In the last issue of Pulse of the Planet (3:106-108, 1991) I reviewed a book by Michael Fumento, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. Fumento's book summarized evidence gathered by various scientists to the affect that there never was, nor is, a "Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic" taking place, either in the USA or overseas. Fumento documented how the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had doctored the epidemiological data, unscientifically "adjusting" it here and there, in order to have it support a previously formulated and "politically correct" conclusion: that everyone, including relatively monogamous heterosexuals, and even non-drug-using heterosexual teenagers, were "at risk for AIDS". Fumento's criticism of this position was attacked even before the ink was dry, and his book was suppressed and sabotaged both by national book distributors, and by his publisher, who came under attack by homosexual activist groups. Fumento himself lost his job, and was subject to harassment and death threats by these same groups, who -- as demonstrated in his book -- have glaring sex-political agendas and economic motivations.

In this article, I wish to add reinforcing, additional evidence on this same issue by presenting findings developed by Dr. Peter Duesberg, a pioneer in retrovirus research and Professor of Cell Biology at the University of California, in Berkeley. Duesberg is a top-notch scientist who has brought forth important criticism of the HIV hypothesis of AIDS to the podium of science. His research findings came to my attention around 1990, demonstrating that AIDS cannot be caused by HIV (or any other virus) and therefore is, as the term "AIDS" originally implied, an acquired, non-infectious immune system deficiency. Duesberg's most recent 77-page paper on the subject appeared in a British research journal (Pharmac. Ther., 55:201-277, 1992), and contains 17 pages of citations to the published scientific and medical literature. This article will summarize some of that evidence, and provide additional historical notes. For detailed citations to the published scientific literature, I refer the reader to the original works of Duesberg and his supporters, listed at the end of this article. If the reader is skeptical of my statements here, they must "go to the source" and review those citations prior to dismissing this summary of criticisms of the official HIV = AIDS propaganda.

To begin, use of the term "AIDS virus" is completely suspended, as it presumes AIDS is an infectious disorder for which a viral causation has been identified. Neither supposition has been proven; both remain hypotheses. The diagnostic terminology "AIDS" does not by itself imply causation; it merely indicates severe immunological break-down and deficiency within an individual. We must also be clear about the differences between the virus HIV and the HIV antibody; these are not the same thing. This clarifying discipline in terminology is necessary, precisely because so many television and newspaper journalists, and many scientists and science editors as well, have abandoned rigor in their terminology, critical review, and research.

AIDS remains a problem mainly for individuals engaging in identifiable and preventable high-risk behaviors which, over time, deplete and destroy the immune system. These factors include: promiscuous and unsanitary anal intercourse and anal object-penetration and trauma in association with the party-swinger, bath-house, anonymous-sex lifestyle; the associated or independent chronic use of aphrodisiac sexual stimulants, psychoactive drugs, amphetamines, alcohol, antibiotics and other immune-system depleting substances (legal and illegal); and malnutrition. To this list must be included also the taking of deadly, poisonous medications, such as AZT -- a DNA chain terminator -- which all by itself will produce the same "wasting" symptoms attributed to AIDS.

I. The Virus HIV

The claim that the virus HIV causes AIDS is an hypothesis which is not supported by facts or evidence, and which has demonstrated no usefulness for predicting or explaining the epidemiology of AIDS.

A) The advocates of the HIV hypothesis suggest HIV is significantly different from all other viruses in that the presence of antibody alone is sufficient to predict the future development of deadly AIDS symptoms. In all other diseases, however, the presence of antibody in the absence of active virus is a clear sign that the individual's immune system has been exposed to the virus, but successfully responded to it, and defeated it. One is considered "immune" for development of the disease, or from further exposure to that infectious agent. With HIV, however, we are asked to suspend this well-known immunological response, and believe that the presence of antibody alone is synonymous to a death sentence.

B) HIV=AIDS advocates counter that the virus goes into "hiding" within certain cells of the body, and remains dormant for many years until such time that something triggers them into activity, after which symptoms appear. However, they fail to demonstrate this part of their hypothesis; the "hiding places" have not been demonstrated to any degree of significance. In fact, this absence of demonstrated "hiding viruses" was a major stumbling-block to the general theory of viral causation of diseases. The viral hypothesis of AIDS likewise suffers from this difficulty.

C) The HIV hypothesis of AIDS does not satisfy Koch's postulates for the identification of a pathogen as the causative agent for a particular disease. These postulates have very successfully guided microbiological research for the last 100 years. They are:

1) The organism must occur in each case of a disease and in amounts sufficient to cause pathological effects; 2) The organism is not found in other diseases; and 3) After isolation and propagation in culture, the organism can induce the disease in an inoculated host. Failure to develop symptoms after inoculation is a sign the organism is not the active agent of the disease.

The HIV hypothesis fails on all the above counts. There are many examples of people suffering from AIDS symptoms, but who do not show traces of HIV. There are additionally a large number of people in whom traces of HIV have been identified (virus or antibody), but who remain symptom-free for years. This difficulty has prompted some "HIV Fundamentalists" to assert that HIV is unique in the world of viruses, that Koch's postulates don't apply to HIV. Every year, the group of people identified as "HIV antibody positive" gets larger, partly because of expanded HIV testing programs, but also because so many previously identified antibody-positive people remain alive and healthy. Many have lived over 10 years without developing the predicted AIDS symptoms, or other health problems. And so, the CDC is continually redefining and lengthening the "latency period" for development of AIDS symptoms. For each year that passes, the latency period is extended by around one additional year. Not only does HIV "hide" in the body, it "sleeps". This is, of course, an unscientific attempt to salvage an hypothesis which fails to accurately predict observed pathology or epidemiology.

D) HIV is a difficult and inefficient virus to transmit from one organism to another, either accidentally, by sexual means, or even through deliberate injection. Many attempts have been made to infect primates with AIDS diseases through direct injection of HIV -- when so exposed, primates may develop typical antibody responses, but do not sicken and die. Around 150 chimpanzees have been injected with HIV by the National Institute of Health, in a program which began ten years ago, and all are still healthy. Needle-stick injuries in hospitals, where hospital workers are accidentally exposed to HIV-infected blood, also fail to demonstrate any cases of AIDS. The virus simply does not "infect" so easily, and even when it does, produces only the well-known antibody response, but not the symptoms of AIDS.

E) HIV does not readily or quickly kill the t-helper blood cells, which act as its host. It appears to infect those cells only with great difficulty, and once having infected them, lives quietly and uneventfully within those cells for their normal lifetime, without proliferating significantly to other cells and tissues. As Duesberg points out, this is the precise nature of a retrovirus, which does not kill its host cell, and leads a rather quiet existence in the organism. By contrast, viruses which produce deadly symptoms proliferate rapidly, infecting many cell types, and they kill the infected cells, thereby producing acute symptoms. Active virus is spread widely in such a virus-sickened organism and is not difficult to identify or locate. HIV does none of this, and for this reason, Duesberg suggests it is probably a perinatally-transmitted retrovirus which has been within a small percentage of the human race for generations, but without any associated pathology. HIV was observed for the first time only in recent years, because the technology to identify and search for retroviruses was developed in recent years. In a few cases, evidence suggests HIV might produce mild flu-like symptoms within 24-48 hours after infection to a new organism, but after that it has no additional affect upon the individual.

F) Duesberg points to the fact that, before the retrovirus HIV was discovered, and before AIDS was identified and proclaimed as an infectious disorder, people in high risk groups were dying of the same disease symptoms and were diagnosed quite differently. Before AIDS, these same symptoms were diagnosed as candidiasis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, anemia, dementia, sarcoma, and other diseases or infections well-known to attending physicians. Today, the diagnosis of "AIDS" is made whenever any of 25 different disease symptoms appear in the presence of active HIV or HIV antibody. If they display symptoms and have traces of HIV in their blood, the physicians says they have "AIDS"; if no traces of HIV are found, they are diagnosed as having one or more of those original 25 diseases. Duesberg points out the incredible potency attributed to this one virus, HIV, which is said to produce such widely varied symptoms -- and yet, as discussed above, laboratory studies of HIV suggest its hidden nature, its non-toxicity, and its difficulty of transmission.

G) The HIV hypothesis of AIDS is rooted in the general viral theory of diseases. However, historically, viral theories of disease have generally failed to bring forth either cures or advancements in treatments. This is particularly true for cancer and other degenerative, immunologically-related disorders. Funding for virus research had precipitously declined over the years. But AIDS changed all that. HIV was announced, not at a scientific meeting, but rather at a Washington D.C. press conference. In April 1984, Margaret Heckler, then Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced "The cause of AIDS has been found", and then introduced Dr. Robert Gallo, who presented his "discovery of the AIDS virus" to a story-hungry press. This political event was eventually overshadowed by the fact that Gallo had misrepresented "his" discovery of HIV -- in fact, he had acquired his samples of HIV on loan from the real discoverer, Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. A prolonged legal battle ensued regarding who would retain lucrative international patent rights to HIV-antibody testing, the so-called "AIDS Tests" which cost from $15 to $50 each. Both the French and American governments got into the legal dispute, backing their respective scientists. Later, in an out-of-court settlement, both Gallo and Montagnier agreed to split the royalties, and a new "official history of the discovery of HIV" was written and distributed, expunged of all unpleasant references to the unethical stealing of ideas, or the legal dispute. Fortunately, Gallo was later exposed and no credible individuals in the scientific community supported the "official history". However, Gallo has never been censured for his unethical conduct; he collects new awards and medals nearly every month, and his laboratory is very-well funded by tax dollars. By contrast, Duesberg, the major vocal critic of the entire shabby affair, has been censored and isolated for his criticisms, his research funding terminated. As hundreds of millions of public dollars are being shoveled into the research laboratories of the HIV=AIDS researchers, and into generally ineffective and counter-productive "safe sex" educational programs, no advancements in the treatment or prevention of AIDS has taken place. The HIV Hypothesis of AIDS has produced no public health benefits, and is a total failure, but it is quite a gravy train for a lot of special interests!

II. Epidemiology of AIDS

As mentioned in my prior review of Fumento's book, there is no epidemiological evidence demonstrating an "AIDS epidemic" is taking place outside of recognized high-risk groups. The high risk groups are certainly suffering badly from very serious disease symptoms, but the questions remain: Are the disease symptoms displayed by these groups a product of exposure to HIV infection? Or are they the product of more commonly known infectious diseases, overlapping and opportunistically flourishing within individuals whose behavior, lifestyles, malnutrition and medications have badly weakened them, leaving them exceptionally vulnerable and wasted?

A) Homosexuals and bisexuals engaged in promiscuous "party-swinger" lifestyles remain the largest at-risk group for the AIDS syndrome. Here, one can speak of a group with a collective pool of shared body fluids, suffering from chronic, multiple low-grade infections. Minor epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases (STD's), including syphilis, gonorrhea, and herpes, as well as hepatitis have occurred within the gay communities in the USA. Bowel, bladder and urinary infections related to contamination are common (eg, the "gay bowel syndrome", the "drips", etc.). Chronic exposures to both infectious materials and organisms, and correspondingly high rates of exposure to antibiotic medications, may become an integral part of the gay man's lifestyle, with a great toll upon health and immune system functioning. Even before the discovery of HIV and identification of "AIDS", the bath-house, anonymous-sex lifestyles of gay men, who were increasingly coming "out of the closet" in the larger cities, became a public-health nightmare. And this "lifestyle" includes the concurrent widespread and abundant use of various immune-depleting drugs, both legal and illegal. Interviews with gay men and symptomatic AIDS patients demonstrate the widespread use of cocaine, amphetamine, marijuana, alcohol, sexual stimulants, aphrodisiacs, and amyl or butyl nitrites ("poppers"), often taken in various mixtures. From all of these factors combined, one can readily see how a severely damaged immune system could result. Again, it is an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In particular, Kaposi's sarcoma has been identified as a by-product of nitrite exposure, even before the era of AIDS, and has specifically been linked to the use of the over-the-counter "poppers" -- this particular drug is a sphincter dilator, allowing the individual to tolerate the insertion of a fully erect penis, or even another man's fist ("fisting" techniques) into the anus. These vigorous assaults to the passive-receptive homosexual are correlated with tearing of rectal tissue, or even fistulas, all of which further breaks down protective barriers to infection.

B) Illegal injection drug users whose social condition and lifestyle includes frequent bouts with addiction, malnutrition, and the introduction of foreign substances into the bloodstream, are also at risk for immune system depletion. Generally, the life experiences of such addicted people are those of poverty and neglect of personal health and hygiene, and the introduction of foreign substances into the blood stream by injection as a commonplace, every-day affair. Over the years, these groups also suffer and decline immunologically. Duesberg properly points out the incredible naivete of the so-called "clean needle" propaganda programs, which provide antiseptic needles by which unsanitary immune-depleting substances can be injected into the bloodstream. The cocaine, amphetamine or heroin which an addict injects might be harvested by hand in Asia or South America, be packaged and processed in dirt-shacks, thick with insects and soil, and likewise handled in unsanitary conditions by dozens of possibly sick people en-route to the USA, where it is purposefully cut with additional unsanitary materials of various sorts, in back-room or basement laboratories, etc. -- but for some reason, we are told that AIDS will be prevented if these people only inject such "junk" with a clean needle! Clearly, there is no science behind such politically-motivated assertions. There are good arguments for assisting drug addicts and decriminalizing illegal drugs, but "combatting HIV infection" is not one of them.

C) HIV-antibody positive individuals may also suffer a health risk from AIDS medications routinely administered by physicians uncritical of drug-company propaganda. There are, for example, large numbers of HIV-antibody positive individuals who have for years remained completely free of any symptoms for AIDS or any other significant disease. When treated with medications like AZT, however, these people are observed to sicken and die from "wasting disease" in short order. The question is, do they die from HIV-induced AIDS, or from toxic AZT? Regarding AZT, it was an experimental cancer chemotherapy drug, but was withdrawn from testing and never approved for public use because of toxic side effects. Indeed, AZT is a DNA-chain terminator which suppresses immune-system functions and produces many of the same symptoms attributed to HIV! According to Duesberg and his associates, healthy people who are treated with AZT start developing AIDS-like symptoms within one year, gradually to waste away with mortalitiy rates ranging from 1/3 to 3/4 of all who are treated. No truly controlled studies have ever been performed with AZT, and so nobody knows for certain if the thousands of symptom- free but HIV-antibody positives who took the drug and died, died because of "HIV-induced AIDS" or because of AZT- poisoning. Many of the young people, and various Hollywood celebrities who were paraded on television talk shows, who preached the "safe-sex" and "sex can kill" propaganda to audiences, and who themselves later died from "AIDS" were treated with AZT from the very beginning, even though they showed no signs, or few signs of ill-health at the start of their program of AZT ingestion. Some examples: Arthur Ashe, the heterosexual tennis professional, and Kimberly Bergalis, who supposedly "caught AIDS" from her Florida dentist -- Bergalis had only a minor yeast infection at the start of her AZT program. In typical fashion, the news media focused upon and widely broadcast the details of their gradual degeneration and painful deaths, which exhibited all the classic symptoms of AZT poisoning. Meanwhile, Duesberg and other critics of AZT were routinely censored from media exposure, insuring the public heard only good things about AZT and the "progress in treatment of AIDS".

D) Hemophiliacs and immune-suppressed infants are often identified as an "at risk" group for AIDS. But by definition, these are groups who already suffer from major health problems. Hemophiliacs receive multiple intravenous transfusions over the course of the years, repeatedly exposing them to foreign blood products, and other powerful medications may be given. Likewise with immune-suppressed infants, whose mothers were often drug-addicted and malnourished. Not all of these individuals, indeed only a small proportion, may be HIV infected -- indeed, the proportion of HIV infections among hemophiliacs or immune-suppressed infants has never been greater than what exists in the general population at large. Additionally, it has not been demonstrated that HIV infections occur more frequently among acutely ill hemophiliacs or immune-suppressed infants than among those not so acutely ill, and who recover to a reasonable state of health. Again, the health problems of such acutely ill hemophiliacs and infants has never been demonstrated to be caused by HIV.

E) Generally, heterosexual promiscuousness has no correlation to AIDS, and itself is not a risk factor. Studies of prostitutes in Nevada brothels, which forbid anal intercourse or the use of drugs, demonstrate the absence of HIV infection or AIDS-like symptoms. However, street prostitutes in large cities, such as New York, are often found to suffer immune system damage, not from sexual promiscuity, but rather from drug usage, malnutrition, and other factors related to life on the streets. Drug usage and associated malnutrition is also the mechanism for immune system depletion among groups whose "risk factor" is often, for lack of information, mis-identified as simply "heterosexual HIV transmission". These groups include lower-income inner city populations with higher levels of drug usage, malnutrition, and other immune-damaging correlations. It would be incorrect to say that race, ethnicity, and immigration status play a role in the risk for AIDS, and likewise incorrect that "heterosexual HIV transmission" is the mechanism by which their immune systems became depleted. The "risk factors" borne by some racial minorities and immigrant groups are the same as those identified above for the racial majority of non-immigrants: behavioral, lifestyle, dietary and environmental.

F) The "AIDS epidemic" in the USA and Europe is fundamentally different from that of Africa, giving the appearance of two completely unrelated epidemics. In the USA and Europe, it is primarily males who are affected, either as homosexuals or drug addicts; no other virus or sexually transmitted disease is so selective as this. In the USA and Europe, "AIDS" is identified through disease symptoms long known, observed and recognized by physicians in those nations (plus HIV traces, of course). By contrast, African AIDS is composed of disease symptoms different from those observed in the USA or Europe, but typical of those long observed by physicians in Africa. The African epidemic also afflicts roughly equal numbers of males and females. In the USA and Europe, the epidemic is not primarily affecting the weakest members of society, such as infants and the elderly, who usually are among the first to fall from infectious illness. Rather, HIV is touted as affecting mainly the biologically strongest, young adults in their 20s and 30s. Again, these sex-selective, age-selective, and geographically-skewed epidemiological differences are not characteristic of other microbe-borne diseases.

G) In Africa, there is little money for public health measures, and so the expensive HIV-antibody test, or "AIDS test" is infrequently administered. The diagnosis of "AIDS", as accepted today by the World Health Organization and other public health bodies, is often the mere presentation of symptoms of the various AIDS-correlated diseases. Through such creative book-keeping, vast numbers of people in Africa are said to be dying of unproven and undocumented AIDS. Traditional mortality factors at work in Africa, which have taken a terrible death toll over the centuries (famine, malnutrition, pestilent parasites, infectious organisms, and widespread African STD's,) are ignored in this rush to classify the problem as a malady caused by the single virus HIV. The epidemiology of AIDS in Africa certainly provides no supporting evidence for the HIV hypothesis, and in any case, cannot be used to make any meaningful predictions about the future health of Americans or Europeans.

H) In the USA, deceptive statistical manipulations have inflated the numbers of HIV infected individuals and AIDS deaths. Firstly, the CDC early got into the habit of classifying HIV-positive individuals according to political, and not scientific criteria. For example, immigrants testing positive for HIV often would not acknowledge their homosexuality or illegal drug use. Drug use is a deportable offense for immigrants, and many foreign nations have much stricter social taboos about homosexuality. Therefore, these groups routinely had fewer reported homosexuals and drug users, inflating the "unknown" category. When the general public began to associate this "unknown" factor to specific nationalities, prejudice developed, and for social reasons, entire groups were simply reclassified into the "heterosexual HIV transmission" category. Revised figures were then released by the CDC, showing an upward spurt in the numbers "infected with HIV through heterosexual contact." The newspapers would then routinely announce "a dramatic surge in the numbers people infected with AIDS by heterosexual transmission", with extrapolations out to the year 2000 suggesting the entire world would be infected: eg, "everyone is at risk". Only a few journalists, like Fumento, would report the real reasons for the "increase".

I) The definition of what constitutes AIDS has been constantly expanding, with more diseases being added to the list with each passing year. Today, not only are tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, herpes, anemia, dementia, Kaposi's sarcoma, and other long-known diseases often lumped under the banner of AIDS, but problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and yeast infections are being redefined as having a background in HIV infection. These latter two problems afflict women in high proportions, and their reclassification as "AIDS indicators" have unscientifically inflated the "heterosexual risk" category. When such new disease classifications occur, by magic the numbers of "infected AIDS victims" balloons, all without solid epidemiological evidence or proof. The news media, of course, reports these new figures with the usual drama and lack of critical scrutiny.

J) The correlations between active HIV, HIV antibody and the disease symptoms of the above individuals in the "high risk" groups have never been proven to be more than spurious correlations, lacking in attributable causal characteristics. This is true for all the various "AIDS diseases", wrongly attributed to HIV. These same diseases appear in the general population both with and without evidence of HIV exposure. Furthermore, HIV antibody is present among large segments of the overall background population, without evidence of any associated disease pathology -- excepting for when these a-symptomatic individuals are scared by the AIDS propaganda machine, into a program of AZT medication. To prove that HIV is the cause of AIDS, and make HIV=AIDS more than a speculative hypothesis, it would be necessary to show the presence of HIV among patients with AIDS diseases whose personal history did not include: 1) chronic male homosexual activity with associated chronic drug abuse and antibiotic dependency, 2) massive ingestion or injections of legal and illegal drugs, and 3) use of toxic medications, including AZT. Likewise one would have to show that HIV was absent among groups of healthy, a-symptomatic individuals. In spite of the millions which have been spent on AIDS research, such a study has never been undertaken. Duesberg's arguments have fallen on mostly deaf and stubbornly arrogant ears. And without funding, neither Duesberg nor his supporters could undertake such a controlled study themselves. Research funds today flow only in the direction of the HIV Fundamentalists.

III. The Politics of AIDS

A) The advocates of condom distribution programs have no credible scientific evidence to support the stated goals of their social engineering. Studies on the safety and efficacy of condoms firstly suggest the inability of condoms to prevent the passage of virus-sized particles. This is particularly true for the thinner-walled varieties. In addition, the failure rate of condoms is a major concern not addressed in these programs. Thick walled condoms are better in resisting breakage, but thin-walled varieties are more desired, given the more natural feeling during intercourse. However, thin condoms tend to break more readily, and all condoms tend to reduce sexual pleasure. The consequences of these facts are: there is a lot of compromising involved when condoms are used. They may de-excite a man, causing temporary loss of erection and slippage of the condom; or they may break. The effectiveness of condoms even for birth control is not so good -- next to the rhythm method and "withdrawl", condoms are a frequently-cited method of "birth control" employed by women visiting abortion clinics.

Given the absence of evidence to link HIV with AIDS, and the generally poor track record of condoms, a question is raised as to the motivations for the condom propaganda. Two elements come to mind. Firstly, condoms very definitely shift birth control practices away from methods which are under control of the female and therefore are more likely to be workable and successful, such as the pill or diaphragm -- therefore, to the extent they reduce reliance on better methods of birth control, they work to increase unwanted pregnancy. Condom propaganda and distribution also appear designed to increase sexual anxiety and displeasure. Condom activists rarely address the associated reduction of sexual pleasure, and generally distribute the devices as part of hysterical "safe sex" educational programs. The safe-sex activists I have come into contact with displayed an arrogant disinterest in any facts or evidence which would conflict with their eagerly-delivered "sex can kill" warnings to schoolchildren.

Fumento points to a growing suspicion among adolescents towards these "sex-educators" -- increasingly, schoolchildren simply don't believe them, concluding (properly so) that all the talk about AIDS in schools are big lies designed solely to frighten them out of having sex. A telling fact is that, before AIDS, most of the condom activists had little or no interest in matters of public health or sexual hygiene counseling. Likewise, the overwhelming majority are totally ignorant of, or blatantly hostile towards the findings of the AIDS critics, such as Peter Duesberg. In the San Francisco area, we routinely see more extreme examples of this "condomania": billboards simultaneously promoting condoms and homosexuality -- naked-to-the-waist homosexual men kissing or embracing, with a short sentence about "safe sex" below. These public "educational programs", well-funded with tax money or donations from pharmacy companies, studiously avoid any mention of risky immune-depleting behaviors or the effects of poppers or other drugs; they have done little or nothing to slow the incidence of immune-system damage among high-risk groups. AIDS is actually increasing today among younger gay men in large American cities. Concurrent to this increase, we also observe an increasing number of unwanted teenage pregnancies, as the basics of birth control and sexual hygiene education are being displaced by the distinctly sex-negative propaganda of the condom pushers.

B) In the early 1990s, Burroughs-Wellcome Pharmaceutical, the manufacturer of AZT, was shaken under growing criticism of the drug. New studies demonstrated no benefits to AZT users, but documented negative health effects. Burroughs-Wellcome therefore proposed to reduce the dosages -- Duesberg's critique of this proposal was, simply, with less poison, the patients would take a bit longer to die. The general response of the Official AIDS Establishment to Duesberg and other AIDS critics can be surmised from the following report, which is fairly typical of the way Big Science treats the voices of dissent:

Despite over 6,000 presentations, nothing useful came out of the IX International Conference on AIDS (Berlin 7-11 June 1993). The prevailing mood was one of despair and confusion.

Hopes placed in Jonas Salk's experimental vaccine, to be given to those already "infected" with HIV, were shattered when his presentation showed that the vaccine did nothing. [Newsday medical writer Laurie Garrett noted that of the 9000 people at the AIDS conference listening to Jonas Salk, some "had cellular telephones and were calling their stockbrokers on Wall Street straight from the hall"]

Some drama was provided by Wellcome Pharmaceutical's frenetic efforts at "damage control", in the wake of the Concorde Trial [showing AZT did not help patients]. Wellcome sponsored satellite symposia, gave free lunches, and published advertisements, but to no avail. The Concorde researchers stood by their findings -- that AZT had no benefits for asymptomatic, HIV-positive individuals -- and Wellcome shares continued to fall.

In one way Berlin was a breakthrough. For the first time at an international AIDS conference, there was a presence of AIDS dissidents, who came to Berlin from North and South America, Africa, India, and most European countries. During the week of the conference, the English-language version of Fritz Poppenberg's film, "The AIDS Rebels" was shown. AIDS critics stood outside the conference center (ICC), with signs and leaflets denouncing the "AIDS Lie" and the "rat poison, AZT". On Berlin's Open Channel TV, 9 hours of AIDS-critical programs were aired, produced by Peter Schmidt and Kawi Schneider. For one day, AIDS critics had a table inside the ICC itself.

At the first press conference (6 June), journalists asked conference organizers why no alternative voices were represented -- for example, Peter Duesberg. Habermehl said that Duesberg had not submitted an abstract, and that alternative voices were represented by ACT UP [a homosexual activist group]. Journalists were not satisfied, and pointed out that the conference had issued speaking invitations to members of ACT UP and Project Inform, and to the discredited AIDS expert, Robert Gallo.

Later on the 6th, ACT UP held a poorly attended press conference. Most of the 300 ACT UP members had the 950 DM [$600] entrance fee waived by the organizers. Many had travelled to Berlin, staying in hotels with swimming pools, with all expenses paid by Wellcome. An ACT UP representative from London admitted that his group had received L50,000 [$75,000] from Wellcome.

The same day, a television program attacked the "Duesbergians". A representative of the leading AIDS organization, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, said that nobody should listen to AIDS critics, and showed a slick new, 30-page pamphlet, "All a Lie? Arguments to AIDS Criticism". Finally, the woman narrator referred to AIDS critics as "rotten eggs" and the camera showed a close up of a splattering egg.

At a press conference on the 7th, representatives of the World Health Organization and the World Bank discussed vast amounts of money being allotted to "AIDS Prevention". For example, $250 million has been lent to Brazil, so that the population can be informed about condoms and "safe" needles.

At a press conference on the 8th, Joan Shenton of Meditel Productions of London, asked: Was it not time to re-appraise the basic AIDS orthodoxies, including alleged heterosexual spread? Martin Delaney of Project Inform, a California group that is funded by Wellcome and other pharmaceutical interests, angrily confronted Shenton and shook her by the wrist. Delaney, who is not a scientist, was a featured conference speaker. Robert Laarhoven, a representative of the Dutch Foundation for Alternative AIDS Research (S.A.A.O) and a journalist for the Dutch magazine CARE, asked Habermehl whether the invitation to Robert Gallo was issued before or after he had been found guilty of "scientific misconduct". Habermehl declined to answer; Gallo became angry, and yelled at a reporter, "Don't bother me!"

Beginning at noon on Wednesday the 9th, Robert Laarhoven set up a literature table, with reprints of Rethinking AIDS. All afternoon the table was a gathering point for AIDS critics. I had expected hostility, but it was just the opposite -- people were keenly interested in hearing our ideas.

On Thursday the 10th, the AIDS Empire struck back. Robert Laarhoven was approached by conference officials, police, and a member of the border control. His press pass was confiscated and he was threatened with deportation from Germany for having committed "criminal trespass" -- placing copies of Rethinking AIDS on an unauthorized table. Many other groups had put literature on tables in the same area, but the conference officials were not concerned about them. Earlier in the week, the S.A.A.O. had applied for permission to put copies of Rethinking AIDS in the press release area; their request was denied.

In front of the ICC, Christian Joswig and Peter Schmidt were attacked by several dozen members of ACT UP, who destroyed signs, burned leaflets and attempted to destroy camera equipment. Conference officials witnessed these acts, and then ordered the victims of the assault to stay at least 100 meters from the ICC. Officials took no action against the attackers from ACT UP.

Also on the 10th, 100 ACT UP members destroyed a booth belonging to AIDS-Information Switzerland. They chanted obscenities, smashed panels, destroyed displays and chairs, and tore up literature, before covering the remains of the booth with 30 rolls of toilet paper. The Swiss group's sin had been to criticize condoms.

At the final press conference on Friday the 11th, a dozen media people passed out a press release, "Offenses Against Free Speech". I asked Habermehl if he would apologize for those offenses against free speech for which he personally was responsible, and if he would rebuke ACT UP for their violent attacks on the rights of others. He said he would not. The moderator refused to allow other known AIDS critics, like Joan Shenton, to speak.

If future AIDS conferences want to call themselves "trade shows", let them. But if they claim any affinity with science, they had better show a lot more respect for free inquiry.

(John Lauritsen, Rethinking AIDS, 1(7):2, July 1993)

Duesberg and his supporters, who today number in the hundreds, have typically been banished from official conferences and symposia on the AIDS question, particularly in the USA. Major scientific journals, such as Science and Nature, have published seriously flawed studies purporting to demonstrate that illegal drugs are not the causative factor for AIDS, alongside of condemnations of Duesberg and other AIDS critics. The editors of these journals have often refused to print pointed criticisms of the studies which demonstrate where they are flawed, and likewise refused to allow letters of rebuttal against the personal attacks. (The 11 March 1993 Commentary in Nature, by Ascher, et al.,"Does Drug Use Cause AIDS?", and associated 16 April 1993 Editorial in Science are cases in point -- both were seriously flawed and attacked Duesberg by name, but no published critique or rebuttal was allowed.) It is Big Science at work, in an unholy collusion with Big Medicine, Big Government, and Big Media. Some HIV Fundamentalists have even called for the forced silencing of AIDS critics, on the grounds that they are "confusing the public" and "causing deaths" by getting in the way of the AZT medication, HIV vaccination, and safe-sex programs. While these same conference gatherings and research journals will invite comments from homosexual activist groups, and spotlight the discredited Gallo and other HIV/AZT millionaires, Duesberg and the AIDS critics are forbidden access to the podium, and threatened or physically attacked.

Fortunately, there is growing public knowledge of the circus atmosphere, pseudo-science and vested interests at work behind the HIV hypothesis of AIDS, and the public has generally become better educated and skeptical of the new poisons being peddled by doctors and pharmacy companies. A new AIDS criticism group, "Project AIDS International" has been formed, apparently for the main purpose to bring criminal charges and class-action lawsuits against officials of Burroughs-Wellcome Pharmaceutical. The allegation is made they knew AZT was both highly toxic and worthless against AIDS, and continued to promote it even after thousands of people began to sicken and die from the treatment.

The above facts are testimony to the general death of science and critical science journalism in the USA. Where is the independent news media? Where are the independent scientists and scientific scholarly societies? The answer is, they are all emotionally contracted and too intellectually incapacitated to effectively deal with this burning sexual issue, or they have been bought off, threatened into silence, or fired from positions of public influence. A deep culture-wide emotional anxiety and paralyzing anti-sexual hysteria has silenced most people on the AIDS issue -- they simply parrot what comes through the television or newspapers. A cadre of loud and vocal anti-sexual zealots now dominates the discussion. Their political agendas have been publicized, and sometimes written into law. Nearly everyone, from right-wing conservatives to left-wing radicals, has fallen lock-step into brainless nodding approval of the public anti-heterosexual brainwash. Also, there is a tight collusion of moneyed special interests controlling academe, medicine, politics, and the press. Dissenters to the "Official Truth" that "HIV causes AIDS" have been effectively silenced. This collusion of emotional and economic factors have dovetailed to barricade rational public discussion and debate on the issue.

The Big Lie of the "heterosexual AIDS epidemic" satisfies the most deep emotional fears and hatreds of gratified genitality in the average individual. The emotional component is the only factor which explains how and why this disastrous lie has become a new Official Truth, why to question it publicly is to risk social isolation or attack from "believers" -- and why the mythology has worked to reinforce the most pleasure-fearing and censorious aspects of human personal relationships and social contact. "AIDS" was the emotional plague's deceitful response to an un-focused and chaotic, but potentially healthy sexual revolution, and it has been a most effective deceit, of sweeping, global proportions.

There is no valid scientific proof or even suggestive evidence to support the huge public investment in the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS. As Duesberg says, the HIV hypothesis fails to explain or predict the epidemiology and pathology of AIDS. It is a failed hypothesis which has cost thousands of lives, and billions of wasted dollars. The HIV hypothesis of AIDS is not supported by science, but is rather maintained by big money pharmacy investments, by political hardball tactics from groups with clear political agendas, and by a lot of bad science, often undertaken by those who profited handsomely from the carnage. The campaign to inform the public that "HIV causes AIDS" and "everyone is at risk for AIDS" is, bluntly, a Big Lie, and should be openly exposed and corrected at every possible level.

Two years ago, the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis came into existence, as a result of an effort to get the following four-sentence letter published in a number of prominent scientific journals. The letter today has nearly 400 signatories, at least half of which hold advanced degrees (Ph.D., M.D., etc.). To date, the letter has still not been published in those journals:

"It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biomedical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken."

Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis.
2040 Polk Street, #321 San Francisco, CA 94104 USA

REFERENCES

- Adams, Jad: AIDS, The HIV Myth, St. Martin's Press, NY, 1989.

- Bethel, Tom: "The Cure that Failed: Did the AIDS lobby know what it was doing when it pressed the government to approve AZT?" National Review, 10 May 1993, pp.33-35.

- Duesberg, Peter: "AIDS Acquired by Drug Consumption and Other Non-Contagious Risk Factors", Pharmac. Ther. 55:201-277, 1992. Also see: Duesberg, P.: Infectious AIDS: Have We Been Misled?, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1996; and AIDS; Virus or Drug Induced?; Contemporary Issues in Genetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, Edited by Peter H. Duesberg (Partly reprinted from Genetica Vol. 95, No. 1-3, 1995) Kluwer Academics Press Dordrecht, The Netherlands,1996.

- Fumento, Michael: The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS: How a Tragedy has been Distorted by Media and Partisan Politics, Basic Books, NY 1990.

- Fumento, M.: "Teenaids, the Latest HIV Fib", New Republic, 10 August 1992, pp.17-19.

- Rappoport, J.: AIDS, Inc.: Scandal of the Century, Human Energy Press, San Bruno, CA, 1988.

- Root-Bernstein, Robert: Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, Free Press, NY, 1993.

- Harman, Robert: "The Emotional Plague and the AIDS Hysteria," Journal of Orgonomy, 22(2):173-195, Nov. 1988.

Postscript: Controlled scientific studies have recently been undertaken on the Western Blot and ELISA "AIDS tests", demonstrating a very high rate of false-positives among both sick and healthy people who have never been exposed to HIV, but who have, instead, previously experienced general immunological stress of various sorts. These "AIDS tests" often yield a "positive" result if the tested individual has previously been exposed to other viruses and microbes, foreign blood proteins (as from transfusions), and/or excessive toxic illegal or legal drugs, including excessive antibiotics. HIV has very little to do with the "positivity" of the so-called "AIDS tests". These new studies further prove that AIDS is not an infectious disorder and has little or no relationship to the virus HIV. See:

Eleini Papadopulos-Eleopulos, et al: "Is a Postive Western Blot Proof of HIV Infection?", Biotechnology, Vol.11, June 1993, p.696-707.

Oscar Kashala, et al: "Infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) and Human T Cell Lymphotropic Viruses among Leprosy Patients and Contacts: Correlation Between HIV-1 Cross-Reactivity and Antibodies to Lipoarabinomannan", J. Infectious Diseases, 1994:169:296-304.

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