telling the truth is much more important than self-serving denialist spin.</span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-50801190448433716782009-03-13T17:54:00.020+11:002010-07-03T20:37:56.466+10:00Is Henry Bauer pulling our leg?<strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">E</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">VERY NOW AND AGAIN, you come across something Henry has written that's so hilariously dumb it makes you think, "Oh no, come on, he can't be for real. This </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">has</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to be a wind-up, he </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">has</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to be pulling your leg, his whole "thesis" </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">has</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to be a satirical hoax cunningly designed to show how easy it is to get people to sign on to obviously nutcase ideas," in the traditon of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alan Sokal</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here's my current favorite:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<blockquote>And how could it happen that in California [30]—and even in San Francisco, one of the first locales of AIDS [31]—F(HIV) among childbearing women is quite low (less than 2 per 1000) [30, 31] and remained unchanged during six successive years (1990–95) [31]? <strong>With so many high-risk males in the vicinity, why were so few women infected</strong>? <br />
<a href="http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_19_4_bauer.pdf">Demographic Characteristics of HIV: I. How Did HIV Spread?</a></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Gee. Are there any ladies who have spent time </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in the vicinity of high-risk males</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> in, say, the Castro district of San Francisco circa 1980-95 who can let us in on their secret as to how they managed to remain uninfected by these </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">high-risk males</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">? Even despite getting in their </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">vicinity</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">?</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote></blockquote>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-43995224479358210212009-03-11T18:05:00.028+11:002011-08-29T21:00:55.306+10:00Review of "The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory" by Henry Bauer(Originally posted on Amazon.com)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 180%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Pseudo-scholarship - inept and unconvincing (1 star)</span></b></span><br />
</span><span style="font-size: 180%;"></span><span style="font-size: 180%;"></span><span style="font-size: 180%;"></span><span style="font-size: 180%;"></span><br />
<blockquote><i><b>The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory</b>,</i> by Henry<br />
H. Bauer; McFarland & Company, 2007, AUD62</blockquote><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">This book raises two important questions.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">The first is, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/05/crank_howto.php">what sort of person</a></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"> writes a book about the epidemiology of an infectious disease without first familiarising himself with the basics of (a) the discipline of epidemiology and (b) the disease he is pretending to examine?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">The second question is, what kind of "publishing editor" </span><span style="font-size: 130%;">from an alleged "<a href="http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/">publisher of scholarly, reference and academic books</a>" is too stupid to recognise an obvious crank who is entirely out of his depth with the subject matter he's writing about?<br />
<br />
In </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Get-Fooled-Again-Sceptics/dp/1848310145"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><i>Don't Get Fooled Again</i> </span></a><span style="font-size: 130%;">(Icon books 2008) author Richard Wilson writes:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote><b>Pseudo-scholarship</b> gives the appearance of being based on logic and evidence, but relies instead on distortion, omission, fabrication, obfuscation, fallacy, emotive rhetoric and conspiracy theory. Quacks, cranks and fake historians seek to deceive by misrepresenting bad evidence as good, and using sham arguments to dismiss good evidence which conflicts with their own theories - often characterizing themselves as 'skeptics' in the process. (p. 212)</blockquote><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">Bauer's HIV/AIDS argument is essentially based on epidemiology, a field he has no grasp of at all, and in which he appears to have made no effort to educate himself. He has simply made his methods up, and appears to have no insight into why this might be problematic. The end result is cringe-worthy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">For example, he tries to derive population-wide prevalence or incidence statistics from the ratios of positive and negative tests within quite specific subgroups and settings, without considering the criteria used to select the population under study, including the reasons for testing in the first place. He doesn't distinguish between prevalence and incidence, ineptly bundling the two concepts into his own neologism "F(HIV)". He compares the results of different cross sectional studies selecting completely different populations as if they were simply parts of the one longitudinal study.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">He makes claims about the population-wide prevalence of HIV compared to AIDS that are completely at odds with official statistics: for example he claims that HIV and AIDS have completely different male to female ratios when the ratio for Americans diagnosed with HIV is 2.75 to 1 and incident AIDS is almost identical at 2.70 to 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">He claims HIV cannot be sexually transmitted because of the age distribution of incident diagnoses, despite the fact it is almost identical to that of syphilis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">He falsely claims that HIV infection is diagnosed on the basis of an antibody response that is often transient. He claims that untreated HIV infection rarely leads to people getting sick. He misrepresents treatment studies. He doesn't have a clue about why opportunistic diseases such as Kaposi's sarcoma or tuberculosis might concentrate among people with a serious immune system disease.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">He can't comprehend why an infectious disease whose incidence is highest among sexual networks of gay men and among injecting drug users might concentrate in larger cities. Or why HIV didn't spread much into the female population of San Francisco given the <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-henry-bauer-pulling-our-leg.html">large number of <i>eligible bachelors</i></a> there with the infection.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">He assumes that if the incidence of a sexually transmitted infection is relatively high in a particular population they must be proportionately more promiscuous, which is like claiming that the waterborne infection cholera is caused by people drinking proportionately too much water. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">Not satisfied with completely botching his epidemiological "analysis", Bauer draws on his non existent knowledge of immunology to construct a vague and implausible fantasy about what the detection of HIV antibodies "really" means. It's, you know, like a <i>non specific</i> thingy response to umm, well, <i>stress</i> - like getting born, going through menarche, or living in a city. <i>Seriously</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">The second and third parts of the book are a rant about how scientists can sometimes get things badly wrong, and can be read ironically in the light of the woeful ignorance of his subject matter Bauer displays in the first. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">I can recommend this book as a cautionary tale for epidemiology students, as it describes exactly what not to do. Those interested in the psychology of pseudoscientific crankery might also find it interesting. However, anyone hoping to better understand the complexities of HIV/AIDS can safely ignore it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"></span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-82112211623688130682009-02-24T10:31:00.036+11:002009-03-22T01:36:31.895+11:00Henry Bauer’s harebrained disproofs III: “The age distribution of positive HIV tests superposes on the age distribution of deaths”<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">HERE HENRY IS CLAIMING that HIV diagnoses and HIV/AIDS deaths occur in the same age distribution, therefore there is no latent period between infection and death, therefore “HIV/AIDS theory” is wrong.<br /></span><br /><blockquote>“Another shibboleth [sic] of HIV/AIDS theory is that infection by HIV is followed by a latent period averaging [sic] 10 years before symptoms of illness present themselves; and this pre-symptomatic period is supposed to have been lengthened by contemporary antiretroviral treatment. It follows that the ages at which people die from “HIV disease” should be much greater than the ages at which they become “infected”. Yet the ages at which people most often test “HIV-positive” are the same as the ages at which people are most likely to die of “HIV disease”, in the range of 40 ± 5 years. There is no indication of a latent period, nor that antiretroviral drugs have extended it.”<br />- <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/how-">"How 'AIDS deaths" and 'HIV infections' vary with age and why"</a></blockquote><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">This claim of n<a title="Permanent Link to No HIV “latent period”: dotting i’s and crossing t’s" href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/no-hiv-“latent-periodâ€-dotting-i’s-and-crossing-t’s/" rel="bookmark">o HIV “latent period”</a> is so self-evidently absurd that when I first saw it I </span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">thought it had to be a hoax, and that Henry’s real agenda was to demonstrate how easy it was to fool people into accepting a patently ridiculous claim if you baffle them with enough statistics and hand waving. But sadly, he doesn’t seem to be joking.<br /><br />The claim is self-evidently absurd because when people die with HIV disease it is always<em> after</em> an HIV diagnosis (with the exception of rare HIV diagnoses first made at autopsy), and individuals who die usually do so years and sometimes decades after that diagnosis. Henry’s “explanation” of this apparent paradox is to wave his hands about and claim that the “hypothesized” period between infection and death does not exist, and therefore HIV/AIDS theory must be wrong.<br /><br />This “explanation” makes no sense. Even if HIV diagnoses had nothing to do with the presence of an infection, and even if there were no causal relationship between HIV and subsequent deaths, that would make no difference to the existence of the intervening period. Furthermore, the existence of a period between HIV seroconversion and death is not “a hypothesis” – it is a <em>fact</em> established through numerous longitudinal studies following subjects with a known time of seroconversion, and is a <em>fact</em> that exists independently of any HIV/AIDS theory. It is also a <em>fact </em>which is the everyday experience of millions of people currently living with an HIV diagnosis years and sometimes decades after their first positive test.<br /><br />The alternative resolution of this “paradox” – that HIV diagnoses and deaths supposedly occur with the same age distribution – is to recognize that it is simply wrong, and that Henry has either misunderstood his data, or has comprehensively botched his analysis, or is fudging and dissembling in his exposition. In keeping with his status as a <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/05/crank_howto.php">crank</a>, none of these possibilities seem to have occurred to Henry, but as we shall see, he has done all three.<br /><br /><br />TO ILLUSTRATE THE SUPPOSED “superposition” of HIV diagnoses by age over deaths by age, Henry has drawn us this graph, which he has reproduced in assorted variations throughout his blog, see for example </span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hiv-aids-and-age-hivaids-theory-is-wrong/"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">"HIV/AIDS and age - HIV theory is wrong"</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><blockquote></blockquote><br /><p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SaM1vw7y5eI/AAAAAAAAACI/-g8LiGYhGs0/s1600-h/fair+use+under+copyright+law.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306143880678401506" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 313px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SaM1vw7y5eI/AAAAAAAAACI/-g8LiGYhGs0/s400/fair+use+under+copyright+law.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">Now there is no y-axis scale provided here, so it’s difficult to know exactly what figures these curves are supposed to refer to, but even a quick glance leads us to the startling conclusion that between 1999 and 2004 people in their early sixties were diagnosed with HIV at the same rates as people in their early 30s (whatever those rates were)! </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><br />Another version of the graph can be found on </span><a href="http://aras.ab.ca/articles/presentations/200806-Bauer-HIVDoesNotCauseAIDS.pdf"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">slide 9 of a presentation he gave </span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">to the "Society for Scientific Exploration", from which we discover that young babies test HIV positive at 3-4%, a rate significantly higher than that of people in their 30s and 40s who seem to test positive at around 2.8%.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/ScQ1KvjPF2I/AAAAAAAAADA/AM37vYAjFuw/s1600-h/fhivdeaths.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315431918883247970" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 391px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/ScQ1KvjPF2I/AAAAAAAAADA/AM37vYAjFuw/s400/fhivdeaths.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></p></span><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"><div><br />This startlingly high level of positive HIV tests among babies is also asserted in his seminar notes from the talk he gave at the Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine:<br /></span><br /><p></p><br /><blockquote>Babies are infected at about the highest level found among adults who appear to be in good health. Infection rates drop sharply in the first year after birth, and begin to rise again in or after the teens. Males are always infected more than females, except in the low teens when females are more infected than males.<br /><br />- <a href="http://reviewingaids.com/awiki/files/BauerSeminar.pdf">“Truth is stranger than fiction: HIV is not the cause of AIDS” </a>p.6<br /></blockquote><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">That is nuts. Between 2003 and 2006 the CDC received between 100 and 200 notifications annually of diagnoses of perinatally acquired HIV from the 33 reporting states, out of around 4 million births per year for the whole country. This works out to a rate of about 0.005%, not 3-4%, allowing for the notifications that weren’t received from the non-reporting states. This compares with over 5000 HIV diagnoses annually in each 5 year age group of 35-44 year olds.<br /><br />Furthermore, from the scale provided on the version of the graph presented to the SSE Henry is claiming HIV positive rates for most age ranges of around 1-3%, which is odd since the total <strong>prevalence</strong> of HIV in the US is currently only around 0.3%. Worse, he seems to be claiming these rates as referring to <strong>incident</strong> diagnoses (new diagnoses made each given year) when the CDC estimates an annual infection rate of only 0.017% (around 50,000 new infections annually per 300 million Americans).<br /><br />And are 62 year olds really diagnosed with HIV at the same rate as 32 year olds?<br /><br /><strong>Well, no</strong>.<br /><br />Since 2003 the CDC has published annual data for incident HIV/AIDS diagnoses broken down by 5 year age groups for 33 states, and between 1999 and 2002 provided similar data for 30 states by 10 year age groups. AIDS diagnoses and deaths have been recorded for the whole country since the epidemic was first observed. The age distribution of HIV diagnoses in 2006 mapped to AIDS deaths in 2006 look like this:<br /><br /></span><br /><p><br /></p><br /><p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SaM6Dv2ScaI/AAAAAAAAACQ/_VsrIDO0Y6k/s1600-h/hivbmp2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306148622030762402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 388px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m_07Sa4htyg/SaM6Dv2ScaI/AAAAAAAAACQ/_VsrIDO0Y6k/s400/hivbmp2.bmp" border="0" /></a>Source: Cases of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2006, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/table1.htm">Table 1</a> and <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/table7.htm">Table 7</a></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;">A few points to note:<br /><br />1.The 33 states that reported new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 2006 </span><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/table12.htm"><span style="font-size:130%;">accounted for only 62%</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;"> of all people living with AIDS in the entire 50 states plus D.C. Therefore the amplitude of the HIV diagnoses curve is likely to underestimate all diagnoses of HIV in the 50 states plus D.C. by a factor of about two thirds. However, this is unlikely to significantly affect the <em>shape</em> of the age distribution.<br /><br />2. HIV diagnoses are not the same as HIV infections and seroconversions: diagnosis can occur at any stage from seroconversion until presentation with an AIDS defining illness (and occasionally later). The CDC estimated that </span><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/table2.htm"><span style="font-size:130%;">38% of AIDS diagnoses occurred within 12 months of first HIV diagnosis</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">: this tendency for late diagnosis of HIV infection was more marked in older age groups than younger: more than half of HIV diagnoses in the over 55s were followed by an AIDS diagnosis within 12 months, while less than 20% were among 15-24 year olds.<br /><br />3. The 2006 HIV diagnosis and 2006 AIDS deaths curves refer to different populations. AIDS deaths in 2006 occurred in people diagnosed with HIV any time during the previous two decades. Current annual mortality for people living with HIV in the US is only one or two per cent (15,000 out of about a million), which means that deaths in people diagnosed in 2006 will be distributed over a large number of years into the future. The median age of death with HIV/AIDS has increased by around 0.67 years per year since the availability of HAART: on those trends the median age of death for people diagnosed with HIV in 2006 will be significantly greater than the median age of those who died in that year.<br /><br />(A side note: commenting on a previous post, Chris Noble remarked on the fact that the age distribution of incident syphilis has developed a bimodal distribution since 2006 with peaks in the 20s and 40s. It appears that a similar bimodal pattern is starting to emerge with new HIV diagnoses clearly visible on the above graph – yet another refutation to Bauer’s claim that the demographics of HIV are unlike any other STI.)<br /><br /><br />EVEN WITHOUT CONSIDERING the three points above, it is obvious that there is a marked difference in the age distributions of HIV infections and HIV/AIDS deaths, corresponding to the “latent” period. So how did Henry manage to make such a hash of his data and end up with the ludicrous graph he keeps hawking round the internet and elsewhere?<br /><br /></span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/"><span style="font-size:130%;">Here’s how</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">:<br /></span><br /></p><br /><blockquote>To compare the actual years of that peak on “HIV” tests with the peak years of "HIV” deaths, <strong>I wanted “HIV”-test data for the population as a whole</strong>, since the death-data in Table A are also for the population as a whole. <strong>The most appropriate data-sets are those, totaling nearly 10,000,000 tests, published in 1995-8 by CDC for all public testing-sites</strong> (clinics for TB, HIV, STD, drugs, family planning, prenatal care, and more, as well as prisons and colleges and some reports from private medical practices). Pooling the actual numbers for each of those four years and making the appropriate calculations delivers the following results...<br /></blockquote><br /><p><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">In other words Henry is assuming that if, for example, the CDC funded 4,511 HIV tests for 0-4 year olds in 1997 of which 149 (3.3%) were positive, then that percentage can be extrapolated to the 15 million or so 0-4 year olds in the population as a whole, ignoring the fact that these kids were selected for testing from the few thousand in the country actually at risk of infection because they had been born to HIV positive mothers.<br /><br />Similarly, each other age group in the public test site data is not a representative sample of that age group in the population as a whole: each group consisted of people <em>with identified risks</em> for HIV infection, and who chose to undergo testing using the CDC funded services. The percentage of positive tests in each age group, therefore, is not just a function of the overall incidence in each age range, but also of the percentage in each group who (a) fit the CDC criteria for funding on the basis of HIV risk, and (b) choose to use public sites for testing rather than private, and (c) chose to test at all in that year. Some groups of people test regularly, others rarely, and the frequency of testing does not necessarily reflect the probability of having acquired HIV <em>since the last test</em>. Actual risk, perceived risk, and the options available for testing change in different age groups. Because of this, comparing rates of percentage positive tests between different age ranges does not give you relative rates of incidence for the <em>population as a whole</em>.<br /><br />Unfortunately,this elementary error of extrapolating data from highly and differently selected groups to the population as a whole is a recurring theme throughout Henry’s thesis. </span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;">ONE FINAL COUPLE OF POINTS for those who have bothered to read down this far. When Henry says, “the ages at which people <em>most often</em> test HIV-positive are the same as the ages at which people are <em>most likely</em> to die of HIV disease, in the range of 40 ± 5 years” he is being... well <em>vaguely</em> correct (or he was in describing the figures for 2004), but this is of very limited value in describing the <em>overall age distributions</em> of diagnoses and deaths. The “the ages at which people <em>most often</em> test “HIV-positive” (the <strong>mode</strong>) is not the <em>average</em> (<strong>mean</strong>) age, nor is it the <strong>median</strong> (the <em>midway</em> point with half above and half below): it is substantially older than either of these values, and is even further removed from the mean or median ages of seroconversion because diagnoses at older ages tend to be later in the course of HIV disease than at younger ages.</span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The “40 ± 5 years” is a fudge, too, spanning as it does an entire decade. Median age at diagnosis and age at death have both been increasing over the course of the epidemic, the latter rising more quickly than the former. And in fact both the median and modal age of <em>incident deaths</em> <em>- </em>not<em> predicted lifespan</em> - is now in the 45 to 50 range, the median increasing by around 0.67 years per year.<br /></span></span><br /><br /><br /></p></div>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-49019627248419583702009-02-08T15:54:00.020+11:002014-07-04T17:33:35.210+10:00Henry Bauer’s harebrained disproofs II: “Frequency of positive tests does not correlate with incidence of AIDS”<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">HERE'S WHERE HENRY REALLY GOES TO TOWN inventing new methods and principles of epidemiology. Even a quick check of available statistics exposes the nonsense of this claim, which breaks down to four parts:<br />
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<blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1. HIV and AIDS are not correlated geographically.<br />
2. HIV and AIDS are not correlated chronologically.<br />
3. HIV and AIDS are not correlated in their relative impact on women and men.<br />
4. Nor are HIV and AIDS correlated in their relative impact on white and black people.<br />
<a href="http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/">http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/</a><br />
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<b>CLAIM: “HIV and AIDS are not correlated geographically”<br />
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<b>REALITY: Per capita rates of HIV and AIDS correlate closely for different geographical areas of the United States, allowing for differences in the proportion of prevalent HIV cases infected earlier in the epidemic.<br />
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In 2006, the national ratio of “HIV (not AIDS)” to AIDS was 143.7 to 178.6 (55.4% of people diagnosed with HIV in the US had progressed to AIDS). The numbers of AIDS cases in each state is commensurate with the numbers of HIV diagnoses.<br />
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Some reporting areas have higher relative rates of AIDS than this: in New York, for example, 62.6% of people with HIV have AIDS, as New York City was an early epicenter of HIV infection, and there are a relatively greater proportion of people with HIV who have had it longer. There are no HIV notification data for California, but the reporting areas with the highest ratios of AIDS to non AIDS HIV diagnoses are those with significant numbers of cases early in the epidemic: New York, Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico.<br />
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For 2006 US data on HIV and AIDS per capita prevalence by state, See: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/map1.htm">http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/map1.htm</a></span><br />
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<b>CLAIM: “HIV and AIDS are not correlated chronologically”<br />
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REALITY: Pre 1996-7 incident AIDS rates closely follow the incident HIV infection rates of a decade or so earlier in affected groups. Since the introduction of HAART for a proportion of people with HIV pre AIDS, the median latency is extended somewhat, but the chronological relationship between incident HIV infection and incident AIDS in each affected group remains clear.<br />
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</b>Henry bases his assertion on the fact that overall incident AIDS diagnoses in the US peaked around 1992 to 1993 (which is true), and a claim that HIV prevalence has remained steady at about 1 million ever since 1985 (which is not). </span></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"What's more, not only has the distribution of HIV remained the same ever since testing started, so has the total number of HIV-positive Americans: [table inserted]. On the other hand and in stark contrast, the numbers for AIDS increased into the early 1990s and then decreased: [graph inserted]. So HIV and AIDS are not correlated chronologically either."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://failingsofhivaidstheory.homestead.com/MedSeminar.pdf">"Truth is stranger than fiction: HIV is not the cause of AIDS"</a> p3-4</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Bauer’s first error is to confuse prevalence with incidence: the correlation he is looking for is between <i>incident</i> (new) AIDS diagnoses with <i>incident</i> (new) HIV infections. Prevalence, on the other hand, is all incident infections ever, cumulated, and subtracting total deaths.<br />
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The sharp peak in AIDS incidence among predominantly white <a href="http://cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/slides/trends7.pdf">gay men in 1992 </a>and among <a href="http://cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/slides/trends10.pdf">IDUs in 1993 </a>corresponds with their peak rates of HIV infection a little under a decade earlier in the early to mid 1980s, and is a function of the <i>median</i> clinical latency of HIV of around 10 years – slightly longer among those using the treatments available at the time. AIDS incidence in other groups show less marked peaks, which occur later (typically around 1996-7) and similarly correspond to rates of new HIV infections in those groups around a decade earlier. Incident AIDS <a href="http://cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/slides/trends11.pdf">continues to rise in non-IDU heterosexuals </a>of both sexes, <a href="http://cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/slides/trends13.pdf">particularly among black women </a>, corresponding to rises in heterosexually transmitted incident HIV in the late 80s which did not begin to level out until the 90s and which continue to remain high. The overall US peak around 1993-4 and sharp drop thereafter reflects the fact that historically the predominantly white gay men and IDUs infected in the late 70s and early to mid 80s made up the overwhelming majority of early HIV and AIDS cases, however this has changed significantly over the past decade or so. The introduction of HAART made a contribution to reduced AIDS incidence from 1996 on by extending the median period of clinical latency, but its major effect has been on reducing incident deaths.<br />
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The early to mid 80s peak rate of HIV infections among gay men (and slightly later peak among IDUs) cannot be established from contempraneous HIV incident diagnoses because the tests did not come into common use until the second half of that decade. However, retrospective testing of stored samples from cohorts of gay men and IDUs confirm these early peaks in new infections.<br />
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The “flat 1 million prevalence” argument originates with Duesberg and Rasnick and is a staple HIV/AIDS denialist canard that has been repeatedly debunked. It is a result of cherry picking prevalence estimates, including the upper limits of very broad ranges, which were postulated tentatively or with misplaced confidence. Prevalence estimates from the mid to late 80s in particular were often based on very scanty data and had large ranges of uncertainty.<br />
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The best available evidence is that HIV prevalence rose sharply from near zero in the late 1970s till the mid 80s, before rising more slowly and even leveling out toward the mid 90s as deaths began to approximate new infections. Since 1996-7 following the introduction of substantially improved treatments, HIV prevalence began to increase again as death rates fell relative to those of new infections.<br />
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For US data on prevalent and incident AIDS 1985-2006 by various demographic indicators, see </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/">http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/trends/</a></span> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><br />
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<b>CLAIM: “HIV and AIDS are not correlated in their relative impact on women and men”<br />
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REALITY: Yes they are.<br />
</b><br />
In 2006 males accounted for 72.95% of people with HIV infection in the 33 states and 5 U.S. dependent areas with confidential name-based HIV infection reporting.<br />
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Males also accounted for 73.36% of new AIDS diagnoses, 72.91% of AIDS deaths and 76.98% of adults and adolescents living with AIDS in the US.<br />
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Rates of HIV and AIDS are, in fact, correlated in their relative impact on men and women.<br />
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<b>CLAIM: “Nor are HIV and AIDS correlated in their relative impact on white and black people”<br />
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REALITY: Yes they are.<br />
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</b>In 2006, blacks accounted for 47.17% of people living with HIV in the 33 states with confidential name-based HIV infection reporting.<br />
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They also accounted for 43.87% of people living with AIDS, 48.77% of new cases of AIDS and 52.98% of deaths from AIDS.<br />
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In 2006, whites accounted for 33.76% of people living with HIV in the 33 states with confidential name based HIV infection reporting.<br />
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Whites were correspondingly 35.38% of people living with AIDS, 29.68% of new AIDS cases, and accounted for 27.54% of deaths from AIDS.<br />
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Rates of HIV and AIDS are, in fact, correlated in their relative impact on white and black people<br />
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For 2006 HIV and AIDS data by sex and by race see: </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/default.htm">http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/default.htm</a></span> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br />
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GIVEN THAT BAUER’S CLAIMS are so clearly and evidently at odds with reality, the obvious question is this: how did he manage to botch his analysis so comprehensively?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br />
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Part of the answer is that he has made several kinds of fairly elementary epidemiological errors, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><i>and made them repeatedly</i>. For example, he often fails to distinguish incidence from prevalence (see for example the chronological argument above). He fails to understand that a series of cross sectional studies – for example HIV rates among blood donors or military recruits from year to year – don’t amount to a longitudinal study of any population, particularly since a prior HIV diagnosis excludes anyone from selection for future cross-sectional studies in these settings. One of his most common and serious errors, though, is trying to derive population-wide prevalence or incidence statistics from the ratios of positive and negative tests (what he calls “F(HIV)”) within quite specific subgroups and settings, <i>without considering the criteria used to select the population under study</i>, including the reasons for testing in the first place.<br />
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Much of his argument and analysis combines all three of these methodological flaws, often combined with basic faulty assumptions such as that HIV is diagnosed on the basis of a transient antibody response or that people diagnosed with HIV rarely progress to AIDS. He is hopelessly confused about the semantic relationship between AIDS (an immune system disease) and its indicator illnesses, and has no insight into why such illnesses are medically significant. He uncritically regurgitates misconceptions from other denialists about the sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic testing algorithms, and either does not understand or deliberately misrepresents the scientific literature on treatments. Occasionally he simply fails to read his data properly.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br />
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What makes him a crank, though, is that he holds on to his assertions </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><i>despite</i> the fact they are obviously contrary to evidence, and that he continues to make the same methodological errors even when they have been pointed out to him. Encouraged by his tiny fan-base he persists in his sad fantasy that one day his “insights” and “analysis” will be discovered by the scientific mainstream and he will be lauded for the iconoclastic genius he believes he is.<br />
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Unfortunately, his “insights” are flawed and ignorant, and his “analysis” is inept.</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-38306364001331737942009-02-05T18:07:00.021+11:002010-07-05T17:14:23.048+10:00Henry Bauer’s harebrained disproofs I: Are "the demographics of positive HIV tests unlike those of any infectious agent"?Perhaps partly in response to criticisms from this site, Henry <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hiv-aids-and-age-hivaids-theory-is-wrong/#comment-2272">has kindly summarized his case thus: </a><br />
<blockquote>"(1)The demographics of positive HIV tests are unlike those of any infectious agent, and<br />
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(2) frequency of positive tests does not correlate with incidence of AIDS;<br />
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set out fully in <em>The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory </em>(McFarland 2007). Since writing the book I have found further supporting data in the US data on deaths from ‘HIV disease’, see posts on my blog, hivskeptic.wordpress.com:<br />
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(3) the age distribution of positive HIV tests superposes on the age distribution of deaths;<br />
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(4) the risk of death alleged to be from HIV disease does not increase exponentially with age in the manner found in all other diseases and in all-cause mortality.<br />
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(5) The HIV tests do not detect specifically a retrovirus."<br />
(<em>numbers added</em>)</blockquote><br />
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Each of these claims - the <strong>five pillars of Henry's thesis</strong> - is utter nonsense. But like Tolstoy's unhappy families each of Henry's five central claims is ridiculous in its own way. I'll look at each in turn in the next few posts. <br />
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<strong><em>(1) “The demographics of positive HIV tests are unlike those of any infectious agent” </em></strong><br />
<strong><em></em></strong><br />
<strong>A</strong>CTUALLY, HENRY, THEY'RE A LOT LIKE the demographics of <em>numerous</em> other infectious agents.<br />
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No two infectious agents have <em>exactly</em> the same demographic pattern, and a even single pathogen will vary in its demographic patterns from time to time and place to place.<br />
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The demographics of different infectious diseases vary according to transmissibility and the relative importance of different transmission modes, the natural history of each infection, and the impact of human efforts to control them at different times and places: preventive public health interventions and, where available, treatments. The commonalities and the differences between patterns of age, sex, geography, racial and other social groups - and also rates of change in these parameters - shed light on the unique epidemiology of each pathogen. HIV is no different to any other bug in this regard.<br />
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Even before the discovery of HIV, the earliest epidemiological studies of AIDS strongly suggested an infectious rather than a non-infectious cause, because of the <strong>striking similarities</strong> between the demographics of AIDS and those of an already known infectious disease, hepatitis B. Like hep B, AIDS and ARC disproportionately struck gay men, injecting drug users, blood product recipients (prior to screening), the sexual partners of people with the condition and babies born to mothers either with, or at risk of the condition. <br />
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<strong>I</strong>T IS EASY TO FIND examples for most of the demographic indices of HIV in the US that have parallels in other infectious diseases. For example, <a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hiv-aids-and-age-hivaids-theory-is-wrong/">Henry tries to claim </a>that AIDS cannot be the result of a sexually transmissible infection because the median age of diagnoses was around the mid 30s, while the commonest STIs (chlamydia, HPV and HSV) have their highest rates of incident infections in the teenage years to early 20s. <br />
<blockquote>"When first named in the early 1980s, AIDS was diagnosed in people (largely men) whose average age was in the mid-30s (A). That already throws into serious doubt the notion that AIDS is brought about by a sexually transmitted agent, because it’s teenagers and people in their early twenties who are most prone to incur sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or infections (STIs) (B). " </blockquote><br />
<a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hiv-aids-and-age-hivaids-theroy-is-wrong/">Elsewhere he claims</a>: <br />
<blockquote>"That first positive tests come at a median age in the mid-30s or somewhat later is <strong>not compatible</strong> with the hypothesis that a positive “HIV”-test signifies a sexually transmitted infection."</blockquote>In fact, the age distribution of incident HIV diagnoses in the US just happens to be very similar to that of another sexually transmissible infection, syphilis: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats07/tables/32.htm">this table shows incident primary and secondary syphilis by age</a>: the median age of diagnosis from 2003 to 2007 was in the mid to late 30s (largely men). By Henry’s reasoning this “throws into serious doubt the notion” that syphilis is brought about by a sexually transmitted agent!<br />
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<strong>H</strong>ENRY ALSO TRIES TO USE the relatively high seroprevalence of HIV among US blacks compared whites to argue that that what is detected by HIV antibody tests <strong>cannot</strong> be a sexually transmissible entity: he argues that for this to be possible there would have to be commensurate differences in sexual and drug using behavior between races, a proposition he dismisses as too “racist” to even countenance, as if having sexual intercourse or taking intoxicants are behaviors that inherently place people beyond the pale of decent human society.<br />
In fact the reasons why HIV seroprevalence has grown more rapidly in black communities than in white (from a baseline of virtually zero in both groups around 1977) are more complex than simply reflecting in a directly proportional manner overall rates of unprotected sex or needle sharing.<br />
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But there is a much simpler test to take to Bauer’s claim that the racial distribution of HIV seroprevalence indicates that it <strong>cannot</strong> reflect an infectious entity:<br />
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<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats07/figures/36.htm">Here are the syphilis rates by race, 1998 - 2007</a> :<br />
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<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats07/figures/21.htm">And the gonorrhea rates by race</a> :<br />
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Both display a fairly similar pattern of racial distribution to that of HIV - although there is no reason why they <em>necessarily</em> should: while sexual transmissibility is a shared characteristic there are also major differences in factors like chronicity, curability, per-contact transmission and even the types of contacts that typically result in transmission.<br />
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Nonetheless, if Henry claims to be an HIV/AIDS “Rethinker” on the basis of the <strong>age distribution of HIV diagnoses</strong> or the <strong>racial distribution of HIV seroprevalence</strong> in the US, then he also needs to be a Syphilis “Rethinker” and a Gonorrhea “Rethinker”! <br />
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Can we expect Henry to soon claim that <em>Treponema pallidum</em> and <em>Neisseria gonorrhoeae</em> have never been proven to exist, cannot be infectious entities, let alone sexually transmissible? And that doctors who treat these conditions are nothing more than dupes of a corrupt scientific faction who are exploiting gays, blacks, thirty-somethings and other minorities to push their fiendishly evil treatments?<br />
<blockquote></blockquote>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-70857596500393839532009-02-01T15:58:00.022+11:002010-07-03T20:26:21.077+10:00Nit-picking or (K)not-picking? A Warm Welcome to Henry Bauer's “HIV/AIDS Skepticism” readers<strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Y</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ESTERDAY HENRY PUBLISHED a link to “Reckless Endangerment”</span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/hiv-aids-and-age-hivaids-theory-is-wrong/#comment-2269"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> in the comments section</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of one of his posts, with his complaint that “…as usual, my case is not being addressed, it’s just notpicking [sic] trivialities.”<br />
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If you have come here after following that link – welcome, and I hope you find this a useful resource in untangling the knotted, snarled mess of Henry’s thesis on HIV and AIDS. Henry is always complaining that no-one has seriously addressed the substance of his "arguments" ever since he first began publishing them around four years ago, and I am glad that he feels flattered that some random Snout with a laptop feels strongly enough about their dissemination on the web to have a go.<br />
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Now, I do not expect my efforts to make the slightest difference to Henry’s personal belief system or that of his most rusted-on supporters: my intended audience is those who have come across his musings on the net or elsewhere, and are wondering if there is anything to his views, and if not, where has he gone wrong.<br />
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As for the accusation of, well I assume he meant to say “nit-picking trivialities”, please judge for yourself as the posts on this site unfold over the coming months. </span> <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Consider if highlighting his mistaken assertions that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="" name="7741071704929514494"></a></span><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/bauers-basic-factual-howlers-i-very_19.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“very many HIV positive people spontaneously revert to HIV negative”</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and </span><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/bauers-basic-factual-howlers-ii-very.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“very few HIV positive people ever become ill”</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> are nit-picking at minor or “trivial” misapprehensions, or, are these are major factual howlers, foundational to his later epidemiologically based arguments?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Or is his claim that </span><a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-not-to-read-vital-statistics_27.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“…blacks and Hispanics suffering from HIV disease live longer than Asians, Native Americans, or whites suffering from HIV disease” </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">a trivial error based on a minor misreading of his data-source, or is it an obvious blunder, and the basis of about half his argument in his recent paper “Incongruous Age Distributions of HIV Infections and Deaths from HIV Disease: Where Is the Latent Period Between HIV Infection and AIDS” ?<br />
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Or what do you make of his </span> <a href="http://snoutworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/origin-of-bauers-persistently-failing.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">claimed starting point for his musings on HIV/AIDS</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, the relatively equal sex distribution of HIV positive teenaged military recruits in the US c1985-9? Is it really “unbelievable”, or does this simply demonstrate Henry Bauer's readiness to fall back on the informal logical fallacy the Argument from Incredulity?<br />
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The problem with Henry’s thesis is not a single factual misconception, or a minor logical slip-up, or an isolated misreading of data, or a solitary and inconsequential failure to grasp the significance of a particular study finding in the overall picture. His thesis consists of multiple examples of each of these faults, often serious, knotted tightly together, and presented in a prose style which superficially could give the appearance of erudition to someone who has neither the time, background, or patience to critically scrutinise the </span> <em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">content</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of his argument. </span><br />
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</span> <strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">N OBVIOUS QUESTION about this blog is “why bother?” After all, attention is what most “AIDS dissidents” crave – to many, even negative evaluation is better than being ignored entirely. This is a difficult question, but my decision to set up this site was based on seeing Henry’s ideas posted uncritically in mainstream web threads, and finding a lack of net resources that specifically deal with his arguments, which are at times as complex and opaque as they are flawed.<br />
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Unfortunately, to unpack the matted mess of Henry’s theory requires some knot-picking to begin with so the loose ends are easily identifiable. In the process I hope to clearly demonstrate the repeating patterns of errors that occur throughout Henry’s “work” on HIV/AIDS. There is a purpose to my choice of what order to approach each flawed element of Henry’s thesis, so as to make my critique flow coherently, while allowing each post to stand alone as much as possible. Please be patient, and check in again from time to time. I have an offline life and a day job (that doesn’t, </span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">incidentally, involve collecting payola from Big Pharma or the CDC).<br />
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It has become necessary to moderate comments, after one persistent troll from the “dissident” camp decided to flood a thread with a string of six successive posts, tediously repeating the same denialist canards over and over. This is not, I repeat, yet another site for denialists to post their misconceptions and misinformation, and I don’t have the time or inclination to address every barely-coherent tangential denialist stream-of-consciousness rant, particularly when their points - such as they are - have been repeatedly dealt with elsewhere. Other comments, including critical responses, that are succinct, intelligible, and to the point of the subject at hand will be more favorably received.<br />
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Enjoy.</span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403646328478439844.post-36855016861200250142009-01-27T22:31:00.018+11:002010-08-30T22:58:44.516+10:00The Origin of Henry Bauer’s Persistently Failing HIV/AIDS Theory -The Argument from Incredulity<strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">R</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">EADERS OF HENRY BAUER’S MUSINGS on HIV/AIDS will be struck by how often he cites a legitimate piece of data, finds himself unable to understand how such findings fit in to the overall picture, and concludes – often through a fairly opaque “logical” process – that the mainstream understanding of the epidemiology of HIV </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">must</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> be wrong, and that therefore HIV </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">cannot</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> be the cause of AIDS.<br />
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An “<a href="http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Argument_from_Incredulity">argument from incredulity</a>” is a type of informal logical fallacy where it’s claimed that because a subject is not well understood - either by the speaker or by others - it cannot be true. Bauer’s writings are riddled with fallacies of this kind – for the simple reason that much of his argument is based on his readings of epidemiology, a discipline in which he has no training or experience (and manifestly no understanding, imagination or talent) – and that he evidently hasn’t taken the trouble to listen to anyone who </span> <em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">does</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> have a grasp of the field.<br />
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Here is an example, which Henry alludes to as the starting point of his bizarre and meandering journey into the intellectual wasteland of HIV/AIDS denialism:<br />
</span> <br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My research into HIV-associated matters had been stimulated by the unbelievable assertion cited by Harvey Bialy [in his biography of Duesberg], that in the mid-1980s teen-aged females applying for military service tested HIV-positive as frequently as their male peers.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- </span><a href="http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/2008/12/" title="Permanent Link to The debilitating distraction of “HIV”"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The debilitating distraction of “HIV”</span></a></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By “unbelievable” what he is saying is that it is beyond him to understand why the proportion of teenaged military applicants testing positive might have a different sex ratio from that of the overall US HIV+ population of the time (which was - to be more accurate - 1985 to 1989, not the “mid-1980s”).<br />
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In fact, the original argument of Duesberg’s that Bialy was citing was that the male to female ratio of </span> <em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">AIDS diagnoses</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> in teenagers during that period overall was four to one, while male and female teenage military applicants tested HIV positive at roughly equal per capita rates. However, the reason for both Bauer’s and Duesberg’s apparent puzzlement are the same: </span><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">both have failed to realize that teenage military applicants c1985-9 did not form a sample representative of teenagers with AIDS or of the all-age population at that time, in regard to their risk of HIV infection.</span> </strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Through 1989, there had been a total of 367 reported AIDS cases among adolescents aged 13-19 of both sexes in the US. The reported transmission risk factors for these 367 were as follows:<br />
</span> <br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">160 (43.6%) were blood product recipients (many from factor VIII used for treatment of the almost exclusively male disease hemophilia).<br />
136 (37.1%) acquired HIV through male to male sex<br />
26 (7.1%) were injecting drug users<br />
23 (6.3%) were both homosexually active males and IDUs<br />
5 (1.4%) came from </span><a href="http://medindia.net/patients/aids/Aidsdistribution.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pattern II </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">countries<br />
4 (1.1%) acquired infection heterosexually<br />
13 (3.5%) the HIV risk was listed as “other”.<br />
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Source: HG Miller, CF Turner, LE Moses (1990): </span> <em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">AIDS: The Second Decade:</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on AIDS Research and the Behavioral, Social, and Statistical Sciences: National Academies Press.<br />
ISBN 0309042879, 9780309042871 (p 162)</span> </blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Now the distribution of incident AIDS diagnoses by infection category in the late 1980s was not the same as the distribution of new HIV infections at the time: heterosexual transmission of HIV had been accounting for an increasing proportion of cases both of HIV infection and AIDS ever since the start of the epidemic in the US (in 2006 it accounted for over 30% of HIV notifications, with </span><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2006report/table1.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">women infected heterosexually at nearly twice the rate men are</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">) and there were almost no incident cases of HIV infection through contaminated blood products after screening donations for HIV and heat treatment of clotting factors were introduced in the mid 1980s.<br />
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You really have to wonder at Duesberg’s and Bauer’s lack of imagination in not being able to work out why the male predominance of HIV among the US population as a whole or of AIDS among late 80s adolescents is not reflected among cohorts of teenage military applicants.</span> <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A career in the armed services is not usually the first choice for a young male with hemophilia for obvious reasons, and it is not hard to imagine why the overtly heterosexist culture of the military is less likely to appeal to the young male homosexually active teenagers </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">most at risk of HIV infection</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> than to their heterosexual brothers. Injecting drug use contributes moderately to HIV being a disproportionately male infection in the US (more males acquire HIV through IDU than females do) but military recruiters generally try to discourage illicit drug users from joining up. In other words, the applicants who were surprised to find out for the first time they had HIV were far more likely than the overall population to have acquired their infection by routes other than those that tend to affect males disproportionately.<br />
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Among heterosexually infected teenagers there is a female predominance, most marked at younger ages. Nearly twice as many females overall in the US are infected through high risk heterosexual sex as males, as noted above: the male partners who infect them may include some heterosexually infected men, but also include a substantial proportion who have been infected by other (non-heterosexual) routes such as male to male sex or injecting drug use. As well, HIV prevalence increases with age and sexual experience, and there is a general tendency for males to be slightly older on average in heterosexual couplings than their female partners, and for HIV to </span> <em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">heterosexually</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> transmit somewhat more efficiently from male to female than female to male: thus the relative female predominance of </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">heterosexually</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> acquired HIV is most marked at the ages closest to the onset of sexual activity.<br />
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In other words, in </span> <a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/263/15/2074"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Burke et al’s study </span></a><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">of teenage military recruits, the female bias in heterosexually acquired HIV was likely to have approximately balanced the male bias in other risk groups for HIV acquisition, given that military recruiting policies select against teenage males with those risks – hemophilia, homosexuality and injecting drug use.<br />
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For all of the above reasons, the relatively similar rates of first HIV diagnoses between male and female military recruits (which totalled only 393 diagnoses among 1.14 million teenage applicants over nearly 3½ years) is not surprising. What </span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">would </span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">be strange is if the HIV risk patterns among these youngsters </span></span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">were</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> identical to the pattern of HIV prevalence in the US population as a whole.<br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A</span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">RGUMENTS FROM INCREDULITY (often presented as supposedly "unanswerable” questions) and similar fallacies are as much a staple of the rhetoric of AIDS denialists as they are for the proponents of other brands of pseudoscience such as Creationism.<br />
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It is difficult to believe that no one has tried to explain the relatively equal rates of new HIV diagnoses among teenage military applicants to Henry Bauer before. To persistently argue a point from incredulity even when explanations are available, plausible and even fairly obvious once you take the trouble to examine the epidemiology in a little detail takes more than mere ignorance. It takes a particular combination of ignorance with closed-minded arrogance.</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><br />
</span>Snouthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00315836146914661895noreply@blogger.com4