Nexus - 0706 - New Times Magazine-pages

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deBriefings A DISSENTING VIEW ON AIDS POLICY CDC's own published numbers, the HIV prevalence within the by Michael P. Wright © 2000 vast population they were intending to frighten was actually s a former AIDS research grant recipient, I wish to praise declining as the scare propaganda was escalated. As African President Thabo Mbeki for his courage in As I observed the growing credibility gap between the percep- having publicly declared his willingness to listen to scien- tion manufactured by the scare campaigners and the reality tists who challenge AIDS orthodoxy. described in the scientific press, I became open to arguments For nine years, beginning in 1987, I was involved professional- attacking other elements in the officially promoted belief system ly in AIDS/HIV research. During the 1990s, I was awarded two about AIDS. In plain terms, one might ask: if they would lie as federal grants for this work by the Small Business Innovation shamelessly as they have about heterosexual risk, could they be Research program of the US National Cancer Institute. By the trusted to be honest about other aspects of AIDS? end of this period, I had become sceptical about official beliefs Robert Root-Bernstein, a Michigan State physiologist and the concerning AIDS. author of Rethinking AIDS (Free Press, 1993), was the first scepti- My project was to design computer software that assessed risk _cal writer to influence me to begin questioning the view that HIV for current HIV infection. After computing the probability of is the sole cause of AIDS. In a Wall Street Journal guest editorial infection by incorporating the anonymous user's answers into a (March 17, 1993), he pointed out that AIDS had remained within detailed history interview conducted in privacy, the software specific risk groups: gay men and "an ever-growing population of makes a recommendation about whether the individual should urban, drug-addicted, poverty-ridden, malnourished, hopeless and ave an HIV antibody test. medically deprived people". In order to win these grants, I had to review the epidemiologic Root-Bernstein further emphasised that those who suffer from iterature to arrive at plausible AIDS "have many additional measures of HIV transmission risk immune-suppressive factors at work for different kinds of sexual con- for them that predispose them to duct and at reasonable estimates of disease". His list of examples HIV infection prevalence within . included semen-induced autoimmu- various US population groups. "Every time the CDC needs nity following unprotected anal sex, ncn ties contuas | higher rates of new AIDS cases, fo! tints muline cna to fear a heterosexual HIV epi- it expands that definition once and pharmaceutical drug use, mal- Vaginal sexinihe United Sates, | @G@iN, and More diseases are Fe enon was that HIV does Although numerous studies reclassified into the syndrome. not explain AIDS in the absence of have demonstrated the enormously a co-factor. It follows that eliminat- low possibility of a heterosexua HIV epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) chose to ignore them and launched a fraud- ing the other risk factors is the plau- sible strategy for combatting AIDS, instead of treatment with toxic antiviral drugs. ulent campaign of fear to convince the majority of the American In the foreword to Inventing the AIDS Virus (Regnery public that sexually active people are at significant risk of con- Publishing, 1997) by prominent AIDS dissenter Peter M. tracting HIV. Duesberg, Nobel laureate Kary Mullis reports his failure to dis- The scare campaign was initiated in the late 1980s, and was cover a single scientific publication demonstrating that HIV is the nothing more than a political strategy to stir up popular support cause of AIDS. for elevated government spending for various AIDS programs, The official definition of "AIDS" has been an evolving political including pursuit of the elusive dream of miracle cures. drama whose script has been written by bureaucratic operatives Pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed handsome benefits from scheming on maximising advantage for their agencies. In the this endeavour, and now seek to expand their enterprises in South United States, there have been four official AIDS definitions since Africa and other Third World nations. There is a large body of 1983. Dr Duesberg says: "Every time the CDC needs higher literature which supports the conclusion that the possibility of a rates of new AIDS cases, it expands that definition once again, heterosexual HIV epidemic is enormously low. [Referenced and more diseases are reclassified into the syndrome." examples deleted due to space considerations; contact us for these In Africa, an altogether different definition is used. Created by if required, or see the website listed at the end of this article. Ed.] the World Health Organization, it does not even require that pres- In one of the more honest moments of reporting by the main- ence of HIV be detected in order to diagnose an "AIDS" case. stream American press, the Wall Street Journal exposed the polit- Given this state of affairs, a more plausible statement of a ten- ical nature of the scare campaign in a long article published on able scientific hypothesis would be: what factors explain serious May 1, 1996. The Journal described the creation of the CDC's illness and mortality in those who have been labelled "AIDS" "marketing campaign" to spread the belief in universality of risk patients? Are there, on published record, any cases of such for AIDS. The article reported that federal funding for AIDS- patients for whom all proposed causes of immunosuppression, related medical research grew to US$1.65 billion in 1996 from other than HIV infection, have been contradicted by evidence? $341 million in 1987, while the CDC's prevention dollars grew to (Source: by Michael P. Wright, San Francisco Chronicle, $584 million from $136 million. Interestingly, as shown by the May 24, 2000; www.lightparty.com/Health/Health.html) "Every time the CDC needs higher rates of new AIDS cases, it expands that definition once again, and more diseases are reclassified into the syndrome." 14 = NEXUS OCTOBER —- NOVEMBER 2000