aids.html

IS ANYONE

POSITIVE?

After 13 years of research scientists are still baffled by the link between HIV and AIDS

written by Gina Comparini photos by Frederico van Houtryve

Some can’t remember and many have never known a world free from discussion of HIV. Since Robert Gallo’s abrupt press conference on April 23, 1984, where he announced the relationship between HIV and AIDS, most of the world has had HIV on the brain.

With admirable zeal, mainstream reporters, do-gooders, and educators tout the facts about HIV and AIDS, facts that were never given an appropriate forum for criticism as the law of scientific â process dictates. "Science by press release," describes this breach of ethics -- in its wake a multi-billion dollar managed-care and education empire continues to grow -- an empire with the power to blacklist any scientist who insists on the reappraisal of the slavishly accepted yet incompletely explained theory.

University California Berkeley Professor Peter Duesberg had his teaching and lab funds chopped after publicly questioning Gallo’s theory. Duesberg says that AIDS science was open from 1981 to1984 and a variety of viewpoints were raised. The most publicly accepted theory, suggests that AIDS is caused by a microbe -- the human immunodeficiency virus. And because of an up to 10-year incubation period, millions of people around the world could be facing AIDS-related illness and death. Another theory, the lifestyle theory, ass õerts that an accumulation of infections and assault on the body leads to the breakdown of immune responses as seen in AIDS. This theory is based on the fact that a retro-virus like HIV is normally harmless and incapable of killing a cell, especially a T cell. Meanwhile, pharmacy cash registers ding away, as pharmacists dispense toxic medications that mimic AIDS, and alternative, possibly life-saving, clues are censored.

According to reappraisal theorists, mainstream press continues to report incomplete information concerning AIDS without much skepticism, questions about validity, or proven facts since the early 1980s. On one hand, reporters write about how women are becoming the highest risk group while, on the other hand they applaud the first new drop in AIDS cases. Has AIDS indeed exploded into the general population? If this is true, why are unwanted pre ¸gnancies, gonorrhea and syphilis on the rise, with only a few of these cases becoming AIDS statistics? Why does the World Health Organization call 302,000 U.S. AIDS cases in 17 years an epidemic if 750,000 Americans die of heart disease annually? And why with AIDS do high levels of antibodies mean rampant illness, but with other diseases neutralization? With AIDS, drugs like AZT are, in some cases, immediately prescribed.

"I don’t know why anyone would take these toxic substances," says Kary Mullis, winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize in chemistry. Mullis’ invention, the polymerase chain reaction, works as a sort of Xerox machine for DNA and RNA and is misused by some scientists to build on the "viral load" theory, which maintains that more HIV in the blood equals more illness.

"AZT kills HIV all right," says Mullis, Í"it destroys blood cells and tissues, it devastates the body, but it doesn’t stop the disease of AIDS. This is good evidence in itself that HIV isn’t the cause of AIDS." According to Duesberg, AIDS is not a new disease, but a new name for 30 ancient illnesses and conditions including Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumonia. The HIV test does not search for a virus -- it tests for antibodies, an important distinction to consider if crippling drugs are to be administered and human rights are to be denied. The example of herpes can be used here -- millions of people will test positive for either oral or genital herpes antibodies, which tells doctors nothing and does not justify hysteria and chemotherapy strength treatments. Moreover, one can have AIDS and be lying in a hospital bed and still test negative for HIV, says Michael Baumgartener, who worked as a ùchancellor at San Francisco General Hospital and is now lobbying the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to reappraise the HIV/AIDS hypothesis.

So is anyone really HIV positive? According to the Food and Drug Administration, a positive test can be caused by antibodies found in most of America’s supply of gamma globulin. Gamma globulin is made of blood collected from thousands of people each year as temporary protection against chickenpox, measles and hepatitis. This is not news. A decade ago, Dr. Thomas Zuck, of the FDA Blood and Blood Products Division, was quoted saying the government doesn’t release information that some HIV positives can be linked to gamma globulin because "we thought it would do more harm than good." Would more harm come with knowing that HIV tests in Africa are unreliable as well? A study published in the Journal äof Infectious Diseases in 1994 concluded that, "HIV tests were useless in central Africa, where microbes responsible for tuberculosis, malaria and leprosy were so prevalent that they registered over 70 percent false positives."

This information isn’t new either. Why aren’t AIDS organizations supported by tax dollars including this information in their educational programs? Perhaps examining the sources of mainstream AIDS information can answer this question. Reports on the state of AIDS come from government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health that rely on tax dollars for funding.

In a March 10, 1996 investigation by NBC News, the CDC admits the number of HIV positives has dropped by more than 20 percent but this information is suppressed for fear of adverse budgetary conseq Ïuences. In reality, dissenters are having their budgets cut in a system where funding is synonymous with conformity.

Robert Gallo himself refers to Duesberg as "the man who knows more about retro-viruses than anyone on Earth," yet Duesberg’s lectures aren’t given any time in mainstream media. Despite being ostracized by many of his peers, Duesberg’s phone rings frenetically; many callers want to hear the voice of opposition, as this voice can bring clarity to communities trying to, as a Castro Street billboard states, outlive "forecasts of doom." The message of ruination vaporizes with Dr.Duesberg’s belief that AIDS can be stabilized, even cured, if patients stop using recreational drugs like cocaine and heroin as well as prescription AZT, regardless of the presence of HIV antibodies. For ú example, he claims pulmonary Kaposi’s sarcoma occurs only in male homosexuals who abuse alkyl nitrites, or "poppers" which are inhaled aphrodisiacs that relax the muscles of the anus. RAIDS occurs only in a small fraction (one one-thousandth) of recreational drug-users, because only the highest lifetime dose of drugs causes irreversible AIDS defining disease -- likewise, only the heaviest smokers get emphysema and lung cancer." According to Duesberg, there is no documented case of AIDS without a history of drug abuse. Those who test positive for HIV, or are diagnosed with AIDS, should hear all the facts before making desperate moves toward toxic pharmaceuticals.

As fear of contamination from HIV continues to grow, alternative voices filter through the din, but only if they are sought out.