Red Flags - HIV

A Massive Storm Cloud Swirls Over The U.S.

Fri, 12 May 2006 23:49:47 -0400

Front-page news in the U.S. this week included an upcoming recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans automatically be tested for HIV at the same time they undergo routine blood tests. The implementation of this plan portends self-perpetuating, medically caused disaster, as false positives inherent in HIV-testing techniques are rampant. These false positives come from the non-specificity of all testing techniques designed to detect HIV antibodies, antigens or RNA copies.

How TheBody.com Keeps The Chaff And Throws Out The Wheat

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:03:33 -0500

A friend recently told me that TheBody.com was featuring a Red Flags’ letters page with references to a lecture I did on HIV, along with other web sites and books by people who have questioned the dogma of HIV=AIDS=death. Our inclusion was not intended as a compliment. The page is titled "GOTCHA! Grossly Over-Exaggerated (or Incorrect) "Treatments" or "Cures" for HIV or AIDS.”

What Is Human Immunodeficiency Virus?

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 22:26:35 -0500

The most basic question — what is HIV? — is not an easy one to answer. Depending on what country you are in and who you are talking to, the answer varies. The best I can do is summarize some of these and conclude with my own opinion.

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses lists only Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 as a species of the family Retroviridae, genus Lentivirus. (1) Elsewhere, scientists talk about three HIV species and 17 different "clades." (2) Then there are enumerable "isolates," including 106 genetically distinct variants in an asymptomatic AIDS patient (3) and more than 108 in a symptomatic one. (4)

What Do You Mean When You Use The Word AIDS?

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 04:00:00 -0500

From personal correspondence and discussions on the Internet, it is obvious that the Great AIDS Debate has become bogged down by a lack of common understanding of the words "AIDS" and "HIV." Everyone uses the words, but there is no agreement on their meaning. I hope I do not have to point out that this is a serious defect in a dialogue.

Skin Lighteners And HIV

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 04:00:00 -0500

This article describes a tentative hypothesis: that creams and lotions designed to lighten the color of skin generate “HIV antibodies” — i.e., antibodies that cause positive reactions on standard HIV tests. This may sound absurd, but the patterns of usage fit HIV seroprevalence statistics reasonably well, and at least one common active ingredient in skin lighteners is immunologically active. Evidence to show convincingly that this is true or false is not available, partly because this is an untested hypothesis, and partly because any hypothesis that challenges the heterosexual transmission model for HIV patterns in Africa is generally dismissed out of hand.

Lying About HIV In South Africa

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 04:00:00 -0500

A recent paper in the journal AIDS is another torpedo into the hull of HIV’s SS Sexual Transmission. (1)

The paper provides data from a large “nationally representative” 2003 survey of 11,904 South Africans aged 15 to 24, who were chosen randomly from households in each of the 2001 census enumeration areas. Of the 15,414 young people identified by random selection, 77.2 percent agreed to participate.

Bird Flu Overtakes HIV and Global Warming

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 04:00:00 -0400

As Future Enemy Number One

Just when I thought there could be nothing worse than HIV/AIDS and global warming, along comes the bird flu.

"It’s like a combination of global warming and HIV/AIDS 10 times faster," David Nabarro, the United Nation’s new co-ordinator for avian and human influenza, was quoted as saying. (1)

Nabarro predicted that 5 million to 150 million people "could" be killed "if" the virus mutated and jumped to humans. His estimate was immediately contradicted by a World Health Organization spokesperson on influenza, Dick Thompson, who said the official estimate of the number of people who "could" die was between 2 million and 7.4 million.

Goodbye, Rio 2005. Hello, Toronto 2006.

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 04:00:00 -0400

What did they think, all those HIV/AIDS leaders, as they sat through the sessions of the International AIDS Society Congress (IAS) in Rio de Janeiro last week? They spent four days with 5,000 delegates discussing “HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment.” But privately, beyond the public statements, was it possible not to have inner doubts given the paucity of anything approaching progress?

Setting The Stage For Most, If Not All, Chronic Illness

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 04:00:00 -0400

Hope is such a wondrous thing. I pay tribute to all those scientists and theorists who have influenced me to hope that mankind has what it takes to meet the challenges of life.

It happens so rarely, amid all the noise that is scientific reportage, that something comes along which indicates man, indeed, has what it takes.

So it is proper to commemorate the publication of just such a breakthrough in the July issue of Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology.(1) The team Ekkehard Schuetz, Howard B. Urnovitz, Leonid Iakoubov, Walter Schulz-Schaeffer, Wilhelm Wemheuer and Bertram Brenig represent a partnership between the Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Dept of Neuropathology, University of Goettingen, Germany, and private company Chronix Biomedical.

Watch Out You Don’t Have HIV - Huge Intelligence Vacuum

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 04:00:00 -0400

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.

Until then, I have no idea where next I can possibly take the idiocy of HIV/AIDS - huge information vacuum leading to acquired intelligence deficiency signals.

Occam’s Razor, Tolstoy’s Blender

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:00:33 -0400

And The Tragedy of Haemophiliac AIDS

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.

President Thabo Mbeki Goes To Washington

Tue, 31 May 2005 04:00:00 -0400

It’s my guy meets your guy this week, as President Thabo Mbeki flies in State-side to speak to President George Bush.

I hope media attention is focused on this event. It follows on a visit of former President Nelson Mandela. From reports, HIV/AIDS was and is on the table for these series of talk-talks. Also, upcoming - G8 meetings and UK Prime Minister Blair’s plan for Africa - and Bush’s vision thing of his legacy.

Saying "Hell, No" To The Health Policies Based On Primitive Science

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:00:00 -0400

LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA

When I first started investigating HIV and AIDS to better understand the challenge, I contacted virtually everybody who was anybody in HIV/AIDS in South Africa and personally spoke to them. These scientists had two things in common in 1999:

none could give me the references to the seminal studies establishing HIV, what it was and that it caused AIDS; and
none was aware of any dissenting opinion.

As a science journalist at the largest English language daily newspaper in my country, I knew many of these people. I had worked with them through Apartheid times, into the transition when African National Congress and other exiles returned and took up the reins of establishing a democratic order. I was present at the major gatherings where new scientific structures were hammered out. As part of my duties I knew exactly who was an A-rated scientist in their field and who was not.

Steering A Course Beyond Semantic Goulash

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:00:00 -0500

It’s been a frustrating week for me here at the tip of Africa. What with International TB day and the daughter of a close friend being diagnosed with lymphoma, I’ve been delving deep into the “Health of Nations” book.

I must have waded through hundreds of thousands if not millions of words this week, and judged purely as pieces of communication, it’s a case of never has so much been written by so many of so little value.

TB Policies Guarantee Failure By Denying Facts

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:00:00 -0500

International TB Day on 24 March brought an avalanche of articles from across the globe, and buried any hope that TB will be conquered with present strategies.

For people of the western developed world, cushioned in relative luxury, TB may be way down on the list of dangerous diseases. But it is at epidemic proportions in Africa and the No 1 cause of death in South Africa, according to the recently released Death and Mortality report (1).