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Editor's note: A major goal at Red FLags is to stimulate broad discussion of issues that are vital to public health. Beginning with the article (below) written by health/science journalist, Stephen Strauss, we hope to continue the debate about the cause of AIDS. Participation will be open to everyone. This includes the presentation of articles or commentaries and responses to all presentations; all of which will be edited by Red Flags, and, if necessary, participants will be asked to revise their presentations to meet editorial standards. We request that all submissions be original to Red Flags.
Please send commentaries, responses, & articles to blewis@redflagsdaily.com
March 22, 2006
Why I Quit HIV: The Aftermath
By Rebecca V. Culshaw
“I want to start with an apology. I regret that I have not been able to individually answer every email I’ve received in the wake of my essay, “Why I Quit HIV” … Many people inquired what impact the article would have on my job or career. I have not quit my job, nor have I been fired (so far). I’ve simply abandoned one area of research — I doubt I’ll ever be able to publish in mathematical biology again, but that was the risk I knew I was taking. Thank you all for your concern.”
March 3, 2006
Mathematical Biologist Studying HIV Models Says Public Has Been ‘Greatly Misled’
“As I write this, in the late winter of 2006, we are more than 20 years into the AIDS era. Like many, a large part of my life has been irreversibly affected by AIDS. My entire adolescence and adult life — as well as the lives of many of my peers — has been overshadowed by the belief in a deadly, sexually transmittable pathogen and the attendant fear of intimacy and lack of trust that belief engenders.”
February 8, 2006
AIDS In Africa: Harvey Bialy Interviews Lee Evans
“I have been all over Africa for almost 30 years and when I first heard there was a new sexually transmitted disease epidemic I was alarmed and began looking for what the television said was everywhere. All I ever saw was more and more of the same diseases we saw in 1975, and it was obvious the increase was because of the worsening living conditions, and the pennies instead of dollars governments were spending on health care. Sure, I have seen TB wards at hospitals and lots of misery, but nobody except the media and the people living off AIDS money ever called that AIDS.”
January 11, 2006
‘You Can’t Be Serious’
On Jan. 6, High Court advocate Anthony Brink, national chairman of the Treatment Information Group in South Africa, wrote this 24-page open letter to Olive Shisana, PhD, chief executive officer of the Human Sciences Research Council in Cape Town and lead author of the 2005 South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communications Survey.
On: “Occam’s razor, Tolstoy’s blender”
A REPLY TO STEPHEN STRAUSS
by Alexander Russell
"A Scientist Rebuts Business Day’s Praise Of AIDS Drugs"
By David Rasnick, Ph.D. (with an introduction to the letter by Red FLags columnist, Anita Allen)
"How much evidence does it take to prove a bamboozle?"
by Michael Ellner
Can deception be life saving? Government health officials, gay AIDS activists and, evidently, Stephen Strauss seem to think so. If you, the reader, enjoy being lied to “for your own good,” more power to you. But for those who...
To encourage the opening of the "AIDS debate"
by "HIV+", CANADA
I am writing to encourage the opening of the "AIDS debate" to include the life experience of a group of "forgotten victims" which Stephen Strauss seems completely unaware...
Confusion at the Blood Bank?
by Cal Crilly
HIV is strange science, if this is an example of HIV belief then Stephen Strauss has lined up dominos...
Response to Stephen Strauss
by Nathaniel S. Lehrman
Stephen Strauss claims that the reduction in deaths which he describes among hemophiliacs proves conclusively that AIDS is an infection produced by HIV. His statement ignores the nature of hemophilia and the specific causes of its patients' deaths...
Response to Stephen Strauss
by David Crowe
I have a major problem with Stephen Strauss’s (Occam’s razor, Tolstoy’s blender and the Tragedy of Haemophiliac AIDS) claim that hemophiliac AIDS is “absolutely convincing” evidence for the HIV=AIDS theory...
Occam’s razor, Tolstoy’s blender
And The Tragedy of Haemophiliac AIDS
by Stephen Strauss
I have come to see the “does HIV cause AIDS” dispute as a best-basher-wins-all rhetorical prize fight. In this corner William of Occam. Lightish-weight medieval scholastic, not just best remembered but only remembered for the principle formally stated as "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." The sentiment was enunciated earlier by others but Occam relied on the principle so relentlessly it became known as Occam’s razor...
Watch out you don’t have HIV - Huge Intelligence Vacuum
by Anita Allen
We have a first here - a woman Deputy President of South Africa. Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka is tasked with sweeping clean and taking all along with her in her areas of responsibility. One of these is as the government's spokesperson on HIV/AIDS. If she has said anything on that subject I don’t know about it, and as soon as she does I will surely report it...