The Legal System Turned Upside Down: Defining, Diagnosing, and Denying HIV

Nushawn Williams. Remember him? In 1999 Williams was convicted as a sexual predator in New York State; Guilty of rape and reckless endangerment. Williams is HIV infected and he infected his victims, including a 13 year old.

It looks like Clark Baker and his AIDS Denialist crew of medical mischief and pseudoscientific scams have come to rescue Nushawn Williams, who now claims that he is not HIV infected. Williams may have tested HIV positive, but the tests were, of course, invalid.

New tests ordered by the defense, with what appears to be consultation from Clark Baker, uses an AIDS denialist favorite scheme -- electron micrographs.

For an AIDS Denialist, the only proof that HIV exists would be an image of the ‘pure virus’. AIDS Deniers refute science that relies on combinations of antibody/antigen/PCR testing to diagnose HIV. They also, by the way, refute images of HIV because they are not ‘pure virus’.

While in prison, Williams had been receiving treatment for his HIV infection. Successful treatment leads to viral suppression, making it very hard to get an image of the virus.

This is the new tactic of AIDS Deniers Clark Baker and David Rasnick. They have been using services of The Core Electron Microscopy Facility at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. A cell biologist named Gregory Hendricks has been running these tests in cases that employ Baker and Rasnick.

How AIDS Denialism Can Kill You Part VII: Nadezhda

David Crowe AIDS Denialist

A Russian woman has posted her story at David Crowe's Alberta Reappraising AIDS website. It illustrates how the AIDS Denialism movement attracts people who are unable to cope with their HIV diagnosis. Her T-cells are dropping and she believes it is nothing to worry about. Nothing to with AIDS. Rather than correcting her misinformed beliefs, Crowe is happy to confirm them. He is a primary vector for the spread medical misinformation. If you have read the tragic story of Emery Taylor below, Nadezhda's post will sound very familiar. Here are some excerpts. I encourage you to visit Crowe's website, if you can stomach it. 

My name is Nadezhda. I am 31 years old. I tested HIV-positive 2 years ago, I am asymptomatic and healthy and never have been sick since my “diagnosis”. I didn’t ask for this testing, it was mandatory testing for official purposes.

Prior to my test I already had seen sites online saying that “HIV=AIDS” is a myth. One of them is run by a doctor who writes about healthy lifestyle and natural ways of healings. He also writes against HIV=AIDS and vaccinations and other medical dogmas and since he was a doctor himself I trusted his opinion. When I read that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, I just knew that he was right deep in my heart. But I didn’t know any details.

Another Tragic Case of AIDS Denialism: Kim Bannon

Another cast member of the AIDS Denialist film House of Numbers is dying of AIDS.

A post at the Denialist website 'Questioning AIDS Forum' reads "Kim Bannon gravely ill".  

"Kim is deteriorating rapidly and there is little hope left. As of now, she can still recognize people, but it seems this will not last long. Her delusions are getting worse. ...The dissident movement owes her a lot, and we can't afford to forget what she did for all of us."

It is fair to say that the 'AIDS Dissident Movement' owes Kim Bannon nothing less than her life.

Accountability for Reckless Abuse of Academic Credentials by AIDS Deniers

Unconventional thinkers or recklessly dangerous minds?

By Jon Cartwright

6 May 2010

Aids denialism is estimated to have killed many thousands. Jon Cartwright asks if scientists should be held accountable, while overleaf Bruce Charlton defends his decision to publish the work of an Aids sceptic, which sparked a row that has led to his being sacked and his journal abandoning its raison d'etre: presenting controversial ideas for scientific debate

In late 1996, Robert C, a social worker living in New York, was diagnosed as HIV-positive. At first he followed his doctor's advice and collected his prescription antiretrovirals, which stall the disease's progression. But he never took the drugs. Instead, encouraged by a series of articles in the US magazine Spin, he did nothing.

Is Peter Duesberg Finally Paying His Dues?

Exclusive:
AIDS Scientist 
Investigated for 
Misconduct
After Complaint

by Greg Miller on April 16, 2010, Science Insider 
UPDATE: Huffington Post / Daily Californian pick up the story:UC Berkeley Professor Under Investigation For Controversial AIDS Article; 
Statement by Nathan Geffen on Complaint Against Peter Duesberg 

University of California, Berkeley, professor of molecular and cell biology Peter Duesberg tells ScienceInsider that he is the subject of a misconduct investigation launched by the university. Duesberg has been a controversial figure for decades because of his vocal skepticism that HIV is the cause of AIDS. But he says this is the first time he has ever been investigated for misconduct, and ScienceInsider has learned that an AIDS activist may have helped initiate the investigation.

How to spot an AIDS denialist

Rogues, pseudoscientists, snake oil peddlers – Seth Kalichman reveals the sinister tactics used by those who deny the link between HIV and AIDS in a new article in The New Humanist magazine.

Imagine that you or someone you love just received an HIV positive test result. The news is devastating. After a short time you begin to face the diagnosis. You turn to the Internet for answers. Searching the words “AIDS diagnosis” brings up thousands of websites. A whirlwind of information spins your mind.

One credible-looking website, Aids.org, reads: “There is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus and slow down the damage to your immune system. There is no way to ‘clear’ HIV from the body. Other drugs can prevent or treat opportunistic infections (OIs). In most cases, these drugs work very well. The newer, stronger ARVs have also helped reduce the rates of most OIs. A few OIs, however, are still very difficult to treat.”

With a click of the mouse, an equally credible-looking site, Aliveandwell.org, asks: “Did you know … Many experts contend that AIDS is not a fatal, incurable condition caused by HIV? That most of the AIDS information we receive is based on unsubstantiated assumptions, unfounded estimates and improbable predictions? That the symptoms associated with AIDS are treatable using non-toxic, immune-enhancing therapies that have restored the health of people diagnosed with AIDS and that have enabled those truly at risk to remain well?”

Which do you trust? Which do you believe? Which would you want to believe? Would you choose to believe there may be hope offered by medical treatments or would you prefer to believe that HIV is harmless? This simple example illustrates the lure of AIDS denialism.

Read the whole story at The New Humanist.

"Hello Professor, a Brent Leung is here to see you"

House of Numbers continues to be the talk of AIDS Denialism. There are many lessons to be learned from the AIDS Denialist crockumentary House of Numbers. The real lesson for scientists is that just because a guy has a camera crew does not mean you should agree to be interviewed by him. Thinking twice before sitting down in front of a camera is a worthwhile lesson indeed. The October 15 issue of Nature, a magazine well known for its excellent book reviews, published a great story on the hazards of scientists appearing in documentaries gone wrong. Too bad the article came out after House of Numbers was in the can. I post the article here for future reference.

And don’t forget to check out the new House of Numbers Website. Everyone should see House of Numbers.But be sure to read up before going.

UPDATE: Editors at Science Daily react to the misrepresentation (lying?) about T-Cells and AIDS twisted in House of Numbskulls.

UPDATE: Joseph Sonnabend, MD - Physician and AIDS Researcher speaks out on the fraud behind House of Numbers.

Caught on camera

of page

Abstract

What to do when you are interviewed for an unscientific documentary

Nature 461, 848 (15 October 2009) | doi:10.1038/461848a; Published online 14 October 2009

Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has always had to deal with angry e-mails from people who think that global warming isn't happening, and that Schneider is part of a conspiracy to promote it. He has been vocal about the dangers of climate change for decades.

In the past week, however, Schneider has been deluged by furious messages. They have been provoked by a clip circulating on the Internet from Not Evil Just Wrong, a documentary film claiming that global-warming fears are 'hysteria'. The clip explains how Schneider did an interview — and then how the university informed the film-makers that it had rescinded permission for using any of the Stanford footage and that Schneider had withdrawn permission to use his name or interview. Schneider says he backed out when he realized that the film-makers were polemicists who had lied to him about their intentions. Some climate-sceptic commentators are accusing him of censorship.

Schneider is by no means the first scientist to feel hoodwinked by film-makers. British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins ended up in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film purporting to show how academics who do not accept evolution are frozen out of academia. Dawkins says that he was conned — that the film-makers had presented the project to him as an even-handed effort entitled Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion. Carl Wunsch, an oceanographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, felt he was "swindled" in a like manner by the producers of The Great Global Warming Swindle. And Nikos Logothetis of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, let a seemingly objective film crew into his primate laboratory — only to see the footage used in an animal-rights documentary that slams him as cruel.

For many scientists, the natural response to such stories is to stop talking to the media. But that would be an overreaction. For one thing, such misrepresentations are rare. Schneider estimates that he has given some 3,500 interviews since the 1970s, and only twice has he been "set up". Most journalists and documentarians are honestly trying to report the facts, and scientists have a responsibility to tell the public about their work — especially if it is supported by public money.

Fortunately, scientists can do much to protect themselves. When someone asks for an interview, for example, a scientist should enquire about starting assumptions, the intended audience and the identity of the project's backers. And, if possible, researchers should check the earlier work of the journalists and any companies behind the film for a partisan tone, or unacceptable levels of sensationalism.

But if these efforts fail, and it is discovered too late that the film-makers are bent on using an on-tape interview to promote a view that seems unscientific, the question becomes what steps to take. There is rarely a way to withdraw an interview that was given on the record, for good reason. In any case, making a fuss can be a gift of publicity to film-makers. Schneider admits that he might have spared himself the deluge of e-mails had he just ignored the makers of Not Evil Just Wrong.

A better approach might well be to complain to the television channels and broadcasting regulators, many of which have standards for their programming. The Great Global Warming Swindle was censured by Ofcom, Britain's broadcasting regulator, for breaking several rules in its broadcasting code. And when the same documentary was aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it was followed by a point-by-point debate and rebuttal.

In the end, this is perhaps the most effective way to limit the damage. Bad journalism is best met not with red-faced indignation, but with good journalism. The truth is the best revenge.

AIDS Denialist Crank Convention: Gearing Up for Oakland

"They are all prostitutes, most of them, my collogues, to some degree, including myself. You have to be prostitutes to get money for your research. You are trained a little bit to be a prostitute. But some go all the way." Peter Duesberg

I don’t know about you, but I am getting pretty excited about the Rethinking AIDS conference. What a great opportunity to meet all of the AIDS Denialists and learn about their latest delusions! I am familiar with the venue – same place Peter Duesberg held his Aneuploidy Conference. Truth is the Aneuploidy meeting attempted to present some science. There were some real scientists there, albeit not very comfortably. The Rethinking AIDS Conference promises to be even better. Just look at what the AIDS Deniers are saying…

Peer Reviewing Peter Duesberg – REJECTED—RETRACTED—REJECTED Again

This summer’s saga of Peter Duesberg’s Medical Hypotheses retracted article should probably be put to rest. The sad story of this broken scientist has been told many times. Here though Duesberg reaches an all time low as he teams up with pseudoscientist Henry Bauer to yet again claim that HIV is harmless.

Duesberg and his long time accomplice David Rasnick along with Loch Ness Monster Scholar Henry Bauer published the article “HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS – A new perspective” in the non-peer reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses. The article focused on the South African AIDS epidemic and research reported by Harvard scientist Dr. Pride Chigwedere in the respected Journal of AIDS. Duesberg disputes the death of over 300,000 South Africans and 30,000 babies unnecessary infected with HIV. Duesberg and Rasnick have a stake in denying AIDS in South Africa because they advised former President Thabo Mbeki to deny AIDS and delay HIV treatments. Duesberg’s ideas were so flawed that the publisher, Elsevier Science, took the unusual step of retracting the article.

Magic Johnson Turns 50 and He Thanks HIV Treatments

Where were you November 7 1991?

I know precisely where I was.

My student Tricia Hunter and I had just finished collecting AIDS attitude and behavior surveys in the Chicago transit system. We had been conducting a behavioral surveillance study with a cross section of the city. That is, we were asking the good people of Chicago to fill out surveys as they waited for their train.

I came home that evening to find Magic Johnson on the news. Earvin Magic Johnson, arguably the most recognized face in professional basketball, announced his retirement after testing HIV+.

I was in Chicago. Michael Jordon’s Chicago. The Champion Chicago Bull’s Chicago.

Perhaps with the exception of LA, no city could have been more stunned by Magic’s announcement than Chicago.

Goodbye Duesberg's and Ruggiero's Articles! Did You Ever Exist?

Over the past couple of months two AIDS Denialism articles were published in a journal called Medical Hypotheses. These papers surprised many of us because Medical Hypotheses was once a peer-reviewed medical journal that is printed by the world’s largest science publisher Elsevier. But it did not take much to notice that these papers were not peer reviewed.

The article “Aids denialism at the ministry of health” by Marco Ruggiero (seen here at the gates of UC Berkeley) was received by Medical Hypotheses on June 3, 2009 and was accepted on June 3, 2009. Hmmm, now that was fast. And the article “HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS – A new perspective” by Peter H. Duesberg, Joshua M. Nicholson, David Rasnick, Christian Fiala, and Henry H. Bauer was received on June 9, 2009 and accepted on June 11, 2009. Obviously the Editor at least contemplated Duesberg’s article before accepting it. Just as obvious, neither paper underwent peer review.

On the Brink of Denialism: Why Peter Duesberg is Wrong and David Crowe is a Liar

Here is a real gem.

Onnie Mary Phuthe, an HIV+ woman from Botswana, wrote to South African AIDS Denialist Anthony Brink to ask about the organization Rethinking AIDS. The exchange is posted at AIDS Myth Exposed.

Brink’s response reminds me of a conversation I had with him while he was in Berlin attending an AIDS Dissident's Conference. I asked Brink about Peter Duesberg and he replied that Duesberg was washed up – old hat. The new ideas in AIDS dissidence were coming from contemporary scientists like Etienne de Harven. That seemed remarkable seeing as Peter Duesberg is 73 years old and de Harven is even older at age 81! Ah, the new ideas of AIDS Denialism.

Yet, I often wondered what Anthony Brink felt deep down about Rethinking AIDS and the people I had come to know as North America’s leading AIDS Deniers. Brink after all is responsible for feeding AIDS Denialism to the suspicious intellectual and former South African President Thabo Mbeki – ultimately bringing 300,000 of his fellow countrymen and 30,000 babies to their unnecessary deaths. Now Anthony Brink gives us some insight through his reply to Onnie. It
humoursly shows the infighting among AIDS Deniers, especially the Perth People and Duesbergians. This is worth a read. But be ready, Anthony Brink is not thrifty with words.

Court Jester: Celia Farber’s New Libel Suit Against Treatment Action Group

Published in New York Post, May 9, 2009

UPDATE: also see Courthouse News Service, includes the time stamped County Clerk summons.

AFTER years of being attacked by a faction of the AIDS pharmaceutical/research community, journalist Celia Farber is fighting back with a libel suit. Farber's lawyers filed a 21-page libel complaint this week in Manhattan Supreme Court accusing Richard Jefferys, of the Treatment Action Group, of orchestrating a campaign against her last May when she was given the Semmelweis Clean Hands Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for an article she wrote in Harper's in 2006, "AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science."


The Harpers article gave credence to the work of Peter Duesberg, who believes HIV is a harmless "passenger" virus and not the cause of AIDS, and questioned the value of expensive antiretroviral drugs. Jefferys and his team blitzed the Semmelweis Society with e-mails claiming Farber had altered quotes and falsely misrepresented scientific papers.

The Semmelweis Society, in turn, launched its own investigation, and concluded the AIDS industry itself has all the characteristics of a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise that desperately needed whistleblowers. Farber, the daughter of talk legend Barry Farber, kept her award, though the battle to rescind it garnered fresh attacks, in which she was likened to Pol Pot, Stalin, Mengele, David Irving, David Duke and O.J. Simpson.

The former Spin columnist recently launched a new literary Web site called the Truth Barrier, with former New York Press editor John Strausbaugh. In appreciation for her work on AIDS, the artist Robert Crumb submitted an original drawing and a hand-written three-page letter expressing his despair over what he believes is the distortion of the AIDS story.

"Actually, Crumb's letter was too true even for the Truth Barrier," says Farber. "I redacted it. I don't want these pharma-bullies attacking him next."

AIDS Apathy is Fertile Soil for Denialism

Leading AIDS Denialist David Crowe once said “The world is getting bored with AIDS”.

And yet, as President of the Rethinking AIDS Society, Mr. Crowe refurbished the Rethinking AIDS website, hired a public relations person, and reinvigorated his propaganda campaigns. He also started daily updates on his other denialist website for the Alberta Reappraising AIDS Society.

Why would David Crowe and Rethinking AIDS do all of this if the world is bored with AIDS?

Because AIDS apathy is good for AIDS Denialism.

AIDS apathy means less attention to AIDS science, reduced information seeking, less critical thinking about AIDS, and fewer quality information resources. AIDS apathy may explain why 45% of Gay men believe “HIV does not cause AIDS” and 51% believe that “HIV drugs can harm you more than help you.” Apathy may also help explain the rise in AIDS conspiracy theories, where one in five men and women in Houston believe that “AIDS is an agent of genocide created by the US Government to kill of minority populations” and 43% of African Americans in the US believe that “People who take the new medicines for HIV are human guinea pigs for the government”.

The Kaiser Family Foundation just released a new survey of Americans that shows the public sees AIDS as less of a threat than in the past, even as new infections are on the rise. The proportion of Americans who see HIV/AIDS as the most urgent health threat facing the country has plummeted from 44% in 1995 to 17% in 2006 and 6% today. AIDS apathy was also greatest among those most affected by AIDS and those at greatest risk.

The study showed that the number of people who say that they have heard, seen, or read “a lot” or “some” about HIV/AIDS in the US in the past year declined from 70% in 2004 to 45% in 2009. Those who said they saw “a lot” about HIV/AIDS was cut about in half from 34 percent to 14 percent.

Americans who say that we are losing ground on the problem of HIV/AIDS has decreased from 36% in 2004 to 22% in 2009.

Sadly, we are actually losing ground in the fight against HIV/AIDS. An estimated 1.7 million Americans have been infected with HIV and 580,000 have died of AIDS. New HIV infections in the US are occurring at a rate of 56,000 a year, that means that every 9 ½ minutes someone in the US is infected with HIV. The District of Columbia has the worst AIDS problem in the country, with HIV infecting 3% of the city it rivals countries in West Africa as one of the most AIDS afflicted places in the world. All of this is happening while Americans are caring less about AIDS and AIDS Denialists spew ever more misinformation.

AIDS denialism claims that HIV does not cause AIDS, that HIV tests are invalid, and HIV treatments are poison. If our greatest hope for defeating AIDS Denialism is an attentive and educated public, we have a lot of work to do.

AIDS 'Denialists' Jeopardizing Treatment For Sufferers

By WILLIAM WEIR
April 29, 2009

For about two decades, it has been considered as fact that HIV causes AIDS, but there continue to be activists who say otherwise.

They've been brushed off too often as crackpots, says Seth Kalichman, who teaches social psychology at the University of Connecticut and is the editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior. As a result, those in the small but vocal minority have been able to push their views to a dangerous level. In his recently published book "Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience and Human Tragedy" (Copernicus Books, $25), Kalichman looks at the loose community that continues to question years of scientific research that points to the human immunodeficiency virus as the cause of AIDS. They often refer to themselves as "AIDS dissidents," but Kalichman and other critics use the more charged term of "AIDS denialists."
One of the things that has allowed the denialists to gain traction, he says, are the few among them who have genuine science credentials on their résumés

Among the first to question the prevailing wisdom about AIDS was Peter Duesberg, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. He was among the first to identify and map the cancer-causing gene, though he may now be better known for his controversial views on AIDS treatment. He has stated that lifestyle and the very drugs used to treat AIDS are the cause of the disease.

Earlier this decade, Duesberg's theories had spread to the government of South Africa, where former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang rejected conventional medicine to treat AIDS patients in favor of a nutritional program that included garlic and beets. A Harvard study last year concluded that the AIDS policies of South Africa's then-president Thabo Mbeki resulted in the premature deaths of about 365,000 AIDS sufferers in the country.

At its peril, Kalichman says, the medical establishment has refused to engage the denialists in debate. "We have figured that if we ignore them, they will go away," he says.

But that strategy doesn't work in the Internet era. For instance, if you do a Google search for "cause of AIDS," the first entry is an essay supporting Duesberg's theory, from a website that bills itself as "rethinking AIDS."

"They've disrupted charity auctions," he says of the denialists. "It's a real threat, and it's all happening at a time when there is a lot of real excitement, and Obama has reignited awareness about AIDS."

As a result of the AIDS denialists' persistence, he says, many infected with the virus — especially those less educated — have refused conventional treatment. Regardless of what kind of reaction "Denying AIDS" gets among AIDS researchers, he says his main priority is getting the right information "to the people who should be most aware."

Kalichman is donating all of the book's royalties to the Family Treatment Fund administered by Massachusetts General Hospital and be used for antiretroviral medications for people with HIV/AIDS in Africa.

For comments at the Hartford Courant website click here.

"The Doctor will Sue You Now": Ben Goldacre's Missing Chapter on the Rath of AIDS Denialism

I have been reading Ben Goldacre’s great book Bad Science and I knew something was missing. Goldacre covers all of the wacky snake oil scams and schemes that plague health care today. From antitoxins to homeopathy, Bad Science seems has it covered. What’s missing is none other than the Rath of AIDS Denialism himself, German vitamin salesman Matthias Rath. You know, as in Rath and Rasnick, the guys who embarked on illegal ‘clinical trials’ to build a pseudoscience to boost vitamin sales in South Africa. Now, Goldacre explains why he omitted the Rath chapter and gives us all the essential missing material as a gift!! Enjoy!

From Ben Goldacre: This is the “missing chapter” about vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath. Sadly I was unable to write about him at the time that book was initially published, as he was suing my ass in the High Court. The chapter is now available in the new paperback edition, and I’ve posted it here for free so that nobody loses out.

Although the publishers make a slightly melodramatic fuss about this in the promo material, it is a very serious story about the dangers of pseudoscience, as I hope you’ll see, and it was also a pretty unpleasant episode, not just for me, but also for the many other people he’s tried to sue, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and more. If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontieres is probably a pretty good clue.
This is an extract from BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre Published by Harper Perennial 2009.
You are free to copy it, paste it, bake it, reprint it, read it aloud, as long as you don’t change it – including this bit – so that people know that they can find more ideas for free at http://www.badscience.net/