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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Denialist Henry Bauer's Logic and AIDS

What Constitutes Common Knowledge?
Guest Post by Concerned Citizen 

Very recently I attempted to engage Henry Bauer in dialogue at his HIV Skeptic site.  From the start of my argument it was obvious that I was not a dissident, but to his credit, Bauer went along with the dialogue.  Unfortunately, the dialogue ground to a halt after my third post.  I attempted a discussion on the reliability of HIV Testing based on the specificity of antibodies.  As proof of the highly specific nature of antibodies, I gave an example of vaccinations.  Vaccines are incredibly successful against the organism being inoculated against because of the specificity of the antibody elicited.  I also conceded that the dialogue was doomed to failure since Henry claims HIV has never been isolated and therefore, by that logic, the specificity of the antibodies to HIV could not be confirmed. 


I stated that Henry’s rationale would be along the lines of an argument I have seen him put forth in two separate papers.  In those papers, Bauer claimed that Reverse Transcriptase (RT) was not an adequate marker to be utilized in HIV isolation because, as Bauer claims, “RT is found in every living cell.”  As proof Bauer provided two citations:
One claimed RT was found in Drosophila and the other that RT was found in E. coli.  I simply pointed out to Mr. Bauer that just because RT is found in those two organisms is not adequate proof to extrapolate that “RT is found in every living cell.”

Much to my consternation, Mr. Bauer made two shocking claims.  First he stated that antibodies are not specific to anything and demanded I provide citations of such heresy.  Second, and in direct contradiction to his request for me to prove antibody specificity, Bauer claimed that “RT being in every living cell has been common knowledge for over two decades” and therefore refused to provide further proof to support his claim.  Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in that?  Let me explain.

First of all people have been getting vaccinated for hundreds of years.  Vaccinations work as a direct result of the Adaptive Immune System (also know as Specific Immune System: hint, hint, Bauer) responding specifically to the pathogen being inoculated against.  The adaptive immune response provides the vertebrate immune system with the ability to recognize and remember specific pathogens.  The body responds to future assaults with Memory B Cells and Memory T Cells.  As opposed to the Innate Immune System (aka non-specific), this reacts in a general, non-specific fashion relying on cytokines and complement cascade.  Most people have a general understanding (or common knowledge) of how vaccinations prevent them from being susceptible to infection by the pathogen to which they have been vaccinated. 

Specificity of antibodies as explained by PalMD:

Antibodies are part of the adaptive arm of the immune system that recognizes specific invaders.  (Emphasis mine)  The immune system also has a passive arm that can respond to molecules that look generally like invaders.  Antibodies though are very specific.  (Emphasis mine) One may recognize a particular surface molecule on a staph bacterium, another an influenza virus. The arms of the "Y" on the immunoglobulin molecule are the end that bind to antigens (molecules that form parts of various bacteria, viruses, and other invaders) and can bind very specifically, like a lock and key.”  (Emphasis mine)

Here is a description of the structure of antibodies and why they are able to have such incredible specificity from Virology Blog:

Binding occurs in a small region near the ends of the heavy and light chain called the hypervariable region.  As the name implies, this region is extremely variable, which is why vertebrates can produce millions of antibodies that can bind many different antigens.”

On the other hand, I highly doubt that there is “common knowledge” of Reverse Transcriptase either by the general public or even by scientists.  I am sure Bauer was referring to the latter when he made his specious claim about the “common knowledge of RT for over two decades.”   I am further disinclined to believe this statement when I stopped to consider the fact that RT was only discovered in 1970 and that was in a retrovirus.  If RT is indeed as prolific as Bauer states, why was it not found until 1970 and in a retrovirus and not in some other random, normal cell?  So I doubt that there has been common knowledge of RT in “every living cell” for 20 years when it was only discovered 40 years ago in a retrovirus.  Simple logic would dictate that truth.

I believe that Bauer is (intentionally) confusing Reverse Transcriptase with that of Telomerase, which is a type of RT.  When Bauer claims that RT is found in all living cells, he may be referring to Telomerase.  Telomerase is an enzyme used during cell mitosis to make telomeres to protect genetic material from being lost. 

 “To make sure that information is successfully passed from one generation to the next, each chromosome has a special protective cap called a telomere located at the end of its "arms". Telomeres are controlled by the presence of the enzyme telomerase.  A telomere is a repeating DNA sequence (for example, TTAGGG) at the end of the body's chromosomes. The telomere can reach a length of 15,000 base pairs. Telomeres function by preventing chromosomes from losing base pair sequences at their ends. They also stop chromosomes from fusing to each other.”

It’s hard to know exactly what Bauer is discussing because he refuses to provide a simple citation to support his dubious statements.  Instead, Bauer suggests I read his entire blog, I buy a $345 textbook or else buy a book by John Lauritsen.  (I would rather stab myself in the eye than read Lauritsen.)  Maybe Bauer is right. (And maybe the moon is made out of cheese.) But why is it OK for Bauer to make me support my obviously true statements and he feels that I should just take him at his word?

114 comments:

  1. Retrotransposons are found in many genomes, and they code for reverse transcriptase, albeit not the same exact one as HIV's. Maybe Bauer is confused or willfully mixing up the two?

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  2. Seriously, what an earth is a nutty, nessy-hunter doing on the payroll of a university? Do American institutes of higher education not have standards?

    Oh did you know that Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos is now very sick with MAC ? She's started taking ARVs again. Her husband thankfully been getting some advice from long term medicated positives who are doing well.

    Hopefully Karri's untimely death might have struck a chord with her? Perhaps when she recovers she'll remove all her websites, facebook profiles and youtube videos telling us all why she's doesn't need to take meds and is so healthy - not!.

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  3. Papadopulos-Eleopulos is HIV positive? I thought she was just in over her head.

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  4. HIV tests are incredibly accurate due to the specificy of antibodies. It is highly dubious of Bauer to pretend otherwise. I have a feeling Bauer, (as Duesberg), knows that HIV tests are accurately specific due to antibody specificity but pretending that is not the case would blow a hole in his lies the size of the Grand Canyon. Bauer knows he is lying just as Duesberg knows he is lying as well.

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  5. Jonny, Eleni Papadopulos doesn't have HIV/AIDS. She is the "leader" of the Perth Group, the denialist splinter group whose central claim is that HIV doesn't exist (although they couch their argument in terms of "hasn't been proven to exist").

    Are you thinking of Maria Papagiannidou perhaps?

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  6. Here are three papers that discuss antibody specificity:


    Kramer, A., T. Keitel, et al. (1997). "Molecular basis for the binding promiscuity of an anti-p24 (HIV-1) monoclonal antibody." Cell 91(6): 799-809.

    Marchalonis, J. J., M. K. Adelman, et al. (2001). "Exquisite specificity and peptide epitope recognition promiscuity, properties shared by antibodies from sharks to humans." Journal of Molecular Recognition 14: 110-21.

    Predki, P. F., D. Mattoon, et al. (2005). "Protein microarrays: a new tool for profiling antibody cross-reactivity." Hum Antibodies 14(1-2): 7-15.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry I got mixed up again.

    Yes I mean Maria Papagiannidou. She very unwell, and has started taking ARVs (again) due to MAC infection that no amount of woo/magic/quack/prayer medicine will clear.

    Valendar Turner - are you ok? Or did the utter drubbing you got in court persuade you to stay away from virology and concentrate and stitching people back together.

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  8. Response to Guest Post by Concerned Citizen in regard to reverse transcriptase activity.

    It was a very reasonable to ask Henry Bauer for evidence to support his claim that “RT is found in every living cell”. And, in my opinion, it was very unreasonable of him not to do so.

    Although reverse transcriptase is not unique to retroviruses, it is nonetheless the sine qua non of a retrovirus. No RT = no retrovirus. According to the 5th, 2010 edition of Fields Virology, chapter 57, page 2127, “The mature HIV-1 RT holoenzyme is a heterodimer of 66- and 51-kd subunits. The 51-kd subunit (p51) is derived from the 66-kd (p66) subunit or some larger precursor by proteolytic removal of the C-terminal 15-kd fragment of p66 by PR [protease]”. Hence the isolation papers of Montagnier (1983) and Gallo (1984), which remain the best evidence for the existence of HIV, should provide proof that purified HIV particles contain a p66 and a p51 protein. Montagnier found only one viral protein, p24, in his “purified virus”. Even if the existence of a one protein virus is possible this “virus” cannot be a retrovirus because p24 is not an RT protein (enzyme). Gallo did not detect a p66 or p51 protein in “virus purified from the culture fluids”. He detected two proteins, p24 and p41, which he claimed were viral proteins. Like p24, p41 is not an RT protein. Hence neither Montagnier nor Gallo had proof that what each called purified HIV contained the defining protein of the retrovirus family. This means (a) the reverse transcriptase activity they detected was not due to a retroviral enzyme; (b) whatever “purified HIV” represents, it cannot be a retrovirus. These experiments in fact prove RT activity is non-specific.

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  9. That has to be one of the silliest denialist arguments I've ever read, Val. And I've read Henry's Origin Persistence and Failings. That cost me more neurons through apoptosis than I can really afford.

    You're saying that in their 1983 and 1984 studies - over a quarter of a century ago - Montagnier identified only one and Gallo only two of the 19-odd HIV proteins we now know about.

    Neither of these two proteins they found was reverse transcriptase. Therefore HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (and the other 17 or 18 HIV-1 proteins) can't have been present, so what they found couldn't have been a retrovirus.

    You also claim that the isolation papers of Montagnier (1983) and Gallo (1984), "remain the best evidence for the existence of HIV". Apparently the last 28 years of HIV research, including virtually the entire field of proteomics, has never happened.

    Are you serious?

    http://tinyurl.com/3qbsm48

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  10. Snout, do you have an actual point to make against VT? all you said there was "Is not", strange how when presented with your hallowed scientific evidence you retreat back in to your school yard name calling. Pathetic really, pathetic.

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  11. Anonymous, I'm pointing out the basic flaw in what passes for Valendar's logic.

    He is claiming that because Montagnier identified p24 in 1983 and Gallo p24 and gp41 in 1984 (out of HIV's 19 polyproteins, proteins and peptides) then these must have been the only one or two viral proteins present. True to form, he attributes this absurd conclusion (which is his and his alone) to the actual scientists, implying they claimed to have isolated a "one protein virus".

    They didn't, and Valendar is being misleading, as he habitually is when he discusses the work of actual scientists.

    He then says this proves that there was no HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, and therefore what Gallo and Montagnier found "cannot be a retrovirus".

    That's nonsense, don't you agree? If not, why not?

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  12. "That cost me more neurons through apoptosis than I can really afford."

    Well at least that statement was true, but it is the only one you've made here Snout.

    "True to form, he attributes this absurd conclusion (which is his and his alone) to the actual scientists, implying they claimed to have isolated a "one protein virus".

    Just where did he do that in his statement? you're either delusional or deliberately misleading in your conclusions Snout. What's it with you guys you read the word "Black" and you print it as "White" if it doesn't tie in with your own belief system, I'm afraid Henry Bauer is quite right when he writes about your cognitive dissonance on this subject.

    You also ascribe all sorts of menace to the Perth Group and VT calling them the denialists denialists. In fact VT and his group do not claim HIV is a harmless entity or that a positive HIV test is something to ignore, that is more of your twisting of the truth. They simply state that viral isolation was not carried out to a sufficient standard (ever).

    Initially I called you pathetic, actually I'll upgrade that to maliciously inept.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "True to form, he attributes this absurd conclusion (which is his and his alone) to the actual scientists, implying they claimed to have isolated a "one protein virus". Just where did he do that in his statement?

    Try here, Anonymous: "Montagnier found only one viral protein, p24, in his “purified virus”. Even if the existence of a one protein virus is possible this “virus” cannot be a retrovirus because p24 is not an RT protein (enzyme)... This means (a) the reverse transcriptase activity they detected was not due to a retroviral enzyme; (b) whatever “purified HIV” represents, it cannot be a retrovirus."

    "You also ascribe all sorts of menace to the Perth Group and VT calling them the denialists denialists."

    I haven't called anyone the "denialists' denialist". If I was going to apply that to anyone it would be Celia Farber for her immortal meta-denialist koan, "I'm not denying anything!" Perhaps you are getting me mixed up with Seth, who once dubbed Henry a "pseudoscientist's pseudoscientist".

    "In fact VT and his group do not claim HIV is a harmless entity..."

    No, and I never said they did. They claim that "there is no evidence which proves the existence of HIV", whether it's a harmless entity or not. They also claim that the epidemiological evidence of the last 25 years shows that whatever HIV tests detect "cannot be sexually transmitted." Val and his Perthian friend make lots of stupid and ignorant claims like these, but the particular denialist claim that HIV is harmless belongs to Duesberg and his followers, not to Val.

    "or that a positive HIV test is something to ignore..."

    Again, I never said they did. That piece of homicidally negligent medical advice comes from Duesberg's followers, particularly David Rasnick. As you are no doubt aware, there is a bitter and vicious denialist civil war between the Perthians and the Duesbergians over their equally stupid but mutually contradictory claims.

    Mind you, I'd be fascinated to know exactly what medical advice Val gave to Kim Bannon in April 2002 about her positive HIV test - before she sold her house to fund her abortive lawsuit "on the issue of whether the HIV or AIDS tests are really showing us what they purport to show, e.g., that a person is infected with HIV". But I suppose we'll never know.

    The current Perthian "position" - as I understand it - is that positive HIV tests "indicate something may be wrong or about to go wrong with your health." While this statement is technically true in itself, it is simply weasel words - so vague as to be worse than useless. In the context of their other statements about HIV it is, at best, grossly misleading.

    "that is more of your twisting of the truth."

    Err, no, you are attributing statements about the Perth Group to me that I never made.

    "They simply state that viral isolation was not carried out to a sufficient standard (ever)."

    Yes, that is one of the things they state. The problem is that their "sufficient standard" is something they just invented themselves. No viral human pathogen meets their "sufficient standard", because they have designed their "sufficient standard" to be impossible to meet in practice. This is a pretty juvenile rhetorical gambit on their part, and no one with even a passing familiarity with virology takes it seriously. Which is why Val and Eleni target their disinformation to the scientifically ignorant.

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  14. Snout, I'm not a biologist. These are their requirements. Now, 1, 4, 5, and 7 all seem reasonable enough, and they have been done for HIV (Which I think exists). So what exactly do the other requirements add, and why does it now make the task impossible?



    1.Culture of putatively infected tissue.

    2. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.

    3. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological characteristics and dimensions (100-120 nm) of retroviral particles at the sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.

    4. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.

    5. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are unique.

    6. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected with a retrovirus.

    7. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5.

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  15. notElon, I’m not a biologist either, nor am I any kind of scientist. I have no practical experience in the disciplines of virology, immunology or epidemiology and my knowledge of these areas is based on reading scientific literature, studying of scientific literature, and spending a considerable amount of time thinking.

    Note that the Perthians will only accept “purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation” and furthermore demand that the viral preparations produced thereby are 100% pure – “containing nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.” Note that all their subsequent demands depend on completion of this “purification” by the only method they'll accept and to their personal satisfaction...

    While density gradient ultracentrifugation is useful for enriching viral preparations, there is no way you can get a 100% pure virus preparation from it – of any virus. You can get close – perhaps 98-99% pure, but that’s not good enough for the Perthians. And this is the only evidence they will accept for the existence of HIV. You can forget about the last 30 years of molecular biology, immunology, epidemiology and clinical infectious diseases medicine - they never happened.

    The Perthians claim this seven-stage process they invented from their armchairs (but have never carried out – they’re not virologists) is a hard and fast “rule” of retrovirology. That is a fiction. They have been repeatedly asked for a reference stating what they sometimes call “the Pasteur Standard” but the simple fact is they made it up.

    You’ve probably already noticed that denialists love inventing fictitious “rules” in areas of science in which they have no formal training, qualifications or practical experience.

    Translated into internet-meme, their central claim is "HIV has never been isolated" - according to their own fictitious and impossible rules. Because of the ambiguous meaning of "isolated" (scientists mean one thing by the term and the Perthians another) their scientifically unsophisticated target audience hears this as "HIV has never been shown to exist".

    Note also that they rarely ask for "evidence" - they ask for "proof". This too is a rhetorical gambit, because no matter how much evidence you provide for a proposition, you can always claim that it doesn't amount to "proof". Proof in the mathematical sense does not exist in science, particularly in biological sciences - scientific propositions are either well-evidenced or not, but even the most strongly evidenced scientific theories such as evolution or gravity are always by definition provisional.

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  16. Molecular Entry ClawMay 29, 2011 at 10:01 AM

    Dear Snout,

    As you undoubtedly know, any virus is composed of cellular and uniquely viral proteins. Montagnier and Gallo each identified (a) certain protein(s) they deemed to be unique to the new retrovirus, i.e. non-cellular proteins.

    No unique RT enzyme was among them.

    How can you claim to have a new retrovirus if you cannot find the viral enzyme that defines retroviruses?

    Montagnier claimed that of all the proteins present in his cultures only one was unique to a novel retrovirus. That is a one-protein virus, and a protein which does not account for the RT activity in his cultures.

    As is common knowledge by now, according to Bauer, RT activity is commonplace and not unique to retroviruses, so if you have RT activity but cannot find a (novel) viral RT enzyme should the conclusion not be that the RT activity comes from something other than a (novel) retrovirus?

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  17. "Montagnier claimed that of all the proteins present in his cultures only one was unique to a novel retrovirus. That is a one-protein virus...

    No, MEC. Montagnier's team made no such claim (that p24 was the only retroviral protein present). The fact you are able identify one particular retroviral protein doesn't mean that no other retroviral proteins are present.

    You are making the same basic logical error as Valendar.

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  18. Dear Snout

    In 1983/84 Montagnier and Gallo and their colleagues published papers in Science in which they reported the isolation of a new human retrovirus from AIDS patients. After publication of the Gallo papers the scientific community accepted these papers as proof for the existence of a new human, AIDS causing, retrovirus.

    This means somewhere in these papers there must be proof that particles of the new virus contain proteins of MW 66K and 51K.

    Where is it?

    You state “While density gradient ultracentrifugation is useful for enriching viral preparations, there is no way you can get a 100% pure virus preparation from it – of any virus. You can get close – perhaps 98-99% pure...”. Snout, 98-99% pure is good enough for us. Just give the evidence for 98-99% pure HIV. Thank you.

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  19. Molecular Entry ClawMay 30, 2011 at 1:53 AM

    Molecular Entry Claw said...

    Dear Snout,

    Now Val Turner has restated the question for you as well. Please answer instead of harping on strawmen.

    Neither the Perth Group nor anyone else says that just because you cannot find something it's not there. We are not excluding there was green cheese or even p51 in Montagnier's and Gallo's cultures, we are saying they didn't show any evidence of it.

    How can you claim to have isolated something if you haven't?

    Or more to the point How can you claim to have identified (isolated) the source for the RT activity in your cultures if you haven't?

    And why does the "Concerned Citizen" appear so unconcerned all of a sudden, now that he has been provided with the references he has been asking for?

    It was not late-comer Bauer who originally pointed out in the context of HIV isolation and tests that antibodies are promiscuous; it was the Perth Group. So here's his/her chance to hear it from the horse's mouth.

    But, Snout, you have added the disclaimer that you are not qualified in the biological sciences, you are merely an atttentive reader, so if you prefer to discuss the logic of the isolation argument rather than the technical details, you might benefit from ingesting this handy little discussion of the relationship between parts and wholes, see if you can do better than Marco Ruggiero:

    http://tig.org.za/the_hiv_symposium/2011/03/professor-marco-ruggiero’s-existential-virology/

    ReplyDelete
  20. Dearest Val,

    You just keep repeating the same painfully fallacious argument in different ways, without addressing your fundamental logical error. Which I've now pointed out four times.

    Montagnier (actually Barre-Sinoussi was the lead author) published a study in 1983 offering several lines of evidence that they had discovered a then-new retrovirus in the lymph node tissues of a man with ARC.

    Among those different lines of evidence was the detection of reverse transcriptase activity characteristic of retroviral RT, but not of DNA-dependent polymerases.

    You have subsequently thought of another line of evidence one could theoretically use to identify a retrovirus - detection of a protein the same size as what we now know is that of the HIV-1 RT enzyme.

    That wasn't one of the lines of evidence Barre-Sinoussi pursued in her 1983 paper.

    She found evidence of retroviral RT activity, but didn't look for proteins the size of a retroviral RT enzyme. She did, however, find evidence of a retroviral p24/25 protein.

    You claim that because the retroviral protein she found wasn't the retroviral enzyme she wasn't even looking for, the RT activity she (and also Gallo) detected cannot have been retroviral:

    "Like p24, p41 is not an RT protein... This means (a) the reverse transcriptase activity they detected was not due to a retroviral enzyme," you say.

    Your claim fails basic rules of logic. You go on to insist:

    "This means somewhere in these papers there must be proof that particles of the new virus contain proteins of MW 66K and 51K."

    Why was it necessary for those particular five earliest papers to "prove" that the virus contained proteins of those sizes before you can accept the other evidence they provided of (a) the discovery of a previously unknown retrovirus and (b) the association of that retrovirus with a new disease?

    A PubMed search for "HIV" yields 225,658 papers. I have to admit I haven't read all of them. Maybe the specific evidence you are looking for (that HIV-1 contains proteins of MW 66K and 51K) might be in one of the other 225,653.

    Just guessing here, but I reckon it's possible the 225,653 HIV papers that weren't the original five papers you're talking about might contain lines of evidence for the existence of HIV that weren't included in Barre-Sinoussi's 1983 paper or in the four 1984 papers from Gallo's team.

    But the fact the Pasteur and NCI teams failed to include in their early papers every piece of evidence from the following 28 years that confirmed their findings does not refute those original findings.

    Thanks for providing us with yet another example of denialist "logic".

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  21. My dear Claws,

    "Neither the Perth Group nor anyone else says that just because you cannot find something it's not there. We are not excluding there was green cheese or even p51 in Montagnier's and Gallo's cultures..."

    Unfortunately, Claws, excluding that there was p51 in Montagnier's and Gallo's cultures is precisely what you and Val said above:

    Val said (May 20, 2011 3:42 AM):
    "Montagnier found only one viral protein, p24, in his “purified virus”.,, Gallo did not detect a p66 or p51 protein in “virus purified from the culture fluids”. He detected two proteins, p24 and p41, which he claimed were viral proteins. Like p24, p41 is not an RT protein... This means (a) the reverse transcriptase activity they detected was not due to a retroviral enzyme; (b) whatever “purified HIV” represents, it cannot be a retrovirus."

    and then you yourself said (May 29, 2011 10:01 AM):
    "Montagnier claimed that of all the proteins present in his cultures only one was unique to a novel retrovirus. That is a one-protein virus.."

    It's a bit silly denying that you made a claim that anyone can see you made on this very thread.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Molecular Entry ClawMay 30, 2011 at 10:23 AM

    Dear Snout,

    You say:

    "She found evidence of retroviral RT activity, but didn't look for proteins the size of a retroviral RT enzyme. She did, however, find evidence of a retroviral p24/25 protein."

    Merely finding a novel protein, regardless of weight, doesn't tell you whether it's retroviral; it doesn't even tell you whether it's viral. The only way you can do that is to show the protein is part of a viral particle; that is a viral particle containing both p24 and p51. Please consult the piece on the logical relationship between parts and wholes I linked to above for your benefit.

    Likewise, how do you tell the difference between retroviral RT activity and non-retroviral RT activity? You seem to be able to.

    You also have privileged knowledge that Montagnier's team (Gallo's as well one must presume), wasn't looking for proteins in the p51 weight class. Which weight classes were they searching in and why?

    You were ubable to dig up a paper showing strong evidende that p51 is an HIV protein. Fair enough, since I take it your search of the 225,658 HIV papers didn't yield any with 98% purified HIV either?

    Tell you what, let's not be mean here, how about 88%, or 78% purification even?

    Speaking of the HIV specific p24, here's Kion and Hoffman in Science journal from 1991:

    "Alloimmune mice (mice that have been exposed to cells from another murine strain) were shown to make antibodies against gp120 and p24 of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and mice of the autoimmune strains MRL-lpr/lpr and MRL-(+)/+ made antibodies against gp120. This is surprising because the mice were not exposed to HIV."

    Does it not concern the "Concerned Citizen" at all that antibodies to several "HIV" proteins, including Barre Sinoussi's p24, can be produced in the absence of any "HIV", considering the great specificity of HIV antibodies he so strongly believes in?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Concerned CitizenMay 30, 2011 at 2:55 PM

    Dear Molecular Entry Claw,
    (Creative Name BTW), I have not bothered to respond here because I made my point clear in my post. Or so I thought, until I read where you wrote above:

    "As is common knowledge by now, according to Bauer, RT activity is commonplace and not unique to retrovirus."

    NO! RT is not commonplace NOR is it common knowledge nor has Bauer proven as such. Why should I bother to repeat myself when you are obviously ignoring facts?

    Also, enzyme activity can be detected without isolation of the protein p24, or p55 or pImanidiotandcansaywhatIwantwithoutregardforfacts
    RT activity can be detected and quantified.

    Bauer is confusing RT with Telomerase.

    ReplyDelete
  24. p24 is the nucleocapsid protein of HIV, and it is my understanding of the literature that retroviral capsid proteins have many similarities to each other. This would be expected if retroviruses evolved from a common ancestor. It is no surprise then that the identification of p24 would, along with the other evidence, lead the research team to suspect that the isolated virus is a retrovirus.


    Since then, the unique HIV reverse transcriptase has been sequenced and has been crystalized, so really this whole debate is pointless. HIV is a retrovirus.
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/256/5065/1783.short

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  25. Molecular Entry Claw..why not just comment as Claus Jensen? Your English is not that bad? You should not be so self-conscious.

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  26. Seth,

    like most Danes, Molecular Entry Claus speaks excellent English. Perhaps it's his logic he's embarrassed about. And when you point out the fallacies in his reasoning he just ignores this and Gish Gallops off on multiple other tangents.

    "Snout... you might benefit from ingesting this handy little discussion of the relationship between parts and wholes, see if you can do better than Marco Ruggiero"

    Claus, thank you for inviting me into an epistemological threesome with your good self and Mad Marco. However, it's not my policy to get involved in factional arguments within the denialist movement over your equally stupid but mutually contradictory delusions. I prefer to stay on the outside and point and laugh.

    So thanks, but no thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "We are not excluding there was green cheese or even p51 in Montagnier's and Gallo's cultures..."

    Green cheese - maybe. What about dick cheese, Claus?

    http://germanicnewmedicine.blogspot.com/2010/01/ryke-geerd-hamer-hiv-and-aids-its-only.html

    Hey, it's only fair. If I'm expected to address the claims of the pre-eminent AIDS denialist whackjobs from my continent the least I can expect is that you do the same with yours.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Molecular Entry ClawMay 31, 2011 at 4:45 AM

    Dear Seth and Snout,

    Americans and Australians have a working knowledge of English as well, and still one finds your esteemed selves behind various pseudonyms, so why deny me the pleasure of being somebody else - somebody exciting, like an undercover journalist or researcher on a dangerous mission among dangerous denialists, or at least somebody whose life is more than standing on the outside and pointing in?

    Snout: My dear friend, who do you think you are kidding? You have no policy regarding factional arguments; "your" policy is the convenient AIDStruth escape-route credo not to get involved in *factual* arguments with any but the softest targets.

    notElon: All Val Turner and I were asking was indulge us for a bit and confine yourselves to the first Gallo and Montagnier papers, even if you might think it is pointless.

    It goes without saying that p51 has been sequenced. The virologist who put together the consensus HIV genome and the "HIV molecular clone" are of course aware of the ingredients needed for a retrovirus.

    But see what you are writing:

    "the identification of p24 would, along with the other evidence, lead the research team to suspect that the isolated virus is a retrovirus"

    What isolated virus?

    Snout, before he remembered his very prudent policy of not getting into factional/factual arguments, told us that 98-99% purification of viruses is possible. Did Montagnier achieve that, or anything remotely resembling?

    Perhaps I should start by asking you what you mean by "isolation"?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Molecular Entry ClawMay 31, 2011 at 10:55 AM

    Daer Snout,

    You say:

    "Hey, it's only fair. If I'm expected to address the claims of the pre-eminent AIDS denialist whackjobs from my continent the least I can expect is that you do the same with yours."

    VERY subtle diversion this time mate (-:. But no worries, you're not *expected* to do anything other than precisely what you are doing now.

    Have a good point and laugh from the outside, you've deserved it. And the merriment is mutual I assure you, so this would be an all-round happy note to end our beautiful friendship on.

    ReplyDelete
  30. notElon: All Val Turner and I were asking was indulge us for a bit and confine yourselves to the first Gallo and Montagnier papers, even if you might think it is pointless.


    Why? I wasn't even alive when the first Gallo and Montagnier papers came out. Why confine yourselves to generation old work?

    ReplyDelete
  31. My dear Claws,

    I suspect you are indulging in false modesty when you paint yourself and Val as "soft targets". You'll note I joined this discussion to address Val's logically fallacious assertion that because the Pasteur and NCI papers didn't seek to identify proteins of two particular weights "the reverse transcriptase activity they detected was not due to a retroviral enzyme" and "whatever 'purified HIV' represents, it cannot be a retrovirus."

    These are nonsense conclusions on Val's part, but true to form both you and Val ignored my correction and simply restated over and over the same argument with the same fallacy intact. If that is what passes for “debate” in Perthian circles, is it any wonder no one takes you seriously?

    Like notElon above, I also pointed out the absurdity of Val's false premise that the 27 and 28 year old papers "remain the best evidence for the existence of HIV". They don't. The best evidence lies in the totality of the literature to date on the subject, not in a single paper or even a small handful. Furthermore, these are not necessarily even the best individual papers on the subject, but rather they are among the earliest.

    As to the specifics of why Dr Barre-Sinoussi concluded that the reverse transcriptase activity her team detected in 1983 was likely to be retroviral in origin, my preference is to leave such detailed discussions to my scientific betters, and none better in my view than Dr Barre-Sinoussi herself.

    Here's an idea - why not read her paper yourself rather than posing a string of questions about it and demanding I fetch you the answers?

    She explains it pretty well there, at least as far as I can comprehend. For example, they compared cultures infected with cell-free supernatant with uninfected control cultures. They also determined the optimal requirements for the RT activity, its preferential specificity, and the fact it was not inhibited by actinomycin D.

    And why do you call Dr Hamer's smegma-allergy theory of HIV/AIDS a "diversion" when it so closely parallels Val and Eleni's anally-deposited-semen theory, even to the extent of being based on the same levels of evidence...

    ...that is, not a sausage?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Dear Snout,

    Thank you for your reply.

    A question and a repeat request:

    Do you agree that to define the retroviral proteins (and RNA) it is necessary to purify the viral particles?

    You said "While density gradient ultracentrifugation is useful for enriching viral preparations, there is no way you can get a 100% pure virus preparation from it – of any virus. You can get close – perhaps 98-99% pure...". I repeat my request - please give me the evidence which demonstrates the existence of 98-99% pure HIV.

    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  33. " please give me the evidence which demonstrates the existence of 98-99% pure HIV"

    Val, I'm not interested in playing fetch with you, but here's an example:

    Characterization of highly purified, inactivated HIV-1 particles isolated by anion exchange chromatography

    Perhaps I'm not reading it right, but Richeri et al seem to be under the impression that the particles they purified were inactivated gp120-depleted HZ321 HIV-1.

    Obviously they and everyone else in the world except for you must be mistaken.

    So please explain to us what those particles really were.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Dear Snout,

    I appreciate your reply.

    Unfortunately you did not answer my first question. Let me repeat it: “Do you agree that to define the retroviral proteins (and RNA) it is necessary to purify the viral particles?” Perhaps you could respond in your next post. A yes or no answer will suffice.

    As “an example” of the evidence which demonstrates the existence of 98-99% pure HIV you cite a paper published in Vaccine in 1998 by Richieri et al.

    Hans Gelderblom from the Koch Institute in Berlin defines retroviral and HIV particles as:
    “Retroviruses are enveloped viruses with a diameter of 100 to 120 nm budding at cellular membranes. Cell released virions contain condensed inner bodies (cores) and are studded with projections (spikes, knobs)…On the ‘ideal’, intact HIV particle 72 knobs can be determined..They are made up of gp120…Parallel to the long axis the core, protein accumulations (‘lateral bodies’) typical of Lentivirinae are visible. Morphologically, the lentivirus nature of HIV is reflected most clearly by the elongated, cone-shaped inner body..[core]” [1].

    For the benefit of other readers I have posted Figure 2 from the Richierli paper at http://leederville.net/links/RichieriFigure2.jpg (the link is case sensitive). Please note this image is cropped directly from the pdf of the paper. It is not a scanned copy or a scan of a photocopy. Setting aside knobs, could you please post a URL of Richieri’s Figure 2 in which you have selected area containing a 100 particles and annotated the 98 which have diameters of 100-120nm, cone-shaped cores and lateral bodies, according to the Gelderblom morphological description of the HIV particle. If 98/100 is too much effort we’ll be satisfied with 10-20/100 (“20% pure”).

    May I point out that in your post dated May 23rd you wrote “While density gradient ultracentrifugation is useful for enriching viral preparations, there is no way you can get a 100% pure virus preparation from it – of any virus. You can get close – perhaps 98-99% pure...”. Perhaps I am mistaken but here you appear to be asserting that 98-99% pure HIV can be prepared using density gradient ultracentrifugation. The single electron microscopic image in the Richieri et al paper is of material obtained by anion exchange chromatography. Could you please cite electron microscopic evidence to support the existence of 98-99% pure HIV particles using density gradient ultracentrifugation. Once again, thank you.


    1. Gelderblom HR, Özel M, Hausmann EHS, Winkel T, Pauli G, Koch MA. Fine Structure of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Immunolocalization of Structural Proteins and Virus-Cell Relation. Micron Microscopica 1988;19:41-60.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Have you ever even set foot in a research laboratory Dr. Turner? In your recommendations to the President of South Africa, you suggested an experiment including the following technical step:

    "Spin the centrifuge tube for many hours at very high speed."

    http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/panel/chapter9.htm

    Since then, have your armchair contemplations evinced more details on exactly how long to spin for and at what speed?

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Get On With It AlreadyJune 7, 2011 at 6:58 PM

    Val Turner,
    Why are you so insistent on requiring "electron microscopy evidence to support the existence..."?

    Here is a study published in 2011 using a Cryoelectron Microscope to view HIV envelope in 3-D.

    http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/21/1016113108.abstract

    It's odd to me that in the last thirty years HIV has been isolated in new and varied ways (such as anion exchange chromotography) and viewed in new ways (cryoelectron microscopy) and yet you still refuse to come out of the late 80's and consider all these new and varied ways. Why is it that you are still so obstinate? Admit you are wrong and get on with your life.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Get On With It AlreadyJune 7, 2011 at 7:05 PM

    Val Turner,
    Here is another study using an "advanced microscopy technique."

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311131732.htm

    Using an advanced microscopy technique, the group was able to show that complexes containing about a dozen VPS4A molecules form at points in the membrane at which newly assembled virions later emerge.

    "Our current methodology allows us to monitor the assembly of individual virions, and we are working on further refinements that will allow us to follow the complete life cycle of HIV," says Lamb. "We can already visualize some steps of the life cycle at the level of a single virus, observe interactions and determine the kinetics of different processes. Of course, this means that we can also label therapeutic agents and observe what effects they have in infected cells. This can help us to optimize the currently available drugs and even allow us to develop new ones.

    Actual paper here:
    http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v13/n4/full/ncb2215.html
    Live-cell visualization of dynamics of HIV budding site interactions with an ESCRT component

    ReplyDelete
  38. My dear Valendar, I am puzzled as to why you are so insistently asking my opinion on whether it is necessary to purify viral particles before you can characterise retroviral proteins and nucleic acids. That is, to purify "by density gradient ultracentrifugation" and producing electron micrographs "containing nothing else" other than your purified virus.

    Like you, I am not a virologist or molecular biologist. I understand you have previously asked this question of numerous people who actually are virologists and molecular biologists, and I understand that their resounding and univocal answer to you was "No, it is not necessary to do this prior to characterising the proteins and nucleic acids of HIV, or of any other virus for that matter".

    So given that numerous genuine experts on this question have already given you a clear answer, why are you now asking me?

    Now would you please answer my question.

    You have repeatedly and insistently made the claim that "HIV has never been purified/isolated". This is the central argument - the lynchpin if you like - of your decades-old campaign on the internet and elsewhere to encourage people all over the world diagnosed with HIV/AIDS or who are at risk to reject competent medical advice.

    Contrary to this claim of yours, numerous actual virologists claim to regularly purify and isolate HIV by a variety of methods, including the authors of the report I linked.

    These authors (to cite a single example) claim they purified a particular strain of HIV-1. You say they didn't, because no-one has ever purified HIV.

    One of you is not telling the truth.

    So what was it they purified if it wasn't HIV-1?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Molecular Entry ClawJune 25, 2011 at 12:18 PM

    Dear Snout,

    You say:

    'I understand you have previously asked this question of numerous people who actually are virologists and molecular biologists, and I understand that their resounding and univocal answer to you was "No, it is not necessary to do this prior to characterising the proteins and nucleic acids of HIV, or of any other virus for that matter"'

    I know that in spite of your name you don't like to play fetch, although you're fond of so many other silly games, but one does wonder where you got this resounding "No" from.

    This made-up question from Val Turner, who are all the unnamed experts you seem to recall have answered it univocally?

    Of course it is not necessary to have a picture of a piece of nucleic acid to sequence it, but that's not the question at all. In fact almost all the experts that have been inclined or forced to answer the Perth Group's question, like the expert witnesses under oath in the Parenzee case and Montagnier himself, have declared that purification is necessary when you are in a "first identifier" of a supposed new virus. If you want to, we can both play fetch from the Parenzee transcripts and the referenced standard text books to see who is selling porkies and who isn't.

    Somehow I don't think you're up to it, so let's play a game you consider less silly(!). You say:

    "So what was it they purified if it wasn't HIV-1?"

    Do you wish to establish that for any particle in the universe, if Val Turner doesn't know what it is, it must be HIV?

    In this case the Perth Group has given their answer, the so-called HIV proteins are all cellular proteins, some produced under special circumstances. And now it's plain for everyone just how silly your question is, because whether or not such an answer can be given does not settle the issue at all. And neither does it make anyone a liar, since both positions can easily be results of sincere beliefs. The fact is that you are out of your league, being caught repeatedly in falsehoods and fallacious arguments, and thought that perhaps you could cover that up by calling other people liars.

    On the contrary you're the one who repeatedly gets caught in spouting falsehoods, and repeatedly has to retract your statements excusing yourself with your lack of expertise and your disinclination to "play fetch" - what honest people calls backing up one's factual claims with references.

    So Snout, have you discovered a paper examined it and find yourself in agreement with the authors that they have achieved more than 95% purification of HIV, or did you just pick out one at random from the description and blindly throw it at us?

    If you actually read the paper, you will see that the authors "purified" their HIV from a permanently "infected" cell line, and the way they established that the coffee grounds they call "HIV" in Fig 2 was HIV was by applying commercial HIV tests.

    The question is, how did the authors know that those tests actually detect HIV and not, say, cellular proteins?

    ReplyDelete
  40. "In this case the Perth Group has given their answer, the so-called HIV proteins are all cellular proteins, some produced under special circumstances."

    Gosh. "Special circumstances", huh?

    "Special circumstances" that cause human DNA to magically rearrange itself to simultaneously form nine different HIV-1 genes with all 9000-odd bases all lined up in the right order, and start producing RNA and all these 19 lentiviral - sorry, "cellular" - proteins, - not to mention those funny looking particles with the cone shaped cores that look strangely like retroviruses.

    Which over the following months generate a complex and characteristic antibody response to multiple epitopes of these "cellular" proteins.

    And at the same time, these same "special circumstances" cause a particular disease of the immune system characterised by progressive depletion of CD4+ function, culminating in one or more opportunistic diseases.

    But, strangely, this progressive immune system disease can be interrupted by using drugs that specifically target several of these "cellular" proteins. In many cases these drugs were designed from scratch to do this.

    And even more strangely, this particular immune system disease (and its associated phenomena - the "cellular" proteins, the RNA, the magically rearranged DNA, the antibodies) seem to only occur in people who have had blood or sexual contacts with other people who have these "special circumstances". And these "special circumstances" only started becoming widespread in the last thirty years or so - even more recently in some countries.

    What might these "special circumstances" be, Claws, and what are the mechanisms by which these "special circumstances" cause human DNA to spontaneously rearrange itself in this remarkable way?

    Can booty sex really do all this?

    ReplyDelete
  41. Molecular Entry ClawJune 27, 2011 at 7:15 PM

    Dear Snout,

    That's great! You are an expert after all on the possibilities of DNA(re)arrangement "lined up in the right order" and all. Plus you recognise retroviral particles and their cone-shaped cores whenever you're looking at them.

    Should be easy for you to meet Val Turner's request then to "please post a URL of Richieri’s Figure 2 in which you have selected area containing a 100 particles and annotated the 98 which have diameters of 100-120nm, cone-shaped cores and lateral bodies, according to the Gelderblom morphological description of the HIV particle. If 98/100 is too much effort we’ll be satisfied with 10-20/100 (“20% pure”)."

    ReplyDelete
  42. Thanks, Claws, for another example of Perthian "logic".

    You select a tiny, grainy reproduction of an EM claimed by its authors to be massed purified HIV-1. You post a jpeg and demand that I point out features of individual virus particles that are not much larger than the pixels in your final image.

    Of course the particular image you selected does not resolve to that level of detail (it wasn't intended to) and this proves that HIV does not exist and you can ignore everything else in the paper.

    Is it any wonder that no serious scientist bothers with the Perth trolls any more?

    Now please stop trying to evade my straightforward question.

    You claim that "the so-called HIV proteins are all cellular proteins, some produced under special circumstances".

    This is your claim. Apparently every working virologist in the world has made a mistake by attributing the HIV-1 proteins to HIV-1. In reality, according to you, there is no HIV-1: these proteins are actually the product of uninfected human cells, responding to "special circumstances".

    So you must be a able to tell us what these "special circumstances" are and how they cause uninfected human cells to produce the HIV-1 capsid protein (p24), together with the matrix protein (p17), the HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins gp41 and gp120, HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, protease, integrase, and sundry transactivators and other regulator proteins normally attributed by actual virologists to HIV-1?

    If you are going to claim that the whole world has got it wrong, you should be able to answer a simple question to put us all right.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Just to make clear what Valendar and Claus are demanding here, this is a high resolution EM image of HIV particles from Gelderblom's research institute (the RKI in Berlin). There are dozens, if not hundreds of similar images you can find with a mouse click or two by searching Google Images for "HIV electron micrograph".

    The morphological features that Valendar and Claus are demanding are clearly visible.

    On the other hand, the image that Valendar has posted is a jpeg he created by cropping from a pdf taken from a printed journal which includes a small printed photo The original image used to create the journal article picture was a negatively stained relatively low resolution (10,000x) image of a large field showing thousands of particles, and was never intended to demonstrate the fine structure of individual HIV virions.

    Valendar then demands to be shown the fine structure of HIV particles from this image he posted. At the magnification required for this, his printed then pdfed then jpegged image that was low resolution to start with is, of course, a mess of black and white pixels.

    Here is a portion of the image Valendar posted, enlarged to a similar scale as that of the RKI image.

    So Val and Claus, now we've dealt with your dumb trolling, could you please now explain your extraordinary assertion that

    "the so-called HIV proteins are all cellular proteins, some produced under special circumstances"?

    This is, after all, a bedrock basic claim underlying your medical advice to people all over the world diagnosed with HIV/AIDS that they don't really have a transmissible disease. If you are going to make such amazing claims then you need to explain them.

    What "special circumstances" might these be?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Snout,
    Can you speak to the images above from June 7? I'll repost them here, but they are much more advanced techniques and much more recent than EMs. And since the denialists seem to poo-poo EMs, what does it say that these are two different techniques? Do they not further support the orthodox?
    Thanks for your time.

    http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v13/n4/full/ncb2215.html
    Live-cell visualization of dynamics of HIV budding site interactions with an ESCRT component

    Here is a study published in 2011 using a Cryoelectron Microscope to view HIV envelope in 3-D.

    http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/21/1016113108.abstract

    ReplyDelete
  45. Molecular Entry ClawJune 29, 2011 at 3:31 AM

    RESPONSE PART 1

    Dear Snout,

    You say:

    "You select a tiny, grainy reproduction of an EM claimed by its authors to be massed purified HIV-1. You post a jpeg and demand that I point out features of individual virus particles that are not much larger than the pixels in your final image.

    Of course the particular image you selected does not resolve to that level of detail (it wasn't intended to) and this proves that HIV does not exist and you can ignore everything else in the paper."

    I am sorry you don't like this picture but you were the one who selected it when asked to supply an EM of 98% purified HIV.

    You could have come clean and said "sorry, the 98% purified HIV was just something I pulled out of my canine posterior and that's all I care for EMs anyway". But you didn't, you cited that paper, so what do you want me to do?

    And I didn't ignore everything else in the paper either. I pointed out that the best evidence that the coffe grounds in the EM in the paper you chose have anything to do with HIV is that it contains proteins that react with the standard HIV tests. I then asked you how the authors know that the standard HIV tests pick out HIV and not cellular proteins, thus guiding you gently towards the rub of the matter.

    You say:

    "In reality, according to you, there is no HIV-1: these proteins are actually the product of uninfected human cells, responding to "special circumstances".

    So you must be a able to tell us what these "special circumstances" are and how they cause uninfected human cells to produce the HIV-1 capsid protein (p24), together with the matrix protein (p17), the HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins gp41 and gp120, HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, protease, integrase, and sundry transactivators and other regulator proteins normally attributed by actual virologists to HIV-1?"

    OK Snout, but then you'll agree that by the same standard the armies of "real virologists" working on the never-ending mysteries of HIV 24/7 for 30 years and counting in their state-of-the-art, superabundantly funded labs should be able to tell us a few more things about the best known virus in the universe, such as J Levy via a dog's best friend Prof Bauer, 'HIV and the Pathogenesis of AIDS':

    1. the “Unresolved Mystery” of CD4 cell loss (p. 327)

    2.“What causes a decrease in IL-2 (CD8 cell anti-viral factor) production is not known” (331)

    3. “The process leading to a reduction in anti-HIV immune responses, mirrored by the loss of CD4 cells and CD8 cell responses, are not yet well defined. Most likely, multiple factors are involved in CD4 cell loss” (328)

    4. “The exact mechanism toward CD4 cell depletion and immune deficiency are not yet well defined, and its cellular latency, as well as several other features of HIV infection, remain mysterious” (429)

    5. “The mechanism for anti-body mediated neutralization of HIV has not yet been well-defined” (239)

    6. “The clinical relevance of neutralizing antibodies remains unclear” (246)

    7. “Why certain laboratory strains (of HIV) passaged for months or years in vitro, are very sensitive to neutralization by a variety of heterologous sera is not clear” (240)

    8. “[T]he true nature of the envelope structure of an infectious virion has not been resolved” (10)

    9. “The reasons for this disconnect between viral load and CD4 cell count are not known” (333)

    10. “Thus, how, where, and when HIV emerged in human populations and existed in various groups and clades are not clearly evident” (21)

    Etc. etc.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Molecular Entry ClawJune 29, 2011 at 4:00 AM

    PART 2

    But back to your question about how the "HIV" proteins are produced, or expressed. Most of the so-called HIV proteins, making up the whole consensus virion are admittedly (admitted by the "real virologists") cellular. If you remember up-thread when we discussed reverse transcriptase, the HIV discoverers, although not in agreement with each other, identified only a couple or even a single protein(s) as being uniquely characteristic of HIV, not the multitude you mention.

    Leaving that aside, how do the "real virologists" tease out their "HIV"? By cell poisoning. No poisoning, no "retroviruses' That's the Perth Group's answer as well; poisoning, oxidation, disease can produce what Dr Maniotis likes to call the "HIV molecular signature". In fact it's signatures, since as you know the genetic variability of the HIV sequences, "all lined up in the right order", as you put it, is enormous - so vast in fact that Dr. Foley, the keeper of the HIV genome(s) in Los Alamos, advises us to think of the relationship of one strain of HIV to another as that of a mouse to an elephant.

    Of course the Perth Group are not "real virologists', as you're fond of pointing out, so they don't have their own superabundantly funded lab and can deliver very little by way of experimental proof. They have to rely on other researchers' more or less accidental contributions, such as:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9029174?dopt=Citation

    You say:

    '"the so-called HIV proteins are all cellular proteins, some produced under special circumstances"?

    This is, after all, a bedrock basic claim underlying your medical advice to people all over the world diagnosed with HIV/AIDS that they don't really have a transmissible disease.'

    I think you are confusing us with Rethinking AIDS. The Perth Group does not advise people that they don't have a transmissible or any other disease in the presence of a positive HIV test. To the contrary, it follows from their theories about how the "HIV molecular signature(s)" are expressed (poisoning, oxidation, disease) that you are likely to have a health problem, acute and/or chronic if you test consistently positive on commercial HIV tests.

    It also follows from all the established non-HIV conditions that make the tests light up, such as the transmissible diseases TB and leprosy, that one shouldn't trifle with a confirmed HIV positive test result.

    Finally, I see you have chosen a different EM now. Could you please select a section from that, or if that's all there is of it from another EM that has at least 100 particles and point out the only two particles that are not HIV?

    Also, athough an image speaks a thousand words we do need at least a reference to the paper in which it was published.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Snout Fan said...
    "Snout,
    Can you speak to the images above from June 7?"


    No. Speaking to live-cell visualisations and cryoelectron microscopy images is beyond my capacities. I could bark at them a bit if you want, but I doubt that would be useful to anyone.

    "And since the denialists seem to poo-poo EMs, what does it say that these are two different techniques? Do they not further support the orthodox?"

    Well, my impression is that live-cell visualisations and cryoelectron microscopy images provide evidence for the existence of HIV in the same way that the Apollo 11 space program provided evidence for the existence of the moon.

    There'll always be "skeptics", no matter the evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Claus says:
    "I think you are confusing us with Rethinking AIDS. The Perth Group does not advise people that they don't have a transmissible or any other disease in the presence of a positive HIV test."

    The Perth group say:
    "The epidemiological evidence of the last 25 years shows that an “HIV positive” test can be sexually acquired but cannot be sexually transmitted. This single fact proves that whatever the test may signify it cannot be infection with a sexually transmitted agent. "

    http://www.tig.org.za/Perth_Group_response_to_Fabio_Franchi.htm

    ReplyDelete
  49. Molecular Entry ClawJune 29, 2011 at 4:58 PM

    Dear Snout,

    Since you wish to continue on a minor tangent I shall humour you - at least you went and fetched something this time.

    Firstly, leprosy and TB are not usually thought of as STDs. Also these and other transmissible diseases are often caught as "false positives" by thorough testing algorithms, which is why they are commonly accepted sources of false positives.

    But the Perth Group are talking about the published *epidemiological* evidence, mostly within the context of studies performed on American gays, where the ratio of anal intercourse was included as a variable.

    They showed that a HIV positive status *statistically* speaking does not correlate with sexual activity other than anal intercourse and more "exotic" practices, such as fisting.

    But here's what the Perth Group are really saying: the epidemiological evidence shows that HIV is unidirectionally transmitted from active/insertive to passive receptive partner.
    That is why the Perth Group says that HIV positive is not a sexually transmitted disease - or at least a totally unique such, since all other STDs are bidirectionally transmitted.


    That doesn't rule out that if you continuously expose yourself to STDs, perhaps with other rare factors involved, you cannot turn positive on an HIV test, but the chance of doing so is so small it doesn't show up as statistically significant in the published studies.

    I hope that clears things up for you, so you can return to your search for 98% pure HIV isolates.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Concerned CitizenJuly 1, 2011 at 8:06 PM

    MEC, please do explain this comment:

    "these and other transmissible diseases are often caught as "false positives" by thorough testing algorithms, which is why they are commonly accepted sources of false positives."

    Testing algorithms? Really?

    Also, your comment about HIV being "unidirectionally transmitted" is ridiculous! How is it that men get HIV from women if it is only from the "insertive to receptive" partner? And please don't pull out the Padian Study.

    ReplyDelete
  51. The Perth clowns say that the epidemiological evidence of the past 25 years proves that "HIV cannot be sexually transmitted" and that a diagnosis of HIV "cannot" signify "infection with a sexually transmitted agent."

    They base this assertion on their own "interpretation" of the published epidemiological literature - which comprises thousands, if not tens of thousands of studies.

    Strangely, there is not a single epidemiologist in the world who agrees with the Perthians' "interpretation" of their work.

    Despite having no formal training or qualifications or any experience whatsoever in epidemiology, in 2006 Mrs Papadopulos and Dr Turner were so confident in their own abilities that they went to the Supreme Court of South Australia and tried to argue that their own interpretation of the epidemiological evidence was right, and that everyone else's was wrong.

    However, when Mrs Papadopulos was asked: "Do you accept the epidemiology has an important and valid role to play in science?" she answered (under oath): "Epidemiology cannot prove or disprove anything."

    The Judge commented about the Perth Group's "evidence":

    "She (Mrs Papadopulos) commences with a proposition which she then seeks to justify by reliance on material which, when properly understood, does not support the proposition. Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos propounds theories which are not supported by adequate scientific research or knowledge. She demonstrates an ability to read scientific literature but she has misused and misinterpreted much of the material upon which she seeks to rely. She takes statements out of context and then relies upon them to support conclusions which are not supported by the text. Her evidence is littered with examples of misunderstandings, misinterpretation and denial of established scientific research. In many instances she relies upon material which is outdated...

    "She chooses to rely upon opinions of others which she often takes out of context and misinterprets. She lacks objectivity. If faced with evidence which does not support her views, she simply refuses to acknowledge it, or dismisses it without any basis for so doing. Examples of her refusal to acknowledge evidence which does not support her views include her response to the epidemiological evidence which she says is not proof and which she dismisses as unreliable."


    The judge nailed it.

    Having disgraced themselves in court, the Perthians are now reduced to trolling the internet with their discredited drivel.

    *yawn*

    ReplyDelete
  52. It is no mystery why the Perth Group have no credibility and why they are universally regarded with contempt by real scientists.

    Claus Jensen said:
    "Most of the so-called HIV proteins, making up the whole consensus virion are admittedly (admitted by the "real virologists") cellular."

    This is, of course, a perfect example of how the Perthians promote their delusions to their ever-shrinking audience of people affected by HIV/AIDS naive and desperate enough to believe them.

    They tell the most blatant and ridiculous lies, and then compound their lies by pretending that they are only repeating what real scientists have supposedly "admitted".

    They're a disgrace.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Molecular Entry ClawJuly 2, 2011 at 12:57 PM

    Dear Snout,

    Have you neglected to follow my medical advice? Whenever you feel you're disintegrating like this, go to the beach, get yourself 16 round, smooth stones, distribute them evenly in 4 pockets, 4 X 4. Now put one of them in your mouth and suck on it while you circulate the other stones between the 4 pockets to make up for the deficit in the pocket you took the initial sucking stone from. Continue until you've sucked on each stone at least once and you feel yourself getting calmer.

    If your sucking stones aren't handy, a lot of people find bean-counting quite soothing as well. Disperse the beans, then collecting them again while counting. Start over in a cyclical manner, disperse, collect, count disperse, collect, count, disperse, collect, count. Other objects might work as well, but you should avoid counting or sucking on retroviral particles altogether without your doctor's permission.

    I must say, Snout, that your privileged knowledge never ceases to astound me. You know exactly which "HIV" proteins Montagnier's team was looking for, and which they were not looking for, you know that all "real virologists" disregard viral purification, and now you also know that every single epidemiologist in the world is in disagreement with the Perth Group. How can one argue with such absolute knowledge?

    It is true that epidemiology cannot prove or diprove anything about biological function or causation, but you can easily point to epidemiological evidence when you also have a plausible biological mechanism, which the HIV/AIDS theory doesn't have.

    Because of all the unsolved "mysteries" of HIV, a sample of which was brought to you courtesy of J. levy a couple of posts up-thread, the strongest arguments for HIV being the cause of AIDS are epidemiological. It is therefore perfectly legitimate for the Perth Group to examine that epidemiological evidence even if the answer on its own cannot be conclusive.

    You and the Only Concerned When S/He Thinks There's A Point To Be Scored Against Rethinkers Citizen are invited to find among the tens of thousands of epidemiological studies you mention one that you think proves bidirectional transmission of HIV and I am sure the Perth Group will be very interested and provide a thorough answer here if our kind host, Prof Kalichman continues his hospitality.

    Let me just warn you that the Perth Group will only accept well designed and executed prospective studies (such as Padian's). I know this is horribly unfair on you guys as usual, but on the plus side you've got thousands of studies to pick and choose from - just as is the case with 98% purified HIV.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Concerned CitizenJuly 2, 2011 at 7:21 PM

    I will not bother providing any studies proving bidirectional transmission because it is obvious that your brain is unidirectional; i.e. homobrain!
    MEC is a gay! Stay away from poppers! That "medical advice" is as stupid as your "sucking on stones" advice! Are you for real? Sad, very, very sad.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Claus says:
    'Let me just warn you that the Perth Group will only accept well designed and executed prospective studies"

    *blinks*

    Err, Claus, what kind of bizarre alternative reality do you live in where anyone gives a toss about whether you or Mrs Papadopulos or Dr Turner deign to accept anything?

    Not even your rival HIV/AIDS denialists ("the Californian mafia and their stupid henchmen" as Brink calls them) are that delusional.

    Perhaps you've been blinded by your own narcissism, Claus, but this is an author's blog about the phenomenon of HIV/AIDS denialism (and other oddities) hosted by a social psychologist. It is not a virology website endlessly rehashing debates that were settled among actual virologists decades ago.

    Concerned Citizen, the "sucking stones" routine is one that Claus usually drags out to pad threads like this once his lies, fallacies and rhetorical gambits have been exhaustively revealed.

    I'm not sure why he does it. It's like a nervous tic with him.

    By the way, it's lifted unattributed from a novel by Samuel Beckett.

    Perhaps he's trying to make himself look erudite? Personally, I think it just makes him look even more like a wanker.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Molecular Entry ClawJuly 3, 2011 at 1:36 AM

    Dear Snout,

    How often have I told you that if you've had enough you can just tell us in so many words; an unattributed "No mas" is fine.

    Alternatively the (gasp!) genuine social psychologist whose feathers you more than borrowed up there I am sure is perfectly capable of deciding what is of interest on his own blog, and fair enough to come on here and tell us if he prefers to put an end to our enjoyable exchange.

    Being a psychologist Kalichman should appreciate the sucking stone reference - which did originate with Beckett and contains allusions to psychotherapy, including the Jungian number of psychological wholeness, 4. However, the immediate reference is to Max Delbruck: The Chemistry Society Lecture Series, Wednesday, 24 Feb 1971, Title: "Homo scientificus".
    According to Beckett

    As far as the bean counting, I am sure that Kalichman with his remarkable remote-diagnosis powers has already observed that you're just that kind of guy.

    Now if you'd care to read again, Concerned About Me Being Gay Citizen (CC, the Greek-derived word meaning "one" is mono not homo, which kind of ruins your otherwise clever pun) challenged me specifically on all the men who get HIV from women, so somebody does seem to give a toss.

    So again, if you could produce a couple of prospective studies of cohorts of men with no other risk factors than intercourse with women turning HIV postive, you would be able to study us pathological denialists real-time as we try to explain it away. You'd be covering new ground as well, because this particular denialist myth has not yet been debunked on aidspravda.org

    ReplyDelete
  57. Concerned CitizenJuly 3, 2011 at 6:51 PM

    Aw, MEC, any study I provided you would state that the men would have to either be secretly gay, or secretly shooting up drugs or secretly doing poppers. BTW, which of those three is least likely to actually lead to an HIV Positive status?

    HINT: It starts with P and ends with oppers. We all know those only cause KS! Another hint: I'm being facetious about the KS.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Concerned CitizenJuly 3, 2011 at 7:21 PM

    MEC, one more thing; I actually took a little poetic license with "homo". I meant your little brain only accepts and processes information from like minded, conspiracy theory wielding, fallacy laden, lie spewing brains like yours. Sorry if it was too ethereal for you to understand.

    ReplyDelete
  59. "...you would be able to study us pathological denialists real-time as we try to explain it away."

    Claus, what do you think we've been doing this entire thread?

    So far you and Val have kindly provided us with a wealth of examples of denialist rhetoric in real-time. Do you have more? Highlights include:

    Laughably basic logical fallacies, eg: Montagnier found one retroviral protein. This particular protein wasn't RT, therefore it wasn't retroviral

    Confidently asserted false premises, eg: the 1983 and 1984 papers are the best evidence we have, (so we can forget about anything else)

    Shifting goalposts, eg: Show us evidence of 98% pure HIV. No make that EM evidence. In fact make it this particular highly pixellated low resolution EM. Twenty particles please, and show us all of Gelderblom's morphological features. And a scale bar. And we want to know what the microscopist had for lunch that day.

    A Splendid Quote Mine Collection, copy pasted from the weblog of your dear and close friend Henry Bauer.

    And of course the Perthian Specialty, Blatant lies, attributed to real scientists: "Most of the so-called HIV proteins, making up the whole consensus virion are admittedly (admitted by the 'real virologists') cellular."

    Readers will also note the familiar Perthian rhetorical pattern which is to repeatedly demand we go fetch them articles which never, of course, can be accepted by them as "proof" of anything - while studiously evading our own requests for evidence supporting their most outrageous lies (such as the specimen immediately above).

    Thanks, Claus, for your time.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Molecular Entry ClawJuly 4, 2011 at 3:43 AM

    Dear Snout,

    Since you won't take my medical advice maybe you'll take your own advise that when you're out of your league you "could bark at them a bit if you want, but I doubt that would be useful to anyone."

    You're right it's not useful to anyone.

    It has long been obvious, even to your fans here, that you don't have anything to say and are just eager to end the conversation by appearing to score some kind of point, hoping that everybody will forget you were unable to deliver on anything from how you know which molecular weight proteins Barre-Sinoussi was looking for in the seminal HIV papers to your claim that 98% purified HIV has been achieved/ is achievable. And even your most avid fans have gone silent in the face of your pitiful attempts at rewriting this thread.

    For instance, which requests of yours have we "studiously evaded", and which requests of ours have you fulfilled?

    You fetched one article, which you didn't want to discuss after all, and your only example of us evading request from you is totally made up. The "specimen mentioned immediately above" that you refer to has two parts.

    1. Th Perth Group's theory that all HIV proteins are cellular (not from an exogenous retrovirus)

    2. The HIV experts admit that most of the proteins that make up HIV virions are cellular.

    The first part we have discussed for several posts, but as as soon as I linked to a paper with supporting evidence you lost all interest in discussing it and hid as usual under your borrowed Smug Social Scientist feathers.

    Snout, since Kalichman doesn't have the heart to break it to I will: You are not here studying the pathology of denialists. For the simple and painfully obvious reason that you're even less qualified in that area than in virology. The truth is you are engaging in nothing but the activity you projected onto me at the end of your last post.

    The second part of your "specimen of evaded request" only received repeated accusations of lying with no argument, no specifics and certainly no request of supporting evidence from you. That is just a plain fact anyone can check by reviewing the thread.

    I'll admit that my talk of cellular proteins being part of the HIV virion might be confusing or beside the point in this particular context because I can see they are not the same as the proteins you are talking about as being HIV proteins. I was referring here and in my very first post to the cellular proteins incorporated into the virion on budding, of which the total identified (not necessarily the total in any one single virion) is higher than the "proper" HIV proteins recognised today. These are the ones that are uncontroversially recognised as cellular.

    ReplyDelete
  61. This thread is all about Claus's character disorder. Why does he think I post his 'arguments'? I am sure he believes that I am hosting a debate with a denialist.
    Nope.
    This thread gives a glimpse into his psychopathology....which I am certain he has no insight into. Like all denialists, what we see here is cherry picking, distracting, goal post moving, pure virus myth, selective attention... I appreciate Snout for drawing Claus out for his greatest hits of Perthian AIDS Denialism. Snout, lets end this here...give us your last word.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Is this Snout's last word or the last word?

    If the latter a pity. The PG hasn't given up on Snout, we've been occupied with other matters.

    We haven't finished with the Richieri image which Snout offered as proof of the existence of 98-99% pure HIV.

    ReplyDelete
  63. "we've been occupied with other matters"
    Other matters? Searching for pure virus must keep you busy.
    Do me a favor Dr. Turner, define '98-99% pure HIV'. What is impure HIV?
    It would be nice to see your definition included here.

    ReplyDelete
  64. "Snout, lets end this here...give us your last word."

    Fair enough, Seth. I think I've more than made my point:

    Denialism is not debate.

    "Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one's viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions."

    Recognising those rhetorical tactics used by denialists means that attempting actual "debate" with them is not only pointless but also unnecessary - except to highlight the tactics to the casual reader.

    I was disappointed not to have collected a specimen of cherry picking (another traditional favorite of the Perthians) from this discussion, although I was sure we'd have an embarrassment of riches if we followed up on the Perthian claim that the epidemiological literature of the past 25 years "proves that HIV cannot be sexually transmitted".

    Fortunately, Valendar has come to my rescue at the very last moment:

    "We haven't finished with the Richieri image which Snout offered as proof of the existence of 98-99% pure HIV."

    Not only did Valendar himself cherry pick the (low magnification negatively stained) micrograph image out of the ten-page paper as if it were the entire body of evidence for the authors' claims, he has the gall to try to make out it was me who was did that. Astounding.

    Nice work, Val.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Mr Kalichman,

    Oh don't tell me you're going to close this off and hide from me now.

    Love,
    Gene Semon

    ReplyDelete
  66. Seriously, this idea of cherry-picking as a form of lying - I find it absolutely fascinating.

    I need to learn more, please let me engage Snout on this. (Because I'm not above using it myself when I get backed into a corner.)

    ReplyDelete
  67. "Among those different lines of evidence was the detection of reverse transcriptase activity characteristic of retroviral RT, but not of DNA-dependent polymerases."

    In other words, putting it in lay language, it wasn't DETECTION, it was CREATION.

    This point has also befuddled Duesberg.

    Plus he and you cannot recognize textbook genetic engineering. This includes nucleic acid extractions from specially designed cultures followed by recombinant DNA engineering - not purification of anything. It's clear from their 1985 papers; these state-of-the-art techniques were deployed by the three groups and described in papers leading to 1985 sequencing papers.

    So if you want to do your part in keeping dissidents divided, put up my posts (all of them please).

    ReplyDelete
  68. Look, here's how irrational-sounding you are here at the end, my sweet Seth.

    If you're such an expert at purification (as you make yourself out to be in your book), you'd know that Val is talking about the EM's that retrovirologists used to use for particle counting. If one identifies 1-2% debris, he'll buy it.

    What's so hard about that?

    And BTW, I have a beautiful EM of MMTV in my textbook where the spikes and morphology are clearly visible.

    So why is such a standard unreasonable?

    ReplyDelete
  69. Thanks Seth for putting these up, but one is missing.

    I'm trying to figure out why you left out my post on the detailed analysis I've done to support these posts. It is now in the possession of three big guns of HIV.

    Also, why leave out my statement that chemical engineering is a qualification to speak about polymers? Is that fair and reasonable?

    BTW, when I said detection at 2:57PM, posing it against the engineering of a phenomenon attributed to retroviruses, I meant to reinforce Val's point. There was no detection of the polymerase enzyme itself.

    Of course there was measuring - counting the radioactively tagged nucleotides representing the incorporation of monomers into a growing polymer chain.

    How can this represent the continuous production of viruses, as stated in Gallo et al's paper?

    Whatever you edit out will go up at HIV Symposium, as we did with Bauer when he cut me off.

    You're most welcome to sharp-shoot anything there. But let's not get bogged down in personal insults. I think that's a turn off to many of your readers.

    The essential point: no single specified phenotype, no taxonomic HIV exists. This conclusion can be derived from the evidence presented by HIV experts.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Seth and Snout:

    I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with looking at the following to move this discussion forward. At least it answers the question of where the "HIV proteins" came from.

    J M Casey, Y Kim, P R Andersen, K F Watson, J L Fox and S G Devare; Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III: immunologic characterization and primary structure analysis of the major internal protein, p24. J Virol. 1985 August; 55(2): 417-423 (plus references to track how “HIV proteins” were “purified”.)

    "ADDENDUM IN PROOF (slightly edited)

    After submission of this manuscript, complete nucleotide sequences of molecular clones of retrovirus isolates LAV, HTLV-III, and ARV-2 were reported (1, 2 and 3). The primary amino acid sequence for the major internal protein predicted from the nucleotide sequence analyses of these three independent virus isolates shows 100% correlation with the amino acid sequence of HTLV-III p24 derived from purified protein in this report (Fig. 4).

    1. S. Wain-Hobson, P. Sonigo, 0. Danos, S. Cole, and M. Alizon, Cell 40:9-17, 1985

    2. L. Ratner, W. Haseltine, R. Patarca, K. J. Livak, B. Starcich, S. F. Josephs, E. R. Doran, J. A. Raflaski, E. A. Whitehorn, K. Baumeister, L. Ivanoff, S. R. Petteway, Jr., M. L. Pearson, J. A. Lautenberger, T. S. Papas, J. Ghrayeb, N. T. Chang, R. C. Gallo, and F. Wong-Staal, Nature (London) 313:277-284, 1985

    3. R. Sanchez-Pescador, M. D. Power, P. J. Barr, K. S. Steimer, M. M. Stempien, S. L. Brown-Shimer, W. W. Gee, A. Renard, A. Randolph, J. A. Levy, D. Dina, and P. A. Luciw, Science 227:484-492, 1985"

    ReplyDelete
  71. You realize all three of those viruses were suspected of causing AIDS? Basically the paper sampled proteins from many different retroviruses, and checked the reactivity of HIV (called HTLV-III) antibodies to them. None showed much cross reaction, except EIAV, which we now know is also a lentivirus. However, even there, they were able to prove that HTLV-III was a unique virus. In the addendum, they sequenced HTLV-III p24, which didn't match any other retrovirus, but matched exactly to LAV p24 and ARV-2 p24. Those two viruses, incidentally were the other viruses statistically correlated with AIDS. They made the obvious conclusion that all three viruses are either the same or indistinguishable and are distinct from any other retrovirus.

    ReplyDelete
  72. OK, notElon.

    But you (and vaccine researchers) are obviously in over your heads on the subject of "type specificity".

    And Gallo et al (and Malcolm Martin circa 1986) disagree with you on HIV "strains", as far as being "indistinguishable":

    VERBATIM (excerpts):

    Historical Origins of HIV-1 (MN) and (RF)

    M. S. Reitz, H.-G. Guo, J. Oleske, J. Hoxie, M. Popovic, E. Read-Connole, P. Markham, H. Streicher, R. C. Gallo. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. September 1992, 8(9): 1539-1541

    Letter to the Editor (first page – 1539 – transcribed from original)

    On the Historical Origins of HIV-1 (MN) and (RF)

    To the Editor:

    The MN strain of HIV-1 has come to be a standard strain used all over the world; both as a prototypical virus able to be readily grown in permanent T-cell lines and in studies aimed at development of an HIV-1 vaccine. The latter is due in part to the findings that reactivity to the V3 region of the MN gp120, which is often highly type specific, is present in the overwhelming majority of infected individuals in the United States and Europe, and in as many as 50% of infected people in various regions of Africa. (1-4).

    This makes MN a highly attractive candidate for inclusion in possible vaccines. The RF strain, one of the earliest HIV-1 prototypes to be grown in T-cell lines, is also in common use. In view of their widespread distribution and usage, (5,6) we provide a detailed background of the two strains.

    The patient from whom the MN virus was obtained was a pediatric AIDS patient from the Newark, NJ area.

    RF was described by Popovic et al (6) and listed in Gallo et al (5). RF was also transmitted from primary cells to H9 cells in June 1984.

    The RF virus thus represents an isolate from the end stage of disease progression, whereas the MN grown in PH-1 from a relatively asymptomatic stage.

    ReplyDelete
  73. The credit for the quote-mining jaunt through Jay Levy's textbook goes to scientific giant, R. Crumb (see next post). Martin Barnes should give him a TB text book next time, scientists have been studying that for centuries and they still don't know the function of most of its proteins - those frauds!! TB is obviously harmless...or doesn't exist...or something.

    ReplyDelete
  74. From Facebook (pt1):

    Martin Barnes
    I met David Rasnick at the Strada Cafe near the UC Berkeley, and soon Peter Duesberg came by on his bike just returning from Germany. It was noisy there so we walked to Peter's lab through the quiet and beautiful buildings of the campus. I stayed in the lab for a couple of hours talking with Raz while Peter busily popped in and out, listening in and participating in our conversation in snatches.

    I started by complaining about the reaction of my scientific family to my becoming a dissident. Although I sent Peter's book ‘Inventing the AIDS Virus’ to them, none bothered to read it. Raz explained there is nothing but negatives for them to go there. If they saw the truth and spoke it, the system would come down on them. Too dangerous to even think about. It's something that takes courage. He recommend the book 'Disciplined Minds' by Jeff Schmidt which explains the syndrome.

    Peter wanted to know exactly what my family said as to why they did not read his book. I had no answer. I'll send them a copy of this and let them explain in their own words.

    I posed the question to Raz of what it would take to make a breakthrough in undermining the paradigm. The average Joe is not interested enough to take the time to delve into the intricacies of retroviruses and antibodies to extent of being competent to have an opinion which side is right or wrong.

    We decided to come up with a list of what the public might care about concerning HIV/AIDS. We talked about the following approach:

    THEY'VE BEEN LYING TO US!

    * AIDS is not contagious
    * It's not sexually transmissible
    * The tests don't test for a virus, or test for AIDS
    * 70-80% of AIDS patients are killed by the drugs
    * The predicted plague never happened, here or in Africa
    * They have spent more than $300 billion so far of our money, but still no cure, no vaccine
    * An ongoing holocaust is happening…destroyed lives, suicides, liver failures…

    Raz was supportive of the idea of a boycott of all AIDS tests. But we need a visible figurehead. He suggested Tommy Morrison, the boxer who's career was dashed when he came up positive on an AIDS test.

    It was interesting to me that Raz stated that most of the major players in the AIDS establishment know the whole thing is a scam, for instance Jay Levy at UCSF and Fauci. We are waiting for one of them to have an attack of conscience!

    I couldn't help but take advantage of the opportunity to try to get to the bottom of the science behind HIV/AIDS while with Duesberg. I posed the question:

    Etienne de Harven claims that no one has ever been able to take an electron micrograph of HIV from the fresh blood of a person with AIDS, even someone with a high viral load. Why is that?

    Peter's response, "Because it isn't there!"

    I remarked that this seems to be the same position the Perth Group is taking. They said no, it is possible to coax the production of HIV by poisoning cultured cells. Presumably the retrovirus is able to imbed itself in the DNA of an infected individual. The reason HIV is not seen with EM is that the person's HIV antibodies have knocked its population down to almost nothing.

    But what about the measured 'high viral load' ? Raz stated that the process of using PCR to quantify HIV takes 45 cycles, i.e., an amplification of one trillion. It's easy for a mistake to be blown out of proportion.

    ReplyDelete
  75. From Facebook (pt2)


    How about using PCR and sequencing for identification of an infective virus? Raz pointed out that HIV has only 3 genes, only 9000 base pairs. At Los Alamos, where they have a computer database of HIV sequences, there are more than 330,000 different sequences that they are calling HIV, and this number is growing exponentially. There are orders of magnitude more sequences of HIV than there are base pairs of the virus.

    The problem is, the mainstream literature documents that 99.9% of those genetically distinct variants of HIV are defective. “In other words, 99.9% can't cause AIDS, even by their own admission!”

    I told Raz and Peter about the time R. Crumb came to my house and took the two inch think tome by UCSF's Jay Levy into his room overnight.

    The title: 'HIV and the Pathogenesis of AIDS' by Jay Levy, third edition. The next morning Crumb emerged with the following gems:

    [see Claus Jensen's cut-and-pasted quotes, above]

    Jay Levy’s conclusions speak for themselves...HIV remains a virus of mystery (even though they have been studying it for 30 years!).

    Peter pointed out that there is no retrovirus known that is pathogenic. He confirmed to me that there is no properly documented case in the scientific literature where a nurse or a doctor accidentally pricked with HIV+ blood has come down with AIDS.

    I was pleased with my visit to Peter’s lab and I thank Dr. Rasnick and Peter for their cordial reception.
    June 25 at 12:21pm

    ReplyDelete
  76. (Seth, please edit out all comments in parens - these are only for you, not your readers.)

    I don't know who NM is but TB mycobacteria and MAC most certainly exist as far as I'm concerned.

    Good for him quoting Martin Barnes. I have responded to that elsewhere and will post it here.

    In the meantime, let's stay focused on the subject of type specificity, additional comments and reference for not-E below.

    (Seth, thanks for putting up my entire response to not-E. However, I'm holding a heavy artillery round in reserve, composed with the help of Claus, which you will not like. So no more censoring and you won't be embarrassed by what we finally put up at HIV Symposium if you keep up your "clever editing". For this post I'm expecting to see everything not in parens.)

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  77. BTW Seth, I want you to appreciate this revelatory quote from Barnes, the RA PR guy:

    “Raz was supportive of the idea of a boycott of all AIDS tests. But we need a visible figurehead. He suggested Tommy Morrison, the boxer who's career was dashed when he came up positive on an AIDS test.”

    Presenting this as an idea of “the RAZ” (David Rasnick) is lying that borders on the pathological IMO.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Here's a cherry-pick and copy-and-paste in response to not-E:

    Kabati, C. I. A.(1*), Chande H.(2), Maurice, H. B.(3) and Fatima G. (1); Testing for HIV Specific Proteins in Otherwise Western Blot Negative Theiller Albino Mice. Tanzania Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, December 2010: Volume 1, Issue 2, (196-201)


    1. Department of Pharmaceutics. Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.

    2. Department of Histopathology and Morbid Anatomy, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.

    3. Department of Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, St John’s University of Tanzania.


    ABSTRACT: Theiller albino mice were used to carry out various experiments in order to check for the presence or absence of HIV specific proteins in Western-Blot negative blood donors and recipient mice. The results of this study have shown one or more HIV specific bands and some indeterminate bands for positive but not complete absence of bands. The most likely explanation is that the mice had antibodies that cross-reacted with one or more of the proteins of HIV.

    Key words: HIV, Western Blot, Antibodies, Specificity

    EXCERPT: “(I)f one or two bands in the WB can be caused by non-HIV, cross reacting antibodies why can't three or four or five or all of the ten bands be caused by cross reacting non-HIV antibodies.”

    Of course there are many other references to support this statement.


    I welcome "Snout's" challenge for the reason stated above.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Snout, notElon, etc. Let me know when this becomes a total waste of your time. As long as you are having fun I will keep posting these things. I cannot take any of it serious.
    Have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Concerned CitizenJuly 9, 2011 at 5:03 PM

    I have to give Peter Duesberg more credit than I have afforded him in the past...just on stamina alone. Per NM, Martin Barnes says:

    "...and soon Peter Duesberg came by on his bike just returning from Germany."

    DAMN! That is quite a bike ride all the way from Germany!!

    ReplyDelete
  81. Concerned CitizenJuly 9, 2011 at 5:04 PM

    Gene,
    I also must hand it to you. Your blog "Viromania" has been around since Sept 2008. No posts in 3 years and only 30 views. You are a force to be reckoned with!

    ReplyDelete
  82. "Snout, notElon, etc. Let me know when this becomes a total waste of your time."

    Nah, I'm really enjoying reading Gene's contributions. Especially this bit:

    Gene says: "Good for (NM) quoting Martin Barnes. I have responded to that elsewhere and will post it here...

    Martin Barnes says: "Raz was supportive of the idea of a boycott of all AIDS tests. But we need a visible figurehead. He suggested Tommy Morrison, the boxer who's career was dashed when he came up positive on an AIDS test."

    and Gene says: "Presenting this as an idea of “the RAZ” (David Rasnick) is lying that borders on the pathological IMO."

    Gene - not sure if I'm reading this right, but are you saying that the brilliant strategic move to present Tommy Morrison as a "figurehead" of the dissident movement wasn't really Rasnick's idea?

    "Seth... I'm holding a heavy artillery round in reserve, composed with the help of Claus, which you will not like."

    Please don't tease us like that, Gene. We're almost beside ourselves with anticipation.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Response to Professor Kalichman July 04

    PART I

    Dear Professor Kalichman,

    Thank you for your question: “define '98-99% pure HIV'. What is impure HIV?”

    Pure refers to a collection of objects in which every member of the collection is another of the same object. For example, a box of 500 apples is pure apples. A box 250 apples and 250 oranges is not pure apples. It’s impure apples.

    HIV is claimed to be a virus. Viruses are particles -- microscopic infectious particles. Infectious means the particles replicate by entering and parasitising living cells. The replicated particles have the same physical and biochemical properties as the parent particles.

    The HIV particle is classified as a lentiviral member of the Retrovirus family. Professor Hans Gelderblom from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin provides the following definition:

    “Retroviruses are enveloped viruses with a diameter of 100 to 120 nm budding at cellular membranes. Cell released virions [particles] contain condensed inner bodies (cores) and are studded with projections (spikes, knobs)…On the ‘ideal’, intact HIV particle 72 knobs can be determined. They are made up of gp120…Parallel to the long axis the core, protein accumulations (‘lateral bodies’) typical of Lentivirinae [lentiviruses] are visible. Morphologically, the lentivirus nature of HIV is reflected most clearly by the elongated, cone-shaped inner body..[core]”.

    Hence the HIV particle has the following morphological features:

    A spherical shape.
    A diameter of 100-120 nm
    An outer envelope
    The envelope is studded with spikes (knobs)
    An elongated cone shaped core
    Two lateral bodies within the particle

    Gelderblom’s diagram of HIV can be seen at http://theperthgroup.com/Nobel/MontagnierEMNobel.pdf

    It needs to be appreciated that electron microscopic appearances alone are unable to prove a particle is a virus. Static images of dead material cannot provide the means of proving replication. This is why professionals always report particles that look like viruses (and may in fact be viruses) as virus-like particles.

    With this caveat and assuming there is proof somewhere else that the particles under discussion are infectious, then 98-99% pure HIV can be proven by electron microscopic examination of material obtained by sucrose gradient centrifugation, anion exchange chromatography or any other method that purports to purify the HIV particles. To avoid sampling errors, several samples of such material must be examined. If several images show that 98/100 particles fulfil the morphological description provided by Gelderblom then the material is 98-99% pure.

    END PART I

    ReplyDelete
  84. Response to Professor Kalichman July 04

    PART II

    On May 23rd Snout wrote “While density gradient ultracentrifugation is useful for enriching viral preparations, there is no way you can get a 100% pure virus preparation from it...You can get close – perhaps 98-99% pure...”

    On June 2 I asked Snout " please give me the evidence which demonstrates the existence of 98-99% pure HIV"

    On June 2 Snout responded “Val, I'm not interested in playing fetch with you, but here's an example:

    Characterization of highly purified, inactivated HIV-1 particles isolated by anion exchange chromatography”


    The link Snout provided is a paper published in 1998 by Richieri. (15 years after Montagnier claimed to have discovered HIV). This paper has a single, low quality electron microscopic image with the caption “Thin section electron micrograph (negatively stained) showing inactivated, gp120 depleted HIV-1 particles purified by anion exchange chromatography”.

    Anion exchange chromatography is not density gradient ultracentrifugation.
    The descriptor “Thin section electron micrograph (negatively stained)” is wrong. It is impossible to negatively stain a thin section in electron microscopy.

    Ignoring these factors, as well as the requirement for knobs (the authors’ claimed they removed the proteins said to constitute the knobs), we asked Snout to demonstrate the particles depicted in this image are 98-99% pure HIV. That is, show us that 98-99/100 particles fulfil the morphological criteria for HIV. Snout did not do this.

    We have photographed the image in the library (paper) copy of the Richieri paper, which is an improvement over the image in the pdf available from the publisher. This image is at

    http://leederville.net/links/RichieriSansGrid.jpg

    We have also posted the same image with a grid at
    http://leederville.net/links/RichieriWithGrid.pdf

    In this image we estimate there are approximately 1500 spherical structures. Once again we invite Snout (and you Professor Kalichman and anyone reading this column) to demonstrate that 98-99/100 particles have all the morphological features of HIV (less the knobs). If that is not possible please indicate some particles bearing all these features Please use the grid to tell us where you see these structures. Note there is a 1 um size bar in the bottom right hand corner of the image. (Also present but difficult to discern in the original).

    Please note: We’re not asking Snout to tell us what claims the authors’ made in the Richieri paper. We want to know Snout’s interpretation of this image.

    Do you think Snout is correct in providing this image as an example of 98-99% pure HIV particles?

    END PART II

    ReplyDelete
  85. Well Valendar,

    No one will ever accuse you of being succinct. One post replies from now on, please.

    I am pretty skeptical about your response. How can I be certain that what is in that box is truly, purely, apples? Those objects differ in color, shape, size, sugar content, number of seeds, skin thickness, core-to-flesh ratio, stem length... Who is to say what constitutes an apple anyway? I suppose I have to trust some 'expert' or 'scientist' funded by the government or Big Agriculture. And what of the bacteria, dust and other impurities attached to the objects? Does that not make them impure.

    How about if I spend my life searching for that one image or other evidence that proves the box of objects is pure? I know I am right, so it must be so.

    is pure apples. A box 250 apples and 250 oranges is not pure apples. It’s impure apples.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Response to Professor Kalichman July 04

    PART III

    Re Snout and my alleged “cherry picking”:
    Snout wrote: “Not only did Valendar himself cherry pick the (low magnification negatively stained) micrograph image out of the ten-page paper as if it were the entire body of evidence for the authors' claims, he has the gall to try to make out it was me who was did that. Astounding”.

    Our discussion concerns only the existence of evidence which proves purification of virus-like particles with the morphology attributed to HIV. The reason is simple: No proof for purification = no proof for a new virus. With two exceptions, Peter Duesberg and Julian Bess (who repeated Duesberg’s claims), everybody agrees that, to prove the existence of new virus, purification is absolutely necessary.

    It was not me but Snout who provided the Richieri paper as proof for the existence of 98-99% pure HIV. The image is this paper is the only evidence that can address the issue of purification. In the rest of this “ten-page paper” the authors performed “Analyses of the purified virus particles for protein, lipids, carbohydrate and RNA...the elution profiles were compared with that obtained for an HIV-1 preparation purified by multiple sucrose density gradient sedimentation procedures”. The results were similar with both methods. Analysing the proteins of “the purified virus particles” they concluded “The data confirm the presence of virally encoded proteins [the RNA was “highly fragmented”, see endnote] p6, p7,p15, p17, p24, p32, p39, gp41, p55Gag, p61/51, Vpr; Vif and Nef...The anion exchange conditions have retained the structural integrity and composition of HIV-1, with the exception of gp120 depletion”.

    Given that not even one of the “HIV-1 particles purified by anion exchange” from which the proteins were obtained has the morphology attributed to HIV-1, then any scientist worth his salt, or anyone else for that matter, will have no choice but to conclude that the aforementioned proteins, whatever they are, cannot be HIV-1 proteins.

    Thank you Snout for providing us with yet one more article with proof for our claims. Can you provide a paper which has evidence for 98-99% purification of HIV using density gradient ultracentrifugation?

    ENDNOTE: Since the RNA was “highly fragmented” how can anyone prove coding?

    ReplyDelete
  87. OK fine have it your way Seth.

    I thought: perhaps Claus is wrong when he tells me how "dense" you are.

    And what on earth possessed me to think I could establish a short-cut and avoid having to go through this whole thread line by line?

    Will this turn out to be the heavy artillery that "Snout" is eagerly anticipating?

    Time will tell, but (s)he's going to have to read it at HIV Symposium.

    Does (s)he have the courage to go there?

    Apparently my link to it frightens you and him/her so much that it can't appear at "denyingaids" site. (BTW who exactly, outside of the RA cult, is denying AIDS?)

    In any event, because I'm such a nice guy, I'm giving you credit for the apples metaphor as being somewhat responsive to my analysis. (Not to Val however.)

    In lay language, it's whether or not HIV's presumed existence is a reality in the natural world. It's original and based on the logic of set theory - many different "classes" of HIV that have been documented by HIV experts. They are phenotypes (not talking about sub-genotypes here) that logically exclude other HIV phenotypes.

    Rational taxonomy as a remedy for the mess of lentiviruses etc.

    Has the thought ever bubbled up into your mind that this is what has confounded the vaccine researchers - the mis-classification problem retrovirologists have brought to biology?

    Of course the many specific genotypes of "HIV-1" exist in the plasmid data-base at Los Alamos.

    So who are the real denialists?

    You censored me to protect "Snout" on his/her biochemical error re polymerases.

    You censored post and link to my original ANALYSIS of what constitutes the HIV phenotype according to the HIV experts before it was blown out of the water by other HIV experts.(You of all people Seth should be able to recognize cognitive dissonance!)

    Hey, maybe if I put it in parens, it will go up!

    (Please go to

    http://tig.org.za/the_hiv_symposium/2011/05/trojan-horse-from-tanzania/#comment-2019

    for my critique of HIV as a specified phenotype and Claus' comments on the paper.)

    You said, "I cannot take any of it serious (sic)".

    But your whistling in the dark is also a lie and you know it.

    If your censoring posts of Claus and I then obviously you're taking us seriously.

    :o)

    ReplyDelete
  88. "Snout" said: "Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none."

    So thanks for the "heavy artillery" guys and gals. You have provided conclusive proof of who the real denialists are in the last several days.

    This may come as a shock to you, but I'm confident that any fair-minded reader will judge you guilty according to your own definition of denialism.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Val,
    Why did it take you over two weeks to come up with such fantastical analysis? Does it take that long to write such science fiction?

    ReplyDelete
  90. "Given that not even one of the HIV-1 particles purified by anion exchange” from which the proteins were obtained has the morphology attributed to HIV-1, then any scientist worth his salt, or anyone else for that matter, will have no choice but to conclude that the aforementioned proteins [p6, p7,p15, p17, p24, p32, p39, gp41, p55Gag, p61/51, Vpr; Vif and Nef], whatever they are, cannot be HIV-1 proteins."

    Val, you silly duffer, you'll recall that over a month ago I joined this thread to point out an obvious logical howler in your argument. And now you are making exactly the same logical error again. I'm getting concerned that you are still unable to see it.

    Richeri's image does not resolve to the degree of detail that would allow you to identify whether or not all of Gelderblom's morphological features are present in the sample being imaged. You cannot say whether the actual particles had lateral bodies, cone shaped cores, etc on the basis of this image alone. It was never intended to demonstrate those features in each of the individual particles - rather it was to demonstrate "a homogenous field of intact particles".

    Your fallacy is to assume that because the features you demand to see aren't clearly delineated in this particular low resolution image, then they cannot be present in the particles which are the subject of the image.

    That is like me arguing that the image of Perth on your website proves that the WA capital is deserted, because there are no figures with the morphology of people in it. The problem is, the picture does not resolve to a level of detail to allow you to determine from it whether the actual city Perth (the subject of the image) is populated or not.

    This is the same type of logical fallacy as arguing that because Barre Sinoussi identified one particular retroviral protein in a sample of particles then another different retroviral protein cannot have been present, and because that second protein is a sine qua non of retroviruses the particles cannot have been retroviruses.

    I could be wrong here, but I suspect that your fallacy there was so obvious that even Claus eventually managed to grasp it.

    "The image is this paper is the only evidence that can address the issue of purification."

    Yes, Val, we are all familiar with your propensity to pompously issue ex-cathedra statements, such as "...all the data from pre-AIDS and non-HIV studies show that no maternal IgG antibodies can be detected after 9 months, we repeat, by nine months, if not before."

    Trouble is, no matter how much you try to puff yourself up, co-opt the royal “we”, stamp your little foot and repeat your demonstrably nonsense decrees - they remain demonstrably nonsense.

    And thanks for yet another... well, demonstration.

    ReplyDelete
  91. It's particularly entertaining the way Val Turner consistently uses formulations in which he seeks to reassure himself by claiming that people have "no choice" but to reach the same idiotic, ignorant and erroneous conclusions that he does. It's like Richard Nixon and the silent majority.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Gene, please respond to this question:

    What is this "HIV Symposium" you are talking about where you threaten to put up some "heavy artillery" that will embarrass Seth? Is it the one in December in DC that will be all denialists?

    Seth, I would not worry if I were you. This sounds like the smoke Donald Trump was blowing a few months ago claiming he had Private Investigators on the ground in Hawaii. Trump kept threatening that his PIs were finding definitive proof that President Obabma was not born there. Of course the threats never came to fruition, much as Gene's B.S., I'm betting.

    I wonder if Trump used Clark Baker as his PI? Maybe that's why he never showed any proof. With an incompetent like Baker on the job...

    ReplyDelete
  93. @Gene, a couple of days ago we were discussing Martin Barnes' report that it was Rasnick's suggestion to get Tommy Morrison involved as a figurehead of the dissident movement.

    You described this as "lying that borders on the pathological IMO", and said you "have responded to that elsewhere and will post it here."

    Please do so, as I'm sure that readers of this blog thread (both of us) will be very interested in your promised response on this particular topic.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  94. CC, The "HIV Symposium" is Claus Jensen's blog, hosted on Anthony Brink's TIG website.

    http://tig.org.za/the_hiv_symposium/about/

    ReplyDelete
  95. Thanks for the link, Snout. What fun to see Bauer attacked by other dissidents. Bauer really is an idiot.

    If it were not for the Bauer attacks, it would be a useless site, indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Molecular Entry ClawJuly 14, 2011 at 8:39 AM

    Snout (I presume Kalichman can send this to you privately, since he has censored me on the blog in order to protect you),

    I don't see what's so exciting to tou about Barnes making false claims of originality. Was it the world "pathological" that tickled your social scientist pretensions?

    As a dedicated student of the dissident "civil war" you should know by now that the current Rethinking AIDS consists mainly of second-rate plagiarists.
    To be fair, the quote from Martin Barnes cannot be taken as a claim that Rasnick was the first to suggest Tommy Morrison as a dissident figurehead.

    And yes you are mistaken, neither I nor anybody else is buying your exposure of Val Turner's "faulty logic". You'd be laughed out of a real debate forum for arguing that if it cannot be determined what an EM shows or where reverse transcriptase activity comes from, it is HIV by default. When your idol Nick Bennet attempted the Richieri paper in the BMJ debate, that's exactly what happened. He came up with it as the best EM of HIV he could muster, and he couldn't point to a single virion. Just like you he said that the proof of the picture was in the text. By which standard you could pick any paper with the words "HIV" and "isolate" in the title.

    Significantly, after Bennet's embarrassment in a forum that wasn't under the protective censorship of Papa Kalichman nobody ever tried that paper again until you were stupid enough to bring it up.

    At least Bennett didn't compound his emnbarrassment by cowardly trying to pretend it wasn't him who picked the paper in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  97. MEC,
    Can you supply a link to the BMJ Debate you claim Nick Bennett embarrassed himself with the EM?
    I need to see for myself that your interpretation is correct.
    Thanks,
    CC

    ReplyDelete
  98. Claus, like Val, is entertainingly delusional. He's still trying to recover from getting so flustered about his inability to say what "special circumstances" cause human cells to start making proteins that aren't encoded anywhere in the human genome-as he had claimed-that he had to resort to posting Jay Levy quote-mines.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Molecular Entry ClawJuly 15, 2011 at 2:38 AM

    CC,

    I don't know what I can and cannot answer without having Kalichman shut down the thread to protect Snout, but again maybe at least he can fwd this to you privately.

    Why would you need to check if my "interpretation" is correct? Has the always truthful Snout not complained again and again that it was so very unfair of Val Turner to make him choose an EM that was 'never intended to demonstrate those features in each of the individual particles - rather it was to demonstrate "a homogenous field of intact particles"'. How could that be any different for Bennett?

    If you still don't see the irony, then think about it this way: Since Snout and Bennett by the Richieri paper kindly have shown that Val Turner was wrong, that it is in fact possible to purify HIV to the point where you have a "homogenous field of intact particles", what could be easier than looking up an EM that was indeed intended to demonstrate "those features" (i.e. morpholological characteristics) of purified HIV particles?

    ReplyDelete
  100. Claus, we're well and truly at the fag end of the discussion where there is little for me to do except correct your misrepresentations of what I've already said.

    " You'd be laughed out of a real debate forum for arguing that if it cannot be determined what an EM shows or where reverse transcriptase activity comes from, it is HIV by default."

    No, not "by default".

    The image does not provide enough information about whether the particles all contain cone shaped cores, lateral bodies, etc - or not. The resolution is too low to delineate whether those features are present in the sample or not.

    According to Valendar, this "proves" that the particles being imaged cannot be HIV.

    WTF?

    The evidence of what the particles are in Richieri's image comes not from the image itself but from the text in the paper. The point of the image is to demonstrate "a homogenous field of intact particles", not to prove what those particles are. Even a very high resolution image of HIV showing all of Gelderblom's morphological features does not "prove" that what is being imaged is HIV.

    To know what the particles are, you need to read the text of the paper, not just look at the pictures.

    It is the Perth Group who are obsessed about EMs as the be all and end all of whether what is being imaged is HIV or not. No one else is.

    *sigh* I'm just repeating the same point over and over, and you just don't get it. I'm getting bored.

    "When your idol Nick Bennet attempted the Richieri paper in the BMJ debate... Significantly, after Bennet's embarrassment in a forum that wasn't under the protective censorship of Papa Kalichman... At least Bennett didn't compound his emnbarrassment by cowardly ..."

    "Debating denialists on the topic of HIV/AIDS is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory."

    - Scott D. Weitzenhoffer (actually he was talking about creationists rather than HIV/AIDS denialists, but the principle is the same).


    CC, Here's an extended example of Nick Bennett, Chris Noble, Brian Foley and others trying to play chess with pigeons. Click on the blue triangles - there's enough guano from the Perthians to create a moderate sized Pacific island.

    http://www.rethinking.org/bmj/BMJ-Date-Ascending.html#65293

    ReplyDelete
  101. Dear Snout,

    All the HIV experts, including Gallo and Montagnier, tell us that to prove the existence of a new virus, the virus particles must be purified. But most probably they would accept 98% purity, and so would we. This means you have two choices.

    1. Provide proof for purification of the HIV particles. That is, infectious particles which have all the required morphological characteristics as listed previously. Not "a homogenous field of intact particles". If you can provide such proof, then and only then, we will stop questioning the existence of HIV.

    2. If you cannot find such evidence you, as a concerned citizen, if not a scientist, should start questioning the existence of HIV yourself. It’s not too late.

    In regard to the “"special circumstances" which may lead to cells producing new proteins, please read http://theperthgroup.com/EPE/MitoticTheory.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  102. Ok, I think we are finished with Turner. Ultimately he has to cite his own web-site to provide evidence for a 'factual' statement. It would be more productive use of time watching a dog chase its tail, and it would be less circular too.

    Start questioning the existence of David Crowe. It's not too late.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Seth, haven't you been following the Perth Group's output recently?

    For some time now the Perthians have been working with diligence and singleminded purpose to achieve the isolation of David Crowe by the most rigorous method science has to offer.

    I wish them every success in this important endeavour.

    ReplyDelete
  104. WHO warns against the use of inaccurate blood tests for active tuberculosis...
    The WHO bans TB Antibody Testing
    Now all they have to do is warn that HIV "antibody" testing should be banned as well at which point PAIDS, Phony AIDS, is toast releasing the white coats to concentrate on RAIDS, Real AIDS.

    ReplyDelete
  105. You do realize that one antibody test has nothing to do with another, unless you are saying that you don't believe in antibody tests at all, or antibodies even. Then you'd have real problems. Even Valendar Turner believes in antibody tests for measles, at least. Should the WHO get rid of those too?

    If you had read the article, you would know that the tests were never approved, are expensive, and that there are accurate tests available. None of that is true for the Western Blot or ELISA, the combination of which has a long approved history of use, and a sterling track record that everyone who actually read through the literature with an open mind can see for themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Dear Professor Kalichman,

    The reference I provided is the Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos general theory of cellular functioning, published in 1982 in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, one of the most prestigious journals in biological research [1].

    You know and I know that a theory is as good as its predictions. Among many things this theory predicts is the mechanism and conditions under which the cell synthesises proteins. This prediction has been confirmed by a number of researchers including the 300 scientists from the 35 teams participating in the ENCODE project (ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements) [2,3].

    1. Papadopulos-Eleopulos E. A Mitotic Theory. J Theor Biol. 1982; 96: 741-58. http://www.theperthgroup.com/EPE/MitoticTheory.pdf

    2. Birney E, Stamatoyannopoulos JA, Dutta A, Guigo R, Gingeras TR, Margulies EH, et al. Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project. Nature. 2007; 447: 799-816. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17571346

    3. Pennisi E. Genomics. DNA study forces rethink of what it means to be a gene. Science. 2007; 316: 1556-7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17569836

    ReplyDelete
  107. Val
    Forgive me for missing that 1982 article. I did not even bother visiting the Perth webpage. I think there is a bit of a credibility problem.

    I am disappointed that you did not respond to my pure apples comment above. (July 9, 9:49pm)

    By the way, do you really believe the J of Theoretical Biology is "one of the most prestigious journals in biological research"? Seriously? It has an Impact Factor of 2.3. I suppose I could take your word on the hundreds of scientists that have confirmed those protein predictions. Is David Crowe among them?

    ReplyDelete
  108. @Snout,

    Indeed I did post something at "hivaidsparadigm" - not an accusation against Martin Barnes - who may not be lying as Claus has pointed out.

    Actually it has more to do with how "wild cells" can indeed make "HIV proteins" under stressed circumstances. (Which of course can be duplicated in test tube by properly designed experiments - "tamed cells" that do the "right tricks"). It was intended as an appeal of sorts to Duesberg and Rasnick, not an attack on MB.

    It is responsive to some points your side has raised since I was last here so please be patient while I dig it (and topically related posts) out.

    Look, Crowe's not ever going to be "isolated" and I'm just letting go of anger as best I can.

    Perhaps we can depersonalize all this if we stick to a simple definition of science as "learning about new things" (Source = TV Show "Life on Mars" - The Sorcerer, a government dept of one as played by Wallace Shawn).

    ReplyDelete
  109. How do you tame a cell? I was unaware that carrots and sticks came in tiny. That would be a new scientific feat to wonder at.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Oh great notE, you interpret this little metaphor as a grandiose claim.

    It's a single-word compression, Mr Nitpicker, for the benefit of lay readers. There has to be an explanation, a reason why experiments with cells can be published. Taming = predictability.

    A pathologist who investigated real tumors and understands that "immortal cell-lines" are not cancer cells "in the wild" can educate you.

    Read Gerald Dermer's book (immortal cells) as a primer on how "biotech" designs and engineers experiments with cells in test tubes.

    His book on cell lines explains in detail how they are "tamed", a quite ordinary "scientific feat".

    IMO this type of ball-busting would have halted quantum mechanics in its tracks.

    Believe it or not, gadflies like Val Turner, objecting to "specific HIV proteins", and Claus Jensen's explanation of HIV's nonexistence, can help the AIDS Vaccine research program.

    These are constructive contributions, clearly not "denying AIDS", because NIH has to finally get why it's a total failure to try and vaccinate against an entity with no clearly defined phenotype in the real world. (Yes in the test-tube world, it's clearly defined.)

    After all these decades right? Total collapse of HIV Vaccine Program, and all the happy talk in the world isn't going to solve HIV's great contribution to extant fiscal crisis.

    So perhaps important to some people if not your readers in terms of Obama's plans to reform NIH, a quote from Claus:

    "What does the signifier "HIV" signify? Is the definition self-consistent, and does it correspond to whatever we call reality? Attributes such as exogenous, self-identical, infectious particle etc. are key. As the French charlatan (possibly related to that other French charlatan, Jaques Derrida) Prof. de Harven teaches us, it is wrong to say that nonexistence means "no thing". Surely there is something there - a res extensa - but what is that something?"

    Look, it's difficult to compress all this material into lay language. And your side likes to reject direct quotes, part of the rhetoric-instead-of-substance moves I've been dealing with for last six years

    Just read Montagnier's 1983 paper as an example of all the catalysts -(in this case it's co-culturing not "immortality")- that have to be added by the experimenter to get predictable results from the "tamed" or "co-cultured" cells.

    Francois had to force the situation to make the RT reaction go. Even the nucleotides and "RNA template" had to be added by experimenter, becaue wild cell kinetics don't always "produce a retrovirus".

    That's why we can call them wild, they're not predictable. This is demonstrated by Gallo's second 1984 paper on multiple definitions of retrovirus detection when they are "primary isolates".

    The necessity of "synthetic kinetics" to have "full isolation" from "immortal cell lines" was proven definitively by 70's retroviral researchers.

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  111. "Believe it or not, gadflies like Val Turner, objecting to "specific HIV proteins", and Claus Jensen's explanation of HIV's nonexistence, can help the AIDS Vaccine research program."

    Yup, they really are that delusional.

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  112. "Note that all their subsequent demands depend on completion of this “purification” by the only method they'll accept and to their personal satisfaction..."

    Dear Dear Esnout, to their satisfaction?

    "The rules for isolation of a retrovirus were thoroughly discussed at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1973, and are the logical minimum requirements for establishing the independent existence of HIV. They are:"

    ~The Perth Group

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  113. Molecular biology has accomplished nothing in the last 30 years. It's a tentacle of Capitalism. It's nothing but an industry of lucrative Patents, research dollars and as many drugs to match. You will die by the hands of Molecular Biologists and the abundance of completley non specific tests. How can a test for cancer be specific if apparently the cause is not known? You must ask Cui Bono?

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  114. I declare the perth group the winner

    ReplyDelete