TIG POSITION STATEMENT ON 'HIV'
Most people aware from what they've read in the newspapers and heard on the radio and TV that there's a controversy among scientists and doctors about AIDS think it's all about whether HIV causes it.
It isn't.
The reason for
this general misconception is that the best known dissident scientist is
Professor Peter Duesberg at the University of California at Berkeley; and he
claims, as all conventional AIDS experts do, that 'HIV' undoubtedly exists
and that it's a virus
transmitted from mother to child in the
womb and during sex ('readily' between 'the most sexually active
homosexuals', he alleges, but with 'extremely low efficiency' between
heterosexuals). But no worries, he says, because anyway it's harmless: 'HIV
is just a passenger virus': 'HIV
is a long-established, non-pathogenic passenger virus, neutralized by
antibody after asymptomatic, perinatal or non-perinatal infections (just
like all other human and animal retroviruses) [10].'
We disagree.
So do former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.
We share the conclusion of nuclear physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos in the Department of Medical Engineering & Physics, Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, that the HIV theory of AIDS is wrong for a more basic reason.
Mbeki stated it
in a monograph of which he's lead author, Castro
Hlongwane, Caravans, Cats, Geese, Foot & Mouth and Statistics: HIV/AIDS and
the Struggle for the Humanisation of the African,
discussed by a National Executive Committee meeting of the African National
Congress in March 2002:
Strange as it may
seem, given what our friends tell us about the
Virus everyday, nobody has seen it,
including our friends. Nobody knows what it looks like. Nobody knows how it
behaves. Everybody acts on the basis of a series of hypotheses about the
Virus, which are presumed to be facts, supposedly authenticated by 'clinical
evidence.
Those who have imbibed the faith that millions of us are infected by a
deadly HI virus will disbelieve the assertion that the work of isolating our
unique HI Virus has not been done. The omnipotent apparatus will scream
loudly that the telling of this truth constitutes the very heart of the
criminal non-conformity that must be denounced and repressed by all means
and at all costs.
Rather than perpetuate our self-repression, it is time that we demanded that the necessary scientific work be done to isolate and analyse the Virus that is said to be so deadly.
Former President Motlanthe, then Secretary General of the ANC, had the same
to say about 'HIV' in an interview by Professor Padraig O'Malley on 22
August 2000. Scientists, he said, are
still trying to isolate the virus. … this virus still has to be
scientifically isolated. … the virus must still be isolated. There is no
evidence anywhere that there has been any isolation of it.
In a further interview three weeks later on 15 September, he repeated that
our position is that from all accounts this virus has not been isolated and
photographed and studied under controlled conditions as to what its
behaviour is. … there is ongoing research work by scientists to try and
isolate this virus. … [Whites] are gullible. You see, half of them don't
read but they regard themselves as well informed because they're white. The
reason why when you ask – you ask any of the experts whether they have seen
evidence, any piece of document that says scientist so-and-so in such a
country has isolated this HIV virus and photographed it and studied its
modus vivendi under controlled conditions, they will swear at you. They will
tell you that question was answered twenty years ago, they will tell you you
are giving audience to dissidents. They will not tell you because it's not
there. That's why they become vicious because it is simply not there. They
take it on authority and then it gets passed on like that but there's no
authority, it's a lie repeated by those who are supposed to know better. The
truth of the matter is that if they were to admit that indeed no such thing
has happened ['this virus has not been isolated and photographed'] I mean it
would cause serious reverberations across the scientific world. … It would
be like when Galileo [challenged the geocentric theory of the universe] it
caused serious reverberations. That's what will happen with this thing.
(Trevor Manuel, then Minister in The Presidency
and head of the National Planning Commission, is also onto this, but doesn't
say so publicly. One of South Africa's leading medical scientists too, but
he's chosen to stay in deep cover for now.
President Jacob Zuma obviously
doesn't take 'HIV' terribly seriously either.)
Papadopulos-Eleopulos and her medical colleagues (the Perth Group) briefly
explain the point Mbeki and Motlanthe were making about 'HIV' in a brief
outline Proving
the Existence of HIV (PDF, 23 KB).
They
elaborate in The
Perth Group Revisits the Existence of HIV (PDF,
282 KB), a paper written for Brink to present with a supporting slideshow
of electron micrographs at an international
AIDS conference in Ekaterinburg,
Russia, on 29-30 May 2008.
Both papers cite expert evidence given by several orthodox AIDS experts,
including Dr Robert Gallo the author of the HIV theory of AIDS, in
the Parenzee case (more below), corroborating the Perth Group's pivotal
contention that before claiming to have discovered a retrovirus one must
purify it and publish electron micrographs of purified virus proving it
actually exists. The papers cite Professor Luc Montagnier, generally
credited with having discovered 'HIV' in 1983, agreeing. Likewise Professor
Jean-Claude Chermann, the second author of Montagnier's 1983 paper in which
he claimed to have discovered 'HIV'; he agrees too.
But not Duesberg. He's the odd man out here. Even though he's a professor of
molecular and cell biology, so you'd think he knows the score, he claims
that purification of retrovirus particles and proof of their existence by
electron micrography is unnecessary. No one knows where he gets this idea of
his from.
The Perth Group's exhaustive examination of the subject, 'A Critical
Analysis of the Evidence for the Existence of HIV', (written before the
Parenzee case) is appended to their monograph Mother
to Child Transmission of HIV and its Prevention with AZT and Nevirapine: A
Critical Analysis of the Evidence (PDF,
2.03 MB) published in October 2001: see Appendix XI at page 175.
An abridged
version of this paper, A
Critical Analysis of the Montagnier Evidence for the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis (PDF,
165 KB), was published three years later in the journal
Medical Hypotheses
2004 63(4):597-601.
For the most
recent treatment of the subject (September 2011) see 'The Emperor's New
Virus?', a documentary film free online, centering on an interview with
Papadopulos-Eleopulos plus interviews of the top conventional 'HIV
scientists. The Perth Group have published a Commentary on the film. Both
film and Commentary are linked
here
(PDF, 1 MB).
You may be
surprised to learn that 'HIV' has never been shown to exist, seeing that
Montagnier was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for his claim to
have discovered it twenty-five years earlier. The Perth Group outline why he
didn't in their Shortened
Commentary on Montagnier's 1983 Science Paper (PDF,
20 KB), and elaborate in A
critical analysis of Montagnier's 1983 'seminal' Science paper (PDF,
160KB).
See further:
Montagnier, T4 cells (acquired
immune deficiency) and the Perth Group oxidative theory of 'HIV/AIDS' (PDF,
120KB)
The 'HIV' genome (PDF,
116KB)
Papadopulos-Eleopulos's
evidence-in-chief in the Parenzee case (PDF,
4.5MB)
Turner's evidence-in-chief in
the Parenzee case (PDF, 1.2MB)
Are Montagnier's particles a
retrovirus? (PDF, 681KB)
Read also French-Algerian
investigative journalist Djamel Tahi's
interview with Montagnier,
published in the winter 1997 issue of
Continuum magazine together with the Perth
Group's
commentary
on his remarkable admissions.
And the Perth Group's
submission
to Medical Hypotheses
in February 2010 concerning the contradictory account Montagnier has given
of his method.
The Perth Group debated the evidence
–
the lack of it –
for the existence of HIV in the
British Medical Journal Online
and again on the House of Numbers
documentary film's
FaceBook page
(unlike Duesberg, the Perth Group readily and willingly debate all comers at
any level and in any forum).
If Montagnier never isolated
any virus in 1983, did Gallo, as he claimed the following year? The Perth
Group
explain
why he didn't either in Emergency Medicine
(Australia) 1993;5:113-123.
No, Duesberg says: contrary
to what the Perth Group, Mbeki and Motlanthe say about this, they are all
wrong: Montagnier and Gallo most certainly did isolate a new virus. 'Even
Peter agrees HIV has been isolated,' crowed Professor William
Makgoba at
Mbeki's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel in 2000, and Duesberg confirmed it.
(Makgoba, the AIDS industry's local champion, has been Mbeki's most
splenetic opponent in the South African AIDS controversy.)
Dr David Rasnick, Duesberg's long-time
professional associate and co-author, also thinks the Perth Group, Mbeki and
Motlanthe are wrong. Like Duesberg he goes with Montagnier, Gallo and
Makgoba on the issue. To him, 'HIV' is as real as his breakfast grits, a 'largely
inactive, barely detectable ... ordinary, humdrum virus' – in
other words a virus sometimes active, and detectable if you go looking hard
enough. But not always ordinary; wow, you also get 'mutant' and 'wild type
HIV', he claimed in a paper published
in 1997 with extremely impressive mathematical calculations and everything.
Less excitingly he claimed in the
British Medical Journal Online
on 1 April 2003: 'HIV behaves exactly like any other virus in that it
rapidly produces a strong immune response and is very quickly eliminated in
healthy people without a trace of infectious virus.'
Asked 'What is
HIV?' in an
interview in
August 2008, Rasnick reckoned, 'HIV is a retrovirus. It is one of at least 3
or 4 thousand that have been catalogued [this
is pure invention sucked out of his thumb]
and it would be the first retrovirus to cause disease if it were true that
it causes any disease at all. ... HIV is completely harmless and certainly
doesn't cause disease at all.' But then he added, all muddled up: 'HIV has
never been obtained from a human being.' Yes, he repeated to his amazed
interviewer, it's 'never been obtained from a human being' – by which,
explained, he meant 'infectious viable virus ... obtained ... directly from
the patient ... from a sample of blood [after you] spin it in a centrifuge'.
(Actually any textbook will tell you you purify from culture and
never 'directly' from 'a sample of blood'; and a 'virus' that
ain't 'infectious' ain't a 'virus'.) Five years earlier, however, Rasnick
claimed the opposite in a
paper
co-authored with Duesberg: 'A similar alert came from a French virus team,
which had discovered a retrovirus in a homosexual man at risk for AIDS,
which a year later became the accepted cause of AIDS (Barré-Sinoussi et al
1983).' They did they didn't, goddang what the heck!
But such talk at least shows that Rasnick the chemist has picked up somewhere that an alleged retrovirus must be purified to prove its existence; he knows that all biologists working in this speciality are unanimous about this; and Duesberg only reveals his disgraceful ignorance in claiming otherwise. Rasnick also thinks Duesberg's claim that 'HIV' is sexually transmitted is garbage. 'If AIDS is sexually transmitted in the USA then HIV prefers to cause AIDS in men. A very smart virus,' Rasnick scoffed in a letter to Dr Joseph Sonnabend, posted to the internet forum of Mbeki's AIDS Advisory Panel. 'I have shown you evidence that HIV is not sexually transmitted.' This is to say, Rasnick thinks Duesberg makes scientific claims of fact without evidence for them. He just makes things up as he goes along.
[*Update: Rasnick has since changed his mind and come over to the Perth Group's position, and now rejects 'virology' entirely.]
Duesberg and the
Perth Group closely
debated
whether 'HIV' has been proved to exist or not in
Continuum
magazine between May 1996 and February 1997. After which, despite his
drubbing in the exchange, Duesberg persisted with his contention that 'HIV
Is Real, But Harmless' in the February/March 1998 issue of
Reappraising AIDS, as the title to the
interview
with him summed up.
Decide for
yourself after reading the debate and the interview whether you agree with
Duesberg that 'The
evidence against the existence of
HIV was really naive, to say the least. Almost embarrassing.' Which is to
say only 'really naive' people like Mbeki and Motlanthe would conclude from
the 'evidence presented' that 'HIV' has never been isolated, and it's
'almost embarrassing' that Mbeki and Motlanthe should say such a thing. Or
whether you think what Duesberg had to say in the debate and in the
interview concerning 'the existence of HIV was really naive, to say the
least. Almost embarrassing.'
In a series of open letters
he wrote Duesberg between December 1998 and June 1999, Michael Nitsche in
Berlin pointed up the manifest scientific deficiencies of Duesberg's claim
that 'HIV Is Real, But Harmless' – all of which Duesberg ducked in
his 'almost embarrassing' replies, finally brushing Nitsche's pointed
questions off with derision. Read their correspondence,
and the
letter
Nitsche wrote to Mbeki about it on 2 May 2000.
On the thing mouldered until early 2008 when Sadun Kal, a bright young
Turkish student in Berlin, found the Nitsche/Duesberg letters online,
immediately spotted the root cause of the malaise in the AIDS dissident
movement, and took a lance to it. In March he wrote to the Rethinking AIDS
group and its members, raising in plain terms 'RA's avoidance of Duesberg's
failure to admit his own mistake ... He simply ignores the questions that
Michael Nitsche and the Perth Group ask.'
In a string of refreshingly clear, forthright and persistent emails, Kal
accordingly charged Duesberg with conducting himself unscientifically, with
confusing and dividing the AIDS dissident community, and with obstructing
the scientific resolution of the HIV-AIDS myth. Again Duesberg refused to
come out of his corner, dodging the issues Kal raised by tossing out a red
herring to deflect attention from the point. As for the members of RA, the
responses Kal drew were for the most part dismally stupid, emotional,
non-sequitous, condescending, defensive, accusatory and insulting –
culminating in RA president David Crowe announcing like a village
schoolmaster keeping discipline in his classroom that he was terminating
further correspondence because Kal was 'being incredibly arrogant' and 'owed
an apology to Peter over [his] rudeness'. A PDF collation of all the
correspondence is available on approved request; email TIG.)
On the
'HIV' isolation/existence issue, the Perth Group have the support of the
late Heinz Ludwig Sänger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and
Virology and former director of the Department of Viroid Research at the
Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich, Germany,
and winner of the Robert
Koch Prize in 1978. In a letter to
Süddeutsche Zeitung
on 11 October 2000 he wrote (in German, translated):
For twenty years critical scientists have claimed that the existence of HIV
has not been proven beyond doubt in the HIV-AIDS research literature, and
that it can't be responsible for the immunodeficiency AIDS from an
aetiological (causal) and epidemiological point of view. In view of the
generally accepted HIV/AIDS hypothesis, this seemed so incredible to me that
I decided to investigate the matter myself. After three years of intensive
and above all critical study of the relevant original literature as an
experienced virologist and molecular biologist, I came to the following
surprising conclusion: to date there is no really scientifically convincing
evidence for the existence of HIV. Such a retrovirus has never been purified
and isolated by the methods of classical virology.
But haven't we
just seen an impressive video
clip of 'HIV' spreading from cell to
cell, publicized by all the newspapers? No,
the Perth Group explain, we haven't
(PDF, 32 KB).
Note the Perth
Group's important critical comments on
an ineptly drawn rebuttal by members of the RA board and others of Gallo's
criticism of Celia Farber's article, 'Out of Control: AIDS and the
Corruption of Medical Science' in Harper's
Magazine in March 2006 (PDF, 230 KB).
In December 1999,
in an article published in Rethinking AIDS (7;12),
'The
Final Act: Should HIV-AIDS critics question the existence of HIV',
the Perth Group argued the imperative of doing just that. In 2006/7 they got
the historic opportunity to do so in court, and have the question of whether
'HIV' has been shown to exist judicially examined and determined on the
scientific evidence.
In an application
for leave to appeal against his criminal conviction for endangering the
lives of three women by having sex with them while HIV-positive, Andre
Parenzee's counsel, as advised by the Perth Group, raised the existence of
'HIV' as the crisp, pivotal issue for trial in the Supreme Court of South
Australia in Adelaide. The application failed. Find out why in the Perth
Group's
indictment of RA president David
Crowe's fatal interference in the case (PDF, 113 KB), and read his
garrulously evasive non-response to
their charges against him (PDF, 37 KB). (Mbeki and Motlanthe have both been
briefed.) Further
direct evidence of Crowe's
sabotage of the case and his deceitfulness about it
has since come to light. He hasn't responded.
The Perth Group explained to
a prominent criminal lawyer why the mutually destructive
'HIV-hasn't-been-shown-to-exist' and 'HIV-exists-but-is-harmless' defences
can never be raised in the alternative in criminal proceedings (PDF, 20 KB)
– and in reply he agreed. So do we. And we think only a mental defective
would propose a criminal defence strategy along the lines of:
M'Lord, we will be leading expert evidence to show that notwithstanding all
that the vampire experts have written about vampires in their many
demonology encyclopaedias in the university libraries, vampires have never
been shown to exist. But just to make sure we don't lose the case, we'll
also be leading the evidence of other experts who contend that vampires most
certainly do exist, just as all the vampire experts claim, only they don't
bite.
***
See further: The Unbelievable Mediocrity of David Crowe: Why Rethinking AIDS has the president it deserves.