BS: What causes AIDS?

Subject: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Act Up!
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:23 AM

Well, what a friggin' crock of crap tirade by the good professor Harari of the Weismann Institute of Science, whatever that
is...

It is filled will screwy thinking.

Fir instance, he says more people die of AIDS in Africa every day than died on 9/11, 'er whatever he was trying to say. This makes this ol' hillbilly really mad to hear this crap. (But, Bobert, them Aficans f**k like rabbits. The'll f**k anything that moves. They're just a bunch of bone through the nose savages...)

Well, there's one of the largest lies being told. Make Bush's lies seem like little white lies. Actually, in spite of professor Harari's not-so-extensive research is that not only do most Africans **not** "f**k like rabbits, but that they test positive for AIDS because they are grossly malnourished from the abject poverty, lack of food, clean water and health care... Like does the good professor klnow that medically a malnourished individual can test positive for AIDS? Heck no, he doesn't, because he isn't too informed or enlightened...

The above passage (sic) was written by Bobert in an anti-Israeli rant in the latest Mudcat Middle East thread. Commenting on the ridiculousness of Bobert's misinformation on AIDS belongs in a thread of its own.

To begin with, the Israeli professor is absolutely correct and Bobert is absolutely wrong about the numbers of AIDS deaths in Africa every day. In 2002, more than 2.4 million people in sub-Sahara Africa died of AIDS. That works out to more than 6,575 people per day. Far more than the 2800 hundred who were murdered in the events of 9/11.

Bobert goes on to say that most Africans with AIDS have AIDS because they are malnourished. That is absolutely false.

Malnutrition is a huge problem in Africa. However, HIV infection, through exposure in the blood is the sole cause of AIDS. Malnutrion further weakens the body's immune system so that full blown AIDS will manifest itself sooner in someone who is malnourished. However, contrary to what Bobert says, no one gets AIDS from malnutrition.

Please ignore the false and dangerous information being propagated by Bobert. There is extensive information available at the AIDS in Africa website.

The AIDS in Africa website.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Act Up!
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:36 AM

In a new post in the Middle East thread, Bobert further writes:

Probably the largest body of reseach that malnourishment, poverty, bad water etc. can lead to false positiive for HIV/AIDS (not to say one necessarily leads to another...) testing has been accumulated and published by:

Dr. Gary Null

(www.garynull.com)

First of all, Gary Null is not a doctor. He is a nutritonal supplement salesman whose AIDS theories have been completely discredited by the scientific AIDS community.

Again, please ignore the false and dangerous information being propagated by Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:55 AM

GUEST, I think you have the wrong end of the stick here. I read what Bobert wrote and it seems he is not endorsing, but disputing these findings.

At least that's what I'm reading here.

Would you please indicate where you found this thread as I'd like to read it in context.

From what I've read on Mudcat from Bobert, I really think you might have misunderstood what he was saying...

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:59 AM

Bobert's ridiculous claims are in this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:03 PM

Feel better, GUEST, act up...

First fir your assertion about the anti-Isreali Tirade. Saying that both Isreal and the Palestinians have a right to exist hardly puts me in some extremist camp. Perhaps you'd like to illucidate on why thinking the Palestinians have a right to exist is such a radical concept....

Second of all, you discredit (Dr.) Gary Null because of your small minded AMA paradime. A doctor is one who comforts and works to heal those who are sick. In that vien, Gary Null is more of a doctor than plenty of state certified AMA'ers who are currently "practicing" medicine, including a few I've gone to who were highly recommended...

Thirdly, have you taken the time to review (Dr.) Nulls writings? Have you taken the time to hear a (Dr.) Null lecture? Are you even aware that research models exist out of the arena of the sacred AMA? Do you have any experience with successes of alternative treatments?

It doesn't sound, from your kneejerk reaction, that you have...

Lastly, if the number of people in Africa dieing could be vastly deceased from AIDS-like symptoms with food, fresh water and better health care, rather than propogating racist PR pablum about Adircan behavior, wouldn't that make more sense? If not, why do you feel that continuimng to place blame on the genocide that is plaguing parts of Africans at the feet of those dieing? It's a much bigger story than is being told...

And lastly, Part 2: The mind is like a parachute, its usless if it isn't open...

Now go on with more of yer misinterpreting and knee-jerkin'. I mean, like, knock yerself out...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:16 PM

I'm interested in that thread and plan to read it in it's entirety.

But I think I'll just let the two of you have at it here.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:19 PM

Ellenpolly, at first I thought you were right, but then I re-read what Bobert had written...a couple of times.

He's actually criticizing the professor for not 'knowing' you can get aids from malnutrition. You don't get colds from not wearing a hat in the winter, and you don't get infected with the HIV virus from being malnourished. A person might be more susceptible to the ravages of HIV if they're malnourished, but they won't GET it.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:24 PM

Gary Null has never claimed he is a doctor and has never referred to himself as Dr.

However, he does have an honorary PH.D from the University of Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:37 PM

No, you don't get AIDS from malnutrition. But there is at least a body of eveidence that folks suffering from severe malnutrtion, bad water and poor health care, of which the vast majority of "supposed" African AIDS infected people suffer, will test positive for the AIDS viris, though not actually infected...

Which brings us around to "bumper sticker" thinking by Westerners that these folks is just bad people 'cause of their behavior when genocide thru starvation is the real story. But that doesn't fit "bumper sticker" thinking and isn't as nice a story to tell folks who have a McDonald's on every corner...

As fir degrees? Most are purdy danged usless. In most cases all they represent is an individuals tolerance to be hazed for 4, 6 or more years to prove they are "company men and women"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:02 PM

Still need to read that thread, but...on this subject...

I just found this and thought I'd post it here...from

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/cjtestfp.htm



Factors Known to Cause False-Positive HIV Antibody Test Results

Anti-carbohydrate antibodies (52, 19, 13)
Naturally-occurring antibodies (5, 19)
Passive immunization: receipt of gamma globulin or immune globulin (as prophylaxis against infection which contains antibodies)(18, 26, 60, 4, 22, 42, 43, 13)
Leprosy (2, 25)
Tuberculosis (25)
Mycobacterium avium (25)
Systemic lupus erythematosus (15, 23)
Renal (kidney) failure (48, 23, 13)
Hemodialysis/renal failure (56, 16, 41, 10, 49)
Alpha interferon therapy in hemodialysis patients (54)
Flu (36)
Flu vaccination (30, 11, 3, 20, 13, 43)
Herpes simplex I (27)
Herpes simplex II (11)
Upper respiratory tract infection (cold or flu)(11)
Recent viral infection or exposure to viral vaccines (11)
Pregnancy in multiparous women (58, 53, 13, 43, 36)
Malaria (6, 12)
High levels of circulating immune complexes (6, 33)
Hypergammaglobulinemia (high levels of antibodies) (40, 33)
False positives on other tests, including RPR (rapid plasma reagent) test for syphilis (17, 48, 33, 10, 49)
Rheumatoid arthritis (36)
Hepatitis B vaccination (28, 21, 40, 43)
Tetanus vaccination (40)
Organ transplantation (1, 36)
Renal transplantation (35, 9, 48, 13, 56)
Anti-lymphocyte antibodies (56, 31)
Anti-collagen antibodies (found in gay men, haemophiliacs, Africans of both sexes and people with leprosy)(31)
Serum-positive for rheumatoid factor, antinuclear antibody (both found in rheumatoid arthritis and other autoantibodies)(14, 62, 53)
Autoimmune diseases (44, 29, 10, 40, 49, 43): Systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, connective tissue disease, dermatomyositis
Acute viral infections, DNA viral infections (59, 48, 43, 53, 40, 13)
Malignant neoplasms (cancers)(40)
Alcoholic hepatitis/alcoholic liver disease (32, 48, 40,10,13, 49, 43, 53)
Primary sclerosing cholangitis (48, 53)
Hepatitis (54)
"Sticky" blood (in Africans) (38, 34, 40)
Antibodies with a high affinity for polystyrene (used in the test kits)(62, 40, 3)
Blood transfusions, multiple blood transfusions (63, 36,13, 49, 43, 41)
Multiple myeloma (10, 43, 53)
HLA antibodies (to Class I and II leukocyte antigens)(7, 46, 63, 48, 10, 13, 49, 43, 53)
Anti-smooth muscle antibody (48)
Anti-parietal cell antibody (48)
Anti-hepatitis A IgM (antibody)(48)
Anti-Hbc IgM (48)
Administration of human immunoglobulin preparations pooled before 1985 (10)
Haemophilia (10, 49)
Haematologic malignant disorders/lymphoma (43, 53, 9, 48, 13)
Primary biliary cirrhosis (43, 53, 13, 48)
Stevens-Johnson syndrome9, (48, 13)
Q-fever with associated hepatitis (61)
Heat-treated specimens (51, 57, 24, 49, 48)
Lipemic serum (blood with high levels of fat or lipids)(49)
Haemolyzed serum (blood where haemoglobin is separated from the red cells)(49)
Hyperbilirubinemia (10, 13)
Globulins produced during polyclonal gammopathies (which are seen in AIDS risk groups)(10, 13, 48)
Healthy individuals as a result of poorly-understood cross-reactions (10)
Normal human ribonucleoproteins (48,13)
Other retroviruses (8, 55, 14, 48, 13)
Anti-mitochondrial antibodies (48, 13)
Anti-nuclear antibodies (48, 13, 53)
Anti-microsomal antibodies (34)
T-cell leukocyte antigen antibodies (48, 13)
Proteins on the filter paper (13)
Epstein-Barr virus (37)
Visceral leishmaniasis (45)
Receptive anal sex (39, 64)

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:02 PM

How do you test positive for the virus when you don't have it? AIDS testing is not like drug testing where eating the wrong foods can give you a blood test. I suppose that all the young people here in the states who have died and are dying are just malnourished. How about this spin on things....malnourishment is a symptom of aids related illnesses.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: jeffp
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:09 PM

All tests can result in one of five results: true positive, true negative, false positive, false negative, or inconclusive. The strength of any particular test for anything is the potential for each of these results.

Now you may continue with the dispute.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:11 PM

You might test as "uncertain", which some people might read as "positive."

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Act Up!
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:25 PM

The issue I seized on in Bobert's original post is not that there may be some instances of false positives in AIDS testing. There is always follow-up testing in positive tests in order to eliminate false positives.

Rather, it was Bobert's claim that Professor Harari's statement, to the effect that more Africans die of AIDS every day than died in the events of 9/11, is racist and false because of false positives induced by malnutrition. Bobert said the professor's statement was "a friggin' crock of crap," that it was "one of the largest lies being told. Make Bush's lies seem like little white lies."

However, the FACT is that Professor Harari was correct. As I pointed out, in 2002, more than 2.4 million people in sub-Sahara Africa died of AIDS. That works out to more than 6,575 people per day. Far more than the 2800 hundred who were murdered in the events of 9/11.

It is Bobert whose false information is, his words, "a friggin' crock of crap."

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:25 PM

The process is very simple in any medical situation in which "false positives" are possible: (1) You do a fairly simple (and cheap) test. (2) If the person tests positive, than you do a more complicated (and more expensive) test to rule out false positives.

There are conditions and circumstances in which a second, and more accurate, test is either unavailable or impractical, but this is not the case with HIV.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:29 PM

"...will test positive for the AIDS viris, though not actually infected"

Which test comes up false positive? Do you have a link to an article?

The rapid screening tests sometimes DO show false positives, and should be confirmed with repeated tests, either Western blot (WB) or immunofluorescent assay (IFA). I don't know if malnutrition can lead to a false positive, but I DO know it's the virus that causes AIDS. Malnutrition will certainly help the virus do its dirty work, along with a lack of treatment. The primary factor in an AIDS death, however, is infection with HIV.

There's a danger in people believing what they die from is malnutrition and not AIDS. People die from malnutrition, and it's something to fight, but it's a separate, (although contributory) issue. Passing off AIDS deaths as something else is like saying the dead people in Iraq got that way because they were living in the wrong place. If what you say were true, we could all eat good meals, go out and shoot some smack with our 'blood brothers', fuck like rabbits, and we'll be just fine. There's a danger in trying to tell people that unprotected promiscuous sex as a cultural norm is perfectly fine. Just ONE person who reads what you write, actually believes you, and dies, is just too much.

Unprotected promiscuous sex is just plain dangerous, and finding excuses to try to convince people "it's ok to continue that cultural practice" is a little too close to promoting genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:41 PM

Fact is that according to AMA model we Weesterners find it *convient* to blame 2.4 million African deaths on AIDS and we continue to use AIDS at the poster problem of a much larger problem of poverty and lack of resorces for the African people... I am saying "convient" because this, in some way, lets alot of folks off the hook who are more concerned about consuming *more than their fair share* of the earth's resources. AIDS is very handy in that respect because rather than look towaeds one's self as part of either the problem or solution one can blame the victim.

Thank you, Ellenpoly, fir the quick research. These are the kinds of things that (Dr.) Gary Null talks about.

I wish I knew how to blue clicky things 'cause this ol' hillbilly ain't the only person that is challenging the AMA/Western-Corportate/Harari model. The media sure ain't gonna report it, that's fir danged/corporate sure...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 01:57 PM

Bobert you have stepped on my toes with your remark about degrees. To dismiss higher education as cavalierly as you have is beyond ignorant! You must really be a dumb hillbilly and not just pretending to play one!

At any rate, although the conditions you cite in Africa are major contributors to the AIDS epidemic and all those things Ellenpolly noted which many people in Africa undoubtdly have will register a false positive AIDS tests, HIV is still transmitted the old fashion way, through behavior! Beliefs, cultural norms, and criminal behavior account for much of the transmission in Africa which occurs predominantly in the heterosexual population.

I did a small research study (upon graduating with a doctorate in Social Work on protective behaviors in graduate students in the Social Work population in 1989. It is widely cited in the literature on AIDS protective behaviors and paved the way for AIDs curriculum in Social Work schools across the nation. In my study, nearly 60% of the subjects (admittedly a very small population of 74) had false information, poor information, or were not practicing safe sex! If social work graduate students were that ignorant in 1989, how do you think Africans have faired over the years in instituting protective behaviors?

Shame on you Bobert, for not touting behavioral change as a primary necessity in the fight against HIV/AIDS infection. And shame on you for not noting that the oppression of women is a primary reason that AIDS is so rampant in Africa.

love, harpy

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 02:13 PM

Bobert, you are generally a pretty smart guy, and I tend to agree with many of the points you make. However, I think you are way out on a limb over the swamp on this one. You may not be aware that Mr. Null (his degree is questionable, if not bogus) has been a subject of Quack Watch, which says, among other things, that Gary Null, whose book jackets bill him as "one of America's leading health and fitness advocates," is one of the nation's leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease.   Hull himself says, in this article, that "no one, I repeat, no one under ANY circumstances should have the HIV test. It is a fraud. A complete and total fraud. Why is it a fraud? Because there's no "gold standard." That means that it is impossible to claim that HIV has been present in all AIDS cases." This is flat out murder for those individuals who have the HIV virus and could have their lives saved with treatment.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 02:21 PM

Hey Bobert,

For $299, you too can get the PhD just like the one Gary Null bought.


Null says he holds an associate degree in business administration from Mountain State College in West Virginia, a bachelor's
degree from Thomas A. Edison State College in New Jersey, and a PhD in human nutrition and public health sciences from The
Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Edison State, a "nontraditional" school with neither campus nor courses, awards accredited
bachelor's degrees based on career experience, equivalency exams, and courses taken at other schools.

The Union Institute is also accredited, but its degree requirements and standards for health-related doctoral degrees differ
greatly from those of traditional universities. Students design their own program, form and chair their own doctoral committee,
and are required to attend only an introductory colloquium and a few interdisciplinary seminars. Null's PhD committee was
composed of a "core faculty member," three "adjunct professors," two "peers," and a "second core reader." The "core faculty
member" is a well-credentialed academician whose expertise (in geologic sciences) is unrelated to Null's topic. One of the three
"adjunct professors" was Martin Feldman, MD, a "complementary" physician (and "clinical ecologist") who has pinch-hit for
Null as a radio host and helped develop some of Null's books and supplement formulations. When I asked a school official
about the background or location of the other two "adjunct professors," he replied that information was in storage and was too
difficult to obtain.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Little Doofus
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 02:43 PM

Mama, I swear I ain't one of them gay boys. I swear I ain't been havin' sex no how. Sure 'nuff now without a rubber con-dome. I been to Doc Bobert and he sez I'm just malnourished.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 02:45 PM

GEtcher facts straight, Guest. The Union Insititute is accredited, number one, and number two its PhD degree costs a damn sight more than no $299!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:20 PM

It is very dangerous to start thinking that a good diet will prevent HIV infection (and subsequently AIDS). The methods of HIV trsnsmission have been determined: exchange of body fluids (semen, blood), transfusion of contaminated blood, use of contaminated needles. There may be a corelation between a lower infection rate amongst people who eat well, but I would think that comes from a better life style occasioned by a better income occasioned by a better education. The key then would be education, not food. Thinking that AIDS can be prevented by a good diet is very foolish, and the promulgation of that type of thought is criminal. And if it isn't, it should be.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:32 PM

(Dr) Null's expertise on AIDS is in line with his quackery in other areas. This too from Null:

Magnetic therapy can help the body ward off such microbial invaders as viruses, bacteria, and fungi. It achieves this, in part, by increasing immune function through the oxygenation of white corpuscles, an important part of the immune system's arsenal. A magnetic field can also function like an antibiotic by lowering acid, with the result that microorganisms have a more difficult time surviving.

Sometimes, snake-oil salesmen can cost you a lot more than the $30 you blew on the Ionizer bracelet.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:37 PM

And if that's not bad enough ... winner of the top Pigasus Award 2003:

Category #1, for the government official who said or did the silliest thing related to pseudoscience or the occult in the year 2003, goes to South African Minister of Health Dr. Manto Tshabala-Msimang, who claimed, and continues to claim, that treatment with "garlic, herbs, and liver" is not only most efficacious in the treatment of HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases, but is far superior to Western medicine. She also believes, in agreement with Thabo Mbeki, President of the African National Congress and President of South Africa, that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus. The death rate in South Africa has soared, with an estimated 5.3 million of its 45 million people (12%) now HIV-infected.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:38 PM

Well, as fir attacking someone who has the courage to stand up to the AMA, and Western African?AIDS PR crap, I would expect the same ol' cast of characters who are generally first to stand up and sing the company song...

I'm not saying there aren't AIDS cases in Africa but what I am saying is that it is very convient to look at a continent where lots of people are dieing of starvation and environmental issues and lay the blame on sexual behavior on that group of people. It may provide some temporary relef from the guilt and denial but it sure ain't part of the solution...

Now as fir the degrees, harpy, you even admit that those Social Work gard students weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer but since yer in "Bobert Buddies Column" I'll apologize fir the generization. BTW, my last "save the world" job was a Social Worker working in Adult Services in Richmond, Va. where for 8 years I worked primarilly with revolving door mental health folks and the elderly but I got into Social Work thru the back door using my 1st degree in Education to get a job as a GED teac her in the Richmond City Jail which got me a job in a drug rehab. program (Rubicon) which somehow qualified me to become a Social Worker. I worked with a lot of MSW's and have the utmost respect for them, not necessarily for their degreesm but fir their hearts... But enough about that... Please accept my aplogy fir the insensitive generalization about degrees....

But, being the Bobert, I reserve the right to make the same unfounded generalizations about degrees in the future and re-apologize if called to do so...

BTW, anyone wanting to pay $299 per degree, I got two of them ya' can buy. That'll be $598 + shipping and handling. I accept PayPal...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: mg
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:56 PM

oh indeed talking about the need for restraints on sexual behavior is absolutely part of the solution. And of course AIDS will most likely ravage a body faster with bad nutrition, and if the farmers have AIDS, who will grow the food? Especially with the other health issues they have, such as malaria, infectious diseases, parasites etc. And I think that this all can be linked to the "why do they hate us" question from traditional Moslem societies...perhaps they do not hate us but fear what is in store once the cultural restraints are off. And there are other treats in store for us...drug resistant syphilis is spreading. And count on other diseases to spring up unanounced...unprotected sex with multiple partners is an absolute recipe for disease. This is not morality, it is biology. Apply your own morals here or there or whatever but don't shoot the messenger. mg

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 04:11 PM

Harpy, sweetie, don't confuse a degree in social work with an academic degree. An academic degree (mathematics, physics for example) are honorable degrees.

Soial work is a bullshit degree obtainable with no academic background.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 04:26 PM

GUEST: That statement came from someone with a Master's in BS.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 04:34 PM

Ouch, GUEST!

Well, gol dangit, since when were math and physics the only honorable stuff to learn? Shoot, everybody has to get about the same crap the first couple of years 'er so... Don't matter if ya want to help people 'er blow 'um up...

2 English, 2 lits, 2 psychs, 2 maths, 2 sciences, 2 poli-scis, maybe a couple economics, etc... By the time ya get done with the basics yer lookin' at about 60 'er 70 credit hours behind ya... Then you get a few tough 300 level course in yer major and the 400 course, should you get that far you can cruise thru...

But I'll tell ya what, if I gotta spend the rest o' my life on a desert island wid either a math major or a social work major, I'll take the latter, thank you...

And so would the Wes Ginny Slide Rule..

But a big ol' pie-r-squared to ya anyway...

Yo, mary garvey... Abstainence is not reasonable or realistic solution no matter how much you happen to believe in it. This is the real world. With that said I don't believe you are considering what a lot of folks allready are beginning to talk about: the "so called" AIDS epedemic in Africa may very well not be that at all but the effects of a lot of folks starving to death and without fresh water to drink. Can you at least consider that maybe we are not being told the truth?
Like Ellenpoly pointed out above. There are alot of other diseases which will produce positives for AIDS that are prevalent in Africa. TB being one biggie... But you might want to look back over that list and think how many of these conditions might be related to... or worsened to a lack of food and water and adequate housing and bad medical care, etc...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 04:57 PM

"Well, as fir attacking someone who has the courage to stand up to the AMA, and Western African?AIDS PR crap, I would expect the same ol' cast of characters who are generally first to stand up and sing the company song..."

It's frustrating for me, and really hinders attempts to find the 'truth' in anything, when people take facts and spin them to weave their own 'company song', whichever company it is. It bugs me when people are too willing to believe a certain point of view just because the particular spin suits their politics.

Politics shouldn't be the most important factor in this, it really shouldn't be a factor at all. Saying the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders, and everyone involved in trying to treat those with AIDS and prevent future infections are lying or trying to provided un-needed help, just doesn't make any sense. When what you believe is determined by which 'side' you're on, truth doesn't stand a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Act Up!
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:13 PM

When what you believe is determined by which 'side' you're on, truth doesn't stand a chance.

The truth never stood a chance with Bobert.

Bobert's hillbilly act was kind of funny the first three or four hundred times he used it. But, it's worn very thin the last couple of years.

On this issue in particular, the thinking of the Boberts of this world is downright dangerous. At least its somewhat heartening to see that he's a choir of one on this issue.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:37 PM

I have found it difficult to believe that AIDS just magically appeared in 1984 (?). Always seemed to me like a lab experiment gone wrong. I think it was Clancy in one of his novels who said that AIDS does in ten years what ebola does in ten days. Just a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:40 PM

Not too fast, Act Up... There do seem to be a few other folk here who aren't completely sold by the Boss Hog/AMA song and dance routine an' I suspect as this thread continues there will be others so don't be to quick to carve out "Victory Circle" all fir yerseff...

Just remember what Einstein said about solving problems. They can't be solved with the "same consciencousness that created them", 'er somethin' real close to that. No, he we're no hillbilly but in that observation there is a nugget of thruth on how best to intervene on the human tagedy in Africa and it may very well not be in looking at it as a behavioral problem of those dieing but a geo-political one that goes beyond abstainence and blame...

Now if you wanta gloat, Act up, have at it? The fat lady ain't sung on this one yet...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:53 PM

Uh, Brucie, it didn't "just magically" appear in 1984...it was around alot longer than that...the first diagnosed cases were in Europe in the 70's(before they knew it was aids), where many health workers and rich Africans were returning infected with this strange disease...Now considering that diseases like AIDS and Ebola surfaced in areas like the Congo where there is lots of clear cutting...it is not inconceivable that new viruses (well HIV is a retrovirus) would be unsurfaced along with new animals and plants, and to suggest otherwise is pure ignorance and hindering all efforts to educate and keep people alive. Also to suggest that those millions of people afflicted in AFrica and elsewhere are really afflicted with starvation is just as ignorant and hindering. In fact it is truly offensive.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,harpy
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:54 PM

ah heck, Loopie Rocks...I'm not under any false illusions about my intelligence. I know I'm not brilliant. But the social work PhD IS a vigorous academic degree even though it is not a "hard" science. Even the PhD program at Florida State doesn't take dummies. I'm just about the only one in my cohort who isn't either a dean, a full professor with ten books, or a program director of a doctoral program. My career has disappointed my committee, but it has satisfied me.

But, I'm certainly not your average social worker. I'm a Babe in Total Control of Herself. You should know that about me by now...love, harpy

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 06:00 PM

Amergin,

Read what I said earlier before you stick your head further up your arse.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 06:34 PM

"those millions of people afflicted in Africa", Amergin, may not be afflicted with AIDS... I don't mean to sound flip here but, what if the reason they were deing was because of TB, malaria or other diseases which are compounded by starvation and lack of clean water which can produce a false positive for AIDS?

Have you completely ruled out this scenerio because of the analysis by Western "medical" community's near-sightedness? Sure, this has been the *only* story but it may very well not be the correct story since so many other diseases can effect these tests.

Yeah, everyone seems real concerned about AIDS and they should be, I'd like to see at least as much attention paid to the human suffering for which we are 100% sure how to cure: food, clean water for starters...

I don't mean to minimalize the devestation of having or knwing someone with AIDS as I have now lost two good friends to the disease but I'm getting just a tad tired, to be repeating myself, of folks who refuse to even consider that AIDS isn't quite the boogieman its been made out to be in the tagedy in Africa... Oh sure, it makes for a convient story. Nice and tidy but it might be flawed and if so then maybe the world needs to rethink its strategy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 07:01 PM

Bobert, it's you who are playing Boss Hog's card here. We are NOT talking the AMA, we're talking WHO and the CDC, and MSF, and if you choose to think all those people are lying simply because what they say doesn't fit in with your politics, go on.

There are AIDS epidemics in more places than Africa. It's easier to throw food at people in Africa than provide competent medical personnel, and it really interferes with the profits of large drug companies to make medicines affordable. Providing education to people about AIDS costs money, condoms cost money. Teaching people how to eat isn't required. Treating a disease costs more than feeding people.

Let's talk about how the situation got so bad in the first place. People don't generally give a crap about a serious problem in poor countries that have nothing WE want, except maybe a few compassionate souls. It gets ignored, or labeled 'famine' and it just grows until it gets downright embarrassing. And then, somebody comes along and says, in effect "Nah, we don't have to send 'em nurses, doctors, medicine, educators, lab techs and all that stuff, we don't have to pay for it all, and we don't have to feel bad about taking it seriously a bit earlier, we don't have to figure out what went wrong or who should have acted. Them poor people jes' need some FOOD."

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 07:44 PM

I recalled that I was looking at the CIA World Fact Book (call me crazy; the CIA has up to date knowledge????)last week.

Anywho, India is fast approaching Africa in death rates and persons living with AIDS. India has poverty, famine, pestilence, and the oppression of women just like Africa. Primarily heterosexually transmitted as well.   http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2157.html

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 07:52 PM

There's real irony in the potential fact that the Arabic Muslims may be the last population to survive on earth because of their taboos about male and female contact when AIDS has killed off everyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 07:59 PM

Fair enough, Jeri. So seein' as there isn't any particular world movement to provide drugs and/or treatment for health related problems in Africa, why not provide food and water and see what happens...

Oh, there are lots of folks who will step up and say the we *are* providing the medical care and the drugs thru various organizations, the CDC and the World Health Organization but are we really making the kind of effort that has any chance of sucess? Well, not really. I mean if we are willing to let upwards of a million folks starve ijn Sudan this summer then you can bet those folks certainly have fallen thru the WHO net as well...

And lets also take a look on the Bush AIDS assistence program for Africa. First of all they are not spending the money or writing the checks that he said would be spent. Secondly, it is pushing abstainance at a time, if many of you folks are even half correct, is not a realistic centerpiece of it's educational programs for Africa.

But I'm still suggesting strongly that when this is all said and done there gonna be a few folks sayin' "How did that ol' hillbilly get this one right?" I think the research is badly flawed in favor of a tidy story. Heck, the jury ain't even out on this one yet but should be getting the case somewhere down the road and then I'll resurrect this thread and a local recipe fir crow pie... That's my story and until the jury gets the case and comes back, Iz stickin' to it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 08:40 PM

One of these interesting problems: the US has sent hundreds of thousands of tons of food aid to Africa, which are most likely crops purchased by the government as part of the price control process. Yet many countries won't accept it, even though it is the same thing we (or at least most of us) eat every day. The reason? It comes from genetically modified seed. I've seen at least one article that says the reason that they have refused it is because they then won't be able to certify their own food exports to Europe as GM-free.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 08:55 PM

Brucie, I did read what you said, and I do not believe I am the one with his head up his arse. BTW, the firt known cases of AIDS did not take anywhere near ten years, in many many cases it barely took 10 months, if that.

bobert, does it not seem conceivable that many of those people with TB and other lovely diseases may not also be infected with HIV?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 09:02 PM

Concievable, A-gin, but with so many other illnesses creating false positives for HIV prevalent in Africa, conceivable is about as far as I'll go. And that's only for some folks...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 09:30 PM

Yes, Amergin, the first talked-about cases I am aware of were some fellows in San Francisco who died from a terrible pneumatic disorder. Now, death takes about ten years, sometimes even longer. That aside, I don't know what you're bitchin' about. Say it clearly, in small words. OK?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Augie
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 10:01 PM

Hey Guest
I have a MS in Molecular Biology and a doctorate in dental surgery and after half a century on this earth I know people like me haven't done half as much to make OUR world a better place than most of the social workers that I know. Honorable, "academic" degree my ass. There's surely nothing very honorable about going to college and winding up with opinions as foolish as yours.

Bobert-love your willingness to think outside the box but I fear your on shakey ground this time.
All the Best
ATH

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 10:19 PM

Danged, Augie, I thought it was my bad knee actin' up... Well, I ain't no stranger to shakey ground...

Ahhhh, as fir feeling that yer degree ain't worth as much as a social workers? Next time I got a tooth ache I ain't callin' no social worker...

I will say that social work may sound glorious to some but it ain't. Most of the case load I worked with came directly from Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Va. Most of these folks had been in and out of mental hospitals. Most, no matter what I could do for them, would end up back in mental hospitals. Then came the Reagan administration and the massive cuts in Title XX funds that were used to purchase services, such as adult day care, companion serices, mental health serives, transporation, etc. and all Hell broke loose. That was the beginning of America's homelessness epidemic. Social workers were scrubbing floors and cooking meals and chenging dressings and taking blankets out to folks at night in the dead of winter... Yeah, it wasn't too glamourous at all.

One day I got a call from rooming house I had one of my "clients" in and the landlord was screaming at me that my client had gone into the shared bathroom and decorated the ceilings and walls with his own ith feceses (poop) and, in order to keep that rooming house (which I needed to keep) I had to get the guy out and clean up the mess... Didn't get home until well past midnight that night after getting a Green Warrent when the guy threatened to kill me, getting it served and cleaning all that crap outta that bathroom... No glamour there...

I'm sure that dentistry has its nasty parts but...

Awww, nevermind...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 10:55 PM

Here's a reference to my survery research, BTW:http://www.mun.ca/sweaids/doc3part6.html

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Augie
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:13 PM

You win the nasty contest Bobert-hands down.

I wasn't just blowin smoke about social workers. Some of the best times in my life (well, with a guitar on my lap anyway) were spent picking with a local social worker-also named Bob.He worked with at-risk teens and I think one of the best tools in his work was music.Bob passed unexpectedly 3 or 4 yrs ago at 49 from a heart attack. Each year they still hold a memorial concert/fundraiser in Bob's honor with the most bizarre set of performers, all of whom show up JUST because of Bob.You get the best of our local old rockers and folkies (which leaves me out for sure) covering "our music"along with teens and 20somethings who are still in or who had been in Bob's programs, doing original material. One minute you've got grey haired fat guys doing the Eagles acousticly, the next minute you've got pierced, tatooed, spikey green haired dudes doing original music & sometimes sharing instuments with the old farts.I couldn't generate such great,cross-cultural,cross-generational Karma in 50 lifetimes.Sorry about the thread drift.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:24 PM

Great drift, Augie... Sound like a real cool Bob to have effected so many people in a positive manner that such a cross sectional group gathers to play music and remember Bob... There's nuthin better than the grey hairs and the kids mixin' it up musically... I play blues sometimes at a local coffe shop where the kids hang. They call me Phishman 'cause I like Phish and go to their concerts and I got names fir them after their groups, like Tool-boy (tool), Spreadster (Widespread Panic), etc... Be nice to have them youngins have a Bobert Day if I were to die of a heart attack tomorrow... sniff...

Now back to AIDS... Theories... etc...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:27 PM

Bobert isn't nasty, just bombastic!

Anyway, if I had my choice of spending my last days on a desert island with another social worker or Ted Kascinsky, I'd have to pick the crazy and some would say evil, math nerd! I've always wanted to get to know him to find out what made him tick! Social workers are a dime a dozen...it's those "outliers" like Bobert (or his Bobert personality anyway) that I find fascinating!

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 11:32 PM

Harpgirl:

Aha!! You're actually here to do character studies, huh? A little post-grad data collection? Slumming among the Trpbriand Islanders? Sniffing around the Indigenous Haunts to see what makes the primitives tick?? Sketching the funny hats??? Busted, momma!!

Huh!! I gotcher number, Doctah!! Nobody tell harpgirl the chords you REALLY use, ya hear???    She's a plant!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:36 AM

What kinda plant? Chrysanthemum?(I only said that to show I learned how to spell it--from Steinbeck's story, no less.)

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,Nice Boy
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 01:48 AM

Everybody knows that Puffs invented aids - first in africa shagging green monkeys then spread it to white queers then it passed to normal people via bi-sexual perverts.

Any other explanation is only ducking the issue i.e. puff=pervert.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:15 AM

I really hate to have to post right after "white boy" but maybe it will take away some of the bad taste...

I just had to come back here, especially after reading the thread for which Bobert was first attacked and then reading this thread.

You guys! Is it so hard to see that what Bobert is saying is not all that different from what most of you are saying?

I know by now not to be fooled by his "aw shuks, ahm jest an ole hillbilly" camouflage. Truth is that he is a deep thinking and feeling individual, and what he theorizes here is not to be taken lightly.

We would be pretty naive to believe that the issue of AIDs, especially in Africa, is clear cut. By now it should be pretty obvious that there are a lot of agendas going on out there, both politically and medically.

At NO time did Bobert say there wasn't a huge problem with AIDs. All he is implying (if I've followed this correctly) is that there is a good chance that some cases have been misdiagnosed, and that it is a lot easier to deal with such a devastating state of affairs as exists in Africa by trying to blanket it over with only ONE disease.

Of course this is a social and cultural issue, as well as a political and medical one. That's the point. There are so many fronts on which this has to be fought and won, and to dismiss the very possible chance that there are people in the wings on every continent who are more concerned with what THEY want out of all this, than what the African nations need, would be naive indeed.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:49 AM

Whoops! "Nice boy" not "white boy". Hmmm kind of a freudian slippage there..

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: mooman
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 07:12 AM

Sorry folks! I just did a very long post on this and lost the lot somewhere in cyberspace. I'll try and reconstruct it from memory later.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: rhoda horse
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 08:38 AM

Nice boy has a point. If homosexual men did not stick their penis's up each others bottoms, this problem would not exist, and you know it!

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: mooman
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 08:50 AM

RH

Although a major means of transmission, infection through male homosexual intercourse is not the only route of transmission. What about unprotected heterosexual transmission, contamination of early polio vaccines, contaminated blood transfusions and factor VIII taken by haemophiliacs, contaminated needles used by drug abusers, needlestick injuries amongst healthcare workers, reuse of syringes and needles in the third world, etc., etc.

I thought we were a decade past this simplistic, and prejudiced, view.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: rhoda horse
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:05 AM

My view may be simplistic, but you know it is also accurate. This disease has indeed spread to unfortunate heterosexuals,but the root cause of the disease was started by the disgusting unnatural practices of homosexual men.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Oaklet
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:30 AM

Psst, Moo. I think it's a troll. Click on the name and check out the previous 17 messages from Rhoda and you'll read facts, shouted about the world as it obviously appears to Rhoda Horse.

Nice to hear from you. How are you doing, anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:31 AM

Ahhhhh, thanks fir the assist there, Ellenpolly. Yeah, I mighta got one to many gol-danged's in there and throwed everybody off. I don't know. But you stated what I was tryin' to say purdy danged good with a whole lot less o' that bombastic stuff that harpy said Iz afflicterate with...

An' thankee fir them kind words although if you had to walk around fir a day wid my brain you might reconsider that deep thinkin' stuff, 'er thinkin' in general. See, up here in these mountains they got laws 'gainst thinkin'... They catch you doing it an' yer gonna have to explainerate to the majestrate...

"You been thinkin', boy?"

"Well, yes sir but I ain't thunk..."

And yo, white boy... opps, nice boy. Yo mama never told you not to have swx with them green apes? Where yo live, anyway, where folks don't know when an ape is ripe for love? Green'll get you a 45 minute to an hour's wait in the doctors office every time. And that's the easy part. It's them two big shots, one in each cheek, that ain't no fun at all. Now get away from them green apes, youngin. Ya hear?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: rhoda horse
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:55 AM

So Oaklet, Is everyone who disagrees with your view of the world a troll?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 10:23 AM

Regarding the trolls, there's a certain level of stupidity people can reach that pretty much screams "NOTICE ME! COME FLAME ME!" It's intentional ignorance, and isn't much fun, unless you like playing S & M word games with people.

I got the impression that Bobert was saying there WAS no AIDS epidemic, and that most of the cases were misdiagnosed. Then again 'But I'm still suggesting strongly that when this is all said and done there gonna be a few folks sayin' "How did that ol' hillbilly get this one right?"' got me wondering, 'right about what?'

The statement was preceded by 'Oh, there are lots of folks who will step up and say the we *are* providing the medical care and the drugs thru various organizations,...'
and
'And lets also take a look on the Bush AIDS assistence program for Africa. First of all they are not spending the money or writing the checks that he said would be spent. Secondly, it is pushing abstainance at a time, if many of you folks are even half correct, is not a realistic centerpiece of it's educational programs for Africa.'

So Bush isn't providing enough assistance to stop an epidemic you don't think exists? Maybe he agrees with you. I can't tell, because you seem to change direction faster and more often than a squirrel in the middle of a 6-lane highway.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 10:29 AM

rhoda horse, you're an idiot! The slaughtering and eating of primates in Africa originally spread AIDS. Homosexual sex practices are much more secondary in India and Africa in terms of infection. Protective behavior will inoculate Americans and the rest of the world, to some extent but I think that AIDS will be the demise of the human population if it is not stopped.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 10:52 AM

RH - it's not only homosexual men who indulge in this 'disgusting unnatural practice'. I'm reliably informed that many heterosexual couples find anal intercourse enjoyable (I hasten to add I'm not someone who himself wishes to indulge, mais chacun a son gout). Do they deserve to die of AIDS too, just because they enjoy something you and I don't wish to be involved in?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 11:16 AM

I had understood that the suspected initial cause of transmission to humans was from a young boy who had been BITTEN by a green monkey. The ridiculous assumption by that idiot above who talked about sex between monkey and human is a misunderstanding that persists amongst the ill-informed--and something that likely causes his wet dreams.

The methods of transmission are fairly clear today, but the mechanism of transmission not so. The disease was rampant amongst homosexual men, but it has spread to heterosexuals. The notion that AIDS was caused by homosexuality is erroneous. Once it entered the human population, it was simply a matter of time before it spread. And spread it has. What is most unfortunate is the ignorance that surrounds the issue of AIDS, and the ignorance with which people are labeled and despised. What is even scarier is that AIDS is again on the rise. It seems many kids today are not putting a raincoat on Mr Happy, and kids are of the mistaken belief that oral sex isn't really sex--Clinton didn't help on this one--so there's nothing to worry about.

The travesty that overtook blood services (basically, lax quality control) has helped with the spread, although it seems to be improving. That is little consolation to recipients of blood infected with hepatitis or the AIDS virus.

Amergin's remark notwithstanding, AIDS is a way to depopulate areas of the world, and I wouldn't put it past some of the sick bastards who think up ways to effect world domination to use this (or any other method) to achieve their goals. I do think that AIDS is being used as a bio-economic weapon, and in that regard, Bobert's remarks should be read for intent.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 11:58 AM

Well said Brucie, good post. Understanding of the disease and compassion for it's victims are what's needed and you seem to have them both.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:20 PM

We had cross posted above, SJ. I owe you an apology from a few weeks back and I offer it to you here. I was dealing with some issues, but that doesn't excuse my remarks. I'm sorry.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:46 PM

Sorry Brucie, you've got me there! I don't remember your remarks but, if you said anything that you feel you should apologise for, just consider your apology accepted. I like a good argument, and I can be very forceful and opinionated myself, but I don't sulk - life's too short. I've disagreed strongly with others on Mudcat but I have no ill-feelings, just regrets that I couldn't persuade them. But c'est la vie, as they say in Japan! (LOL)
Cheers,
Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:48 PM

Thanks, buddy.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:59 PM

How nice! I love it when people apologize.

Cookies all around?

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 01:07 PM

So what group is suppose to have created this disease? If it was in a lab how come it was traced back to Africa? How come the first actually documented cases were European health workers and rich Africans? One of the first European deaths was a lesbian Danish woman. She received it due to lack of proper medical supplies...and sterilisation equipment. If you wish to look for a conspiracy in this epidemic, then look for where it actually resides, a republican administration that didn't think AIDS was worth researching because it was only getting the fags, junkies, and whores; the lack of media coverage due to the same reasons sighted above; the refusal of the gay communities across the country to recognise the problem for what it is as they feared it was really just something cooked up by the government to crack down on gay behaviours; the lack of attention from the medical community as they just thought it was from a mixture of the drugs, crisco, and other behaviours of the gay community; and the list goes on.

If you are looking for a government lab that supposedly created this dreadful disease, then you may as well search for the men in black and those who actually shot JFK. This erroneous and ill founded thinking is nothing but a conspiracy theory at its most asinine.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 01:16 PM

Be careful with your blood pressure, Amergin. Who told you it resulted from a clump of dust that had been buried for years? And regardless of what ideas I may have, my ideas do not have a damned thing to do with the reasearch or lack thereof that has gone into or will go into AIDS. And yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and I don't really care what your thoughts are about it. We've each had a say, and I hope it was good for you too.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 02:11 PM

If scientests could have been smart enough to figure out how to engeneers HIV, they probably would have had enough brain cells to realise it sucks as a bio-weapon.

Biological weapons kill or disable quickly, so they have to be disseminated quickly and easily. They don't travel around and wind up in your, or your allies' countries, and you damned well better have some form of vaccine or cure for your own selves before you let them out.

I don't think taking advantage of a pre-existing population-culling disease is beyond some folks though. No, I KNOW it's not beyond them. I've met enough morons who've said something like "It only kills them junkies, whores and hummasekshuls, and them bastards had it comin'! The lord done SMOTE them with his wraths!" I guess they think all those babies, infected transfusion recipients, and heterosexual partners of Bad People had it coming too. I don't supposed it's beyond the realm of possibility for stupid and vengeful to get in a position where all they have to to kill people was ignore the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: mooman
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 02:46 PM

I believe Amergin is right concerning the Danish woman and this dates from around about 1979 I think. If my memory serves me well, I believe the HIV virus was also subsequently found during the re-testing in the 1990s of stored frozen blood or tissue in a London teaching hospitalof one unusual (i.e. at the time cause of death not fully established) case from the 1940s . I think the story was reported in the New Scientist at the time. Again, if my memory serves me well, this man was possibly in the merchant navy and was a frequent traveller around the world including Africa. If so, this firmly nails the lid on the coffin of a lab conspiracy theory.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:02 PM

Ellenpoly - cookies!! Yippee!! Make mine a Garibaldi!

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 04:11 PM

Jeri;

You been reading the Bush folks campaign strategey fir attacking Mr. Kerry with the changing "faster than a squirrel" comment... You might want to sent that one to them, if they ain't got it...

I ain't changed anything. I never said there weren't no AIDS in Africa. I have said over an over and over, unlike Rocky the Squirrel, that I beleive that if the so-called AIDS epedemic in Africa were to better researched and studied by *impartial* pexperts after the *supposed AIDS population* had been feed, provided fresh water and decet medical attention that there is a strong possibility that, given the many other health related problems that test positive for AIDS, that we might very well quit this "AIDS one-size-fits-all Epedemic" thinking. And if that were to occur, maybe, just maybe we could save a lot of lives thru proper diagnosis...

Now I don't know how many more time can can write this saying exactly the same thing fir you not to see this one simple concept as a squirrel darting accross the road in front of you...

The only thing squirrely around here is the kneejerk reactionary thinking that says "Well, gol danged, the TV says there's an AIDS epedemic in Africa so there must be one!" Now that is about as squirrely as it comes...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: mooman
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 07:19 PM

Well Bobert, a good friend of mine is a doctor in Zimbabwe and she says the HIV-positive incidence where she works is at least one in four, if not higher. If that doesn't signal an epidemic of some scale I don't know what does.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 08:13 PM

Bobert, basing an opinion on what experts say, testing results, and the known nature of HIV infection and AIDS in well-to-do OR indigent populations, makes more sense than listening to one guy with an agenda that happens to further conspiracy theories, or any other point of view.

Knee-jerk reactions aren't exclusive to reactionaries, and it's my impression that's what you're doing. You keep saying you believe this guy, but you don't say WHY what he says makes sense medically. My guess is it's because you don't really know, but if it's anti-the-Powers-That-Be, it must be right. You're arguing politics, not medicine, although I can't see how misdiagnosis would further anyone's cause, or how or why each and every one of all the folks from every country who is involved in helping the patients would not happen to notice, choose to try to cover it up, or be hushed. Some of those folks risk quite a bit to be there, and I can't imagine not one of them would speak up.

As much as you'd like to believe this is Bush and the AMA's baby, it's not. I also try to gather as much information as I can and then make a decision, which may change based on what other information becomes available. I do not make decisions about what I believe is right based on what people on 'my side' are likely to say. I think that's what you're doing, or you'd be talking about more than just politics.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:12 PM

This isn't a Bush thing other than the program that he announced during the State of the Union Address last year, which at the time sounded real good which is poorly funded and mismanaged... Like you said, Jeri, you can't understand how a mis-diagnosis would further nayones political careeer, so I am very much *not* making these suggestions for political reasons... Heck, I'm a Green Party person so I'm not too wild about John Kerry, who BTW, also isn't talking about this...

But folks are talking about this. It just doesn't make the news and won't...

I'm not trying to politicize medicine at all but suggesting that for various reasons the AMA folks are stickin' to their story like agood ol' boy network. Why won't they answer the questions that raise the doubts. Many of the questions have come from medical people in addition to Gary Null. What so you think (Dr.) Null just decided to make this up? Waht do you think he doesn't know, ahhhh, real doctors and read, ahhhh, real medical books? Heck, he's a lot smarter feller than a lot of MD's that I know. He is an avid reader and researcher in the field of medicine and alternative medicine...

I mean if you could point to some clear advantage that some politican that I support could get out my attempts to pass on some underlying concerns of some of the medical community then I'd just throw up my arms and say, "Ya got me!", but you can't because I have no other motive than to get some folks to think beyond what the AMA company line. And other than this, I don't have any particular beef with the AMA so again: no motive...

What I do know is that Africans have been and continue to be some of the most exploited people in the world and tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to benefiting from either their labor or resources. So if your going to find the big Bibert conspiracy theory maybe this is where it lies? Maybe, just maybe, we're seeing business as usual in Africa and if so, it's wrong. Notice I said "if" and that "if" is not inconsistent with what I have been saying all along. No squirrel in the road here and none need to be invented...

Now, "if" this is business as usual then, yeah, there is a conspiracy. No, not one that folks who are part of even realize because after centuries of exploitation, racism and streotypical thinking of the colonial powers (us and our frienda) that we have perhaps developed a a culture of thinking that cahnges the way we process information about Africans... I said "culture" here so again I'm not trying to politcize this because "culture" tends to transcend political parties....

And then we look at the Western world and culture that really doesn't understand the African too well, nor wants to for that matter, and doesn't have a clue, or so they claim, how to get Robert Mugabe to distribute the donated food to hungry Zimbabweans or how to prevent the starvation of upwards of a million of Sudanese people...

Well, I'm suggesting that the colonial cultural thinking of the West doesn't have a clue when it come to Africa and perhaps somewhere in this culture is the West's motivation to find easy answers in Africa. If there were as many sick folks in Europe would we be taking the same approach? I think not. But its not in Europe and so lets just keep it easy...

Problem is that when it comes down the molecular level, there are a lot of very sick Africans who are not being treated, nor fed, nor have clean places to live, nor have clean water to drink and bath in and should we one day look back at this chapter of Earth and find that because of cultural factors we chose to take the easy way out by blaming the victims fir their situation fir *** having sex*** (whether or not they actually did, or had AIDS as a result...) this will be a very sad chapter indeed...

There are medical people who are saying that we may have this one wrong. This ain't about politics or the United States or really any soveign nation but about a human tradegy that we, who have the resources, are collectively mishandling.

Even if every person who the AMA model says has AIDS, has AIDS, this is still a major tradegy...

I'm not going to post any more to this thread since I have said all I know to say but I will close with one thought. At least the medical folks who are raising the questions, no mater who is right or wrong, in raising them they are at least rattling a culture that needs to be rattled and maybe in doing so people will get beyond, "Oh, they are just a bunch of Africans..."

The end of the Bobert's participation on this thread unless I have new scientific inforamtion which I think will provide helpful. I am absolutely *spent* in trying to get folks out of the business-as-usual-for-Africans mindsets...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:23 PM

Timeline: A Brief History of AIDS/HIV. ÆGIS

AIDS

The history of AIDS Up to 1986


Google the above.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 10:51 PM

Bobert, if you'd posted that in the beginning, my own participation would have been a lot shorter. Thank you for the detailed response.

I still don't think misdiagnoses are a major factor. I think there are all the things you named, food, water [plus other poverty-related causes] and, on top of all these things, AIDS. This difference in opinions is not a big deal though. As you indicated, time will tell.

I also don't think the AMA has as much to do with this as you do. It's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that come up with the 'model' and publish guidelines for prevention and treatment in the US. I don't know who's responsible for this within the Word Health Organization.

Blaming people for what's done is wrong. Overcoming the stigma of talking about sensitive issues such as sex, without judgement, is something health professionals absolutely HAVE to do to prevent further infections. Addressing the issue isn't the same thing as laying blame.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 11:11 PM

read And the Band Played On.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 11:33 PM

Jeri, Bobert's entire rap can be explained by the fact that he is ex-CIA!!! Didn't you know that already??????? harpster

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jul 04 - 08:05 AM

Oh, here we go...

I wasn't going to reply to nuthin more on this thread but since harpy has now pulled my covers I guess I'lll just have to own up to this one...

Yup, remember back when Bill Clinton was trying to get elected and the pot issue came up and he said he didn't inhale? Well, that semed funny to a lot of people but not me. Made me mad as Hell. I mean wasting good pot! Geeze...

So, me and few friends got together and formed the CIA, you know the "Cannibus Inhalers Association" and proud to say we're still going strong to this very day with bulging membership and a waiting list ti join... Of course a few folks in the wait line have forgotten what they're in line for but, hey, we'll just toke 'um on up when it's their turn, teach 'em the secret handshake and send 'um back into the world with our simple message...........
























Inhale!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Jul 04 - 08:09 AM

Bobert,

a personal remark first. Much more often than not I'm in agreement with your basic sentiment on many things. However, your way of arguing and your disregard for accuracy often put me against you. And as for your often shown inability or unwillingness to admit clear errors unequivocally and not mixed with new attacks (not to your friends but to the people you feel to be on the opposite site), look at your friend Teribus for a good example how to admit an error with style.

The Israeli professor may have had a sinister agenda in his speech, but that particular fact he cited was correct. You could have attacked his motives, but you have attacked his data and you are wrong. Period.

Dubious data from 1996 (a term paper???) do not help here. False positives are very rare.

People on the left have learned it in their sociology courses and in history and and and that usually the individuum is not to blame but society and in particular the Western governments if something is wrong. Quite often this mantra is true. But sometimes it isn't. It is the easy way for governments to tell their citizens that someone else (outside of the country) is to blame for an evil and that there is no need to change their own behaviour. Everybody loves to hear that, for changing behaviour isn't what most people like to do.

That's why for instance the post apartheid South African government was well liked for following a discredited minority position and for telling their citizens that the source of AIDS lies outside of the behaviour of the citizens and that someone else, not their own government, was responsible. That was the easy way and the wrong way. In order not to be misunderstood, the responsibility for unequal distribution of wealth between the continents and the reponsibility for still keeping the prices for AIDS medication much too high lies still with, broadly speaking, the Western world.

But by not telling their citizens what behaviour changes might lower the incidence of AIDS and by not making more propaganda for condoms and all that the present South African governments and other governments are responsible for thousands of deaths. I have criticised the apartheid government for being reponsible for deaths and mistreatment. I criticise the post apartheid government for being responsible for a similar number of deaths in a quite short time, not by scheme and evil will this time, like the old government, but by negligence and failure to react with responsibility.

Blame the West. Often it's true, but not always.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: death due by aids
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 07:00 PM

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,gorgon m.
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:01 PM

we can not be really talking about the cause of AIDS now when we know the real causer.Ask who it is.IT IS THE WHITE MAN.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:27 PM

The microscopic pores in a condom are one micron across... the virus that causes HIV and AIDS is half a micron in size....

So what's all this bullplop about 'safer sex'???

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:35 PM

Forget those pores.

It's more about the anal pore.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:53 PM

It's not like A-sex is the only way to transmit the virus MG...

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:58 PM

Clinton...do more research Straight Dope

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 06:10 PM

I don't see why that is any more a reliable source than any others that I've read that say differently....

Myabe The Mythbusters (my favorite source of late) will tackle the question!

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 06:12 PM

reading the MANY sites with info on this, it seems that there is much dispute on whether condoms are really safe or not, but it is certainly clear that they are safer than doing without.

Confusing rubber glove tests with condom tests, along with the # of dippings in latex makes it hard to sort out the truth..


this page includes the following:

"...electron microscopy of condom latex has shown that there are NO pores (sources include The Latex Condom: Recent Advances, Future Directions. Family Health International, 1998, pg 9, book distributed by WHO as part of the Male Latex Condom Manual) – this in effect also answers Dr B Z Avah's question (3/30/2004) in that (a) there are no pores, their supposed existence is a dangerous myth or, worse, deliberate misinformation and (b) male latex condoms are extremely efficient barriers to HIV infection – on this last point, pls see also WHO/UNAIDS Information Note, Geneva, 16 August 2001- Effectiveness of Latex Condoms,
http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/rtis/male_condom.html"

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 06:58 PM

I still firmly believe that, in time, many of the arguments that I put forth a couple months ago will find their time to take center stage... It's real convient to pin AIDS on sex or drugs. Wonder why they left out rock n' roll???

I don't need to rehash those arguments other than to say: one day those who have gleefully sung the company fight song and have said I am wrong may be sitting before a heeping portion of crow pie...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 10:29 PM

FUCKIN'

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 10:49 PM

Is that your final answer, GUEST?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 11:39 PM

UK has condom machines.

USA has breath-mint machines in their Cinema Lavatories....

Guess which population has the greatest incidence of Anally, Injected, Death, Serum?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 11:41 PM

It is amusing to analog the authorized-queer-moderaters of this board.

Sincerely, Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Oct 04 - 07:46 PM

AIDS was caused by a french bloke shagging a monkey, this is true, i know this because my mate called Dodgy Dave told me.
[he knows about stuff like this, he saw it on telly].

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 04:14 PM

HIV can be transmitted through ANY type of sexual activity that involves the exchanging of bodily fluids. That means oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse. You don't have to be homosexual to give or receive it, nor do you have to promiscuous- i think that's an important point. You can get HIV just as easily by sleeping with one partner as by sleeping with a hundred, and it's not a good idea to trust to luck. Although condoms are not infallible, they are, next to abstaining from sexual activity, the best way of preventing infection from HIV and STIs availiable. Incidentally, i am absolutely appalled that i wasn't taught this in school and i believe inadequate sex education is one contributing factor to the continuing spread of HIV, and an indicator of both the stigma attached to the virus and its victims and of the embarresment felt by many about discussing sexual matters frankly and openly.

It is undeniably damaging to politicise medicine, and wholly unfair to stigmatise HIV victims. Let's not discuss where it came from but, how to stop it, eh? Does it really matter whether they are gay or straight, black or white? They're human beings, and desperately in need of treatment.   Reverting to mindless homophobia does nothing to help sufferers, many of whom are not gay, or drug addicts, but are just plain unlucky, and not to mention too poor to afford treatment.
What's needed is an international, inter-political effort to provide education and treatment to everyone who needs it. Since when was compassion conditional? There but for the grace of God go i- say that to yourself quietly sometimes...:)

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 08:34 PM

A recent Nobel Peace Prize Winner shares Bobert's conspiracy theory:Conspiracy Theory

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 08:45 PM

Here's a physical anthropologist that believes chronic benzene poisoning plays a major role:Benzene poisoning

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Oct 04 - 11:39 PM

Well, gol danged, harpgirl, where were ya' when I needed ya'? Awww, jus funnin'....

My contention is somewhat different in that in Africa, where hots of folks test positive for HIV, its real easy to say that it is a behavioral result of sexual activity. But other factors, such as malaria, can also give a positive for HIV.

When I suggested that the poor water, lack of food and environmental conditions were lousy in Africa and these could scew the tests, most everyone jumped on me because those stories are so neat and convient. Plus, those stories let those of us in affluent countries off the hook.

"Yep, them niggas in Africa screw anything that moves. Everyone knows that. That's why they is sick. And they deserve to be sick..."

I'm so sick of hearing this lie that I'd prolly test positive for HIV from just listening to this right wing mantra...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 04:29 PM

Read "Roger's Recovery From Aids" for a very interesting alternative viewpoint that will not give comfort to the AMA. It was written BY an M.D. about his cure of a fellow M.D.'s Aids illness, which was rapidly becoming terminal. The illness was cured completely over about a year by methods which included ceasing the intake of any and all drugs, fasting, cleansing the digestive tract, getting more fresh air and sunlight, eliminating harmful foods and drinks (such as coffee and alcohol, among many others), a daily exercise regimen, elimination of sources of stress, and so on...major lifestyle changes, in other words.

The patient was completely cured by those methods. He had tested positive for Aids virus prior to that in hospitals (and no doubt about it), he tested negative for the Aids virus afterward in those same hospitals, confouding the administrators. These two M.D.'s subsequently used these same methods to cure other apparently terminal Aids patients. The virus disappeared from the body when the immune sytem fully recovered...because the immune system would then throw out the virus.

Most people are far too lazy and set in their ways to make the variety of major lifestyle changes necessary, and they are not going to do it, nor is the AMA going to encourage them to. It would interfere with the sale of drugs, junk food, alcohol, coffee, and a ton of other lucrative and everyday stuff.

The M.D.'s conclusion was this: The virus does not cause Aids, it finds a host with a broken down immune system (due to bad lifestyle problems) and attaches itself to the host as a symptom of that broken down immune system. The host dies because OF the broken down immune system and the presence of the virus is a symptom...just as flies and bacteria appear quickly on a decaying piece of meat and help to break it down.

Wherever you find general lifestyle conditions which break down the immune system you will find a fertile ground to host the Aids virus, but the virus is not the original cause of the illness, it's a symptom of it.

Most people nowadays are already living in a fashion which is somewhat inviting to the virus, they just have to push it to the point where their immune system starts to break down badly enough to allow the virus in, and it certainly helps in that case if they are exposed to the virus in some way.

And I know that most of you won't believe that for a minute, cos your minds are already made up. You'd rather believe in the boogeyman, the unstoppable virus killer. Fine. Go ahead. DON'T read the book, cos you might have to alter your medical-religious dogma and maybe even your customarily unhealthy lifestyle if you did...

Needless to say, the conditions in much of Africa are absolutely ideal for bringing about broken-down immune systems.

The two M.D.'s also came to the conclusion that the number 1 factor in breaking down most people's immune systems in our society was...DRUGS...legal ones and illegal ones both. So, go take some more expensive prescription drugs for what ails you. Give your immune system a real kick in the chops. Confuse the hell out of it, and see if it goes on strike. I dare you.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 07:45 PM

Bobert, my friend, as much as I like you and enjoy your posts and generally agree with your positions, I'm afraid you're developing a bad case of rectocephaly on this one.

Yes, malnutrition is a terrible problem in Africa, and yes, it is one that is largely ignored by "western" society. And yes, people infected with the AIDS virus are much more likely to die if they start out malnourished. But that does NOT mean that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. It is.

Look at tuberculosis. Most people who are infected with the tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, do not develop active TB, or even get sick at all.   People who are malnourished, however, are much more likely to develop active TB when they are exposed to the TB bacillus. Does that mean "the TB bacillus does not cause TB, malnutrition does"? Not on your life. It means that tuberculosis, like nearly every infection we know, is caused by an interaction between the infecting organism and the host. Whether that interaction causes illness depends on many factors, of which nutritional status is just one.

Think of how many times you cut your finger while working outside and didn't bother to wash the cut right away. How many of those times did the bacteria that entered your body cause an infection? Not many, I'll bet...your host defenses were strong enough to prevent it.

So, yes, people who are malnourished are more likely to die of AIDS if they are infected with the HIV virus. And, quite likely, people who are well-nourished may be able to fight off the virus if it enters their bodies, and never become infected at all. But the friends I knew in Seattle in the 80s who had, and died of, AIDS were generally in excellent physical condition and not malnourished...at least, not until they became sick.

Yes, it would be good if corrupt government officials worldwide made efforts to feed their people instead of lining their own pockets and encouraging mass murder. Yes, if that happened, the death rate from AIDS -- among other problems -- would likely go down.

But if the virus never enters your body, your chance of dying of AIDS is zero, because your chance of getting AIDS is zero. And there are ways of preventing the virus from entering people's bodies. There are successful efforts underway to decrease the spread of HIV, for example, through sex education and wide distribution of condoms. People who spread the rumor that "AIDS is not caused by HIV" tend to undermine those efforts.

Bobert, you are correct that many people in western countries have strong prejudices against Africa and Africans. But for heaven's sake, don't aid their cause by what amounts to speaking out against a major public health campaign being waged by Africans for Africans against this terrible scourge. Also, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS/HIV, AIDS is a growing problem in Eastern Europe and Asia, not just in Africa. And let's not forget congenital AIDS: it's hard to blame the victim on that one.

Oh, and another point, regarding so-called false positive AIDS tests:    The fact that you can find people who test positive for HIV but do not have symptoms of AIDS does NOT mean those people have "false positive" results due to some other medical condition they happen to have.

Let me repeat that, because it's very important. If you test positive for HIV, but you don't have symptoms of AIDS, that is NOT automatically a false positive test. All it means is that you have probably been exposed to the virus. As I mentioned above, whether you become infected, and then whether you become ill, depends on the result of a long and complex process. That long list of "causes" of false positive AIDS tests is worthless unless you know more about the individuals who were included in the list, especially about what happened to their lymphocytes, and their general health, over the following months and years. In other words, how many of them eventually went on to develop AIDS, despite having no symptoms at the time the test was done?

Harpgirl, I don't have time or space to discuss those two statements you linked to, but both of them have some glaring weaknesses, despite the credentials of the authors.

By the way, Bobert, I'm not a member of the AMA. And my credentials include a B.A. from an Ivy League University, an M.D. from a school that is a little less prestigious than the Ivy League (but has a hell of a football team, with a legendary coach!), and a strong belief that corporations are fixing to take over the world--which belief dates back to before George W. Bush stole his first election.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:12 PM

You are assuming it is the virus that kills them, Mark. That may be a mistaken assumption. The virus may accompany that which kills them...e.g...a failed immune system. The virus may be a symptom of illness, not an original cause of illness. And the original causes may well kill you regardless of whether or not the virus is present.

I'm not saying I KNOW that is so, I'm saying it's possible that it is so.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:36 PM

LH,

And in a heart attack, it is not the heart stopping that kills anyone- it is the lack of oxygen in the vital organs.

So I guess heart attacks don't kill anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:41 PM

Sorry, I don't think that's a valid example. Try another or read the book I mentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:44 PM

I agree that you do not think it a valid example- but could you explain to my why I should not consider it one?


Is it not the effect of the virus that causes those with weak immune systems to die?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 08:55 PM

Well, I don't think so, based on what I've read. I think, rather, that it is the onset of a weak immune system that invites the virus to establish itself...and the further deterioration of the immune system that causes the patient to die. The virus complicates the issue, all right, but I think it's one a number of symptoms, not a cause.

The causes are: bad diet, drugs poisoining the body, alchohol and caffiene poisoning the body, malnutrition, lack of sleep, lack of exercise and sunlight, electromagnetic pollution of the nervous system, stress causing further toxic buildup in the body, failure of the eliminative systems causing further toxic buildup in the body, and so on. Modern lifestyle, to put it briefly.

It's a multi-dimensional problem. Aids tends to be high among drug abusers, because drug abusers are constantly battering their own immune system.

You really would have to read the book "Roger's Recovery From Aids", and then we could have a useful discussion about this. Otherwise, we are just blowing bubbles and wearing out our fingers on the keyboard.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 09:09 PM

Well, thankee, LH, fir steppin' in... Lots of folks got the "The niggas screw like bunnies and therefore they are diein'" company line down pat...

Sure is convient for a nation that makes up 5% of the world's population and consumes 35% of the resources...

"Yep, Ralph yer right. Them folks deserve to die 'cause they'll screw anything anything that moves...(spit). They sure do..."

I'm so sick of this crap, like I said earlier, I could probably test positive for something from just hearing this right wing mantra...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 09:20 PM

You're welcome, Bobert. I am now wondering just how hard it would be to get another copy of that book on the Internet. It's not very easy to find. Guess why...

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 11:28 PM

Uh, Bobert...did you read any of my "right wing mantra"? I wrote it just for you, buddy.

LH, you read it, but you missed my point. The AIDS virus doesn't magically appear in someone's body as a "symptom" of malnutrition, or drug poisoning, or evil living. It is introduced into the body, usually by sexual contact, or by a contaminated needle, or by transfer from mother to baby via the placenta or breast milk. There's no question that someone with malnutrition will be more susceptible to the virus, and there's no question that the virus works by damaging the immune system. But all the handwaving in the world won't change the fact that it's the virus that infects and damages the T lymphocytes and causes the severe and often fatal immunodeficiency syndrome called AIDS. No virus, no AIDS.

Bearded Bruce, your statement "You are assuming that it's the virus that kills them" suggests that you may have misunderstood me. If you want to be picky about it, nobody dies of AIDS. People with AIDS die of pneumocystis pneumonia, or cryptococcal meningitis, or disseminated toxoplasmosis, or one of a dozen other opportunistic infections. (Yes, I know about HIV-related encephalopathy and wasting syndrome. Those possible exceptions don't invalidate the fundamental point.)

The AIDS virus does not kill people directly, like plague, or Ebola, or smallpox. (Which, by the way, Harpgirl, is one reason it would be a lousy choice as a biological weapon, despite what your Nobel prizewinner says.) It kills indirectly: by damaging the immune system so that it cannot respond to agents that normally do not affect healthy people.

Sure, malnutrition damages the immune system, too.   But the point some of you are missing is that HIV causes a specific injury to the immune system, which results in susceptibility to specific infections and tumors. Doctors around the world have been taking care of malnourished people for years and years, but they didn't see pneumocystis pneumonia in young people, even malnourished young people, until AIDS. Malnutrition alone does not specifically decrease your CD4+ T-cell population, and does not lead to increased susceptibility to the particular infections seen in such high numbers in patients with AIDS.

Just so you dont' think I'm making all this up, this is from Cecil's Textbook of Medicine (a venerable medical text):

The clinical consequences of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection are due to the ability of this retrovirus to disarm the host immune system, a process that occurs by virtue of the fact that the primary target for the virus is the helper-inducer subset of lymphocytes. This lymphocyte subset, defined by its surface expression of the CD4 molecule, acts as the pivotal orchestrator of a myriad of immune functions. HIV-1 infection can therefore be considered a disease of the immune system, characterized by the progressive loss of CD4-positive (CD4+) lymphocytes (Table 407-1) , with ultimately fatal consequences for the infected host.

Despite this immunosuppression induced by HIV, a number of specific immunologic defenses against the virus are generated in infected individuals and may contribute to the long, asymptomatic phase that follows infection by keeping the virus at least partially contained.

My point remains: saying that HIV causes AIDS and that it is spread by sexual contact is not "racist propaganda," but biological fact. Arguing against that fact merely gives ammunition to those who want to put an end to public health efforts to limit this epidemic--including the racists who think it's "God's will" that so many Africans are dying. (Whaddya say to that, Bobert?)

Oh, and LH, there is no question that "alternative" treatments can often produce documented cures of many diseases. That doesn't mean that the diseases have "alternative" causes. It simply (and profoundly) means that there are many ways of helping the body to heal itself. At least, that's the view of this "integrative" MD.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 11:35 PM

I stand corrected.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 11:46 PM

Little Hawk, the immune system fails BECAUSE of the virus, not the other way around, although an already weakened immune system will likely speed the devastation of HIV. Viruses aren't symptoms. A person's body doesn't create them as a reaction to something else.

There have been too many people who were healthy when they became sick and the HIV virus who later became sick and died. That 'unhealthy lifestyle' general-purpose theory, whether it's because of people's choices or was imposed by society, is based on belief, not evidence. It makes about as much sense (and is starting to sound very similar to me) as saying "God is punishing them," and yes, I've had enough of beating my fists against a brick wall by talking to them, too. They, and you, can't explain the babies, the medical people who've accidentally been stuck with infected needles, the athletes, other than "well, I'm sure it must have been something!" Trying to make the evidence you have (or don't have) fit your theories rather than basing your theories on facts just doesn't make any sense at all, and blaming a disease, caused by a virus, on an unhealthy lifestyle or poverty, is just another kind of bigotry. On one hand, people say "all of those people fuck like bunnies." On the other hand, you say "all of those people are starving and don't take care of themselves." Neither one of those things applies to AIDS victims everywhere. Not only that, but how do you explain the loads of poor, unhealthy people who don't have AIDS.

The disease doesn't give a rat's ass what your politial beliefs are. You may be sick of 'right-wing mantras'. What I'm sick of is people who have to see millions of people dying as a political issue. I don't suppose it makes much of a difference to those people, unless it affects funding for prevention programs or drugs. But they don't need those things, do they Bobert? You and all those other people who see this as a political or a moral issue have agendas which have nearly nothing to do with science or medicine.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 11:55 PM

Yeah. I've heard all that before. I don't necessarily buy it. If you get a chance, read the book "Roger's Recovery From Aids", written by an M.D. who treated another M.D. who had Aids. Just read it. If you can find it anywhere.

It might raise some new questions in your mind, and add to your clearly large and erudite body of knowledge on the subject of Aids (I am not being sarcastic when I say that).

God doesn't punish anyone, in my opinion. People damage themselves, usually in an unaware fashion, by the way they eat, drink, emote, think, live, behave, and all the rest of it. What happens to them is not punishment, it is simple cause and effect. There are a great many causes for a disease like that, not just one.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Amergin
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 11:57 PM

Come on, Mark, we all know you're just trying to further the systematic hatred of those poor Africans. We know you just want to contribute in the corporate take over of the whole world! You doctors are all evil! We should burn you all on the stake!

Pretty soon you will come up with the radical notion that malnutrition is NOT caused by lack of food, but by picking your nose too much! We all know that is naught but a wicked lie!

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 12:25 AM

Something the normally smart/observant people on the cat are missing is this: We like to think that bio-weapons have to kill RIGHT NOW in order to be effective. No, they don't. If the game plan is to depopulate a group of people, country or continent, than doing it in slo-mo (as is happening in Africa with HIV/AIDS) is 'ideal'. You people just ain't sick enough to see that long-term, low-intensity warfare works just fine. If that's what ya want. And if that's the game plan.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 01:13 AM

That's an amusing comment, Amergin. :-) I'm not sure I exactly go with your drift or your implication, but I did get a laugh out of it at least.

You know, you can just as well starve yourself to death by pigging out all your life on processed food and junk food and gross materialism as by not eating enough, Jeri. People here don't eat enough real food, they just eat something they think looks real and it seems to briefly fill up their spiritual emptiness. It reminds me of that Dylan song, "Too Much of Nothing". Everybody in this culture is stuffed full of too much of nothing and it makes them sick.

Those people in Africa, that's a very different situation. I wouldn't say that I know much about it, cos I don't. I only hear distant rumours.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 01:25 AM

There is also a theory that HIV is actually created in the body when the immune system has been severely compromised--Whatever HIV turns out to be, though, the most important point is that, for whatever reason, people who suffer from AIDS do get better when they get the chemicals out of their bodies, and they get worse and die when they put more chemicals in their bodies--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 03:09 AM

Unless the chemicals happen to be antiretroviral medications, in which case they get better.

Don't get me wrong, M.Ted. My kids don't eat artificial color (well, that's mostly my ex-wife's doing, but I agree with her), I used to own an organic orchard, and I think the alliance of Dow and Monsanto with the American "food" industry is nothing short of criminal. But any "theory" that says that HIV is "created in the body when the immune system has been severely compromised" is based on as much research as a "theory" that red blood cells are actually tiny red M&M's.

Little Hawk, I do believe that Roger and those other patients recovered from AIDS with a treatment regimen that included healthy living and avoiding artificial chemicals. But that does NOT mean that AIDS is caused by unhealthy living and artificial chemicals. As Mr. Spock would say, that is not logical.

You are correct that drug abusers don't take care of their bodies, and that there is a high incidence of AIDS among drug users. However, the incidence of AIDS is high only among intravenous drug users, not all drug users, and it is lower in areas where there are free needle exchange programs...even when the drug users don't take any better care of themselves. Why? Because they don't get the virus from being malnourished, they get it from injecting it into themselves with HIV-contaminated needles.

Try this: We all know that if you don't have an up-to-date antivirus program on your computer, you're running a big risk of being infected by a virus, worm, Trojan, or other nastyware. But do you know that you can run your computer 24 hours a day with NO firewalls and NO antivirus software, and yet have ZERO risk of ever having a computer virus? It's easy: just don't connect it to the Internet, don't connect to any other computer via modem, and don't put any disks into your drive unless they've been certified that day as virus-free. Same idea.

OK, I'm done.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 11:33 AM

One major characteristic of a good biological weapon is that it kills the other guys, not your own people. It can be quick and disappear when the people who have it die or just disspipate. It has to be containable, though, either because it is short-term and confined to a specific area or because your guys have a vaccine or something that will cure it. Somebody who intends to wipe out a poplulation won't use a biological agent that goes undetected in a handful of people for years and can travel around the world and spread, infecting more small numbers of people, until the numbers aren't so small anymore. Not unless they, and their children and grandchildren, can be protected.

I think the modern belief in the cause of all disease being an 'unhealthy lifestyle' is the equivalent of the older belief in 'bad spirits'. Not taking care of your body in DOES cause problems, but not all of them. These beliefs allow us to feel somewhat immune, though. All we have to do is maintain a healthy lifestyle, and we won't get sick and die like they do.

When you're trying to figure out if a weakened immune system is a result or a cause of AIDS, do consider people that were healthy until they contracted the virus.
Consider that the virus reproduces in T-cells which are the body's first line of defense, the 'general purpose" immune cells. It destroys those cells in the process.
Consider that a low level of T-cells is one of the factors needed for a diagnosis of AIDS.
Now, explain why those cells started out at a normal level and then dropped to the point where the individual was susceptible to opportunistic infections.

Most people are used to hearing about those who get sick and then are diagnosed with AIDS. They're used to hearing about injectable drug users, the sexually promiscuous, and people who otherwise probably aren't tested when they're healthy. What I've seen are the healthy ones who've been found to be HIV positive on tests, and subsequently, I've seen their bodies slowly and horribly give up on them, despite all they tried to do to prevent it. You're saying they could have done more, that they should have done more. You're saying it was their fault they got AIDS.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 12:07 PM

Well, Dr. Mark, the most common chemical that compromises people's immune systems is alcohol--many AIDS sufferers had alcohol abuse problems, and I have heard a number of long term AIDS survivors discuss this--

As far as anti-retrovirals, I don't know enough about them to argue with you, so I ask that, if you can, you post links to anything you might know of--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 12:33 PM

Exactly, Jeri. However, prevention of HIV spread in 'first world countries' is easier to create/influence/educate people about. IMO, the Neocons want to depopulate the entire planet--that is, drop population by 50% (for a figure). AIDS helps get rid of Africans in larger numbers than N Americans, and it all contributes to the game plan. IMO

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 12:46 PM

I'm just saying "read the book". After all, it was written by an M.D. who cured another M.D. who had already believed and tried all the conventional stuff, none of which worked, and was dying regardless. Why try to convince me? Call up these doctors and try to convince them instead. I'm just a guy who sings songs, after all.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 05:37 PM

As far as your AIDS/Computer virus analogy, I can do pretty much what I want on the internet--I've never had a virus--I run Mac--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 05:41 PM

M.Ted:

The greatest oxymoron in the English language is "Microsoft Works."

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 06:57 PM

Mark,

My original arguments were related to other diseaeses and factors that can produce a false positive, many of which are *disporportionately* found in many African populations... I think you came into the discussion a little late and might want to go back and reread some of my earlier posts to better understand the "redneck mantra"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 08:32 PM

I think he did, bobert, that is why he found your arguments so asinine.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 08:42 PM

If you're going to start freely tossing around words like "asinine" you'd better be prepared for serious retaliation, Amergin! I'll have you know that I have now drawn a really insulting caricature of you, put it up on the wall, and am throwing darts at it (on Bobert's behalf). When I am done I will take it outside, crumple it up savagely, spit on it, and grind it into the ground with my heel. Then my dog will pee on it contemptuously.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 10:34 PM

What Little Hawk said, 'cept I ain't got a dog...

Ahhhhh, jus' funnin'...

But really, A-Gin, I don't think Mark, in all due respect, went too far beyond the AMA company story...

Wouldn't it be real strage to find that the AMA comapny story turns out to be faulty and that, while yeah HIV viris is transmitted mainly from needles and sex, that's it's detection is a tad on the tricky side? Yeah, as the world turns its back on Africans at a time of major human needs, it needs a story to keep the rest of us folks all comfy... Problem is that there is a good chance that HIV *false positives* are occuring in Africa from other diseases.... Someone listed many of these diseases in a post above but the list is rather extensive...

But, heck, if we're going to get all hot and bothered by the possibility that we may be wrong, screw it... Lets just pass a law that says we can never be wrong?

Yeah, that oughtta take care of it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 11:26 PM

Bobert, what you fail to realise about the "AMA company story" is that it's not the AMA. It's every group of knowledgable people in every country around the world. It could be that Mark believe what he believes because it's right? He's demonstrated on several occasions that he is open to unconventional, but logical, theories.

You, on the other hand, seem to disbelieve current knowledge about AIDS and HIV simply because the AMA does believe it. Some people always go with authority figures, and some always go against. Both tendencies mean they don't care as much about facts as who's telling them, they're going to be wrong at least as often as right, and in the meantime, will do their level best to spread propaganda.

I'm not worried about being wrong. I'm worried that you are, and you don't seem to care. It's easy to be so suspiscious of people in authority that when you read an opposing view, you believe THAT without checking. That's what bothers me: people who believe or disbelieve things simply because they fit their pre-conceived notions, and then accuse anyone who disagrees with them as being part of the conspiracy. You believe that many of the people in Africa diagnosed with AIDS don't really have AIDS, but have all the signs and symptoms PLUS false positive tests. You believe the list of conditions that can cause a false positve. Why do you believe that list is correct, when it's also "AMA company policy"?

No, that was a rhetorical question.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 11:31 PM

As of the end of 2003, an estimated 37.8 million people worldwide - 35.7 million adults and 2.1 million children younger than 15 years - were living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately two-thirds of these people (25.0 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa; another 20 percent (7.4 million) live in Asia and the Pacific.

An estimated 4.8 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide during 2003; that is, about 14,000 infections each day. More than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries.

More than 20 million people with HIV/AIDS have died since the first AIDS cases were identified in 1981.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 11:52 PM

What is the question, Jeri?

Awww, jus' funnin'.... I know, or think I know, what you are asking>

"Believe" is too strong a word here, Jeri. Doubt works fine fir this ol' hillbilly, jus' fine.

Hey, I don't have any particular *trust* in folks who have gone thru the AMA, medical school model. Yeah, if I get shot then I need a doctor. And I will give credit where credit is due where the AMA model doctor actaully treats and cures the patient but...

... over the last 30 years of my life I have never found a doctor who could diagnos much of anything. I also watched helplessly as AMA doctors went about *treating* my late wife, Judy, while she died of breast cancer. Trreated her right into her grave...

So there are my biases...

Now we keep hearing that Africans will have sex with anything with a pulse. Not so. In many cultures in Africa, not only is this not the case, but monogomy is way more the norm than in any neighborhood in America. Yet in these same African populations there is bad water, bad food and lots of disease and lots of HIV positives...

(Gary Null has done a lot of research on these populations and if anyone is interested they can Google him and get their hands on the research.)

Once again, I find it real convient that in a time when Africa needs so much help from the developed world (ha) that the developed world has a tidy little stroy about how them Africans deserve what they are getting! And why? Well, gol danged, (spit) 'cause they can't keep their clothes on??? This is real convient. Blame the victims so you don't feel like you have to do anythg about it... Think Sudan here...

But if anyone wants to think "Hey, Bobert is a nut but worse than that he's in denial" then fine....

.... jus' remember this thread.

Whacked out, African lovin' Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 02:41 AM

Hey, Bobert, you know how it feels when you try to argue with DougR or Bearded Bruce? That's about what I'm feeling now. Seems to me that it's Gary Null against the world, and you figure the world is wrong. OK, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll still buy you a Mai Tai if you come to Honolulu.

Aloha,
Mark

PS, LH, maybe you didn't notice, but I'm not arguing with the book. I believe that some people have been cured of AIDS by improving their diet, taking vitamins, or using other "nontraditional" means. OK? Now, please go back and read my posts, in which I say That does NOT mean AIDS is caused by lack of vitamins or malnutrition.

If you have pneumonia, and I give you penicillin, and you're cured, does that mean your illness was caused by a penicillin deficiency?



Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 02:42 AM

PS, Thanks, Jeri. I'm glad somebody gets it.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 05:52 AM

Another thanks to Jeri. I was close to posting something similar yesterday, only it would have come less clear but with stronger language. So I'm glad I didn't.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 09:21 AM

I'm with Mark.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 05:43 PM

I am particularly annoyed with Bobert(in an abstract, not a personal way) for introducing the contrarian views about HIV/AIDS in such a careless and dismissive way--the fact of the matter is that, contrary to what Jeri and others have said, there are significant and growing numbers of scientists who question the validity of what is commonly accepted about HIV/AIDS--

Check this site Quotes on the Controversy to get an idea of what some of the issues are--and here is a taste of what is there:


"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document."

Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

"Up to today there is actually no single scientifically really convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology."

Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and Virology, Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemy, München.


A group of Australian scientists, know collectively as "The Perth Group" are a central part of the opposition to the conventional wisdom, and they are an increasingly visible presence at scientific conferences--here is an interview with Dr.Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, a Professor of Medical Physics at Royal Perth Hospital, that should at least persuade you that a lot of what is supposed to be clear is not:


IS HIV THE CAUSE OF AIDS?

For some questions about the validity of the commonly tossed about numbers on AIDS in AFRICA and other places, like the ones that Brucie has kindly contributed above, check this recent article by Michael Fumento AIDS THREATENS HUMANITY (AGAIN)

Here is a bit of what he has to say:

"The Boston Globe reported in June that two U.S. AIDS officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they think global HIV numbers may be pumped up by 50 percent. Berkeley epidemiologist Dr. James Chin puts the inflation range at 25 percent to 40 percent....

Nor is there any reason to accept that 20-million-dead figure, nor that almost five million new people became infected last year or that almost three million died of AIDS....

The epidemic always has and always will refuse to live up to the official predictions for one simple reason: The louder the Klaxon sounds, the more public and private contributions pour in. The UN AIDS program doesn't even care if it contradicts other UN branches..."

There are a lot of open questionsabout AIDS/HIV, and they are being asked by people with stronger science credentials than Gary Null-- Taking sides, particularly in a disdainful and dismissive fashion-- believing one thing is true, and attacking the motives of people who see merit in another side, all make it harder to address the bottom line, which is to help people who are suffering--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 06:41 PM

No problem, Mark, I did notice that...but try reading the book anyway if you can find a copy of it anywhere. I think the whole Aids thing has been miscaste to quite an extent and blown out of proportion by various special interest groups, and the book might shed some useful light on why and how that could happen. What have you got to lose by reading it? You might find out something new and interesting, and that would be much more important than whether you succeed in convincing me of anything. I am a very small fish in these particular waters.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:22 PM

And there's something intrinsically wrong with screwing like rabbits how?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:24 PM

That's not fair anyway, because rabbits only screw in season. People do it whenever they can.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:34 PM

'some' people, right?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:41 PM

And thank you for those links, El Ted. There are indeed some serious voices in the professional scientific community who question the "conventional wisdom" on Aids.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:42 PM

Thank you for that, M. Ted. I read the entire interview and I intend to read all "reappraisal of AIDS" articles I have googled up. You have stimulated my thinking very consderably this evening. I would like to read Mark's reaction to Eleni's interview and her research. Her discussion of Gallo's faulty logic is difficult to refute. I'd like to hear BillD's response to her discussion of the logic of Gallo's research, as well.

I still believe that behavioral protection against disease is a key to stemming the tide of this (or these) illness(es). But the possibility that environmental agents contribute to AIDS now seems even more likely....

For a long time I have wondered why we haven't come up with a vaccine for AIDS. I suspected without really quite understanding why, that it is because we are using misinformation. Eleni's interview supports that conclusion, IMO.

I have spent many years now in close personal contact with LTNP's as well as many individuals who have since passed on. I have lots of ideas about these individuals and I appreciate all the non-linear and creative thinkers around here as well as the mainstream folks...

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 07:51 PM

Believe me, after I read "Roger's Recovery from Aids", a book which absolutely stunned me and brought me to tears a few times...I never took the conventional view of Aids for granted again. I think the conventional view is very, very mistaken...and it has burgeoned into a growth industry that has its own motives for maintaining itself, backed up by an initial set of assumptions that are probably false.

I had no particular opinion about Aids at all prior to reading that book...nor did I begin reading the book with any particular motive...it just happened to come my way at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 08:19 PM

Did Roger stop exposing himself to sperm? The immunosuppressive properties of sperm is noted in several of these articles. Something else I didn't know. (Serious question, yahoos)

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 08:53 PM

www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/rrbresimmunol90.htm - 84k

Mark Cohen,

Maybe you could give an opinion on the above link (which I cannot turn blue). I don't know if it's fact, fiction, both or what.

---

Clickified. If the " - 84k" was in your address, maybe that's why it didn't work? --JoeClone

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 08:54 PM

Well, I'm certainly glad I ain't runin' fir President on this thread, gol dangit...

An' M Ted, I'm sorry if you thought I was in any way trivilizing HIV/AIDS 'cause that is not my intent. It's some danged serious stuff and I have lots of gay friends and have attended 3 funerals of friends who have died from complications of AIDS... And they were all great people...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 09:06 PM

Roger was an M.D. practicing at a large hospital in California. He had served in Vietnam in his youth (and had used various illegal drugs there...grass and hashish, I presume). He subsequently came back stateside, went to medical school, and became a highly successful doctor. He was heterosexual, had a stable married life, and was not engaging in promiscuous sexual activities nor taking illegal drugs anymore (after Vietnam). He was leading a remarkably ordinary upper-middle class life, you might say.   Nevertheless he became ill (in the 80's or early 90's, I forget which) and was diagnosed eventually as being HIV-positive. He attempted every conventional treatment known at the time and just got sicker and sicker (because those treatments attack the symptoms...but not the causes of the symptoms). Finally he turned himself over to his best friend, another M.D. whom he totally trusted, and they began to investigate alternative possibilities of treatment since everything else had failed anyway. The book is about what they found out while doing that. They found a cure...and they found out that pretty well all the conventional wisdom about Aids was ass-backwards and counterproductive...in fact, highly dangerous and misleading.

The book itself is somewhere among my possessions now, but God knows where. I read it several years ago. I have never seen another copy of it anywhere, but I figure it's probably available somewhere on the Net.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 10:18 PM

Well, LH, a big thankee... Not like you have stepped in like Jesus didc when the mob was about to stone the prostitute but, hey, there are models and cultures that folks fall into that are counterproductive.... AIDS, I think, is one one of those areas where folks baises, officespeak if you will, show readily and won't do one thing towards finding a cure for HIV/AIDS...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 11:11 PM

In a study of 100 AIDS patients, only half tested positive for HIV. Why is that? I always thought that HIV caused AIDS.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 12:05 AM

I have read material which states the very opposite to that, brucie, and it was written by medical doctors and people who were professionally qualified to have an informed opinion about the matter.

M. Ted also provided a very interesting link a way back there which might help, if you can wade through it (it takes a while...).

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 03:02 AM

M.Ted, I will take a look at those links as soon as I can, and I will get back to you. If there is validity to a theory that runs counter to prevailing opinion, I'm more than happy to acknowledge it. So far, though, the "expert" opinions I've read have been less than impressive--including Harpgirl's Nobel-prize-winning ecologist Wangari Maathai, whose conclusions make very little logical or scientific sense, in my opinion.

Brucie, I believe that the most common reason someone with AIDS would test negative for HIV is that most HIV tests look for antibodies to the virus. If your T cell counts are low enough as a result of having AIDS, you may not be able to produce enough antibodies to show up as positive on the test. (I could be wrong on that, since I'm a pediatrician, and have not taken care of someone with AIDS since 1986. I can check on it.)

Aloha,
Mark

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 09:05 AM

But...maybe there in fact IS no virus. That appears to be a possibility, according to what I've read. A broken-down immune system will kill you, regardless, because your body will not be able to resist a variety of common illnesses. If the modern lifestyle is one of the main contributors to broken-down immune systems (I believe it is), and many multi-billion dollar industries depend upon maintaining the modern lifestyle in full swing, then you have a conflict of interest, don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 09:40 AM

I read the article last night, and have to confess to zoning out during much of it. I did notice he seemed to say one study showed 50% of people receiving blood products died. ["The only controlled study of blood transfusions that I have been able to locate indicates that 50 % of patients receiving HIV-tainted blood died within a year, and also that 50 % of "recipients of components from a random selection of donors not known to be infected with HIV, died in the year after transfusion" (Ward et al., 1989)") Really? Half of everyone who received blood products died within a year? I've never heard that that receiving blood products resulted in such a high mortality rate!

He concludes that this suggests"HIV is an insignificant cause of morbìdity and mortality among both HIV-infected and HIV-negative patients.

He's comparing HIV status in the donors to mortality rates in the recipients. What was the HIV positive status of the recipients, and was their mortality rate so high because they were possibly suffering from a terminal disease? One might ask what the HIV status of the recipients was, and what follow-up was done on the the 50% who didn't die in the first year, and whether they expected people who eventually tested positive in the first year (it can take up to 6 months to convert to positive) to die. He says HIV was an insignificant cause of morbidity, but he doesn't even address morbidity.

I saw other problems. Basically, the article seems like it's written with a lot of impressive medical terminology and citations to studies. What seems to be missing is the logic in his explanations. In other words, why do certain statistics support his conclusions. In at least one case ("If HIV were suffiicient to cause AIDS, then AIDS should affect men and women in their mid-twenties (heterosexuals, bisexuals and homosexuals) equally. Clearly, it does not (CDC, 1989a,b).", he doesn't give any statistics.

I may be missing something though, and I'm interested in reading Mark's opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:32 AM

In a study of 100 AIDS patients, only half tested positive for HIV. (Brucie)

Where did you read that? It makes no sense at all. The opposite statement would make sense (but would be not relevant in this discussion) as LH has already said.

On each field of knowledge you can find more than one heterodox PhD or professor. So a list of selected quotes can be sampled quickly. William B. Shockley, 1956 physics nobelist for having developed the transistor, is on record for stating that Blacks are for genetical reasons dumber than Whites. Should I be impressed? Does him being a physics Nobelist make his statement any truer? I do not value much the opinion of a peace Nobelist when she talks about science.

The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS (from Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIAID)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 10:47 AM

If one follows Brucie's link one can read:

Five percent of AIDS patients tested for HIV do not demonstrate the presence of antibody or virus and only about 50 % of all AIDS patients in the United States have ever been tested for HIV antibody

It's a long way from that statement to Brucie's statement cited above.

I cannot say anything about the physiology in that article from lack of knowledge, but I know about the logic of tests. While he makes a good case for HIV being not sufficient to cause AIDS (I don't know anybody claiming that, by the way, that's uncontroversial as far as I see), I find his logic regarding the relevant question of HIV being a necessary condition or not very weak. But it is good reading for finding out about the difference between the two ways (necessary, sufficient) we can talk about causation. Only one of them is relevant for the discussion.

And: the article is from 1990!

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 11:25 AM

Perhaps one of the most depressing threads I have ever read here. Do we so want to believe that all traditional medicine and medical organizations are inherently evil that any semblance of logic goes out the proverbial window? It's very depressing....really!

Bobertz and Hawk and some more of you need to forget the extrapolations and get back to basics, like doing some elemental reading on viruses....one of the most fascinating life forms ever known.

No sense in me getting into this as it's going nowhere and adding one more voice to Jeri and Mark's view will not help. I guess I thought we were a long ways past this point in the HIV/AIDS scenario but I regret to see that I am wrong. Though you may believe you are thinking "outside the box," you are really just thinking within a different one.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 11:28 AM

Since according to Little Hawk HIV does not cause AIDS perhaps he would be willing to prove his point by willingly and repeatedly exposing his body to the virus. After all, if there is nothing to fear....

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 11:43 AM

"Heterodox" Wolfgang, I fail to understand how their sexual preference matters! (Sorry.) I had to look that one up Heterodox: departing from or opposed to the usual beliefs or established doctrines, etc. In any case, Wolfgang, you're German. You're not supposed to know words like that. NOBODY should be expected to know words like that.)

Mark explained the negative results. If tests can be false-positive, they also can be false-negative. You have a disease which supresses the immune system and antibody response. If the test is for an antibody, and a person's ability to make antibody's is compromised, they can easily have a negative test result. Look at tuberculosis, which is on the list of opportunistic infections that AIDS patients may have. The TB mycobacterium may be isolated from sputum samples, but the individual can have repeat negative reactions to skin tests. They're still infected with TB.

Now, here's the CDC guidelines on Prevention and Treatment of TB in people infected with HIV. <--IF YOU CLICK, IT WILL START TO DOWNLOAD. One thing they DO say (page 15, 2nd para.) is that "these data suggest that pulmonary tuberculosis might act as a potent stimulus for the cellular-level replication of HIV."

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 12:55 PM

Here is a bit bit more on Brucie's point, from a published scientific paper, archived here:

HIV and AIDS: Correlation but not Causation

>About 40% of the AIDS patients in the U.S. (5), and many of >those who are at risk for AIDS, have been confirmed to have >neutralizing antibodies to a retrovirus (3, 7) that was discovered >in 1983 (15). These antibodies are detected by the "AIDS test" >(3). Less than a year later, in 1984, this virus was adopted as >the cause of AIDS by the U.S. Department of Health and Human >Services and the AIDS test was registered as a patent, even >before the first American study on the virus was published (16). >The epidemiological correlation between these antibodies and >AIDS is the primary basis for the hypothesis that AIDS is >caused by this virus (3, 7, 12, 14, 17, 18). AIDS is also believed >to be caused by this virus because AIDS diseases appear in a >small percentage (see below) of recipients of blood >transfusions that have antibo- dies to this virus (3, 12, 19-22). In >view of this the virus has been named human >immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by an international committee of >retrovirologists (18) and antibody to HIV became part of the >definition of AIDS (3, 5, 7). If confirmed, HIV would be the first >clinically relevant retrovirus since the Virus-Cancer Program >called for viral carcinogens in 1971 (23, 24).


The footnotes are appended to the article, at the link--

I think it is important to read the link that Wolfgang provided, on the evidence that HIV causes AIDS, as well as the other stuff--

Also, I want to mention that VirusMyth is an archive for documents from a wide variety of sources, that were previously scattered on the web--The various authors differ on a many points, which gives an open mind a lot of excercise--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 01:24 PM

Sorry, that 12:55PM GUEST was me--

Bobert,

I guess I wasn't very clear--I don't think that you take this all lightly--

I just wished that you had brought up some of the substantial issues more clearly when you started the thread, because, as you know by now, even a peek outside the box on this issue can get you hammered---

Pat--forget your dismissal of Bobert, and start reading the links. All I know is, Everything You Know is Wrong!!

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 10:24 AM

link

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 10:29 AM

link

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 03:24 PM

Wolfgang, you're German. You're not supposed to know words like that.

Jeri, the respective German word is 'heterodox' and in 98 out of 100 cases the English word is the same (with very minor adaptations). I would fail a vocabulary test for twelve year olds or a test about colloquial English but would have a chance to pass a vocabulary test for students.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:32 AM

Thanks, Guest, I (certainly!) couldn't have said it better myself.

Another point is that the paper "HIV and AIDS: Correlation but not Causation" cited by M.Ted and another Guest above was published 16 years ago, back when the cause was much less clear.

I really hope we can put this issue to rest. Then maybe we can talk about something really controversial, like the existence of phlogiston, or whether the heart actually pumps blood.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:35 AM

(For anyone who still believes that the cause of AIDS is an "open question", I urge you to follow the links in the "Guest" posts above, to the article, "The AIDS Heresies: A Case Study in Skepticism Taken Too Far.")

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: M.Ted
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:35 PM

I am disappointed that you didn't comment on the articles yourself, Mark--

A growing number of scientists of the highest stature, including UC Berkeley's Peter Duesberg and Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis. as well as the Perth Group, mentioned above, continue to publish work that questions the entire idea that HIV causes AIDS--

The author of the unpublished work above is not a virologist, and acknowledges that he has never done scientific research work related to the subject that he discusses.

If there are good responses to Mullis, Duesberg, and the rest, then there should be no problem in finding qualified scientists within the field who express them--

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 03:35 AM

M.Ted, I did read the articles. I suggest you read the article cited by Wolfgang, The Evidence that HIV causes AIDS, before continuing to quote Dr. Mullis saying "There is no such document." I was unimpressed by the interview with Dr. Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos. It seems that her major point was "HIV can't be a retrovirus because we know what retroviruses look like and the pictures of HIV don't look like that." That is a surprising statement coming from someone who calls herself a scientist. Her interview sounds mostly like an attack on Dr. Tony Gallo. It's no secret that the world of scientific and medical research has more than its share of backbiting prima donnas. (I seem to recall that Dr. Gallo himself has been guilty of a few displays of ego in the past.) In science, as in many other fields, quite often you find that the more strident the voice, the weaker the facts.

The last article you quoted was by Michael Frumento, who is the author of a book entitled "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS." I read what was supposed to be an excerpt from the book and cannot for the life of me figure out what his agenda is, except that he's pissed off at The New Republic for killing his article. But I could probably find several million women and their babies--the ones who are still alive, that is--who would strongly disagree with the statement that heterosexual AIDS is a "myth."

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 03:39 AM

Sorry, that's Michael Fumento.

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: harpgirl
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 08:50 AM

this is the info that attracted my attention to the reappraisal literature:

So, to prove the existence of a retrovirus one is obliged to:

1. Culture putatively infected cells.

2. Purify a sample in a sucrose density gradient.

3. Photograph the 1.16 band proving there are particles of the right size and form, and there is no other material.

4. Extract and analyse the constituents of the particles and prove they contain reverse transcriptase by showing they can make DNA from RNA.

5. Culture purified particles with virgin cells demonstrating that a new set of particles appears with the same morphology and constituents as the originals.

Gallo didn't do that.....

Subject: RE: BS: What causes AIDS?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:44 AM

excuse me, but me and my friends are doing a project on AIDS in africa, and it just so happens that you guys are doing nothing but attacking eachother. maybe you should stick to the topic.