AIDS Deniers Speak Out in Chicago

AIDS DENIALISTS DISPUTED AT ITT FORUM

August 31, 2010

 by Gary Barlow

UPDATE: Reprinted in Edge, Boston 

CHICAGO – Almost 26 years after the HIV virus was established as the cause of AIDS and some 15 years after drug treatments developed out of that discovery led to dramatic drops in AIDS mortality rates in the U.S., some people still propagate the belief that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and that the drugs used to treat it should be avoided.

Those beliefs were aired at a panel discussion sponsored by Knowledge and Wisdom Productions at the Illinois Institute of Technology Aug. 28. The panel included two AIDS denialists, authors Britnee Burke and Keidi Obi Awadu, and two people who disputed their arguments, epidemiologist Yaa Simpson, of the Association of Clinical Trial Services, and author and activist Ida Byther-Smith. Less than 20 people attended the discussion.

The HIV virus is the most heavily researched virus in medical history. Photo courtesy NIH

“People falsely believe that AIDS is a disease while in fact today it is used as a self-defining complex of diseases, symptoms and definitions,” Awadu said.

Burke, who said she tested HIV-positive 17 years ago and has not taken anti-HIV medications, compared belief in AIDS to religious belief.

“My belief – HIV is a lie,” she said.

AIDS Denialists Donate to AIDS Charities - Thank You!

With the global economy in recovery, it is incredibly generous of AIDS Deniers to be so supportive of AIDS charities.   

First, thanks to David Crowe, Henry Bauer, Peter Duesberg, David Rasnick and their friends for taking the time to help me (and Joe Newton) write Denying AIDS. We made our first donation from the book royalties to the Family Treatment Fund, and the timing could not be better. The Administration of the Family Treatment Fund wrote:

"Dear Seth, Thank you for your amazing contribution to the Family Treatment Fund. Your gift could not come at a better time. PEPFAR [The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] funding is flat and we are using every penny to continue to start 81 desperately ill patients a month on treatment. I am truly touched by your generosity that is saving lives and helping families."

Don't thank me. 

Thank the Rethinking AIDS crowd for giving me such a great journey to write about. 

I could have never done it without them.

Perhaps just as thoughtful is the donation resulting from the slanderous comments that AIDS deniers Clark Baker and Michael Geiger posted at the Spectator website. Their rude remarks against AIDS scientist John Moore brought this public apology:

An apology to Professor John Moore

28 August 2010

The Spectator apologises to Professor Moore for certain postings by contributors using pseudonyms "CWBPI" and "Michael" under our "Questioning the Aids Consensus" blog in October 2009. The comments were removed following a complaint by Professor Moore. We are happy to accept that these comments were both abusive and untrue. The Spectator has agreed to make a donation to a HIV/AIDS charity.

The Spectator is not the first to be duped by these poop heads and I am sure they will not be the last. The Spectator offered Dr. Moore a monetary settlement, which he asked them to donate to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of South Africa.  

Book royalties and  libel payments - the fruits of AIDS denialism. What is next? I can't hardly wait!

By the way, if you are feeling left out, why not go buy something Product (RED)?

AIDS Denialism in the US Senate? Not yet but stay tuned

No surprise, Kentucky US Senate Candidate Rand Paul is aligned with AIDS Deniers. The Tea Baggers are anti-government, mistrust medicine, deny global warming, and oppose same sex anything. Why would they not be AIDS Deniers? Celia Farber, a well known Libertarian AIDS Denier, likes to say that there is no political connection between the AIDS 'dissidents' and politics. Is she lying? Who can say? But to the sane observer the connection could not be any clearer.  

From POZ Magazine
Rand Paul Belongs to HIV Denialist Group


Rand Paul, MD, the Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), prwatch.org reports. According to the article, AAPS denies that HIV causes AIDS. The AAPS statement of principles say that it's "evil" and "immoral" to participate in Medicare and Social Security. The group also has organized protests against the new health care reform law. Rand Paul is the son of former presidential candidate and current Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul.

Is AIDS Denialism a Cult?

The Cult of HIV Denialism

By Jeanne Bergman, Ph.D.

Published at the Body.com Spring 2010

More is known about HIV than about any other virus. Less than three decades ago, doctors were perplexed by the appearance of Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in young gay men. Since then, scientists and doctors, spurred by the activism of people with AIDS, discovered the virus now called HIV and proved that it causes AIDS by crippling the immune system until the body can no longer resist life-threatening infections.

Scientists around the world have isolated HIV, photographed it with electron microscopes, and sequenced the genomes of its different subtypes. There are now highly accurate tests for HIV antibodies and the virus itself, and increasingly effective and tolerable antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for its treatment. Science is a gradual process, and there is still much that is not fully understood about HIV, but the evidence that HIV exists, is transmissible by blood, semen, and vaginal fluids -- and that it causes AIDS -- is vast and thorough.

The Denialists and Their Cult

The Commonalities of Global Warming Denialism and AIDS Denialism

Monckton's response to John Abraham is magnificently bonkers

Monckton fails to provide a convincing refutation of Abraham's criticisms but does throw a great deal of dust into the air.

From George Monbiot's Blog

Say what you like about Viscount Monckton, he never fails to entertain.His response to the devastating critique of his claims about climate change by the physicist John Abraham is magnificently bonkers.

To give you a flavour of Monckton's reasoning, here are some examples of what he cites as evidence of Abraham acting out of malice:

• Abraham pointed out that Monckton "has not written a single peer-reviewed science paper on any topic";

• Abraham stated that Lord Monckton "presented a lot of data with no citations or no explanation";

• He pointed out that "if you don't tell us where it's from we can't assess the data";

• He explained that a graph displayed by Lord Monckton was "almost off by 100%".

These are all straight statements of fact. It is impossible to see how they could be construed as malicious, unless you regard all criticism of your views and credentials as illegitimate.

Henry Bauer Returns Home to Vienna: For the International AIDS Conference?

I decided to sit out of the International AIDS Conference this year. I have only gone to a few of these, mostly because they have become less important for researchers. The last good one was Vancouver 1996 when combination therapies were generating excitement for a possible cure. Personally, I find the International AIDS Conference to be a bit of a circus. So guess what? The circus has some new clowns. Check out the AIDS Denialism side show in Vienna. Have a Schnitzel with Peter, Claus, and Henry (they speak the native tongue). Watch for the AIDS Deniers protesting AIDS science. Have fun. But please, do not feed the AIDS Deniers...they are dangerous and they are attracted to food.
UPDATE: More Russian coverage of Denialism as science. Amazingly, they have never heard of Peter Duesberg before.


AIDS - Knowledge and Dogma
Conditions for the Emergence and Decline of Scientific Theories
Congress, July 16/17 2010, Vienna, Austria


Final Program
Simultaneous translation into English and German is provided for all
presentations.

Lunch and coffee breaks are provided for all participants.

Download the actual Congress Program as PDF
Friday, July 16th
09:00   Registration
09:30 - 10:15   Uta Santos-König
"Immaculate conception or maculate perception - A view of science
through Ludwik Fleck’s spectacles"

“There is no proof that HIV causes AIDS”: AIDS denialism beliefs among people living with HIV/AIDS

Below is an excerpt from a new study published by Seth C. Kalichman, Lisa Eaton, & Chauncey Cherry in Journal of Behavioral Medicine


Click here to obtain the full article or write me for a reprint.

Introduction

Fringe and extremist groups that challenge well-established historical and scientific facts have become increasingly visible, particularly on the Internet. Holocaust Deniers, for example, claim that Nazi Germany did not systematically kill 6 million Jews and Global Warming Deniers believe that climatology is a flawed science with no proof of greenhouse gases changing the atmosphere. Among the most vocal anti-science denial movements is AIDS Denialism, an outgrowth of the radical views of University of California biologist Peter Duesberg. Duesberg claims that HIV and all other retroviruses are harmless and that AIDS is actually caused by illicit drug abuse, poverty, and antiretroviral medications. Until recently,  AIDS scientists have largely ignored denialists, stating that they are no longer relevant and are not a threat to HIV/AIDS treatment and care. 

            Unfortunately, ignoring AIDS denialists has not addressed the problem and AIDS denialism is flourishing as a result. AIDS denialism promotes the idea that HIV is harmless and cannot cause any disease, most certainly not AIDS. Some AIDS denialists claim that there is no proof that HIV exists at all. HIV antibody tests are said to be invalid because anyone can test HIV positive, people who do test positive do not develop AIDS, and there are people who develop AIDS who have never tested HIV positive. AIDS denialism rejects HIV treatments as toxic poisons that do more harm than good. The central tenant of AIDS denialism is that there is an ongoing debate among legitimate scientists regarding whether HIV even exists and if it does exist whether HIV causes AIDS. AIDS denialism intersects with AIDS conspiracy theories, and may impede HIV prevention and treatment.

One Less Outlet for AIDS Deniers: Thank You Elsevier

New editor for Medical Hypotheses
 Posted by Jef Akst at TheScientist.com

Biomedical scientist Mehar Manku will take over as editor-in-chief at Elsevier's embattled, previously non-peer-reviewed journalMedical Hypotheses, the publisher announced today (June 24).

In his new role, Manku, a member of the editorial board since 2004, vows to maintain the journal's unusual aim of distributing novel, radical ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences while employing a more traditional peer review process than the journal saw under its previous editor,Bruce Charlton,whose contract was terminated after he refused to implement such a system.

"First, we will retain the ethos, heritage and unique characteristics of the journal as they were proposed at inception," Manku said in a statement. "Second, we will engage a medically qualified editorial board to get members more involved in the review system to help ensure radical new ideas and speculations in medicine are given open-minded consideration while ensuring scientific merit."

He may have a long road ahead of him -- last month, editorial board member William Bainsspoke withThe Scientistand said most of the board planned to resign in response to Elsevier's changes to the journal, which found itself in hot water after Charlton chose to publish an article by notorious AIDS denialist Peter Duesburg of the University of California, Berkeley. Duesburg was subsequently the subject of a university investigation launched last November to determine whether he had violated the university's code of conduct by submitting the article toMedical Hypotheses, but was cleared of the charges earlier this week.

Manku is executive editor and editor-in-chief of a leading journal in the lipid field,Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, and part-time chief scientist at Amarin Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company focused on cardiovascular disease.



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RELATED STORY

The Shame of Academia: No Price for Reckless Public Health Mischief

Berkeley Drops Probe of Duesberg After Finding 'Insufficient Evidence'

by Martin Enserink on June 21, 2010 2:07 PM 

The paper that cost the editor of Medical Hypotheses his job will have no further consequences for its main author, molecular virologist Peter Duesberg of the University of California (UC), Berkeley. The university has ended its misconduct investigation after concluding that Duesberg was within his rights when he wrote that there is no evidence of a deadly AIDS epidemic in South Africa.

Duesberg's paper, published online on 19 July 2009, triggered a storm of protests from AIDS scientists and activists. Elsevier, the publisher ofMedical Hypotheses, has retracted the article and has terminated the contract of the journal's editor, Bruce Charlton of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, who declined to introduce a peer review system at the 35-year-old journal.

Truth Revealed: The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Conspiracy

Oil Spill = Illuminati's Covert War on America

May 24, 2010  by Henry Makow, Ph.D. 

We think of war in terms of missiles and tanks and bombs. But a far superior form of war is to disguise attacks as false flag terrorism like 9-11, natural disaster like Katrina or an accident like the April 20 BP oil spill.

This way the victim is not aware of his attacker, and cannot take countermeasures.

The parallels between the oil spill and Katrina are uncanny. In both cases, the American Gulf coast was attacked, and the Presidential response was deemed tardy and ineffective. In the case of Katrina, the levees were blown up 12 hours after the hurricane had passed.

The "tell" is the failure of the Obama Administration to declare a State of Emergency and take immediate action to stop the gusher. It is hard to believe that an Administration facing a national election in six months would sit on its hands while oil poured onto America's Gulf coast. Last week, Obama was announcing a commission to study the causes while  failing to address the blow-out itself.

A Sincere Message to Seth Kalichman and like minded people

Posted at QA, Questioning AIDS Forum

by positivenegative, June 3, 2010

It's a crying shame you hold your position in the face of too much honest and sincere conversation where people, whether you agree or not, are trying to fight for their lives. You're deliberate and arrogant viewpoint is an insult to people who just want answers. Most importantly you insult yourself.

When I first got diagnosed I read your book because I did not want to deny anything. I wanted all the information I could possible have and I sincerely took your words to heart but in the final equation you're judgmental and accusatory attitude makes me lose any respect I might have had for you.

RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE on Denialism Denial

Are one person's iconoclastic views another person's denialism?

By Orac  May 26, 2010

I've had a lot of fun thus far this week expressing more than a bit of schadenfreude over Andrew Wakefield's being ignominiously stripped of his medical license in the U.K. by the General Medical Council, not to mention pointing out the quackfest that is Autism One, I feel the need for a brief break from the anti-vaccine craziness. This is as good a time as any to take care of some leftover business from last week that I had planned on writing about but gotten distracted by all the deliciously bad news for the anti-vaccine movement. Besides, what will be going on in Grant Park in Chicago this afternoon fits into this topic perfectly, because the anti-vaccine movement is but one "flavor" of this particular problem.

I'm referring to denialism, of course.