raeanna74

I just discovered this when the name was briefly mentioned on the TV yesterday. I heard nothing more about it except the name of the concept. So I looked it up. I never even considered this and find it almost too wild to believe. Though I can see people wanting it to be true. I know so little about it even yet. I don't know what to think of it. Anyone here have heard of the concept? How likely is it to be valid?

Contrarian view of AIDS Duesberg
AIDS Risk

I put this in General Discussion because it I couldn't decide if it fit into Health or Politics.

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Blonddie

Although I have never heard of this before, I found it interesting. I too believe pharm companies only care about making a buck, and he makes some valid points. I'll admit I dont' know much about AIDS or HIV (no more than the average person anyway) so it would be interesting to hear what more knowledgable people have to say. Wouldn't it be a twist if he was right, and people could live with or get over this disease.

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lurkette

Um, he seems like a quack to me. I'm not in love with the traditional medical community, but I do love my science, and it seems to me that the bulk of the scientific evidence is behind the "HIV is bad and causes AIDS" camp. There's just way too much evidence to be explained away by bad medicine and lifestyle choices. Normal, otherwise-healthy individuals don't just come down with TB and rare cancers because they eat sugar and don't get enough rest

See http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm for the other side of the story.

Particularly persuasive:

"Newborn infants have no behavioral risk factors for AIDS, yet many children born to HIV-infected mothers have developed AIDS and died.

Only newborns who become HIV-infected before or during birth, during breastfeeding, or (rarely) following exposure to HIV-tainted blood or blood products after birth, go on to develop the profound immunosuppression that leads to AIDS. Babies who are not HIV-infected do not develop AIDS. In the United States, 8,718 cases of AIDS among children younger than age 13 had been reported to the CDC as of December 31, 1999. Cumulative U.S. AIDS deaths among individuals younger than age 15 numbered 5,044 through December 31, 1999. Globally, UNAIDS estimates that 480,000 child deaths due to AIDS occurred in 1999 alone (CDC. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 1999;11[2]:1; UNAIDS. AIDS epidemic update: June 2000).

Because many HIV-infected mothers abuse recreational drugs, some have argued that maternal drug use itself causes pediatric AIDS. However, studies have consistently shown that babies who are not HIV-infected do not develop AIDS, regardless of their mothers' drug use (European Collaborative Study. Lancet 1991;337:253; European Collaborative Study. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1997;16:1151; Abrams et al. Pediatrics 1995;96:451).

For example, a majority of the HIV-infected, pregnant women enrolled in the European Collaborative Study are current or former injection drug users. In this ongoing study, mothers and their babies are followed from birth in 10 centers in Europe. In a paper in Lancet, study investigators reported that none of 343 HIV-seronegative children born to HIV-seropositive mothers had developed AIDS or persistent immune deficiency. In contrast, among 64 seropositive children, 30 percent presented with AIDS within 6 months of age or with oral candidiasis followed rapidly by the onset of AIDS. By their first birthday, 17 percent died of HIV-related diseases (European Collaborative Study. Lancet 1991;337:253).

In a study in New York, investigators followed 84 HIV-infected and 248 HIV-uninfected infants, all born to HIV-seropositive mothers. The mothers of the two groups of infants were equally likely to be injection drug users (47 percent vs. 50 percent), and had similar rates of alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, heroin and methadone use. Of the 84 HIV-infected children, 22 died during a median follow-up period of 27.6 months, including 20 infants who died before their second birthday. Twenty-one of these deaths were classified as AIDS-related. Among the 248 uninfected children, only one death (due to child abuse) was reported during a median follow-up period of 26.1 months (Abrams et al. Pediatrics 1995;96:451).

The HIV-infected twin develops AIDS while the uninfected twin does not.

Because twins share an in utero environment and genetic relationships, similarities and differences between them can provide important insight into infectious diseases, including AIDS (Goedert. Acta Paediatr Supp 1997;421:56). Researchers have documented cases of HIV-infected mothers who have given birth to twins, one of whom is HIV-infected and the other not. The HIV-infected children developed AIDS, while the other children remained clinically and immunologically normal (Park et al. J Clin Microbiol 1987;25:1119; Menez-Bautista et al. Am J Dis Child 1986;140:678; Thomas et al. Pediatrics 1990;86:774; Young et al. Pediatr Infect Dis J 1990;9:454; Barlow and Mok. Arch Dis Child 1993;68:507; Guerrero Vazquez et al. An Esp Pediatr 1993;39:445)."

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ngdawg

I would agree with Lurkette, he seems to be a quack. He says nothing of children born of AIDS-infected mothers, people who aquired HIV through heterosexual sex (think Magic Johnson, who certainly did not do drugs, etc) and the disparaging amount of AIDS infected people in third world countries, including children.
The general consensus seems to be that HIV began as a mutated virus somewhere on the African continent, possibly from ingesting infected animals. A boy in the US, who died in the 1970's but whose tissue samples had been preserved, was said to possibly be an AIDS victim as well-his tissue samples were preserved due to his untimely and unknown cause of death. (since the initial report of that, though, there has been no follow up in the news) Sometimes I wonder if people such as these just write these hypotheses to create drama or turmoil.

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Ustwo

Having worked on HIV patients I have to say this is total shit.

HIV has been well over hyped, especially the numbers in Africa but its quite real as a disease.

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hrandani

Eh if you want to get all riled up about aids look up the patents that the US government holds on both aids and a purported cure. (dating iirc to the 60's or earlier)

Thorny

The process of science is not the process of debate.

Anyone can challenge a scientist with absurd claims in a public forum, and suddenly the burden of proof rests on the scientist? Unfortunately, it seems to be the case, as "science" is treated like a thing to be attacked, instead of a process of discovery.

This whack-job needs to take the time to educate himself, and carefully research his claim before spouting off such tripe. it's an extraordinary claim, and it demands extraordinary proof--careful, long-term studies with large sample sizes and proper controls, replicable laboratory results, or some other methodology with clear results to counter the massive quantity of solid research on HIV and AIDS.

As for HIV being over-hyped, check out the World Health Organization's report on world health at http://www.who.int/whr/en/ --the statistical annexes give charts of what people are dying from, and they're dying from AIDS.

Ustwo

Thorny the reason I think the numbers are over hyped is they do not diagnosis AIDS in Africa the same way they do in the West. It is often a purely symptomatic diagnosis without testing so while the numbers are official that doesn't mean they are correct. What percentage of the AIDS's cases in Africa are not truly AIDS I have no idea but I know its going to be less than the number reported.

AIDS is not a killer, it allows other dieases to kill you, and while people often die of pneumonia with AIDS that doesn't mean that everyone who dies of pneumonia, even if they were young, had AIDS.

Also politically there is, shall we say, motivation to keep the number as high as possible.

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Suave

The scientific process itself may not be, but science and its findings are sure as hell involved in debate.

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WillyPete

With thousands of people dying daily in Africa from TB, are you going to spend millions to check each one for AIDS or whether it was just a regular TB infection?

not in Africa.

An interesting aside, my girlfriend's Dad runs an AIDS orphanage in South Africa and what is startling a large number of foreign medics is the number of kids that are Sero-converting.
IE: They display the HIV antibodies but are HIV negative.

raveneye

Duesberg was totally discredited over 15 years ago, for example in a series of Nature articles. Check out Duesberg, HIV and AIDS; Weiss, Robin A; Jaffe, Harold W; Nature; Jun 21, 1990; 345, 6277; Research Library Core pg. 659.

It may have been an "interesting" idea in the 80s, but it's been flat-earth for at least the last decade.

Thorny

This is a semantic argument akin to saying "Guns don't kill people."


Jackman and Hedderwick studied case definitions used in Uganda (published in Lancet in 1990) and did find scenarios leading to false positive reports, but these are in early cases. They could not begin to assess the magnitude. They also assumed self-reporting, which is not considered in WHO figures. It's not a "case" until it is presumptive (class 3), and even then it is open to confirmation by laboratory testing. Epidemiological methods allow for such diagnoses and are statistically sound.

The issue of seroconversion is an interesting one. Assuming it is seroconversion, which is a stretch, how long would it convey immunity and to what variants. Here in the US, West Nile seroconversion rates in a previously naive population run about 1-3%. Immunity lasts only about 2-3 years, tops. But I've seen the political hacks run with the notion that people are now immune forever and it's not a problem. (no, it's not the problem some were expecting...)

MSD

Chronic Diarrhea for more than a month.

WHO guidelines for AIDS diagnosis in Africa:

A patient should show two or more of the following symptoms

-Chronic Diarrhea for more than a month.
-Weight loss of 10% of body weight
-Intermittent or constant fever for more than a month.

Included with the above they should also show one or more of the following minor signs.
-History of herpes zoster.
-Persistent cough for more than a month.
-Generalized itchy skin rashes.
-Thrush.
-Chronic progressive or disseminated herpes virus infection.
-Swollen lymph glands.

It's easy to misdiagnose without a blood test, as many other diseases can cause these symptoms. I'm willing to say that I think over half of African "AIDS" cases are probably caused by disease and malnourishment rather than HIV infection.

I also hold the unpopular opinion that AIDS started as a bioweapon, but that's for another thread.

WillyPete

Good point.
Similar to other viral immunities, I'd assume (from an uninformed point of view) that you can just as easily die from one variant whilst being immune to another just as each winter millions of people contract the flu whilst at the same time being immune to many other influenza strains.

Thorny

http://www.who.int/hiv/strategic/en/wer_94_69_273.pdf
...for the current case definitions, including changes from the Bangui Definition that is referenced above as being an over-count.

http://www.who.int/hiv/strategic/sur...efinitions/en/
...for a full list of dafinitions from WHO and CDC, including which countries are using these definitions. Most countries making use of Bangui or WHO definitions have added an HIV test if the case definition warrants one.